wonder what significance can be taken from the Scout’s desire for tacos?

Hmm. Totally arbitrary collectible objects? Like funny hats, say?

For the record, the Jarate thing just isn’t funny to me. It seems to stem from the community which is why Valve have done it – for the fans – so it should be treated as an in-joke more than a measure of Valve finally losing the plot, but for those of us on the outside the central concept is simply devoid of any real humour. A jar of urine? Really? That’s the best they can come up with? It reminds me of the kind of thing you’d find in Viz, a rude, sweary comic school-age boys used to lap up back in the day, which pretty much says it all.

The cartoon is great, and as I’ve said already I think Saxton Hale is a brilliant homage to those old comic ads, but I just don’t find the piss thing funny. At all.

@Wulf – I object strongly to both the content and tone of your amazingly self-righteous rant against the supposed psychological malfunctions you apparently see all around you. Quite apart from being completely unable to accept a conflicting point of view without decrying it as insanity you also seem perfectly comfortable making unfounded accusations against others without a shred of proof (Hang around Digg much?). To answer your specific charge against me: yes, I do childish things. But what’s your point, exactly? Playing a computer game is a childish thing. Reading a comic is a childish thing. Watching cartoons is a childish thing to do. I have done all of these in abundance in recent times. But have I ever thrown urine on anyone? Or laughed whenever I’ve seen it done or depicted? No. Not once in my entire life, child or adult (Whether you choose to believe that assertion or not is entirely up to you).

My analogies were meant to highlight that some people are threatening to stop playing TF2 because of a tiny part of that game. I was actually pulling the old “make a daft analogy which hopefully entertainingly reinforces the point made above it” routine.

When I first heard about some people’s rather extreme reaction to this, I did do the “these people are idiots” thing. You can read my previous posts on it. But then I got to reading the rest of the comments, and I actually thought about the whole thing. Which led to me realising I didn’t understand why people were taking it so personally, so I thought I’d ask. I gave a couple of examples to show what I thought was going on (them analogies you mentioned), and after reading the latest batch of comments, I’m even more confused.

This is purely to anyone who is seriously considering not playing TF2 any more – is virtual piss really that scary / offensive? Can you please explain why? I crave understanding.

I’m so happy. The jar of pee is just the (yellow) icing on the cake.

Just noticed that in the patch notes the new weapons are described as “new x replacement, the y” (”new sniper rifle replacement, The Huntsman”), with no mention of unlockables. Is this normal, or does it signal a change in the method of doling out the new weapons? Someone told me they might be going with random pickups rather than unlocks, has that been confirmed? (I’m secretly hopeful that they are just giving us the weapons straight off, but I doubt it.)