How many people play Team Fortress 2?

[bjoswald]

I don't play TF2 much, but I always have fun when I do. I love the little store they have where you can buy items. I couldn't care less about the hats and junk, but weapon upgrades at 50 cents a pop are a treat.

[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

I play, just not often :p

[Nagisan]

I don't play TF2 much, but I always have fun when I do. I love the little store they have where you can buy items. I couldn't care less about the hats and junk, but weapon upgrades at 50 cents a pop are a treat.

They are not upgrades (or at least they shouldn't be viewed as upgrades), they are weapon unlocks. Just because a weapon is available in the store doesn't mean it is better than the original. Look at the scout, his stock loadout is better in 90% of situations than any of his other unlocks. The FaN is useless, the shortstop is good if you can aim and it allows you to fight at a farther distance (making it a bit of a safer option), but the scattergun is still really powerful up close. A good scattergun scout will dominate a good shortstop scout. His Bonk is very situational, Crit-a-cola is not that great, the mad milk is good for teamplay and self-healing when you need it, but the pistol is much more versatile overall. The fish is useless (beyond humor value that is), sandman is pretty bad (it can be useful and helpful, but the drop in health makes you even more fragile).

tl;dr, they are not weapon upgrades, they are alternative weapons that can be situational and should be considered sidegrades, there are very few actual upgrades in TF2 (like the Axtinguisher and Power Jack compared to the fireaxe, or the amputator compared to the bonesaw), most are sidegrades at best.

treemonster: I completely forgot about D2 and Starcraft but you are right, both have little to no support anymore, both are free to play, and both still have pretty strong communities. Sort of funny thing about Starcraft is even with SC2 out now, competition generally still prefers the original SC due to Blizzard dropping LAN capabilities out of SC2. For competitive purposes it is more reliable, cheaper and easier to run LAN games than to connect every machine to the internet and hope the connection stays solid throughout the matches.....so many places dislike SC2 and continue using the original for those purposes.

[Athernar]

Like inferniac said, TF2 is different from most modern FPS games. A hit is a hit, it does the same damage no matter where you hit (except headshots from scoped sniper rifles and one of the spies unlockable revolvers) but every class also has different health values and weaknesses. Instead of everyone being on the same playing field, some classes will generally always win over others. So it forces you into team play so you can cover your team mates weaknesses while they cover your own, which make it generally much more noob friendly.

While you are correct, that's a bit of an over-simplfication; don't forget that there is both damage spread and damage falloffs that also come into play in TF2.

[Nagisan]

While you are correct, that's a bit of an over-simplfication; don't forget that there is both damage spread and damage falloffs that also come into play in TF2.

I know, I am well aware of both mechanics, I for one am not a fan of damage spread or random crits, damage falloff I do not mind though. If two scouts are shooting at each other and hitting each other the same amount, they both take equal damage because they are both at the same distance from each other (damage falloff is somewhat irrelevant in this scenario). What I was getting at is if you hit somebody with a weapon (this is ignoring damage spread) you will do the same damage to them as if they hit you with the same weapon at the same range, regardless as to whether you hit them in the head and they hit you in the leg or what not.

[treemonster]

treemonster: I completely forgot about D2 and Starcraft but you are right, both have little to no support anymore, both are free to play, and both still have pretty strong communities. Sort of funny thing about Starcraft is even with SC2 out now, competition generally still prefers the original SC due to Blizzard dropping LAN capabilities out of SC2. For competitive purposes it is more reliable, cheaper and easier to run LAN games than to connect every machine to the internet and hope the connection stays solid throughout the matches.....so many places dislike SC2 and continue using the original for those purposes.

which is surprising given all the league play whoring blizz has been doing the last few years in it's games. wow arena as an esport anyone(roflz)?

[Denis W. Veteran]

I would but I prefer for online games to go through Steam, not sure if any of the UT games can or not as I have never tried it but I do not think they do. I understand what your saying about TF2, and I do enjoy teamwork quite a bit (where 2-3 friends can dominate a server where the enemy doesn't use teamwork), I just don't like the fact that you can't go out on your own and expect to do well because you may run into your counter-class. A great player can do well on their own, but I feel you shouldn't die because you ran into your counter class, which happens most of the times you try to venture alone.

I guess what I want is a newer game like the UT games (with as large a fan base as TF2, if not larger), where everyone moves scout speed and has double jump (but it's more of a skill-based double jump, you can only double-jump at the height of your first jump, not any time you want) while wielding every weapon. I miss the old-style games where you pick up whatever weapons you want and move quickly. But most of those older games have a pretty small player base compared to the newer games so it's time for a refresh.

I used to be a Unreal Tournament 2004 nut. The UT series as a whole is supposed to be kill, kill, kill, and don't wait. Hence why things can go at a blinding speed with people dodging off walls, throwing around translocators, adrenaline (UP+UP+UP) etc. Also I find it much easier to nail headshots in the UT series compared to TF2 and CS.

That said, compare CTF in both games. In UT it's tedious - you think stalemates are bad in 2fort? Then what about UT where the flag is easily reset regardless of how far the flag went, and considering how it's insta-respawn in UT.

In my opinion, TF2's saving grace is its unusually humourous nature, and this is the reason why I continue to play it. (Y)

[Reacon]

TF2 is the only FPS I've stuck with for more than a year. And infact, I'm going on three years now, with my beloved TF2. <3

[Nagisan]

I used to be a Unreal Tournament 2004 nut. The UT series as a whole is supposed to be kill, kill, kill, and don't wait. Hence why things can go at a blinding speed with people dodging off walls, throwing around translocators, adrenaline (UP+UP+UP) etc. Also I find it much easier to nail headshots in the UT series compared to TF2 and CS.

That said, compare CTF in both games. In UT it's tedious - you think stalemates are bad in 2fort? Then what about UT where the flag is easily reset regardless of how far the flag went, and considering how it's insta-respawn in UT.

In my opinion, TF2's saving grace is its unusually humourous nature, and this is the reason why I continue to play it. (Y)

I never had a problem with stalemates in UT....I always played the Facing Worlds map (mostly in the original UT, in 2004 I played onslaught and assault maps mostly) which was really straight forward and unless the enemy had good snipers it was pretty easy to get a cap. Maybe it was my map choice but in my experience 2fort stalemates happen a million times more often than any stalemate in UT.

The kill, kill, kill aspect is what I liked about UT though, TF2 is fun, but mostly for comical value. When I want just a shoot em up FPS, I prefer games like UT and UT 2004 which are sadly not very common any more.