185: Storming the Fortress

[ReverseEngineered]

TF2 is still one of my favorite games. I usually change games like I change underwear (seriously, every day), but I can always come back and enjoy a few hours of TF2. It's one of the only team games I've ever seen that manages a good balance between teams and classes. There's a class to suit anyone's play style and they can always be helpful to the team. Some people will argue that certain classes require more or less "skill", but I find that all classes require skill, just different skills.

I find the unlocks interesting, though I don't think they've made a major difference in holding my interest (though each new unlock set certainly piques my interest). The new game modes and maps certainly help. I absolutely love payload maps and also find the arena modes enjoyable at times. Even just the small adjustments to classes (like the Pyro's air blast and the engineer's multi-level teleporters and dispensers) has a large effect on class play and strategy, keeping the game fluid and interesting. I have to say, a new class or game mode would certainly draw more of my attention back to this game.

Unlike most people, I play a wide range of classes. Pyro and Engineer tend to be my favorite, though Demoman is coming up. Medic and Heavy are close behind, though I usually choose them as strategic measures (such as when my 12 man team doesn't have a single medic). I'm not great with Soldier or Sniper, but I can manage, and I'm abysmal with Scout or Spy.

All in all, TF2 is easily one of the top games I've ever played and has kept my attention for the longest. It's just plain out fun!

 

[tino1498]

why can't they release updates for xbox 360? seeing as they havn't, can someone answer my question?

 

[Nathan Meunier]

why can't they release updates for xbox 360? seeing as they havn't, can someone answer my question?

They are currently working on releasing ALL of the PC updates for the Xbox 360 version, though there isn't a solid date as to when that stuff will roll out as far as I'm aware of.

 

[WolfLordAndy]

Yeah, It costs money every time they want to release an update on XboxLive, so they're waiting to do a giant update at once, then a second/third one later on update wise.

TF2 is probably my favourate FPS of all time, if not favourate game. I've spent far too long playing it, trying to make a couple clan teams, knocking about for a while, losing interest, only to rekindle it months later. The new updates have been great, help to add varied, if sometimes infuriating gameplay. Personally, I love the Soldier the most, something about rocket jumping across the map while blowing people to pieces mid air... its so awakening
Close 2nds are Demoman and Medic, tend to be top of the table when I play medic, its really quite easy to be a good medic. But its also really easy to be a shite medic and there are some really, REALLY bad ones out there, beware!!

 

[Chaos Marine]

I have over one hundred and twenty hours as the Soldier alone.

Team Fortress 2 is the best online shooter ever.

 

[Shrake12]

Don't mean to sound like a retard, but why isn't Valve sending any updates to the PS3 version of the Orange Box? If they're going to send a version at all to the PS3, they should at least try to look after it. The exclusion of Left 4 Dead from the PS3 was a big enough blow as it is. Watching the other consoles getting all the love while I'm on the lonely island of PS3 Team Fortress 2 is a sad, sad experience.

 

[Vim-Hogar]

As for Rasputin, I got it while playing normally, which makes it ironic that Heavy is my second least played and I haven't even gotten the KGB yet. =P

Yeah, I randomly got it one of the first few times I played Heavy after that update. And I haven't even gotten to Heavy Milestone 1 yet...

Don't mean to sound like a retard, but why isn't Valve sending any updates to the PS3 version of the Orange Box? If they're going to send a version at all to the PS3, they should at least try to look after it. The exclusion of Left 4 Dead from the PS3 was a big enough blow as it is. Watching the other consoles getting all the love while I'm on the lonely island of PS3 Team Fortress 2 is a sad, sad experience.

I believe the fact that Valve let someone else (EA?) do the PS3 port and is currently avoiding all PS3 development (see L4D) has something to do with it. Sucks for PS3 owners either way, though.

 

[Lord Harrab]

I'd like to argue in favor of the Pyro. I'm telling ya, it's not all about "Mouse 1"!!

...

You also need "W". =D

Come onto Xbox live and say that to my giggling, fire-spitting face.

That is if i don't axe you from behind.

 

[GCM]

Come onto Xbox live and say that to my giggling, fire-spitting face.

That is if i don't axe you from behind.

I can't speak for Xbox Live, but for almost 100% of the time I've had on TF2, Pyros are the class that don't watch their backs... =D (You can guess why)

Sadly, I own no consoles whatsoever. Shooting for a PS3, though, sometime soon. Every game on the Xbox that I'm interested in also comes out for the PS3 or PC, and there are some PS3 exclusives... of course, not interested in getting the Orange Box again just for the PS3.

Also, really, not interested! Even if they did have that massive update, I'd still be missing mah sprays, a mouse and keyboard, custom maps, and my favorite server, Axls TF2.

 

[p1ne]

With the exception of snip-hacks, still one of my favorite games to play with friends.

-Bio-Hazard (Mad Engineers Corps)

I have like 300 total hours logged in TF2 and I have yet to see somebody using a hack with the sniper. I have seen a total of 2 hacks in this game so far, and both were speed hacks.

It might have something to do with what servers you play on, but in general hacks in TF2 are extremely rare. Please be careful with the cheat accusations online because most of the ones I see are just people who don't know what they're talking about accusing genuinely good players.

On-topic, TF2 has been, to my mind, a textbook case of what a developer should do to maximize the success of a multiplayer-focused game. Valve seems to be the only company that has figured out the cohesive power that game communities have and worked to take advantage of it rather than sabotaging that element by releasing a new game every two years to maximize their profits from the retail cycle. Huge props to them, and I hope other developers and publishers are taking notes.

 

[shMerker]

I think Blizzard has a handle on this too. Even without the two expansions, the updates to World of Warcraft over it's lifetime have really made it into a whole new game multiple times over.

 

[Playbahnosh]

It's nice to see that there are some developers who take the feedback of fans seriously. I never played TF2 and I probably never will (I'm a Counter Strike type of guy), but I really like how that community is developing. Well done!

 

[Jsnoopy]

This is why I have the upmost respect for Valve of any game developers. Great games followed up by great commitment. I just hope the xbox 360 update(s) come out soon....

 

[Klaorkl]

"Storming the Fortress
by Nathan Meunier, 20 Jan 2009 4:53 am

Now more than a year after its release, Team Fortress 2, Valve's stylish class-based first-person shooter, still draws dozens of servers full of skilled players at any given moment. "

Cliff note version: I object to author saying the game is less popular than it is, apparently without bothering to verify.


A pet peeve of mine is how media often fails to fact check.

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/
Click on "View Steam players per game"
"5,788 15,383 Team Fortress 2"
First number is current players at this moment, 2nd number is peak today.

I don't know how many servers there are total, probably 1000 at a guess. But lets be generous and say that all the players are all playing on maxed out normal servers with the normal 24 players.
5788 / 24 players requires a minimum of 242 servers (that are 24 players each).

Thats HUNDREDS of servers required MINIMUM, not dozens at my given moment, which was only 1/3rd of the peak today. Its actually more likely that the current players are split across 400 or 500 servers, many servers aren't always full.
Its easy enough to run another check, just startup the server browser, do a refresh, sort to players. Look at the total up top of servers, estimate what percentage of the list has players compared to 0 player server (or count them if you like) and voila! Of course in a single refresh you often don't get all the servers, so probably relying on valves overall stats is better, although the data isn't as granular.

Now if you were talking TFC (the original mod for half life ONE) you might have a point
"145 395 Team Fortress Classic"

those 145 players probably ARE on a dozen servers.

 

[Mr. Bubbles]

It's a good game, and I hope the360 gets the updates soon.

Also, can't wait for the Scout update!

 

[Nathan Meunier]

"Storming the Fortress
by Nathan Meunier, 20 Jan 2009 4:53 am

Now more than a year after its release, Team Fortress 2, Valve's stylish class-based first-person shooter, still draws dozens of servers full of skilled players at any given moment. "

Cliff note version: I object to author saying the game is less popular than it is, apparently without bothering to verify.

A pet peeve of mine is how media often fails to fact check.

Actually, at this very moment there are approx 87 servers running with players in them (I counted). Of those servers, only about half are "full" - as in either at capacity or just under capacity. I think that's certainly fair to say it qualifies as dozens of servers filled with skilled players. (I might add not all are skilled, but that's another story).

Does that mean that there could be more or less servers full tomorrow or even within a few hours (or even minutes) based on the time of day. Absolutely. The article doesn't imply the game is less popular than it is. Stats fluctuate from day to day, as do the number of players. Don't be an asshat.


Can't please everybody in the development community, now can we? Let's consider that nit picked and move on. Don't get your servers in a bunch. The article was a positive one.

 

[Klaorkl]

"Storming the Fortress
by Nathan Meunier, 20 Jan 2009 4:53 am

Now more than a year after its release, Team Fortress 2, Valve's stylish class-based first-person shooter, still draws dozens of servers full of skilled players at any given moment. "

Cliff note version: I object to author saying the game is less popular than it is, apparently without bothering to verify.

A pet peeve of mine is how media often fails to fact check.

Actually, at this very moment there are approx 87 servers running with players in them (I counted). Of those servers, only about half are "full" - as in either at capacity or just under capacity. I think that's certainly fair to say it qualifies as dozens of servers filled with skilled players. (I might add not all are skilled, but that's another story).

Does that mean that there could be more or less servers full tomorrow or even within a few hours (or even minutes) based on the time of day. Absolutely. The article doesn't imply the game is less popular than it is. Stats fluctuate from day to day, as do the number of players. Don't be an asshat.


Can't please everybody in the development community, now can we? Let's consider that nit picked and move on. Don't get your servers in a bunch. The article was a positive one.

Keep in mind that when you do a refresh you don't get all of them as I mentioned. There are various reasons. For instance, if you do a couple refreshes quickly, some servers ignore you (probably ddos settings) some servers don't respond in the several second time frame (probably ones out of the country or server op doing p2p or whatever), etc. I've seen the server list vary from 100 to 2500 when I do refreshes.
At this moment steam stats page says:
6,330 13,485 Team Fortress 2

6,330 requires a minimum of 264 servers of size 24.
I did this only about 45 minutes after your reply. Note that this is actually more than when I did my previous reply

I'm actually not in the software development community, I don't work with vavle or any other game company or any software company at all. I'm just a normal gamer working on my computer engineering degree Like I said, its a pet peeve of mine.

And I agree, its a positive article thats informative.

Edit: I just did a server list in steam.
I told it to filter and display only Team Fortress 2 servers (otherwise it finds all valve/steam servers).
There were over 200 TF2 servers with at least 10 players in them. I stopped counting after that. My list showed 2263 servers total for TF2

Another possible issue is perhaps the server list inside TF2 can vary from server list in steam application.

Edit 2: A second refresh about 5 mins after the first only showed 1600 servers. So looks like the stats on valves page are the best way to tell.

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

BTW, this is one of the reasons I think the steam server browser sucks, there are many other issues that need to be worked on with steam relating to the 10+ year old and hardly touched server browser. They could probably make it 10 times better with just a week of the company working on it. I long for the good ole days of using gamespy3d server browser (this was before the crappy gamespy arcade one)

 

[Daymo]

Any news on the updates coming out for the PS3?

 

[Nathan Meunier]

@ Klaorkl

I can appreciate your attention to detail and numbers. However, I find no use in squabbling over figures that can fluctuate wildly. TF2 is a popular, well-made game, people enjoy it, and a hell of a lot of folks play it. Enough said.

My statement in the article may have been a bit on the conservative side in your view, but it wasn't presented as a cold hard "fact"; it's simply narrative to set the tone of the piece that was indeed rooted in research. If it makes you feel big and important to dispute that, fine. Pat yourself on the back. Well done.

I didn't throw out any hard figures and say they were golden. The focus wasn't on the specific numbers of people playing; it was on what Valve has been doing to continue to improve their already excellent game. Pardon me.

If you want to spend your time picking apart minor details of people's feature reporting and chalk it up to "the media" not fact checking, then be my guest. Me? I'm going to celebrate a week of historic firsts and get back to work.

Peace.

 

[WolfLordAndy]

Didn't tf2 update there server browser recently? Also, the server browser tends to flake out if you request EVERY single server currently active, as its bound to. They do have servers in both Australia and America, oposit ends of the earth, so one isnt gonna get many of the other poping up due to pings, the browser relies on you putting in things like "map" "player numbers" "max ping" etc. Try searching google for "the" and see how many results you get.

Still, a moot point TF2 rocks, lets just leave it at that!

Any news on the updates coming out for the PS3?

THey've said they wont be doing any updates for ps3 for teh forseable future, and its kinda doubtful they will at all, especially after not doing L4D on the ps3. Partially to do with the added need for coding for it, partially because they are pc coders, not ps3 (and the xbox360 is pretty close to a pc these days.) Plus, EA did the game ports in the first place, rather then valve themselves I think?