Wtf.

Okay, am I just missing something here, or has there always been room for stats of a tenth class in tf2_playerstats.dmx?
I mean I'm quite sure that it wasn't there the last time I checked the file: that the stats ended on Engineer, and there was no "iPlayerClass" "10".
It could be that I'm just remembering wrong, wouldn't be the first time I've overlooked something like that.

So, um, does anyone know what it's all about, or are we now allowed to be pretty sure that there'll be a tenth class sooner or later?

My money's on the VIP.

ETA: Ha! I was RIGHT! The tenth class stats haven't always been there!

And oh yeah: this blog has a fuckload of hits every month, and while I know that most of them are probably me, and many are random hits from Google or wherever, there is still way too much traffic considering that I can name maybe 5-10 people who actually read this thing.
So, um, speak up, please, if you're actually reading this blog. You can comment anonymously, I think, and I'd love to hear if total strangers actually enjoy my tiresome babblings.

"Dad? Dad, put mum on the phone."

Yeah, I'm late to blogging about this, so without further ado, some extremely amazing things are heading this way some time tomorrow.
I've been following the news about the update ever since Steam told me it would be coming this week, but for a change I'm being a lazy blogger.

Also, Meet the Sniper, which immediately became my favourite yet (Meet the Soldier used to be my fav). Extremely well-done, seems like Valve kicked it up a notch after Meet the Scout, which was, in my opinion, a bit of a let-down. Demoman's little slapstick act was priceless (nooo, his good eye!), I lol'd at FOAD and the "I think his mate saw me. Yes, yes he did," (bit of Steve Irwin, eh?) and the whole parents thing was hilarious. I also always kinda imagined Sniper as an enormous prick, but whaddaya know, he's a really laid-back (resisted the urge to write "mellow") fellow. He's even pretty charismatic! Outrageous!
And noticing Pyro wielding a new flare-gun-like bright blue weapon that later turned out to be the Flare Gun was a source of much speculation and anticipation. Sneaky, so sneaky, Valve.



Jars of piss!

But! The Pyro update. I'm actually really looking forward to it, especially now after seeing what the unlockables are. Pyro is my fourth most played class with 30 hours, I like playing as one (although I don't play it that often on any other map but Hydro and sometimes CP Well), and I like to think that I'm not entirely horrible at it.
So Backburner is a massive DO WANT for me, since I'm always doing everything I can to get behind enemies' backs whenever I am playing as Pyro. Flare Gun sounds awesome indeed for teasing Snipers and Engineers, and Axtinguisher... well, sure, I want to have one, but I'm more afraid of what it will do to ME when I'm not Pyro. Guaranteed crit when you are on fire sounds... terrible. As if good circle-strafers don't kill me well enough when I'm playing as Heavy!

And sure, as a Pyro player I am really liking the sound of the changes to the regular flamethrower. Being able to deflect projectiles definitely helps a bit with the long range disability that Pyros have been suffering from day one. I mean, Pyro is supposed to be THE close range combat class whose defect IS the fact that they can't fight worth shit over long range, forcing players to seek ways to ambush enemies. Which made especially Soldiers somewhat overpowered against Pyros. Pyros still can't attack over long range (the new Flare Gun being the exception, but the tradeoff with that is the inability to finish off burning enemies), but they can defend theirselves, which improves their chances to survive. Which has been the number one turn-off at playing a Pyro: they generally don't live for very long.
So, excellent.
I also suppose there's gotta be some drawback to using the alt-fire (a few seconds between blows?). Without it all the Pyros would be just running around tapping alt-fire and being basically invulnerable.
/end a Captain Obvious moment.
What doesn't make me happy about the new change is naturally the fact that I play a lot as a Soldier.

Story time: I've told many times how I'm extremely weak against Pyros as a Soldier. I get owned by the BAD Pyros, those who charge right at me from distance rather than try ambushing me. I am never able to actually hit them and a confrontation with a Pyro ended in my death nine times out of ten.
That's how it used to be. Now that I'm only playing with good framerate instead of the sucky 20 (more on that later), Pyros don't actually stand a chance against me. Ever since I started playing with good framerate I can't remember a single Pyro actually killing me by charging right at me (when I'm on full health), and even if they DID kill me (afterburn is a bitch), at least they didn't walk out of it alive.
So I was actually never weak against Pyros, it was my low framerate handicap all along (I never even realised how much the bad framerate actually affected my playing). Now I just hit their feet with a rocket, send them flying, and aim another at where they land, and BOOM. So much for that.
(Btw, juggling enemies is awesome, I was never able to do it before.)
But now they're able to deflect my rockets, so, umm, I'm afraid I'll start getting owned by Pyros (and my own rockets...) again.
And the question is: if a deflected rocket kills the Soldier that had fired it, does the Pyro get a kill or a finish, or is it marked off as a suicide? We'll see.

But back to the Pyro update. It would also seem that Valve learned something from the impossible Medic achievements ("impossible" standing for "impossible to get during normal gameplay without acting like a total dick"), and all the Pyro achievements seem like something that anyone would be able to get while playing normally and doing just what Pyros do. I know it won't stop people from farming the achievements, but at least any achievement-seeking Pyros won't probably ruin gameplay for others.
I figure it will take quite a while to get Makin' Bacon, though, ha ha.

I am also wondering if achievements like Firefighter, Fire Chief and Pyromancer will take your existing stats to account, like Intern, Specialist and Chief of Staff did. Because it would seem that I'll be getting both Firefighter and Fire Chief right away, since I have 1,339 kills as a Pyro. I'm far away from Pyromancer, though, my damage dealt is only at 365,998. Ehh. That guarantees that it will take a good while until I get to enjoy from the Axtinguisher (yes, all the other achievements seem like something that I will and can get sooner or later).

Also OMGWTFBBQ raises an interesting question: does the Hadouken taunt actually do damage from now on?! If, it will be the most awesome thing ever.



And I'm so happy of getting two community-made custom maps wrapped in an official package. <3 I've been playing basically nothing but Dustbowl and Gold Rush for the last month or so (still not getting tired of them), because, you know. All other maps bore the hell out of me. I'd rather watch grass grow than play even a single game on 2fort.
I wonder if Turbine will make CTF fun.

I guess that wraps it up. I don't know if I'll be able to get to play the moment the update comes out (since I believe Valve hasn't given any specific ETA for the update - maybe they're actually learning...), but I am trying to. I don't think I'll be playing as Pyro (and add to the inevitable influx of gasmask-clad, gimp-suit-wearing, flamethrower-wielding pyromaniacs), but I certainly want to try out the new maps. I am itching to start getting the achievements and trying out the new flamethrower, but I think I will wait for the initial excitement to die out, just like I did with the Medic update.

So, "I'm only playing with good framerate instead of the sucky 20." That's right. I've been playing on my little brother's computer the last few weeks. He moved out two weeks ago (I am staying at my parents' house for the summer), so I thought I wouldn't get to play on his computer any more. So I sucked it up and tried playing on my own.
And I found it impossible. All the killing I did as a Soldier was out of luck. Playing as Medic was also nigh impossible with all the twitching: locking onto new targets was a total bitch. Playing as Heavy was completely out of question. The whole thing only made me angry.
So luckily my little brother is the most awesome little brother in the history of ever, and doesn't mind at all if I come over and spend a few hours playing TF2. I thought he wouldn't want his big sis hanging around his new pad (despite the fact that we're kinda close as siblings), but whaddaya know, I was wrong.
Of course there's something in it for him: I let him play Sniper every once in a while, and he doesn't have to buy the game just for snipan gaems. So from now, whenever you see me as a Sniper, it's my little brother.
I naturally can't play quite as often as I'm used to playing, but I'm happy if I can play few times a week with a good freaking framerate, until I get paid enough to buy myself a brand spanking new computer.

I also noticed it's not just my imagination that I'm a much better player with good framerate. I've been playing mostly on a 24/7 Dustbowl/Gold Rush server lately, so I went to check the server's stats at its Gametracker page, and much to my joy I noticed that my points per minute average was 0.75. Yeah, I know, not that good when you think about it, but stick with me. I've been checking my stats on my regular servers every now and then (because I'm a stats whore, you should know this by now) and they've mostly been around 0.4. In fact, my score/min average was around 0.5 on that server the last time I checked (before starting to play on my little brother's computer), so I really did get better. A lot better, in fact.
I'd provide screenshots of my recent awesomeness, but I'm afraid all the screenshots are on my little brothers' computer. Duh. Will show some at a later date.

And now for something completely different:
I've also been playing some Metal Gear Solid 4, but more on that later (this entry is long enough as it is). Long story short: it's made of awesome, I love it, and I'm dying to play it more. I have to play it on my friend's terms (the friend owns the PS3, see), so I've only had a massive eight hours of playtime as of now.

You don't see this every day...

OH GOD WHAT THE FUCK.

You probably remember how I've been fighting with Heavy, how I suck as one, how I can't kill absolutely anyone as Heavy, how I just spend most of my time waiting for respawn while I'm playing as Heavy and so and so on.

WELL TAKE A LOOK AT THIS, SUCKERS:



Okay, yeah, that isn't quite as astounding once I tell you from WHAT that score came from, but that's still one crazyass score. And yes, it's one life (my Heavy stats don't look quite as pathetic anymore! Sixteen is pretty good! You can go check it out if you don't believe me). I didn't die even ONCE. And yeah, we were steamrolling.
But that score? Seven captures, two kills. One assist, but it doesn't count. Damn Gold Rush is crazy, and I was basically hugging the cart the whole time. It's perfect, because the cart moves at the exactly same pace as the Heavy does while spinning Sasha, which makes Heavy a nice mobile cart-defending turret. The kills came from a very lucky crit streak while plowing through the narrow hallway after the first checkpoint. Heh, gotta love those crits.
But anyway, my eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when the round ended and I saw I was a goddamn MVP. Number one, no less! (And I robbed a Medic from his First Do No Harm, sorry about that.)
I was an MVP on second stage too, but we didn't blow up the base in the third stage, but I was third on the scoreboard, with 59 points (which breaks down to 13 kills, 8 assists, 4 destructions and 19 captures). And I even dominated someone, WTF.

And having a Medic makes such a difference, I completely owned the enemy team at the start of the match once the teams changed and it was my team's time to defend, and the Medic who had been sticking to me went all "lol, nice one, Chrome." To which I replied that I'm actually a really horrible Heavy, but somehow I'm suddenly doing pretty good. Have a wild guess did he stick to me after that? Haha. Way to shoot yourself in the leg there, missy. But I didn't want him to stick to me too much, I would've probably wasted many of his übers.
But yeah, we weren't steamrolling anymore, so I was standing on a more even ground as a Heavy, plus I couldn't mooch all my points out of captures anymore, so I was quite sure I'd end up spending all my time in respawn, as usual. Also my deaths would skyrocket, while my killcount would stay ridiculously small.
Well I'm glad I was wrong: I was actually doing pretty good! Got a new kills record (five!), dominated some other guy, got the most awesome crit streak EVER after sneaking behind the enemy team in the hallways after the first checkpoint on stage two and MOWED THEM DOWN WITHOUT MERCY. Kept chuckling to myself as I emerged from the hallways, only a few hitpoints left and screaming for Medic.
And here's a screenshot of the final scoreboard, so you can see that I'm not making this shit up:



It's really not that great, I have just barely more kills than deaths (but thirty kills it pretty good! For me! That's like... more kills than I've got as a Heavy before this! No, seriously) and most of my points did come from those captures, but still I'm GODDAMN PROUD of myself! I'm glad I didn't give into my fear of sucking and being a drag to my team.
And with this successful Gold Rush match in mind I think I might have the guts to actually play more as the Heavy. I definitely will find myself going Heavy on Gold Rush from now on, it was so much fun - especially when attacking (besides, I was already getting really bored of playing Soldier on Gold Rush). Damn that cart is awesome.

No new Medic achievements, I haven't been really playing as Medic (except last night, uh, I was once again going on a killing spree with an awesome Demoman. We were steamrolling, just the two of us, it was kinda amusing to look at the scoreboard at the end of the match when we were there on the top, sporting twice as much points as the rest of our team. Our team was the sorriest excuse for a team ever, though, and I suppose the enemy team was too).

I've been Engineering on Dustbowl a lot, for a change. Almost broke my sentry kills record. AND got killed TWICE by my sentry today, so apparently that happens even when I'm sober. Damn newbie Spies uncloaking behind my goddamn back and then getting shot by my sentry THROUGH MY BODY.
And I know I'm being a horrible thorn in enemy team's side when half of the team goes Spy to either a) get a revenge on me after getting dominated, or b) finally take me down after having wasted several übers and failed gloriously every single time. Tee hee.
I love it.

And I love noobish Spies, they're so CUTE when they freeze completely. Seriously, I find myself going "aww" at them and not wanting to kill them when they're so adorably clueless. Today I watched this Spy just STAND next to me for god knows how long. I saw him uncloak as I turned to repair my dispenser, so I proceeded to shotgun him in the face. And then I stopped because I was kinda curious to see what he would do. I mean, a good Spy would've got the hell outta there when I saw him uncloak, but this little newbie Spy didn't even MOVE while I shot him: he just stood there, disguised as a Demo. So he stood there for a while, staring, and then he cloaked and ran away. Poor scared little Spy.
I think he actually went to sap my teleporter entrance after that (this was Dustbowl Stage two, I was defending). Yeah, newbie Spy, those were the easy points to get. I should've probably killed you, but damn, you kinda melted my cold Spy-loathing Engineer heart back there.
I killed him the next time I saw him, though.
And I don't remember if it was the same Spy (or some other newbie, damn the server was full of those tonight) who just STOOD STILL while trying to sap my things a little bit later. Needless to say, he got so wrenched. Aww.
Or the one who sapped my sentry and desperately tried to stab me in the face (I was back against a wall) while I just calmly whacked the sapper off. Awww.
I really didn't see any good Spies today, I dominated all the ones that tried to bring me down. Good Spies... I don't exactly know what makes a good Spy (because bad Spies do the exact same things the good Spies do, it's just that... they're not as good at it. I'd probably know the difference if I played more as a Spy), but a good Spy makes me want to ragequit. A good Spy makes it sure that I don't see him coming. A good Spy makes it sure that while I'm alive, I do nothing but beat sappers off of my buildings. A good Spy makes it sure that I spend most of my time in respawn, watching as my buildings get sapped. I don't understand what they do different from bad Spies: sometimes I see a Spy coming, and sometimes I don't.
Okay, yeah, good Spies backstab me first and then sap my stuff, and goddamn I hate it when they do that. With a third level sentry that requires some insane weapon-changing skill, I believe.

Those pesky newbie Spies did get a bit unnerving later on stage three, because there were at least two of them, and my team was full of equally as noobish Medics (there were at least four running around) healing EVERYONE in the vicinity, and I always watched with growing dread as one of the very inconspicuous Spies (I don't know what it is with bad Spies and being able to tell they're Spies from miles away - except that these ones liked to disguise as Engineers, which meant that they were either me, or the team's other Engie who was tanking his sentries on the other side, or waiting for respawn. For some reason he succumbed to the Spies and their sapping antics quite often) beelined straight towards me and my little nest with three spastic Medics in tow. OH GOD THE HORROR.
I should probably use the mic in those situations, but I didn't have my headset plugged in. Plus I'm still afraid to use it, I always get so nervous that I start stammering when I try to say something.
But yeah, I had to tell the Medics to be a bit more careful after I lost my buildings once (go ahead and try to kill a Spy with two Medics glued to his disguised ass!), but yeah, considering how chaotic and spammy that first point area gets... it's no wonder we lost.

More achievement stuff and general ranting

Oh, yeah, I'm just gonna add one little thing to that last entry: the number one reason for why I won't farm any achievements, even if it costs me the Übersaw.

I don't want to screw up my stats. I like looking at my stats and it's great to feel like I've actually got better every time I break my previous record for kills or healing or longest life or something. So if I suddenly have the highest life measuring in hours and max kills of fifty or something... that would suck. Then I would never again feel like I've got any better.
And yeah, I'm a total stats whore (if you haven't noticed!), I stare at my own stats waaay too often. The stats parser is my best friend. So I don't want to ruin that for me.

I know there's a lot of whining going on about the new weapon unlockables being tied to achievements that basically promote "acting like an idiot" and thus ruining the game for others. With that in mind I am kinda starting to resent Valve's decision to handle the unlockables this way... don't get me wrong, I don't mind the weapons being tied to achievements (and I like getting achievements, I think it's fun), it's just that some of the achievements are, face it, pretty stupid.
Yesterday was probably the first time I actually saw a Medic act like a total idiot. He didn't ruin things for the rest of us (we had two capable Medics to balance him out, but still we were basically playing 11 to 12), but it was still kinda annoying trying to yell for a heal and this idiot just kept trying to kill people and taunt.
Note to self: do not try to get Autopsy Report in the heat of a battle.
Then again, I did something that constitutes as "acting like an idiot" yesterday too, but uh, it kinda had nothing to do with the achievements. I was just being an idiot on my own accord. I DID get some progress for Peer Review for it, but now that I think about it, I have no idea what the hell was going through my mind then. So, Gold Rush, first stage, final checkpoint. I was defending, and I get out of the respawn and saw an übered Demo rushing towards me and up the stairs to get on top of our respawn building. So I followed. And bonesawed the Medic. And felt really good about myself, until I heard "the cart is nearing the checkpoint!" and got killed just in time to spectate as BLU wins the round. Ehhhh. So I could've been there to keep our Soldiers and Demos going instead of chasing down a Demo-Medic combo who were apparently trying to take down our Snipers. A horrible miscalculation on my part. This is why I don't go combat Medic on Gold Rush or Dustbowl or Gravel Pit. I always have better things to do than kill someone.

But yeah, I was about to say that sure, some of the achievements basically tell you to fuck teamwork and be a drag to your team, but face it: some of the achievements cause the exact opposite. Some of the achievements actually make you a good Medic.
For example, Grand Rounds. I see far too many Medics sticking to that one Heavy like they're Siamese twins or something, and nothing annoys me more than trying to get a heal and the Medic is basically glued to some other dude. Especially if I'm playing as Medic too.
Infernal Medicine. I got it yesterday (hee, I got it when I extinguished Slaverstrike), and that really didn't take very long to get.
But both of those achievements made me do my job a little bit better: I tried to heal everyone calling for Medic (except when my primary target was under heavy fire and I deemed it would be more useful to keep him alive than to fuck him and go heal the lone Soldier in the other side of the map - besides, another Medic would probably get him before I do), and I also tried to extinguish everyone whenever they were on fire. Especially other Medics.
And oh yeah, I'm 11 heals away from getting Grand Rounds, so consider that one done.
And First Do No Harm promotes being a good Medic and doing your job (and I find it extremely amusing how most of the people who have farmed achievements don't have this. HAR HAR). As well as Trauma Queen and Group Health and Double Blind Trial and Intern and Ubi Concordia, Ibi Victoria, which are just basically doing what Medics are supposed to do. Big Pharma and Specialist are taking it a bit overboard, but at least trying to get them teaches you to survive and stay alive and keep your healing target(s) alive. Which is what I should be practicing.

So stop whining about the achievements. If you can't get some of them by playing normally, I have to think that you're a rotten Medic, and thus should go back to playing Soldier and stop feeling butthurt about not getting everything on a golden platter. What the hell would you do with Medic weapons if you don't even play that much as Medic?! You having the Kritzkrieg would mean just one idiot Medic more who just doesn't know when to use it!
I know I won't be getting any Demoman or Scout unlockables once they come out, and whine about the achievements being hard. Because I don't play as Demo or Scout. I don't care. Why should you? No wonder you whine about the MMORPG grinding aspects, you are the one making it a matter of grinding.

Also I don't know what everyone's whining about "too many Medics on every server," because I'm playing on public servers and only remember having an overabundance of Medics on two or three different occassions (okay, last night we started a 12 on 12 match on Dustbowl with only Soldiers and Medics in our team. THAT was horrible. I was a Soldier, btw, and got the only Medic with the Kritzkrieg, hee hee). Change servers, kthxbai, it's not that hard! Or talk to the admin about restricting the amount of Medics to the max of two or three.

Rant rant rant. Okay. I'm just getting so tired of basement-dwelling fanboys whining about every single thing. Yes, I do get the irony. Except that I'm not a basement-dwelling fanboy. Sry2say.

And what IS it with these jealous Medics?! Okay, I get it, you want in on the fun and our Heavy buddy is on top of the scoreboard, but Jesus Christ why do you stick to the same guy I'm sticking to, while there are people yelling for Medic in the direction from where you came from?! Sure, I don't mind, you can have the Heavy and I'll go heal the others, but WHOA. First come first serve, I think.
(Btw, if it's points you're after, you get so much more from actual healing than those precious assists, just sayin'.)
And for fuck's sake, Medic, don't heal the same guy I'm healing during the setup! Goddamn these noobs (or idiots, whatever) are starting to get to me.

Sorry, I'm talking a lot about Medics these days. I could tell you about how absolutely fucking scared I am of (good) Snipers, and how I should be playing more as Pyro now that there are Medics everywhere (I did it yesterday on Well and HEE HEE burning Medic flesh, everywhere), but I'll save those stories for later. I think I'm coming to a stop with the achievements pretty soon, so I'll have to come up with something else to talk about.