A Series of Unlikely Gaming Stories 1 – The Lost Heavy

So I started playing Team Fortress 2 when the Free to Play update came out. I was never someone to just jump in to whatever everyone else was doing, I was always the guy who goes to random servers and messes around in their own way. I’d played a handful of maps already, a CP map and an obvious CTF map. And I played 2fort as well. There were tons of other, different server types, from ‘achievement’ servers to ‘vsh’ maps that I later found out stood for “Versus Saxton Hale”. One map type stood out. It was called surf_something or other. I don’t really remember the name.

After a really long load time, the map finally downloaded and I could play the game. Most of the maps I had played were all kinda like the official maps, but this one, I don’t know what it was. That’s why I picked an almost empty server, so I could explore and maybe ask around for help or something. I picked my class, Heavy as always, and jumped in. I always liked playing Heavy because he’s like, the easiest class, at least for a newbie like I was back then. Real easy to pick up. Lots of health. Big ass gun.

This map though. Weird as heck. It started off with some sort of launch area, straight onto like, a triangular, sloped thing. There wasn’t anywhere to jump to or anything. I tried jumping to the tip of the triangle slope thingy and just slid off, down into a pit.

Didn’t die of fall damage though. Just got teleported into a new area. Not a lot of hiding space, it was like the middle of a bunch of unfinished, untextured buildings. Not many places to hide. I didn’t have long to see it though. I instantly got backstabbed by a Spy. Stupid guy’s name was one of those xX-420-Xx names.

That kinda annoyed me, like he was waiting for me to spawn. I went back, and I got shot by a Sniper and then backstabbed by the Spy again.

I went back again and while I managed to kill the Spy, the Sniper shot me again and suddenly the Spy was back as well. I didn’t know about the Dead Ringer back then. But I’ve always been stubborn and didn’t want to leave before I killed them both. I was shit at the game though, I mean, I’d only been playing for a few days and the map was kinda Sniper-friendly, lots of high-up places to hide. Never saw them down on the ground with the Spy.

I respawned again, in a different place, but found the Sniper wasn’t instantly shooting me. Someone else had joined the game and had joined my team. Some random guy just called Medic. They picked Medic and I expected them to come down and heal me. Didn’t have time to see where they were because the Spy was running around in circles. I thought I killed the Spy but they ran off somewhere.

Suddenly the Sniper appeared not too far away from me. He tried to shoot me but I managed to gun him down. I heard that dun dun dun noise and I got the revenge thing. Then suddenly I heard a Spy scream and I finally saw that Medic who joined the game. He killed the Spy.

The Medic came over and healed me, then rushed off somewhere. I followed him and he rushed up a staircase. That was where the Sniper was hiding! I typed in chat, saying thanks to the Medic and he replied with a Thanks! voice chat thing. He then headed off somewhere else and I went to follow him but that Sniper was trying to shoot at us. This Medic did an insane thing and just ran at him, ducking and swerving all over the place as he killed the Sniper with syringes. Then he came back and healed me, and led me up the stairs to higher ground.

We waited a bit and the Medic waited for the Spy and the Sniper to come and get us. The Medic was hiding and ducking around and I did the same as he did. Then he started healing me and I managed to mow down both the Spy and the Sniper as they climbed the stairs towards us. I heard the dun dun dun noise again and I got rid of my second domination. I typed thanks again in the chat and again, the Medic replied with a voice command, but that didn’t appear in the chat.

The Sniper disconnected for some reason, but the Spy respawned and went off and hid. The Medic chased after him. After about a minute, I saw that the Medic had got a domination on the Spy, and the Spy also disconnected.

Without the threat of being killed yet again, I had the time to type a proper thanks in the chat. The Medic never replied, and instead just said Thanks! twice using the voice chat commands. Then he disconnected from the server.

I was left on my own. Eventually, I left the server as well, and went off to play a more conventional map. I still don’t get what surf maps are, but at least I learned a bit about strafing.