Goth Mercenaries

[flabslapper]

I completely agree with Yahtzee on TF2 updates, I played two games against a Scout who used the sandman bat to knock me woozy and I haven't played the game since, that knocks you unconscious for way too long, unless they fixed that, I doubt I'll play the game again either

 

[Abedeus]

"Complain, complain, no nerdrage is bad, complain, TF2 complains, CONTENT IS BAD COMPLAINS".

Seriously? You complain that they've kept the game healthy and fresh after over two years? That they keep giving players new, fun maps, new weapons to promote different styles and roles for classes?

Have you seen TF2 after one of these updates? It's much better now as you can just get the weapons randomly through normal gameplay, as any class, or join an achievement server, but it was horrible before.

Yes, in fact I've been with every update since the... Heavy update. So I've seen Scouts, Snipers, Spies, Soldiers, Demomen... and it was over after a week or two, TOPS.

I completely agree with Yahtzee on TF2 updates, I played two games against a Scout who used the sandman bat to knock me woozy and I haven't played the game since, that knocks you unconscious for way too long, unless they fixed that, I doubt I'll play the game again either

Sandman was nerfed to oblivion and basically nobody uses it. In fact, I just crafted all my scout weapons because I didn't need them - the basic setup was better.

 

[Loves2spooge]

I have to say, I agree; I've always been an advocate of games being predominantly single-player oriented, and find that when games have both components, the single player campaign often feels diluted due to the amount of focus placed on multiplayer (prime examples of this are Halo 3 and Modern Warfare 2). Some people simply don't want to play multiplayer. I avoid multiplayer on Xbox Live like it's the plague; if it's not twelve year old boys with unbroken voices sqealing in your ear about how much you suck, it's the racists and bigots spouting crap through their microphones (and there's evidence of it on YouTube). I do play on TF2 on PC quite often, simply because the community's generally more pleasant, the gameplay isn't always frustrating, and it seems like the only FPS multiplayer game to not take itself too seriously.

Getting into any established multiplayer game can seem like trying to break into an exclusive club, or the Stonecutters; having a low level to your name can essentially make you look like you've escaped from a leper colony and no one dare come near you, so you find yourself on a solitary trudge wondering "where is this experience everyone was talking about?".

Unfortunately, the fact is that multiplayer the vast majority of the time isn't spoiled by the gameplay, but the people you PLAY with; and it's even more crushing when you find out one of your closest friend plays like a giant wanker when they're online.

 

[Labcoat Samurai]

It's Kinda like how when I started playing SF I barely touched characters like Ryu and Ken. But favoured stranger, less commonly used characters, like Zangief & Dhalsim.

I always want to have some defining characteristic that makes me stand out from the crowd, and so do alot of other people.

I can relate to this... though the flipside of it is that you are therefore allowing the crowd to influence your choice. If you would have more fun playing Ryu, but choose not to due to his popularity, you are handicapping your game experience for the sake of noncomformity. Depending on the situation, I waffle on this one.

 

[SatansBestBuddy]

Wow.

Reading a Yahtzee piece after listening to a MovieBob piece meant I had the latter's voice reading out the former's words in my head.

It was oddly surreal.

Now I'm interested in what would happen if they switched spots and did each others video's for a week.

PS: Typo's are pretty noticable when you bold them; how that kind of thing slips by both the writer and the editor is beyond me.

 

[Kilgorn]

"I was medic before it was cool"
oh my god thats hilarious XD. As for the update dislike, people who liked TF2 before all the extraneous weapons should try it on console or play on a vanilla server, I do this every once in a while to remind me of how good i was with scout, I was literally untouchable.

 

[-BloodRush-]

So Borderlands is mediocre because it doesn't give you the opportunity to show off what a non-conformist loner you are? Sounding more like a precious brat than a game reviewer here, regardless of how many people agree with you.

well if you put it that way. lol

OT: when i used to play wow i was the same way. i gave my rogue a backround as a brooding loner who sometimes has to partner up with others to take down a tyrant. it was a fun time because i only had two consistent friends and me and them worked together real well. once i got to level 70 (this was before wrath of the lich king) there was nothing else i felt i needed to do, and thus i beat the game in my head.

 

[RottingAwesome]

Hehe, thanks for responding to my question, Yahtzee. Shame to hear that you've given up playing TF2 (understandable given your busy schedule) but I'm glad to hear that you at least read the blog and actually follow every thing that's going on very closely. Honestly, the balance has been a little upset with all these items and there are many people who long for the old days before all this craziness was released, I believe there are even a few servers where you can only use the stock weapons (though all the tweaks to them still apply). It's funny though, the Medic weapons pack was arguably the best and most balanced (since the tweaks to it anyways), especially in the case of the medigun unlock: the kritzkrieg.

Also, in my question I accidentally spelled "fair" as "far", so I'm just gonna say that our typos balance each other out

 

[Xersues]

I played TF classic for years and I definitely salivated at TF2 when it came out. It was my beloved game, redone, a bit silly, but it had style.

...Then the bullshit came in. And I went back to TF Classic.

I want my option to take out all the stupid retarded bullshit and let the level up kiddies have their fun. I just want my TF back... Sigh.

 

[mawk]

I guess that's what makes a good game different from a great game. Namely the ability to make a long-lasting impression. I guess one such example of a great game by this token is Final Fantasy VII.

I think FFVII lasts not by any particular qualities of its own (because let's face it, it does turn-based RPG combat well, but it's nothing we hadn't seen before -- in fact, the major points are aping its immediate predecessor), but by the circumstances. it popularized the angsty loser hero type which has become so dreaded over the last decade, and manages to keep itself in the public eye by continuous and alternating attacks between those who love to buy into hype and those who hate anything to do with it.

I know challenging FFVII's superiority is a good way to get eyebrows singed basically anywhere on the internet, but I'm not; I'm just saying that its quality isn't what's kept it alive this long. it's more a combination of hype, counterhype, and memetics.

as for the actual review, I gotta agree with the "alone, but not by myself" bit, or whatever the exact quote was. I don't really play MMOs, but with all the ones I've tried and later ditched, the baseline chatter and random appearances of other players lent something to the experience, even if they're all morons. kept me interested longer that I would have been otherwise, at least, and I guess it's nice to have a knowledge base to tap into when you're wondering how to find X or which is the best method for getting past Y.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

heh you really have a love-hate relationship w/ valve, on one hand they create excellent games; on the other they keep tinkering with an old one and keep holding off the conclusion to a series to infinity and beyond

Here's to Gordon Freeman being Buzz Lightyear in disguise!

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Personally I loved playing Borderlands solo. I used the hunter and spec'd him out for using the Bloodwing and huge pistol damage with an awesome revolver I found :-D

I tried it MP with a friend and it just didn't feel the same, I was about 2 zones ahead of him with my character so I'd seen everything I was helping him achieve... Got really old really fast as there was no challenge for me and everything that was dropped as loot was no good to me. I pretty much just ended up as a packhorse and route guide for him.

 

[RobCoxxy]

As I have unlocked pretty much everything for all classes except Demo and soldier - I use what's best. And that's usually the base weapons. Apart from sniper - I love the huntsman, much harder, much more satisfying. Yahtzee needs to get back into tf2, have himself some fun.

 

[Mezzo.]

Very interesting thought about how MMOGs work. Now that you mention it, those kind of places do seem bland and uninteresting without actual people running around and making it what it is.

Although my interest in those kind of games died with a particular one that will go unmentioned because quite frankly, I was one of those idiot kids that decided to spend money on a game that wasn't worth playing in the long run.

Perhaps this idea could be taken into even more of an effect sometime in the near future? It'd be interesting to see what could be accomplished with it in terms of gameplay, other than what you just described.

As for TF2, the weapons probably tore the community a new one, because now all I hear from the people who play this game are the usual "ZOMG CUNTSMAN CHARGIN TARD LOLOLOL YOU HAVE NO SKILL" that plagues the coming of new weapons. If there were more weapons like the Medic's Blutsauger and Ubersaw in that they despite their advantages, they took no more time to master than did their predecessors. It would be neat to see how that would have turned out for the other weapons.

Hopefully though, the Engineer update will be the last thing they'll do with the game balance-wise and just leave it as is.

 

[Mezzo.]

Also, the final boss had a cheap one hit kill? I couldn't tell because of how easy the damn thing was. I was sorely disappointed by it.

 

[300lb. Samoan]

So Borderlands is mediocre because it doesn't give you the opportunity to show off what a non-conformist loner you are? Sounding more like a precious brat than a game reviewer here, regardless of how many people agree with you.

well if you put it that way. lol

OT: when i used to play wow i was the same way. i gave my rogue a backround as a brooding loner who sometimes has to partner up with others to take down a tyrant. it was a fun time because i only had two consistent friends and me and them worked together real well. once i got to level 70 (this was before wrath of the lich king) there was nothing else i felt i needed to do, and thus i beat the game in my head.

I'm sure that role playing in the presence of others is what part of what makes WoW so satisfying for people, but the way he describes it he only wants those people around so he can use them for his own ends and then ignore them. I doubt they see him as a 'mercenary', more likely as the hundred-millionth anonymous douche they've had tag along for a random quest. If he's going to evaluate the game he should base his opinion on the game's merits and content, not on the affectations he brings to the experience. I mean, is it annoying that New Haven is populated with wax sculptures rather than reactive characters? Yes, for sure. But if you plan on disregarding those people and being completely apathetic to them, then what's the loss? A social game should be so for the sake of social players, IE you and your two friends, not for the sake of anti-social behavior.

 

[SideScroller99]

this was a nice post, but I want to know what Yahtzee thinks about the new prince of persia game you know the "forgotten sands"

 

[Theo Samaritan]

I agree with you on MMOGs. I'm one of these solo players - in EVE Online, specifically - and while I play mainly on my own, seeing everyone around me doing their various errands definately supplies a much needed boost of atmosphere. EVE's population count heightens this.

Still, I do socialise in chat a bit. Got myself a bit of e-reputation, but that was a side effect of being on a server with 50k others. Kind of impossible to not speak to anyone in that environment.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

So to summarize briefly, people who play MMOGs without socializing are a lot like goths in real life; angry loners who want to be angry loners where everyone can see.

True. That's why I'm still a goth.