No kidding.

It’s not just the RPS server either, it’s in general. And it’s been getting better and better lately (I wonder why).

Clan servers are as annoying and bitchy as ever (kids with something to prove) but pretty much every non-clan server I play on presents an amazing experience, people are good to each other.

Earlier on I was on one server where the Red team (which I was on, yay) actually captured thhe points of a match within a minute or two, we defeated the Blu team a number of times in a row, very quickly. And because of this, this conversation popped up…

B Spies are overpowered!
R LIES!!!
B 5 SPIES = OVERPOWERED!!! D:
R K, can’t argue with that.
B We need SIX spies!

Yes, we had five spies on our team, a few of them had ambassadors. This lead to much hilarity, but despite being beaten a few times really fast, the Blu team were great sports about it.

How often do you see that in an online game? If it was CSS or WoW’s PvP, it’d be more lie ’spies r cheap’, ‘ur mom is cheap’, ‘ur mom is [minority]‘ (but with much more cussing).

I love TF2, and the less bitchy players we have around, the better.

@Simpe

“There should be atleast something to “brag”, like making hats only achievable via achievements. Or bring old unlock system back and keep it together with the new sucky one.

Everything to everyone without any sweat. Grrr Valve!”

Are you really saying that playing a game can be likened to the blood, sweat, and tears of someone creating a fantastic work of art, or the sweat on the brow of an old miner after suffering another brush with death (as in, the real thing)? That makes me :(

You’re playing a game. It’s not a game that likens itself to art either, there are some interactive experiences out there that try to do that, and (indeed) actually manage it. But TF2 has never tried to present itself as anything other than a fun gaming experience, don’t try to turn it into something pretentious, something that it’s clearly not.

There is no ’sweat’ involved in TF2, the only sweat that occurs in TF2 would be because of a sunny day and bad air conditioning.

If we establish that, then we can also establish that the only real bragging rights that fit in a game like TF2 are those which are skill-based, and Valve themselves have admitted that only about half of the achievements are, and the rest are only really skill-based if you achieve them when playing the game, instead of farming them.

The statistics of a player, on their Steam community page, say far more to me — as far as bragging rights are concerned — than a player with a certain weapon does. Farming achievements is something anyone can do, having amazing statistics isn’t.

And if someone has amazing statistics, what does it say? It says that they’re good at a really fun game, and such a person doesn’t need to have weapons to overcompensate, because they already know they’re good, and they prove that in every match, every day, just by being who they are and playing a damned good game.

@Freudian Trip

As soon as they implement trading, you’ll have yer bonk. Hang onto those Jarates, there are probably going to be a lot of new Snipers out there who’ll want them.

edit: Not a bitch at other servers. The TF2 community is 500% better than most multiplayer games out there.

Unlocked 4 Jarates yesterday. I don’t play Sniper or any of the classes I have got unlocks for :( I need BONK!

I was actually annoyed yesterday when I recieved Natasha. I was like… wha? I havn’t earned that yet, I’ve hardly been playing the heavy.

Thank you for taking away the fun goal of the achievement system valve. You’ve been delivering greatness for so many years and then you just have to flop flat on your face with this one.

If you want to give people random goodies for zero effort, at least leave in the old system so that those of us who were enjoying trying to achieve for goodies. Both can work together.

I wasn’t playing TF2 “hardcore” or “grinding” I was just enjoying trying to accomplish the objectives to earn the goodies. It makes all the work I felt I did to get all the pyro stuff much less fufilling. I did it legit… now people are just going to get crap randomly. Not cool.

Spent several hours today on the RPS server having fun and just sitting back relaxing – playing the game the way it’s meant to be played – and congralating people when they got unlocks. People got exceedingly excited when someone randomly got the ‘Soldier’s Stash’ hat, not bitching that they hadn’t got a hat too.

This to me is what makes the RPS community server, or perhaps even TF2 as a whole, truly great. The fact is that it didn’t even cross my mind that it was an unusual response to go “ooooohhh” and “aaaahhh” over Andrew’s new hat, truly a positive atmosphere. It was only later that I remembered playing in other games where someone’s fortune or someone who plays the game well gets bitched and moaned at constantly by sore losers.

As for the unlock system, for now it may well be a bit frustrating or even annoying when you don’t get what you want, but I think of it like the lottery.
Yes, I get annoyed when I don’t win the jackpot prize, but it is still a completely random system that is for all intents and purposes fairly made, so it’s silly to me to get angry or overly frustrated. Of course this system is still fledging, in time it sounds like it will become much more impressive.

Also certainly do not add more achievement based unlocks, or at least make achievement unlocks something very cosmetic rather than weapons. I don’t agree with any kind of achievement farming server, idling servers are a lesser evil and seem quite silly to me frankly (especially as even then there’s still no guarantee you’d get what you want for now). I’d say it’s a lot better having unlocks show up during regular play rather than only through achievements, as that could be easily abused and it also affected regular gameplay, with people doing weird things trying to desperately get those last few achievements for their unlocks rather than just playing the game for fun.

P.S. I’m guessing the beautiful map was aerospace, we have it on our custom map server and it is brilliant!

“It also means those creepy achievement servers are less in demand.” – Seriously?

Old unlock system wasnt excellent but it was atleast challenging. Now Valve is doing same “casual-mantra” what Blizzard have done to WoW hoping to get new players attracted to the TF2 but I fear that it will only make old players to stop playing (Which propably doesnt bother Valve because they got their money already anyway).

There should be atleast something to “brag”, like making hats only achievable via achievements. Or bring old unlock system back and keep it together with the new sucky one.

Everything to everyone without any sweat. Grrr Valve! (And sorry of grammar errors)