Major Update Speculation V31: Gamechanging Edition - Games

[QUOTE=Rageguy;50222572]i'm expecting a flood of dumb ratings from the hiveminded tf2 community [/QUOTE] To be honest, you'll probably get more dumbs for this, since you're being needlessly antagonistic for no reason.

[QUOTE=HOUSE MASTER;50221576]yep totally expecting this game a happy future with overwatch around the corner and entire months between tiny updates that fix some hud stuff in matchmaking Jill finds when reading /r/tf2 while taking a shit. fucking rip[/QUOTE] the only way overwatch is gonna take away TF2's players is if it has anywhere near the same technical ceiling or even gameplay mechanics TF2 has. there's a reason people are still playing after nearly nine years

[QUOTE=Lord Exor;50221573]What are [I]you[/I] talking about? Where's this outpouring of communicative blog posts you speak of? I see requisite posts for major updates and certain select events, and that's about it. Nowhere have we gotten anything teasing, hinting at, or explaining upcoming projects. Closed-doors discourse between Valve employees and select members of the community also doesn't count. So essentially, par for the course.[/QUOTE] Yeah they've never done another [URL="http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=18409"]What we're working on blog post[/URL] since the first one. And yes some discussion between Valve and prominent members of the community have been private, but those members of the community have been allowed to publicly speak about some of the stuff they've spoken to Valve about and get further discussion from the community. Just because you don't seem to know about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist and it doesn't mean it's not important, or a sign of Valve is opening up more to the community. We also know from the Mayann project that Valve is going to be open about all community updates from now on and post about them in advance on the blog if they're going to be official. It's another sign Valve is opening up more to the community and not keeping things more on the down low like they did with Invasion. You also didn't even mention the fact that 2 members of the TF2 team now post on the TF2 sub-reddit. You want more communication with the community? They're doing it. Please point me to another time when the TF2 team has publicly interacted with the community like this. It's even clear they're paying more attention to the community then before as well, within hours of adding the alternate mode quickplay list they put medieval mode into the rotation after people were asking for it to be added. Just stop it with your inaccurate shit posts. No one wants to see them.

[QUOTE=ComodoreBluth;50222758]Yeah they've never done another [URL="http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=18409"]What we're working on blog post[/URL] since the first one. [/QUOTE] That entire blog post basically says "gun mettle is over, halloween is here, make us halloween hats" I can feel the transparency and connectedness.

remember when people thought loadout was the tf2 killer? lol

not quite the same situation though

[QUOTE=Johnny Joe;50222821]That entire blog post basically says "gun mettle is over, halloween is here, make us halloween hats" I can feel the transparency and connectedness.[/QUOTE] [img]http://i.imgur.com/SvGHwuX.png[/img] Let's see if they can last the full month with this still up. Then we can talk about miscommunication.

[QUOTE=Johnny Joe;50222821]That entire blog post basically says "gun mettle is over, halloween is here, make us halloween hats" I can feel the transparency and connectedness.[/QUOTE] I guess by that logic the first what we're working on blog post was just them saying "make us taunts and space themed items".

[QUOTE=Cupkek;50222857]remember when people thought loadout was the tf2 killer? lol[/QUOTE] It's sad, SMNC and Loadout both were great games for TF2 players, they both were immensely enjoyable (at least for a bit) and offered unique takes on shooters. Of course shitty management can kill just about any game. Rest in peace, SMNC.

[QUOTE=ComodoreBluth;50222887]I guess by that logic the first what we're working on blog post was just them saying "make us taunts and space themed items".[/QUOTE] You're right, it was. Blog posts that call for others to make items really only apply to a small handful of TF2 players, and an even smaller handful of those people are usually guaranteed to get an item or two in an update. For the last few years Valve has been very complacent in the fact that a dozen or so item creators make quality cosmetics and weapons and are consistent in quality so that they don't have to. Token blogposts that exist to make it look like the whole community really participates in item creation don't impress me. A great example of meaningful, informative blog posts that any player could find interesting were the ones detailing how they go about testing weapons and how to fix or change existing ones, I believe it was the "Move That ... Up!" series of posts. [url]http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=11024[/url] : this to me is what the standard blog post should look like, not the exception.

Well, with people bringing up Overwatch (once again) - how much does the TF Team care about it anyways? Almost 4 entire months have passed since the last "major" update, isn't that around the time a major update could hit? Would it be unrealistic to say they are preparing a major update to compete with the release of Overwatch? I mean, while I continue to think they are both [I]very[/I] different games, you cant deny that it is competition.

[QUOTE=Rageguy;50222572]i'm expecting a flood of dumb ratings from the hiveminded tf2 community[/QUOTE] Starting off with an insult is a terrible way to get people to listen to you [QUOTE=Rageguy;50222572]overwatch is optimized[/QUOTE] Fair enough but they could make the same mistakes the TF2 team did and just ignore it until the game was literally unfix-able without starting from the ground up [QUOTE=Rageguy;50222572]more variety[/QUOTE] Variety does not mean it is done well. It usually means that while they do many things they perfect none of them [QUOTE=Rageguy;50222572]more balance[/QUOTE] There's bound to be meta within days of the games release just as there was at TF2's release and every update that changes the weapons significantly [QUOTE=Rageguy;50222572]and more importantly, it's a fresh new game[/QUOTE] What is to say that it won't get abandoned within a year? [QUOTE=Rageguy;50222572]tf2 at this rate is just a literal lawn mower that you have to rip start just to get into a server.[/QUOTE] Explain this, Please

[QUOTE=Fluury;50222984]Well, with people bringing up Overwatch (once again) - how much does the TF Team care about it anyways? Almost 4 entire months have passed since the last "major" update, isn't that around the time a major update could hit? Would it be unrealistic to say they are preparing a major update to compete with the release of Overwatch? I mean, while I continue to think they are both [I]very[/I] different games, you cant deny that it is competition.[/QUOTE] If they released an update on the day Overwatch came out, it would be either a coincidence or the first deadline they've ever met. I'd be willing to bet on the former.

[QUOTE=Fluury;50222984]Well, with people bringing up Overwatch (once again) - how much does the TF Team care about it anyways? Almost 4 entire months have passed since the last "major" update, isn't that around the time a major update could hit? Would it be unrealistic to say they are preparing a major update to compete with the release of Overwatch? I mean, while I continue to think they are both [I]very[/I] different games, you cant deny that it is competition.[/QUOTE] I sincerely doubt Valve is worried about getting TF2 to compete with Overwatch. Like a lot of others have said; TF2 is 9 years old and relatively strong because it's a game you can walk away from for awhile, come back to later, and play the same way or even differently than you used to due to the variety of loadouts, maps, game modes, etc. A lot of other games in this genre don't tend to survive such player exoduses so even if the TF2 player base [i]does[/i] dip after OW's release I'd be willing to wager that it will eventually come back up in time. EDIT: Is Overwatch really slated to be $40? Wasn't TF2 $20 at it's launch?

[QUOTE=Razi The Red;50223195]EDIT: Is Overwatch really slated to be $40? Wasn't TF2 $20 at it's launch?[/QUOTE] TF2 had 6 maps on launch with 3 game modes. 9 classes with no unlocks. No matchmaking. Overwatch has 12 maps on launch and 4 game modes. 21 characters with free cosmetic unlocks. Has matchmaking and custom games. If you just go by numbers the prices make sense.

But it doesn't have mod support, at least none that I'm aware of. Custom maps, HUDs, viewmodels, etc played a hand in TF2's longevity

[QUOTE=Segab;50223261]TF2 had 6 maps on launch with 3 game modes. 9 classes with no unlocks. No matchmaking. Overwatch has 12 maps on launch and 4 game modes. 21 characters with free cosmetic unlocks. Has matchmaking and custom games. If you just go by numbers the prices make sense.[/QUOTE] I honestly haven't paid the slightest bit of attention- seems fair enough. 21 characters sounds like a balancing nightmare though. Genuinely: good luck with that.

[QUOTE=Segab;50223261]TF2 had 6 maps on launch with 3 game modes. 9 classes with no unlocks. No matchmaking. Overwatch has 12 maps on launch and 4 game modes. 21 characters with free cosmetic unlocks. Has matchmaking and custom games. If you just go by numbers the prices make sense.[/QUOTE] But the Orange Box also had Half-Life 2, Half Life 2: Episode 1 & 2, and Portal.

[QUOTE=Razi The Red;50223327]I honestly haven't paid the slightest bit of attention- seems fair enough. 21 characters sounds like a balancing nightmare though. Genuinely: good luck with that.[/QUOTE] there are already characters slated to be the bext and worst, too. Even street fighter V: One of the most played fighting games as of now and part of one the biggest fighting game series and possibly one of the biggest series' in the world doesnt have any developed tier placements and there are only vague suspections of who is best and who is worst: it's generally assumed Nash nudges out the top spot (though it could just as easily be Chun Li's) and that F.A.N.G. is somewhere lower, but everyone can compete. when you have people speculating and deciding on best and worst characters within such a short time of a public and especially private, closed release, there's a problem, and overwatch seems to have it, at least from what I've been hearing about the game.

[QUOTE=Doctor Hunt;50222626]Overwatch being $40 was the real deal killer IMO[/QUOTE] Wasn't the retail price for the Orange Box $50-60 back in 2007? [url]http://www.valvesoftware.com/news/?date=1167638400,1199131199[/url] Admittedly, it also contained the latest installment for a popular series and an unknown dark horse.

[QUOTE=Segab;50223261]TF2 had 6 maps on launch with 3 game modes. 9 classes with no unlocks. No matchmaking. Overwatch has 12 maps on launch and 4 game modes. 21 characters with free cosmetic unlocks. Has matchmaking and custom games. If you just go by numbers the prices make sense.[/QUOTE] Except that the games market + market trends (eg f2p model) have changed hugely since 2007?

[QUOTE=Rageguy;50222572]overwatch is optimized[/QUOTE] lol hahahahahah a tickrate of 20 is optimized? [URL="http://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20742815784"]http://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20742815784[/URL] [QUOTE=Rageguy;50222572]variety[/QUOTE] if you mean variety of [B]skins[/B] then yeah. if you're talking about anything else, aka gameplay related, you're completely wrong [QUOTE=Rageguy;50222572]i believe that overwatch will semi kill tf2[/QUOTE] sure the incredible amount of community servers (0) will help doing the job, right? you're kinda adorable

[QUOTE=ComodoreBluth;50222758]Yeah they've never done another [URL="http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=18409"]What we're working on blog post[/URL] since the first one. And yes some discussion between Valve and prominent members of the community have been private, but those members of the community have been allowed to publicly speak about some of the stuff they've spoken to Valve about and get further discussion from the community. Just because you don't seem to know about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist and it doesn't mean it's not important, or a sign of Valve is opening up more to the community. We also know from the Mayann project that Valve is going to be open about all community updates from now on and post about them in advance on the blog if they're going to be official. It's another sign Valve is opening up more to the community and not keeping things more on the down low like they did with Invasion. You also didn't even mention the fact that 2 members of the TF2 team now post on the TF2 sub-reddit. You want more communication with the community? They're doing it. Please point me to another time when the TF2 team has publicly interacted with the community like this. It's even clear they're paying more attention to the community then before as well, within hours of adding the alternate mode quickplay list they put medieval mode into the rotation after people were asking for it to be added. Just stop it with your inaccurate shit posts. No one wants to see them.[/QUOTE] They do some things better while regressing in other areas--they're wildy inconsistent. Moreover, two or three infrequent posts on Reddit are hardly anything to get hysterical over. People have pleaded with the team to revert the change back in 2014 diverting all quickplay traffic to Valve servers by default. Have they listened? No. So let's not pretend all of a sudden that Valve is being abnormally receptive merely because they happened to implement a suggestion or two that were simple and expedient.

[QUOTE=Rajikaru;50222933]It's sad, SMNC and Loadout both were great games for TF2 players, they both were immensely enjoyable (at least for a bit) and offered unique takes on shooters. Of course shitty management can kill just about any game. Rest in peace, SMNC.[/QUOTE] I remember how inept the devs of SMNC were. I watched the game slowly die as the community gave them ideas, but the Devs took a "We know better than you" approach and let the game rot instead of fixing stuff like balance, or...matchmaking. I'll never forget that god-awful matchmaking though. As soon as you were out of the 'kiddie pool', you got thrown to the sharks. A new player could play against the best players in the world in their first 'real' match. Game went from 80k players to under 100 in a handful of months.

[QUOTE=Upgrade;50223381]Wasn't the retail price for the Orange Box $50-60 back in 2007? [url]http://www.valvesoftware.com/news/?date=1167638400,1199131199[/url] Admittedly, it also contained the latest installment for a popular series and an unknown dark horse.[/QUOTE] Orange Box had five games, and TF2 on its own was $20 IIRC Also worth mentioning is that OW is $60 on console instead of $40 on PC

[QUOTE=Doctor Hunt;50223323]But it doesn't have mod support[/QUOTE] Yeah but neither does TF2 for the most part. Thanks valve! sv_pure no longer makes me want to make mod content for your game, because about 90% of people won't be able to use them, good job! EDIT: I don't see how what I'm saying is dumb, they've literally removed mod support from all their servers to combat "cheating" instead of actually fixing the issues that can be easily fixed. My point is that they removed something that made TF2 a lot of fun, something that is almost a given in any source game, and that's the ability to mod it. Why do you think the emporium was created, its not really mod focused anymore because of the workshop but also because why bother anymore? Is how I phased it dumb? Yeah I can see that, but my point still stands.

[QUOTE=FiveEyes;50223514]Yeah but neither does TF2 for the most part. Thanks valve! sv_pure no longer makes me want to make mod content for your game, because about 90% of people won't be able to use them, good job![/QUOTE] The point he was making was that on launch TF2 had mod support and that's part of what made it last so long before F2P happened. Custom servers, gamemodes, skins, models, maps, videos, TF2 was hugely community driven in the early years. There's no way it would still be around today without the strong modding support it launched with. There's no way in hell Overwatch will still be around a decade from now, but TF2 might just make it to 20 with some playerbase.

[QUOTE=Trekintosh;50223611]The point he was making was that on launch TF2 had mod support and that's part of what made it last so long before F2P happened. Custom servers, gamemodes, skins, models, maps, videos, TF2 was hugely community driven in the early years. There's no way it would still be around today without the strong modding support it launched with. There's no way in hell Overwatch will still be around a decade from now, but TF2 might just make it to 20 with some playerbase.[/QUOTE] My point was the fact that modding had been in TF2 since the beginning but then was removed. If the game lasted so long because of mods why on Earth would they do a disservice to this and just disable them on most of their servers when for the longest time they were allowed? "Thanks for supporting our game by making stuff for it, shame you can't really use it on our servers anymore". I'm not making the argument for Overwatch's sake or whatever, I'm making the argument that something that was big part of TF2 for the community has been almost killed off for the most part. Sure you can visit community servers that allow mods, but they are usually mariokart server or regular servers run by groups like lotus or skial that have other server mods that make playing on them not that great.

[QUOTE=X_Sam;50223434]I remember how inept the devs of SMNC were. I watched the game slowly die as the community gave them ideas, but the Devs took a "We know better than you" approach and let the game rot instead of fixing stuff like balance, or...matchmaking. I'll never forget that god-awful matchmaking though. As soon as you were out of the 'kiddie pool', you got thrown to the sharks. A new player could play against the best players in the world in their first 'real' match. Game went from 80k players to under 100 in a handful of months.[/QUOTE] I've never played MNC or SMNC (or Loadout for that matter), but one thing that I've always found interesting is how much the long-term survival and popularity of mutiplayer titles, especially shooters, depends on post-release development and factors that don't have anything directly to do with the core gameplay. Stuff like the business model/pricing of a game, DLC policy, matchmaking efficiency, server infrastructure, anti-cheat systems/policy, dedicated servers instead of peer-to-peer, etc. There's a bunch of MP games that have had great core gameplay that was really fun during the initial weeks, but were undermined in the long term by developers pissing off the playerbase with wrong development choices, DLC policies that backfired horribly, or having shitty servers/browser or a terribly inefficient matchmaking that took ages and failed to do what it was supposed to do - pit people of similar skill against each other. Many times, you see a new MP title be praised for its core gameplay and new ideas, only to fade to obscurity in a matter of months or even weeks, despite having a solid core. A great SP game is still a great game that you can play for yourself and fully enjoy 5+ years after its release, but an ambitious MP game with solid core gameplay is often nothing more than a dead husk less than a year after release - if no one or very few people play it at that point, it takes ages to find a game (or you simply can't play at all during less busy hours of the day), and you'll only run into bitter veterans that will stomp you and will be unwelcoming to new faces anyway.

[QUOTE=Doctor Hunt;50223439]Orange Box had five games, and [B]TF2 on its own was $20 IIRC[/B] [/QUOTE] I bought it early 2008 for 29.95$ (+taxes) on Steam back then