Update about the Scout update #3

I love it when Valve basically reveal three things in one update.

Pay note to the background image: the new game mode will clearly be some sort of Payload race, since there are two cart tracks, one in red and one in blue. Intriguing! I'm definitely looking forward to hearing more about it, the idea definitely sounds fun, at least it's not about the same old attack-defense mechanic.
And the second one: that is not the Scattergun the Scout's holding in the image. It looks similar at first glance, but if you look closer, you can see that it's not the same, it's missing the round chamber of Scattergun, and it looks shorter. It rather looks like a regular sawed-off shotgun. AND when you check out the achievements, there's "Fall Classic" which sports some kind of a buzzsaw in its image. OH I WONDER...

ILU Valve.

Scout unlockables? Curious about the mechanics of the Sandman, will probably start using it (if I ever manage to get it, that is. I'm not the greatest Scout, so getting the achievements might be a bit trickier than with other classes) because I'm not a very jumpy Scout anyhow, and the Energy Drink seems interesting as well. I kinda dislike the pistol since it's got so ridiculously low ammo, but I use it a lot to finish off enemies out of Scattergun range and - naturally - take potshots at distant sentries, so I don't know if I want to replace it. And if a sawed-off shotgun replaces Scattergun I'm extremely curious to hear about its tradeoff, since Scattergun is basically a sawed-off shotgun: both are defined by the larger spread. It also bothers me that they would look so similar, and Valve's been careful to make the unlockable weapons look different from the regular ones. Maybe it IS the Scattergun in the image, idk, I just can't see the round chamber no matter how I look at it.
Conjecture, conjecture, we'll see once it's officially revealed.

And I love the subtle slap on the wrist of all exploiters: see the Announcer's post on the official TF2 blog. There are so many reasons to go "ILU Valve" right now.

\o/!

Hee hee, it would appear that Valve is giving me quite a nice birthday present.

Yes, my birthday is next Tuesday. Maybe getting old won't feel so terrible when I can get on server and kill some Scouts. (And then Valve Time comes in and the update doesn't come out till Wednesday and then I can say that Valve ruined my birthday, haha).
And this blog has its first anniversary next Monday, so this all is coming together quite nicely!

I have a bigger entry in the works, mostly about Bioshock and TF2 custom maps (and I'll probably address the Scout unlockables and everything else the update will be bringing too), but this will do for now. Just hang on.

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.

Insert a witty title here

Well, there's always the first time for everything, I guess. I was just playing a match of L4D with a bunch of my Esa friends, when some random guy playing with us asked if we were up for a friendly clan match after the game.
Well, I, for one, couldn't stop laughing at that, although it's understandable to mistake us for a clan. We do wear a tag after all.
So we told him that we're not actually a clan, but if they really want to, we might be up for a game. Too bad only Cedox, Slaverstrike and I were actually online and willing to play, so in he end we had mixed teams with the guys from the other clan.
And I have to say it was one of best, if not THE best game of L4D I've ever played with complete strangers. No one did anything stupid (and no one whined about anything!), the teamwork was excellent on both teams, and the teams were evenly matched (my team won with a hundred points or so in the end). I had lots of fun! Now I'm hoping they would like to play another game some other time, so that we may even get a full Esa team going. Which shouldn't be difficult since there are at least nine or ten Esas at the moment (dammit we could even START a clan, we definitely have enough players, and I don't think we're even that bad. Well, we still can't seem to finish campaigns on expert, so we do fail a bit, haha).
So much for my slight prejudice for clan players, haha.

So, Esas played an unofficial friendly clan match. That's pretty ... far out.

Left 4 Dead is still awesome, although I'm starting to have a serious beef with the melee defense in versus. It needs to be nerfed in one way or the other, I think it would be enough to make it so that it doesn't do damage. Because I'm really fucking sick of trying to jump people as a Hunter, and just getting shoved around a few times and dying FROM IT. And I think it's a perfectly good defensive measure, I mean, it doesn't piss me off to get shoved off, since it's my own damn fault for being obvious enough trying to jump someone when they see me coming, but dying from it? That's too much.
Not even mentioning the infamous corner defenses. Making the melee NOT do damage would reduce the shoving to a mere temporary solution, for clearing way or fending off attacks, which I think it's supposed to be. Now it's the perfect attack against hordes and special infected since they take damage and eventually die if they're being pushed around long enough. I know, we just did it in No Mercy's fourth chapter, during the elevator faceoff. It's lame, I felt bad for doing it, but at least now I know how fucking impossible such defense it is to break, and I know not to do it anymore. It takes the fun out of the game (since I don't really care about winning as much as I care about playing a fair game and having fun). Slaver was cursing at me from his room after we did it, telling me we're complete fucking assholes for doing that shit. Yeah, I know.
Another problem I think should be addressed at some point, is the spawning of Tanks in versus. Because it's fucking unfair when one team gets the tank right at the beginning of the map, and the other team by the end of it. And since Tank IS such a huge tideturner (though it naturally depends on player skills and teamwork too), and if the teams are evenly matched, or the other team is clearly steamrolling, it's very, very unfair if the other team gets the Tank right away. So maybe synchronize the spawning in some way? I don't know. And no, they shouldn't come in the very same place for both teams, because that's unfair too since the other team can then expect it, but ... I don't know. I just think something must be done. I'm tired of hearing the whining it causes, and I'm tired of feeling cheated on by it.

I haven't been writing here for a while, I don't exactly know why. I've been playing lots of Fallout (clocked over 100 hours with Gabrielle, and still there's so much to do! Also started another game with another character, who strives to be good instead of ending up as the Scourge of Humanity). Then I had this irresistible urge to play Kingdom Hearts 2 (I know!) and spent 30 hours with a PS2 controller glued to my hands. And say what you want, but I like that game! It's fun to play.
I also bought Bioshock from the Steam Christmas sale (only five euros for a game like that was almost ridiculous! I had to get it), and I should play that one too.

And I'm finally getting back to playing Team Fortress 2 after a few months of hardly playing it at all. And I've been playing as a Sniper. Which is pretty ... yeah. I'm pretty bad at it, but at least I've gotten a lot better! I came very close to breaking the damage record my little brother did back in the day, and I was even an MVP the other day! That was pretty unbelievable, but you'll understand once I tell you that the enemy team had about four Snipers, and all of them were amusingly bad. I had three of them aiming at me in a nice line, and I headshot all of them one by one, so yeah. They were horrible. And thanks to them, I got enough points in one round to be an MVP. I often get owned by enemy Snipers, but every now and then there's a Sniper who's even worse than I am, and I can usually get a domination on them.

I've also gone from Chrome to being Kromi, which is basically the same thing. Since kromi means chrome in Finnish. And at least there are not that many Kromis running around (not that anyone can mistake me for someone else anymore since I wear a tag these days. Dammit, and it wasn't even a long ago I ranted about not wanting to wear a tag. Oh how fickle I am).
Also it's pretty funny when people pronounce it in English.
Where does the nick Chrome come from anyhow? You see, back in last January when I was considering starting to play TF2, I was actually horrified of playing with strangers, and embarrassed because I had never played an online FPS before. So instead of using the nick I usually go by (Katastrophe), I wanted a new nick so that no one would know it's actually me. Yeah, lol. Zeromancer's Chrome Bitch was one of my favourite songs back then, so I figured that it was a good as name as any (and for the first few days I went by the whole title, dropping the Bitch at some point). And I was planning to go back to Katastrophe once I got comfortable enough with the game. Well, I never did, since Chrome kinda grew on me.

Oh yeah, I'm an obsessive-compulsive screenshot-taker in Fallout 3, so in case you're interested about the first part of Gabrielle's great journey in the Capitol Wasteland, you can read it here. I have another part coming up, since that just basically covers the main quest, and I've had many silly adventures after that.

Bonk v. 2

What the hell.

So, a few months ago I told you how I picked up the Demoman one night, after half a year of going all "oh I'm a terrible Demo, I can't play as Demo, it's so difficult," and finding myself sucking NOT as badly as I thought I would suck, and actually thinking that it's lots of fun.
And Demoman's been my most played class during these couple of months (I've clocked over 30 hours as a Demo since July), and sometimes I think I'm not even half-bad at it. At least I've learned the tips and tricks to it.
And after finally picking up the Demo, there were only two classes that I simply don't play as. Because I suck so bad. And those classes were Spy and Scout.

And you know what?

Tonight the exact same thing that happened with Demo back then, happened with Scout. My team was getting our collective ass handed to us in Gravel Pit, I decided to fuck it and go Scout (which is what I usually do when I get annoyed enough, for some strange masochistic reason).
And despite getting our asses kicked and being in a goddamn horrible team, I was actually having fun. As a Scout. Playing seriously instead of just running around the bat in hand and trying to bat some heads in. And doing what a BLU Scout should do in Gravel Pit: cap.
And I wasn't doing as bad as I usually do as a Scout. I got at least one kill in one life, which is of course bad, but way more than I usually get, and I was there when we capped A and B. I even dominated some poor Spy, and that's definitely something I've NEVER done as a Scout before. And like I told you, our team was kinda bad, and we were losing hard (and if I can accomplish more as a Scout than I did as a Soldier or Demo - and I did play as those before going Scout - no one can possibly say that it was my fault we sucked).

I was surprised, and decided to try playing as Scout on some other map. Which happened to be Gold Rush. And I actually played an entire match in Gold Rush as a Scout. And... well.



Lol at having a Medic.
It definitely could've been worse! Sure it was lots of hanging back, taking potshots at enemies in the distance, and waiting for everyone else to take down sentries, but it was still pretty fun, and I did lots of capping. I even got a new most points record for Scout. It used to be a measly 6, now it's 10! Whoo! And not all of the points were captures!
Later on I tried playing as Scout on Steel as well, because I wanted to try and go to E at the start of the match. I didn't really accomplish much, but at least it works a bit as a distraction while rest of the team tries to cap A or B or whatever.
And still, I had fun. I'm really, really liking Scout's speed.

So, um, I think I might even start playing as a Scout, if it's of any use to my team. Sure I suck ass, but hey, same old song: you can't expect to get better at something if you never actually do it.

And now I'm just waiting when this shit happens with Spy. It would be awesome to be actually able to play ALL the classes.

Last night was also a strange achievement night. I got two Medic achievements (Doctor Assisted Homicide, which I would've gotten ages ago if all of my achievement progress bars hadn't gone back to zero at one point, and Medical Intervention), and three Pyro achievements (Makin' Bacon, Hot Potato and Pyrotechnics). Not that they would even count towards anything since I have all the unlockables already, but I would've finally got the Kritzkrieg if the Medic Milestones were still where they used to be.
And dammit, all I want are some Heavy achievements, I still don't have the Natascha.
And I came close to breaking my Medic point record on Dustbowl's first stage: I had 27 points (hadn't died even once during the round, so it was pretty easy to just check to scoreboard) and then I got headshot. Stupid fucking Snipers. If I had managed to stay alive for the minute and half that was still left of the round, I would've probably gotten at least 30. RRRRAGE.

And in other news, I finally clocked 100 hours as a Soldier. Yeah, damn you, Easy Mode. I was trying to hold back and play more as a Medic, but I just can't seem to quit Soldier.
Also my hours are fucking ridiculous (about 300 altogether?), I probably need a life.

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.

Well now.

Gosh, 3D modeling is one of those things I can't do for a very long time without having a breather. I'm working on a school project, I'm slowly losing my mind with wonky vertices and accidental tris (Mudbox hates tris, so I should try to get rid of them before importing my model from Max) and I'm trying to escape (or rather postpone) the necessity of working on them by blogging. Sweet, sweet procrastination... so, I need to come up with something to write about.

And I think I have just the thing...



As some of you know, I draw quite a lot. And I've drawn quite a lot of Team Fortress 2 fanart as well. You might've even seen some of my work. At least in the form of my Steam avatar ans the quickest little Engineer oekaki that I posted a few months ago.
So there, have some fanart. I think Demo's the only class I've actually never drawn before this, since most of the time I just draw Engineers and Medics and Spies, mostly because they're the easiest classes to draw.
I might post some new work here every now and then, to deviate a bit from all the babbling.

I haven't really been playing much of TF2 lately. Last time I played was Saturday night, in the early morning hours, and I was drunk off my ass after an intensive evening full of drinking, rocking and multitasking in Rock Band (it's quite fun to do two things if you know the song: Weezer's Say it Ain't So was pretty easy, even when I was singing AND playing the bass at the same time). It would seem that I'm starting to abuse the hell out of fake clan tags, after changing my name to [RAGE]Chrome after raging at something during a Ravine match. I can't even remember what was it that ticked me off, ahaha.
But RAGE is gotta be the best faux clan name ever. I might even start wearing it, except then people would assume that I am in some kind of cool-sounding clan.

And Caramelldansen is indeed the best background music for intensive Arena matches.

Also, you need to beware: me and Slaver "cheat" hardcore in Arena matches. Whenever I have to sit out or when I die before Slaver, I just spectate him, and keep an eye on his back, telling him if there's something behind him. And vice versa. Don't be trying any backstabbing shenanigans against either of us, haha.
Neighbours probably hate us already because we play in the middle of the night, and the yelling gets quite bad sometimes (I once woke up a friend who lives just below us, and she came to tell me to STFU on our IRC channel. Too bad I can't check IRC when I have TF2 open, so I never noticed. Whoops). I talk a lot when I play, even when I'm alone, but knowing that there's someone in the next room who can hear me cursing at other players and relate, there's nothing stopping me from actually doing it to my heart's content.
And it's bleeding fantastic to relay all kinds of information to each other. The Spy's a Pyro near our spawn? I'm on it. Someone's trying to sneak up on us from behind? Consider it done. Sentry to the left? Gotta remember that. I have an übercharge, get your ass in here so we can take those sentries down! Right-o!
It's making me want to play over LAN in the same room with a small group of friends. Guys on our class have showed some interest to play TF2, so we might have to see if we can organise a LAN party in our school during the next free weekend. It would be awesome.
...actually, that's a fucking great idea.

And why is Warpath such a terrible, terrible map? I've only heard good things about it (although now that I think about it, I might've missed the sarcasm...), so I was kinda excited about getting to play on it.
And then it sucked. It was ugly, the map is maybe a bit too large for a pretty regular CP map, and the second points are practically free. I mean, yeah, the middle point seems to cause some epic battling, but once it's capped, the second point would seem to get capped without a doubt, and after that it's just a fucking grind over the last point.
I'm never gonna go back there again.

And I'm three hours shy from 100 hours as Soldier. Goddammit, when did this happen. I think I'll just play Medic for the next twenty hours, it's okay to hit 100 hours as Medic. As Soldier it's just... no.
(Also, I have no life.)

Anyway, I think I better get back to modeling now.
And I surely hope that I'm not the only person who sees everything as polygons after spending a few hours in Max. Vertices, everywhere.
Real life has a fucking ridiculous polycount.
(Takes forever to render it.)

You are a loose cannon sandvich, but you are a damn good cop!

Lookie what I've got!



It did take a bit long (I've been mainly playing as a Heavy for a few nights now), but as you probably know, I'm not that good a Heavy. All thanks to Sonneteer who kept sticking to my ass (even when I'm munching away on my sandvich in respawn and while THE CART IS NEARING THE CHECKPOINT... yeah, I didn't notice anything, enthralled by my brand new beautiful sandvich, but apparently Sonny kept laughing until we got out: yeah, the cart is moving and I'm camping in respawn, all JUST ONE SANDVICH YOU GUYS THEN WE CAN GO) and helping me to get several of the achievements.
And having a darling Medic running to me with a full charge when I'm getting out of respawn after getting headshot... gotta love it.

And for fuck's sake, if a mediocre Heavy like me can get a bunch of achievements in a few hours, playing just like I normally would, anyone can. I understand if you want the unlockables NOW NOW RIGHT NOW I CAN'T WAIT, go ahead and farm, none of my business, but I fucking hate it when people whine about the achievements being too hard. And yeah, the idiots who come to a non-achievement-grinding server and run around boxing or trying to taunt... well, they're idiots. And they deserve their bans.
But it's possible to get most of the achievements - the 20 required for the unlockables - in regular gameplay without acting like an idiot. Why don't people understand that?
And yeah, I'm probably the only person who finds getting the achievements fun: farming them would take all the fun out of it. I don't even mind the unlockables being tied to the achievements. I don't mind that I don't have them from the get-go. Because getting them is not impossible.
Sure, getting the Spy unlockables would be impossible for me, but I don't play as the Spy, what the hell would I do with the Spy unlockables?
Jesus Christ, people are idiots.
Newsflash.

Besides, I'm learning some new tricks all the time while playing, and I don't think I've ever been a complete drag to my team while insisting to play as Heavy to get the achievements (and today I was an MVP several times, so it could be that in fact I might be even somewhat useful and learning something! Le gasp!). Sure I would be doing better as a Soldier or Medic or even a Demo, but hey, you can't expect to get better at playing as a certain class if you never actually play as that class.
So I'm slowly learning. And getting the achievements while I'm at it.

So, the Sandvich? Well now I know what I'll be doing during all the setups from now on. OM NOM NOMing away. I forget to use it in battle, and this far I've consumed a grand total of one sandvich when I actually needed some health. It's pretty useful, gotta admit. Especially since all Medics (except Sonny) hate me.
And it's pretty horrible to run out of Sasha ammo while you have the Sandvich equipped. Not that I've ever even killed anyone with the shotgun, but I feel much safer running to the closest ammo crate when I'm holding a boomstick INSTEAD OF FISTS. And running out of ammo while übered? Yeah, that's a whole different nightmare.
Also, I want to be able to hit people with the Sandvich! Come on, it would be epic!

And I'm probably getting Natascha after a few matches: while I don't have that many achievements yet, I have several that are just missing a few kills/captures/whatever. Party Loyalty is 46/50, Factory Worker 14/20, Soviet Union about 20/25... Pushkin the Cart, Lenin a Hand and Purge I'm also getting pretty soon.
And, yeah, I have (in addition to the five I already mentioned in some earlier post) Class Struggle, Stalin the Cart, Supreme Soviet, Own the Means of Production, Crock Block and Five Second Plan. And the first Milestone. So, four achievements and then Natasha will be mine.

I also have a new-found respect for Snipers. Because as a Heavy? Fuck I hate them.
I never thought I'd want a team with more than one Sniper, but the final checkpoint on Gold Rush? Yeah, I kinda wanted half of my team to go Sniper just to keep the three ominous figures standing there on the balcony in check, so that I could peek around the freaking corner without getting a bullet between my eyes.
Stupid fucking Snipers.

And today marks the first time ever, when as a Demoman, I didn't panic or get nervous at all when I was übered. We're on Dustbowl, attacking, the third stage just started, and a Medic with a full charge sticks to me right out of the blue, informing via voicechat that Chrome, we're now going to take down the sentries.
So I was like "OKAY!" and went there, and took the sentries out, all cool and calm and collected, and then we rushed the second point and won within fifteen seconds, I think. MVP, bitches.
That was awesome.
I've been playing a lot as a Demo, too, since Badwater is hella awesome for causing some serious sticky havoc. I'm even starting to like being an offensive Demo: I usually played Demo more on defense, since it's easy to just lay down the stickies on the point and camp nearby. Now I find myself going Demo on offense too, since I don't have to lay my stickies anywhere and I can use them as remote-controlled regular 'nades and I'm getting better at using them like that. THE MAYHEM. IT IS SWEET.

And now I'm forced to take a little tiny break from playing: real life insists on interfering. But at least from next week onward I'll be sharing an apartment with another TF2 player, and we'll just see how deadly a pair me and Slaverstrike can make once we can actually communicate. That is, yell from one room to another. I'm definitely looking forward to it, haha.

Here I go!

Whoa, this took longer than I thought. Besides, been playing. Haha. So I'll just cut to the chase.
(I wish I could play on better graphics and post some screenshots: now this is just a wall of text.)

The Heavy unlockables

No, I haven't played much as Heavy (my FPS, and so forth and so forth, but I did pick it up at some point just to try it out a bit), but I have seen the unlockable weapons used in game. I still don't have much to say about them, so:
- The OM NOM NOM sound he makes while eating is priceless.
- Natasha sounds so fine! I really like the revving sound she makes while spun-up, and the firing sound is deliciously... hnngh. It's like Pulse Rifle from HL2: I love the sound it makes while firing. Sounds like it HURTS.

It took me a while to even notice when I was hit by Natasha. Random hits are barely noticeable since the slowdown doesn't last for very long, but when you're face-to-face with a Heavy and getting hit continuously while trying to make a getaway? Yeah, you're pretty much dead.

But yeah, I saw lots of unlockable weapons around already: about two hours after the update people were starting to show up with Natashas and KGBs and Sandviches. Hmph, farmers.
KGB I didn't see used in battle even once (ie. didn't get punched by it. I did saw Heavies running around with it), but I caught several Heavies with their pants down noming on their Sandviches. Easy to locate by the sound they make, easy to dispose of. Since they're usually on low health if they ARE eating.
But issocute.

And Meet the Sandvich was hella funny, even if it wasn't much more than a sandvich in a fridge. The voice acting makes the film, Soldier and Scout are... fuck, they're awesome. :D Scout's OHGODOHGODOHGOD YOU PUNCHED MY BLOOD OUT and his very manly scream in the end... and Soldier's usual "YOU CALL THAT BREAKING A SPINE?!" attitude... oh man, I love Solly.
And Scout abuse just makes me giggle uncontrollably (he had it COMING stupid Scout).

Anyway, I played about half an hour as a Heavy (when I noticed that my team didn't have any in Fastlane) and this far I have five achievements (Iron Kurtain, Red Oktoberfest, Rasputin, Communist Mani-Fisto and Marxman), so at least they aren't too difficult to get. No need to farm. :P

Badwater Basin

I like it. Very much. The map is huge, has lots of variation and as a Soldier and Demo I'm loving the higher ground (my big nerd moment: standing there on top of the cliffs near BLU's first respawn, going "I HAVE THE HIGHER GROUND!"). It's also very confusing because it's so large, and even after playing about an hour on it, I was still getting lost if I strayed too far from the cart tracks. In RED I was completely lost because I didn't have a cart I could follow, haha.
But it's very good map, I like it this far, and it's becoming my ultimate Demoman playground: I broke Demo's most points record just a few days ago while defending on Badwater.
And let me just tell you this: I'm a lousy Sniper, okay? I have a bad framerate, and I'm bad at aiming, and I haven't played as Sniper in several months (except one Sudden Death a while ago when everyone was forced to go Sniper, and I kinda owned that and got like four kills, but it doesn't count). But I was playing on Badwater Basin, right, and this was RIGHT after the update hit, fifteen minutes after. So, the enemy team had something like eight people, and over half of them were Heavies. Slaverstrike was playing as Sniper and owning, saying it's a headshot heaven. But he's a kickass Sniper, he would be owning even if there weren't thousands of Heavies in the enemy team.
So I wanted to give it a try too, because we had enough Medics and I was sucking as Soldier and Demo against the hordes of Heavies. I was kinda sure I wouldn't get any kills (and because Slaver's so much better, he would definitely headshot the guy I had in my sights just as I was fully charged, heh). But I decided to fuck it, and so I went Sniper.
And I owned. Haha.
Seriously, goddamn, just one Heavy after the other, inching their way forward while shooting, STANDING AROUND LIKE BLOODY IDIOTS. Even I can score a full-charged headshot without any trouble. I think I broke MY own Sniper record (which was 8 points, if I recall correctly), since I got at least five headshots and a couple of regular kills during one life.
And after I changed to Sniper, the enemy team started going Spy and Sniper to counter my and Slaver's headshooting antics, and that's when I got my butt handed to me (because I always get outshot by enemy Snipers), but the bottom line is that if the enemy team has hordes of Heavies? I'm going Sniper. Might even try out Spy, o ho ho.

Steel

Definitely the best thing about the update. I LOVE THE MAP. I've been looking forward to playing a game on Steel from May, but I never found a suitable server running it. So I naturally had very high expectations, and I realised that I could be very, very disappointed.
I wasn't. At all.
It's just... it's fucking awesome. So much variety! So much different tactics! and you need to adjust to the changes in the map every time a point is capped. So much... oh man. I applaud to the guy who made the map, it's seriously... it's definitely Valve quality. It could be made by Valve. It's really that good.
People say it's confusing and it takes a while to learn (and the losing team always whines about being lost and not knowing where to go, but those are just excuses, fucking idiots), but I actually think Badwater is so much more confusing than Steel. :D I was so lost on Badwater all the time, but Steel has so many signs on walls, how the hell CAN you get lost? Just follow the signs, they are huge, and they are EVERYWHERE. The map's also not quite as big as it seems. Okay, it got confusing after the enemies capped every point but E, and the main route out of respawn got closed, but still it didn't take very long to find my way to E: all I did was follow the signs. Besides, the map's very logical once you start thinking about it.
Sure it's a bit confusing what with the changing routes depending on what points are capped, but it doesn't take very long to learn how it works. I've played about five full matches on Steel at this point, and I think I have the map down, both from attack and defense viewpoints (and while I usually like defending much much more, on Steel I actually like to attack).

The map also favours teamwork immensely. I mean, sure every Valve-made map promotes teamwork, and you can't win Dustbowl or Gold Rush without actually working together as a team, but with Steel? If your team doesn't communicate, you lose. Once every point but E is capped, there are just so many different routes to the point that it's impossible to win without coordinating your attack. With Dustbowl stage three, for example, pushing is fairly simple since there are only two routes to the point, and hardly anyone uses the canyon entrance anyhow. At least, hardly anyone ever forms pushes from there. Everyone's usually attacking from the same place, that is, the upper route. With Steel it isn't that simple, because there are three main routes to E, four if you count the lower level.
If your team is lost and everyone just tries to attack from different sides, you cannot possibly win (unless your team has all the superior players, ie. you're steamrolling). You need to coordinate a push, get all your team to attack from one place, preferably two to throw the defense off and cripple them. You can't expect to win if someone is attacking from the lower levels: someone comes in from A, someone comes from D, someone comes from C. It just doesn't work that way, especially if there's heavy sentry defense.
No, I've never won the map with a team that didn't communicate.

It might favour defense a bit, but it all depends on your tactic: enemy team capped every point but E when I was defending (and best feeling ever? Playing as Soldier and getting a crit when someone stands on E), and it was surprisingly easy to defend. Then again, if the enemy caps every point, defense does have harder time because it takes a longer time from respawn to the point.
The first time I was attacking, we got A, then got stuck battling over B, and when time was running out, I think a few Scouts went to cap E, which disrupted the enemy defense for a moment since E is all-or-nothing point, but we still couldn't keep a steady offense (I killed half of their team on the point, dammit, and then got killed, and we never capped the point. We were maybe minute on overtime at that point, so once we couldn't push anymore, the game was over).
The cramped spaces do favour some classes more than others, I think: Heavies are seriously going to have a field trip, but you just need to know how to deal with them.
Anyway, best thing about the update in my opinion, and you'll be finding me on 24/7 Steel servers. Best map, hands down.

Arena Mode

I TOLD YOU I WOULDN'T STAY ALIVE FOR LONGER THAN 30 SECONDS IN ANY GIVEN ARENA MATCH Haha. I suck at Arena. At this point, I don't like it very much because of that. Maybe it's a working game mode, maybe someone likes it, but I just don't think it's that fun. I always get killed thirty seconds into a round (well, not always, but most of the time. And if I do make it to the end, it's possible that I hadn't killed a single person because I was playing so carefully. Ehh), and since for some reason my team usually loses, I have to sit out the next round.
The spectating doesn't really bother me as long as there's a friend I can watch play, but it does get pretty annoying once all you can do is run out of respawn and get gibbed. Or burned. Or whatever.
Maybe it finally proves once and for all that I'm a horrible player.
Anyway, it was fun for a while - fun enough to stop me caring about the whole sucking at it part - but then it started getting more and more annoying. And it was much more fun on Lumberyard (haven't yet played on Ravine, since I'm now avoiding Arena maps altogether) than on the Arena-fied Granary, Well or Badlands. Maybe because Lumberyard was specifically made for Arena, the rest are the same old maps, just... Arena-fied.

Maybe it's just not my cup of tea. And my two cents: they should maybe remove crits from Arena on default. Because it does get kinda frustrating when you get out of respawn, run to the central area and get gibbed by a crit rocket from a Soldier who hadn't fired even a single rocket before that. Yeah.
Kritzkrieg should work, though.

But Lumberyard is awesome! I love the grass.

Other updates

Increased The Kritzkrieg's uber-charge rate bonus from 10% to 25%

THANK YOU. Now I might be using the Kritzkrieg more, since it was... face it, it IS pretty useless most of the time. D: Now that the charge is so much easier to get, the uselessness of the charge itself doesn't hurt that much. I should try to use the Kritzkrieg more on clear attack/defense maps like Payload maps and Dustbowl and Gravel Pit, since it is pretty useful on defense when you don't have to go against sentries, and sometimes crits make clearing a point easy as pie.
And people have actually started using Kritzkriegs because of this: at least I've seen them around so much more than before the update. Which I think is cool, as long as the Medic knows how and when to use it.

And this next thing is not update related, but something I just wanted to talk about:

Weighted Companion Cube Soccer

As seen, for example here.

I hadn't even heard about this game mode before, but Slaver told me about it and we went to try it out almost instantly. It's lots of fun! I haven't played any of these strange "party modes" before, since I stick so much to official maps, but at least the Soccer is tons of fun.
So the game is ... well, it's soccer. Weighted Companion Cube is the ball, and you need to shoot it to "kick" it. And you need to get it in the enemy team's goal in order to win the round. The Cube radiates health and ammo (like a Weighted Companion Cube should <3), but there are usually no ammo pickups, and only one medium medkit between the team's goal poles, so you need to either salvage dropped weapons, or, better yet, stay close to the Cube. Which you need to do in order to score a goal.
The mode really requires some teamwork, it's nearly impossible to just push through by yourself, and if you just concentrate on killing others, ignoring the Cube, you'll lose pretty fast.
I don't know, but the cube seems to fly farther if you hit it with a crit. I don't know if the damage your weapon normally does has any effect on the "kick," but it would seem that strong projectiles like rockets and bombs make it go farther than, for example, shotgun shots do.
I didn't do any goals, but I had fun.
And it IS lots of fun, even without getting into fundamentals, and I highly recommend it to anyone who's getting bored of the same old capping business.

And then on a completely unrelated note, I finally got the Axtinguisher for Pyro. And after that my Arena adventures took a turn for worse since I started fooling around with it, trying to set people on fire and then hit them with the axe. No, didn't kill anyone. Haha.
Also broke Soldier's most points record on Steel (and once again, the very second I wander away from Newbies Only servers, I start owning. Maybe the latency really does that much, or maybe it's that everyone else just plainly sucks outside of Newbies Only. Haha. I found a random 24/7 Steel server, owned, got a most points record, dominated half of the enemy team and ended up on top of the scoreboard with a score of 130. Only Sonneteer was above me, as Medic. So, yeah), and got a new most points and kills record for Demo, like I told you.
And I even played more as a Sniper, on Gold Rush, and I was doing fairly good! I got owned by the enemy Sniper, but he was the scoreboard leader, so, yeah. Well at least he never got to dominate me, so it could've been worse.

And I can't wait to get the new damn computer.

And haha, now I'm heading out to try and own my little brother in-game: I told him about the Free Weekend and he replied dismissively something along the lines of "well... I MIGHT play if I have the time..." And now he's saying that he's played for like ten hours, and that the game is damn addicting. Well, duh. And apparently he's been trying out Soldier and Scout as well, so he hasn't been just being a pain in the ass Sniper.
So, here's to hoping he hasn't got too good at it yet, I can take advantage of his weaknesses and dominate him fair and square. Haha.

Well, I've never been this happy about being wrong before...

Okay, I was completely ready to squee over Meet the Sandvich and talk about Companion Cube Soccer since I was quite sure that the update won't come tonight, but SORRY, I WAS WRONG.

So at least I know what I'll be doing for the rest of the night. LUMBERYARD, STEEL, BADWATER BASIN, HERE I COME.

Expect a freaking massive entry tomorrow.

And more

So, I was mighty suspicious and prejudiced about the new game mode, having heard that it's going to be a some kind of a deathmatch. I knew Valve couldn't do that, not after putting all the emphasis on TEAM, but I was still a bit scared of what it would be.
But this makes me very intrigued. It's like a Sudden Death game mode!
I also know that I'll be dying thirty seconds into any given Arena match, haha.
And Lumberyard looks sweet and I can't wait to actually get to see it up close. Might even have to load the map locally the first freaking thing after the update and just look at it.

And today is the big day. Or should be, at least. I'm preeetty sure the update will be pushed back to tomorrow or end of the week, seeing how Valve failed to keep even the updates of the update coming. I mean, all of the previous updates came about 9-10 pm my time, last night it was way over 1 am when I decided to just stop waiting and go to bed. And if it takes them so fucking long to update a goddamn web page how long do you think it will take them to get the actual fucking huge update out? Yeah, I wouldn't hold my breath. Besides, Valve Time. I'm gonna stay up tonight, but I'm not expecting the update hit Steam until tomorrow.
Or then it goes just like it went with the Medic update: I'll stay up, going F5 on Steam's forums, and then the update comes at 5 am when I'm way too tired to even play.
Valve needs to move to freaking Australia.

More Heavy stuff

So it would seem that the rumours were right and the Heavy gets a new minigun that does less the damage, but slows down enemies on hit. Natascha, she is called (and if I were Sasha, I'd be jealous. Poor Sasha).

But what I really like to comment, are some of the achievements, which finally got descriptions. Sure, most of them were easy to guess by file names, and there weren't really any big surprises. Several Medic-related indeed, so I'll be working with Heavies next week.
What I don't want to see, is someone trying to get Soviet Union and telling me to GTFO. Okay, if you want to be an idiot and don't want me to heal you, don't even think I'll be there saving you when you're on fire and dying. The only people I don't heal on default, unless they yell for Medic, are Spies, because I don't want to accidentally blow their cover. And that's not gonna change. I give you healings, whether you want it or not!
Or starting to taunt in the middle of an über to get Photostroika. Okay, sure, if we're steamrolling or there simply aren't any other enemies around, it's not that I've never launched a useless charge before, but if we're pushing for the Dustbowl's last point and my Heavy starts taunting... I'll ragequit for sure.
Even bigger DO NOT WANT TO SEE, is someone trying to get Redistribution of Health when I'm around.

Bitch, if you be stealing my medkit...

More Medic content to come? In MY TF2? It's more likely than you think!

Badwater Basin, the new Payload map was revealed last night. I am intrigued, it would seem like nice deviation from the Dustbowl-esque Gold Rush, and I'm definitely looking forward to getting to play a game on it.

But that's not why I post, because I'm finally about to post some real actual CONTENT in this blog apart from personal gaming experiences and commenting on news everyone already knows about. YOU MAY NOT EVEN KNOW ABOUT THIS YET, GASP. No, it's not exclusive info, this comes straight from TF2Chan, which I frequent like the little faghag that I am.



So, an interesting little fact came up when someone emailed Valve about the removed broken "Oktoberfest!" Medic taunt.

I don't know if you are aware, but some time ago someone found another medigun taunt from TF2 GCF. It was broken, so someone fixed it and made it work in-game (...an awful lot of "someones" here...), and I believe it was on Youtube as well (oh, here it is). Later on the taunt was removed in a patch, which made us all sad, because we had grown to love the crazy medigun-huffing Doctor.

So, Robin Walker responded to the question about reinstating the taunt with

"The reason we removed it was because we weren't done working on it, and had never intended to ship the content behind it yet. It's still coming, and when it arrives, it'll be even neater than what you've seen so far."

The rest is open for speculation, and oh my. New Medic content? Could it be?
This is also quite interesting in the light of the rumoured Heavy unlockables: if the Heavy really does get a healing sandwich to taunt with, could it be that this new Medic taunt would heal the good Doctor as well?
Oh how do I love speculation.

You can expect me to blog every day until next Tuesday...

So, like every self-respecting TF2 player already knows, the second part of the Heavy update came out last night (my time). They revealed the fists unlockable and the achievement names (which are as punny as always, and funny as hell. LOL COMMUNISM).

Since I don't really play as Heavy (and won't start because of the update, not yet at least, but more on that later) I won't get into commenting the Killing Gloves of Boxing (and there are rumours already about the remaining two unlockables: apparently a new minigun that sacrifices some of the damage it causes to slow down the enemies it hits, and the shotgun is going to be replaced with a sandwich you can taunt with to get some HP back), but the achievements are somewhat relevant to me, as I plan to be going exclusively Medic after the update hits Steam (because joy! Fatties! Everywhere! I'm going to have a field day! Then again there are bound to be endless swarms of noobish fatties who tend to get on my nerves most of the time, but I'll do my healing job anyway, I'm just not going to stick), and some of the achievements seem to be Medic related.
So I'm planning to be sticking to any friend who's trying to get the achievements (without getting into farming and thus acting like an idiot), Sonneteer already has reserved an appointment with me. And since WE MAKE GOOD TEAM anyhow, I'll be happy to help. And if Slaver's going Heavy and needing assistance, he probably knows where to ask.

The achievements don't yet have any descriptions, but checking the file names gives most of them away. The Heavy is going to be getting a sandwich of some kind (making the rumour about the shotgun unlockable more legit) because one of the achievements is about eating sandwiches, and apparently the POW! taunt will go Hadouken, and be an instant kill after the update. That's cool, I just hope that every class would have an instakill taunt, but since Medic didn't get one, and I can't see how, for example, any of the Soldier taunts could kill anyone, I'll probably have to settle with the fact that not every class is going to get one (Demoman maybe: the Burp of Doom? Scout's BONK! taunt could also be worked into a kill taunt, and Spy's Cornish-game-hen-gutting knife-fencing as well).

But yeah, I'm just gonna sit tight and wait until they reveal the new Payload map and the new game mode (there are rumours regarding that as well, and it appears that the new mode could be a Deathmatch of sorts, which doesn't make me exactly happy. The community seems to be rooting for The Hunted, me included, but I'm afraid that won't be the case) and the new special Meet the... video. I'm giddy about the Payload map (now if we could only get another map like Dustbowl I'd be on cloud nine), and I'm just hoping that the new game mode won't be a complete disappointment.

There also seems to be something that could be a small easter egg concerning the inevitably upcoming Spy unlockables: in the icon for Spyalectical Materialism, it seems that the Spy is holding a revolver, equipped with a suppressor.
Interesting indeed. I am kind of hoping that the Spy would get the next unlockables, and it sure seems like it would be the case. I'm still wanting to learn to play as the Spy, but find myself chickening out, because it's near impossible to stay alive as a Spy these days: everyone's so familiar with all their tactics. And it'a not the constant spychecking or babysitting Engineers or any of that: most of the Spy tactics are just common knowledge these days, and any decent player knows how Spies act or at least strive to act.
Of course most of it is indeed because I suck as Spy, not because the Spy is underpowered or anything: I see from decent to downright awesome Spies wreak havoc every time I play, but sometimes I see even them whining how it's getting harder and harder to survive because everyone knows what they're up to. I don't want the Spy to be buffed, or made easier to play for people who are trying to learn the class, because part of Spy's charm IS the tough learning curve and the fact that not everyone can be good at it from the get-go, but... something to help him a bit would be nice, from the viewpoint of someone who's not a secret agent extraordinaire.
Yeah, I should be careful with what I wish for: Spies are a total pain in my butt whenever I'm an Engineer, and if they get too much help, well... my days of laid-back Engineering are pretty much over, haha.
Just my two cents.
And as much as I want the Soldier, Demoman or Engineer unlockables, I think Spy needs them much more than anyone else.

I kinda wish my little brother would buy his own copy of Team Fortress 2 (or at least take part in the next free weekend), because that would be a great incentive for me to pick up Spy. Because I know how he plays, and that's how I could own his ass, and drive him into paranoia (and teach him a thing or two about Spies: he practically never checks his back). Heh.

In other news, I'm finally getting back to somewhat regular gaming schedule, it's just that I'm playing on my own computer now, and thus suffering the crappy fps. Which is the main reason for NOT playing as Heavy: I simply can't. Sure, I can shoot at people and score some hits and kills, but what bothers me is that the game gets a fucking seizure every time I try to turn around very fast, which means that anyone attempting to circle-strafe me kills me, no exceptions.
The difficulty of fast 180 degree or even 90 degree turns is the worst thing that bothers me about the low fps, no matter what class I'm playing as. It's just that I don't necessarily have to turn so fast as any other class but as the Heavy. Sure I like to check my back for Spies after every wrench hit while I'm upgrading or repairing my sentry, but I can live without it, and I'm a twitchy Medic, checking around me all the time, but at least I don't necessarily have to do anything else (like shoot) while I do that, so it makes it a bit easier. And as a Soldier circle-strafers are not as big an issue as they are with Heavy, for some reason, so I can still make it as a Soldier, somewhat.
But once I got used to the crappy fps and the game getting seizures in bigger firefights once again... it's not that bad. It's a serious handicap, sure, and I'm not doing nearly as well as I was with the good framerate. Right now I'm once again one of those Soldiers who can only kill stuff with crockets, haha.
But at least I can still rocket jump, which I've started to abuse hardcore. Killed five attacking people on Gravel Pit's cap B one night just by firing at them from the roof (I love it how people just don't look up), and I'm starting to like Badlands again, because the spire cap point is awesome as hell to jump to and kill everyone - whether they were trying to attack or defend - on it before even landing. Same with Gravel Pit's cap C (except a server regular scored the most awesome kill ever against me a few nights ago: gibbed me while I was flying. That was so bleeding awesome I didn't even feel bad for dying. I don't think I've ever congratulated anyone on killing me before - not that it's hard, or anything - but he completely deserved that. And it wasn't a fluke, he just said he wasn't sure if it would hit. I wish I could've seen myself, it must've been so awesome). And Granary's middle point.
Also, constant rocketjumping gets me killed so much it's not even funny. My kills/deaths ratio has been horrible lately. Medics still hate me (I know I'm not worthy of your constant attention but HEAL PLZ you insufferable amateurs! And dammit if having a Medic doesn't make a difference: thanks Sonneteer. Sonny? Ha, I like that, can I call you Sonny?), so I'm running around with less than 100 HP almost all the time. Especially since I do jumps that I wouldn't necessarily have to do, but dammit I like to take shortcuts and sneak up on enemies from where they don't expect me to appear. Yeah, I know, it's supposed to be the tradeoff, but that's why the "MEEEDIIIIIC!"
And at least the low fps doesn't really affect my Demoman antics, although naturally it's harder to get straight hits with bombs (getting better at that all the time!).
Being a Pyro is also much like it was before, except that I can't really do circle-strafing, but I don't even do that very much since I'm trying to get behind enemies' backs anyhow, at which point top-notch circle-strafing doesn't really matter. I hadn't played as Pyro in forever, not since I got the Backburner and decided that it's overpowered (and that was before the nerfing), but now I'm finding the fun in it again. And I should really learn to use the airburst. I always, always forget to use it, and only remember it when it's too late, ie. after I've stepped on stickies, or got hit by a crit rocket or mowed down by an approaching über Heavy-Medic combo.

And I'm probably getting the new computer next month, so that will hopefully spell goodbye for the low fps altogether, and I can go back to not sucking this bad.

But, yeah, you can kinda expect me to blog about the Heavy update until next Tuesday. And after that you can expect to hear about the new Payload map and CP STEEL <3 and the new game mode and maybe some Heavy stuff as well.

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.

Lots of raeg. Again.

ILU VALVE.

Removed health bonus from the Backburner

Finally. The days of overpowered kamikaze Pyros are finally over, I hope. Maybe they'll finally go back to ambushing. And finally I can go back to playing the Soldier! And yes, Backburner Pyros were the number one reason for why I haven't played much as the Soldier since the Pyro update. They were just goddamn impossible to kill with their ridiculous amount of health and I got so frustrated with them.

And the following updates and changes also make me happy:

Added a gear symbol behind the health bar for Engineer buildings, in both target IDs and freeze panels

Players killing themselves will now give a kill credit to the last enemy who damaged them

Because as a Medic I'm constantly checking everyone's health and it annoys me to hover over a bunch of people, see someone with low health and rush in only to find out that it was a damaged dispenser or something.
And now I won't feel so bad about suiciding as a Demo or a Soldier anymore. Except when I'm feeling like an asshole and the guy who almost killed me before I suicided is someone who's dominating me or otherwise being a total dick to me and I wouldn't want to give him any credit for getting the kill.

Now I'll just settle down to wait for the inevitable Demoman sticky nerf and the Heavy update.

And then back to out usual schedule of wanton babbling:
I was once again playing on a HK's Newbies Only server last night and it seemed like it was an Official Butthurt Day, because people were complaining about something, all the fucking time.
First someone complained about Demomen being overpowered for half a round on Gravel Pit. I was on RED, the whiner was on BLU, and there were two Demos on our team, me being one of them. I wasn't doing very good: I was close to the top of the scoreboard, I think, but I didn't have very much kills or anything, and at least I felt like I wasn't doing very good (which can be taken any way you want to, since I'm known to own everyone and still feel like I suck, so). Anyway, this guy, he kept on complaining about stickies, how even Valve calls them "winbombs" (old fucking news, dude, change the record), how they're ridiculously OP and how Demomen are cheap cheap cheap.
Christ, I raged.
I admit it, stickies are a bit overpowered, and they will be nerfed in some way or the other sooner or later (maybe they'll prolong the time in which a just-fired sticky can be detonated, or maybe they'll do a damage reduction, or no crits...), but they are not impossible to deal with! I get so angry whenever someone complains about stickies, because it's your own fucking fault if you step on them! What the fuck were you expecting, a simple flesh wound?!
Here, let Auntie Chrome a.k.a. Captain Obvious give you a little lesson on stickies and How To Deal With Them.

Good Demomen of course hide their stickies to their best abilities, putting them to the ceiling or around blind corners, but if there's a very visible sticky carpet on a point, on a chokepoint or in a doorway, why the hell would you stand on them?! You either find another way, try to deal with the Demo (who's undoubtedly somewhere near because he usually has a clear line of sight at his bombs, unless the stickies are on a point, in which case the Demo can be anywhere, because the HUD is all he needs to defend), or simply try to scatter the stickies, which makes them less deadly. One sticky kills weaker classes, but with the ones with higher HP just one doesn't do the trick (unless it's a crit, but that goes without saying. And in stickies' case you can see the crits, so you're a complete fucking idiot if you go near one). So if the stickies are scattered all over the place, they're not nearly as potent. Or you can be The Good Guy and sacrifice yourself for the greater good, ie. your team's cause: walk on the stickies, the Demo detonates and kills you, but the rest of your team are now free to charge the bastard, and he has no time to set his stickies back up. Unless he's very good. But yeah, hardly anyone ever thinks about the Team, at least not on pubs.
Or waste an über to take the Demo down. Stickies send charged people flying (best defense on Dustbowl stage three: just sticky the only way to the first point and detonate when the übered enemies try to charge in and take down sentries. Works every damn time, and people just don't pay enough attention to stickies when they're übered. Which is probably why people whine about them. Dammit, stop being so ignorant and do something about the stickies!), but in case it's a narrow hallway with a low ceiling, it's not like you'll fly anywhere.
Easiest way of course is to find a way around the stickies. If a Demoman is camping some doorway, just go around it, get behind him and hand him his butt. Scouts and Pyros work wonders, Scouts especially tend to be preeetty tedious (my damn nemesis class as a Demo, no, I'm not kidding. I hate good Scouts, can't hit them for the life of me and then they just bonk me to death. But that's how it is, Demos are weak against Scouts, it's part of the game balance, and I'm admittably not that good a Demoman, as you probably know). If there are Demos camping every damn doorway, well, then, maybe you're screwed. Or maybe you should, I don't know, be another Demoman, a Soldier, maybe a Pyro?
Because silly Pyros, so enamoured by the now-nerfed Backburner that they don't realise the awesomeness that is the regular flamethrower and its all-powerful airburst. Airburst scatters stickies very easily and makes a well-planned-out sticky carpet considerably weaker or downright useless (I don't understand why people still insist on standing on Dustbowl's second stage's last cap while it's thoroughly stickied. One airburst, a rocket, or setting of your own sticky clears the point and I rarely ever see anyone do it! Which is why I usually own as a defending Demo on Dustbowl). As a Demoman you hold one of the best weapons against stickies: stickies. Just fire one or two in the middle of the carpet, set them off and poof they roll into every direction, clearing way. I've seen Heavies clear sticky carpets pretty effectively. Shotgun works with lonely stickies, but against a carpet... I'd suggest you go find the nearest Pyro.
So for fuck's sake, the stickies are not all-powerful, not even in the hands of the world's best Demoman! Just learn to deal with them and you make many career Demomen cry in frustration! Although I'm quite sure that good (career) Demos don't really do sticky camping, since stickies are even more frightening when used like any other projectile (which is why I think that the "prolong the time in which a just-fired sticky can be detonated" nerf would be perfect and force Demos to do sticky camping, which is arguably easier to deal with - like I've just shown you - than those crazy sticky-chucking harbingers of carnage and destruction).

I have spoken.

Now back to my Official Butthurt Day story. So the guy was whining about Demos being overpowered, and I remember at some point I got a Medic with a full charge sticking to me and we went to demolish a sentry nest that the enemy had got up in the hallways leading from A to C.
And in a moment the guy said "There are the cheap Demos again. RED is so cheap."
So you think that an übered, somewhat skilled Demoman shouldn't be able to clear a sentry nest and kill half a team that's obliviously camping a narrow hallway? Really now? Butthurt much? Maybe we should just sit there twiddling our thumbs and watch as you take control of the hallways, and cap the point? You'd like that, huh? Just get your own über and come rape our sentries, for fuck's sake, and don't whine about us doing our goddamn job well.
But yeah, someone's always the sore loser.

So the map changed, we were in Dustbowl, defending, and suddenly some guy tells Slaverstrike to GTFO because his ping is too high. Apparently Slaver kept headshotting the guy through walls. And for the record, Slaver's ping is about the same as mine, 130-150.
And he wouldn't shut up about it. And I raged so hard, almost telling him to shut the fuck up (sure, I get defensive about my friends, don't fuck with them). Instead I kept on owning him with the bonesaw (I was playing as Medic, and he was too. Kept losing the melee duels, poor thing), and waiting him to tell me to leave because I was bonesawing him through walls or some shit. And it felt good to own him fair and square in melee and return to my team, sporting a full charge. Ha.
I don't know if servers compensate for lag, but do you have any idea how the lag works? ~140 ping is not that high. I myself don't notice any freaking difference when I play with 140 ping and when I play with 20 ping. I don't know how much others need to compensate to kill me (but do tell if you've played against me when I'm lagging. All I know is that with over 300 latencies it becomes a fucking job to kill the player who's lagging because they're just twitching all over the place), and since I don't play as high-accuracy classes such as the Sniper, I have no idea how much I would have to compensate to get a clean headshot. My little brother says he needs to shoot just a little bit in advance, so I'm gonna trust him, and figure that it takes some skill to be a good Sniper when you are lagging slightly.
But the point is, 140 ping is not high. Sure it's unacceptable in competitive play, but this is a freaking public server! Which of course gives you the right to whine about every single thing.
I wasn't the only one irked by the guy's whining: someone on his team said after a while that Slaver just got him with a clean headshot, he can't be lagging.
And if I remember correctly, there was a player with ~400 ping, and the guy never whined about him, which kinda proves my point on why's the real reason he was being an asshat. Sigh. Way to get butthurt about getting headshot by a good Sniper. Face it, there are better players than you. Stop whining about it like a little kid (...unless you are a little kid, and still it doesn't entitle you to anything).
Also, it's not a fucking dial-up, you do realise that people from other countries might be playing the game? We're on the other side of the fucking globe, of course our ping is higher.

And the grande finale, the final whine before we capped the last point on Dustbowl and I called it quits for the night: someone said "These pro players need to go play on the advanced server."
At that point me and Slaver were at the top of the scoreboard as a Medic and a Demo with over 100 points (...I think no other player on either team had over 100 points, but truth to be told I think we were kinda steamrolling by ourselves...), so I guess he was talking about us. Oh wow. Whoops?
Honestly, I was just kinda flattered. I've never been called a pro before. Haha. So do I need to find a clan now? I did feel a bit bad since I don't want to seem like an asshole who comes to play on a "noob server" to get easy points and point and laugh at players who are not as skilled as I am. Because that's not the case.

I've actually never played on the Newbies Only Advanced server, to be honest. I still think I'm not that good and I'm afraid I'd just end up getting steamrolled. I like playing with the "newbies" because the skill level is somewhat on par with mine. Except that, uh, yeah, I'm often on top of the scoreboard which might indicate that I'm better than others, and... I don't know! I still get killed very easily, even if I do get lots of points! Besides I don't know if my teamwork is good enough. Sure I keep talking about the importance of teamwork, and I try to be a good team player, but I have no idea if I really am.

And since I mentioned finding a clan to play in... I think I need to make clear that I am so joking, and I'm not interested at clan faggotry at all. Sure I've toyed with the idea of finding and joining a clan and trying out competitive playing, but then I realise that I don't want to do competitive gaming, I just want to play for fun.
Besides I would probably have to join a Finnish clan because of latency issues, and I'm horribly prejudiced against Finnish players. Guys especially. And although I just said that any male gamer with half a brain realises that girls too play FPS, I think it might be a whole different issue in competitive gaming. I don't know! I don't know if there are many girls in TF2 clans in Finland!
But I would sure love to see how an easy-going yet somewhat serious local clan would accept a girl as a member, but I don't think I have it in me. Because I'm not that good.
And I'm still too scared to communicate, so.
And the number one reason I don't want to join any clan, is that I don't want any clan tags ruining my name, haha. I would love to show my support for HK Central with the community tag, but aargh I hate wearing tags! I want to be Chrome, just Chrome, not [Clanfag]Chrome! (Sure it would help with identification, I'm sure there are quite a few Chromes on Steam, but my identification is my avatar: you'll know it's me. And the regulars on the servers I play on probably recognise me anyhow, so).

Lots of rage today. I just have zero tolerance for asshattery and general stupidity.

I'd love to show you some screenshots but alas, they're on my little brother's computer.

And the title goes to...

Hahaha, Sonneteer gave me another nickname, and dubbed me "Doctor of the Year." I was apparently highly acclaimed Medic a few nights ago, or at least I got lots of compliments from people. Which always makes my day, because as a kind of a career Medic I like hearing how I'm doing. And a simple "thank you" or "you rock" is something that makes me smile dimwittedly for the rest of the day, because I know that I'm doing my job okay. And I guess I wasn't doing too bad, since I broke my max points record (funny that I just whined about Pyro tieing with Medic in max points and I thought it would take me a while until I break any scores with Medic. Well, first I got 25, and after that 27) and you know what?

You know what?



I cheered when it happened. I've never been as happy about dying as I was then, haha. And it was once again Dustbowl's second stage, my team was defending and I kept healing people near the last point.
And I'm pretty damn proud of that new healing record.

So, Doctor of the Year. I tried some Heavy/Medic combo action with Sonneteer a few nights ago on Dustbowl and that was awesome as hell. Sonneteer insisted on being a horrible Medic buddy, but it turned out that we were topping the scoreboard for the entire match (and I dominated half of the enemy team).
And ftr, Sonneteer, you were doing good. You didn't waste any of my übers and you didn't pull off any crazy-stupid kamikaze stunts, so you're totally ok in my book. WE MAKE GOOD TEAM!
And we have to do that again.
Also, we need to switch, I haven't played as Heavy in forever, haha.

I also noticed how Übersaw is starting to change my Medic tactics drastically. I find myself going strange ambush-oriented combat Medic every now and then, only to gain (or rather trying to gain) some easy übers. I try to sneak behind oblivious enemies and kill them or at least get a few hits in just to return to my team with a brand new übercharge. It also makes me too bold (because whenever I get a melee kill in the heat of a battle, I get so excited and I want to do it more) and I die embarrasingly while trying to bonesaw a Heavy or a Soldier (or in worst cases, a Pyro, although I've killed those as well, usually from the back and when they don't see me coming) to death.
My Übersaw frenzy has come to the point where I automatically tap 3 whenever I need to fight (and I mean normal confrontations, not when I deliberately fuck off to do some killing). I don't even remember the last time I used the Blutsauger. And yes, it gets me killed when there's a Pyro rushing at me and I start retreating with the Übersaw in hand. And then I'm dead before I realise that this is wrong, what the hell am I doing, and try to switch to the Blutsauger. Wtf, Chrome, just wtf.

And against all odds most of the time my ventures from ze healing to ze hurting are surprisingly successful: I'm doing my usual healan gaems, see an oblivious Demo or a Soldier somewhere, ditch my healee (who's usually facing the other way, hence I can almost blame my murderous ways on self-preservation), chase the enemy down from behind, kill him with a few swift strikes, and retun to my healee with a full charge.
And then I engage Heavies in melee and circle-strafe them and oh god, I really seem to have a death wish these days. The worst part is that it succeeds sometimes, which gives me insane battle high, which makes me ingore everything around me, which gets me killed in less than a few seconds. And I don't know if it's worth it to first kill a Heavy in melee and then get gibbed by a passing Easy Mode. While holding a full charge. Eehh.



I also do so much defending it's not even funny. The kills in the screenshot above were people standing near the cart. And yes, it's ruining my respectable Medic image, because dammit there were two Pyros, I could've easily let them kill the enemies while backing them up, but noooo I had to charge in waving the Übersaw around. Sure, I killed the remaining people near the cart and defended successfully, and naturally I almost got my charge full from the killing spree, and that would've helped us immensely were there another enemy rush coming, but it's always Russian Roulette. Then again, almost everything is. And, argh, right after that I healed the Pyros, got the charge and right then a fucking Sniper headshots me. Didn't even get to finish the "I am fully charged!" voiceclip.
I hate Snipers.
So much for the charge and successful killing spree then.
Later on, on Gravel Pit, I was coming from the respawn and heading out to cap B because enemy was trying to cap it (and I was in RED). And there was no one there; I don't know if most of my team was dead, or if the enemy was camping our respawn, or what the fuck was happening, but I was once again facing a bunch of enemies, alone. And instead of waiting, I rush in, kill a Pyro who saw me coming and tried to rush me (that must've hurt, I know I'm pissed if a goddamn lonely Medic bonesaws me to the face when I'm Pyro, because come on), and get another kill and a defense before inevitably buying the farm. So not part of my job description, this defending stuff.

Also, killing Slaverstrike with the Übersaw when he's Soldier is gotta be one of the most awesome things I've done in a while. Haha. Because it's always goddamn impossible for me to kill him, so I'm exceptionally proud of myself if I do it. Thanks for the easy charge, Slaver! <3

But anyway, at some point I had more kills than deaths, and that made me go "umm what" for a good while. Oh dear. Soon I'll be adapting a true combat Medic attitude and start living by the code of "ze healing is not as rewarding as ze hurting" and become a bonesaw-wielding homicidal maniac.
Let's hope that I won't.

I demand more nerfing.

Well well well. Last night I had the best melée only times on a random server with Sonneteer, one of her friends and a bunch of random people (who were awesome and immediately agreed on melee only rules). We melée only-ed our way through several maps and had heaps of fun - well at least I did. Naturally it lead into several interesting records, my max kills as a Medic is 7, and damage dealt about 1,400. My max kills as a Scout is 4, and my max captures as a Pyro is 9 and max points 24, which makes me rage a bit, because it's the same as my Medic record and dammit, I'm trying to keep my "career class" the one with the most points.
Also scored a few achievements, I actually got Sawbones completely out of the blue during a match in CTF Turbine (which sucks, by the way). What's funny is that the enemy players were Scouts at that point, so I got Sawbones by killing Scouts. That's... pretty wtf.
And dammit it feels like such a waste to run around with a full übercharge. And because I kept using the Übersaw (although it's admittedly inferior to the normal bonesaw in melee only matches), I had a full charge nearly all the time. I came pretty damn close to getting Placebo Effect, though (got killed when I was one kill away from it).

And I've actually never heard the "You vant a second opinion? You are also UGLY!" in game before. Couldn't stop laughing after my Medic yelled it after a few bonesaw kills.

I also got lots of progress to Peer Review, since Sonneteer was mostly playing as a Medic, and in the enemy team. She dominated me a few times, though, insane crazy crit streaks, dammit: I get out of respawn, attack her and immediately get critted in the face. So I get out of respawn, striving to kick her ass this time, and again I get critted in the face. And with the annoying fanfare the game informs me that I have a new nemesis.
It was hilarious. Crit magnet, I am.



I also got a few Pyro achievements. OMGWTFBBQ I got completely consciously, and dammit it truly is the most amazing thing EVER to kill someone with a Hadouken. And melee only of course inspires a great deal of taunting, so at some point I got Freezer Burn. And I'm 2/3 through Dance Dance Immolation. Getting Lumberjack goes almost without saying. And all of those lead into this:



Which means that I finally have hands-on impressions about the Backburner's overpowered-ness.
And yeah, I was playing on my own computer for a change, hence the crappy graphics and smaller resolution. Yes, I had the 20 fps handicap. Made the whole melee thing pretty difficult, but at least I got used to it after a few minutes of whining about it (ahaha serious handicap: playing with the Übersaw AND 20 fps, I wonder how well I would've done with the regular bonesaw and on my little brother's computer).

But the Backburner. Is the cutest little thing ever (it has a face!), and also very, very good at one thing: defeating its very purpose. Stick with me. So the Backburner gives 100% crit change from behind. I don't know how flawed the recognition was before the latest batch (which apparently fixed it), but it feels pretty alright: the enemy has to have your back right at you or else it won't work. I didn't even once get crits from the side or from the front, but then again sometimes I didn't get them from the back either. I suppose that could be because of lag, so I won't blame the game being broken. The Backburner also provides the Pyro with a +50 HP increase, and this is where the weapon defeats its purpose.
Valve said, and I quote, "This flamethrower is built for the Pyro who likes to ambush their opponents [...] To aid in survivability, it grants the Pyro an extra fifty health." Which means that the Backburner is supposed to be the ultimate ambushing weapon with the guaranteed crits from the back, and the health buff helping in making a getaway after the ambush.
With the health buff the Pyro has 225 HP, which is more than the Soldier has and only falling 75 HP short from the Heavy. Now add a Medic, and the Pyro has 318 HP - more than the Heavy has normally. The Pyro has no reason to ambush his enemies anymore. What with the flamethrower's damage fall-off reduced, the Pyro doesn't even need the crits to be a total killing machine in close range. And the +50 HP really aids with survivability, because you can just hit and run, and remain almost unscathed. Sure you can still ambush enemies, good for you, it's just that with the Backburner you don't have to. It affected my mentality immediately after I noticed that I could get away with almost anything: I just charged head-first at Demomen and Soldiers, even goddamned Heavies, took some damage, set everything afire (or in Heavies' cases circle-strafed them to death), and ran away to get a medkit or find a Medic and ready myself for the next attack. And dammit it worked, and felt so much more useful than waiting silently in ambush just to get a few crits. I don't think the weapon is balanced if it can be "abused" in such a way.
Dammit, the Pyro was good the way he was, I never felt he was underpowered. Backburner would be a good and balanced weapon if you removed the health buff, because then the Pyro would be forced to go back to ambushing, and the Backburner would be the more effective ambushing weapon with the guaranteed crits, while the regular flamethrower would be more suitable for other confrontations because of the ability to deflect projectiles and thus get right at Soldiers' and Demomen's faces. Now the Backburner is a clear upgrade from the regular flamethower instead of an alternative weapon.

I wish Valve would realise this and remove the health buff. And dammit, this comes from a Pyro player who refuses to use the Backburner from now on, simply because it is ridiculously overpowered (and because I like the airburst).



And that's my 2 cents on the matter of the Pyro unlockables. NERF, VALVE. NERF.

I also played as Engineer a bit (because it's the easiest class to play with my low fps), and I've never randomly left my sentry in a more suitable moment: we were attacking in Dustbowl's third stage, and I saw our other Engineer (the team was whining about "too many Engineers" and I agreed, because when you attack you don't need but one Engineer if he can keep his act together) building his own sentry. I was BORED because I had just sat about five minutes behind my sentry, waiting for some action, so I fucked off to help him build the thing. I figured that okay, if he insists on being an Enigneer, at least his sentry should cover our back in case mine gets taken down, so I better help him with it (and I'm all for "All for one and one for all" attitude when I'm an Engineer, I help my comrades as much as I can, and then rage when they don't return the favour. Selfish fuckwit Engineers are the cancer that's killing my will to play the class).
And while I'm there I see a goddamn übered enemy Demo coming around the corner and starting to chuck stickies at my sentry. So what do I do? Upgrade the friendly sentry to second level, watch it massacre the Demo and his Medic, and then just simply return to my dispenser to put my sentry up again.
Damn. If I hadn't left I had probably died, because I'm still stupid enough to stay and hope that the Demo wouldn't kill ME too. And my colleague's poor little first level sentry would've probably been goners as well. I would've lost my dispenser AND my teleporter exit which kept our team pushing mercilessly. And we would've had to fall back.
And this, gentlemen, is why I was an MVP on Dustbowl's third stage, playing as an Engineer in BLU. I've never seen an Engineer being an MVP in the attacking team on third stage. And most of my points? Teleports. The main reason I even build a sentry was to protect the teleporter exit, I didn't really care if I got any kills (didn't, really, I got maybe three or four), as long as the sentry kept enemies from charging at us and destroying the teleporter. And at least we won, so it must've been a successful effort.

I'm thinking of going Strictly Engineer for a day.

I'm getting nicknames already...

VALVEEEEE. <3
Newest TF2 update: "Added back some damage falloff to the Pyro's flamethrower. Not nearly as extreme as it was before the Pyro class pack." FUCK YEAH AWESOME. And so ends the reign of terror.
Well, no, but you get the idea.

And according to the official blog the Heavy seems to be getting the next unlockables (I already heard rumours about it a few days ago). Well, at least it will probably mean a field day for me as a Medic. What I'm really waiting for are the Soldier updates, and, uh, Demoman too. And I think Engineer seriously needs something to help him, playing as one is really starting to feel like a job, ie. it's not particularly fun anymore. But maybe it's just me, the stats are telling that Engineer is the second most played class right now.

Nothing else to say, really. Been playing a lot of Demo (and Medic because I find it extremely difficult not to go Medic whenever there are none in my team), unsurprisingly.
And last night I was dubbed "The Guy Who Never Misses" by a server regular who was apparently unlucky enough to always get a pipe bomb exploding at his face. And then I dominated him.
Thankfully he didn't know I had played Demo for only about five hours. It probably wouldn't have made him feel any better about it.
And I kinda like being a guy on default. Not that anyone has any reason to think otherwise since I still don't use my mic. I should, though. Because being able to communicate would be pretty useful. And I figure some regulars would be surprised to find out that The Guy Who Never Misses is in fact a girl. GASP. Not that I like to go around flaunting my gender, but if I open my mouth it kinda does become glaringly obvious. That, or everyone thinks that I'm twelve.
And oh, now I want to rant!

I hate the so-called "Girl Gamers," those who do flaunt their gender, basically scream "LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME I PLAY HALO I AM SPESHUL!" and make it such a gigantic deal that they are GIRLS who play GAMES. Like they think that they're really special because of it. Wtf gender has nothing to do with it! I hate stereotypical gender roles anyway, and I think it's kinda funny that while those girl gamers try to fight against the assumption that girls don't play games, yet they actually promote such gender roles by assuming that they exist in the first place (I believe any male gamer with half a brain realises that girls too play games. "Guy games," even, like horribly violent first person shooters). Damn, even industry's slowly realising that girls play games as well (although I hold infinite amounts of RAGE against all the games that are geared towards girls. Nintendo, I am looking at you. They are nothing but insulting, and that's about the only thing I admit having in common with girl gamers. That, and boobs). Can I just be one of the guys and play the goddamn game without making a big deal out of it? Well, apparently I can.
I hate "girl gamers" just as much as I hate all the guys who think that girls don't and can't play videogames. And if they do, they're casual players who play stuff like Sims and maybe WoW. Or JRPGs like Final Fantasies. FPS is out of question. Girls don't play FPS! No way!
I am not that good at TF2, for example, but I don't think that has anything to do with my gender. Come on, people.
Yeah, I'm a girl, I play games (and I have played videogames for nearly two damn decades, so I figure the whole gaming culture is pretty much ingrained in me by now), but I am not a "girl gamer." I am not a casual gamer either. Even if my Nintendo DS is girly and pink and I play Final Fantasies.

But yeah, I know lots of girls who play TF2, and there are several regular players who are girls on the servers I play on, and I've never seen anyone fly off the handle when they hear a girl voice over the voicechat, so. I only need to get over my irrational fear of sounding like an idiot and starting to stutter when I use the mic.

/end rant.

And maybe I really am not that bad a Demoman, because our team usually lost immediately after I was killed and my stickies disappeared into thin air. Haha. Come on guys, why am I the only one defending, dammit?!
And I'm getting really angry at Medics who über Heavies or Soldiers on Dustbowl's last point to take down sentries. Okay, I understand if there are no Demomen around but FUCK YOU I AM STANDING RIGHT THERE. Then I go and take them down without a goddamn über (usually dying in the process, but sacrifices must be made). Yeah sure I'm not the best Demoman around, but dammit even I can take down a sentry so much better than any Heavy (if we're talking about distant sentries here, sure Heavies take down anything if they get close enough). And please Medic if you do über me, go first. Demomen are not Heavies, we can't push against the stupid sentry fire by ourselves and the closer I get the easier the sentry is to take down. It's just like übering a Pyro and trying to take down a sentry. You need to draw the fire to yourself.
And yeah, if there's another Demo, über him, not me. Haha. I can take down anything when I'm not under obligation of doing so (I like the slow and sneaky approach, even if I do take damage because of it), but I'm probably just going to fail because the pressure to actually succeed and not let my team and the Medic down is too much. I don't like being the one the whole team suddenly depends on. Maybe that makes me a bad team player?

Also got autobalanced in the middle of a match in Well, when my team was steamrolling. So I got switched to the losing team, AGAIN, but thanks to ME we fought the enemy team over the last point for almost five minutes. I had a Kritzkrieg-Medic backing me up, and while I disagreed with his decision to use the Kritzkrieg, I couldn't help but be pretty damn "OH GOD WHAT THE FUCK" when he used the charge on me in the middle of an enemy attack. JESUS CHRIST THE CARNAGE. Crit stickies! Everywhere! I probably killed half of their team with that. And they probably didn't even realise there was kritzkrieging going on before it was too late, because... well, I haven't actually seen a lot of Kritzkrieged Demomen around.
Anyway, we were fighting them off pretty well and then I suicided, completely misreading the entire situation (there were two enemies on the sticky-covered cap with me and I thought that was all, so I detonated, suiciding but killing the enemies. And unfortunately it was a grand mistake, there was another wave of enemies just coming), and we lost within a few seconds from that. Oh well.

Oh yeah, I bonesawed another sentry last night. And I killed the Engineer too. No, I wasn't übered. Well, I was, but it was my own über. I had to panic-launch my charge, and the Soldier I was übering was completely oblivious to everything around him and overlooked a sentry going up behind him. So I just ditched his ass, ran to the sentry in the protection of my charge, whipped out the Übersaw and killed the sentry. And the Engineer who desperately tried to escape. And then I went back to the poor oblivious Soldier with a half-full charge. Oh, Übersaw, how I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Yeah, I should use the mic.

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.

Oh, Soldier...

Forget everything I whined about the Soldier, turns out I can still play as one, and do pretty good. Yeah, sure, I suicide more often than not if a Pyro charges right at me, and it pisses me off, but... oh well. At least I'm somewhat more conscious about Pyros now.
Also did probably the most awesome kill I've ever done on Badlands. There was an enemy Demo trying to cap their spire back, and I was just getting out of respawn. So just before the point was capped, I rocketjumped from the ledge, fired a rocket at the Demo while I was still airborne, and landed right in the middle of the cap point just as the Demo exploded into gibs. And I got a domination out of it, because I had killed the player before while he was still playing as a Spy. I'd love to show you a screenshot, but my F5-fu was too slow and I only got a screenshot in which I've already landed and there are giblets everywhere. Besides, the said screenshot is on my little brother's computer. But I'll show it to you once I get my hands on it.
Anyway, I just couldn't stop grinning after that. And a mere moment later the round ended, we won, and I was the number one MVP.
So much about not being able to play as Soldier anymore. Sorry about whining, Soldier, I think I still love you, even with all the nerfing and everything.
I should learn to use the shotgun, though. I don't know why I can use the shotgun as a Pyro, no problem, but as a Soldier I use the shotgun very rarely, if ever.
And godDAMN I hate skilled Pyros who can already use the airburst like it's always been there.

I also got the Flare Gun for Pyro (I got Weenie Roast, Fire and Forget, Spontaneous Combustion and Firewatch since the last time I wrote), but it doesn't really matter because I like the shotgun so much more, and I'm not going to give it up. Besides, I have a horrible aim, I'm laggy, and I have hard time hitting distant moving targets even as a Soldier, so I probably wouldn't even hit anything with the Flare Gun.

And finally I have hands-on impressions about the Kritzkrieg and the Übersaw.
Kritzkrieg is... well, I'll just have to learn to use it. And find people who I can give the charge to without them just rushing out guns blazing and thinking that they're still invulnerable (which is what I usually do when I'm kritzkrieged...). And I felt pretty stupid kritzkrieging a Backburner-equipped Pyro, but at least the havoc we caused was formidable.
And naturally there was some Heavy player yelling for Medic and after seeing that I was holding the Kritzkrieg, he started whining how Kritzkrieg is completely useless, hey Medic change it to normal medigun, and goddamn I raged. "Your ass is useless," I wanted to say. Don't fucking question what I'm doing. I think I'm a pretty good Medic (and at least the stats don't argue against me: yesterday, whenever I was a Medic, I was on top of the scoreboard. No exceptions.), and I dare to claim that I know what our team needs and when we need it. We were in Granary, pushing for the last point (oh I wonder how we managed to get to the last point with just the "useless" Kritzkrieg! Shut the fuck up if you don't know what I can do, and you weren't there to see how me and a Pyro cleared the entire warehouse a couple of times and capped the point), and yes, there was a sentry, but everyone knows that all it takes is a Demoman or a Soldier to take down any sentries near the last point (if I can do it, any Soldier with half a skill can do it!). There is no need for the regular über: the Kritzkrieg, if used well, can make more of a difference by killing every single player guarding the point, after which the sentry is left unattended.
So if you get killed just because I didn't have the über to give to you, fuck off. What makes you think I would've übered you anyhow? Heavies are useless against tanked sentries in the distance, I would've much rather picked a Demoman to do the job.

But yeah, I totally admit that Kritzkrieg is useless in some situations. When there are a lot of sentries (I wouldn't use the Kritzkrieg if we're attacking on Dustbowl - at least), sure, I'd pick the regular medigun. You just have to know when and how to use it. Which I'm planning to learn. And it's not that I can't change weapons during respawn if the situation changes so that it isn't favourable to use the Kritzkrieg anymore. And I think a team with two Medics one of which is holding the Kritzkrieg and the other the regular medigun, can be extremely successful.

And the Übersaw? Less-than-three. I tend to forget all the time that hitting with it once charges the übercharge meter by 25%, so I was mighty surprised after killing a Spy with it and then sporting a full charge, even after I had just übered a mere moment ago. Lolwut. I might have to learn to melée a bit better, I usually attack with the Blutsauger. Which keeps even those monstrous Pyros at bay and it's wonderful. <3

I even got a max übercharges record yesterday; managed to stay alive during an entire Gravel Pit round (if my team can hold B, I can usually stay alive for the entire round - and keep most of my team alive as well) and launched five übers during that time. I have to thank our Engineers for that, though, a dispenser on the point saved my life so many times (since I was the only Medic in the team). Damn flame damage drop-off removal. Nothing's more awesome than seeing your life drop close to zero and reaching a dispenser when it's down to six or so. Ehh.

And people, if you got headshot yesterday by me and I was doing the kukri taunt in the deathcam, it was not me. Little brother was on a roll in Granary, and taunted after every single kill he got. He even had the nerve to do it while in flames and about to die. I know I'd be raging my head off: I hate good Snipers, and I hate it when people taunt after they've killed me.
But seeing someone else ("me") do it, was priceless. I was laughing my ass off. And the kukri taunt is so priceless, oh god... I hope people at least got nice deathcam shots outta those taunts.
The only thing I'm trying to stop my little brother from doing, is using teleporters. He seems to be a compulsive teleport-user, whenever he sees one, he just gets on it and I try to stop him because for fuck's sake, Snipers don't use teleporters. D:
And since no one knows that Sniper-Chrome is not me, well... everyone must think that I'm an asshole Sniper. Yay? Maybe I should get him to change his nick when he's playing (I would've made him do it already, but I can't remember the console command, and I never remember to look it up). To avoid confusion. And to stop people from thinking that I'm a complete asshole and actually a pretty good Sniper (he was called a "monster" a few days ago and told to GTFO of the "newbie" server. The whiner probably wasn't a regular...).

Whoo-hoo!

HOORAY! Who cares about being a stupid overpowered Pyro or a suicidal Soldier, I'm back to being a Medic! Because I finally have the Kritzkrieg and the Übersaw!

Valve ILU.

Oh wtf again...

My final word on the Pyro update is that Pyro is so overpowered that it's not even funny anymore.

Because this is so wrong, on so many levels:



And I don't even have any of the unlockables yet (and I'll never even use the Flare Gun: I love the shotgun too much)! Needless to say, I also made a new max points record for Pyro. It's 21 now. Used to be 11.

Yes, I am actually whining about being good at something. That's a new one.

Pyros! Every-fucking-where!

Okay, the only way to stay alive on TF2 now is to be a Pyro. At least that's the only way I can stay alive right now. Fight fire with fire, you know.

And I can't believe how much I actually nerd RAGE'd after realizing what Valve had done to the Soldier. I read the update message, "Removed Soldier's 40% damage reduction from his own rockets. Does not affect rocket jumps." but I didn't even realise (or think about) what it actually meant until I connected to the server today, saw the amount of Pyros and went Soldier. Because hey, at least before the update I was learning to kill them.
And guess what?
Nearly all my deaths? Suicides. If it wasn't some Pyro chucking my rockets back at my face (thank god nearly everyone is using the Backburner already, but more on that later), it was just me, playing like I've used to, and getting owned. Fuck, I'm so used to just shooting at my feet when a Pyro or a Scout or anything gets too close for comfort, and taking some damage but walking out alive. Now if I do that, I die. Not even mentioning the times my aim is a bit off and I shoot the goddamn wall in front of me and get a crit rocket in the face. Now such mistakes are an instant kill. It will probably take me forever to learn to jump whenever I shoot a rocket close enough to get damaged by it too (it apparently counts as a rocket jump then, I had to do some testing by shooting a wall in front of me while jumping, and I got the same old 40% reduction instead of the full damage of about 80 HP).
And imagine how much that must suck from the viewpoint of the player who was chasing me? They get NO points from chasing me down and actually making me suicide - which is not even their fault, but my own. I think that's kinda horrible. I know, because later on I was playing as a Pyro and a friend was a Soldier in the enemy team, and he was mercilessly dominating me. And after I had tried to kill him a dozen times, always getting owned, I finally managed to kill his Medic and chase him down and fuck me dead: he suicided. And I almost banged my head against the keyboard, because so much for my long-pursued revenge.
So at least Valve needs to do something about that, because it's downright unfair.
And if Demomen don't get the same fucking nerf I'm going to rage some more. Fucking unfair.

Okay, yeah, no one's going to agree with me on this, seeing how everyone else thinks that the Soldier is overpowered, the easy class that doesn't need any skill to be good at, and that it needs to be nerfed hardcore. It took me actually ages to learn to play as Soldier. Maybe it's easy to pick up by someone who has years and years of FPS experience, and be good at it, but I had to learn. And I've had fucking great times playing as Soldier. And it's not the easy class for me.
But yeah, Chrome vs. rest of the TF2 community. Valve did what they thought is for the best, and I want to understand, but it's pretty hard when one of my favourite classes is now nearly unplayable for me. And yeah, I feel quite horrible for whining about this, especially since I've been all "I wish I knew how to quit you!" with Soldier for the longest time. But yeah, it's a complete love/hate relationship. And it doesn't matter what I say, I have over 80 hours as a Soldier, I find myself going Soldier even when I think I shouldn't, so on some level I really must like playing as Soldier.
So I can still feel upset because of it, can't I?

But yeah, Pyros.
I'll just come out and say that Backburner is overpowered as hell. I mean ffs guaranteed crits from the back and +50 HP increase?! I know the tradeoff is supposed to be the lack of the airburst (which, I admit, is fucking awesome, and makes me think twice about starting to use the Backburner), but because the airburst is new and I rarely even remember to use it, Backburner just seems like an upgraded OLD flamethrower that has no drawbacks.
They could do without the +50 HP increase, for real. Both Slaverstrike and my little brother who played as Snipers today noticed that Pyros are fucking impossible to kill if they have the Backburner equipped. 225 HP is just insane. And when I did play Soldier, I am so used to juggling them into the air once, and the second rocket usually killed them. Backburner-equipped Pyros? Fucking unstoppable. Add a Medic and they're seriously invincible. So I needed to juggle them twice, which meant shooting at my freaking feet twice, which usually meant a suicide.
Flare gun seemed to correspond better as an alternative to the shotgun, and I actually didn't have anyone kill me with the Axtinguisher, so I can't really say anything about that. Only the Backburner seems a bit unbalanced, but, uh, I'll probably love it once I get my greedy little hands on it. Maybe I'll become a career Pyro. I mean, I was doing pretty fine without the changes (was I the only one? I never really thought the Pyro was underpowered, even against Soldiers. I died a lot, but once I adapted the kamikaze mentality - that I ambush and I might die, but it's okay - I came by pretty well as a Pyro. Maybe I was the only one.)

At least I was doing pretty well as a Pyro today.



And that was the first time in ages I actually had some fun on CP Well. (Oh! That reminds me, I need to talk about CTF Well once I've said everything I need to about this Pyro stuff!)
I even got some achievements. I have Camp Fire, I Fry (and here I was thinking that there would be no Spies around, what with Pyros having a field day...), Burn Ward, Next of Kindling, Hot on Your Heels and Second Degree Burn. I'm also 13/15 through Fire and Forget, 8/10 through Spontaneous Combustion and Trailblazer, 15/50 through Makin' Bacon (and here I was thinking it would take forever... I would have at least 20 Heavies in this, but more on that in a moment...), about 25/50 through Arsonist (ahihi I dominated one Engineer, and he provided me with at least eight destructions: poor thing had always put a teleporter, dispenser and a level one sentry down when I came around the corner, and the whole little nest succumbed to my flames like a house made of paper), 250 through Firefighter/Fire Chief (...I was on a roll), and some others, but they're not yet worth a mention.
I also spent SO LONG on CTF Well trying to sneak behind enemy Snipers and use the Hadouken taunt on them (whoops! Chrome, acting like an idiot? On YOUR server? It's apparently more likely than you think!), but stupid friendly Snipers always managed to kill them right when I was behind them, readying my shotgun. Damn stupid Snipers!
And in one evening, I learned to use the shotgun. Seriously, I probably killed more people with the shotgun today than I've killed in those 30 hours I had as a Pyro. No, really. Too bad that most of those were fellow Pyros (which I used to be very weak against), so I don't have much progress on Combined Fire yet.
And yeah, about Makin' Bacon... I was kinda going crazy on Badlands. I think I killed about eight Heavies with the axe. I imagine them being beyond pissed: one crazy Pyro kept just ambushing them from behind and axing them to death. I even critted ridiculously often against them. But damn it, Heavies are so much easier to kill with the axe than the flamethrower! Usually they don't even have time to turn around before they're dead meat.
And then I realised that the achievement is named "Makin' Bacon" because I have to kill 50 Heavies with the flamethrower, and went aww dammit. At least I had lots of fun. And I imagine my Medic was having fun as well, following me around while I melée-killed Heavies (Medics liked me today).
Too bad that my axe kills record remained as two, I didn't get Lumberjack.

And finally, the regular flamethrower's new airburst. The best thing ever. It took me ages to remember even trying to use it, and luckily I remembered it just when an übered enemy Pyro was rushing at me. One poof, and flying they went. Another poof, and flying they went again. Goddamn, who seriously even needs Soldiers anymore: Pyros do juggling too these days.
Then I once again forgot to entire thing until I saw a crit rocket heading towards me. One poof, and the rocket chenged colours and I couldn't stop going FUCK YEAH THIS IS THE MOST AWESOME THING EVER! when I saw the crit hit someone in the distance. Ahihihi. I didn't actually kill anyone with returned rockets although I did it a few times after that (I even started to remember using it after a while), but it's always a blast to see the crit rocket changing colours and directions and at least hitting something. I blasted people away from control points and the bombcart in Gold Rush. I saw a Medic/anyone combo approaching and blasted them once before hightailing and trying to get behind them.
I got killed once with a bounced grenade, though. It sucked, haha.

Oh! Yeah! CTF Well! Is actually fun now! I was really surprised when I saw the changes to it, and I was having a blast playing there! The new central area of the map is AWESOME, and the reduced size makes it easier to defend AND attack. I have to say that it's easily much more fun than 2fort has ever been, seeing that 2fort turns into an insane turtling fest nearly always and on Well there was this INSANE battling going on near the central area nearly all the time, because both teams tried to get control of it in order to get easier access to the enemy base.
Or then I'm just so happy that it's almost a whole new map and you probably know how much I love those.

That's about it for now, I think.
And yeah, I'll be playing as Pyro until there won't be as many around as there are now. And until I get over the Soldier nerf, pick it up again and learn to jump whenever I fire a rocket. Dammit, Valve...

Oh yeah! I also wish they would change the Medic achievements to correspond to the Pyro pack, and the Milestones would come at 10, 15 and 20. Because I'm slowly getting pretty sick of still being two achievements away from the Kritzkrieg, and I still refuse to farm any of them. My pride, it is my downfall.
Seeing that the Medic achievements are so much harder than the Pyro ones. Besides, everyone has the Kritzkrieg and Übersaw already, so it would be just me, har har.

And I fucking hope Soldier gets the next unlockables and achievements. Soldier needs some love after all that nerfing.

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.

Ooh!

I have finally found a TF2 custom map that sounds so awesome that I'm dying to actually play on it. CP Steel. I saw the introduction video for it a couple of weeks ago and it picked my interest immediately, and now Chris of 1fort did a review of it and I'm going DO WANT.
Once again I might have to venture away from my safe, familiar servers, I'm really wanting to play on Steel. Or at least try it and decide if I like it or is all the hype just a load of bull.
And it might do me good either way, I'm finding myself playing on the 24/7 Gold Rush/Dustbowl server almost all the time or hopping from one server to another depending on when Hydro, Gold Rush or Dustbowl comes around.
So sick of all the other maps, you know the drill.

Don't really have anything else to post for now. A friend asked me (in a comment to one of my earlier posts) to list all the TF2 classes and their pros and cons and I'M WORKING ON IT. Haha. I tried to reply in a comment, found myself being as verbose as usual and decided to do a proper list and post it in a real entry, so I'm posting that once I'm done with it.

And I'm still pissed off about the goddamn Specialist. I've been mainly playing as Medic after last Friday, striving to actually GET IT, and while I did come pretty close to it a few times (I've been staring at my health healed points like a nutjob), I still haven't actually reached it.
Probably never will, the poor pessimistic soul that I am.
Also, I have ONCE AGAIN been on top of the scoreboard with 80-or-so points and feeling that I'm an absolutely appalling Medic. OH WOE. Can I never be good enough for me?

FFFFFF.

Oh god what.

So, I was taking a little break from TF2, and when I returned to my usual few-hours-a-night schedule, I found myself sucking. Quite horribly.
Until tonight. Christ. For the record, I've been drinking again. Decided to play a bit, because you've probably noticed how I have almost a habit of getting wasted and then wasting the entire evening just fragging people and being amused at how I'm not that bad of a player when I'm drunk (and yes, I am very aware of the fact that I am indeed a gigantic nerd and have no life).
So yeah, I was playing as Heavy on Gold Rush and being once again surprisingly good at it (especially after last night's failfest. I don't wanna talk about it).

But then I switched servers and found myself on Dustbowl. Stage Two. RED. First point had been capped, so my team had already fell back to the last point. I went Medic, seeing that they didn't have any Medics, and started healing.

Result?

1. Within two minutes I was on top of the scoreboard, above all the players who had been on the server before me.

2. Intern. 500 FUCKING HP AWAY FROM SPECIALIST FFFFF I'M PISSED (Most health healed record is now 9,498 FFFFF I STILL GET PISSED OFF WHEN I LOOK AT IT. SO CLOSE. SO. CLOSE).

3. And most points record, 24, whoo!

And the best (/most fucked-up) part? At some point after I had launched my second über I started getting 1-5 fps. I'm not shitting you. I was getting some serious lag and I don't know if it was the server or my connection. And still I managed to get two more übers and stay alive until BLU capped the point.
I stuck around for a few minutes on third stage, but at that point the lag was getting so ridiculous I had to stop. Much to my chagrin. Stupid lag, I was doing so good!
And at that point half the team was going Medic and stealing my Heavy, so it was completely my cue to leave. What the hell is it with those people: no one wants to be a Medic in the previous round, then I jump in and dominate the scoreboard and then everyone else wants to be Medic too?
I completely understood when few people went Medic after I went all "LOL GUYS I'M GETTING LIKE 1 FPS MAYBE I SHOULD STOP" in chat, though. But I'm drunk, you don't have an excuse.

And here, scoreboard at the start of stage three:



But yeah, it's nice to know that I'm still a fucking kickass Medic even when slightly drunk and with the lowest framerate possible. HA HA HA I really hope that won't happen ever again. I was insane to stick around after I started lagging.

Hee hee.

HA! This ain't so hard:



And I didn't even have a Medic stick to me, they all ditched me right after setup (Medics really hate me, even when I'm doing well they hate me. Then again, I do better without Medics because I get so nervous when I have one and if they über me... well, I start failing in epic proportions) so I plowed my way through the stage all by myself.
And that Dustbowl match ended in 54 kills, 32 assist and dominating half of the other team, so all in all I'm suddenly doing pretty well as a Heavy. I have no idea what happened.
But the most surprising round was another match in Dustbowl. I joined the server in the middle of stage two, after the first point had been capped, and still ended up as an MVP. That was kinda cool.

I'm also surprisingly good at reserving ammo. I've played a LOT as Heavy last night, and only ran out of ammo once. And that was right after an über (thank god not in the middle of it). It's probably because I've got so used to playing Soldier, and I'm nearly neurotic about keeping my reserve rockets over 10 at all times.
But yeah, I was quite sure I'd end up chewing through my ammo in a matter of seconds and not realising to scavenge dropped weapons, but luckily that was not the case.

And playing as Heavy makes me hate Snipers even more. Like I told you, I have this intense fear of (good) Snipers, I choke whenever I see a Sniper dot or the tall figure in the distance and I send a suppressive rocket their way and I try to run and jump and be unpredictable and "D:" and hoping they wouldn't hit me but I know that I'm dead and yes, they always hit me.
And because I'm often playing with such a high ping, I often think that HA I MADE IT after I make it behind something, and half a second later I get hit. Damn lag. Same thing with Heavies: I think I managed to dodge their hail of bullets with 20 or so HP left and damn, still they hit me when I'm already behind the corner. Well at least I know it's my ping, and don't go accusing anyone of HAXORZ. Same thing with facestabs.
But anyway, I hated Snipers as a Soldier because I'm slow and everything, so I'm pretty easy to hit, but at least firing rockets at them makes them retreat instead of continuing to take aim (unless they're already aimed to my giant head, and one click away from a fully charged headshot of doom), and I can escape unscathed (or at least with a few HP left from a failed headshot), but with Heavy? Shooting at them from the other side of the goddamn map does nothing and is hardly an effective way to make them retreat, so most of the time the dispute ends in me being quite dead. I had one goddamn Sniper dominate me on Dustbowl's third stage last night. Whenever I as much as peeked around the last corner - BOOM! Headshot. And there was no way to kill him, goddamn, before I saw which side he was on and proceeded to shoot at him in vain, he would just calmly take aim and dispose of me. And the Heavy is slow as heck, especially when spinning Sasha, so there is no way to get out of harm's way when I'm shooting. Damn Snipers. And of course my team had no Snipers to draw his attention, so I was pretty much screwed.
And I hate Snipers on Gold Rush, oh god I hate them so much.

What does kinda ruin playing Heavy for me is my lousy framerate (I'm getting a constant 20 - yes, I can't WAIT to buy a new goddamn graphics card). Low framerate and lag make it sure that circle-strafers kill me so thoroughly it's not even funny (and I should probably adjust my mouse sensitivity whenever I'm playing as Heavy). I hate getting bonked to death. Damn Spies fail a backstab and then just easily circle around me to try it again. And Pyros? Oh god. I just flail and shoot and try to turn and close but no cigar.

And a funny story of WHY Medics shouldn't EVER über me: I'm Heavy, Slaverstrike's Medic, and he's sticking to me during some Gold Rush setup. I tell him that übering me isn't a really good idea, you should know, I'll waste it anyway, go find someone else to give it to, but he insists on giving it to me. So, the setup ends, the gates open, we rush out and he übers me.
And a second after the charge hits me, the game freezes. It goes completely dead. I literally LOL, and I laugh while waiting for my computer to restart (yeah, it was one of those wonderful little crashes when nothing but restarting works) and oh god, it was priceless. Had to tell Slaverstrike "TOLD YOU SO!" (and apologise for actually wasting his über) and hahahaha oh wow.
We only make a good team when I'M the Medic and HE'S the Heavy. Haha. Other way around it's just something simply atrocious.

Oh yeah, I got complimented as a Medic! The whole thing was pretty far out considering how rotten I am at staying alive, so my Heavy wasn't the only one surprised. We were playing in Hydro, I was following this Heavy around, and I was taking quite a lot of damage. At one point I was in flames, HP dropping dangerously close to zero and we were closing in on the enemy's cap point. And we had another Medic, who of course ignored me completely (I was expecting better out of her, damn it, she's a really good player and I don't think I've ever been as bitter about not getting a heal as I was back then), so the only thing I could do was to follow my Heavy in, with six or so HP left. Ha. He was really worried, telling me to go get some health, but damn it I was THIS close to getting an über, and we were so close to the cap point and I wasn't going to give up, so I kept healing him, almost died of fright when a goddamn Pyro tried to charge us - luckily not from behind - and I got my charge and we hit it and capped the point.
And when the next round started the Heavy told everyone how I had stayed alive for the longest time ever with so little health left and I was going ":3" by myself. That was totally reckless. And awesome as hell. I have a little bit of badass in me.
And damn that Heavy was probably the most polite player I've ever played with. He apologised when he accidentally took the health kit from me (it's hard to not take it when you're trying to get the ammo right next to it) or when he failed to kill the Pyro charging us from behind and killing us, and he fell back when I was taking damage, saying we should wait for a moment so I could regenerate some health and awww. Why can't everyone be like that?
Also damn I love every player who communicates with me when they're running out of ammo and I have a full charge. Not everyone can take sentries down with a goddamn shotgun (I've übered Slaverstrike so many times when he's out of rockets, and he charges a sentry nest with a shotgun and actually takes stuff down with it, but if it was anyone else but him I would probably be pissed), so people, if I'm sticking to you with a full charge, please please please indicate in some way or the other that you're out of ammo if that is the case. Switch to your secondary weapon! Fall back! Use the voicechat! Anything! I hate nothing more than übering a Heavy and all I get is CLICK CLICK CLICK.

You don't see this every day...

OH GOD WHAT THE FUCK.

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

WELL TAKE A LOOK AT THIS, SUCKERS:



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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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.

More achievement stuff and general ranting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Achievements here, achievements there...

Just updating on my Medic achievements status, because I know you all must be so very interested about it and practically shivering with antici... pation, wanting to hear how I'm slowly inching towards my ultimate goal, ie. getting the Kritzkrieg.
Oh, but what about the Übersaw? Isn't that my ultimate goal?
And the curt answer is "not really, no" because I am NOT going to farm any of the achievements because I detest that sort of action (the only one I MIGHT get with a bit of co-ordinated help from Slaverstrike or someone, is Medical Intervention). And I'm trying NOT to act like a total idiot on any of my regular servers. I'm a respectable Medic, I am, so I'm not going to über boxing Heavies or Scouts or go out trying to kill people with the bonesaw while holding a full charge or anything of the like. Unless I'm drunk and can indeed quote the Demoman: "I'm drunk, you don't have an excuse!"
I'm going to get the achievements needed for the Kritzkrieg, and I'm going to get them fairly, playing Medic like I normally would. And no matter how long it will take. End of story, bye bye Übersaw.

Anyway, 17/39, got House Call today. I joined the server in full intention to über Slaverstrike, but ended up übering one of my OTHER Steam friends who just happened to play on the same server, and it was just another of my panicky OH GOD I'M DYING I HAVE TO ÜBER situations and he just happened to be there right then. I had planned on übering him as well at some point, to get him included in Family Practice, but, well. That works too. Later on I übered Slaverstrike as well, but I still didn't get but one friend included in Family Practice, and now I have no idea which one of them it was. Well damn. I guess I'll have to über them both again at some point in time. Not that I mind, the other friend is one of the kickass Demomen I've been sticking to lately (we were a destructive, carnage-driven combo on Dustbowl the other night).

What else? I'm about 130 through Grand Rounds, and 50 through Infernal Medicine, so I need just another night of intense Medicing, and those two should be taken care of. I have killed three Scouts for Does It Hurt When I Do This? (would be four, but a damned Engineer meddled with his little pea-shooter and finished the Scout I had been killing. Damned Engineers should stay in kitchen? tanking behind their sentries), and I'm not looking forward to finishing this one any time soon. Scouts are ridiculously easy to kill with the Blutsauger, basically they don't stand a chance unless they crit (which they always seem to do when they're shooting at my general direction, stupid Scouts), or unless they really abuse the hell out of the doublejump. Or if they're smart (and/or yellow-bellied) and run away instead of trying to engage me in a deathmatch.
I also have a grand total of ONE MEDIC killed for Peer Review, and that one I am seriously not striving to get, it would count as "acting like an idiot." Unless it's a one-on-one, kill-or-be-killed situation. This one poor Medic got bonesawed to death on Gravel Pit, we were attacking, dominating, and we had pretty much already got C. Most of RED was dead, and I saw this lone Medic trying to charge the last cap in a desperate attempt to thwart our inevitable victory, so I just followed him and bonesawed him before he even knew what was happening.
Doctor Assisted Homicide, 3/20. I don't even notice when it's happening, I'm not paying any attention to revenges my healees are getting. Btw, if you really want this, I'm a very good target when I'm playing Soldier. Haha. If the enemy team is steamrolling, there's a high chance that half of their team is dominating me (well, not HALF of their team, but a few players anyhow), and usually I get those revenges on people sooner or later, because I'm only a half-bad Soldier. I think Slaverstrike got at least two assist for my revenges while healing me today on Hydro, heh.
I still haven't got Second Opinion though I sure as hell am trying! (Whenever things aren't too hectic, that is, and I'm übering someone who's very close to someone else by chance). I hear it's pretty buggy, and near impossible to get. I don't even have auto heal on, and I've been trying everything, but no. Still not getting it.
Another one is Autopsy Report. What the HELL do I have to do? I haven't tried it but few times (my spirits kinda crashed after I got Blutsaugered to death by an enemy Medic while taunting on top of a Scout's corpse. Damn it, sneaky Medic, didn't see you there), but I've started the taunt right after I got the kill, and I've been standing directly on top of the body, but nooo, I just won't get it. Stupid buggy achievements.

And speaking of my dear Blutsauger, it makes me act like a wannabe combat Medic. I find myself attacking like a nutcase with it, even when I wouldn't need to. So much for "not acting like a complete idiot." But I'm clearly getting better! And I do get more kills than I used to, the Blutsauger is just so awesome.
And this happens on regular CP maps, on Dustbowl, Gold Rush and Gravel Pit I find myself attacking very rarely (ie. only when everyone else is dead and it's kill or be killed, or a Spy tries to cause some mischief), if at all. But on those maps I usually have a buddy, on maps like Badlands or Well it's somehow harder to find a buddy to stick to, and thus I found myself going combat Medic. Hmm. I don't know, but there really seems to be a pattern.

And nothing makes me happier than someone I've been healing before remembering me and going all "okay, you've got me, let's go." Aww. <3 I remembered that Heavy too, we were topping the scoreboard on Hydro a few nights ago. Another one who thinks I'm not a bad Medic yay!

Damn the Blutsauger is one sexy weapon. I'm liking it a bit too much right now. It has saved me in situations in which I would've died with the regular syringe gun, Spies don't stand any change against me anymore (the Blutsauger is awesome for spychecking: even when they're in disguise you can leech health from them and SEE IT) and it's just generally the most awesome weapon ever. I even killed a Heavy with it, hee.
And I completely love it when I dominate some poor player (by assists), who then goes Spy and tries to get a revenge on me, just to end up getting killed by me. Again. <3 Honey, if you need to get a revenge on me when I'm Medic, Spy's the one class that can't kill me as unless you know exactly what you're doing (ie. you can't let me see you. At all. A complete surprise is the only way).
And I'm getting closer to Kritzkrieg. I'm hoping I would get it by playing Medic normally, I don't want to start übering Scouts and melée Heavies and disrupting whatever it is that our team is doing. I'm 16/39 through the achievements, so I only need nine.
And I've got Preventive Medicine and Hypocritical Oath since the last I wrote, both by playing just like I would normally play. Hypocritical Oath came as a surprise, it was Goldrush, second stage, last checkpoint, and I was healing everyone in the reigning chaos. Apparently I healed some Spy as well, then heard one of our Engineers exclaiming about a SPAH and I'm apparently really becoming a goddamn Engineer midwife, because I instantly whipped out the Blutsauger and killed the Spy who was trying to sap the buildings. Got the achievement. Didn't even think about it.
So yeah, this far I've got all the achievements by playing Medic like I normally would. Looking forward to getting Big Pharma (I'm positive I can do it in a completely regular game, my assist record is already 19, after all. I'm counting on Slaverstrike), Grand Rounds (already over 100 into that one - damn it, people, now we want you to spam the hell outta E, so why don't you do it?!), Infernal Medicine (about 30 into that), Doctor Assisted Homicide, Intern, maybe Specialist, Second Opinion, Autopsy Report and House Call. Those are the ones I think that I can get by playing normally.

Also, I'm now trying to get the hang of playing the Heavy. I like being a Heavy, it's just that I suck as one. I have my good moments, today I played a couple of minutes without sucking at all! Didn't waste an über, destroyed some buildings, killed a couple of people, and then got wrenched to death by an Engineer, because my Medic had fucked off somewhere. That bitch. Medics hate me when I'm Heavy. Sadness.
And that's what I need: I just need a patient, persistent Medic who will stick to my sorry ass even when I don't get that much kills. It's pretty hard trying to learn to play as Heavy when I can't even stay alive, because people are firing at me from five different directions and the goddamn fatty is so slow that I can't drag my ass to safety before I'm Swiss cheese.
And then I'm trying to be more careful, which just ends in me being a) backstabbed, b) headshot, c) meléed to death by someone who had easily sneaked behind me or d) crouched behind some corner spinning Sasha and being useless because I'm just waiting someone to come to me instead of me going to them.

But Heavy's going to be my next "I'm Learning To Play This Class!" project. Hey, it took me four hours to not suck completely as Soldier, and almost twenty to be any good as one, so I think I'll just have to endure being a horrible, noobish fatty who's hated by Medics. I have to get the hang of it eventually. Right? Right?
And I need more classes to play as, seriously. I only have four: Medic's starting to be my career class because it's the only class I actually feel I'm good at, no matter the situation, and Soldier's my feelgood class (complete love/hate relationship, btw: as Soldier I just CAN'T BE GOOD, whatever it is that I do. I can top the scoreboard and still feel like I suck, and it bothers me SO MUCH. Did that make any sense? No? Love/hate relationship. I wish I knew how to quit you, Soldier, damn you). Engineer's my "there are no Engineers so I'll be one" class. And I've never been a good Pyro on any other map but Hydro. I gave up on Sniper after four hours of playing, because goddamn I hate Snipers. I don't like being a Sniper, because I know how goddamn useless I am when I'm one.
And I'm still chickening out of playing as Spy, I'm an absolutely appalling Scout and a Demo (and I don't think I'll ever bother to learn to play as either of them, I just can't use Scout's abilities to my advantage and I've always been terrible with grenades, I can never predict trajectories right and my timing simply sucks), and Heavy... yeah.
But no, I wasn't good at any class from the get-go, I shouldn't give up on playing a class after an hour of playtime. Of course I'm a relatively good Medic, I have fifty-four hours as Medic. Of course I at least know how to handle the Soldier with the insane sixty-three hours of playtime as one. I've had my fair share of successful Engineering and Spy-owning in thirty hours. I've played as Heavy for an hour and a half, I shouldn't be so surprised that I still suck as one. Same with Spy: I think Spy has the highest learning curve out of all nine classes, and I have one hour of playtime as Spy. Of course I suck as a Spy!
I just hate screwing up our teamwork by being useless.

I'm also starting to love Demomen when I'm Medic. I'm finding myself sticking to them far more often than I stick to Soldiers, for example. Nothing beats good fatties, but damn, good Demomen are serious harbingers of doom. Today was the fourth time within few days that I've been primarily sticking to a Demoman. And if the Demo knows what he's doing when I über him... the destruction! The carnage! Pipe bombs! Gibs! Sentry parts! Everywhere! It's beautiful. Yeah I admit I'm a total assist whore (but just for the record: I get most of my points from healing, not from assists. I've been on top of the scoreboard with over 20 000 healing and less than 15 assists), but I'm starting to notice that good Demomen get any job done way better than good Soldiers do. The only downside is that Demos are pretty much screwed if enemy gets close enough (laying stickies to their feet does kill the enemies, but they often suicide as well by doing that), and if enemy gets close to my healing target, they usually get close to me too, which makes me screwed as well. Except that with the Blutsauger I now have a tiny little chance of making it out alive, but it's still something I'd rather not go through.
But yeah. I love them Scottish cyclops.

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.

Goldrush!

So. Right.

Goldrush?

Is love.

I'm absolutely loving the map. I'm still pretty lost on it, I haven't even been to every hallway or used every route, and more often than not I find myself going the wrong damn way. Huge map is huge. The first time I was defending on third stage I ran in circles for the entire setup. I left the respawn, had a Medic stick to me, and a few seconds later I found myself BACK in the final checkpoint area and went completely WTF (I suppose there's a shortcut, just like in Dustbowl's stage three? I followed everyone there, but then turned the wrong way and ended up back in our respawn). And the poor Medic was clinging to me the entire time, haha. I was sure he was going wtf is that goddamn Soldier doing, is he lost or what. Didn't leave me, though. (That Medic was a mystery: he kept sticking to me although I was lost half the time and I wasted a few of his übers, and yet he STILL kept giving them to me). Then I followed the tracks (thank GOD for the tracks) and found my way to the cart after BLU had already capped it, heh.
But yeah, I've only played like four games on Goldrush, and most of the time haven't gotten through second stage. And I've never seen BLU actually win, the third stage's final checkpoint favours defense immensely. It was IMPOSSIBLE to get around the last corner after our offense broke. And it was very easy not to let BLU get through when we were defending, although we won with the cart being inches away from the final checkpoint, heh.
Also I don't understand how captures work on Goldrush. Are the stats broken or something, or do you REALLY get a capture each time you get to the cart and make it move? Not only on checkpoints? I was suddenly getting like five captures/life and was pretty surprised because of it.
The map also seems to be buggy as hell. I don't know if it was the map or what, but I got pretty disoriented at one point when the teams changed and my HUD remained RED even though I was in BLU. And when I got übered, I was glowing red. My crits were red. So most of the time I was firing at my own teammates and getting killed because I kept ignoring the REDs. And I was also pretty drunk at that point, which naturally added to the confusion. Ouch.

And, oh, one of the best parts about the map? The way the announcer goes totally fucking insane on third stage when the bomb is nearing the final checkpoint. Her laugh is priceless. I couldn't stop laughing the first time I heard it.

I was playing Soldier like I said I would be, changed to Medic only once to get the Chief of Staff achievement (I have over 1,5 million healed, so all I had to do was to change to Medic, get the medigun out, and I got the achievement), and so I can't really talk about the unlockables or achievements yet.
I can talk about them from an outsiders' point of view, though, so here we go: there were actually not that many Medics running around. Four was a constant amount, sometimes there were more and sometimes less (I was on a 24 player server), but I didn't even once have TOO MANY Medics in my team.
And goddamn, yes, I had a harem at times. Hee.
I saw quite a lot of Blutsaugers already. They're not really terrifying, but damn it if I don't want one. There were a few Kritzkriegs (of which I will talk about in a moment), and I even got killed by an Übersaw at one point. I also saw people use the damn console command. A player enters, we get announcements of the said player getting the three milestone achievements, and then he was running around with the Übersaw. Thank god Valve already removed the commands, and I'm seriously hoping they'd find a way to roll back the achievements/weapons that people have got by cheating. I believe it's easier to root out those who have the weapons but don't have any other achievements but the milestones. I'm not bitter, I just think that cheating like that is pretty damn low.

But yes. The Kritzkrieg.
As a Soldier? The Kritzkrieg's THE MOST AWESOME THING EVER FUCK YES. I was defending in Dustbowl stage three when I had a Medic with the Kritzkrieg stick to me, and in mere moments: CRIT ROCKETS. EVERYWHERE. Holy fuck I almost came, that's how awesome it was. I saw enemies starting to scatter in panic once they saw the crits, but there was nothing they could do, because even the splash damage was killing people, and oh god it was A THING OF BEAUTY.
After that, whenever there was a Medic with the Kritzkrieg healing me, I actually started paying attention to them and trying to keep them safe, because yeah, I will do anything to get the charge given to me. I'm a total crit junkie, yes, but dammit, you've got a streak a lucky crits before, right? You know how great it feels? How about ten fucking seconds worth of crits?
YEAH.
IT'S THAT GOOD.
Also, the Kritzkrieg is the most terrible thing ever in the hands of your enemies. A Kritzkrieged Pyro charging right at you? I literally panicked. A skillful Soldier with a ten second crit streak? Fucking terrifying. A Heavy? Even from a significant distance that's gonna HURT. A DEMOMAN? FUCKING EVER-LASTING CRIT STICKIES FGSFDS. A melée combat Medic way too close for comfort? Fuck this shit I'm outta here. As in, goodbye cruel world.
The horror of being face to face with a Kritzkrieged enemy is enough to make you forget that they're not in fact immortal. I didn't even once fire at them, I just RAN and tried to hide, resulting in getting killed.

And then some interesting little observations from yesterday.
So, I am usually playing on "Newbies Only" servers. Not because I'm a noob (the regulars over there are seriously not noobs on any scale), but because I've got to used to playing there. The atmosphere is accommodating, there are no horrible assholes, and all the regulars are pretty nice. Plus they're vanilla servers with only the official maps in rotation. And truth to be told, the skill level of other players is on par with mine, that is to say that I don't get my ass completely kicked all the time, and when I have a good day I'm often topping the scoreboard. The lack of teamwork every now and then pisses me off, of course, but that's what you get from playing on a public server. And I can live with that. I rage, but I can live with it. Heh. The only downside is that I've always played with a ~150 ping, but I've got used to it and I'm doing pretty fine with a high latency like that, so I'm not complaining. At least 150 isn't completely insane.
Anyway, yesterday I was playing on a totally random server. I just randomly picked one from the list, requirements being "vanilla," "24/7 Goldrush," and "an agreeable latency (ie. under 200)." Ended up on a 24/7 Dustbowl/Goldrush server (because you know how much I love Dustbowl), with a latency of 20 or so.
I was quite sure I'd end up being steamrolled because I've been playing with "noobs," and I have NO IDEA how my playing skills match with people who supposedly are not newbies. But I steeled myself and thought that I'd just change servers if that ends up being the case. Or suck it up and try my best.

So as it happens, I'm not being steamrolled at all. Quite the opposite. After the first game in Goldrush I was there in the middle of the scoreboard. But after that, Dustbowl, and I'm topping the scoreboard. For the entire goddamn game.
And I was drinking. So I was at least a bit tipsy, if not outright drunk.
Sure, part of it could be the latency, maybe the other players weren't that great (but I, uh, was dominating all the team-stacking clan players in the enemy team...) or whatever, but it doesn't change the fact that I was fucking owning.
After that round I was on top of the scoreboard even in Goldrush (and I wasn't even familiar with the map yet!), and kept wondering what kind of super Soldier do I turn out to be whenever I've been drinking. Haha.
And like I told you, every other player was NOT a Medic. And I had Medics stick to me, but not all the time.
Here, have a scoreboard screenshot, so you can see I'm not making this shit up:


Yeah.

Anyway. I'm going to play some more Goldrush now. I still have a bottle of wine, so I'll probably find myself going fatty at some point (Medic harem, I want one). Or maybe I'll go Medic and aim to übering Scouts and getting the "assist in bonking three enemies" achievement. Hehee.

So I herd you liek updates...

No, I haven't yet played Goldrush or tried to get any new achievements, I haven't even touched TF2 ever since it updated.

Why?

Because the goddamned Valve Land is in GMT-8, and I'm GMT+2. The update came at four in the morning, and I was too tired to play. It was vexing to restart Steam, watch TF2 update, take a look at the list of all the new achievements and then watch bitterly as my friends' names turned green one by one. And I was so tired it hurt.
And I only woke up just a while ago.

But today. Oh boy. I'm finding some Goldrush 24/7 server and playing there for a few hours. Will probably check out my regular servers too at some point. And I will be playing Soldier, and cackling evilly if I can get a ridiculous Medic harem to follow me around.
Yeah, I hear it's MEDICS! EVERYWHERE! so I guess I'll do just what I thought I would and play Soldier and Pyro and Engineer (and Spy fuck yes, now it won't be suspicious at all for a Medic to run around with the syringe gun out. Even a crappy Spy like me could do pretty well with all the Medics around. Especially since most of them are definitely Medicing noobs) for a week or so, and then get back to playing Medic and getting the Blutsauger.
Oh damn, I just realised... Spies are actually going to have even more of a hard time after Medics start getting the unlockables. I suppose Spies will always be holding the regular syringe gun when disguised. Damn. Poor Spies. I would totally feel for them, if I played more as a Spy and didn't think they are a horrible pain in the ass.

And I'm also trying to rope my non-playing friends to join me next weekend, because this is kinda awesome. Lots of noobs around! Hehehe. But yeah, I'm hoping I could get more of my friends to join the game. All you need to do is get Steam!
And I'll have to tell my little brother too, I'd really like to play with him. He'd own me completely (he's been playing Action Quake for ten years or so, and he's pretty fucking good at it), but damn I'd be SO PROUD if I killed him, even once.

EDIT: Oh goddamn, there's a command to unlock all the achievements just by typing it into console. I think it's sad people would actually go down that road with the achievements. I know some of them can be tedious and require some grinding to get, but still.
Just like farming achievements. There are already people running around with Übersaws.

Le sigh.

Why am I not surprised...

So conflicting!

I want the update, and yet I don't, because I'm already sleep-deprived. Please don't come until Friday night (and I'm quite sure it won't come before that. If it comes at all, dammit Valve...). After that I can handle allnighters.
And apparently I have no self-restraint, since I know I have to get up at 7:30 am and yet I still find myself hanging about on the server at 2:00 am. No wonder I'm tired. Damn you Team Fortress 2 for being so much fun to play!

But few nights ago I got I broke my highest score as a Medic. Gravel Pit is starting to be my Medic wonderland, I love being a Medic in the defending team on Gravel Pit.
And yeah I could give ten or so übers with all the healing I do, but like I said, I don't like wasting them. And my new record (18) would've been a point or two higher, but goddamn I got ambushed by an enemy Pyro from behind and died the very second I tried to hit my über (I could blame lag, I'm still playing with a ping of 150 or so). Would've been fourth. And this happened like 30 seconds before the round ended. Was extremely annoyed. I was still an MVP and broke my old record, so that wasn't bad at all.

And I also had some insane combat Medic situations that night. Defended a point on Well by myself against a Demo and a Scout. How the hell do I end up in these situations? (Well, I come out of respawn and go to find someone to heal, and I find no one but enemies, that's how it usually goes). Later on in Granary I was doing the exact same thing, but I was kinda going combat Medic there anyhow. We had a team consisting only of Scouts, Snipers and Spies (and one Pyro, who was extremely suicidal, and I don't like following suicidal Pyros because I get killed so easily), so after trying to heal them for a moment (fucking Scouts, stay still if you want me to heal you! And I don't heal Spies unless they yell for Medic, because I don't want to compromise their disguise by accident) I decided to just fuck it and go combat Medic. Nice to start racking up the kills with Medic, though. I think I killed 10 people yesterday when I was Medic, and that's pretty good. For me.
And I was surprised that we actually won a round with that crazyass team. Four Scouts, three Spies, two Snipers, a suicidal Pyro and a terrible combat Medic. Uhhh, right.
After that round I got a Demoman buddy to follow around. I very rarely stick to Demomen (unless when we're trying to decimate some sentry farms), because they're pretty much screwed when enemies get close to them (and I hate Pyros so fucking much I need a buddy who can take them down before they can get to me, heh), but this time I really didn't have a choice (a Demo or a Scout, hmm...), and he was a pretty kickass Demoman. We took down many defenses together, I liked him.
Just for the record, if you want me to stick to you when I'm Medic, go Heavy. Heavies are my favourites by far. After that I either go for Soldiers or Pyros, usually depending on the situation. I would über a Pyro (or a Demo) for sentry takedowns rather than a Soldier or a Heavy, but I would much rather follow a Soldier around, because they're not nearly as suicidal as Pyros tend to be. And if it's Slaverstrike that I'm healing, I'm quite likely to stick to him exclusively, so you can just piss off if you don't need healing. Because damn we make such a goddamn good team (on top of the scoreboard on Gravel Pit a few nights ago, again).
But whoever it is that I'm exclusively healing, I'll ditch their ass for a fellow Medic in need. Generally I abandon my main healing targets for anyone dying right next to me, unless things are insanely hectic, which is when I take measures and heal those who I think will be the most useful in the situation. Sorry, but I'm thinking about TEAM, not your score. Of course I TRY to heal everyone, but sometimes I can't do that without people dying anyhow.

I'm having too much fun with labels.

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.

SAWRY!

I could talk about Meet the Scout, but, uh. I liked it, but was kinda disappointed because it wasn't nearly as funny as the other Meet the Team videos (my favourite's probably Meet the Soldier). And I felt sorry for the Heavy, the poor guy just wanted a sammich.
Also my Scout hate is bordering serious nerd RAGE because yesterday I was getting dominated by some badass Scouts. Seriously there's nothing I hate more than a good Scout.
And those fuckers always crit when they shoot me. Even today I was killed three times by a goddamn Scout getting a scattergun crit. Stupid Scouts.


(But I can't help it: he is kinda cute. In some really obnoxious way.)

ANY DAY NOW. The update. Could be today, could be tomorrow, eeee, I'm just hoping it won't take forever.

Anyway, back to our usual schedule of wanton babbling:

I had the most awesome match ever in CTF Well a few days ago. Everyone, and I mean everyone went melée. It's never really happened before in my presence (on the servers I usually play on), some go melée and the rest keep playing normally, and it's really not fair, but that's how it goes. Some people don't have a sense of humour. Anyway, this time everyone went melée. 24 players.
I was Medic because, you know, I'm having the Strictly Medic week. And I was actually doing better than I imagined! Even broke my kills record!
And everyone had fun as far as I know, because after the map changed and we found ourselves in Gravel Pit, everyone agreed to continue playing with melée weapons only. I charged cap A with the bonesaw in hand and still holding onto my über (I was playing in BLU). Felt a bit bad for wasting it completely (ie. never actually using it), but at least I was having so much fun. And we won the round, melée only.
I'm still a rotten combat Medic, though, but that was nice practice.

And we make a good team with Slaverstrike, we were steamrolling in CP Well at some point. He was a Soldier, I was a Medic, and in one life we capped two points, I gave him two übers and we were the round's MVPs. :3
I was also THIS close to übering an Engineer in 2fort, but damn it I died just as I right-clicked. Damn stupid something killed me. It would've been so awesome.

And today something happened that made me grin like an idiot for several minutes. I was playing Medic in Gravel Pit, and we were defending. We had somehow lost B, so I was pretty sure we would lose A too, and then battle it out over C. But as I went over to A, I saw we had a quite solid defense going on there. I was pretty much just running around and healing everyone rather than sticking to one person. And then the time's almost out, there's like 30 seconds left, and then BLU breaks through and goes to cap the point. I try to über someone who dies just before the charge kicks in, and there's NO ONE else around, so I just run away in the protection of the über and go get a medkit. There are about five people standing on the point, I wait for a second for someone to come, and much to my chagrin I notice that my entire team's apparently dead.
So I whip out the bonesaw and charge the goddamn point by myself. Luckily I crit, kill an Engineer before anyone even realises what's happening, and then proceed to waving the bonesaw around and reducing the entire group to half-dead state, and it takes them FOREVER to kill me.
I eventually die, but I'm grinning from ear to ear while waiting to respawn because that was probably the most awesome thing I've ever done. And I watch as my teammates arrive to the point a couple of seconds after my death and decimate the enemies, stopping the capture, and we won the round. If I hadn't been there to prevent the capture for the few seconds, BLU would've probably capped the point. And I was the number one MVP for the round. It really pays off to heal and buff EVERYONE.
The best part? My Medic screamed "MUST I DEFEND ZIS POINT BY MYSELF?!" and laughed like a maniac (I love Medic's laugh) when I charged in and killed the Engineer. AWESOME.
My best combat Medic moment ever.
I've actually never played a game in Gravel Pit so that only B is capped (a shutout I've seen, since I have the achievement). A is such a bitch to defend. But apparently it's possible. We had fuckloads of Engineers, though.

And after that we played in Dustbowl and after capping Stage One, the Heavy I was healing in the previous round tells me that I'm one of the best Medics he's seen on the server (he's a regular, I've been healing him maaany times before. IIRC he was the Heavy I was healing in Gravel Pit when our team was pretty lost and the guy who played the Scout whined that his team sucks). And I start the round by smiling like an idiot.
I'm seriously not THAT good a Medic (not while there are so many better server regular Medics around, even had one in our team), but I'm really happy to hear that at least someone thinks that I don't suck.
Btw, this was after the most risky cap I've ever done, goddamn, I'm hanging around in the tunnel with the one-way door, getting my über up, and the Heavy charges in and immediately out of the doors because the last cap was half-capped, and apparently the defenses were down. I'm THIS close to getting the über, but I decide to follow the Heavy and try to keep him alive, maybe we could cap without the über (besides, points don't cap when you're übered, so while we wait the über to go out, the RED have more time to get on the point and defend). We kill everyone on the point, get on it and cap it. And just as we cap I get the über and naturally I proceed to übering the Heavy for maximum humiliation effect.

I was also practising to stay alive today. There was actually three or four times I stayed alive for three consecutive übers. One of those was an entire Dustbowl round, we defended and won with a shutout (I even joined the game after setup time, so I didn't have the setup charge up when I went to the battle).
But yeah, it seems that three's the magic number, I ALWAYS die after the third über.
And yeah, of course I probably would've gotten six or so übers with all the healing I did in the Gravel Pit match, but I'm not going to waste the charges, that's for sure. And I'm certain that if I use the über to take out an odd Soldier, the REAL attack force comes in right after that and then I don't have the über when we need one. And that's why I also DIE way too often while holding a full charge.

But yeah, I was doing pretty well today, all in all. More of this, and more of melée only Well matches.

I spam. :3

GodDAMN the Übersaw looks badass. Now I'm back to thinking that maybe I should do the insane grinding to get the thing... just because it looks so awesome.
But ehh I'm not going to bother. I'll get the Blutsauger and that's it.

And dammit, Valve, why is it "Critscrieg" (according to the loadout screenshots), that makes no sense! I'm gonna rage if it stays that way. (The Blutsauger was referred to as "Blutsaugher" in one of the articles, but apparently that was just a typo). Critskrieg, Valve, CRITZKRIEG.

And what is this I read about new classes? Do not know if want.

Medic achievements and unlockables

Okay, right, huge news day.

First the final Medic unlockables were revealed. Then there were actual hands-on impressions about the said unlockables and Goldrush.
And just now, the actual Medic achievements were unveiled.

I've been giddy the whole day, first figuring out if I like the sound of the new unlockable weapons and deciding that I really, really like Blutsauger and want to have it as my new best friend. And now I'm despairing over the fact that I'm going to be lucky if I even get the damn weapon. The achievements are sadistic!

Well, anyway. Cue my long-winded thoughts on the unlockables and achievements.

So like I said, the Blutsauger will probably be my new best friend. I won't even look back at the good old syringe gun once I get my eager little hands on the new bloodsucker. I figure it will support my cowardish Medicing playstyle pretty perfectly.
And I'm probably going to hate the Critzkrieg. I have a hard time staying alive as a Medic, so I'll definitely prefer übercharges over a few seconds of continuous crits but being completely vulnerable. And I'm going to hate it whenever an enemy Medic launches his critzkrieg, as if I wasn't a bad enough crit magnet before!
Well at least I don't have to worry about it too much, because I'll probably never even get the weapon. Ha!
The Übersaw is a bit DO WANT, but first of all it's impossible (for me) to get, and I'm not that badass a combat Medic. I'm not a combat Medic at all (I just lost a Medic vs. Medic bonesaw deathmatch in Gravel Pit yesterday, so...), but even I'd venture out to bonesaw people if it meant getting an über faster. But yeah, never gonna get it.

I was also a bit scared if the new unlockables will screw up the class balance (since Medic is the only class to get new weapons for now), but to me it seems that the unlockable weapons will only support different ways of playing the Medic. Combat Medics will surely appreciate the Übersaw, and those who rather heal people than fight and strive to survive, will find Blutsauger perfect. Critzkrieg is an interesting counterpart to the übercharge, that's for sure, and gives more of a tactical twist to playing the Medic (when to have übercharge, and when critzkrieg? I understand you can change weapons during respawn and in resupply? Just like you'd chance a class), although I can't quite figure how I'D use it to my (or rather my team's) advantage.

And what I find great about the achievements, is that a player who only plays combat Medic will NEVER get the Übersaw of their dreams. Achievements are pretty well balanced, there are some geared towards combat Medics, and some geared towards those who actually do what Medics are supposed to (ie. healing). To get all of the achievements and be worthy of the unlockables, you have to be a well-rounded Medic who's both a teamworking healer and a total badass killing machine. That's awesome, I think.
And I don't think having the Übersaw (or Critzkrieg, and definitely not Blutsauger) tips the balance. Only the real hardcore players will get it, and they will probably play with people who are close to their own level of skill. I don't think I'll be seeing any Übersaws on any of my regular servers...
Yeah, sure, I know, of course some people will get the achievements through setup games, or using bots and keybinds on playtest servers.

I'm not too happy about the slight MMORPG GRINDING aspect this is adding to my cheerful little team-based FPS, but I figure the Übersaw doesn't change the gameplay so much that a team is automatically screwed if the enemy Medic has it, so you don't have to get it to be a good Medic. If you really want it, you'll have to grind, that's how it goes.

And now, the achievements. This is gonna be hella annoying to read, but I'll just repost some of the achievements and add my thoughts.

1. First Do No Harm: Play a full round without killing any enemies and score the highest on a team of 6 or more players.
- Easily done. I don't really kill people as Medic anyhow, so it's easy to just hold myself back if I do get assaulted by noobish Spies. And I've been on top of the scoreboard as a Medic before, so this is going to be somewhat of a cakewalk. Definitely not too hard. With lots of Medics around, though...

3. Group Health: Work with 2 other medics to deploy 3 simultaneous uber-charges.
- I suspect servers will be full of Medics for the next few weeks, so probably you don't even have to coordinate this. Sigh.

5. Trauma Queen: Deploy 3 uber-charges in less than 5 minutes, and assist in 5 kills during that time.
- Tricky, because I can't bleeding stay alive for three consecutive übers. 3 übers is actually my record, that's how long I can stay alive. And it's almost always on Dustbowl Stage Three, playing in BLU. Five assists is going to be very easy. And lol at Trauma Queen, awesome name.

7. Play Doctor: In a team with no medics, be first to switch to medic after a teammate calls "Medic!" and then heal 500 health.
- Oh god, I can imagine the whole fucking team going Medic at once. Sheer luck. Also, a team with no Medics? After this update? HAHAHA OH WOW. Dream on. Will take some time, this one, I figure. :D

8. Triage: Deploy an uber-charge on a teammate less than a second before they're hit by a critical explosive.
- I'll probably get this without even realising it. Or then I'll just keep my eyes open for crits whenever I have a full charge. My crit-magnetism should come in handy, har de har har.

10. Consultation: Assist a fellow medic in killing 5 enemies in a single life.
- I've been assisting some bonesawing combat Medics before pretty randomly, but to stick to one? I wonder where I'll find a badass-enough Medic. I wonder if Slaverstrike can pull it off...

11. Does It Hurt When I Do This?: Kill 50 scouts with your syringe gun.
- I heard there was going to be a "kill Scouts with syringes" achievement and my face went ":D!" because I've actually killed quite a lot of Scouts with syringes (I own Scouts better as Medic than as Soldier...). And then my face went "D:!" when I actually saw that it's 50 fucking Scouts. Right. It's gonna take forever. I have 120 kills as a Medic as of now, and maybe 15 of them are Scouts, 'nuff said.

12. Peer Review: Kill 50 medics with your bone saw.
- And I just lost a Medic vs. Medic melée match. Goddamn...

13. Big Pharma: Assist a heavy in killing 30 enemies where neither of you die.
- SLAVERSTRIKE, WE HAVE SOME BUSINESS TO DO. No deaths. Mindless killing only. Final destination.
Oh I only wish it was so easy and I were that good...

14. You'll Feel A Little Prick: Assist in killing 4 enemies with single uber-charge on a scout.
- I COULD DO THIS WHEN I'M DRUNK. Since I seem to be so fond of Scouts under the influence.

16. Blast Assist: Assist in exploding 5 enemies with a single uber-charge on a soldier.
- Only thing I can say is: MEDICS, don't über ME when you want this achievement.

18. Medical Breakthrough: Assist in destroying 8 enemy engineer buildings with a single uber-charge on a Demoman.
- Seriously, where the HELL can you find a sentry nest like that? D: Even the usually so insane sentry nests on Dustbowl's Stage Two's last point are rarely so large! But yeah, Slaverstrike, you're going to help me with this one too at some point, right? :/

19. Midwife Crisis: Heal an engineer as he repairs his sentry while it's under enemy fire.
- Lol at the name. And as far as achievements go, this one should be a cakewalk.

21. Grand Rounds: Heal 200 teammates after they've called for "Medic!"
- People just need to remember to call for Medics (I actually very rarely call for Medic when I play as Soldier or Pyro. I don't know why, maybe I feel a bit embarrassed wanting to take their time. And I'm afraid they'd stick to me and I'd get them killed, but yeah... I usually head for medkits instead. And now as I think of it, that's really stupid of me, and makes absolutely no sense. What kind of Medic WOULDN'T heal me when I call? And from now on I'll definitely always call for Medics! Help them get the achievement, yes!), and this should be fairly easy to get. At least I always heal everyone in need, I don't stick to just one person unless we're charging.

23. Doctor Assisted Homicide: Assist in killing 20 nemesis.
- Dammit, this would've been so much easier to get back in January when people actually dominated me! I don't really get dominated these days, not as Medic anyhow. I die a lot, but apparently not by the same people, at least not without me getting an assist on them before they can dominate me.
EDIT: And I realised only now that it's possibly assisting in other players' revenge kills, not getting your own revenges. And that makes so much more sense, actually. I'm slow. :nyoro~n:

24. Placebo Effect: Kill 5 enemies in a single life while having your uber-charge ready, but undeployed.
- Oh wow. I've never even killed five enemies in a single life (my record's two, ehh). People are gonna hate Medics when they try to get this. "Alright, I have a charge, I'mma go kill some people now!" "CHROME WE NEED TO GET THIS POINT GET YOUR FULLY CHARGED ASS IN HERE PRONTO - CHROME, THAT IS A PYRO WHAT ARE YOU ... OH FFS." "Hay guise I just respawned lol, let's get that über up so I can try to kill some people!"

26. Intern: Accumulate 7000 heal points in a single life.
- This is going to be another somewhat of a cakewalk. Gravel Pit, RED, good-enough team so that we can hold B, and this should be pretty easy.

27. Specialist: Accumulate 10000 heal points health in a single life.
- If only I could stay alive...

28. Chief of Staff: Accumulate 10 million total heal points.
- HAHAHAHA I HAVE ONE MILLION AND A HALF. I really hope those count towards the achievement.

29. Hypocritical Oath: Kill an enemy spy that you have been healing.
- With my Sixth Spy Sense this should be fairly easy. I want to know that do I have to actually overheal them, or does a quick little heal do the trick?

30. Medical Prevention: Save a falling teammate from dying on impact.
- I'mma just have a friend jump down from Gravel Pit Cap C. Hehe. A Soldier or a Demo, you know, they can shoot themselves until they're veeery low on health, and then they'll jump and I'll just catch them. With the medigun beam, that is.

32. Autopsy Report: Provide an enemy with a freezecam shot of you taunting above their ragdoll.
- I've always wanted to do this! I always forget to taunt ater kills. I've done it ONCE. I was chasing a Scout, who ran into his resupply room, and I fired a crit rocket before the doors closed and I just heard the crit hit and saw a message of having killed the Scout. That's when I taunted. Adding insult to injury, I know how much it sucks to die a feet away from the resupply cabinet (not that it would've helped at all, it was a crit after all...). Evil.

33. FYI I Am A Medic: Use your bonesaw to kill 5 enemy spies who have been calling for "Medic!"
- I love the nod to the Youtube video. But yeah, this is my day job anyhow.

34. Family Practice: Uber-charge ten of your steam community friends.
- I don't even have ten friends on Steam (only eight), but that's actually pretty easily fixed. Circlejerk, I'm looking at you.

35. House Call: Join a game that one of your friends is in and then deploy and uber-charge on him.
- And now I'm looking at Slaverstrike, this is gonna be so easy.

That's a lot of reading.

Anyway, Christmas is indeed coming early this year. I'm still refusing to get excited, because VALVE TIME. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the update comes next week - the earlier the better - but I'm still sceptical. It IS Valve after all.

And here, have a quick Engineer drawing I whipped up at TF2Chan's oekaki board.

A quick observation

I've been playing so much fragging-centered offensive classes that I absolutely suck as a Medic these days. Noticed just now, after I spent Gravel Pit and Dustbowl running around and healing people and being generally horrible at it. I was way better Medic back in January when I was starting to play and was still a paranoid little nooblet Medic, hiding behind my meat shield Heavy and getting absolutely raped by Spies. At least I did my work pretty well back then.

So that does it, I'm going Strictly Medic for the rest of the week. I have to be on my best for the new achievements.

And after that I'm going to have a Stricly Engineer week, because I seem to be a horrible Engie too these days.

And after that I'm learning to play Spy. Seriously. I'm going to try Spy on each map, and I won't give up on it, unless my team starts complaining that I'm useless. I want to play Spy, damn it, but I'm terrible at it, and I always chicken out of actually trying it out more.

And okay, I'm forbidding myself of playing Soldier. I can only play as Soldier if I get completely frustrated (completely frustrated = on the verge of ragequitting) at every other class, or my team has no Soldiers and one is seriously needed. I will tell Slaverstrike that he has to yell at me, call me fat, go into the enemy team and dominate my ass mercilessly if he ever sees me going Soldier.

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.)

Of teamwork

I've been slipping. Ie. I still seem to babble about games in my other blog, and then don't feel the need to write the same things here as well. I need to be more strict with my own rules, dammit.

But yeah, teamwork. Because I played a game today in Hydro with RED being extremely stacked, which naturally resulted in BLU being steamrolled round after round. I was playing in BLU, because I always play in BLU in Hydro (I still play Pyro in Hydro almost always and I've got used to using all the routes from BLU's perspective). I wasn't too pissed off about the stacking (less so than usually) because I was doing fairly well and I got rather lot of defenses and revenges. And I actually felt like I was for once actually contributing something to my team, as hard as it was when we got mowed down continuously. But at least I was helping to fight them off.
But yeah, spent quite a lot of time dead (you know, kamikaze Pyro), and started to get pissed off at my own team by watching them play.
At one point I was watching how a group of RED people were storming the point, and my team mates were just STANDING there, away from the point. Some of them were shooting (Snipers with their pea shooters...), and some just simply stood. I wanted to grab my mic and scream my head off at them, "GET ON THE FUCKING POINT!" but it really wouldn't have helped, you know, me being dead and all. Jesus Christ. I can understand Soldiers and Demos standing away from the point and spamming their 'nades and rockets at the people standing on the point, but even that won't help as much as actually getting on the point. I always try to get on the point and fire my rockets there, even suiciding to kill them off and stop the capture.
After a while I witnessed another display of wonderful teamwork: I'm spectating a Pyro chasing down a Soldier. Nothing unusual there, except that at the same time there were two RED people standing on our point. Good going there, Pyro, nice to know that frags are apparently all you care about. I can't be the only one to stop whatever it is that I'm doing and turn on my heels if there are people standing on our point. Especially if I'm Pyro: I don't HAVE to chase anyone down, if they're on flames, they usually retreat and won't chase me down if I turn tail.
And lastly I saw people running away when there were people standing on our point. WHAT THE FUCK. I watch the point being capped and my team mates just turning away from it and running. They see people on the point, they hightail. Seriously guys, if they cap the point, it's humiliation time and you're gonna die either way.
We also had three Engineers, and at the start of each round ALL OF THEM placed down their sentries. Then they fought for the metal while oncoming enemies just promptly disposed of the three measly level one sentries and proceeded to capping the point. Jesus Christ, guys, would you think TEAM for once, put down one sentry, build it into a level three one all together in a matter of seconds, and THEN start putting down the other sentries? How fucking hard can it be? But noooo, I need it to be MY sentry, they need to be MY kills, I don't get anything for helping other Engies!
I want to change teams, go Spy and rape them and all their sentries, goddamn.
And how stupid can they be for not to realise that their little level one sentries won't hold? If they won't hold and enemies can push continuously, they won't ever get a chance to put the sentries back up again, and so we have three useless Engineers running around shotguns in hand, and then the point is capped. And they will not get any kills whatsoever. Goddamn.

But yeah, I'm the one to talk, I've been sucking a lot once again. Or that's how I feel, I can be on top of the scoreboard and still feel like I'm doing horrible. I should probably lay off playing as Soldier (I've clocked 54 hours as Soldier, which is kinda creepy. I'm not supposed to play it so much! It's by far my "MPC," Medic coming in second with measly 38 hours).
I found it ironic how a few days ago I was playing Engineer on Dustbowl, we were in Stage Three and defending the last cap. And I was doing horrible. I had a sneaky sentry up (after I had tried to get it up on my usual spot on the ledge on the right side of the cap point and ending up with tiny little sentry pieces flying into every direction every fucking time I tried to put it up. People were screaming at us Engies to get sentries up, but what the fuck I can't get my sentry up if you don't give me some suppressive fire! If that fucking Soldier keeps shooting rockets at me freely from the other side of the bleeding map, I can't get the sentry up! I should've yelled at THEM to keep them suppressed for the ten seconds that I need for getting the sentry up, but I'm a jovial player, and I don't yell at people. But once again: TEAMWORK, PEOPLE!), which went nicely unnoticed by the übered people storming the point. So I get killed by something, and as I'm waiting to respawn, I watch in awe as I completely own the people who just stormed past and tried to get the point. Five kills and two defenses. While I'm DEAD.
That's just about how useful I was that day.

And while we're still somewhat on the topic of teamwork, I have one more example to tell you.
I was playing in Gravel Pit one day. I was attacking, playing as Medic, had a nice Heavy buddy to cling to. We got A, but B was preeetty heavily guarded. Not much sentries, just so much people. There might've been some stacking involved, but anyway. So we're camping in the respawn hallways with the Heavy, waiting for my über, and the Heavy informs everyone that we have an über soon, that everyone should come with us and attack B when the charge is ready. I get the charge, he tells everyone that okay, we're going in, and then we go in.
And there's no one there.
Except for the entire RED team.
You can probably guess how well that ended. (Hint: not very well.)
After a while some guy on my team whines that his team sucks. I check the scoreboard and the guy is there on the bottom half, playing a Scout. Playing a Scout when we're trying to get a point that has incredibly strong defense, yeah, no wonder our team sucks.
But yeah, those who whine the most are usually the ones with the least skill.

This blog undoubtedly proves my point.

We never got B, surprise surprise.

And my computer caused me some serious grief yesterday. I was playing in Dustbowl, and for a change I was doing well, and then the game suddenly crashed, proclaiming some sort of engine error about failing to lock vertex buffer. I connected again, played a game in Gravel Pit and then it was back to Dustbowl, and the game crashed again. Then I went to check Steam's troubleshooting guides and verified my game cache files like they suggested. No defragmentation. I deleted my game folder just in case and then checked how much paged pool memory I was using, just in case. That turned out to be not the problem, as I was using only 80. So I was hoping the verifying would do the trick, and later connected to the server to play some more.
And the game crashed in Dustbowl again.
That's when I simply gave up and went to bed, pissed off as hell. I had no idea what the problem was, I've never gotten any game crashes before this, the GCFs were alright, it's not paged pool memory, and I'm not running any of the anti virus programs that supposedly meddle with Steam (I'm using F-Secure).
And today I started playing, just to see if the problem was still there before starting to send angry emails to Steam's support, and played two hours without any crashes. The problem was gone.
I have NO IDEA what the hell caused the problem, maybe the game was just having a bad day, or something.

And now my friend is playing, so I'll just jump in for a moment and hope for not-stacked teams.

Yes, I'm counting days for Goldrush. Must not get excited yet. Remember Valve Time, Chrome, remember Valve Time.

Dr. Feelgood + Medic = good times.

More custom map experiences, and also more gaming while drunk. It's disturbing how I'm not actually much worse player when I am drunk (when I play as my strongest classes, that is). This time I didn't even get shot to death by my own sentry!
And it's always entertaining to look at all the screenshots afterwards, and not remember doing this or that. Oh, I actually KILLED someone when I was a Scout? Oh I capped the intel twice in one life? That's kinda cool. I capped the intel when I was a Heavy, what the shit?! Goddamn I shotgunned a lot of people when I was an Engineer.
So yeah, was drunk, and actually played as classes I don't usually play as. I was Scout for a pretty long time, I think. Then I wanted to be a slow-ass fat Russian, and played some time as Heavy. Then I even went Demo, and that was a disaster because I can't play as Demo even when I'm sober. Oh dear.

Also had to go Medic at one point when Mötley Crue's Dr Feelgood came up on my playlist, and it was a bit too amusing to pass.
That was kinda horrible, though. "Oh, I have an über, didn't even notice! Let's go then, Scout!"

But yes, customs.

Played on 2fort Classic v2, and that was just horrible. I don't know if it's like the real classic version because (like I said) I haven't played TFC, but nevertheless the map was awful. I didn't do the mistake I did with Classic Badlands, though, and actually paid attention that the actual cap area was on battlements (good girl, you get a cookie for that).
Also, the map's ugly as fuck, but I suppose the map version is not final and the textures are eventually going to be replaced. The map is also confusing as hell because the textures look the same everywhere. Took me a minute to get out of my damn base, even though the map's quite similar to the 2fort I know. At least I hope the textures are going to be replaced, because it's gotta be one of the ugliest maps I've ever seen. Uglier than that horrible Ataraxia, for sure.
And what the fuck's up with not being able to get through the water without suffocating?

Another new one was 2fortified v1, which was quite a lot nicer map. It looked very nice (okay, I really like aesthetically pleasant maps, is that a crime?), but it was pretty confusing too. It's always such a blast to just suddenly bump into enemy intel while exploring places, and then have no idea how the hell to get back to your own base. But yeah, it was one of the nicer customs I've played on, would play on it again (hopefully when I'm not drunk as a duck).

I also played another game on Impact2 and apparently on Shock as well. What I remember from Impact2, is that it's much more fun when there's more people playing (no shit!) and healing Scouts while Dr Feelgood played. And getting dominated by some badass assault Medic and Jesus there's nothing I hate more than getting dominated by meléeing Medics.
And what comes to Shock... I really don't remember anything except being a Medic and staying alive for two consecutive übers. I suppose it didn't last for very long? We even had more people playing, so I should've paid some attention, but I seriously can't remember and I don't even have any screenshots of it (which means that some mod changed the map in the middle of the game, because otherwise I would've had the auto screenshot of final scoreboard).

But yeah, I guess that's it.

Oh it's April already. Goldrush month!

Anyway. Haven't been around, and my misadventures in TF2 can be easily summarised as "lots of sucking." I had a few pretty cool moments, like the epic Engineer cappan gaemz when we were playing in 2fort after a server crash and it was basically four against three, and we had three Engineers (I, and two of my friends). I got my sentry up in ramp room, and then I noticed that one of my friends had just gone and taken the intel.
I thought "I wanna do that too!" and so I started out towards the enemy base. My friend passed me by on the bridge, carrying the briefcase, all "'ello, old chap!" and I continued my perilous journey to the depths of the enemy base.
Well long story short, I also capped the intel, and we regarded it as a THING OF BEAUTY, doing two consecutive captures as Engineers. And then we got our asses properly kicked before we realised to change classes and start taking the game a bit more seriously. It was fun, though, as long as it lasted.

Finally got SOME reason to write, because today I played on some custom maps. I've been sticking to official Valve maps all this time (I have my misgivings about custom maps: no matter what people say, I will think that they suck, without exception), I think CP_Labor is the only custom map I've ever played (and I hate it, stupid linear map). But I've been getting SO tired of both Wells and 2fort, and I honestly would rather play any shitty custom map than the billionth round in Well or 2fort. I'd even play duel_duel2.

So the first map I played on, was called CTF_Impact2. Seemed like a pretty basic CTF map, and I generally dislike CTF. Well, okay, I don't dislike CTF, I just prefer control point maps over it. Or maybe it's because there's only two official CTF maps and I hate them both? Anyway.
Couldn't really experience the map to the fullest, because we were basically playing two on two at that point, and I just concentrated on being a serious thorn in one poor Engineer's flesh, and dominating another equally as poor Soldier.

The second was called Shock, and it was a control point map with two capture points. The second one's locked until the first one's capped, you know the drill. I actually quite liked it, but I'd like to play it with more people. We were going three on three, which was kinda amusing, since the first point is so close to attacking team's respawn, and the second point is VERY close to the defending team's respawn. So the match consisted mostly of lots of standing around doing nothing. :D
I was playing Soldier, because it's the one class I don't have to know the terrain as well as with some other classes (the thing I hate about new maps is that I'm SO LOST at first), and it's kinda pointless being a Medic when you have only two team mates and one of them is an Engineer stuck in defending the last point, so. Apart from the Engineer we had a Heavy.
And the enemies had gone with a Demo-Engineer-Spy line-up, and I had my friend (the Demo) cursing at me through Steam's chat that WE'RE ATTACKING THREE ON THREE AND WTF WE HAVE AN ENGINEER AND A SPY, and I was like yeah, especially the Spy's kinda cute. How the hell did he think he will get away with ANY disguise when we have three people in a team? Oh lawdy. He did backstab me once (and I saw him get the Heavy a couple of times, just before I gibbed him), but I don't have eyes in the back of my head, so.
But yeah, a huge CP map is huge, and three on three got pretty boring after a while, so me and my friend decided to go MELEE ONLY. Too bad our team mates didn't appreciate, and I had the Engineer trying to shotgun me when I ran at my Demo friend with the shovel in hand, and he nailed me with the bottle when I was down to 40 HP. And the next time my team's Heavy kept ruining our nice shovel vs. bottle deathmatch. Phooie.
Well, our teams probably hated us, because BLUs were just trying to cap the last point and would've probably appreciated the help of their very capable Demoman, and RED was trying to defend and while I'm not really good player, a trigger-happy suicidal Soldier on the point wouldn't have hurt, but instead we were just frolicking somewhere in the happy melée land.
Well, I had fun.
But yeah, I want to play on that map again, preferably with more people.

Third map was Ataraxia, another CTF map, and I hated it. With burning passion. So cramped and confusing! And it was somehow ugly. I don't want to talk about it, it was horrible. I totally loved the air vents, and managed to sneak into the enemy's intel room a few times from there, completely unnoticed (and then they started building millions of sentries in there, bastards).

The fourth was Badlands Classic b3e, which is naturally a CTF map. I've never played TFC, so I have no idea how similar it is to the old Badlands, but can I just say this? I'm SO glad the new Badlands is NOTHING like this one. D: The map is SO confusing! It looks very pretty, though. But yeah, it took me several minutes to find to the enemy base (I thought I found it a couple of times, only to realise that it was still my own damn base), and finding the intel was preeetty tricky, even with all the huge signs on the walls. I basically used just one route during the entire game, thankfully enemies never found out, I would've been pretty easy prey.
And then I managed to actually get the intel. I was running towards our base (I was a Pyro), following the "intelligence" signs and ending up where our intel is.
But it won't cap. I'm standing there like wtf why doesn't it cap, and my team's screaming at me "CAP IT! WHAT'S GOING ON, CAP IT ALREADY!" and I'm like oh god what the fuck am I broken. And then one Scout stumbles by and is like FFS CHROME FOLLOW ME, and then leads me out of the pit and back to our respawn and a goddamn different capture area. Facepalm.jpg.
HOW COULD'VE I KNOWN? D: I don't know if it went like that in TFC Badlands!
I was pretty embarrassed, but it was a winning capture, so there was no harm done.

And now I know. And knowing's half the battle.

So, it wasn't that bad a first touch at custom maps, but I'm still looking forward to playing on a TRULY good custom map. We'll see, and I'll keep you up to date.

And now one of my Steam friends is asking me to play with her, so I guess I'll jump in for a moment. I should be sleeping, but I can't say no to her.

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.

Back again!

Had to take almost a week off from my regular gaming routine since I was visiting my parents for Easter, and my little brother managed to break his computer (on which I did my gaming the previous times I was there). So no TF2 for me for a few days. And after that I actually took bull by the horns and continued on where I had previously stopped with PS2's Okami, and spent couple of days with a controller glued to my hands. I wasn't supposed to, I told myself that I would play couple of hours of Okami and then couple of hours of TF2, see, I have plenty of time to do both.
But if you've ever played Okami and liked it, you probably know how it's bleeding hard to stop once you've started.

So after that I noticed how my Steam rating had gone down to four point something and that's unacceptable (I've been EAGLES SCREAM! ever since January), so last night I finally hopped on a server and played for six hours straight.

And I sucked.

I was on top of scoreboard on many maps, my team's number one on Hydro as Pyro, on Gravel Pit as Soldier/Medic (one round top MVP as Medic), on CTF_Well as Soldier and so on, and statistics were telling me I wasn't THAT bad, but it surely felt like it! My kills/deaths ratio was worse than usually and I was getting really frustrated because I kept getting killed by stupid mistakes I made, or because of my poor judgment. And I was getting seriously ANGRY at Pyros who just kept killing me when I was Soldier.
Maybe I just had a bad day, because I know I'm weak against Pyros as Soldier and it's not unusual of me to get killed by them.

Or maybe it's because first couple of hours of playing the other team was so stacked I almost thought of quitting or changing servers.

So, rant time. Stacked teams. I hate team stacking almost as much as I hate all kinds of griefing (which can be fun sometimes, I admit. And almost always when it's not happening to me. Sure I've been laughing at Team Roomba's antics, but I would probably ragequit if it happened to me :D).

Why is it that all the most skilled (not necessarily even clan) players always, deliberately stack in one team map after map after map? Is their sportsmanship so poor? Are they in it just for easy points? Are they griefing?
I could take it as coincidence once, but when the same players go into same team when the next map loads, even go Spectator until there's a free slot in the team, I'm forced to think that they're perfectly aware of their team choice.
And please take notice that this is a public server.
What makes me seriously wonder about those players' motives, is that even I'M not having fun if I'm in a stacked team and we're completely steamrolling the other team and winning CP maps in under two minutes. :< I'm not having fun. I don't consider getting ridiculously easy frags fun (in a game like Team Fortress, that is). If I thought that is fun, I'd be playing some deathmatch game.
It's fun for few minutes, then it gets boring when there's absolutely no resistance from the other team. I start considering changing teams, but I know I wouldn't make any difference, and then I would get pissed off at being steamrolled over and over again.

Because I seriously have less fun in the losing team, that's for sure. :D Last night I got so fucking pissed off at being mowed down again and again that I started going melée only. I know I wasn't contributing anything to my team at that point (because I couldn't kill anyone. Then again, I could kill hardly anyone even when I was playing seriously, so), but if I was going to get killed ten seconds after getting out of my spawn, I wanted to at least make those ten seconds somewhat tolerable and fun. And that was to go at enemies with axe in hand instead of the flame thrower. And there was always the chance that the player I was attacking wouldn't take it too seriously and actually get his melée weapon out and we could duke it out one-on-one, but that only happened once (I ran at a Demo waving my axe and he got his bottle out, and then I was hit by a rocket or something). And so I was getting burned to death by enemy Pyros. Good for them!

I was seriously thinking of quitting, but eventually some of the stackers left and the teams evened out a bit.
And I was seriously laughing with GLEE when we played in Hydro, RED was stacked and we were fighting them off at our control point. And doing very fucking good job considering how superior the other team was (it was probably the best teamwork I've done in a while, everyone was equally pissed off about the stacking). And what happens sometimes in those kind of situations, is that the attacking team sometimes completely ignores their own control point since they're so deep in our territory.
So what happened is that a lonely Spy slipped by the VERY WEAK enemy defense, and went to cap their point. They couldn't do ANYTHING because there was no one even near the point. It was glorious! In the next round the exact same thing was happening, but someone slipped through their offensive sentries again, went to cap their point and they fell back in panic (apparently afraid that the last round would happen again), which provided us a perfect chance to turn the tide completely, and rest of the round they were fighting for their lives close to THEIR point. :3 Those were the most awesome Hydro matches I've had in a while. Just because the enemy was seriously underestimating us and ignoring their defense completely (apparently relying too much on the fact that they were so stacked and had completely kicked our asses before), and it was a perfect example of what a sudden turn of tides does to team morale.
The same happened later in Dustbowl. The teams weren't THAT stacked, but we were still getting our asses properly kicked on Stage Two. RED had pushed us back to first cap point area and time was running out and we were losing. RED had apparently NO defense whatsoever on their point, so a lone Spy capped it before anyone could realise what was happening and it was AWESOME. We totally lost on Stage Three without even capping the first point, but everyone bowed down to the awesome Spy.

And I was always near the top of the scoreboard when I was in the losing team (and still had only like third of the points of the enemy team top scorer), which was, uh, all the time (I go team random every map if none of my friends are playing: in that case I try to get in the same team), so I guess I'm not that bad. :P In the Hydro matches I was my team's top scorer. My deaths/kills ratio was ridiculous, though, but I was playing as Pyro and because of almost nonexistant respawn times (there is sometimes instant respawn in Hydro and I have no idea what it's based on, because I've gotten it when I'm defending and attacking. And this is vanilla server, so there is a respawn timer) I strongly relied of suicide attacks.

That's about it.

And like a good blogger, I'll now address some TF2 related news.

First of all, the recent update -

"Updated CTF mode to remember the player who stole the intelligence from the enemy base and reward that player if the flag is captured by someone else"

- made me SO happy. I'm very often the one who steals the intel and gets it out in the open (I die very often while carrying intel, because more often than not I'm Soldier and I'm slow as fuck, and nervous to boot) where it's easier for a Scout or someone to take it and get it to our base, and I've always been happy that YAY WE WON, but couldn't have helped to feel a bit bitter because I had to go through hell to get the briefcase and then some Scout just takes it and gets all the points.
And I remember once in 2fort I was playing as Pyro and I went to get the intel THREE TIMES. Every time I died (because as a lonely Pyro there's not much you can do when Soldiers and Demos start firing at you from distance) and left the intel to be picked up by someone else. So it was thanks to me we won with a shutout, and I had basically no points whatsoever. :D
And I think it was kind of horrible that one time I capped as Engineer. Someone had gone through all kinds of hardships (presumably) to get the intel just to have some useless Engineer cap it and get all the points. I felt bad for them, I really did. :/ So from now on they get points too, so everyone's happy!

And Goldrush, Medic achievements and Meet the Scout in April!
Then again it's Valve, so I'm not going to trust them. :D The update doesn't exist until my Steam says so. They already nearly broke my heart on Valentine's Day (the whole Badlands thing, if you remember, and my first personal experience on how Valve Time works in practice).
But I'd be lying if I told you I'm not looking forward to that update. Christmas is coming early this year, baby!
I'm just afraid that every server will turn into a Medic only deathmatch because of the achievements (I know I'll be playing lots of Medic).

Linkage!

I promised to link a few TF2 related sites that I shamelessly follow from the shadows, so here we go. These are probably Old News to everyone, but see if it can stop me from posting (actually, I don't even know if anyone reads this besides myself. So I can just pretend that I'm linking these for myself. Righto. In case I ever lose all my bookmarks and my memory. Great! So!).

First of all, 1fort 1blog, which is the TF2 related blog of the maker of Concerned (and boy was that an awkward sentence). I absolutely love his bloggings, he makes me laugh, and I'm looking forward to May. And "looking forward" is a complete understatement...
I'm also debating whether or not I have the guts to go play on 1fort server some day. I would of course have the 150 ping, but I'm kinda used to playing with high ping (...now that I think of it, I've never played with less than a 100 ping. Wtf). And I'm shy and not very good player, so I'd just probably get my ass kicked... so I don't know. Maybe. We'll see.

Then, Ubercharged.net.

And because I love reading and hearing and speaking about Team Fortress 2, I naturally follow the Control Point podcast. Excellent entertainment for long bus rides. Once I got used to getting funny looks from fellow travellers, that is (I snicker a lot. Aloud. And unexpectedly).

And then there's... well, let's not go there. Hush.

I've been engaging in the ... darker side of TF2 fandom, so no actual gaming for me today. So no boring rants or stories for you today. Hooray!

Axan gaemz!

Today's biggest accomplishment: there's this regular guy on the server I usually play on, and he's a pretty good player. Better than me, for sure. I see him sometimes go Pyro and only use the axe to fight (I don't know if he does it to show off, or is he doing it just for fun, since I don't know how much owning he does with the axe). Which is kinda annoying when you're Pyro yourself, you know, other Pyros being flame retardant and everything... so I've gotten axed to death by him several times. And I particularly hate dying from melée weapons, because it's always kinda embarrassing.
So today I'm Pyro in Hydro, he's Pyro and I see he's doing his axing games again, running at me with the axe in hand. I retreat because oh shitfuck he's gonna kill me again, but at some point I just stop backing away, thinking that okay, I'm gonna play his game. So I whip out my axe and the world literally stops. :D It really felt like it, because there was this insane battling going around, but just as I get out the axe and engage him in melée, the battle just seems to die out and it's just me and him, epic fire axe deathmatch.
It was pretty awesome, gotta tell you.
Especially since I actually killed him (it was a really tough fight, I was left with like 30 HP), and felt preeetty darn good after that. :3 He's not the only badass Pyro around anymore!

Also had the strangest CP_Well matches yet, because, uh, I was kinda on top of the scoreboard as a Pyro. Few minutes after the match began I had three times as much points as the player who was the second highest scorer in my team, and twice as much as the enemy team's highest scoring player. I seriously went wtf at that. And it's not that I got really lucky with crits or anything, the enemy team just... it was as if they just looked at me and DIED.
Our team's collective ass was eventually kicked and at some point someone on the enemy team pointed out that "Lol just look at Chrome's score," and I took a look at the scoreboard and I'm STILL the highest scorer, and I still have twice as much points as the next player in our team. At some point the enemies changed their Scout rushing tactics into Pyro rushing tactics (aww, aren't I influential?) and that's when I started getting my personal ass kicked (I'm kinda weak against Pyros), but I still kept at it pretty well.
I still like being good at things.

And I want to kick parents who let their pre-pubescent kids play games like TF2, swear like sailors and act like complete idiots full of themselves over the voicechat. I'm all up for letting kids play as long as they understand that the game is make-believe and you know, watching over them while they play and maybe teach them some manners on how to not annoy everyone if you're going to use the mic, but Jesus Christ every parent who lets their kid play FPS games unsupervised should be neutered. There was this kid today, acting like he was the best player in the universe, calling every other player a noob and an idiot, and just... fuck this, fuck that, you're such a faggot, and so on and so on. He said he was thirteen, but I seriously didn't believe that. I'd say he was nine, ten max.

Halo multiplayer, I know, rite? (Haven't played myself, but I've heard my share of horror stories).

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.

Dear Medic,

I know there is a battle going on and things can get pretty hectic. You have your primary healing target you have probably deemed worthy of your constant attention. But still, BROS BEFORE HOS, man! D:

There is NOTHING that gets to me and makes me as angry as ignorant Medics (when I'm playing as Medic, that is). I have twenty HP left, you took the medkit right from under my nose, my übercharge is at 80% and I'm running around you smashing E, and you just keep healing that Heavy who's slowly, slowly inching his way towards the door that's not even open (this is Granary, warehouse CP) and who's clearly not in danger of dying (I can forgive Medics who indeed have their primary healing target shot at, but when he's NOT I simply can't understand why you can't just fucking HEAL ME. It takes a second ffs!)
And then some fucking Scout comes in from the other door and shoots my guts out.
THANKS, MEDIC.
I was really fucking upset.
And what made me even more upset is that after I respawn and get back to the warehouse and cling to some Heavy in need of healing, and then I hear the all-too-familiar "MEEEDIIIC!" from behind me and there's the fucking other Medic, screaming for healing. I wanted to just ignore the fucker (DIAF, plz), but I'm better than that, so I checked my Heavy wasn't in danger of dying and turned around to heal the other Medic.

Yes, I felt like a good person after that.

Maybe it's just me, but other Medics have ALWAYS priority over any other target in my books. Usually I just leave whatever it is that I'm doing if I hear another Medic calling (provided that I don't have to trek to the other side of the map to get to them).

I did something outrageous today.
I went Soldier. IN HYDRO.
Because I was failing as Pyro and decided to just fuck it, I'm going Soldier. It was pretty awesome in the end, because I used my usual Pyro ambushing tactics as Soldier and nothing's as great as sneaking behind unsuspecting enemies as a SOLDIER and just firing away. Tee hee.

Breaking scores!

I have no idea if I'm any good as Soldier or am I just ridiculously lucky.
I don't spam anymore, and I've noticed how I'm starting to calculate the opponents' possible movements and firing rockets accordingly. So at least I'm getting better, that's for sure.

But take today, for instance: first few maps I absolutely suck. I can't hit anything, I get killed by Pyros (yes, Pyros are still my archnemesis. If you really want to kill me when I'm Soldier, go Pyro and run straight at me. Then laugh at how I succumb to your flames like a Spy), I get killed by anything that's shot at my general direction. And the enemy team wasn't even too overpowered: we were doing quite well.
I suck and I refuse to change classes, because I'M SERIOUSLY NOT THIS HORRIBLE AT THIS, LEMME TRY THAT AGAIN.
Then again, maybe I was just having a bad day. Spies were completely raping me whenever I went Engie (they were good Spies, I admit, because bad ones don't cause me much grief) and this one Scout brat (seriously, the player was a kid, he used a mic. And to me all children are annoying and obnoxious, so excuse me. How do I mute?) kept owning me. Goddamn there's nothing as annoying as someone probably almost fifteen years my junior playing the one class that Engineers usually dominate easily, just effortlessly owning my ass whenever he stumbles by.
He was really good, I give him that.
And there is magic again in Granary, because for some reason I was on top of the scoreboard there. As Soldier. And our team didn't suck, it was actually a pretty damn good team (we didn't win, but it's because the enemy team was even better, duh). But for some reason Granary is my Soldier playground, I always do well there. Strangely enough.
Wasn't a completely rotten Medic when I went one, but oh well. Even racked up some kills in Gravel Pit. Two kills within few seconds: ASSAULT MEDIC. I absolutely hate all them badass Medics, because it's always kinda embarrassing to get killed by syringes. It's completely awesome when I do it, naturally.
And before you ask, for me ze healing comes before ze hurting: I rarely attack as a Medic. Only when I'm cornered or alone (because seriously I ALWAYS have better things to do than kill someone: except when there is no one else around and that goddamn Pyro is heading for our intel), when I KNOW I can get the kill, or when it's a Spy.
But yeah, I've clocked about 33 hours as a Medic, and my kill count is maybe a hundred, so I really don't do much killing when I'm Medic.

But then. Suddenly, I am a kickass Soldier.
It all began when I once again managed to jump on top of cap B in Gravel Pit just as some übered enemy ensemble was rushing the point, so I finally got to cause suffering by firing rockets from the windows at the adorably unaware enemies standing on the point. Aww three defenses. I ran out of ammo pretty fast since I didn't have a dispenser handy, but at least I managed to thwart one of their capture attempts.

Then. Dustbowl. RED. Stage Two. I managed to stay alive from the capping of the first point to the end of the round. Which ended in our victory. I didn't even think about it, but I kept running all around the place, had one Medic healing my ass whenever I was in need (he didn't stick to me, which I think was a good thing, because when I have a Medic I have this tendency to be a bit braver, which usually ends in a gruesome death. YEAH STICKIES ON THE FLOOR WHO CARES 8D and then "boom!"), and if he was not close by, I returned to the nearest dispenser for health and ammo. We kept the enemies pretty far from the point, they didn't really get through the tunnels.
The result?
20 points in one life. 20 fucking points in one life. That's like... I almost spewed my tea all over the monitor when the next round started and "You had more kills as Soldier that round than your previous best - 16" announcement popped up. I hadn't even thought about it! Came as a complete surprise! I kinda realised I stayed alive for a very long time (like I've told you, I die a lot, and I die fast), but I had no idea the whole round was THAT successful! I thought I had maybe gotten eight or so kills.
So, 16 kills, 2 dominations, I'm not quite sure were the rest two points destructions or assists, but who cares. Also damage dealt record and longest life.

Now my Soldier stats don't look so pathetic anymore! My best score before was 9 (which is kinda really pathetic since I've played so much as Soldier. 30 hours, eh. But look at the bright side! At least the thirty hours have taught me something!).
And yeah, it's my best overall score, Medic and Engineer come next with 16 points. Go check my Steam ID if you wanna see more of my stats, no use talking about them when you can just see them for yourself.

Yes, I am aware that the scores don't really matter, but we've gone over this a few times already, so let's just skip it this time.

Also I had no idea how much I would actually end up enjoying playing as Soldier.

And I don't even remember when's the last time I was so embarrassed by something: I was playing in Dustbowl, I was in RED, and we were getting our asses properly kicked by BLU. People were whining how the team sucks and we WERE pretty bad, I admit.
Then Steam kicked me, for some reason or another, and I had to reconnect to the server. So I'm in the team selection screen, the teams have an even number of players and I'm thinking that I'm still gonna go RED because I would have to try to make a difference and come on, it would be simply HORRIBLE to go BLU since they've been owning us.
And then I ACCIDENTALLY CLICK THE BLU DOOR. D: I got in, so I chose a class and quickly returned to the team selection screen because I AM NOT GOING TO DO THIS OH MY GOD, and I see as someone else enters RED and I can't change teams anymore.
I was so embarrassed. I was hoping RED would be able to defend (this was Stage Three) and we would lose because oh my god. Every time someone killed me I kept thinking what they must think of me, how I'm a sore loser and oh god, I totally deserved that crit 'nade or whatever.
We didn't get the last point, so at least justice was served. To me, anyhow.
(It also wasn't a surprise why BLU was so superior: they communicated really well.)
What makes it even more embarrassing, is because I always get really angry when autobalance hits, some poor sod is tranferred to the losing team, and they immediately disconnect and try to get back into their old team. I think it's probably the lamest thing ever. Way to take the game a bit too seriously, dipshit!
And yeah, I hate it too when autobalance hits, but I would NEVER disconnect and try to join my old team. Take the epic Dustbowl match a few days back, when I got switched to RED. I was annoyed, but I just sucked it up and started killing my old team mates. And I ended up having so much fun and actually winning, so.

I also have my own headset now, but I still chicken out of actually using it.
And "comfortable to wear over long periods" my ass, I wore it for five hours and now my ears hurt like sons of bitches. It's also not very practical with glasses, stupid neckband. But! It's got good-enough sound and the mic works, so I'm not going to whine. A lot.
Now if I could just get over the fact that I sound like an idiot, and actually use the thing. I speak very good English, damn it, but when I get nervous I start stuttering and my otherwise so normal (albeit probably strange to native speakers) accent turns into this stiff Finnish accent and I pronounce words all wrong and ouch.

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.

I had a dream last night in which my sentry chimed in over 300 kills. I was really disappointed when it didn't happen in the game today. :D
But I killed another Engie with a pistol (I've never gotten a pistol kill before, I abuse the shotgun most of the time). The dirty bastard was sneaking around in our base in 2fort, trying to put down teleporters, so I had to plant a few bullets in his cranium.
And I don't know what it is, but übered Heavies don't strike any fear in my heart when I'm an Engineer. I'll just camp behind my sentry and wave my wrench like a nutcase if one is approaching, IF I CAN KEEP MY BABY UP THE HEAVY WILL DIE THE MOMENT THE ÜBER FADES MWAHAHA. Most of the time it works, as long as the Heavy doesn't get too close. Minigun sprays bullets so wide I only take stray hits and my dispenser keeps me pretty much alive.
But if it's an über Demo (or a Pyro with a Medic who knows what they're doing) that's coming at me, I'll be gone in a matter of seconds and putting up another sentry somewhere else. With Soldiers I'm on the fence: even one crit means death and destruction for me and my baby, but if there are no crits, I can easily keep the sentry up and running. Damn crits.

I once again had a horrible team today in Dustbowl. I was once again on top of the scoreboard as a Soldier. :/ But we were pretty much doomed from the start: we started Stage One with six fucking Engineers, one Demo, one Pyro and one Soldier (me). OUCH. Just guess how long it took BLU to cap both points? NOT VERY LONG. Engies kept them away from Cap A for a few minutes, but after that our entire defense fell apart and the second point was capped in a matter of seconds.
On Stage Three we owned for a little while, kept them in their spawn for almost ten minutes, and even after they capped (silliest cap ever, for fuck's sake, one goddamn Spy got through and just capped the point by himself while we were fighting off everyone else. To be honest, I didn't even notice our point being capped (too busy killing Medics) until someone yelled "KILL THE GODDAMN SPY!" over voicechat, and I nailed the bastard like a second too late. :< But hey, we still kept them in their spawn for a few minutes after that, which was pretty cool), they made one of the biggest mistakes BLU can make on Stage Three, and ignored a teleporter exit in our respawn exit (the one that closes once Cap A is capped) and we managed to rape them properly from behind once they had advanced to the last corner. <3
We lost, but like I already told you, I was the highest scorer, so.

And hey, I got a new score record for Demoman today! :D
So I told you how my regular server has new sudden death modes. Everyone goes melée and is forced to be a certain class. It's really lol inducing when everyone goes Medic and abuses the E key all the time, or when everyone goes Engineer and we can't even build dispensers and so everyone spams "We need a dispenser right here!" hehe.
Anyway, on 2fort everyone was forced to go Demo.
And somehow I managed to get three kills and one defense (the guy with our intel ran right at me and I got a lucky crit), so WHOA FOUR POINTS. My Demoman stats look still pretty pathetic, though. :D (For the record, I've played about 12 minutes as a Demo).

And why do I STILL giggle like some idiot when someone asks something silly (like "How can I enable quick weapon switch?") in chat, and someone answers promptly "F10."
And then a few people disconnect. Ahahah, still makes me laugh. So cruel, but so very amusing.
F10 is seriously the answer to everything.

And so much for trying other classes: I went Engineer in 2fort, Soldier in Granary, Dustbowl and Gravel Pit, and Pyro in Hydro. Le sigh. But at least I also tried Pyro in Well! Was a bit lost and didn't score as high as I am used to scoring as a Pyro, but it wasn't completely horrible. Plus hooray for circle-strafing first level sentries.

Time to try out some new stuff

I just realised that I always choose a certain class on certain maps, and I rarely try out anything new. I go Engineer or Soldier in 2fort, Pyro in Hydro, Soldier or Pyro in Badlands, Soldier or Medic in Gravel Pit, Soldier in Granary and so on and so on.
So the next time I'm playing, I'll try out, for example, Pyro in Well. I'm completely lost as a Pyro in Well. I'll go, um, Engineer in Badlands. Pyro in Dustbowl when I'm in BLU. Anything but Soldier in Granary.
And I have a sudden urge to go Sniper. I've been neglecting Sniper after I started getting hang of playing Pyro and Soldier (Sniper was my third favourite class at some point), and truth to be told I'm quite a sucky Sniper. I never realise to move and then I have Spies coming out of my ass. And I'm outplayed by the enemy Snipers way too easily. I also hate Sniper vs. Sniper battles so much that I try to choose my sniping points so that the enemy Snipers can't see me. And I will never, ever go Sniper in 2fort.
And in case you're wondering and haven't yet realised, my top four classes are Medic (~30 h), Soldier (~20 h), Pyro (~17 h) and Engineer (~17 h). After that comes Sniper with ~4 h, and every other class I've only played for less than an hour (Scout for almost two, which is kinda strange. Because I'm the worst Scout ever).

Also, the next time I'm playing, I'll try to use more of my secondary - and if possible, melée - weapons. I might cut my Pyro deaths in HALF if I could use the shotgun to my advantage. Soldier deaths too, if I could learn to change to shotgun or even the shovel at appropriate times. With Medic and Engineer I find myself changing weapons according to situation.

And I miss Labor.
Stupid custom map, I hated Labor when it was included in my regular server's map rotation. It is so goddamn linear and too easy to win with simple rushing. I hated it with burning passion and cheered when it was finally dropped.
Now I find myself missing its stupid linearity. I'm getting so fed up with Well I'd take Labor any day instead of it.

Oh yeah, Hydro is an exception to the rule with that "try out different classes on different maps" plan. I refuse to play any other class than Pyro in Hydro. It's not because I'm lost with other classes there, it's just because Pyro is so much FUN in Hydro. And because I OWN as a Pyro in Hydro. 51 points today, on top of the scoreboard, and after each round I was one of the MPV's. I die a lot (I'm one of those suicidal Pyros), but I also wreak a LOT of havoc. If I get a Medic to back me up, I'm simply unstoppable.
Yeah, I know, it's Team Fortress, it isn't all about frags, but damn it, I like being good at something. And I'm a good Pyro in Hydro. And no one can possibly say I contribute nothing to my team.
And I've never been as proud of myself as I was when I learned to circle-strafe lone Heavies to death.

Also, lol at bonesawing a sentry. No, it wasn't humiliation. No, I wasn't übered. Someone went all wtf in chat, how the hell does one bonesaw a sentry and I was amused.
Well, I was on Dustbowl Stage One Cap A, running around and healing people, when I saw an Engineer starting to build a sentry. The Engie fucked off somewhere (probably went to get more metal) and I went all D: fuck we're gonna be in trouble if that sentry goes up, so I whipped out my bonesaw and rushed towards the sentry, destroying it before it had finished building. That's how you destroy a sentry with a bonesaw!

And I did some intel capping in 2fort today.

As an Engineer. Lolwut.

Not the whole way, of course. I'm not that hardcore an Engie. And it was kind of an accident anyway, I was camping behind my sentry in courtyard, wavin' mah wrench like always, and suddenly there was complete chaos and the Scout carrying the enemy intel died from some unfortunate stray bullet when he was standing right next to me. He dropped the intel, and I took it automatically. I went all "ALRIGHTY THEN 8D" and ran off to the basement, capping the darn thing.
Totally worth it, because I love Engineer's modest "That's nothin'" voiceclip when he caps the intel. I have been wanting to do some capping to hear it and I did. <3

Server also pulled the funniest Sudden Death match ever. It was melée only, as usual, and it forced everyone to go Soldier. Except one guy, who was a Spy. WTF, server. Many lulz were had with eleven Soldiers and a lonely Spy standing on a control point and pummelling their helmets with shovels.

Remind me to make an entry about all kinds of TF2 related things I follow in internet. I need to pimp some stuff.

I used a mic today.

I know! Wild!

And nothing happened. Except that some totally random guy sent me a friends request some time after I had used the mic for the first time, but I'm kinda hoping it's completely unrelated. It could be, but I think he was in my team when I spoke up at one point to inform people of my teleporter. (He sent the friends request during the next map, and he wasn't in the same team then).
He was kinda nice, though, I asked if there were any takers for my über in Dustbowl Stage Two and he was like I'll take it, and we capped the first point.
I just don't know if I should friend him back, because whoooa kinda creepy. Then again it would be kinda rude to ignore him, because I kept following him around in Dustbowl because he was a good Soldier and didn't waste my übers completely, damn it.

But anywho, I was glad to notice that no one pulled any strange shit when they heard a girl voice, so yay (I might be a bit prejudiced, but I've heard my share of horror stories about basement-dwelling lifeless gamer nerds... plus I don't ever wanna hear anyone go "Ha ha, a girl, no wonder you suck!"). I'd rather not make a big deal out of my gender (I like being "one of the guys" on default), but sacrifices must be made, and I want to be able to communicate with my team (and I hate typing).

Now if I only could be less nervous when talking and not stutter like some idiot...

Also! Great news!

HEAD OF THE CLASS GET!

I was just missing Spy! Had to endure a full fifteen minutes of utter humiliation in Granary, but getting the achievement was totally worth it. And I'd still like to play more as a Spy, I'm just SO. BAD. at it. Yeah I got a few lucky backstabs, but somehow everyone just sees right through me. Like the enemy Spy who backstabbed me when I was disguised. Granted, he was a pretty good Spy, whereas I'm... not.
And I was feeling really bad at some point when people started going "WE NEED MEDICS COME ON!" and we were getting slaughtered (but hey, we managed to hold them off the last point!) and I knew I wasn't contributing anything to the team and I was almost about to change classes, but... I'm sorry, team. I'm never doing that again.

Also tried to play Engineer a bit differently and tried moving my buildings often, rather than camp just one spot. Works really well and keeps enemies on their toes because they can never know behind which corner the sentry is this time. Should experiment more.

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.

:D

The Soldier nerf: excellent thing.

Played for a while just now, and of course I went Soldier to experience the Power of Nerfing by myself. Of course, the first fifteen minutes I did nothing but whine about it. I was playing on Gravel Pit, and I don't even know where the ammo pickups are located there (since I usually go Medic on Gravel Pit and so I only know the whereabouts of health pickups), so I ended up scavenging enemies' dropped weapons. 20 rockets is so few. Especially when I'm used to having 40 and hardly ever running out of ammo.
But after I got used to it (got used to setting off to find ammo after a few fired rounds, and not spamming like a nutcase) I realised how brilliant the whole thing is.
Because it really made me stop the senseless spamming.

And I didn't get any worse. Actually it would seem that I got better. :D Broke my damage dealt and destruction records on Dustbowl after the Gravel Pit match. Did a PERFECT capture on Stage One Cap B: charged in through the one-way gate with a Medic who then proceeded to übering me, we took down the two sentries guarding the point, rushed in and capped it. After that I managed to stay alive on Stage Two Cap B for an uncharacteristically long time (I die a lot, and I die fast), taking down sentries and killing the people guarding the point, always rushing back to the building to get more ammo when I was running low. Broke my damage dealt record then, and probably came close to my point record too, because I was killing people left and right, even dominated some poor sod.

Too bad that the game crashed not long after we capped the point (with just thirty seconds left in the timer, whoa) and proceeded to Stage Three, and the new records didn't seem to go to my stats. Hmph. Yeah, I'm playing on my little brother's computer atm. It's old and crappy and paged pool memory problems make the game crash constantly. I've tried to get rid of them, but it still crashes after some time and nothing seems to help.

And my achievements are really broken. I got a progress announcement after the Gravel Pit match that I was 7/9 through Head of the Class and WHAT THE FUCK. I have no idea what classes are not included to that! Seriously, Steam, what's your fucking problem? I was 8/9 through and I thought I was only missing Heavy (because like I told you, for some reason the game didn't wanna include it to the count), and now I'm 7/9. And I apparently didn't have Soldier. Which I had for certain, because Soldier's been my mostly played class during the last two weeks!
Not the first time either: back in the day I got Heavy through some kinda glitch (changed to Heavy in the end of some Dustbowl match, came out of the respawn, died instantly, and enemies capped the point while I was waiting for respawn. And it included Heavy to the Head of the Class and I was like wtf), and then some time later the entire count went back to zero. I suspected it was because of the whole thing with the Heavy, so didn't think about it too much. Anyway, I had to play all the classes again, and got to the point where I am now. And now I'm CERTAIN I got all the classes by playing a complete round with each, so I have no idea why I'm now 7/9 instead of 8/9 like I used to be! Sigh.
This sucks. How can one goddamn achievement be such a pain in the ass? And I thought Impossible Defense would be hard to get!

Ah, and The Slowest Medic Ever story that crossed my mind earlier today, and I thought of sharing: a few days ago I was defending on Gravel Pit. I was a Soldier, and I had a Medic sticking to me. We were heading for Cap A, and there was a huge battle going on. I spotted a Spy cloaking nearby and with all the chaos I lost my Medic (probably wandered off to get a medkit).
And the next time I see the Medic, on the other side of the Cap A area, he's healing a Soldier. With my name. I can understand his confusion, but what the hell, Medic.
I of course start firing rockets at the Spy, who just keeps running in circles and I look at the Medic, who's still sticking to the Spy and healing his ass and just standing there like a bloody idiot while I keep spamming rockets at them. Slowest Medic EVER. It was kinda cute, really. Eventually, like a few seconds later the Medic realises that something's wrong and whips out his syringe gun and starts shooting the Spy, but goddamn.
That was one of the moments when I wished I had a headset. Could've told the poor slow Medic that he's healing a Spy. (I SHOULD get a headset because it would make communicating so much easier, but I'm still not too happy about the fact that you never know what kinda shit people pull off when they hear a girl speaking over the voicechat).
I don't know what was up with that Spy either, I didn't see him making a move to backstab the Medic, although he was just standing there, completely clueless of what's happening. I would've just cloaked and got the hell outta there if the guy with my name turned up and started shooting me, but that's just me. :D And yeah, I would've tried to get that Medic first.

Yeah, I'm off to fight more with the paged pool memory problems, maybe I could get the game run for longer than an hour. I need my daily dose of TF2, neeeeed.

D:

GG, VALVE.

I can't believe that my initial reaction to this was actually RAGE. "FUCKERS ACTUALLY NERFED SOLDIER!" :D
As an affectionate rocket spammer I'm going to be in preeeetty big trouble with OVER HALF OF MY RESERVE AMMO TAKEN AWAY WTF VALVE WTF. I can now fire ten rockets without hitting anything, and with this... I don't want to think. As if I wasn't a bad enough Soldier to begin with! And so much for helping Medics gain their übers if there are no ammo pickups or a dispenser close by.

Okay, silly fanboy-like RAGE aside, this is of course a very good thing. It will end the senseless spamming from aggressive players, and make playing Soldier a bit more tactical than just firing rockets everywhere in the hopes of hitting something.
But still MY GODDAMN ROCKETS, I WANT THEM BACK. I will miss them dearly. :<

"Fixed Engineer being able to detonate buildings that are being sapped"
THANK YOU, VALVE. That's a brilliant thing. I think it was extremely low to blow up your own buildings when they were sapped.

And yeah, I filled a TF2 art meme.

How can you tell when a team must be pretty awful in Team Fortress 2?

When I'm topping the scoreboard as a Soldier.

Or then I'm really not that bad a Soldier. And our team couldn't have been that bad since we weren't completely mowed down. We actually managed to keep enemies away from our last point quite a long time, and epic battles broke out over the second-to-last cap.
This was Badlands, by the way. I hate capping the one point that's high up on the rocks and thinking the coast is clear and jumping down, just to hear the "control point is being captured!" annoucement and see some fucking Scout up there. Argh. More climbing yay!
And it feels pretty good to Dominate the enemy team's highest scorer. Maybe this Sniper could've avoided his fate if he had just charged at me with the kukri, since it seems to be easier to melée me to death than trying to plant one between my eyes.
But! I've learned to rocket jump! I mean at least I get somewhere with the jumps (couldn't get on top of that building on Gravel Pit Cap B although I tried), so from now on you'll be finding me spamming the spawn exits on Gravel Pit right after the setup.
And I've never been as afraid capping a point as I was today on Gravel Pit. I was on Cap A, with two Scouts. And I was a Medic. Just us three. I have no idea how I even ended up there, since everyone else was fighting over B. But we actually capped the point, the badass Scouts owned the one Demo that rushed the point and desperately tried to defend by himself. Had my heart in my throat the whole time.

And my achievements are broken. I played another round as a Heavy. More than that, I played THREE ROUNDS as a Heavy in CP_Well, and didn't get the bleeding achievement! Wtf! D:
Well at least it wasn't so bad after I actually started killing some people (got pretty frustrated at first: I was shooting where people are and couldn't kill ANYONE) and had some poor Medic sticking to my butt and healing me and it helped a lot. At least I didn't get killed immediately. And don't get me wrong, I still sucked. I just... could've been worse. And I might see myself playing more as a Heavy in the future. I hate his lack of speed and I get raped seven ways till Sunday by Spies (I had one Dominate me within few minutes. Seriously, "get out of spawn, get backstabbed," that's how it went. After that I was paranoid and checking my back constantly and shooting at everyone) and I'm an absolutely appalling Medic buddy and I still can't seem to hit people, but... okay, yeah, I've only played thirty minutes as a Heavy, maybe I shouldn't expect to be great at it.
And of course had to experience the dreadful "click click click" sound right in the middle of an über when we were charging for a heavily-guarded point. Oh crap. OKAY NOW WHERE'S MY SHOTGUN.

<3

NERD HEAVEN. I enjoy reading articles like that.

And Meet the Scout.
Fuck, Valve, it was supposed to be every other class but Scout! :D First there was talk of Meet the Sniper, then it was supposed to be Meet the Medic to accompany the new Medic achievements (WHEN are the achievements coming, btw? With Goldrush in March? I want my achievements, Valve!), then there was talk of Meet the Pyro and the whole gender issue, but that had apparently been false information and they were back to talking about Medic.
And now it's for certain Meet the Scout. Right-o.

Lesson no:1

If there's something I've learned from the hours playing as Soldier, it's that never, EVER über a Soldier if you need sentries taken out and things are hectic. Because it's only four rockets, maybe five, and if none of them are crits and the Engineer is camping behind his sentry, waving his wrench, chances are that the über goes to a waste and the sentry stays up.
And it can't be just me, I destroy lots of sentries when I'm a Soldier. Even without an über. But especially on Dustbowl Stage Two Cap B: from this moment on I'm never going to über Soldiers (or Heavies, to that matter) to take down the sentries.
Demomen, fuck yes (I'll have to inform Ville that from now on, if he's a Demo, I'll be trying to über him on Dustbowl if there are sentries up on the last point). Pyros, fuck yes, and if that fails it's my fault for failing to draw the fire to myself.
And dear Medics, please don't über me when you see that I'm reloading my rocket launcher. D:
Also: dear Soldier (or Demoman), if we're camping somewhere safe in Dustbowl, building an über, and I'm healing you, would you please start hurting yourself?
I'm a horrible Medic buddy because I can't seem to look after my Medic at all, but at least I can imagine them appreciating that I'm helping them build their übers by firing rockets at myself (I also hurt myself if I have a Medic sticking to me when we leave the respawn and have a long way to where the battle's being fought). And I don't see Soldiers (or Demomen) do it very often. Which is kinda strange.
But that's what you learn by playing a lot of Medic.

I played a round as a Heavy. And for some reason I didn't get Head of the Class. Goddamn. I don't wanna do it anymore, but apparently I have to.

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.