Katastrophic gaming

...

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 03:38:00 +0000

Well, that was a disappointment.

Update about the Scout update #3

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 22:23:00 +0000

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/!

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 02:16:00 +0000

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!

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 20:23:00 +0000

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.

Celebrations!

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 05:00:00 +0000

There was a huge Left 4 Dead update just now and I can't stop feeling happy about it! So many changes to versus, Valve addressed basically all the problems I had with it, namely:

- Tank spawns at the same % through the map for both teams in versus mode

Hunter
- Easier to pounce a Survivor who is meleeing

Smoker
- Smoker now has to be killed or the tongue destroyed for the tongue to break
- Tongue attacks that fail to paralyze or hang a Survivor will use the shorter ability delay timer
- Fixed case where you could point at a Survivor but not register a tongue hit
- Smoker tongue does damage every second while dragging paralyzed Survivors

Tank
- Reduced autoshotgun damage against Tanks

So much for unfair Tanks! So much for getting frustrated at continuous meleeing as Hunter! So much for hating to play as the Smoker! I always hated being the Smoker, because I couldn't seem to be able to do SHIT as one. The tongue targeting was horrible, even if the aim indicator was red and the survivor in plain view, I couldn't score a hit. And if the drag failed, it was a bitch having to wait the minute or so for the attack to recharge and trying to change vantage points in plain sight. Dragging survivors long distances felt pointless at times since there was no damage until the drag was complete. Not even mentioning how frustrating the goddamn melee got. All that, fixed!
And autoshotgun was goddamn imbalanced GOD TIER against Tanks: they were dead in a course of seconds if you just ran behind them and unloaded a few clips into their oblivious backs from point-blank range. Yeah. I know it because I used to do it a lot in finales. The assault rifle is my weapon of choice, but whenever there was a Tank coming (and no one had a molotov) I changed to autoshotty and ran after Tanks while they were chasing some other team member. Yeah.

Too bad that I'm leaving for a family vacation today, and won't be able to play and enjoy the changes until some time next week.
Yeah, I would much rather stay at home playing videogames than go to Rome.

Kidding. I'll be off then.

P.S.: We finally completed two campaigns on expert. No achievements, though. Stupid cheat-proof achievements, we even restarted the campaigns once so that everyone saw the intro, but nooo, no one got Zombicidal Maniac or any progress to What Are You Trying to Prove. Sucks. But at least we did it once, we can surely do it again. We even completed Death Toll without restarting even once. That was pretty impressive.

Insert a witty title here

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:19:00 +0000

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.

Well that's pretty gay...

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 00:43:00 +0000

Okay, I just have to post this. Because wtf awesome.

I was playing a bit of Fallout 3 earlier today. I started a new game a while ago, this time with a guy named Gabrielle, who's strong and charismatic fellow (specialised in big guns, melee weapons and bullshitting like no other), who likes to dress sharp. And incidentally he's a complete antichrist and a shameless thief who takes everything not nailed down with him. He runs around the Capital Wasteland dressed in a stylish suit, hat and sunglasses, wielding a sledgehammer and a Flamer (although I just found the joys of the Shishkebab). He sneers at ugly Raider clothing and doesn't give a shit about defense stats: sacrifices must be made if one wants to look as good as Gabrielle does.

(Posing with a cool-ass magnum, since the Flamer's so clumsy-looking, ew.)

Anyway, Gabrielle blew up Megaton, went to Tenpenny Tower, felt appalled by all the bloated egos and ignorant people living there, and instead of maybe helping them with their Ghoul menace, he promptly went to talk to the Ghouls in question, ending up in cahoots with them. Because no matter how hard I try, Ghouls are awesome, and seriously, the racist residents of Tenpenny Tower needed to be taught a lesson in humility.

So before actually letting the Ghouls in, he went to look for Burke, since Gabrielle happens to be a bit of a Burke fanboy, and he wanted to get a picture with his idol. So he went to the penthouse suites, and followed Burke around for a while to get a good picture.

So picture his surprise (and my sick glee) when he followed Burke into Alistair Tenpenny's suite and witnessed THIS sight:

Yes.

Yes, Mr. Burke just promptly laid down next to Alistair Tenpenny in his queen-sized bed (I knew there was something going on...!), and neither of them paid any attention to Gabrielle standing (...and later on sitting...) next to the bed.

Gabrielle of course was mortified by this: either appalled or enormously jealous, he couldn't stand the sight of his idol being so ... so close with Mr. Tenpenny. So he went to let the Ghouls in, watched everyone get massacred and stole Mr. Tenpenny's fancy red suit.

The end.

(I fucking love this game.)

About L4D, for a change

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 20:33:00 +0000

It sure is a good thing Valve fixed dedicated server searching in L4D. Tried playing a few nights ago, and since I had four friends along, we of course made a lobby to make things a bit easier. I (or Slaver) usually host locally, because our connection's upload rate is pretty okay, and at least my friends hardly ever get any lag, but since the dedicated business was supposed to be fixed (and sometimes Steam decides to kick me while hosting locally, naturally making the server shut down), we tried that.
Did we find a server?
Yes. Once, out of five tries. And we had 170 ping. So matchmaking indeed! Server searching was fucking better before this so-called fix.

And why do people try to invite me to play L4D when I'm in-game? I never really understood what's the point in that. If you see me already playing on a server, what in the world makes you think I'll just jump servers and join your game? I get a lot of invites suddenly, from several different people on my friends list, and for some reason those always get under my skin.
So take note, people: when I play L4D, I usually play with a rather large group of friends (who are people I know irl). So if you want to play with me, drop me a line instead of just throwing a random invite, and I'll see what I can do.

And if there are a bunch of people with "Esa" after their name playing with me, yeah, those are my friends. We decided to start wearing a tag to confuse people (and scare them away in lobby when they join: there are four people in already, all going Infected, and all wearing the same tag after their name. Hehehe) and make it obvious that we know each other and any insults we may fling at each other are not to be taken seriously.
And if you ask, Esa stands for European Space Agency, and yes, we all work there.
(In reality it's just a silly in-joke which really doesn't make any sense in any other language but Finnish. Or, well, imagine replacing a part of any compound word - or in severe cases, any noun - with a very common male name, eg. John. There you go).
And don't mistake us for a clan of any kind.

And while we're on the topic of L4D, I wanna write about another thing. If you, for any reason at all, go AFK during game, even for a moment, TAKE A FUCKING BREAK FROM THE MENU. The goddamn idle mode is there for a reason. Because what happens if, during a versus match, you go to a toilet, or where the fuck ever, and just leave your character standing there? Yeah, we get slaughtered, that's what. Because we have to
a) Wait and protect you in one place, making all of us easy prey for the enemy team, and Director of course thinks that we're bored, and marches out a few hordes to make us feel alive again,
or
b) Run for it and leave you, which gets all of us killed. Because a smart enemy team knows that you, being AFK, are not a threat, and thus goes after US instead of YOU. Because we're one man short, you can't help us, and after we've been overwhelmed and incapped, you're the easy target.
Next time you go AFK without going idle, we're going to votekick your sorry ass that fucking instant.

And why don't people stay together in versus? I hate it when our game falls apart just because one man stays behind for some reason, and then gets assaulted by a Smoker or a Hunter, and we have to go back for them, and then we lose. I'd love to leave them to die because it was their own mistake to stay behind, especially when we make it very clear at the start of the match that we're going to stay together and keep moving, but you know how it goes, it's a team game.
If you're going to heal, SAY SO, so we know to hang back. Don't go after Smokers or Hunters you saw behind us in the distance, just inform the team of the threat and KEEP MOVING. The infected have to keep moving too in order to catch us, so a Smoker hanging back won't be doing much if we ignore him. If YOU go after him, by yourself, you're a fucking idiot, because the Smoker sees you, you probably won't see him or his tongue, and then you're in trouble, and fucking things up for the rest of us. And if you need to do anything that requires you to be away from the keyboard for more than five fucking seconds, go idle. For the love of god, it's not that hard.

And here, have a GTA-style Francis (who's incidentally my favourite Survivor):

I've also been getting back to TF2 and I would appear to be a kickass Pyro (my brand new most kills record is 20) while I've nearly completely lost my touch with both Soldier and Demo (although it is debatable if I ever really HAD any touch with either, oh well).

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 12:57:00 +0000

I am seriously embarrassed about playing versus in Left 4 Dead. Not because I'm a bad player, no, while I may not kill as much zombies as others, I still have the common sense to avoid most of the mistakes "noobs" make.
Except for one.
Friendly fire.
Don't get me wrong, I don't shoot at others because I am griefing or because I'm an asshole, or because I don't realise to use melee (I use melee a lot, I always try to shove special Infected off my friends unless I'm miles away, when I will resort to shooting), all those times are accidents. You know, I'm firing at something, and then one of my team-mates runs in front of me. Or there's something behind me, and I turn around guns blazing and accidentally hit a friend. Or I'm trying to shoot at something that's close to a friend, and they make a sudden move and suddenly their head's in my sights.
And I feel terrible when it happens. And I just can't seem to stop doing it. And because community's seriously frowning upon friendly fire, I dread playing versus. Because it's okay if I hit someone I know, they probably won't be too mad at me because they know it's an accident (and believe me, they already know my team-killing fucktard ways), but if I hit a complete stranger I'm playing with in versus, who knows what they might think of me. And I don't want anyone to go ballistic because of it.

I already stopped using shotguns because of my tendency to fire at friendlies. Now I rely on the assault rifle because it doesn't make as crazy damage as shotgun does.

And we still haven't finished any campaigns on expert. It's a bitch. We got to No Mercy finale, and then kept getting our collective butt handed to us, usually by the first Tank, and if we somehow managed to escape that, the next horde overwhelmed us completely. Never even saw the second Tank.
Not that we were doing so hot in the earlier scenes either. I think the second part ended in Slaver running for the safe room after Tank had killed me and another friend, and left the last one incapped. There was a Witch outside, as well as a Hunter and a Boomer, and Slaver just kept yelling "DIE ALREADY!" at the incapped friend so that the scene would end. (I love the end of the second part, everyone's always in horrible shape after all the subway slaughter and once we have the saferoom in our sights, we just decide to make a run for it. And then we're limping furiously towards the saferoom, and because Director's a fucking sadist, it always spawns a Tank right that moment. And there's probably a Witch waiting for us right in front of the door too. And I remember the one time we were sure to make it, we were just outside the pawn shop, and because I was dying and seeing in black-and-white and had never played that part before, I didn't know the car had an alarm. So of course I accidentally shot it. And then the horde killed all of us, and everyone was like "CHROOOOME!" Hee hee, good times).
And I think the third scene ended in ME being the one making a beeline for the saferoom, killing the Tank through the tiny hole in the saferoom door and then just waiting it out until the rest of my still-living friends hauled their asses over. But hey, at least I took care of the Tank!

Good times.

Yeah, you don't wanna play with us. Although I wouldn't have the guts to pull stunts like that playing with strangers. With friends it's a whole different story, they probably won't mind. Like I didn't mind all those times I got killed by a Tank while the rest of my team were running for their lives because "it's on fire, let's just hide and wait for it to die!"
I also have the tendency to fail hard right after managing to do something right. And probably awesome. Like at the end of No Mercy, I'm standing on top of the building with the radio inside, and the Tank is coming, and I have a molotov in my hand. I wait for the perfect moment to throw it at the Tank, and I wait patiently and just as it climbs the wall and stands next to the minigun, I throw it. And it's a perfect throw, and I'm like FUCK YEAH AND NOW WE JUST RUN. So I run. Backwards. And I fall. And then I dangle from the edge of the roof, while there's a fucking Tank on the loose. Good thing I'm behind the building, the Tank probably went after someone else, and then there's a friend helping me up, and just as I start running away to get back to the battle, something hits me and I'm incapped and I turn around and there's the fucking flaming Tank punching at me.
Extraordinary fail.
Another time we're on the hospital construction site, you know the most annoying part of fourth scene, right before the saferoom? It's the most annoying part of the whole No Mercy, in my opinion, because the team's always half-dead from waiting the elevator, and there will always be a Tank and personally I hate fighting Tanks in cramped spaces. Especially if your whole team is limping. It's like we're lying on a silver platter for some zombie rape.
So we're limping through the construction maze, being horribly aware of special Infected because we're about to die. A Boomer calling out a horde would be the last nail on our collective coffin. So naturally there's the Tank soundcue (which has been stuck in my head for a day now. It's a bit distracting, gotta admit), so we opt to running the fuck away. I have a molotov, and somehow I'm behind the Tank while it charges at the rest of my team, and I'm in a hurry because the Tank's getting away, so I just throw it. And it looks like it's going to miss and I'm like fuuuuck now we're certainly going to die. But no! It bounces from a structure and hits the Tank head-on! I naturally die immediately after the Tank comes after me, and so do two of my friends, and Slaver's the only one left, limping away. The Tank naturally dies of the flames, and then Slaver's alone against a bunch of zombies. First there's a Boomer he shoves away and kills without it alerting the horde, then a Hunter attacks but thankfully misses and Slaver kills it, and there's the tell-tale green cloud of smoke in the distance and Slaver goes apeshit because if he gets captured, it's game over. Somehow he kills even the Smoker, frees the rest of us from closets and together we make it to the saferoom. It was awesome.

I also have the most rotten luck. So when we finally finish No Mercy, I naturally miss the helicopter by dying brutally. We kill the second Tank and go straight to the helipad to wait for the evac, and of course a Smoker pulls me down from the helipad. After I get freed from that, I get pounced by a Hunter, and when I try to return to the helipad, a horde greets me around the corner. And then I turn around to see the Tank standing right next to me. The Director doesn't want me to finish campaigns.

And could you wager a guess: what in the world happened in this very room?

Yes. A Witch happened.

Oh, and aside from those pesky friendly fire incidents, I've been doing pretty good in versus. As Survivors you can do almost anything by staying together. Can't stress it enough. Even a bad team of Infected can take out a group of Survivors who are not staying together. And a good team of Infected can't do shit against a group that stays together (the Tank's a tiebreaker, and I think spawning as one shouldn't be as random as it is now. I hate listening to the "why did you get a Tank and we didn't?" whining every time a team doesn't get a Tank. OR Director should be controlling it much more like it controls the campaign: if you're doing great, Director ups the ante, and gives the enemy team a helping hand by spawning a Tank).

And I still love playing as the Infected. I don't really care about the Survivors, and although the game experience is whole lotta different from Director-directed campaign, playing as Survivors is always bit of a turn-off for me.
But Infected, oh how do I love them. And Tank, oh how do I love you. I finally got to be the Tank for more than ten seconds, and it truly is the most awesome thing in the history of everything. I completely raped the Survivors, incapping all of them and getting the All 4 Dead achievement in the process. Tee hee. Zoey tried to run all the way back to the saferoom, but I followed and punched her dead. Hee, it was completely awesome.
And it annoys me to see Tanks do stupid mistakes, like attacking a Survivor that a Hunter is pinning down. Argh, idiot Tank, go after the ones still on their feet! If you're there on their heels, they don't really have the time to help others, thus the Hunter can freely incap and kill the Survivor. Besides, the Tank kills the Hunter if he attacks the Survivor. And don't start punching a guy who's already incapped! That's what AI Tanks do, and that's where AI Tanks lose, because while they're punching an already helpless guy, his friends have all the time in the world to shoot you in the back. Once you incap someone, move on to another, and leave them to die. Besides, you don't have to kill the Survivors to get a game over for them, as you should know by now. And I'd go after the healthiest Survivors first, because you can ALWAYS catch up to those who are limping. And they're easier to incap by your fellow Infected anyhow.
And how awesome it is to be in the team with 1300 points, while the enemy team reaches measly 4 points.
Well, actually, it's kinda lame. Everyone in the enemy team always ragequits after that, and who in the world enjoys a complete rape right after getting out of saferoom. Except the Infected. And the Boomer who scores 2000-something points by being awesome. Tee hee.

Wb, me!

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:07:00 +0000

Guess who's back in the game.

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

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

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

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

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

L4D and Fallout 3

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:56:00 +0000

I'm dying with this lack of a gaming computer.

So, Left 4 Dead's demo came out some time ago, and I had to start my broken computer just in case it runs, and I could spend a few hours on L4D with friends. I had already tested the game out on Slaver's computer, since he bought the game in advance and thus got the demo beforehand, and needless to say, I wanted more.
So my graphics card stayed alive so that I managed to play 1,7 hours of Left 4 Dead with PlayStation graphics. And then it screamed in agony and promptly died. So much for L4D demo then.
I have a new computer underway, finally, and it should arrive this week if everything goes well. Intel's quad core processor, ATI Radeon HD 4670 (I wanted a GeForce, but the Radeon was much cheaper), 2 Gb RAM, I should be getting nice graphics and a constant high FPS in TF2 and other games.
And I can't fucking wait to get to play TF2. The first thing I do when I get the new computer, I'll install TF2 and play. For hours. Everything else be damned, I need it.

But Left 4 Dead? Is simply awesome. The AI Director is, apart from being a complete fucking sadist (it always spawned a goddamn Tank when half of my team was dead and the rest had like 1 HP left - yes, we kept playing on Expert, because that's where the true L4D experience lies) a marvellous invention, it really does make the game feel fresh even if you do play the same two maps over and over and over again.

I love the soundscape, I love the true feeling of panic the game causes (I still get a chill every time I hear the "horde's coming!" soundcue, and automatically look for a wall to press my back against), I love the atmosphere, I love the hordes of running zombies, I love it how it almost feels like slow-motion when you fall down and there are zombies everywhere screaming and clawing at you and you shoot and shoot and it's completely in vain and you're on the verge of dying, heartbeat deafening you and eyesight going and then there's a friend blasting through the wall of zombies with a shotgun and helping you up.
It'a fucking brilliant.

Then everyone's a team-killing fucktard, everyone shoots at cars, giggling while they're at it; you throw a molotov when a friend is getting pinned by a Hunter and there's a horde coming and after that you beeline straight towards the safe room and lock everyone out; you always refuse to put out your flashlight when you hear crying and you HAVE to shoot at the Witch, and it's all fun and games even if everyone gets completely slaughtered by the Tank when half of the team is dead and the rest have 1 HP left. Seriously, having done all of that, or been in the receiving end of the molotov and being locked out of safe room, it's always a blast. Maybe not playing with strangers, but with friends shits and giggles is always a good thing.

And almost all the guys on my class got totally hooked on the game, so at least I'm bound to have company to play with whenever a need arises. I don't know when I'll be getting the full game, probably at 21st when Europe gets it. Providing that I have the new computer at my disposal.

What else? I've been actually playing quite a lot of Fallout 3 at a (boy)friend's place, and I'm loving it as well. I'm playing as a woman named Steve, she's a greedy and impatient wannabe bad guy specialised in all kinds of thievery and bullshitting. Deep inside she's a real doll who fights for the good. I blame it on the fact how devastated she was when she learned the truth about her father and the whole Vault 101 dealio: she wants revenge, but she doesn't know how to pull it off, thus she's lost and trying to do mean things, only to fail gloriously and end up doing ... nice things.
I mean, I was supposed to blow up Megaton. I talked to Burke (and ew ew EW the most disgusting conversation EVER, stupid Black Widow perk and my greediness!), and got the thingamajig to rig the bomb with, and I wanted to kill Moriarty because he was a complete fucking ass for being right about my dad.
But I couldn't do it, because I liked Gob too much (I love ghouls, and Gob made my day by always having his day made by me. I couldn't just blow him up, not when every time I talk to him he's relieved and genuinely happy to see me, calling me a friendly face. And while I want to steal something from Moriarty, anything, fuck I just want to see him suffer, I CAN'T because Gob would probably get mad at me or worse, Moriarty would blame it on Gob and make his life even more of a hell. Yeah, I should probably stop from getting attached to NPCs), and I also took some really weird sort of liking to Moira of the supplies. Who's batshit insane and cheerful to the point of being so obnoxious I just want to hit her. So I'm helping her to write her book, and this far I have been blown up my mines, sniped by a sniper, raided a Raider-infested ancient supermarket, walked into a grenade - twice, jumped from a roof and drank lots and lots of radioactive water, just for her.
I seriously don't know who's more insane in the end: she, or I.
So in the end I couldn't blow Megaton up. So I didn't. I disarmed the bomb, got hooked on Mentats in the process (cheers, Megaton, you fucking owe me) and settled down with my creepy robotic butler.
But at least I could finally empty my pockets. I'm a compulsive junk-gatherer, I take everything cool with me and carry it around until I can't anymore, and then with heavy heart I part with my teddybears and toy cars and all other cool stuff I had found. Sigh.

And I might have to kill Moriarty anyhow, I might have to put a grenade in his pocket. I want the stupid asshole dead. And I don't want to have some Jesus-level karma, geez! I'm a bad person, bad, grr.

Well, yeah, my badness is strictly tied to how I feel about a person. The "mayor" of Arefu, you know the guy, I hated him. He was an idiot, and a complete wuss for not doing anything about the Family, and taking care of the citizens of his crappy little village (and Jesus Christ that one woman in Arefu, she is SO OUT THERE you wouldn't believe!). So I broke into his house and stole everything I wanted. That oughta teach him.
Or this one sad little village full of idiots who were completely pussywhipped by Super Mutants. There was this girl, though, who tried to hit on me, that was fun. But anyway, I left their stupid village just to run straight into some minigun-wielding Muties, and because I'm a total coward when it comes to fighting (I'm a thief! I'm sneaky, I sneak behind people's backs and stab them, I don't engage in firefights with ugly giants with miniguns! At least not when there are two of them! I even try to avoid Raiders), I of course ran away. And lead the mutants right into this idiot village, and left them fight them off. Sorry, idiot villagers!
Or the Family, goddamn I wanted to kill Vance. And his wife. And all the idiot vampire brothers of his. One day, one day I'll sneak there and steal all their stuff and kill them when they sleep. I just don't get the logic, oh no we can't be cannibals that's barbaric, let's just drink blood instead. Absolute bullshit.

So if I don't like an NPC I break into their house and steal their stuff. Or plan to put a grenade in their pants. And if I do like an NPC I'm a total angel to them. But even to people I like I act impatient and I always ask for more money or whatever for my services. Adventuring's not free, you know. I need money to buy stuff for my house. But it's got me some really nice deals, so at least it pays off.
And to ghouls? I'm always an angel. They have hard time anyhow, if there's anything I can do to make them feel better, I'll do it. I'm planning to go visit Underworld as soon as I have a good excuse to enter DC. Gob wanted me to say hi to Carol for him.

So yeah, I really like Fallout 3. It's tons of fun, there's so much to do, the NPC's are compelling (even when I don't like them, and hey, it takes character to be obnoxious!) and I've really taken liking to my character. I really don't know what I'm set out to do, I guess I'll keep thieving and trying to do bad things, and helping out ghouls as much as I can and whenever possible. I guess I'll just go where adventure takes me.
Can't wait to buy the game for myself and make a male character with a girls' name and be total fucking antichrist and blow Megaton to high heaven. I won't even talk to Gob, if I never knew him, I can't feel sorry for him. And who knows, maybe the-guy-with-a-girls'-name really hates ghouls.

I guess that's all I wanted to say. For now.

Omg.

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:25:00 +0000

Yeah, I haven't been around a lot.

I don't think I've played TF2 for a month. First there was the school project from hell, then I didn't feel like playing, then Slaver got Xbox360 and there was shameless Halo 2 co-opping going on for a few nights, then I went to my parents' place for a week, then I got a cat, and then my desktop broke, and now I've been on my laptop for a week. So that's why I haven't been on Steam for quite a while, and you haven't caught me in-game for even longer while.

Planning to finally buy a new computer, since Fallout 3 comes out, like, tomorrow, and Left 4 Dead is supposed to come out next month (although I'm not holding my breath, because of Valve Time and everything...), and if I do manage to get things sorted out with Blizzard, I have 30 days to spend on World of Warcraft. Which I finally succumbed into after a friend practically begged me to play with her. So I have a level 15 Undead Warlock there, on a banned account. I don't know WHY I was banned, all I know is that the payment for the full version (I played the 10-day trial first) didn't register, and I was banned right out of the blue. It's been a week since I sent a support request to Blizzard asking all kinds of whys and whats, but haven't received a word since. Getting pretty impatient, because I haven't even gotten my money back.
So yeah, WoW would probably be pretty addictive if only getting to play it in the first place wasn't motherfucking impossible. Yeah, the 3,3 Gb patch came out right in the middle of my trial and I spent a whole day downloading and installing THAT instead of actually playing the goddamned game. Then there's been server downtime and maintenance and whatnot, and now the banning right out of the blue. Yeah, fuck you, Blizzard, fuck you.

And yeah, I'm dying to play TF2, but what can I do. I'm stuck with a sucky laptop (which incidentally can run WoW, but that's about it), watching Slaver play Dead Space, and reading fuckloads of comics.

I was also starting to seriosly consider making a TF2 map, since I have a good idea, and I can actually use Hammer to some extent. Slaver's probably going to help me.
It's going to be a three CP map, much like Gravel Pit. I'm probably gonna post concepts and screens and run some ideas through you once I actually get to it.
But that'll also have to wait until I get a new computer and Fallouts and Left 4 Deads are out of the way, so don't hold your breath.

Bonk v. 2

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 02:36:00 +0000

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!

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:20:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 09:14:00 +0000

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.)

Just according to bonk.

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 01:05:00 +0000

BONK.

Yeah, we were being total dicks, but you know how much I hate Arena, and how bad I am at it, so me and Slaver just decided to bonk our way through the maps. No scattergun. No pistol. Bat only. Final destination.
So don't mind about the silly [BONK] tag I'm sporting at the moment. It's just for the lulz. And I did have a few two-kill runs, so it could've been worse. I just hated all the goddamned fucking Pyros.
And that was until me and Slaver started meeting in secluded places just to bonk the hell out of each other, and at that point we were being of absolutely no use to our teams.

Also I'm a fucking atrocious Scout (and, um, that was kinda the point to go the class I suck the most as...) but I had lots of fun.

And on other news: fuck you, Google. Now I go all "huh wha?" whenever someone mentions their brand new browser. Hmph. Namethief.

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

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 00:25:00 +0000

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.

Wtf.

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 19:03:00 +0000

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

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

My money's on the VIP.

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

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

Just dicking around

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 21:39:00 +0000

I just had about the best Gravel Pit match ever.

Apparently the enemy team - who were still playing seriously after losing three rounds - weren't too thrilled to find out that it wasn't just six Scouts that were capping A. It was actually twelve.

Here I go!

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:40:00 +0000

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...

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:45:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 10:42:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 08:45:00 +0000

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...

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

noreply@blogger.com (Katastrophe) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:37:00 +0000

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.