The 2010s in Gaming – A Look Back

Adios, old decade! Tomorrow is the first day of the new ’20s, a decade sure to be just as roaring as the one that used to be known as the ’20s’. I’ve often wondered just how long it takes for the old century to fall out of conversation and get replaced by the new one in abbreviated parlance. Guess we might be finding out somewhere around the 2050s, is my personal guess. But anyway! The ’10s were certainly a hell of a decade, especially for gaming. We were treated to some huge advancements in graphics, hardware, and processing capabilities. The… [Continue Reading]

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The Scaling Level of Pointlessness When It Comes to Cosmetics

It’s funny how some things come to you. I’ve got a good 1500+ hours playing Team Fortress 2, and it took me a good part of them to realise that cosmetics are actually almost completely pointless since you never actually see them. They are only ever seen by other people, unless you use that weird console command that shows your body. But even then, your head isn’t visible and you don’t even get to always see unusual effects. Aside from one obscure console command though, you’re dressing yourself up so you can look at yourself in menus. Any cosmetics you… [Continue Reading]

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Promoting TF2 with other Valve games

Heroes of the Storm is the Super Smash Bros for Blizzard’s franchises, as well as the company’s attempt to break into the lucrative MOBA market. And it’s not doing too well compared to its competition, which is sad since the genre was first born from Aeon of Strife, a StarCraft custom map, and it’s the Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients that first popularized the genre. It’s just like how England invented football (it’s football, not soccer, come on America) and has only won once in the FIFA World Cup out of 20 games. So Blizzard decided to use their newest… [Continue Reading]

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The Free To Play Business Model

For some context, take a look at this video: Basically, when OB51 arrived in Paladins, a lot of complains had rose from Reddit and YouTube about the painfully large amounts of grind that everyone faced, with the only way out being sinking money to buy Founder’s Packs and boosters. And when I said “grind”, I don’t mean grinding for cosmetics. The grind is for loadout cards which players need to play the game well. The customizable loadout card system is one of the unique selling points of Paladins. And this marks the second time Paladin’s business model’s under fire, with… [Continue Reading]

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Lessons TF2 could learn from Dota 2

That’s right, I think it’s time we take a break from off-topic threads about Overwatch to talk about Dota for a second. You know, the game that Valve actually spends development time on. As Dota 2 is the most played game on Steam by an enormous margin, one has to wonder what it’s doing (besides, you know…being updated) that TF2 isn’t. While some lessons don’t apply as well since we’re talking about two completely different genres, I’ve compiled a list of things about Dota that TF2 could benefit from. 1. Optimization: Let’s start with the obvious one. Valve has always… [Continue Reading]

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Medic plays Dota 2

I’m not a big fan of MOBAs, but Dota 2 was the first one I ever played, before I played League of Legends. I didn’t understand anything. At all. I’m pretty certain I spent the entire tutorial having no clue what was going on, back when the tutorial consisted of Dragon Knight wandering round a very non-Dota-2-esque map, completing quests and spending a long time repeating tasks because I couldn’t get the concept of couriers and last-hits. Eventually, I gave up, unable to get my head around anything. League of Legends started on similar rocky territory, but their tutorial back… [Continue Reading]

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Saucy Source Stuff

Not much happens on SPUF, but occasionally someone will pop up with an idea or product or some other project they want to flog. I’ve always been happy to promote these things because I’m not a very good business person, but also because some of these things are occasionally really good. Yes, I know, it’s stupid to advertise the competition, but sometimes you come across something cool and you feel you need to share it. I don’t know how many of you remember Witchyyyy. They’ve done some very nice SFM stuff for us over the last year or so. She’s… [Continue Reading]

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Dota 2 and Cosmetics

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]

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Not So Great Expectations

The other night, I watched a film called I, Frankenstein. It was a very silly film, not in an intended comedic sense but in a way where people who review films will just sigh and point out every single bad bit until they get bored and start talking about how Slumdog Millionaire changed the world or whatever. Nonetheless, despite its bad reviews, I sat down and watched it and I quite enjoyed it. Alright, the film was nothing special, the plot was basically Van Helsing, Dogma, Dracula, John Dies At The End and every other similar god-monster-demon-related film put together,… [Continue Reading]

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A Tale of Two Communities

Lately, SPUF has gotten a bit cabin-feverish, and I can’t say I blame them. The anger seems to be directed at Valve’s repeated promises of “great stuff on the horizon!” and the actuality of the extreme drought of new content for TF2. Recently, even the throwaway crap such as blog posts, cosmetics, and localization-file-only updates have dried up. I can understand why SPUF is upset. But I disagree with how a large amount of this anger seems to be directed at Dota 2, Valve’s newest cash cow and spearhead of the MOBA genre that is clearly getting the lion’s share… [Continue Reading]

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