Team Fortress 2 Ideas

You can’t have everything. This is especially true with a finished product, like a video game. Once it’s out, your ideas will only be seen in a mod that you might make, and even then the mass public will probably not stumble upon it by chance. It’s the sad truth. Luckily (at least where I live), you can still dream up these ideas.

People like Team Fortress 2. You can tell, because us guys here are obsessed with it. And a game as, for now, minimal as this deserves some more intracity. You may wonder, “What about the casual players?”, and I say; they don’t have to worry about it. Team Fortress 2 as a game doesn’t exactly cater to the lowest common denominator either. So here our some of my personal ideas, with a few illustrations.

Letting a spy disguise as a dispenser or other stationary object.

One major element of the spy is that adds strategy to him is that he cannot stop moving, or he could be caught. He has to act fast! One of the major elements a spy has that is missing here is some kind of surveillance on the enemy team. Spies, in real life, are there to gather intelligence, not kill people. And I realize what I said there; I mean in the non-literal game sense. I don’t mean to go to the enemy intelligence and return it to yours. What I mean is to see what the enemy is doing; who is where, who is what class.

Since this game is based in the early 1900’s, tech like bugs and tiny cameras were not around, so here I think you should do it the old fashioned way, without so much risking capture; disguising as something still, like a dispenser. Of course, this isn’t a fool proof plan- if touched, you don’t flicker, but you don’t give off ammo. You glow like a regular one; you just don’t do anything. People would grow keen and kill you, but if you put yourself in a good location, you could buy some time to survey the enemy. To build on this idea; you wouldn’t be able to move or shoot; you could, however, run at any moment, after undisguising for a brief moment.

Now I’m sure someone will say, “But what about feigning dead, like in Team Fortress Classic!?”. I miss it very much, but it wouldn’t be practical in this game most likely. With the mostly narrow spaces in the game, you would actually die while feigning quickly. There is almost always a constant exchange of bullets in the best places you could feign in TF2, and your body would look out of place elsewhere. I’m sure the Valve guys would be able to do something like this and balance it well; but I want to move on to something decidedly much more creative.

Giving the spy some kind of time bomb like explosive.

Yeah, yeah, more spy. This is the last time I’ll talk about it in this post, at least.

The spy can’t really do anything offensive unless he’s sappin’ mah dispenser or in my base backstabbin’ my dudez. Shouldn’t we have some kind of (minorly) effective way to kill from afar without a gun? The perfect solution is a bomb.

The spy would have a small bomb; maybe the size of a demoman’s sticky bomb. It would be an inconspicious grey, and have one small, almost unnoticeable flashing light on it. You would have only 2 of these in your inventory, and they would need to be resupplied. Also, only 1 can be deployed at a time. In order to prevent spamming of any kind, they would have a slight delay, maybe 1 second or so, and make a loud noise to warn people nearby that they’re about to die. You could activate them while disguised, dispenser or regular disguise, and when you use them you lose the disguise.

They would have a decent damage, but it would be a percentage based rate, like the health pickups in the game- -90% health to the person afflicted by the explosion. This avoids an instant kill, except for a crit. I say this should be done because with a fixed rate, it makes you a killing machine if you leave them everywhere. This gives you an assist point, which should be good enough for some.

Some other quick ideas:

A non-health support class of some kind. Bonus: Decent SMG as the main weapon.

We need ammo sometime, no?

Give the medic better weapons.

The syringe gun isn’t bad, per se. It’s just unpredictable.

Interchangeable map layouts, like CP_Well and CTF_Well.

It’s one thing Halo 3 does right, at least.

THERES A CLONE OUT THERE!

According to a comment that was posted on my other post (TV-LINKS NOT DEAD!) the TV-links team left the comment:

Tv-Links is back!

Everyone knows that TV-LINKS.CO.UK was one of the greatest site ever created. Just as good as good ol Napster. Now tv-links has finally come back and changed its name to http://www.tv-links.eu. So people that loved or never heard of tv-links now have the second chance to check out what was so great about tv-links. Well enjoy and be happy people! Please spread.

Enjoy here: http://www.tv-links.eu

The tv-links concept seems to have been so successful that others have tried to copy it. We don’t mind competition, we just want you to choose the best.

Regards,

Tv Links Team

If this is true, the http://www.tv-links.cc is a clone of the original tv-links site.

Internet Game of the Week: Toribash

Say hello to what is - in a sense - one of the coolest online multiplayer attempts in a long time. It’s innovative, free to download and play, and boasts very low system requirements.

The gameplay is in essence simple, yet the system itself is so complex I can’t imagine anyone actually completely mastering it. You can always get better at a game like this.

Toribash is a turn-based, martial arts style online game. Though the genre itself isn’t exactly a rare breed, this game stands out as genuinely unique due to its physics-based combat. While most fighting simulations simply call for the player to press a button in order to execute an attack, all motion in this game is determined by the states of the character’s many joints and muscles, which the player decides. Though there are many joints, for the most part there only four modes for each: Holding, Relaxing, Extending, Contracting. After the players assign the desired states, the characters move for ten motion frames, at which point everything freezes again and the players assign new modes according to any new situation that’s arising. Like I said, it’s a turn-based battle of coordinative skill.

Sound complicated? That’s only because it is. Lasting long enough to get any kind of high Belt Rank in the online multiplayer ranking system is certainly something to brag about.

Though single-player training is available, the online multiplayer is without a doubt the main attraction. In this mode there are two main rules: one, the player with the most points at the end of the match wins, and two, if a player’s body hits the ground he’s disqualified.

Who knew a 12.5 megabyte download could go so far? Toribash’s many available mods and game modes are sure to keep players coming back for quite a while, not to mention the creator’s frequent updates.

If you’re looking for something fresh and innovative, this just might fit the bill.

Play this game

Tamama’s mini-rants

Call of Duty 4’s epic praise

Call of Duty 4 is by no means a ‘bad’ game, but the amount of praise it gets is definitely too much for what the game really is. Now before I get about 30000000 rabid fan-boys on me, I have played the single and multiplayer portions of CoD4. The single player is good but waaaaaay too short and still not as good as the CoD2 SP. “But Tamama, the multiplayer is what makes CoD4 so good” Oh really? I was seriously unimpressed with the multiplayer of this game, its just run and gun with unlocks, it caters to the people who cant go 5 mins without shooting something.

But what pisses me off about the praise is that I can’t even have my own opinion about CoD4 unless its good. I will be asked what I think of the game and when I tell them I didn’t like it they throw a hissy fit, like the game is god and has no flaws.

It’s fine if you love it so much you wanna sleep with it, but don’t try to make me like it people.

Valve

There’s a few things I wanna say about Valve, they make great games and all but still, they ain’t perfect like so many like to think.

1. Steam

Steam is a kinda love/hate thing. I love to have all my games available to me where ever I am and all that. The friends network is where it has a downfall though. It’s a great thing to have a unified friends list throughout my steam games and a nice little overlay that works in all my non steam games. When it works.

Okay, its definitely not as bad as when steam was much newer, the new community stuff is cool but the friends network still goes down LOTS. You’re just chatting away to people and in mid conversation BAM Lost connection. that REALLY pisses me off, these down-times can last up to half an hour sometimes
That said, there is still allot of stupid steam hate, I speak to people who think it will cause a certain type of vibration in the hard drive causing it to explode and the reading head will lodge itself in the users eye…. Kay maybe not but still I hear a bunch of PC problems people blame on steam cause they feel like it.

2. Valve

Everyone knows Valve are a bit slow with releasing new games/content, if not look here.

I’ve been playing TF2 since it came out and have been having a blast, I got so dragged in I stayed up till 4AM playing it sometimes, not anymore though, TF2 is way too stale now. Valve released some nice placeholders to keep us happy till the ‘big’ update (You know what I mean, the unlocks, gold rush) Problem is, these 2 new maps SUCK, I mean really suck. ctf_well was boring and I much prefer the cp version myself, ironically badlands would make a much better ctf map and is a pretty poor cp map.

Anyway, being told “Soon” then being constantly pushed back is pretty irritating and it would be much nicer for Valve to give a much further off date and bring it forwards maybe?

Side note:

Not really a rant but Valve obviously have a bad memory.

Dr. Magnusson on HL2:EP2 mentions his microwave casserole you ruined back at Black Mesa. So I loaded up Half-Life and went and pissed about with the microwave and Dr. Magnusson shouts, I turn around and what the hell, he’s a black guy. Good job with that one Valve.

Clans

Two main things I hate about Clans; Being told when/how to play a game and Clans that come onto a pub server and ruin the fun.

When I want to play a game, I want to have fun and play it how I want. If I don’t want to play, I wont play. When you’re in a clan you have to ‘train’ and play in matches when you’re told, like its a job. If/when you don’t show up the leader throws a huge fit, sometimes even when things such as real life problems get in the way of gaming.

I have nothing against people in clans, until they come into a public server, stack the teams until it ends up with a team of clanners and a team of normal players, this ruins the fun big time and can get a whole server empty very quickly.

Another strange thing is allot of clan people seem to think only people in clans are good players. I’ve had so many people say things to me like “Why are you not in a clan? Is it because you are shit?” When I say I don’t enjoy playing how I’m told to or to a schedule they just say I have no skill, it’s really quite funny how some people feel being in a clan shows your gaming ’skill’.

“1337″ Players

Players that go around bragging about their leetness are possibly one of the most annoying things ever. Okay so you’re good at a game, whoop-tee-do. You’ll be killed, barraged with insults and the like, only to kill them back straight away and they will find a reason so it ‘don’t count’ (OMG W4LLH4X NUB) The irony is that most of the time these kind of players are usually using hacks or some kind of aid/exploit to help them be better. I find most players with real skill are much more normal and down to earth.

Thats all for now, stop by for another in a few weeks.

READ THIS: In Case You Wondered “Where Did Everything Go?”

 Update 1: Josh continues to deny allegations that he stole things from others ites. He said he never even looked at the tips on the TF2 Wiki, which are nigh identical in wording. Not to mention a picture he used was smack dab in the middle of these tips he never saw. He says he just had a good idea and someone else had an identical idea. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out how this is completely impossible and idiotic (see links below)

This is something I haven’t done in awhile. I’d like to get a bit more personal with you, the reader(s).

You may have noticed that a decent chunk of content has pretty much permanently vanished from the site. Now, this is no magic or a move on my part.

I made two mistakes this past Sunday.

1) I didn’t back up the site to a file like I should every day.

2) I didn’t let a spoiled person get what they wanted.

You may say, “whats with number 2 mr. alek?”, and here is what I say.

Josh was a decent writer. He could fill in a good chunk of post content. So I said, “Eh, why not just let him be an admin. He won’t stop saying “let me be an admin” anyway. Harmless enough, right? Wrong.

In a matter of days he wanted everything changed. And when he faced an disagreeing opinion? Bitching and whining. He didn’t get what he wanted? Well, he would try to get it somehow. It went to his head, all this power he had recieved. He wanted everything he couldn’t have.

To his credit, I will say he sometimes had valid ideas, but the fact that he always made a fuss that there was another side to his viewpoint always drove him nuts, which is just absolutely insane. He wants to change the name and forces it to be our only decision. Guess what, just no. There are some things you just don’t do in a second. Sadly, we don’t live in a world where you get everything you want. Some things just don’t happen, end of story.

You may have recently heard that we co-opted a deal with advertising agency M80. We now occasionally receive free games from the publisher THQ. All they want in return is some form of opinion at some time.

Of course, yet again I get another pointless headache. I want to get a copy of Drawn to Life to review, so I take it in, but come review time, I get writers block. Hm, I’ll try a few more times. Then comes Josh. (paraphrased below…)

Me: “Eh, can’t write anything for this, I’ll hand it off to someone else.”

Josh: “Keep trying. “

Me: “Sorry, I think I will give it to someone else”

Josh, later: “I’m very angry that you didn’t fulfill your responsibility and that you probably will never let us get any games again. Because of this, I can never trust you to review a game we get ever again, so I’m going to probably change the shipping address of our games so that I can get them. I’ll just review them. I should be allowed to handle this, not you.”

That had to be the biggest fucking joke I’ve ever heard, for several reasons.

1) What are you, my mother? Responsibility? One of M80’s employees personally stated:

“No worries about timeliness - we realize that some things take time, especially if you want to craft a well-formed opinion about something. So in the end, there wasn’t any trouble at all”

See, there’s the big picture. Josh assumed something was true without fact checking and made an ass of himself. It lead to him not getting what he wanted, so he was pissed.

2) You think you should get to keep all the games to yourself? Not a chance, get real for once. You think you can just get all the free games you want because I have writers block on one thing? Same for a Call of Duty 4 review I had that never materialized. I have my days, accept it instead of taking it as a sign of things to permanently come.

3) He doesn’t even have realistic expectations for anyone who wrote here. Of course, he can post as much as he wants, and of course that’s fine with us. But when we have lives to attend to, he doesn’t give a shit. He just wants us to post as much as we can. Personally, no way dude. No way am I going to neglect family and work for some little site. There are more important things. Not to mention, he says he’s the only one who ever does anything. And to this I reply:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

There were other people there, and they did things. Just because you have like 200 posts doesn’t grandfather you in to be an ass.

In another conversation, Josh also mentioned that he specifically “deserved to be an admin because I do everything” when I demoted him in response to his somewhat out-there behavior. Well, hey, guess what, but I’m gonna pop-up the ego balloon you have increasing in size rapidly. You don’t get to do everything just because you throw out a ton of content. It’s nice.. but it doesn’t mean that you are always right or that you are better then everybody else. It means that you threw out a ton of content. End of story. Don’t expect a reward all the time.

He always complained that he never got gratification for all that he did, and guess what? Are you that much of a narcissist that you constantly need to be told “you’re awesome!”? We already liked what you were doing. You just asked us to praise you more and more. And that’s simply ridiculous.

Josh always assumes. He assumes we have responsiblities, that this and that has to be done… but again, get back to Earth, buddy. I’m writing a fun little site. You’re pretending to run a business. You’re not 24 with a fresh business degree and a suit, you’re a teenager who plays video games and writes for some cool little site I had as an idea one day. If I have to get little bullshit headaches from one of my writers on something that should be fun, you’re out the door. I don’t care what you do or what happens without you around. Go and skip around in your spoiled little fantasy of getting whatever you want.

He left, and made his own little site, so he could do whatever he wanted. And that’s fine. He wants it to be big? See you in about 7 or so months, which is how long it took us to get on stable legs consisting of a decently sized reader base. If you want to copy all of your old content and post it on your site.. go ahead. Steal the show. Remove all the work of the people who helped you, including in joint reviews and removing pictures, and steal content from other sites (this post) (note that he also always deletes comments pertaining to this issue). So good luck starting from the beginning. At this point you have maybe one writer who will post at all, because your friends, no offense to them at all, don’t do much post wise. And here’s the only thing I care about. Don’t yell at them for not doing too much like you did to us.

You say I’m a rude, irresponsible, childish asshole liar and then expect me to believe you hide your new site from us to be nice? Nice try, liar.

Don’t make others miserable (or in my case, laughing at you, Josh) because you didn’t get what you wanted. Get back to earth before you choke from lack of air in space.

Final note: You know why we removed you from groups, josh? Because you don’t work for us anymore, and we don’t like jerks. We don’t want to deal with that.

Good Commercials…?

These commercials were originally intended to be edited into broadcast TV commercials but somehow never made it to any final TV spots. But what do you think of them? Should THQ be making more commercials like this? Is it too much like the Ratchet and Clank campaign? Feedback would be much appreciated.

Battlefield Heroes

A new trailer was recently released for the upcoming free to play battlefield game, check it out.

After seeing this trailer I am seriously hyped. When I first saw this game my thoughts were mainly “Meh” But now I really want to play this game. The territorial control looks awesome and customisable characters is always a plus. And I mean come on, who wouldn’t wanna sit on the wing of a plane shooting bad guys.

but stage6 is.

Incase you didn’t know, stage6 is being shut down today. According to the post here it was a matter of being too expensive. I personally think otherwise. Anyway, this is pretty bad news. Something else will show up soon, but back to Veoh till then I guess.

TV-LINKS IS NOT DEAD!!!

The police that arrested the owner of TV-Links (David Rock), couldn’t file anything against him; his servers didn’t have the content on them (Josh, you were wrong!). It simply had links to other websites that had the content. But the website is not www.TV-links.co.uk, but is www.TV-links.cc. TV-Links has also gotten a face lift (As seen below). Adding three new catagories; Sports, Live TV and Divx (high quality).

So, here’s the website; www.TV-links.cc.

Now, I’m going to finish watching War of the Worlds!

Introducing….me

So I’m the latest writer ’round here. Look out for my rants and reviews coming this way soon.