crates

April 16th – 23rd

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Taxes are due everybody! Hooray! If you’re anything like me, taxes are a long and laborious chore, and I’m even more qualified than most because I worked as a tax preparer for over a year. I’m only 24 for god’s sake, I’m supposed to be spack-dab in the middle of the part of your life where you look forward to cashing out your W-2s after work and buying a round of drinks with your refund. But the IRS is not a fan of entrepreneurs or freelancers turns out… But I digress. In the world of Team Fortress 2, taxes don’t appear… [Continue Reading]

Dota 2 and Cosmetics

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Ah, hats. What’s not to love about them? They rest on your head, make you look better, and can be traded away for even more hats. They’re also one of the most prominent features of TF2, being a staple of the game and one of the things most associated with it. Ever since the Sniper vs Spy update, more and more hats have been added to this game, along with other customization options. With over two hundred cosmetic items in the game, one would think that Team Fortress would be Valve’s best game for anyone who wishes to have the perfect… [Continue Reading]

5 Weapons that Synergize with the Bushwacka

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1. Jarate Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk about some more interesting pairs with everyone’s favorite (or least favorite) machete. It’s basically the Sniper default melee of choice these days, just because it’s the only Sniper melee with interesting stats. Even Valve agrees; the earliest ever strange Sniper crate contained a strange Bushwacka, whereas the Strange Kukri had to wait over two years later to exist. Maybe because even without jarate, you can still get the most out of your melee with: 2. The Cleaner’s Carbine: Ever since the stat adjustment where the weakest hitscan… [Continue Reading]

A Sudden Flurry Of Content!

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Looks like we’ve finally got some new stuff on Team Fortress 2! An update on the 1st and a new comic! There’s also promises of a new map and new custom taunts. Warning! This post contains spoilers about the new comic! Please read it first! First off, the update. An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: Improved the Backpack UI Added page buttons for all pages Removed prev/next buttons Updated the drag/drop behavior to interact with the page buttons Strange quality items… [Continue Reading]

What’s your dream unusual?

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Dear Aaby, what’s your dream unusual? Question by one of Medic’s siblings. Medic: Ummm, I’m not sure. While I’ve always gone on about how much I like the Otolaryngologist’s Mirror, my dream unusual would actually be a Das Hazmattenhatten with the Spellbound or Arcadia effect. Out of all the recent Halloween effects, those really stand out. A second choice, which would never exist, is orbiting Medic emblems. I say that though, I love my bubbly mirror, despite me being neither a doctor nor drunk. aabicus: For many of the reasons stated in this article, I like Massed Flies as my… [Continue Reading]

December 7th-December 14th

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This was a huge week in Team Fortress 2 history! We’ve got things from every year back to 2008! 2008 saw Valve finally fix a glitch that was funny maybe the first time you witnessed it; Engineers could upgrade the dispensers in payload carts so they healed more than they should. This kind of broke payload, and was a welcome removal. On December 11th they also added some features that are now huge parts of the metagame: Teleporters and dispensers were given a Level 3 (previously only Sentries had a Level 3), spies could now recharge cloak by picking up… [Continue Reading]

Shooting the scorched earth

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Picture by Grarrg123.
Picture by Grarrg123.

Scorched earth is a tactic used by militaries where the main goal is to destroy everything useful for the enemy while retreating or advancing (destroying their manufactories, farms, oil fields and stuff like that). If you have participated in kindergarten gang wars, you will spot the similarity with the real thing – if you managed to win a small tackle-fight against your little enemies in their own lair built of wooden bricks, chairs and clothing – you totally wrecked their camp afterwards, victoriously, so they would have to build everything from scratch. You were also a terrible person, but whatever. Scorched Earth is also a fun little game with artillery tanks shooting at each other, but most importantly, it shares a similar name with one of the weapons in TF2 – the Scorch Shot.

Just before the holiday season, Valve shipped some new crates. There is a particular one I’ve looked forward to the most. Crate #77. Not only do you get a chance to unbox the strange Grenade Launcher again (hardcore traders fainting, poor people throwing hands in the air and praising the Lord), you can also get the strange Scorch Shot! I also had the joy of unboxing it right away with my first crate drop, just like I wanted. I could finally use Scorch Shot and force other people to see my kill counter on it when I kill them to death!

Why don’t people use the Scorch Shot more? Because they hate having fun! Well, it deals 50% less damage. Instead of regular flare’s 30 damage, you deal 15 damage.  Yes, I know, people want to kill their enemies faster? Pfffft. It is way funnier to watch your enemies burn slow if you’re a Pyro. Things people do when on fire… ehhhh… It also won’t critically wound people on fire like Flare Gun does, but honestly, who cares? I can bounce people all over the map!

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November 31st to December 6th

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2010 and 2011 were the big years this week. In 2010, Valve took efforts to fix some problems with players bypassing restrictions on building construction and destruction using the console. Until now, Engineers could immediately destruct sapped buildings and spies could destroy their sappers, as encapsulated in this great video: Fun fact: This happens because the game considers the sapper a building. This is why it’s immune to critical hits (a crit wrench does not remove it in one hit) and why the Homewrecker deals double damage to sappers (and does remove it in one hit) In 2011 Valve added… [Continue Reading]

(Blog Posts about Strange Parts: 2)

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Smissmas is coming. *badum tss*

And if you don’t remember the previous Strange Parts Post, clickity.

First Archimedes,now Foppish. My past self was really lucky when he chose his Medic cosmetics. Pixel art obtained from g
First Archimedes, now Foppish. aabicus’ past self was really lucky when he chose his favorite Medic cosmetics. Pixel art obtained from AG’s Pixelize Yourself.

I’m a Strange Item fanatic. I love showing off how many kills I’ve got with this weapon or that one. Or recently, how many points I have with this and that class (“InstaCakes is credit to team!”) and in general (Strange Speks!).

So I was thinking: Some weapons aren’t Strange yet. Some are Strange Festive, but not plain Strange (Buff Banner! Sandvich!). Some are Strange and deserve to be Festive (I WANT A STRANGE FESTIVE SHOTGUN!). And then there are cool ideas for Strange Parts that no-one has thought of yet, and Strange Parts everyone has thought of but not added. For example, why is there a “Robot Spies Destroyed” part and “Cloaked Spies Killed” part but no plain “Spies Killed” part  but Spies Killed has only been added with the latest update? Why isn’t there a Strange High-Five yet?

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Unusuals – A Thought

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A while ago, when the Robocrates first came out, I was playing Team Fortress with my sibling, and he unboxed an unusual. A Disco Beat Down Whoopee Cap. A pretty effect on an average Scout hat. I’d seen quite a few people unboxing unusuals that day, and a lot more people trying their luck, unboxing a million Strange Bottles and Fireaxes.  I was among the people who didn’t unbox an unusual, although I managed to get a white paint from a #4 crate.

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