One Thousand and Six Hundred Posts – A Look Back
Happy 1600 articles!
As a long-time lurker, I have been reading The Daily SPUF for at least three years by now. Now that we’re at a milestone, I thought it will be nice to look back and talk about some of the articles I enjoyed. And no, I’m not going to go over all 1593 articles because there is no way I can write a kilometer-long article by the time the 1599th article get published.
And now, in no particular order:
Posts about unused game content are always fascinating to read, because it shows the different directions the game devs explored, and the reasons they gave for not using those content are interesting and shed light on the development processes and decisions. That is why dev posts like this and this are so nice to read, and I wish Valve will do more scrapped concept posts someday.
I admit, I like this post because it finally shows me someone that doesn’t just fall head-over-heels for any media that Blizzard released. Especially since Hero left such a bad taste in my mouth the only other clip I bothered to watch after watching that clip is The Last Bastion. Mainly because I heard that it has not a line of spoken dialogue, which is an automatic plus after watching Hero. And the animation and art are absolutely stellar. I should consider watching every Overwatch short as a silent film from now on.
As to my problems with Hero, it is because I feel that everyone spoke too much. The mother’s voiceover was unnecessary, the last dialogue between Soldier: 76 and the girl feels like it’s supposed to portray S76 as a gruff, jaded veteran who still insists on fighting a good fight, but the subtext of “the world needs heroes” is brought across so ham-handedly courtesy of the small girl outright stating that she thinks of Jack as a hero I want to puke out my lungs. The part with the Los Muertos members bullying a lone, broken Omnic and robbing the girl would’ve made a fantastic world-building short on its own, and maybe they can add a scene where S76’s visor glints in the shadows around the corner as he watches those gang members if they are under the threat of death to show off S76 to the audience. That, I feel, will be great as a teaser to the game, or an introductory video to Overwatch’s world. The video itself was fine without the dialogues and voiceovers, but their presence just sours the whole thing for me.
Brickinator’s Mod Showcase series are always great as a collection of the TF2 community’s achievements. I must admit, I’m never a fan of custom game modes, but the amount of love and effort put into the mods is astounding and respectable. They stretched the Source Engine close to breaking point at times just to deliver us a few hours of entertainment. A big thank you to them, and Brickinator to shining a light upon this TF2 treasure trove of fun.
Articles and posts talking about proposed stat changes and class buffs/nerfs are popular, but I feel that a post talking about what shouldn’t be changed is often far more valuable. It sets a line, defined by good game design, that we should not cross, and gives us a clear vision of how the game should be. Thus, when adding new changes to the game, the changes will be less disruptive and not have an adverse impact on the players.
Despite what I said in the previous article, I still like looking at suggestion posts talking about what changes can be done to the game. New weapons, weapon changes, or even class changes like this one. Theorycrafting is a fun way to spend a leisurely afternoon.
And speaking of theorycrafting, sometimes it’s more fun to actually try it for real. Foxzet’s article shows how much potential there is to giving Heavy extra mobility, and it is a lot more convincing due to him actually taking the concept out for a spin. It shows what can go wrong with ideas when they are actually implemented, and the hilarious things that can happen when a new gameplay element is added and people aren’t used to it yet.
And sometimes, the theory in question can have nothing on gameplay, and is just on lore and background details. It could be about small details like the strength of the healing beam of each Medi Gun, or something much larger, like the theory that TF2 is just a documentary. It’s creating a narrative for something the developers glossed over, filling in the gaps, and making the game’s lore richer as a whole. Although the whole unofficial community aspect of these theories will probably cause trouble for that last point.
And sometimes, there are fanfictions. Medic wrote a few nice short stories on The Daily SPUF, with this one being a favourite of mine because of how plausible it is. I really like this one because this could actually happen some time before Gray Mann attacked, as it is consistent with the TF2 lore and the characters behave as they normally do. An idea between my friends and I before they went off to Dota 2 (self-flagellating salty idiots) is that a TF2 animated series on Adult Swim will be absolutely fantastic, and this could very well be an episode on a series like that.
That, and the TF2/LoL crossover story, although I really have no knowledge on any LoL characters.
And speaking of crossovers, inter-universal cage fights are always fun to talk about. After all, it’s the entire reason why Death Battle is such a popular series. It’s pretty much the playground “my favourite character can beat your favourite character” brought to its almost-ultimate form, until someone managed to create a game where every single video game character can fight each other. And also add a mode for team fights. And find a way to fairly balance every single character. And somehow managed to get the copyrights for every single game in the world.
However, A Battle of Healers have a rather unique twist to it. Instead of seeing who is the most lethal character, this series is a fight to determine who’s the best at keeping people alive. Now that Overwatch and Paladins are here, I hope that this series can be revived. And yes, I just really want to see Medic engage Mercy in a brawl. If anyone does it, I will make SFM pics depicting Medic beating up Mercy by using his Medi Gun as a flail and Mercy going full kung-fu on Medic by using her Caduceus Staff as a … well, staff.
And speaking of a beating, I have to interrupt this article for a minute of silence, to mourn the loss of the Ullapool Caber and the Persian Persuader. I enjoyed both of these weapons, and while reading the articles brings me no joy, it did bring back precious memories of those times where I used them in their prime. And that joy just exacerbated the pain.
As for the new Persian Persuader, let me just repeat something I’ve said before. That’s a different weapon, wearing his skin, using his name, taking his place. That is not the Persian Persuader and it never will be.
Since I’m still somewhat peeved, might as well carry on with this full head of steam and talk about a post that is good to read and very cathartic to write. Rant posts are generally rather emotional pieces that often struck a chord among like-minded people. No matter your stance on the issue, a rant post is generally a passion piece. I like reading those on forums because it’s kind of like listening to the innermost voice of a person. I like reading them on here even more since they’re a lot better written in general.
I also quite like the IRL posts from Medic and aabicus (am I actually supposed to capitalise the first A in aabicus’ name, I really don’t know) because it’s rather nice to see what they’re up to. Medic’s Comicon posts are fun, but her TF2 weapons IRL build is really interesting, with the Flame Thrower build being my favourite. And aabicus’ Panda Express posts are fascinating to read, because there isn’t one where I stay and I’m a massive glutton.
And this post is one I enjoyed because it poked fun at something really, really stupid. Like aabicus, I feel that this is 100% shoehorned in. It came out of nowhere and there’s absolutely nothing to it. The only thing that can be more ridiculous is if Robin Walker made a Facebook post explaining how Payload is symbolic of how the spirit of capitalism and the free market destroys the undying specter of communism.
They could’ve worked that into a one-shot comic, where the RED team needs to find a way to get intel on the BLU team from Miss Pauling, and the team decided that Spy should try to seduce her for it. Scout’s valiant offer to volunteer for the job was laughed out of the discussion after Spy played a VHS tape showing a montage of Scout failing to ask Miss Pauling out.
Spy then get to work, trying his very best to seduce her, while the rest of the team kept Scout out of the way, first with a ball and chain to his left ankle, then one for each ankle, and eventually they just throw him into a barrel of Sniper’s moonshine. However, Miss Pauling remained frosty and unimpressed by Spy’s increasingly desperate and unhinged approach. Finally, Scout broke free and rushed to Miss Pauling, where Spy is sobbing uncontrollably and asking where did he go wrong. Which is the moment where Miss Pauling reveals that she’s lesbian and completely shattered Spy’s and Scout’s hopes.
I have a feeling that this was meant as a throwaway explanation as to why Miss Pauling never fell for Scout despite him always trying to impress her. But come on, you can’t say she’s lesbian because she’s unimpressed with Scout. Maybe she just has good taste.
This article speaks to me on a almost spiritual level. I always love the less valuable cosmetics mainly because they are often quite fine, and with a little thought and care you can make amazing cosmetic loadouts with them. There are so many ways to make nice-looking unique cosmetic loadouts, but people just seem to be gunning for either the most expensive hats or the ones that a famous YouTuber likes. Oh well, more for me.
And this article has a special place in my heart. You see, when I first started out on here, I wanted to write articles, but I was at a lost as to what to write. A lot of TF2 articles have been done by far more competent people both in terms of writing and gameplay, I can’t figure out what I wanted to write for Minecraft and Just Cause 2, and I’m stuck in a stage which I found out months later is just before the final boss fight in Serious Sam 3. I’m not confident in talking about other games since I’m not as familiar with them. Out of the four, I finally decided to write about TF2, yet I have no idea what else I can contribute that hasn’t been done already.
I was randomly browsing around the site thinking of what to write when I came across this. And I started writing about TF2 cosmetics until I felt comfortable enough to start branching out. It’s thanks to this article and this one by aabicus that I decided to start writing, and for that I’m grateful.
Then there’s FashionFrame. It’s quite fascinating to see a multiplayer game stretching character customization to such a limit. I like this article mostly because of how exotic every WarFrame in this article look. It’s really damn cool.
And then there’s SilverWolf’s articles, which introduces me to a lot of different games, like Spy Chameleon. And there’s also Papo & Yo, which is so charming to look at. I regret not getting them during the Summer Sale.
I bought Gunpoint and Sleeping Dogs instead. Also the Serious Sam 3 DLC. No regrets on those purchases though.
The in-depth reviews he gave those games gives me a good enough understanding as to whether a game will be to my liking or not. And he covers games across a pretty large spectrum, from something as relaxed as Refunct to the hard-as-nails experience known as Nioh. I wonder if he’s a Steam curator.
Medic’s articles on her trying to make a dragon follower mod are also rather nice reads. Despite learning the basics, I am never a competent coder. The mere thought of needing to do anything related to beep-boop computer language would’ve sent me fleeing into the opposite direction. Reading these articles and watching aabicus’ SPUF of Legend videos on the game he’s making on Clickteam Fusion allows me to take a peek behind the hood as to how games are made, not so much on the nitty-gritty technical details but the thought processes behind them.
I just find this picture hilarious and really fitting.
It has been a long time since I first came across The Daily SPUF, and I enjoyed the daily articles. And being able to write and take part in this is actually rather fulfilling, although there are times where I descended into fits of rage because I can’t get the lighting of the picture to look right or can’t think of a way to start the article. All in all, I am happy to be here.
Thank you, and good night.