Telefragging!

Well, I've been playing Team Fortress 2 for a year now, and as if to commemorate the occasion, something that's never happened to me before, happened today:



Yeah, a telefrag. I dunno if the poor enemy Engie was trying to melee it or something, all I know is that I killed him with my teleporter.
I've always wanted to do that.

And I'm seriously starting to love playing as the Scout. I've enjoyed playing on Turbine (which I previously regarded as completely shitty map), harassing enemies by being all over the place and snagging the intel while everyone was too busy handling the übered Heavy/Medic combo storming in and drawing sentry fire.

Please, dear Valve, give L4D a rest and update TF2 for a change.

I've also played lots of custom Payload maps lately (a Finnish server I find myself playing on these days has several PL customs in rotation) and I'm completely enamoured with both Half-Acre and Mill. Mill especially is wonderful, it's pretty well balanced throughout (although the first stage's last cap can easily get locked down by Engineers, BLU has a bit of a disadvantage because it's hard to form pushes through routes other than the one following the cart tracks) and very easy to look at. I love playing as Soldier and Demo there.
Payload version of Dustbowl is also great, although Demomen can lock the entire first stage down and it usually gets pretty ridiculous with both sides just chucking grenades at each other. I don't think I've ever even played on third stage.
And then again I fucking hate Great Heights (funny that it's got pretty high scores in FPSBanana), because the design is awful. RED has ridiculous advantage through the entire map from start to finish, starting with the horrible design of BLU spawn exits right at the start of the map. And I hate it that there's no collision on the edges of the map, but that might be just me, since Slaver finds nothing wrong with it (he hates the map too, ftr).
The first time I saw second stage I found it admirable that someone had actually used some water (there's this water part in the map, you have to actually escort the cart through the water, which I think is a pretty interesting idea in theory) and was then horribly disappointed because it doesn't work in practice at all. It just gets ridiculously spammy since you can't see into the water OR out of the water. It's a tedious spot in which neither of the teams know what's really happening. It might work if pulled off differently, it's just ... well, personally, and from the viewpoint of someone who has actually done some map designing before, I think the design is sloppy at best. Some great ideas here and there, they just haven't been pulled off very well. I'm not saying that I can do better, we'll just have to see about that. Haha.
So I just usually disconnect when Great Heights comes along, or decide to be an annoying nade-spamming Demo.
I also kinda like CP Freight. It's not that great, it's just ... well, it's like Fastlane. I don't know what makes it so fun to play, I just like playing a game or two there every once in a while.

Speaking of maps, me and Slaver are probably starting to work on our own custom TF2 CP map any day now. My PC can finally run Hammer without choking and dying, so all we gotta do now is sit down and brainstorm the initial design down.

Ahhh and why do I always forget to write about the things that I should? I played the F.E.A.R. 2 Project Origin demo a couple of days ago. It was pretty fun, although I found the controls a bit jarring and they still haven't gotten rid of the very basic problem that troubled the first game: it's too goddamned linear. First they spook you a little, then you shoot some bad guys, and then it's back to spooking, repeat ad nauseum. I was hoping the demo would prove that they'd gotten over that, but unfortunately it didn't really seem so.
It scared me a lot, though: the neverending ghost hallway almost gave me several heart attacks, and Slaver actually scared the crap outta me by making some noise with his door totally unexpectedly right in the middle of the intensive spooking part. Fuuuuuck I nearly died.
But I love the sound design! It really crates a creepy atmosphere and while it might seem a bit cluttered every now and then with the music and effects and your character's heartbeats or panting, it just adds to the feeling of urgency and anxiety. I think it's rather brilliant.
And the water effects look really nice!
But the goddamned mecha battle at the end of the demo? It was SO OUT THERE and unexpected I didn't know if I should laugh or facepalm or like it or hate it. It was ridiculous, yet somehow brilliant. I was just running at the bad guys, wondering whether I can STEP ON THEM and SQUASH THEM. I never found out because they died of bullets first.
I don't think I'll buy the game next month (the demo wasn't that much fun), but we'll see, since I really liked the first F.E.A.R. It was a chilling gaming experience even though it was painfully linear, and the action was lots of fun.

Wb, me!

Guess who's back in the game.



And as you can see, the new PC handles L4D pretty nicely, the resolution alone is pretty insane (yes, I am playing with 1280x1024 and near-highest graphics settings, and it runs as smoothly as it possibly can). For now I'd say getting this PC was worth the while.
L4D seems to be pretty light either way, back when I played the Demo on my old PC, the game actually ran pretty nicely. I mean, I wasn't even playing on the lowest graphics settings - at least texture detail was high - but my resolution was 640 x 480 (this is how it looked, yay PSOne graphics ftw!), and I got all the lighting effects, and actually a pretty decent FPS. And I had been quite sure that the computer would refuse to run it in the first place.

So how about Team Fortress 2?
FPS stays on green almost in every situation (saw it flicker in yellow when there was dozens of stuff on the screen at once), and I get about the same graphics as I did playing on little brother's computer last summer.
So all in all? I'm pretty much extremely satisfied.

I have much to do, organizing files, installing stuff and so forth, so I'll leave a more in-depth entry about Left 4 Dead for later, for now I'll just say that I love versus. I got to play some bits of the co-op campaign on a friend's PC last week after the game came out, so I was somewhat familiar with it, and last night the first thing we did after I got the game, was to find a server and play some versus. I had played it once before, and the game whined to me about needing to play the campaign first, but I didn't really care.
And yes yes the best part about versus is getting to play as the Infected. The best part about playing as the Infected is spawning as the Tank. Okay, yeah, I can't really say since I was a Tank for about ten seconds last night. I spawned at the end of No Mercy just as the Survivors were stumbling to the evac helicopter. I managed to incap one of them, though, so job well done, and only one escaped alive, as rest of my Infected buddies managed to pin the others down. (Yeah, I'm the Tank in the screenshot I posted.)
I like being other Infected as well, Smoker's probably my favourite since you don't have to go get so intimate with the Survivors as the Smoker. I like lurking about rooftops. Hunter's fun as well, although I seem to be just horrible at aiming my jumps, haha. But I've had my best ownage moments as a Hunter pinning down a lone Survivor while others are being harrassed by a Boomer and subsequently a horde. Oh, love. Boomer's surprisingly fun as well.

What sucks about versus is the crazy console-reminiscent lobby system that absolutely sucks because you don't know what kind of ping you'll have until you're actually in game. So it's mostly just jumping from one server to another until one with not-as-crazy latency comes along.
Or since I usually have at least three buddies to play with at any given time, we make a server of our own and then search for a dedicated one, which seems to work pretty well. We get nice ping, and the server usually fills up quickly.
And then we get our fair share of idiots: one of my buddies was playing versus for the first time last night, so of course one of our team-mates started whining at him that he sucks, but. Me and Slaver kindly told him to stfu, and he still had the nerve to start a votekick against my friend. Which backfired royally, because after that there was a vote to kick the whiner, which - needless to say - passed 3 to 1.
I can only imagine how much he must've been raging, hee hee.
But just what the fucking hell, you choose a random public server and then start whining about the noobs? Besides, dear idiot, you weren't doing too hot either (I was kicking your ass in scores and I was playing for the second time), so please do take a look in the mirror before mouthing off a "noob."
Yeah yeah, I know, the whole teamwork thing, of course it sucks if someone on your team seems to be lost, but ffs you can still treat the player nicely and try to understand that the game's been out for a week and not everyone can be fucking brilliant at it already.

But yeah, it's like fighting windmills, fighting these idiots in online multiplayer communities.

HA!

FINALLY.
After eight months of playing together and getting my butt handed to me every freaking time I ended up face to face with him, I finally dominated Slaverstrike.



Okay, yeah, he was playing as Spy and I immediately went Pyro (and told Sonny - a fellow Pyro - to torch everyone because Slaver's going Spy), but by the time I got the domination he had already changed back to Demo. And that was the only assist I got against him, the rest were kills.
The best part? He never got the revenge. HA HA HA HA.
And he's still whining to me about it, haha, but COME ON he dominates me every damn time we are not in the same team, and this is the first time I've actually managed to dominate him. And probably the last time too.
(The best part about the screenshot? The only way is down, so after gloating over the GREAT SUCCESS! and laughing my ass off, I had to suicide. Ehh.)

So apart from some domestic domination disputes my misadventures in TF2 can be summarised a bit like this:



We kick ass.
And those scores are fucking ridiculous (also I was so torn apart because I wanted to be Sonny's Medic too D:), but what can I say. We make one hell of a team because we can actually communicate with each other.
Except we still need to learn to decipher what the hell is it that one of us is trying to say sometimes: I often go "OH FUCK ME DEAD" or "EIIII PERKELE" which usually means that there's a Spy or a Pyro behind us, but hell if he knows what my sudden screaming's all about. Haha.
And I'm having trouble of being a one-man Medic, since I'm so used to healing everyone. So sometimes I just go all "wait a mo, I go heal these other people here" and fuck off somewhere to heal others. And it hurts me when I need to be dedicated and we have a Mission to Accomplish and someone's yelling Medic somewhere and I can't go to them without Slaver buying the farm. So torn!
And our teamwork doesn't work quite as well the other way around since I'm such an atrocious Heavy, but if I'm the Medic and Slaver's the Heavy, we pretty much dominate. As you can see (the scores at the end of the same match):



So, um, beware? I guess.
And of course someone whined about it at some point ("why are these awesome players teamstacking on a newbie server?"), so apparently Chrome + Slaverstrike = Automatic Teamstack.

Nothing else, really. I've been playing a lot as Demo (and gotten some Medics to finally love me, which is just wtf: one Medic loved me on Badwater and kept giving me his übers near the last point, basically just hitting it the moment he got it and I was going all JESUS CHRIST THESE AMATEUR MEDICS DRIVE ME INSANE, running there glowing and just chucking grenades at people without really accomplishing anything. I was hoping he would go away and leave me to do my sticky camping in peace but noooo, he was sticking to me like glue. Another "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" moment was when a Medic übered me on Gold Rush about two seconds before the gates even opened. OH MY GOD WE'RE GOING TO LOSE), and disturbingly much as a Sniper, and find myself sucking quite hard at it (and still refusing to change classes because "WHY DO I ALWAYS HAVE TO BE THE MEDIC?"), but I'm wanting to learn. And that's how it goes: you can't expect to get good at playing some class if you never play as that class.
Also the stupidest Sniper kill ever: I round a corner on top of the roof overlooking the second checkpoint on Badwater, only to see a sneaky BLU Engineer whacking away at a first level sentry, so I hit the Engineer in the face with the kukri, kill him off, and drop down from the roof with the sentry shooting at my ass. Escaped with 2 HP. Just what the fucking hell, Chrome.

Not again...

Why is my Team Fortress 2 playing always overshadowed with continuous raging?

Although this time it's more of a Steam woe than anything else, but last night I broke a record I had deemed impossible for me to break, based on research done during the 37.5 hours of time played as an Engineer.



I chimed in 16 sentry kills, with one sentry, during one life. Three dominations. 22 points total, with all the assists and teleports and one wrench-whacked Spy, and several minutes of pretty decent defending. Would've gotten more, but apparently half of the enemy team went Spy at that point (I can stand up to Spies myself if they're not very good), and it was kinda impossible trying to keep myself OR my buildings alive when I had Spies coming out of my ass and a Demoman got close enough to blow everything into oblivion while I was busy with sappers.
And I thought it would be impossible to get that many sentry kills in one life, because I always get only twelve. Whenever the counter hits twelve kills, my sentry's goners. Always. And I get twelve kills pretty often, it's very usual on Dustbowl where sentries tend to live longer.
So I was kinda expecting to get twelve kills, and then get backstabbed, but for once it didn't happen.

So where's all the rage? I broke a record, I should be celebrating, not raging, right?

Yeah, sure, if Steam had only registered the new record. My Engineer records remain as they were, max kills 14, max sentry kills 12, max points 18. No sign of the should-be record of max kills 17, max sentry kills 16, max points 22.
So, RAGE. At least I got the screenshot to show you that I indeed got 16 sentry kills.

I also went back to the Soldier like I told you I would, and had some great times last night. Dammit, Easy Mode, I missed your slow-as-hell ass and your ridiculous crit streaks.
It took a while getting used to it again, since I've been playing so much as a Demo lately. But at least Demo has taught me something: as a Soldier I was used to shooting at enemies' feet rather than bothering trying to get straight hits, but with Demo's bombs that's not very effective unless the target is standing still (and I'm still not that good at taking movement into account and calculating trajectories accordingly), so as a Demo I'm trying to actually hit people in the face with the regular bombs. Especially since they explode at contact and with weaker classes that's an instakill. And I'm getting gradually better and better at that (if I hit you in the face with a bomb, most of the time it's indeed because I aimed, not because you just happened to be there. And that's why bad Scouts who run right at me are dead. They are so fast that their movements are very easy to anticipate, if they run in straight line). So now that's seeping through to my Soldier tactics and I'm actually starting to aim rather than always trying to just rely on splash damage and juggling.
Also, I am suddenly the master at rocket jumping, because it took me this long to realise to crouch-jump. Now there isn't a place I can't get to, I kept camping on top of point B on Gravel Pit, and I did couple of pretty impressive defenses by jumping on top of C and raining doom on enemies standing on it. O ho ho.
And I finally learned to sticky jump as a Demoman! Whenever I jumped before, I just went straight up, and I don't know what I do differently now, but I actually go forward as well. I just don't like doing sticky jumps unless I'm backed by a Medic (which never happens because Medics hate me. Except yesterday I was apparently a good-enough Soldier to get a Medic sticking to me. Too bad I'm a horrible Medic buddy and get them killed. Their own fault for not knowing better and following me on my one-man suicide missions!) because they eat up so much health and I'm still not very accurate with them, so I might spring into any given direction and miss my target by a mile.

Unbelievable.

Guys, guys, you are not going to believe this. (I had hard time believing it myself last night.)

I have a new favourite class.

For the moment, at least. And you will never guess what it is. Never. Well, I guess you could since there are only nine classes and it's obviously not one of my top four, because, uh, they are my favourite classes already.
I said from the beginning, before I actually started playing Team Fortress 2, that there are two classes that I will probably never play as, because they seem way too... well, difficult. One of them was Engineer, but we all know how that turned out, and the other is this class. And well would you look at how that one turned out:



Well, putting the embarrassing (self-ironic?) screenshot aside, yeah, it's my former least played class, the one I thought I'd never bother to learn to play as because, and I quote, "I'm an absolutely appalling Demo [...] I've always been terrible with grenades, I can never predict trajectories right and my timing simply sucks."
WELL WHADDAYA KNOW.
I already have 3,5 hours as Demo (my playtime as a Demo was about 20 minutes before last night, haha), and, well, turns out that I'm not a completely horrible Demo, and it's so much fun! Yeah, sure, I still don't do trajectories, and I freely admit that most of the time I'm just spamming grenades at where enemies are without thinking about it much more than that (I know some people call Soldier the "Easy Mode," but I beg to differ. To me? Demoman's the ultimate easy mode. Most of my pipe bomb kills are sheer luck, and at least with Soldier you'll have to AIM. As a Demo... dammit, I chuck pipe bombs behind a corner just in case someone's there. And if I can do it, I believe anyone can do it).

Anyway, my sudden demolitions enthusiasm began when I was playing on our (TF2Chan's) Mantrain server. There were only six players, and we were fighting it out on Hall of Death, which, in case you're not familiar with it, is a custom CTF map. Pretty fun, at that, totally crazy and fast-paced, perfect for just fooling around with small teams. So indeed I was fooling around: I got totally sick of being dominated by the enemies, so I went Demo and always started the game by putting stickies underneath the intel, waiting for the enemies to approach and KABOOM! Into giblets (or balloons and stuff, since birthday mode was on) they exploded. Repeat ad nauseum. I dominated the entire enemy team two times over, and then they probably got sick of my sticky strategy and all of them went Pyro, which indeed proved to be my downfall. Fffff damn Pyros.
But at some point I got a new max points record for Demo and everything, and I had a really good time. Maybe even learned a thing or two about stickies and the regular grenades.
So eventually I changed servers and ended up on Badlands. And decided that okay, right, I'm not a very good Demo and sure it's easy to be at least somewhat successful on a small map with a few players and just guarding the intel with stickies, but let's try it out in "real" game (since the Hall of Death skirmish had mostly been fooling around with 3v3 teams), and let's see how it goes from there.

It went pretty well if I do say so myself! Better than I had ever imagined! Mostly I just kept stickying the control points and being a defensive Demo and then chucking pipe bombs at approaching enemies, but at least I was good at that! I got lots of defenses (and now I know that I'm not the only idiot who always just trods over sticky bombs thinking that the Demoman who put them down isn't watching. Oh ha ha ha wow, I'm never going near stickies again, because what kind of Demo isn't looking after his stickies?! I know I'm keeping my eye on them, no matter the situation). I don't know what the hell happened, but apparently all it took was a few more minutes with the Demo and I had the basics down. (Or then all the times I've been spectating Slaverstrike while waiting to respawn and following a Demoman as a Medic paid off and I just did things I've seen them do).

And stickies... oh, how I love stickies. Because of stickies I like being Demo on defense (I played both defensive and offensive Demo last night, and I like defense far far more), because I like taking care of the capture points or the bomb cart. Or intel. It's easy, and important business, and even a newbie Demo like me can do it! On Dustbowl I first covered whichever point it was that we were defending, and then started minding my own business. And it's awesome because all I have to do is check out the indicators on my HUD and if there are people on the point or near the bombcart, I just right click and get a few kills and defenses even if I'm in the other side of the bleeding map.



I totally dig that. In the screenshot I'm just coming from the respawn (got assaulted by a Pyro and had to fall back to heal myself), and well whaddaya know, two kills and a defense, all thanks to careful stickying. And lol at the Spy, I remember he got gibbed by that rocket just as I had pulled out my bottle.

What I hate about stickies, is that sometimes I fire them just... somewhere, and forget about them. And then I start firing more at enemies, maybe trying to take down a sentry or an approaching Heavy or just simply trying to lay a sticky carpet somewhere, and then I back off and detonate them and KABLOOIE! I suicide, because I forgot a stray sticky that I had somewhere. Haha. It's happened so many times it's not even FUNNY. It was funny the first few times, then it started getting a bit annoying. I'm a dementic Demoman.
And yeah, sometimes someone scatters my carefully places sticky carpets and I don't notice until it's too late. I also have a tendency to first lay stickies somewhere close to me, then see an enemy approaching, shoot a sticky at him and detonate. Well, whoops. I guess with time I'll learn not to do that.
What sucks about laying all your stickies at the CP or near the cart, is that I like using stickies way more than the pipe bombs, even in regular face-offs with enemies. It's easier to just chuck some stickies at people, see them land somewhere near them, and detonate them immediately for maximum carnage. And I love detonating them mid-flight right when they're at someone's face. Oh, love.
But I can't do that if I have stickies somewhere else, without losing the defensive hold I have of the point/cart/intel. And I hate going back and putting them down again. Of course it adds a bit to the strategic side of the Demo: to know when to defend the point and when to push forward.

There were also some great moments when I was attacking. Never mind being an MVP as a Heavy, THIS is just absurd:



And taking down sentries is surprisingly easy, even for a Demo noob like me (and now I know for sure that I am never übering anything but Demos for sentry takedowns. They are the best at it, no doubt about it)! There was a round in Dustbowl when I was in BLU and we had fought our way to the third stage. I had a Medic stick to me during the setup and he told me that he's going to über me and we'll take down the sentries.
I was like "D: OH GOD" because, yeah, you probably know how nervous I get when I'm übered (and at that point I hadn't even faced any big sentry farms - like the ones that you usually see on Dustbowl), so I told the Medic that okay, we can try it if you really want to, but I can't promise that it will succeed (I was the highest scoring Demo in our team at that point - no, really, I was - so maybe I WAS the best bet for taking down the sentries... I just wasn't so sure about myself). So we rush out, the Medic übers me, and I actually fucking take down a level one sentry, a level three sentry and its Engineer during the charge, and we cap the point immediately. The Medic was pleased and complimented me, and I had to go all "Wow I actually did it!" and I felt really proud of myself.
Yeah, pretty good from someone who had only been a Demo for about hour and a half.

My scores as a Demoman are still very modest, max kills is 9, max destructions 5, and most points only 11, but I'm still a pretty surprised that I'm actually not a completely godawful Demoman! And I was an MVP on few rounds, which is... pretty awesome. Here, probably my best run last night:



So. I really, REALLY liked being a Demo (...I even forgot about the time and realised what time is it when Slaver told me that he's calling it quits for the night. It was 11:30 pm. Sure, it wouldn't be so bad, if I didn't have to get up at 5:30 am to go to work. Whoops?), and you'll probably see me playing nothing but Demo until I get bored of it. I'm itching to play this very moment! I wanna learn all the tricks to it so that I would become a bit better at it! Now I get slaughtered by anything that gets too close to me (seriously, it doesn't matter which class it is, if it gets close to me, I'm goners. Yeah, I suicide a lot, no surprises there).

And fuck, Demos, I'm sorry. I didn't know that Demomen take full damage from their own stickies and grenades! I foung it out in a pretty gruesome way while trying out sticky jumping and plummeting straight to my death (and damn sticky jumps seem so much more potent than rocketjumping. Too bad that I'm left with measly 80 HP after one, so I probably won't be doing it a whole lot). I thought that Demos too had the damage reduction Soldiers have.

And now I kinda want to get drunk on scotch and play nothing but Demo for the entire evening. For added realism. Ehh. I wish I wasn't such a huge nerd.

Random tales~

No, I haven't played at all after the update hit my Steam. Same old story, time zones. And that I'm playing on my little brother's terms. I'm waiting him to wake up, maybe I could get a few hours in before I have to join my friends in a delicious Midsummer barbeque fest.

Aaanyway, now I bring some screenshots of my recent awesomeness. And some random tales.

So I played for, I think, almost ten hours yesterday. My little brother is appalled by the high ping I always play with (what can I do, my favourite servers are all on the east coast of the US, which means at least 150 ping for me), so he talked me over to try playing on some other server with not quite as high ping.
So I just randomly chose some Multiplay.co.uk server from the list. Okay, so, I didn't notice any change whatsoever although my ping was only about 60, but I was once again reminded of the fact that the "newbies" on the Newbies Only servers? Are not newbies by long shot.
The skill level is higher on Newbies Only servers than it has been on any other server that I've played on.

Because it went something like this (and I loved that Medic. Good thing he loved me back. Kritzkrieg mmmm...):



And this (although this has got nothing to do with skill, I just got three insane crits in a row: first one missed, second one killed the first guy and the third got two. I think the enemy team started whining, and even I had to admit that it was pretty fucking ridiculous):



And ended up in this (insane amount of deaths because the highest-scoring Heavy in the enemy team was ridiculously good. I freaking cheered the first time I managed to separate his little Medic bitch from him by juggling him into the air, and then assault him ferociously until nothing was left of him but a pile of gibs. I loved the challenge, maybe I even learned something):



But the most important thing I learned from that server, was that I indeed hate instant respawn and that it completely destroys the game balance. Instant fucking respawn should be mentioned in the server description, dammit.
I've never before played with instant respawn, but I've always figured that it can't be good. How could BLU ever win for example Dustbowl if RED had instant respawn? If the teams are even, there's no way.
Instant respawn is just plain stupid. And if you think it's not, I think you should slowly step away from Team Fortress 2 and go back to playing the deathmatch style game of your choice. I hear UT3 is pretty good.
Because yeah, sure, I was having buckets of fun playing on Gold Rush's first stage only. I was in BLU, we pushed and pushed but never fucking got the last checkpoint because whenever we killed the Soldier trying to stop us, it only took a couple of seconds and the same Soldier was back trying to stop us. And if we died, we had to travel all the way back to the final checkpoint, while RED had all the time in the world to fortify their defenses.
When I was in RED, we just ran out of respawn without any worries, even if BLU had almost reached the final checkpoint. We always made it there in time. Besides, it just felt bloody stupid dying, and immediately being back in the game, just to die again after few seconds. I like the little cooldown longer respawn times provide.
And instant respawn promotes hardcore spawncamping.
The most annoying thing was to get killed three fucking times during humiliation. First near the checkpoint, then in my respawn by some spawncamping fucker and then AGAIN by the rest of the enemy team who had ran to our respawn with their guns blazing. AARGH.

So yeah, I know 30-second respawn can be fucking tedious to wait out on the last stages of Dustbowl and Gold Rush, but it's the game balance. It's the way the game was meant to be played: to offer both teams equal opportunity to win the map, so that it only comes down to teamwork and skill.

What else? I got bored of the instant-respawn-provided endless fragging pretty fast, so I went back to playing on my regular servers and the good ol' 150 ping. Mostly played as Soldier and Heavy.
But then:



YES. I ACTUALLY WENT SPY.
AND I SUCKED!
All because my little brother wanted to know how Spy does the disguising stuff, so I showed him. And then I was standing in the respawn, as a Spy, disguised and cloaked, and decided to fuck it, I'll play Spy.
It took me maybe three tries to even kill anyone, I was so nervous and my hands were shaking and I kept running into people and oh god it was terrible. Then I finally backstabbed someone, felt less nervous, and actually had pretty much fun while trying to be inconspicuous and kill Medics and Heavies, but I'm still a goddamn rotten Spy.
And I facestabbed someone - damn lag.

Also the most embarrassing death ever: I was hanging around on the upstairs of the warehouse cap, undisguised, and trying to remember which was the "last disguise used" shortcut key. And I accidentally pressed G.
And while the taunt animations played through, I saw a friendly Pyro passing me by. And because I have a sixth sense for Spies, I immediately went OH GOD THIS IS NOT HAPPENING, and naturally got backstabbed by the goddamn enemy Spy while taunting. He of course proceeded to taunting right back and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

After Granary I tried some Spying on Dustbowl, but missed the first stage entirely because my team just steamrolled right through, and at the second stage I started concentrating on taking down sentries.
And I'm the worst at sapping stuff. Haha. I can't understand how Spies DO IT, I just do drive-by-sapping. I run past the buildings, cloaked, tapping left-click like a maniac and then beeline straight towards some safe place to hide and stop my heart from beating hard enough to hurt, haha. I kill a lot of dispensers! Once I got a level three sentry! Although I started to think that the Engie must've let me just sap the thing, first watching for half a round how I fail enormously at sappin' and stabbin' and then feeling kinda bad for the little newbie Spy and letting me have the sentry. Because I can't imagine why an Engineer wouldn't save his sentry, on Dustbowl's stage two's last point, no less. And I am sure I saw him standing around when I ran past. Grrrr, that Engineer!
And I can't imagine how anyone could sap AND stab, my mind and hands are completely full just trying to sap anything and get out alive.
And there was one server regular playing with me and going all what the hell Chrome, I thought you hated the Spy. Haha. I have no idea why he would think that, maybe because I never play as Spy. I told him that I kinda like the Spy, I just suck as one so I don't play it that often. I'm trying to learn, though.
And fuck yeah, I wanna learn. So more Spying in the future.
I got sick of being a bad sapping-deficient Spy by the end of stage two, though, so I went back to being Soldier. As usually happens.

And I was training for the Pyro achievements:



I have no idea. I saw a completely unaware Sniper, and because axe kills are so much more fun than flamethrower kills, I killed the Sniper with the axe. And then I turned around to see a Demoman, and charged right at him, waving the axe. I love it how some Demomen go into total panic if an enemy gets too close for comfort. Heee. Skilled ones of course pull out the bottle, and the kamikaze ones lay stickies at their feet while backing away, not really caring if they die as long as they take me with them. This one panicked and just started backing away chucking grenades past me. So he got ax'd.
And after that I ran out, still on battle high from the awesome axe kills, saw million Medics and racked four kills within few seconds and the fifth after I was already dead, making it one of the most successful Pyro runs I've had in a while. It was awesome. Even my little brother was pretty impressed.

I guess that wraps it up. Next post, Pyro stuff! I hope.

A quick edit: OH SNAP, did Robin Walker just refer to Pyro as her? Oh u, stop playing with our heads. <3

"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.

Same old story, again and again and again

Okay.
I'm getting a new computer.

Played two nights on my little brother's brand new computer (turns out he was pulling my leg: Crysis didn't run on the highest graphics settings possible. It was only on high. Same difference, if you ask me), and my framerate was over 60 nearly all the time, even in crazy-ass firefights it mostly stayed on green. I wasn't running the game on highest graphics settings, but it was still looking so much better than on my computer. I'll post a screenshot in a minute, so you can see for yourselves.
Anyway, naturally I felt the difference. And indeed I was doing better: I owned everyone even as much as trying to circlestrafe when I played as Heavy, aiming wasn't a complete pain in the ass when I was a Soldier and botching rocketjumps was history, circlestrafing was easier as a Pyro, and as a Medic I was able to switch between targets so fast I was almost surprised (do I even need to say that I got Second Opinion immediately when I tried it?), and keeping an eye on my surroundings was so much easier.
All of these are naturally worth a good old "WELL, DUH."



I was keeping that team together, for real. We didn't need another Medic. Look at that amount of healing, fifty-freaking-thousand, just what the hell. There were times I was keeping two Demomen, three Soldiers and one Heavy going, and healing all the Snipers and Scouts whenever they fell back screaming for Medic. I was having a ball, for real. And seven kills? As a Medic? Pretty hardcore for me.
I also had another epic long match in Gold Rush, when I was most of the time playing as Heavy. Result? 177 points. Insanity.

I honestly want to cry thinking about going back to playing the game on my own computer and its shitty framerate and ugly graphics... this is serious business. So I might buy myself a new computer, come autumn. Until then I'm still forced to play with the crazy handicap of 20 fps. I mean, I've been doing pretty well until now, surely I can continue playing like I always have. It's just... now I know what it feels like to have it better. And it's sweet.

Anyway, since I've been playing a lot as Medic, I finally have something to report about the status of my Medic achievements.
Mostly, RAGE.
If you've been reading this blog, you probably remember how Head of the Class was a serious thorn in my side, the progress count going back to zero or not including classes even though I played full rounds as them.
Now I'm having the same thing. All the Medic achievements that had any progress went back to zero. Family Practice, Peer Review, Doctor Assisted Homicide... all of them. Back to square one with each and every one of them. Thank GOD I hadn't been killing Scouts or Medics religiously, I would've gone postal. It should be easy as hell to start again on Family Practice (especially since I made a new friend last night), but I was already 13/20 through Doctor Assisted Homicide and I'm kinda pissed off about that.
I was thinking that it must be because I switched computers, but WHAT THE FUCK, STEAM. Also, I've been trying to read Steam's forums but I haven't yet seen anyone having the same problem.
Shit sucks.

But in the end losing some of my achievement progress isn't that big of a deal: after all I got two new achievements. I already told you I got Second Opinion: Dustbowl stage one, first point, juggled the charge between a Soldier and a Heavy, mainly because I was being attacked from both sides and they were there.
And tonight I got one of the achievements I was not trying to get, at all. One of the ones I thought would be impossible to get in normal gameplay or without acting like a complete idiot. Dare to wager a guess?



I admit we were kinda being total dicks there, but hey, no harm done! Actually the scoreboard screenshot earlier is from this very game, now that I think about it, and this was the last round, we were defending on Gold Rush's first stage. I was the only Medic, healing everyone near the last checkpoint. I got über, glued myself to this Heavy, and he started towards the building that the BLU had already invaded. Great, I thought, he's thinking the same that I am: we need to clean that building, and so we went. But he ran out of minigun ammo immediately, shooting at some Pyro in the distance, before we even got inside the building (we were still on the cart tracks, I think). And instead of turning around and going to get more ammo he drew out his fists and continued towards the building. I went AHAHA OKAY THEN and followed him.
So I was totally thinking that right, the building is swarming with BLU people, I might even get the achievement out of it, and the outlook of the match is looking good, we're probably not risking too much and hey! We might even clean up the building. Maybe they don't have any sentries up yet!
Positive thinking!
The Heavy was probably thinking the same (we didn't communicate at all: I'm still chickening out of using my mic), so we rush in, I über him and watch, nearly frozen solid, as the Heavy starts punching people. Of course there was a goddamn Soldier on his way and those bitches take million hits until they die, but somehow he really GOT the two kills and I got the achievement. Unfortunately the charge ran out immediately after the second kill, I saw that there were still people there (incidentally I didn't even see the sentry: went all OH GOD I HAD NO IDEA when I looked at the screenshots after the match. I just thought there were still too many people around), so I did what every self-respecting Medic does in a situation like that, and hightailed out of there (just jumped down over the railing).
Okay, so I totally hate leaving my healing targets to die like that (especially when the said healing target was nice enough to do something completely silly probably just for me), but since I know that I'm the only Medic in my team and BLU has control of that building (which often means that they will win), I know that if I die our chances of winning the match become slim to none. I don't do suicide attacks.
I thanked the Heavy for helping me with the achievement, of course, and I hope he doesn't hate me forever because I ditched him. I am sorry, Kyle, don't hate me! You were awesome.

I also came really close to getting Sawbones! I was defending on Dustbowl, healing people on first point when I saw a Medic/Soldier combo disappearing behind the building on the left side of the first point, apparently trying to get behind our players, or sneak to second point. And because it's easy to follow people there and shoot them in the back, and I wasn't doing anything too important, I jumped down, drew my bonesaw and followed them. I killed the wonderfully oblivious Medic (took three hits) and then proceeded to bonesawing the Soldier, and missed after my fourth hit. DAMN. So close. I've been overlooking Sawbones completely as one of the achievements I might get to get closer to the Kritzkrieg, but now that I think of it, all I need is one tunnel Heavy and it's in the bag.
I think I've given two Medics their Sawbones, because most of the time I'm truly very oblivious to what's happening behind my back when I'm Heavy.

And now I'm three achievements away from the Kritzkrieg and yay! I have no idea what those three achievements will be, what with all my progress for Family Practice and Doctor Assisted Homicide reverting back to zero, but we'll see. Sawbones, I'm thinking.
SPECIALIST, FFFFF.

And, uh, if you're looking at my stats, I'll just have to come clean and tell you that the Sniper stats are actually not mine. I don't mind, really, because I don't play as Sniper, and probably never will, but I don't want anyone thinking that I could be a good Sniper. Too bad that everyone who was playing on server tonight probably thinks that I am. Some of them probably hate me now. FFFF CHROME YOU FUCKER NEVER PLAY AS SNIPER AGAIN SERIOUSLY. The 19 Sniper points are not mine! They are my little brother's.
So, I let my brother play. He asked if he could try Sniper out, and of course I let him. He was on top of the scoreboard all the time (except on Badlands: he was confused about the layout of the map, and never really got to take part in any action. On Hydro and Gravel Pit he was owning), and probably one of THOSE Snipers (the ones I hate). He was really good, I give him that, he also outplayed enemy Snipers most of the time (and because he's a "newbie" he didn't really know any of the usual Sniper positions, so I suppose some of the more experienced Snipers didn't even see him coming when he kept sniping from pretty obscure locations). And yeah, because he has some FPS experience (like 10 years of Action Quake...), he was pretty good at shooting the goddamn rifle from the hip. Which is annoying as heck. He had some epic runs on Gravel Pit, like getting two damn kills within few seconds with the rifle while running.
And then 2fort came up. And I told him he doesn't want to be Sniper on 2fort, that he would be spending the entire match glued on battlements and shooting at enemy Snipers, battling over who has the bigger Sniper penis, and he said that screw that, he's going to be an attack Sniper, he's going to go get the intel. Well good luck with that, I told him.
He did end up in the enemy base at first, he even got to the basement, where an enemy Medic bonesawed him in the back. Then he tried sniping from the bridge and all that, and after that, about ten minutes into the game, he was on the battlements, shooting at enemy Snipers and forming a serious rivalry with them. It was pretty humorous to watch, I admit: he was fuming whenever the enemy Sniper actually managed to shoot him, and cheering intensely whenever he owned him right back. And when the enemy Sniper took longer than usual to drag his ass out of respawn, he was getting worried that maybe he switched classes or quit, he can't do that. And then he left the battlements, jumped down and headed to the enemy base, and once he had got over the bridge he glanced up at the battlements, saw the enemy Sniper, went completely ":D!" and promptly headshot him into oblivion. I figure the enemy Sniper was pretty pissed at that point, damn, at least I would be: getting headshot from the bridge would be unnervingly annoying.
Anyway, their rivalry was horribly cute.
And I was thrilled to get my brother to play TF2.
Too bad he won't probably ever actually get the game: he says he's just interested in playing the Sniper. I loved watching him play (I've never watched anyone play TF2 before!), and as you probably know, I also love talking about this game and I like it when people know what I'm talking about. So I could babble about the game and my brother could actually contribute to the conversation. And my little bro is totally cool and I love having things in common with him, this being just one of them.

Like, he just got me to play Frets on Fire, which, if you didn't know, is a freeware rhythm game for PC that pays its homage to Guitar Hero itself. Instead of a plastic guitar, you just use the keyboard. I've been watching my brother play it for a few years but I never got around to playing it myself, but as I finally got my Guitar Hero virginity taken away last week, I decided to get Frets on Fire because it's the next best thing and I don't have money to get Guitar Hero right now.
I still suck gloriously at it: I can play some songs on Easy mode (Medium in Guitar Hero), but mostly I'm just sticking with Supaeasy (Guitar Hero's Easy). FOR THE TIME BEING. I'm pretty good in rhythm games (I play StepMania/DDR/Dancing Stage/what-have-you on expert) and I play guitar irl, so it's probably only a matter of time.

What else? I still need to post the pros and cons list, but it's still not done yet. And if I post it with this monster of an entry, no one's going to read this. Haha.

Creative Engineering!

Grand Rounds and Autopsy Report GET! Five more and the Kritzkrieg is mine. I'm also 3/10 through Family Practice and 11/20 through Doctor Assisted Homicide.

And I didn't have to act like an ass to get Autopsy Report, it was Dustbowl, Stage three, and I was attacking. We were holding the line somewhere near the last corner (always the last corner!), but I had to fall back at some point because of an enemy über approaching, and I was holding a full charge and didn't want to die again while holding it (and there was no one there to give the charge to). So I'm waiting behind the second corner, and a Pyro runs around the corner and right at me yelling for Medic. I felt my Spy sense tingling, so I of course whipped out my Blutsauger to see if it indeed was a friendly Pyro in peril or a cheeky enemy Spy trying to trick me. Unsurprisingly it was the latter.
I was pretty damn slow to react after killing the Spy, but I noticed just as I was running over his corpse, that DAMN I could try taunting, and so I did. Got the achievement. Whoo.
I should've bonesawed him, now that I think about it, because he was yelling for Medic. Damn. But I still suck with the bonesaw, with Blutsauger I can actually kill people. Which reminds me, damn glitches, I was playing on Gravel Pit a few nights ago, and had to attack at some point, trying to fall back from just-captured B. And for some reason I didn't have the Blutsauger equipped. Didn't even realise it at first, not until I critted and went WTF the Blutsauger shouldn't cr... oh crap why am I holding the regular syringe gun oh fffff I'm dead, aren't I? Yeah, got killed because of it. I would've probably survived if I had the Blutsauger with me then, Pyros don't really stand a chance against it if I can stay outside the range of their flamethrower. Even if I am in flames.
But yeah, went to equip the Blutsauger during respawn, and actually had it equipped, so it was probably a glitch or something.

Last night I practised something I like to call "Creative Engineering." You know, on certain maps you see the sentries in same places, always, which isn't very clever, considering that the enemy is expecting to see sentries in those places, knows not to get in their line of sight, and prepare an über to take them down. Everyone's starting to know the weak spots of certain sentry locations (well at least I'm starting to know them), which makes those spots liabilities rather than strong defensive measures. So it's actually more effective to have a sentry in a place where no one expects one, even if it gets taken down very easily. So I'm trying to come up with places where no one expects a sentry, and where it can disrupt the enemy offense for a moment or two (maybe buy time for the other Engies to get down their sentries and fortify our base defenses). One of these places, while still a pretty known place for a sentry, is on Dustbowl's stage three's cap A. Usually Engies put their sentries on the ledge that leads out of REDs respawn, and near the stairs next to it. I usually put my sentry on the opposite side, to the right from the cap point, next to the stairs leading to the building. Attackers don't usually expect a sentry to be on that side (because it's more obvious to have the sentries on the other side, plus there are sentries ALWAYS on that side, and not nearly as often on the side I'm building on), and they use their übers trying to take down the sentries on the left, usually ignoring mine. Even if they take down the sentries, mine is going to shoot them in the back, sending them to respawn and buying time for other Engies to get their sentries back up. So the next time they try to take down my sentry, and the other sentries shoot them in the back. The setup can only be defeated with multiple co-ordinated übers (or with a very skilled Demoman chucking pipe bombs or stickies through the tiny windows in the building. With enough skill you can get them land right on top of my sentry. I hate Demomen when they do that). Or Spies.
Defended the point last night with this setup, and I even was an MVP that round.
Creative Engineering is plenty of fun on Gravel Pit, too. On Dustbowl it's pretty hard, but Gravel Pit is perfect for it.

Also, played a lot of offensive Engineer. Because I hate it when on certain maps you never get teleporters to front lines because no one ever plays Engineer when the team's attacking. Sure, offensive Engies are pretty useless on Dustbowl before the first point is capped (except on stage two: a sentry in the dugout can keep those pesky spawncamping-loving Pyros away. Stage three needs a dispenser and a sentry to guard it, because the first point area gets really spammy and as a Soldier I always run out of ammo and I hate to go back to respawn, or risk getting killed trying to scavenge any dropped weapons. Also, it keeps Pyros from spawncamping, and makes approaching enemy übers busy: instead of killing our men, they try to take down the sentry) and with the defense trying to push us back, it's pretty hard to get down a sentry to keep THEM back. It's totally awesome if you DO get a sentry down. Ensured a capture on stage two last night: got a first level sentry down close to the tiny building with ladder leading to its roof, which kept enemies off the point.
Another awesome offensive Engie moment was on Gravel Pit: we were attacking A after getting B, and I managed to get a sentry down just beside the cap point. Very vulnerable spot, but no one expected it, so it killed quite a few defenders before it got taken down, and by then the point was already capped. HA. After that I got buttraped and dominated by a FUCKING SCOUT, and we never got C. Jesus Christ I hate good Scouts. Couldn't even get a teleporter down.
I blame being drunk, but yeah. I'm drunk, you don't have an excuse. Teammates were complaining about the Scouts as well, so at least I wasn't the only one who got dominated by them.
Also went offensive Engineer on Gold Rush (being Engie on Gold Rush is still pretty weird for me since the map is so new), mainly to get those telporters up, because damn they make a difference. And while I was taking care of teleporting people to the front lines, I also experimented and tried to get down some sentries. Offensive sentries are almost always unexpected, which is great, and if they work, they can really stop defense from pushing us back.

But my greatest offensive Engineer moments were on Granary. I haven't played much as Engineer on Granary, because I find it really hard to build a sentry that would LAST for longer than a few minutes. There are no really good sentry locations, which naturally makes it great for some really creative Engineering. So my team is dominating, so I know to put my teleporter entrance down next to our SECOND respawn point instead of the base spawn, because I know we're going to cap the middle point anyhow. After the setup I wait for a moment, and then sneak in and try to get a sentry down right next to the point, to ensure our capture. After that I try to move it right outside the enemy warehouse capture point, to stop enemies from getting out of the warehouse and go capture the middle point back. You have no idea how many kills I got with those sentries. And I probably pissed off the enemy team to no end, he he. Sure, the sentries got taken down not long after the enemy learned about them, but it still makes me happy to get five odd kills with a sentry that no one saw coming. Also, I'm not very invested in those sentries, so once I get them down, I fuck off to do something else (for example, to lure enemies to my sentry, a huge hearty LOL at all the Pyros and Scouts who actually followed me and got shot, ha ha!), because the sentry IS going to die, and there's no use for me to tank it. Besides I usually get killed with my sentry, so if I'm not tanking it, I stay alive, and can get another sentry up somewhere else in a matter of seconds. I also don't upgrade them too much: if there's ammo supply close, I get them to level two and that's it.
Anyway, wherever it is that the sentry is, I put down my teleporter exit somewhere close by. After the warehouse point is capped, I move the teleporters accordingly, and try to put a sentry in the warehouse, to keep the enemies pinned near their base. I don't know how useful I was being, but at least I got a shitload of points from teleports. That's my main function as an offensive Engineer, after all: coming up with obscure sentry locations is just the "for fun" part.
And of course it would work much better if I didn't get shot to death by my own sentry all the time, but what can I say. I was drunk.



But anyway, not playing Engineer like I normally would definitely made it much more fun. Might have to do it more. Preferably while I'm sober and not as prone to dominate myself.

And ha, our little faggotry-filled Circlejerk group has our own server now. The name's MANTRAIN, so I'd really like to see the faces of my "normal" Steam friends once they see THAT on their Friends tab.

Well, that was easy

Look!


That was ridiculously easy.

Heh, I'm once again playing drunk.

I went Medic a few times, just to see if I could get any of the achievements. And it would seem that the Blutsauger is ridiculously easy to get. I got those twelve achievements without even trying. This far I have First Do No Harm (I had three other Medics in my team, but luckily they all sucked, so I got it pretty damn easily on Dustbowl), Quadruple Bypass, Group Health (without coordinating: like I told you, it would be easy to get, what with all servers being full of Medics), Surgical Prep, Trauma Queen (I have no idea how I got this, I don't even remember staying alive for three consecutive übers - yeah, I AM drunk), Double Blind Trial (easy as heck), Play Doctor (sheer luck, I changed to Medic in the middle of a match in Goldrush and got it just like that), Triage, Autoclave (apparently you don't have to kill five people, it's enough to just light them on fire, at least that's how I got it), Midwife Crisis (the first one I got, very easy), Bedside Manner (I was sneaky: I kept healing a Medic who just joined the server during the setup: he got Surgical Prep, I got this) and Chief of Staff.

So. I have a Blutsauger.

AWESOME.

And now I'll jump on a server for a moment to test my brand new pretty Blutsauger. <3 Didn't have time to actually test it, I'm keeping a cigarette break from playing. I'll try to get the rest of the achievements later. I really want to get the Kritzkrieg (got Kritzkrieged a few times today, again, and it was so GODDAMN AWESOME every single time. Fucking hell...). Slaverstrike already promised to help me to get it, so I'm looking forward to it.

BLUTSAUGER FUCK YEAH.

EDIT: I just got Ubi concordia, ibi victoria. WUT. I was sure that's one of the achievements that I wouldn't be getting in quite some time, but well, whaddaya know. I was steamrolling in Granary again (...why am I this good when I'm drunk, seriously?), got the achievement when I was capping the last point with a kickass Demoman. And I'm apparently already 50/200 through Grand Rounds.
Also, Second Opinion is indeed impossible to get. It's apparently very buggy, I've been trying to juggle my übers the whole night, but I still don't have the achievement.

Jesus Christ I RAGED last night in Dustbowl.
I was playing in RED, having tons of fun defending and healing people and pushing BLU back into their spawn in Stage Three. And then.
Autobalanced.
I RAGED because, well, I figured I'd end up being pushed back into spawn continuously because that's what RED was doing to BLU. Dominating like whoa. I even thought of going spectator until there's room in RED again, but I didn't want to be a spoilsport, so I just swallowed all the silly rage and started healing people I had been (assisting in) killing before. I'm a good Medic, dammit, I can tip the scales if I really try! We can win this shit!

Except that I don't ever remember having as broken a team. I think we had couple of AFK players, but seriously, I was up there, trying to heal another Medic, an odd Soldier and an Engineer. Those were the only fucking people I saw. And I went back to the spawn to find more people when everyone else died and no, there was no one there. And according to the scoreboard we had a full 12 player team.
Anyway, apparently all the "good" players had left after Stage Two (after all, BLU had got through the first two stages), and, well, I was on top of the scoreboard, and had twice as much points as the next player, 'nuff said.
So I RAGED again. And this time I was so angry that I actually yelled at them. I was just so fucking angry at being switched into such a sorry excuse for a team. Once again I wanted to switch to spectator and go back to my old team, I had friends there and we were doing so well and having fun and...
I don't know if my raging actually made them start working harder or what the hell happened, but suddenly there were a couple of Demos and a Heavy and we pushed the defenders back so that I could build my über without dying and not long after that we capped the first point. We never got the last one, but I actually had fun after the first cap. The team had miraculously pulled itself together! It was great! I felt sorry that I had raged and told the team that they were awesome after all. Because they were, after they regained their composure.
And yeah, I was doing very well for a change, in the end of the round I even had more points than the enemy team's highest scoring player (...and still almost twice as much as the rest of my team...) and yay, I don't actually remember ever being the one with the best score out of all players. I would've got the achievement out of that (except that I think I killed one Spy).
But yeah, this is just one more example how I should never switch back to my old team after autobalance. No matter how bad the things are looking, I can end up having more fun than I otherwise would've had.

I was also steamrolling with Slaverstrike on Well. Again. Look at us, topping the scoreboard.


Was awesome. So awesome. We make good team.

I also Engineered a bit on Dustbowl. Got myself a brand new best score, 18 points, and kills record too. 12 from a sentry, and two shotgun kills, those silly Spies. And I felt like a good person after seeing a comrade being blown into smithereens while his sentry was under über-Heavy fire, and rushing in and keeping the friendly sentry alive.
Also did some experimental engineering on 2fort (because that's what 2fort is for, I hate it so much). And I had this extremely silly Spy trying to cause me grief. Just ended up causing me to giggle uncontrollably. Damn idiot stabbed me TWICE when I was tanking behind my sentry. Well you know how that ended up. Not very well on the poor Spy's part. The first one I understand, because hey, it happens. But after the second time I was having hard time trying to recover from a giggle fit. And later on I dominated the poor sod, and of course did it very gracefully by getting shot to death by my own sentry at the same time. The Spy died from the same goddamn rocket, and I hear the pompous DOMINATION soundclip and see my sentry looking preeetty good (that's my baby <3). What's more, I got a defense out of it, because the Spy was carrying our intel. Nice combo. A kill, a domination, a defense, and yet another deathcam shot of my own sentry.

And actually, right now I'm hoping that the update won't come until the end of the week. Because I have lots of school stuff to do and I don't know if I have the guts to actually sacrifice our project for an insane Goldrush allnighter.
Don't fail me, Valve.

So, last night

I was looking through my TF2 screenshots and was pretty surprised to see that actually I've become quite a better Soldier during these few months. Of course it would be kinda sad if I hadn't learned anything (apart from rocketjumping), having those 54 hours of playtime as Soldier, but I couldn't actually remember being much worse Soldier than I am now. Not until I saw some scoreboard screenshots taken in the end of January, and remembering that oh yeah, I was the worst Soldier ever before I started getting hang of it in February.

And god did I lol.

Here, this is me as Soldier in 28th of January:


And this is me as Soldier last week:


See any difference? Haha. At least I compensate my (still pretty) insane amount of deaths with actually getting some kills.
That's a pathetic amount of destructions for me, btw, I usually have more than ten when I'm Soldier. I really like to kill them sentries.
Also, I have no idea are those stats any good at all, but I think they're pretty good for me (I'd like to NOT get killed so much, but it would seem that every freaking class crits whenever they fire at me. Especially Scouts and Heavies. Pyros don't have to crit, since they kill me either way, but umm. And I'm suicidal and still making stupid mistakes which get me killed, and that's what proves that I'm not that good a Soldier). And look at it this way: I COULD BE DOING SO MUCH WORSE.

(Oh wow crappy JPEG compression.)

What Chrome did today in TF2, part who-knows.

I sucked in Dustbowl.
I hate sucking in Dustbowl because it's my favourite map and Soldier's one of my strong Dustbowl classes (along with Medic and Engineer), but today I just couldn't keep my act together. Or then I just should stop comparing myself to those monsters who top the scoreboard with 100-something points when I'm there in the middle with 40 and thinking that I must suck. :/ Kept capping a lot, though, especially on stage two. And it's almost a foolproof way to cap stage three's first point by rocket jumping on it. Or rocket jumping a bit to the left from it and just hanging out behind the point and firing at all the adorably oblivious Demos and Soldiers who have their backs turned to me.
And for the first time ever I was actually a part in capping the final point on stage three. I don't remember ever actually standing on that point.

Epic Gravel Pit.
I joined the server in the middle of the match, went BLU because they had a slot free, chose to play as Pyro, and found out my team had already capped A and there was seven people standing on cap B. Alrighty. I headed out to B, spotted a Spy and killed him, then hearing the announcer tell me that my team has received additional time, so I headed out to C instantly. Tried the right entrance first, but there were too many people and a first level sentry, so I returned and took the left one, dropped down from the ledge and started climbing up towards the point. The sentry at the right hurt me a bit at some point, but not too much, and I reached the top finding two Engineers and a dispenser huddled in the back of the cap area, so adorably defenseless. I killed them both, flamed the dispenser out of commission and I think some other RED people were rushing the point because I got two assists at some point. But the Engineers were dead and I capped the point with a Soldier who stumbled by.
Pretty good for ONE LIFE. :3

And for the first time ever a teleporter exit of mine stayed alive pretty damn well in 2fort. A teleporter exit that was in the enemy sewers (behind the little blind corner right below the staircase that leads to the sewers). Usually teleporter exits get killed pretty fast in 2fort, but I had to replace this one only twice during the game (it was out for maybe ten minutes in-between because I'm such a paranoid Engie that I don't want my sentry getting destroyed the very minute I decide to fuck off to drop the exit somewhere. So of course it got sapped just as I was returning from my perilous journey, damn it). Hell, the ENTRANCE got destroyed more often than the exit. :D

And then for some genuine BRAGGING.
There is magic in Granary. And I had a good day. Because after one round, which ended in our victory, I was the ultimate scoreboard leader with 19 points. The next one in my team had 10 points, as well as the enemy team's best scorer. And I died just twice (the first time it was an unexpected sentry close to the enemy's last cap point, and the second time I was charging for the last point and totally underestimated a Demoman. Unsurprisingly it usually proves to be my downfall). Had one darling Medic sticking to me while I was defending one of our points (Medics don't really stick to me, which I understand perfectly, because I'm simply a horrible Medic buddy. And I'll address this in the next paragraph) and I have him to thank of my score and staying alive so well. THANK YOU RANDOM MEDIC. You're not a maggot (like everyone else).


So yeah, a rant of sorts, about Chrome as a Medic buddy.
So like I said, I'm a horrible Medic buddy. I don't expect Medics to stick to me or give me their übers, I expect them to heal my ass when I ask and then leave me to get myself killed. I can't look after them (I have my hands full trying to keep myself alive, and I usually fail even with that), and I don't get that much kills, especially when I'm nervous about having a Medic and needing to fill their expectations about being relatively safe and getting some assist kills and maybe being even a bit useful to the team cause. If they über me, I start failing in EPIC proportions. And that is if I'm Soldier.
As a Pyro I prefer NOT having Medics around, because I'm a completely suicidal Pyro, and of course a Medic would help keep me alive for a bit longer when I'm circle-strafing a Heavy, but the point is that my Medic would more than likely get killed too, and I bet he has way better things to do than get killed because of one suicidal Pyro. I'm perfectly fine needing to fall back a bit and call for a Medic to get healed. I'm fast, I don't mind falling back.
And as a Pyro I don't completely fail with übers because I don't exactly have to AIM like when I'm a Soldier.
And I absolutely hate it when fully charged Medics don't communicate. Okay, not everyone has a mic, but a simple "Go! Go! Go!" voice command would suffice nicely. D: Even actions before giving the über help tremendously. I don't generally expect to get übered, so if some random Medic just suddenly sticks to me with a full charge and hits it when I'm in the middle of a reload and falling back, don't fucking expect me to actually get something done! Heal me for a while first so that I can actually see that you have an über, and for fuck's sake would you look at me, I'm reloading. Or if I'm suddenly falling back from the front lines, it probably means that I'm going to get more ammo. Don't über me when I do that! I understand if we're being fired at, and the Medic has to pop the charge or die, but unexpected übers right out of the blue are probably my least favourite thing ever. :D
And another thing: if you stick with me with the full charge for some time and we're closing in to a CP or a sentry nest or whatever, I'm kinda expecting you're giving the über to me. I'm keeping myself loaded, and actually looking after you now.
And then you leave me for a Heavy or someone just when I go around that corner and prepare to shoot and kill and destroy. Then I notice that the fucking Medic left me half a second earlier for some fat Russian hussy, and die feeling bitter. THANKS. Please, tell me if you're going to do something like that. "If I see a Heavy I'll leave you," okay, then, that's fine.
And if you're switching, you need to TELL ME. I fucking hate to see that okay, I'm glowing, I need to go, and I go around that corner and there are sentries everywhere and a Heavy camping a dispenser and half a dozen of Soldiers and Demos and a Pyro running straight at me, just to see that I'm not glowing anymore and the Medic runs past me with a Demo or something. Ouch.
Medics are the one class that needs to communicate.

I remember one time I actually was a good Medic buddy. This was in CP Well, a Medic sticks to me and he's about to die, so I go totally out of my way so that he could get the medium medkit in the middle point building. I hope he appreciated that even a bit.

I am now forbidden to watch any more videos of Spy ownage. Because it makes me want to play as Spy and like we know, I'm a rotten Spy. It would just end in frustration.
But goddamn some people just make it look so effortless. And nothing pisses me off quite as well as a good Spy. Nothing elicits my utmost respect like a good Spy.
Maybe I'll one day get rid of my inhibitions and actually have a Strictly Spy day and try to learn to play as one.

New experience: got drunk last Friday and played for a few hours. Looked through my screenshots later and went all "Oh, I don't even remember that one capture I did in Hydro... and I was an MVP too? Interesting!"
But the best was definitely the one cap in Gravel Pit: I once again managed to jump on top of cap C, and I just stood there, chilling and capping the point by myself. I don't know what the hell REDs were doing. Oh hey, you just lost to a drunk girl, how does that make you feel?
But yeah, while I didn't suck much as a drunk Soldier (I sucked about as much as I usually do, so), Engineering was a total disaster, at one point I didn't even notice that my own sentry was shooting me. Not until I was dead and got a nice deathcam shot of my own sentry looking good. Whoops?

And what comes to rocket jumping, I rarely fail nowadays. Easier jumps I do almost always, and I absolutely LOVE the possibilities rocket jumping gives. One of my absolute favourite places to rocket jump is on Dustbowl Stage One cap A, when I'm playing in BLU. I wait for the initial defenses to go down (and, you know, usually help in taking them down), go through the narrow path behind the CP building and then jump right on the point.
Another one is on Stage One, cap B, when I'm defending. I rocket jump up to the ledge that leads to the tunnel with the one-way gate. The tunnel where BLU sometimes builds nice little bases and which swarms with Medics with near-full übercharges and other wonderfully oblivious enemies. If I do that right after BLU caps the first point, I can fight them off for quite some time (because there's a medkit and an ammo pack at the end of the tunnel and so I can just camp and shoot rockets at everyone coming at me). Did that last night and BLU got so annoyed they actually wasted an über to take me down. Tee hee.
I also tolerate 2fort once again because I can finally jump on the battlements (and own those goddamn Snipers) or better yet, through the small hole in the room with the grate floor.
And then I rocket jump to places just because I CAN, and that usually turns out to be my downfall, especially in Well. I jump on top of the train carts in enemy base's yard, forgetting that all the Snipers on their battlements then have a pretty damn clear sight at me. Thus I get headshot like right after doing the jump.
And yes, I've tried doing a jump when I have less than 40 HP left. Whoops?
But I absolutely love getting on top of things, because it seems like nobody ever looks up, and death from above is something they're not expecting.
Harder jumps do fail most of the time: getting on cap C in Gravel Pit is still a bit of hit-or-miss business for me (but it's actually harder to jump on the tiny hut from which I do the actual rocket jump, since there's usually lots of people around me, I'm nervous and the jump's difficult to time right. But once I get there, I usually nail the rocket jump itself as well), and getting on top of cap B building still takes a few tries.
What I'm wondering is that would it be possible to jump into the air duct in Granary? I mean the really, REALLY narrow little air duct that leads into the second floor of the warehouse control point. Yes, through the tiny little exit hole on the ceiling near the central point. I have to find out. Because doing that would be AWESOME, it would provide a route to the enemy base without being seen.
I figure it is possible, but very goddamn difficult. I mean, the hole is so tiny you'd have to stand in the exact right spot and even a tiny angle in the jump would ruin it.
YES, I NEED TO DO THIS. I will try it the next time I'm playing in Granary.

And I need to stop doing this:


It's just so bleeding hilarious. Although that was actually an accident, I don't know what the hell was I thinking, capping the damn point and TAUNTING when there's merciless battle going around (I don't think the sentries on the left were even taken down yet, because I remember sneaking or rocket jumping on the point while some übered Heavy was trying to take the sentries down. They draw the sentry fire, so I could easily sneak to the point without being shot). I taunt after caps if there are no enemies near (or it's a winning cap) but that one was just SUICIDAL.

Who's surprised to hear that Soldier's suddenly my most played class with almost 40 hours? That is SO wrong. I seriously need to play more as Medic.

Guys, guys, I actually rocket jumped on top of the cap B building in Gravel Pit today! It was AWESOME! We even had an Engie who knew how to get there via fucking around with dispensers and teleporters (I wanna do that too some day!), so there was a dispenser to provide ammo and health and it was awesome just camping there and shooting rockets and oh man. Too bad the attacking team never even made it inside the building, I would've LOVED to fire some rockets from the windows, because I know how much I hate it when there's a Soldier or a Demo on top of the building while I'm trying to cap the point.

Look at me standing there, all proud and stuff (wasn't an MVP, not by a long shot, didn't actually do much killing from there, but at least I GOT THERE YAY and kept some Snipers in check):


Did lots of rocket jumping today since I've finally learned how to do it. I even learned to do these huge leaps that are both high and long, makes traveling longer distances oh so much easier. Had to jump over trains in Well just because I CAN and then spend good time screaming for Medic. Yeah, my jumps still botch like 1/4 of the time, but most of the time I get where I'm trying to go!
For the record, the jump that got me on top of the cap B building was maybe fifth or sixth try and I was all fucking hell I can't even have any fun since I'm soon out of ammo. Fortunately there was already an Engie running around and building a dispenser. Lucky me.

Apart from learning to rocket jump I played a lot as Engineer today. Even got to be one in Dustbowl Stage Three when I was in RED! I have always wanted to do that! We didn't have but one Engie when the round started (I had been a Soldier on Stages One and Two), so I was like YES I'M GONNA BE ONE! Got four dominations during that round and kept my sentry alive pretty nicely considering how spammy the last capture point area gets.
And I only get fun out of 2fort by going Engineer and not taking the whole thing very seriously. You can find me there camping the ramp room, dominating Scouts and Spies, running around our base shooting at people (killing Medics) and trying to sneak into enemy territory every once in a while to get down a teleporter exit (I have serious Engineering ADHD: I always build the entrance, and then I just kinda forget about the exit. Most of the time I don't find a good-enough place for one, though: in CTF maps the exits get destroyed pretty fast and I hate doing the stupid long trek every few minutes just to make a teleporter exit. I hate leaving my other building unguarded when I know there are Spies around. I'm a territorial Engie, yes I am).

I was also a train magnet today. Embarrassing.

Today I got transferred from BLU to RED in Dustbowl RIGHT after we had capped Stage Two cap A. Seriously, I even capped the goddamned thing, (nothing's better than capping a point while taunting, take it from me), and then I start advancing towards cap B and bam, I die, and then I'm in RED. Goddamn autobalance. I always get switched to the losing team. Boo hoo.
But it turned out pretty okay after all: capping Stage One had been ridiculously easy, but we really put out a fight on Stage Two cap B. I got a few dominations and was topping the scoreboard - again - and we were doing really well (I was Soldier, btw), until one lucky push from BLU got through. But we managed to stop them completely on Stage Three cap A. I've actually NEVER seen cap A NOT being capped, it was strange. We practically spawn-raped them (I really dislike going into attacking team's spawn, I guess I'm that much of a jovial player. I think it's pretty low to kill someone just when they get out of their spawn, so I find myself NOT going there even though I have the chance. Besides, I like the challenge and hectic battles MORE than getting easy kills, so I much rather let the enemies come out and play where it's room to do so and they except me to attack them. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate spawn campers? It's the single most annoying thing that can happen. I won't do it even if I had the chance. I won't build sentries right outside enemy spawn because I think that's fucking cheap and takes fun out of the game. Because it's always frustrating to others), they couldn't form even a single good push to try to take the point. Yay for us!

And I need to have a Strictly Medic day soon. I rarely ever play as Medic anymore, and I feel bad for deserting Medic for easy frags and camping in one spot all carefree.
I went Medic in CP Well today, though. And had my best melée only Sudden Death yet. Managed to avoid getting killed during the primary brawl close to our second CP (I'm really bad at melée with the bonesaw) and advanced to the third cap with a Heavy. An enemy Spy botched a backstab (btw, I got facestabbed TWICE today, wtf. It's never happened before! I'm all "you're a buncha loonies!" when I read people complaining about facestabs happening, because it's never happened to me, but hey, whaddaya know, it apparently does happen! And it's fucking annoying to stare a Spy in the eye and yet get killed by a backstab) and disappeared somewhere while we capped the point and went to cap the fourth. We capped it and I saw a friendly Engie run in just as I started for the last point. Heard the Heavy scream and went all OHSHI- we're gonna lose, I'm the only one left EVERYONE'S LOOKING AT ME and I can't kill anyone with the bonesaw and the only enemy left is A SPY OH MY GOD IT'S INVISIBLE AND CAN KILL ME WITH ONE HIT OH MY GOD. D:
So I kinda panicked, but kept running for the last point, turning around and checking behind me like a lunatic because OH MY GOD THE SPY. Luckily the Spy was running low on cloak, so he couldn't sneak behind me and I was making it sure he couldn't get behind my back. So we just ran in circles (and I kept falling down from the cap area because I was so goddamn nervous), waving our weapons and trying to kill each other. And he was trying to stand on the point to stop me from capping it.
But because bonesaw is superior to the knife I actually killed the Spy at some point and ensured our victory.


I was SHAKING for minutes after it, it had been INTENSE. :D

GG-ing

Guys, guys, I actually rocket-jumped to Cap C in Gravel Pit today! It was awesome! We were about to cap the thing, but defenders killed whoever was trying to cap it, and I was just coming from Cap B and thought "OKAY THEN, I'm gonna try to jump up there and rain some doom on them and cap it, and if it fails, I'll take it like a man!" and I jumped on the hut and fired a rocket and I DID IT.
Best part: we capped the point immediately and it was awesome.
Look, a screenshot:



And do you know what happened right after I took the screenshot? What always happens if I capture C in Gravel Pit?
I accidentally fell down and killed myself.
Funny thing: it's happened every single time I've capped C. Bad karma.

Apart from that Gravel Pit match I had a rather bad day today, I pretty much sucked continuously. Even my Pyro runs in Hydro weren't as successful as usually (should've kept my mouth shut about being unstoppable, yeah, I know...). Spent quite some time as Engineer, turtling around in 2fort, Well and Granary. But at least I also tried being Engineer in Dustbowl. In BLU. We would've got so spawn-raped on Stage Two if I hadn't put my sentry up in the dugout. Damn Pyros were trying to come through all the time.
Also, my "our team must really suck if I'm on top of the scoreboard as a Soldier!" isn't a good measuring stick anymore, I suppose. Because yesterday our team was AWESOMESAUCE in Dustbowl (we won 6-5), and I was third on scoreboard. As a Soldier. With 80 points. So, yeah. I think I'll just stop comparing myself to others, it's a Team Fortress after all.
(But like I've said, I like thinking that I'm not THAT bad a player sometimes. Being on top of the scoreboard really helps.)
And I think I have to find some nice 24/7 Hydro and Dustbowl servers, because I'm so in love with both of those maps. All the others I'm getting rather bored of. Most of the time I can't stand 2fort, I hate both Wells, Granary and Badlands are slowly getting repetitive and boring and I've NEVER really liked Gravel Pit (it's fun, but somehow I just really... I can't explain it. There's something I just don't like about Gravel Pit. I go all "oh man..." whenever it comes up in map rotation, but usually I just suck it up and find myself having fun, so...). Dustbowl is ALWAYS awesome and like I've told you, I just love Hydro.

And oh yeah! GG, VALVE #2

And specifically, "Fixed critical modifier for explosive weapons (rockets, pipe bombs) increasing critical chance more than intended"

I didn't actually even notice any reduction in the amount of crits that I got today when I was Soldier. Same old lucky crits as always.

EDIT: Oh yeah, just remembered how I got one of the most insane kills ever. So, yeah, I once killed a cloaked Spy with a rocket (...back when I was still spamming like crazy. Oh, those were the good old days...), and I was really surprised when bloody body parts exploded out of nowhere.
But today I killed a cloaked Spy with the wrench. And I wasn't even close to my sentry at the time! (It's not that crazy to kill a cloaked Spy with the wrench if there's sappin' going on and you're waving the wrench at your sentry anyhow). Granted, I knew there was a Spy around, I saw him cloaking nearby, so I just started backing away back to my sentry (this happened in 2fort, I was in the lobby when I saw the Spy, and I started backing towards the ramp room), waving my wrench. And then suddenly my wrench connected with something and a BLU Spy just plopped down, dead. Was pretty awesome.

The Story of Unlikely Comradeship

So, Goldrush, anyone?
I can't WAIT. The map looks awesome and I'm curious as to how the new game mode will work.

The paged pool memory problems are there, and then they're... not. I don't mind, though, I played for five hours yesterday without the game crashing. And now I have an interesting Engineer story to tell.
So, everyone knows that a Pyro is an Engineer's best friend if there's a serious Spy infestation. Have the Pyro stand around and flame everyone who comes close to the sentry. It works wonders.
But yesterday I had the most unlikely Engineer buddy ever.

A Spy.

No, really. I was once again camping it out in enemy sewers on 2fort, because I like it there. I can pull off a pretty solid defense there, and a forward sentry like that really helps with offense. We were pretty much dominating the enemies. And usually the pissed-off enemies start concentrating on trying to take my little base down instead of trying to cap our intel and since I can pretty much pull it off by myself there for some time, our team can concentrate on capping the enemy intel and hello, glorious victory.
But anyway. The enemies were slowly starting to get pretty annoyed at having a sentry in their sewers, so Spies of course kept coming in and trying to take the sentry down. And I was pretty much prepared for them. Silly Spies, don't disguise as an Engineer if I'M the only Engineer in our team (wow, no Engineer infestation on 2fort, this is unheard of! Everyone went Sniper amirite?) and you're about to attack ME. When I see another Engineer running at me, I know it's definitely a Spy and can wrench them in the face before they get to do any sappin'.
So, Spies were coming in in a steady flow and I was getting pretty annoyed at them because I kept losing my dispenser. So, one of our Spies stumbles by and stays to camp by my dispenser. I pay no mind to him really, because, well, why would I?
Then an enemy Spy comes in, all inconspicuous (disguised as me), and starts sappin' mah buildings.
And our Spy just steps out and coldly stabs the disguised enemy Spy in the back while he's busy taking down my buildings.
That was kinda very cool.
So, the friendly Spy stays around, I kinda start wondering why's he camping here, shouldn't he be somewhere capping the intel and backstabbing people, and then another enemy Spy comes in, cue sappin'.
And our Spy once again proceeds to stabbing the enemy Spy in the back.

At that point I went "I love you, Spy."

That is... when you think about it, it WORKS. None of the enemy Spies paid NO MIND whatsoever to the Spy standing there, because they were so bent on getting rid of my sentry and me, and they know that once the sentry's being sapped, I'm too busy trying to save it to attack them (which is not the case, because if the Spy is standing right next to me, I have plenty of time to wrench him in the face and then go save my sentry). They didn't probably even recognise the backstabbing threat.
And because backstab is a one hit kill, the enemy Spy doesn't even have a chance to backstab me in panic.
Surely it probably doesn't work in every situation, but the point is that I don't think anyone's ever thought about having a Spy stand guard on sentries. And yeah, Spies probably have better things to do than stand guard on sentries, but in case they don't... it all depends on situation.

From now on, I want to have my own Spy whenever I'm an Engineer. And to think how much I used to loathe Spies when I play as an Engie...

I also found it kinda cute that when the enemy team FINALLY took my base down and sent me to respawn, I saw the Pyro who had done it declare in chat that "IT'S FINALLY DOWN!" and I went completely awww, glad to be of annoyance. :3 Made my day, really. Nothing's better than being a serious thorn in enemies' side.

And lookie, wrenchan gaems!



It's funny how much melée kills I get as an Engineer. Hee. The Spy managed to sap my sentry, but in return he got wrenched to death. The same destiny awaited the Soldier who rushed in, all giddy about not being torn into shreds by my sentry, and tried to obliterate me. Aww, I'm so sorry, poor Solly, but that's not the way it goes.

Also, I now have Heavy included in Head of the Class, so I'm 8/9 through, and I have NO IDEA which class I'm missing. Le sigh. I have a feeling it's Spy. Well at least that gives me an excuse to force myself to play more as a Spy.
And if it's not Spy, it's Demoman, and that's the worst case scenario.

Ahahaha oh wow.

Okay, the most epic shit ever. This is SO wrong on SO many different levels, and therefore it's awesome:

We were playing in Hydro. I was in BLU, Ville was in RED. I was an Engineer, he was a Pyro.
And I killed him.
With the wrench.
While a Medic was backing me up.

I mean what the fucking hell was that. :D First of all, Ville has a tendency to Dominate me when he's playing against me. I suck with all melée weapons. And a Medic + meléeing Engineer is one of the most absurd combos there can be.

I had awesome times as Engineer just now. Figured out a PERFECT place for a sentry in CTF_Well. Even Spies stood no chance and I was topping the scoreboard for a while. Dominated one silly Spy, and almost got killed really embarrassingly by the same Spy. I was there, next to my sentry, taunting with Ville, who was also an Engineer. And while the taunt animations played through I saw a goddamn CLOAKED SPY jump on my Dispenser and crouch there. Of course went all "OHSHI-" and just as the animation ended, the Spy tried to backstab me from above. End of his story.


Then I annoyed the enemy team in 2fort by camping it out in their sewers. Had a random emergency "OH MY GOD THEY'RE CAPPING THE POINT I NEED TO GET A SENTRY UP RIGHT NOW!" sentry chime in five kills in Granary. Goddamn, the poor little first level sentry was on the middle of the walkway with the huge tubes, next to our last cap. I was running down the walkway when enemies capped our second point, so I had to put the sentry down that instant or the last point would end up capped instantly, what with their insane Scout rushing.
Actually managed to fight them off for a little while. Was kinda awesome.
And I killed disturbingly much people with the wrench. Good.

And there was at one point a BLU Pyro with a name of Frank and I lol'd. Hardcore. It had to be one of our fags, because a coincidence like that just... isn't possible. That was a bit disturbing.

This is what you should expect from now on...

I'm still chickening out of playing Heavy. I'm one class away from Head of the Class achievement, and incidentally that one class is Heavy. Everything in Heavy just puts me off, the speed most of all (I love Soldier, but I'm still sometimes getting frustrated because he's so goddamn slow), and I think even the one round as one will be embarrassing torture for me. Especially if some poor Medic decides to stick to me. Medic's my mostly played class (with 30 hours), and I know noobish Heavies can be the most tedious of them all: chewing through their ammo without hitting anyone, not realising to pick up ammo whenever possible and then having to resort to shotgun when enemies are all over us and thinking they're bulletproof when I'm healing them, thus rushing into a sentry-infested enemy base with some insane kamikaze mentality and then getting angry at me because I didn't heal them.
And I'm quite sure I'd be one of those Heavies.
But it's only a round. Hey, I only had to play as a Demoman for about six minutes before the enemy captured our intelligence four times! Maybe I'll get just as lucky with Heavy!

And yes, before you ask: I'm not a very good player. Not outright BAD, but... maybe not even average. Also depends on the class. I think I'm a fairly good Medic, an average Pyro and Engineer, and a tolerable Soldier (when I'm having a good day) and Sniper. And I'm an absolutely appalling Scout and Demo. As a Spy I'm... I just don't know.
I'd like to play as Spy more. I even said to Ville (my only irl TF2 buddy) before starting to play today that I'd try out Spy. And I went out as a Spy when CP_Well came up.
And I absolutely sucked.
So I changed back to Soldier.
Goddamn Spy is so hard to nail down! I've had some good moments as a Spy, but most of the time enemies seem to see right through me, I fail to sap any buildings, and even botch backstabs on Heavies who're standing still. I don't know how that's even possible. :D Yeah, Spy's one of the hardest classes to master and I shouldn't expect to do well as a Spy after 45 minutes of playtime, but what bothers me is that I'm SO bad that I'm contributing absolutely nothing to my team.
I think I should just stick with Spy and not give up on it after few deaths, thinking it's useless. And only if my team starts whining about my uselessness, that's when I switch back to a class I can play as.

I also don't understand why Soldier's my "it doesn't matter if I suck, this is so much fun!" class. Like I said, I'm only a tolerable Soldier, and that's when I'm having a good day (or I'm playing in Granary. Seriously, there's magic in Granary. Magic that draws all the enemies to where I'm firing my rockets. Especially when it's a crit. It makes no sense that in Granary I'm actually a pretty good Soldier, and then in every other map I just seem to suck). But I like being a Soldier so much that I don't even care. With every other class I change to some other class when I'm having a horrible "get out of respawn, run to the battle, fire a few useless rounds, die" streak.
It doesn't even matter that I can't do rocket jumps! No, really, I can't seem to time the damn jumps at all. It was the best day EVER as a Soldier when I actually managed to jump into BLU's respawn hallways in Gravel Pit cap B (on a first try no less!) and kill a Medic with a full charge before he had the time to hit it.
And I don't mind that I can't do it properly, Soldier's still fun.
And now while I'm at it, here's more examples to make it absolutely clear how bad a Soldier I am: Pyros are my worst enemies. No, seriously. Out of all nine classes Pyros rape me like no other. BAD Pyros, even! Because only the suicidal (or noobish) ones would actually run right at a Soldier from a distance rather than trying to ambush one from behind. And those kill me so properly it's INSANE! Now it's even worse because I have this fear of Pyros and if I see one coming at me I totally lose my shit. :D I try to aim rockets at their feet when they're zigzagging towards me and I never hit and I'm on fire and panicking and backing off and then I'm dead.
So I'm the Soldier who's afraid of Pyros, and can't rocket jump.
And it's still fun!

So I had some usual sucky runs as a Soldier today. It was thanks to me we won a match in CP_Well, though: the enemy had two sentries up on their second cap, and I single-handedly took those down. I died (probably batted to death from behind by some Scout), but teammates capped the cleared point, and a few seconds later the last one. Whoo!
And why is it always me who ends up capturing enemy intel when I have like 40 health left? What happened to teamwork?
And what IS it with these aggressive Snipers suddenly?! Seriously, I had a Sniper dominate me in 2fort at one point. Yeah, I know, not that unusual, I was a Soldier, sure I'm an easy slow-moving target for Snipers... except that the fucker never shot me with his rifle. He was dominating me with the kukri and SMG. That was one of the most embarrassing moments in my life as a Soldier. Luckily I eventually got revenge on him, but still. Goddamn.
And today I had another Sniper come at me with his kukri and melée me to death. WTF! Snipers should stay in kitchen? on battlements at their endless Who's Got a Bigger Sniper Penis battles with enemy Snipers!
No, to be serious, my hat goes off to those Snipers. Glad to see some Snipers doing something else than camping the battlements in 2fort.

I did some ownage as a Pyro today, thankfully (and now, no laughing at my crappy graphics):



I have no idea how that happened (did our team suck?). Insane amount of deaths, wow (and I usually get more kills than assists, that's a lot of assists for me). That's what you get for doing suicide attacks as a Pyro. But I did a really cool capture with Ville (Slaverstrike there) when he was a Medic. Yay us!
...whoa, I just had an idea. If I could talk Ville into being a Medic when I go as a Heavy... maybe it wouldn't be so horrible then. It'd be horrible for Ville, though. :D But worth the try! I can tell him he can just ignore me and change the class if I'm beyond horrible.
Anyway. Hydro is my Pyro map. I LOVE Hydro (people don't really seem to like Hydro and I can't understand why! Hydro's one of my favourite maps, I think only Dustbowl is more fun for me. And Badlands, but that's probably only because it's new) and I always go Pyro in Hydro. I love the ambush possibilities in Hydro, and all the narrow caves and hallways and everything make it perfect for some serious raping. <3 And I don't seem to be that bad a Pyro in Hydro, so at least it works for me. I don't do much capping in Hydro, since I'm a very defensive Pyro (I'm kind of lost as an offensive Pyro, I would never go as a Pyro in Dustbowl or Gravel Pit when playing in BLU).

Also had the awesomest thing happen when playing in 2fort. It's only awesome if you're in the team that does, though. Sneaky Engineers! Too bad we just won, I would've loved to camp it out there and see how desperate the enemy team would get. Tee hee.
No, really, that's really fucking annoying thing to do. But fun, nevertheless, in moderation.
I absolutely hate it when enemy builds their sentries in my team's base, whatever the map. I had one Engineer giving me grey hairs in CTF_Well at one point, fucker was trying to build sentries on our sniper deck. Gladly I ran in while he was at it and could at least inform my team before our base was swarming with enemies.
Thankfully spawn camping is seriously frowned upon and happens practically never, because that's annoying as hell.

Might play a couple of rounds more before heading to bed. Gonna have a loooong day tomorrow.