Team Fortress 2 Goes Free-to-Play, Meets the Medic

[Vanbael]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, MEET THE MEDIC!
Oh, and its free to play too, thats nice.
BUT THE MEDIC! YES! All we need is the Pyro.

 

[synobal]

I find it amazing people will ***** about it going free to play years and years after they purchased the game. Look at this way if this game was produced by anyone but valve you would of got a single free update to take care of some of the more obvious and game breaking bugs then every few months you would of got a DLC map pack with 3 maps you could download for 15 bucks. Then a few years after the game is released that even stops. A few years after that the would officially stop supporting it, close down the game forums and turn off any servers they were running.

Instead we've gotten years of free updates and a game that is so much better than the produce I bought years ago in the orange box.

 

[rayen020]

hmmm... kinda annoyed that i paid more than $1 for this game. however i have been playing it for the past... uhhh... year? so the extra $19 was for that i guess. I'm not sure how i feel about this. the number of players is going to go up and most of the servers i play on are already pretty busy so I'm going to be paying them for premium spots if i want to play. Also if we're bringing in twitch shooters and sh!t players i feel this game is going to go downhill fast.

All this team needs is more snipers and spies
/sarcasm

 

[Dogstile]

Oh, and "Meet the Medic" is out. You can see it here to the right - but really, you clicked that before reading the post, didn't you?

Hah, I actually didn't!

Out of interest, do the people who have already payed for it have to spend that trivial amount in the mann co store or are we all safe?

Been answered, cheers

 

[somonels]

Dunno, those free to play weekends once a year were enough to satiate my curiosity. I like the trailer though.

 

[Slanzinger]

Out of interest, do the people who have already payed for it have to spend that trivial amount in the mann co store or are we all safe?

Nope, no extra spend - the premium bonuses are for anyone who's ever spent any money on the game at all. Includes buying over Steam, buying anything in the shop (to those who are saying "$1", the minimum spend there is five regardless... And many people bought the game in halloween sales and such anyway so this is nothing new), or activating a retail copy which has been bought in store.

Though I think it's less "Premium bonuses" and more "lack of the limitations that they're putting on new accounts". Which works too of course.

 

[Roofstone]

Sigh, my 400 hours of medic will no longer be unique. D:


Also. That was damn awesome!

 

[metaphyzxx]

does this mean I get a refund?

 

[imnot]

I thought it was already free?

 

[mikstar890]

I did click on the vid before reading the article...
Damn you John Funk, damn you.

 

[Roofstone]

I thought it was already free?

Free to buy, you can download it online now.

 

[Crapster]

This actually reinvigorated my interest in TF2. I hadn't played for months! I'm waiting for it to finish installing too.

Meet the Medic was pretty great too, and totally reiterated why the Medic is my favorite class! Although I feel like we've pretty thoroughly met the Medic by this point... That's probably why the production values were so much higher than some of the earlier "Meet the _____" videos.

I really do have a bone to pick with the TF2 community on the Steam forums though. It's definitely the worst community I've ever seen for a game, since most of the topics are petulant whining. This Free to Play thing is bringing out a nasty streak of elitism in them, too. Nothing to be done...

 

[illmuri]

Sounds like a beta test of the new steam community features they announced for DOTA2.

 

[Random Argument Man]

Downloaded it, having fun.

Is there an Escapist Server? How do we get more weapons? Why do I have to play medic 3/4 of the time!!??

 

[Vkmies]

How fun. Especially since I just bought it a month ago.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

As I overlook the FAQ for free people, I am deeply saddened by how bullshit it is. Getting the game for free means you CAN'T:

Give trades
Find hats
Give gifts
Have as many backpack slots (1/6 the number a person who paid for it has, 50 compared to 300)
Use every crafting blueprint

Oh, and to upgrade to a 'premium' player, it costs $1. One dollar for a game I had paid $20 for.

And that twenty dollars got you months (or years, no idea how long you've had it) of playing time.

If it was worth it before, this doesn't make it un-worth it.

 

[Plurralbles]

it would make me a little jealous had I not gotten portal for free earlier.

 

[jmarquiso]

As I overlook the FAQ for free people, I am deeply saddened by how bullshit it is. Getting the game for free means you CAN'T:

Recieve trades
Find hats
Give gifts
Have as many backpack slots (1/6 the number a person who paid for it has, 50 compared to 300)
Use every crafting blueprint

Oh, and to upgrade to a 'premium' player, it costs $1. One dollar for a game I had paid $20 for.

It's send trades, not receive them, that you can't do with a free account.

I was actually just about to post the reverse:
Based on most free-to-play games I've seen, even ones with fewer features than TF2, you don't automatically get an upgrade to a regular account on buying ANYTHING. As such, their system strikes me as being incredibly permissive, actually. Buy that single $2 weapon that you want most out of the Mann Co. store, and you get all your features, for that matter.

Then again, I don't know how much I paid, but it was a Steam Sale, so it was probably around $5, so I may have a different perspective on things. Would you have been happier if they just gave it away with no crippling for people who haven't bought anything, like they did with Portal? Admittedly, Portal was a much smaller game.

What I'm wondering is if they're going to implement a system that extends your full-drop-rate time for those people who play 2 hours a night all week and max out their high-drop-rate time by Wednesday. (I'm not one of those people, but that is a typical thing that f2p games that are money first, as opposed to a giant box to test ideas on unwitting subjects, do.)

It's really to stop people from item farming via free accounts. They also don't drop rare and unusual items, as well as hats. If they farm with the free accounts, they can't trade anything without buying something first.

It's a good discouragement, but doesn't lock it down for the new player who sees all these options for other people that they don't have.

 

[William MacKay]

thank god, i was going to buy it last week but got Fallout 3 instead. i wouldve nerdraged so fucking hard.
time to catch up then.

 

[jmarquiso]

Downloaded it, having fun.

Is there an Escapist Server? How do we get more weapons? Why do I have to play medic 3/4 of the time!!??

You get more weapons through drops and achievements, though as a free member, you don't get the rare and unusual stuff, even hats. Just buy one thing in that store and suddenly you're like the people who bought the game.