advice – Page 7 – The Daily SPUF

6 Things I Learned After 500 Hours of TF2

March 18, 2016 disguisedcyclone 0 Comments advice, f2p, fun, help, newbie, pubs, Team Fortress 2, tips

Team Fortress 2 is my latest obsession nowadays. Yes, this first-person shooter with cartoonish graphics may have been released in 2007, but this game still gives me fresh laughs and plenty of enjoyment today. I love the wacky lines, the teamwork you can foster, the griefers, the hats, the taunts, and all the other lovely (and not-so-lovely) chaps you can play with in order to win a round. In truth, I’ve spent the last 6 months or so accumulating around 500 hours of playtime in this game (in public servers alone). 500 hours may sound like a lot of time… [Continue Reading]

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Followers in various video games

February 11, 2016 Medic 0 Comments advice, analysis, criticism, followers, non-tf2, rpg

Most games with a story, whether they are single player or multiplayer, have a habit of dragging someone with you for a while. How games do this, well it varies greatly, so I’m going to talk about the few games I’ve placed recently. Sometimes, followers, companions, whatever you want to call them, are bloody awful. Sometimes you forget they’re there. Often the game developers want you to have some sort of attachment to the morons you generally have following you around. One of my favourite examples of a follower done right is that of the security guards and scientists in… [Continue Reading]

Featured Now for Something Completely Different

Why TF2 is Hard

January 19, 2016 ___ 0 Comments advice, balance, criticism, newbies, settings, This is one of the best articles on the state of pub balance I've seen in a while.

There’s a lot of talk about the states of publics nowadays, but one of the things that’s really hard to remember once you’ve got good at TF2 is how it is to be a new player. Most players worth their salt have played for a couple of hundred hours. To these people, TF2 is a fairly easy game. And why wouldn’t it be? TF2 is a game where most of the characters are extremely accessible. Soldier rockets splash. Grenades splash. Stickies splash. Flamethrower requires low aim. So does the minigun. So does Engineer. And especially Medic. But what if I told… [Continue Reading]

Featured Now for Something Completely Different

An Advice Article for Academic Aptitude

January 6, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments advice, writing

Recently Medic created a new column called “And Now For Something Completely Different”, and I thought I’d throw my hat into that arena by writing an article composed mainly of tips I gave my brother after making through the American school system. Don’t worry though, this advice is pretty universal and basically deals with tricks I learned to improve my grades in school while putting in as little actual work as possible. 1. If you’re allowed to, take important tests multiple times. I’m talking mainly about aptitude tests where higher scores will look better when you try to attract schools… [Continue Reading]

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A couple of little tips for all you budding article writers

December 11, 2015 Medic 0 Comments advice, articles, help, writing

Fun fact: I used to run a website called Budding Writers, back in 2011-13. A small bunch of people, mostly friends and family and people stolen from BZPower, came together and wrote a bunch of random things. The site is still online (with registration disabled), and should anything ever happen to SPUF, I actually made a skin mimicking the SPUF style, so we can just head over to there or whatever. It’s either that or the bat cave. I still go there occasionally for nostalgic reasons, and to delete the spam posts advertising kitchens. What does this have to do… [Continue Reading]

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Why your first round should be on 2fort

September 20, 2015 aabicus 1 Comment advice, Filler, maps, noob

I’m serious. I know 2fort is like the least-respected map in TF2, and a haven of bad map design and stalemates to end all stalemates. Where a single Engineer can indefinitely keep an entire team of demo-medics at bay thanks to the spawn points and chokeholds all favoring the defensive team to a horrific degree. But you know what? That’s not what you notice on your first round of TF2. You care about figuring out what this gun is you’re holding. How movement works. Why anyone plays people other than the giant Russian. And 2fort does a great job of… [Continue Reading]

Featured The Competitive Corner

Confusing Comms: Health Callouts

September 8, 2015 Medic 0 Comments 6v6, advice, competitive, guide, medic, strategy

An important part of competitive TF2 is communication. Being concise, clear and understandable are vital, especially as the environment you will be speaking in could have anywhere between 3-8 others all speaking at once while each listener is distracted by what is happening onscreen. It is no secret that the SPUF EU 6s and 4s team require improving with their co-op skills, so today I will talk about a simple aspect that is often overlooked: friendly health callouts. Enemy health callouts are well known, and the skills well practised. The term “lit” has entered even the vocabulary of non-competitive TF2… [Continue Reading]

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Fire and Smoke go through the dust, too!

August 31, 2015 Davjo_ 0 Comments advice, competitive, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, CSGO, non-tf2

Hey there, fellow people that read The Daily SPUF! As you can probably tell from the name of the article, this one is CS:GO related instead of TF2 related, and today we will be learning some good smokes for the most recognizable map in the Counter-Strike series, Dust2! How I got to like Dust2 is kind of a coincidence, since it was one of my most hated maps (probably due to me liking more CT-sided maps like Nuke instead of balanced ones), but trying out “new” maps I thought that Dust2 is quite OK, and now it’s one of my… [Continue Reading]

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Reworking the Domination System

August 21, 2015 Medic 0 Comments advice, annoying, broken, criticism, domination, suggestion

No one likes being dominated. Well, unless they’re into kinky stuff. But that’s not what I’m talking about. Everyone dislikes it. Even people who are dominating others can get annoyed by it. In its current form, the only good thing dominations are good for are the amusing lines that come with them, and even then, you often only hear part of them or the class you’re playing as lacks them. Maybe now, as we’re moving towards a new, more competitive TF2, we can have a look at a new domination system. Before we begin though, we need to look at… [Continue Reading]

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A Comprehensive 100 Tour Review of Mann vs Machine

August 20, 2015 Dan 0 Comments advice, analysis, criticism, game mode, MvM, strategy

$429.84 Over the past 3 months, I’ve spent over $400 on Team Fortress 2: Mann vs. Machine. I want to provide an honest and accurate reflection of Mann vs. Machine, in addition to clearing up some of the misconceptions about the game mode that many of the newer players have. For those of you that are looking to continue or start playing MvM, this guide will lay out the basic details that you’ll need to determine whether or not MvM is right for you. You will not profit A lot of players start playing MvM in hopes of turning a… [Continue Reading]