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Rumours Of Fire Hose Denied: Pyro’s A Lady
Written by John Walker on June 20, 2008 at 10:30 am.
It’s always important to note when you’re right. If you’ve read our Pyro coverage carefully, you’ll notice that we, along with the rest of the internet, believed that Team Fortress 2’s Pyro is a girl. And she is. It’s almost confirmed.
Robin Walker had a chat with CS-Nation, in which he said,
“We’ve never been terribly happy with the Pyro, in particular with her shallower skill curve than other combat classes. We really want highly skilled Pyros to be visibly more effective than the average Pyro, and the new features are designed to address that.”
Handsome reader Rich Powers tipped us off to this, and threw in this other quote from the interview:
“We’ve been playtesting an upgradeable teleporter, where the level affects the recharge time. It’s working out well, so it’s likely that you’ll see something like it in the Engineer pack.”
Which would seem a pretty strong indication that the Engineer will be next for an upgrade.
In other Pyro news, the update went live yesterday, resulting in THE NIGHT OF THE THOUSAND PYROS. Photographic evidence from the frontline:
Related Stories:
84__________________
ImperialCreed says:
Fantabulous. Now if they’d just hurry up and get to work on Tom Francis’ mobile Sentry idea.
June 20th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Frymaster says:
CS-Nation: (From: Thortok2000) Is there a new gameplay mode in the works now that the Payload game type has come out?
Walker: Yes.
… I’d figured that civilian in the sniper video was just a shout-out to long-time fans, but maybe there is more to it after all…
June 20th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Steven Hutton says:
(Imagine a female Heavy with the same shape.)
I assume she’d just be heavily pregnant. WHICH IS IN PERFECT TASTE!
June 20th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Jay says:
/cares
EDIT: Alternatively, I’m just annoyed as Chinese servers apparently loath punctuality when it comes to updating servers
June 20th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Flubb says:
@Steve
I was desperately trying to avoid going there but I’m glad you did it for me :D
June 20th, 2008 at 11:19 am
MacBeth says:
I don’t think it would be beyond Mr. Walker to add a little fuel to the fire (pun intended) of speculation with a ’slip’ like that. Like he doesn’t know that people would latch upon it…
The fact they say they wanted to do female models for everything but DIDN’T rather implies that all the models we use are male. They can ‘retcon’ it such that the Pyro was ‘female all along’ but frankly it makes no difference… still love playing as one.
June 20th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Seniath says:
/me waits patiently for the Pyro-update hoohar to die down so he can get pack to setting people on fire in peace. And in the game.
June 20th, 2008 at 11:36 am
derFeef says:
“We really want highly skilled Pyros to be visibly more effective than the average Pyro, and the new features are designed to address that.”
They shot their own foot. The Pyro(ine) is now more accessible to all players. Even tho I love the update.
June 20th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Stick says:
It’s been noted that there are code variables for all classes saying ClassGender=”Male”. Which, I guess, could be seen as “implied future female option”.
@Seniath: Agreed. Both Medic and Pyro upgrades kinda broke the game for me, with no-one minding the most basic TF2 skill. (Picking The Right Damn Class For The Situation.) I love Pyro. But right now, there’s nothing to ignite. :)
June 20th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Theory says:
It’s surprisingly hard to get a lot of players in one shot. I only managed six all evening, and they’re bloody miles away!
They shot their own foot. The Pyro(ine) is now more accessible to all players.
Eh? So what?
It’s been noted that there are code variables for all classes saying ClassGender=”Male”. Which, I guess, could be seen as “implied future female option”.
That’s something to do with the sound system. It was used for citizen speech in HL2 and for the two teams in DODS (Axis are all marked ‘female’, the pansies).
June 20th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Rosti says:
Admittedly the sheer number of Pyros makes certain achievements complicated (what with them not ‘igniting’), but it’s a lot of fun, as is the new alt-fire. Try neutralising turrets with it whilst a buddy finishes it off.
Makes the wait to future updates a little more agonising – who isn’t looking forward to mass espionage and burning Spies, anyway?
It does ‘ruin’ the game on public servers for a while, I suppose, but the change of pace is welcome.
June 20th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
CrashT says:
http://kotaku.com/5014126/team-fortress-2-unlocks-its-feminine-side
June 20th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Mickiscoole says:
I’m fairly sure he said that just to create an uproar on the internets.
June 20th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Seniath says:
@ CrashT: I seem to remember another, slightly more….subtle piece of fanart along those lines.
Edit: Ahhh yes, here it is, was linked in the comments on that Kotaku post: http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/1909/teamfortress2zh9.jpg
June 20th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Pyro says:
the pyro is not a woman, HE IS A SPY.
Seriously though, “her” was maybe referred to “class”. The pyro is a man, and we are not gays for playing as HIM.
June 20th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Seniath says:
Playing a character of the opposite sex make us gay? I’m sure many RPG/MMO players would beg to differ.
June 20th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
sigma83 says:
‘I seem to remember another, slightly more….subtle piece of fanart along those lines.’
If by ‘more subtle’ you meant ‘more anime’ :P
June 20th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
aldo says:
Pyro
the pyro is not a woman, HE IS A SPY.
Seriously though, “her” was maybe referred to “class”. The pyro is a man, and we are not gays for playing as HIM.
Ah, so you’re in denial, like de Jesus in the big Lebowski
June 20th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Kast says:
It would make a pleasant change to see a female TF2 line-up with more normal looking (by which I mean not all super-models) and visually varied characters. The one highlighted by Kotaku in particular suffers from an over-abundance of cleavage on ALL of them and the silhouettes are mostly very similar.
In other news: what’s it really matter? The internet knitting circle seems to have jumped upon this issue and shaken it to pieces. Finding out the pyro’s gender wouldn’t change it’s characterisation, merely some people’s perception of him/her and (in extreme cases like commenter ‘Pyro’ implied) themselves.
A server 90% full of pyros is an anarchic thing indeed and seemed pretty hilarious for a while. Being a sniper has never been so productive. Still I’m looking forward to the pyro-love dying down a little. Variety is the spice of life and it makes it so much easier to get many of those achievements :P
June 20th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
DraconianOne says:
I tried Spy last night for probably the second time – that was easy too because nobody questioned it when I disguised as a pyro. Can’t normally play it as a class but it was backstabalicious last night.
June 20th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Anonymous says:
It’s so typical of the modern game industry that they haven’t bothered to release the female models that they’ve supposedly created. Why aren’t more people angry about this? I, personally, refuse to play any game that fails to feature characters who I can knock one out over.
June 20th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Doug F says:
“Robin Walker had a chat with CS-Nation, in which he said,”
Ironically, I had always assumed Robin was a woman. Kim Swift is female, right?
June 20th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Skalpadda says:
Hmm, I usually play as female in any 3rd person game. Staring at man-buttocks for hours on end isn’t my idea of fun, and if that makes me gay, I can live with that.
I’d love being a female medic in TF2, though I admit running around hacking up female chars with a bonesaw would feel a bit uncomfortable to me.. oh well.
June 20th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
CrashT says:
I remember somebody I was talking to was sure Kelly Bailey (Valve’s Audio guy) was a woman.
June 20th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Nick says:
I’m actually really annoyed that, in my 35+ hours of pyro playing absolutely 0 of the stats were tracked (not even small ones taken from the most buildings destroyed by pyro) into the new achievements. When I know for a fact I have already done 90% of them several times over =/
June 20th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Nick says:
Also – he probably said her just to get this sort of response. That and it’s common in, for example, a lot of RPG rule books to refer to all characters as her in the examples rather than him.
I maintain it doesn’t sound female or look female, not that I have a problem playing a female – I loved Oni for example (hmm, must instal Oni again).
June 20th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Chemix says:
As towards absence or over abundance of cleavage on TF2’s proposed female character roster. Have you taken a look at the male side, most of ridiculously muscular, which one could see as unrealistic from that side of the equation. In the end I do like variation, but the Spy, the Medic, and the Scout all need to look sporty, in other words, hot, and I leave out the pyro, as it has it’s own heat source and needs no help from large(r) breasts. That said, it’s not usual to see women with breasts of C or larger Cup that are natural. It’s common, even in highschool; so just because your wee little ones don’t stand up to the height of some others, doesn’t mean that they are the norm. Breast size is naturally going up as the years go on. Now, the Anime or Hentai breast sizes… yes, they are by far, ridiculously extreme in some cases.
In essence:
-I expect a big burly muscle woman for the heavy, that looks sort of monstrous, like the heavy.
-For the engi I expect something more grungy and home grown
-For the scout I expect the girls baseball skirt made famous in Japan, and a Brooklyn Bitch attitude, preferably with chewing gum
-The Medic to be more along the lines of a Nurse, and a Hellloooooo Nurse at that, with various sharp objects to make ones mind stray to their pointy tips, rather than her chest
-The Demogirl, to be black and scottish (or Irish, or Brittish) and generally not too shabby, but much to the same extent as the demoman, getting the job done.
-The soldier to be a stout, uptight looking, nigh on faceless, minorly endowed, female version of the male soldier, with a simialr personality to boot
-the spy to wear something akin to the deviant artist representation, one would only hope
-the sniper to a similar extent, bare stomach section optional and probably not.
Chances of any of this coming to pass
0.000000000000000000000003%
June 20th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
phuzz says:
Wasn’t assumed that the pyro was a woman before, as she’s got a handbag hanging up in her locker, next to the gas mask or some such?
(aka lazyweb, prove me right because I can’t be bothered to look)
June 20th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Forceflow says:
Remember kids,
If you’re playing Pyro, you’re supporting international FEMINISM.
June 20th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Mr Peckerston says:
@ImperialCreed
There’s already a portable sentry, it’s called a Heavy.
June 20th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
MacBeth says:
@Y3k-Bug
Nope, entirely different… only started mapping recently, in TF2 – had a little go in TFC days but didn’t get very far.
However I do reckon I will be a mapper of great fame just as soon as I get the damn maps finished…
June 20th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
CrashT says:
Consider how normal female characters in Valve games tend to look, I’d imagine the female versions of the classes would be just as varied as their male counterparts. Something like Chemix’s suggestions wouldn’t be too unlikely. I can imagine the female Heavy as a “Russian shot-putter” fairly easily.
Doesn’t the apparent existence of female characters imply that somewhere there’s a male Pyro?
How about Flame Turrets for Engineers? Or Turrets with only the basic weapon but that can be upgraded with Radar to detect Spies?
June 20th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
cyrenic says:
Had a great time last night playing as heavy. I killed a lot of pyros :D. I didn’t get to see the push back ability used effectively but a few times, but I think its strength is in stopping uber charges. Pushing a heavy out of place to where he doesn’t have a good firing angle is just as useful as blowing the medic away trying to disconnect the uber.
I didn’t even try out the new pyro, but I just found out the pushback shot takes ammo, which is a very smart balancing move. Kudos to the brilliant TF2 balance team.
June 20th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
MacBeth says:
It takes quite a lot of ammo – 25 from the 200 available to the flamethrower, so you only get 8 max (and that with no flames)
Gives you a nasty shock when a crit rocket suddenly comes back at your face though!
June 20th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Matt says:
But the pyro makes a distinctly male scream when dying or being hurt.
June 20th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
PaulMorel says:
If the pyro is a female, then it has to be Dr. Girlfriend (from The Venture Brothers), because in her emotes, the Pyro has a distinctly male voice. It’s obvious.
June 20th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
RC-1290'Dreadnought' says:
The pyro is genderless.
June 20th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Jive says:
I’m pretty fucked off about the Pyro achievements as well, having probably achieved most of them already through 30+ hours of Pyro fun.
However, my blinding love for all things TF2 makes it easy to look past this.
Here’s to another 30 hours playing Pyro!
June 20th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Dave says:
There’s definitely an art to the compressed air blast. There doesn’t seem to be much advantage in using it just to keep another pyro off of you, since you’re just turning off your fire for a short amount of time.
Blowing the stickies off a sentry, knocking people off the second CP bridge in Dustbowl or into the water in 2fort, pushing people into (or juggling people in front of) a sentry, knocking enemies off your sniper deck… all kinds of fun uses.
I still can’t wait to unlock the Backburner though, to see how it compares. But I’m doing it all legit, not using an achievement server.
June 20th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Forceflow says:
I don’t see the fun in going to one of these achievement servers … it’s a lot more satisfaction when you get them in actual gameplay.
June 20th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
runningwthszzors says:
Reckons of Samus all over again. Though honestly, Pyro doesn’t look like she’ll be a sexualized blonde in a jumpsuit that some people seem to be hoping for. Maybe more of a burnt out tough girl instead.
June 20th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Kast says:
Like some kind of sour-faced, Nevada truck driver.
‘Burnt out’. Nice.
June 20th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Y3k-Bug says:
Dave just nailed it bang on. They properly balanced the air blast so that there’s a short delay right after deploying one before you can activate your flames. This makes using the air blast randomly against an enemy completely worthless. It is GREAT for keeping scouts/medics in exactly the place you want them however. Also, there is definitely an art to reflecting rockets. But what beautiful art it is.
June 20th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Matt Greenwood says:
A few times last night I just sat in a corner and watched half a dozen pyros (sometimes more) go at each other. It was laggy chaos, and full of win.
It got frustrating sometimes watching all pyros all the time, though, and I can’t wait for the rush to be over. These achievement updates make one appreciate balanced teams!
June 20th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
James T says:
I really haven’t been fond of the ‘ladies of TF2′ seen around the place so far, so I’m doin’ it myself. First up, the Heavy. I’ve got a great idea for the Pyro…
June 20th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
RichPowers says:
The Backburner, in my experience, is grossly overpowered. I’ll gladly forgo the air blast to receive a crit machine that gives +50 health. If anything, the Backburner should take away 50 health, as to encourage players to genuinely sneak up on people. TF2’s definition of “back” is sketchy at best.
Oh ya, the Backburner also detracts from the Spy’s role of “guy who sneaks up from behind and chain-kills multiple dudes before you can say ‘wtf!’”
The air blast, though, is truly enjoyable. During stage one on “Gold Rush,” I sat at the bottom of the ledge outside of BLU’s spawn and blasted people into the air as they jumped over. Our sentry guns then pinned them against the ceiling with chaingun fire until they died. It was awesome seeing 5 guys in a row get wasted in midair like that.
June 20th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Erlam says:
I was kind of unimpressed with the Pyro update. Well, and the medic one too. I think the kritskreig pretty much epitomises everything that is wrong with TF2, and the heal-you-while-you-damage-people needler wasn’t required, at all. If you’re a pyro with a flare gun and a flamethrower, a medic can kill you 1v1 with just the needler. Which is wrong. Very, very wrong.
I did like the air blast feature. I think it’s going to be used in many hilarious, creative, and effective ways. Especially against goddamn crit rockets.
Must say, I wish the Flare Gun was better though. My most played class is Pyro, but with the update, I decided to actually help my team win, as opposed to being one of 11 out of 12 pyros on my team. In several games, my best friend and I were the only non pyros on the team. So I was sniper several times – and let me tell you, that flare gun is useless against snipers. It’d hit me (I didn’t bother dodging it), I’d headshot the pyro, walk over a heal kit, and go back to killing. And one of the only ways Pyros can actually kill anyone is to use a shotgun, because it does quick damage at (medium-short) range. The Flare Gun isn’t a good fix for that, and really doesn’t add anything the pyro needed.
I can’t wait for the achievement whores to die off so I can actually play my class in peace.
June 20th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Batolemaeus says:
Oh great…now you can’t play public for days
June 20th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
RichPowers says:
The flare gun does indeed blow, though I left that out of my last post to avoid sounding too angry :P
How should it be improved without breaking the pyro class? It’s useless against snipers, as you said, as well as engies behind SGs (dispensers quickly heal the nominal damage). The shotgun is too valuable to replace with something so dinky.
Buff it too much, though, and it gives the pyro too much reach. How about a napalm-like projectile that burns a patch of ground for x seconds and, like napalm, can’t be extinguished? Give it a quick drop-off to make it like firing a mortar more than a bullet. Pop one on a sentry gun setup and smoke the engy out. Likewise, you could burn snipers out of their hiding spots for a few seconds.
Too powerful? Conflicts with the demo’s role as area-of-effect guy?
June 20th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
James T says:
Heh, don’t you hate it when your favourite class becomes a hit and you look like a bandwagoner?…
I don’t know if it’s just the surplus of Pyros (stopping me from getting sniped thanks to the paucity of longer-range classes), but I’m actually seeing my foes die occasionally post-update, as opposed to hearing about their death on the grapevine while waiting to respawn after they killed me first. Tweak of ‘thrower behaviour, or reflection of my prior TF2 incompetence? I may never know.
…Well, I’ll have a pretty good idea once people are playing the game properly again. Heh, I wonder how many free-weekenders are going to walk away from the game thinking, “Well that’s stupid, everyone’s playing the same class!…”
June 20th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Nick says:
“have you taken a look at the male side, most of ridiculously muscular, which one could see as unrealistic from that side of the equation.”
Buh? None of them are particularly muscular, apart from the heavy. The others are burly or just plain fat, or average cartoony build. Not sure what models you are looking at tbh. As for realistic, they are caricatures…
June 20th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
cyrenic says:
The only interesting use I’ve seen from the flare gun so far is its ability to scare the crap out of people. Everytime I’d get hit by one as a heavy I’d instinctively whip around looking for the pyro that had snuck up on me and set me on fire :D.
June 20th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Vollgassen says:
I would have much preferred the gender remain ambiguous… I would be disappointed by the revelation of either gender.
June 20th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Kieron Gillen says:
Nick: And muscular doesn’t mean overtly sexualised. Heavy’s a big guy, cartoony guy, but he’s not sexualised in his design.
The “But male characters aren’t realistic either” tends to miss the way the characters are made more or less realistic isn’t necessarily equal.
KG
June 20th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Dave says:
I too was a pyro before they were cool; I played it twice as much as Soldier and at least four times as much as anything else. And there are too many of us out there now. It makes some of the achievements more difficult than they really should be.
I broke some of my Engineer records last night at least.
June 20th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Ryan says:
Tweak of ‘thrower behaviour, or reflection of my prior TF2 incompetence?
Valve changed the flamethrower’s damage output so it doesn’t drop off over distance anymore- the very edge of its effective range is now just as damaging as point-blank. So that probably helps.
June 20th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Nick says:
Kieron: I’m not sure what you mean (I am probably just missing something here), I wasn’t suggesting I was in favour of the (frankly sad) female versions posted on Kotaku, merely saying the existing characters aren’t overly muscular in the way those female versions were overly breastular.
There was someone doing female concept art of the TF2 steam forum that was, frankly, perfect and exactly what I’d like to see if they did make female models.. I think this was the person, if not they are still what I’d like to see anyway: http://alciha.deviantart.com/
June 20th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Syntaxus says:
The ridiculous number of pyros didn’t bother me too greatly. I haven’t played much lately, so I decided to work on the medic achievements instead and actually help the team. Wound up meeting a very nice heavy and tripling my assist record and doubling my heal record as medic. Quite fun to just roll over their entire team and make it out alive :D.
June 20th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Damien says:
This is a perfect time to quickly rack up the extinguishing-100-burning-teammates and burning-5 enemies-with-an-ubered-pyro achievements as a Medic.
June 20th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
greeneggsnsam says:
He says they are all male earlier in the article. “Her” is just a placeholder for “unknown gender” in the language of English.
June 20th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Brokenbroll says:
Its shame Valve is playing up the silly internet Pyro is a woman thing, and doing a retcon on an obviously male character. The logic of a large, man shaped character with a male voice being a woman because he has a flowered bag is ridiculous. If the heavy wore a dress, I must assume that many of you would start a “Heavy is a girl” campaign. Obviously, any character having a piece of attire most commonly associated with women must be female themselves, regardless of all the other visual and audio clues pointing in the opposite direction.
June 20th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
mgl says:
I’m surprised no-one’s mentioned the female class concepts designed by ‘Neko’, linked on the Valve TF2 forum.
Forum post with links to concept sketches.
I like these concepts because they completely avoid the fanboyish manga- or Rob Liefield-inspired gals-with-big-tits-and-tiny-waists seen on Kotaku and elsewhere. The male TF2 characters aren’t good-looking or hunky; they look homely and tough and often kind of ridiculous; the females should be likewise.
Except male Pyros: I’m thinking Brad Pitt could play him.
June 20th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Erlam says:
“regardless of all the other visual and audio clues pointing in the opposite direction.”
It’s a person in a huge baggy suit. What the hell visual clue is there that a person wearing said baggy suit and a gas mask is male? Audio I could almost see (I’ve met women with deep voices, /shrugs, it does happen), but not visual.
June 20th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
GustoGaiden says:
Perhaps Robin Walker believes the pyro is indeed a naval ship. I know I’ve always had my suspicions.
@Erlam: “If you’re a pyro with a flare gun and a flamethrower, a medic can kill you 1v1 with just the needler. Which is wrong. Very, very wrong.”
This seems about right to me actually. Medics work VERY well while running backwards. The needlegun is potent, but tough to hit with. Pyros seems built for short assault, hit and run operations, not so much on chasing people down. That’s what the extended burn is for.
June 20th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Willem says:
The Pyro is not a woman, stop being retarded.
Seriously, what the fuck. Effeminate, possibly, but not a woman. I mean, it doesn’t look like a woman, it doesn’t sound like a woman and it’s on a team of men.
I wouldn’t care if you thought it was a woman if there were actually signs of it being a woman.
June 20th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Erlam says:
“This seems about right to me actually. Medics work VERY well while running backwards. The needlegun is potent, but tough to hit with. Pyros seems built for short assault, hit and run operations, not so much on chasing people down. That’s what the extended burn is for.”
My point is, can defeat any Pyro in a 1v1 situation by simply running backwards. I’ve pistoled pyros to death while jumping over them as a scout. I’ve killed so many Pyros as a neer just by running backwards and firing my shotgun. It’s just… it really shouldn’t be that way.
“I mean, it doesn’t look like a woman, it doesn’t sound like a woman and it’s on a team of men.”
Remember kids – women can’t do mens work, and a person in baggy clothes with a gasmask isn’t a woman because… uh… it’s obviously.. what a guy… wears?
June 20th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Michael says:
Willem, yours was easily the most hilarious defensive post I’ve read in the last six months.
June 20th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
James G says:
@mgl
I agree, some of the fanboy female character designs I’ve seen have been out of character with the rest of the game, and outside Valve’s usual ethos. Indeedm if valve decided to implement some of the designs, I’d me more disapointed with them than with the initial (possible) absense of female models. That said, Neko’s designs don’t quite gel with the style graphics of the rest of the characters, who have a retro feel to them. The Tattos for example look somewhat out of place, both in contrast to the clean asthetic of the other characters, and their absense on the Heavy, where you’d expect them if part of the art direction.
ETA: Just noticed Nick’s post and I think alciha’s stuff is more consistent with the art direction of the rest of the game.
June 20th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
mgl says:
That’s a good point about the retro thing, and I agree wholeheartedly with you about the alciha stuff linked by Nick: I especially love the bescarved babushka Heavy in the socialist-realist style. Can you imagine three of them advancing on you across the 2Fort bridge, bellowing endearments to their Medics? (”I LUFF ZIS DOKTOR!”) I’d be laughing too hard to play.
That said, what attracted me about the Neko concepts was not the precise details, like tattoos and so forth, but the fact that they look like they’re as ready for a fight as their male counterparts, unlike the girly girls of the Kotaku-linked illustration. I mean, I’m not one to cry sexism, but look at the female Soldier fergawdsake. That’s just insulting.
June 20th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Alan Au says:
The upside to Night of a 1000 Pyros is finally getting a chance to collect some of the Medic achievements, like joining/healing a medic-less team and extinguishing 100 burning teammates.
As for whether the Pyro is female or not, the flamethrower kills you all the same regardless.
June 20th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Quirk says:
The 1 vs 1 thing isn’t as true any more now the pyro does max damage at the extent of his range. A quick blast does what will be killing damage; then, as a pyro, you bail in the opposite direction and the medic turns to charcoal with no healing available.
The flare gun can do some damage if the person it hits doesn’t get to health in time – I got hit by a single shot as a scout and it stripped off over half my health. Scouts however are pretty good at getting to health packs. Snipers tend to take positions near health packs. Engineers have dispensers. Other pyros don’t keep burning. Generally, then, not as useful as a shotgun – though it’ll do more damage against a heavy or demoman from outside the other’s effective range, and I imagine a couple of hits could probably give a medic a bad day. Giving medics a bad day from outside the range of their heavy buddies is a relatively worthwhile thing to do, however.
June 20th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Snarky says:
The night of a thousand Medics was one thing… but Pyros? Oh gawd, the new gameplay mechanics associated with… er, her… would make it hard enough an adjustment to play against the usual one or two of them per team. But Pyros making up the bulk of the players on each team? If I would somehow be thrust into this scenario as reality, I’d have brown pants by now… obscured by heavy amounts of charring.
More on-topic though, I always thought of the Pyro as more of a flamer (*chhk… snicker*) because it was more… punny. Oh well.
June 21st, 2008 at 3:21 am
aq says:
Snarky, it’s fine. After getting bored in the flaming scrum I switched to soldier and heavy and racked up the kills, top of server even though I’m not that good (granted, free weekend). Might be harder when people have the hang of the deflector alt fire.
June 21st, 2008 at 3:44 am
sigma83 says:
I got a medic the ubi concordia achievement by attacking gravelpit B as a heavy. THEY JUST RAN AT ME. IT WAS GLORIOUS.
June 21st, 2008 at 8:59 am
gulag says:
Ok, so for the next couple of weeks TF2 becomes nearly unplayable, but the real value of the Pyro update is the added dimension it adds to the class and the game as a whole for the rest of recorded history. It’s nice to see the synergy between it and the medic update for some of the achievements. As more classes receive the upgrade treatment, we can expect to see more common purpose as people try to pick up the harder to achieve ones. Of course, the latest update will always be held guilty of ‘breaking’ the game, but once the dust settles, it improves TF2 overall.
June 21st, 2008 at 11:06 am
Pyro says:
Pyro is my favourite man-character, but I won’t toch the game untile the achievements craze dies.
Yesterday I unlocked some of the hardest achivements, but for the rest, I will aim to obtain them by playing normally with the man-pyro.
June 21st, 2008 at 11:50 am
buckaw says:
The pyro is a burn-scarred mess. It has no gender. It probably doesn’t even have lips.
June 21st, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Fat Zombie says:
Good point, Buckaw.
Also, those female TF2 character ideas by Alciha are the best I’ve seen. If they were to implement female versions (which could be put in random rotation with the rest, or perhaps chosen on a class-by-class basis by the player?), then anything close to these designs would be fantastic.
June 22nd, 2008 at 3:07 am
Pyro says:
I like your idea, buckaw. I imagine the man-pyro to be horribly scarred behind his man-pyro man-mask.
June 22nd, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Ug says:
In relevance to like the achievements and stuff i reckon Steam should release should like release the achievements three at a time. one in each section. like scout achievements for offense, and like demoman for defense and maybe sniper achievements for support (or whatever the sections are). this way if everyone piles into the classes that have received achievements the teams will still be reasonably balanced.
Also im pretty nuetral with the different gender teams. the way i see it its still the same old game.
July 10th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
jsdafhj says:
i love how pyro keeps on submitting his opinions. i also love how he would like to make us think he’s talking about himself in the third person. but anyways, i don’t really care either way. if the pyro is male, then it fits in. if the pyro is female, then it’s an amusing little detail.
August 18th, 2008 at 3:34 am
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Not necessarily. It just says that they’re going to update the Engineer at some point. Which we already knew.
And I’m quite interested by the answer to the question about the female versions of the classes. I always figured it was just to preserve the ease of use of the class recognition system, since presumably the female characters would have different silhouettes. (Imagine a female Heavy with the same shape.)
June 20th, 2008 at 10:37 am