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Once upon a time, in the earliest days of my TF2 experience, I was an avid user of the typical “Puff-and-Sting” Pyro loadout. I wandered about flailing my postal pummeler at anything that crossed my path or flinging flares haphazardly across the map. It wasn’t effective in the slightest, but it was what made me happy. One day, this changed. I was randomly given a Strange Shotgun, and I was suddenly a dedicated shotgun jockey. Engineer and Soldier, both shotgun-wielders, quickly rose to second and third place in my most-played classes. I didn’t even notice this at the time, but… [Continue Reading]
I’ve never felt such an asshole. I wanted to buy a particular set for Engy today, the fat guy stuff. So I checked out TF2op and found the items I wanted at reasonable prices and added the people or sent trade offers and every single one of them were offline. Now I understand that trade offers are great when you can wait but I’m a ‘right now’ type of guy and was getting more and more frustrated as time went on and finally I had the 3 pieces and went in search of the Rancho Relaxo taunt (because you can’t… [Continue Reading]
So I just added some money to my Steam wallet. And, like every Hat Fortress player, I couldn’t resist buying a key or two to uncrate some of these new crates that just came out. I also bought a game, and a few other things from the Steam Market to calm my natural item addiction. A few minutes later (that’s how long it takes me to chew through ten Euros) I had a bit over a Euro left, enough for a Nametag or some other Tool Item That I Would Regret Buying. Somehow, I stumbled upon the “Maps” section of… [Continue Reading]
A lot of games show you your killing stats by default. Originally Team Fortress 2 wasn’t one of them. Then Valve decided they’d like to try making some money and in the Uber Update placed a single key between you and the stat-tracking weapon of your dreams. Like it or not, this was amazingly successful. They followed up on this by adding stranges (and most of the other item qualities) into Dota 2 when that totally-not-a-sequel-to-anything-owned-by-Blizzard became a thing. However, while I don’t play Dota 2 myself (I tried it once but I didn’t inhale) I’ve heard from my friends that… [Continue Reading]
Today, we’ll be chatting with resident SPUFer Davjo, currently on his second account after screaming at German people. He’s been popping up on SPUF for ages and is fairly obsessed with Scouts and map stamps. In fact, Davjo is one of the few people to have worn one of the most prestigious hats around, the Philateler.
Do you own a Community Weapon? Chances are, probably not. There are only two ways to get one: Be rich and buy a sparkly Lugermorph, or become a respectful upstanding member of the TF2 Community who leaves the game a little better than when he arrived, and wait for Valve to contact you and give you one.
The system is as old as the concept of weapon qualities. Back in the day that Vintage weapons outnumbered Unique weapons, Valve implemented this method of rewarding specific members of the community. But I’m starting to think this procedure could use an update.
The first reason? Strange Weapons. A few days ago I passed time with a fun question: If I could get any Community weapon, what would I get? The first thing that came to mind was my beloved Crusader’s Crossbow, but wait, I have a strange crossbow! I wouldn’t want to stop tracking my kills. As a matter of fact, almost every weapon I love is already in strange form in my backpack. I’d have to pick some nonstrangeable weapon I enjoyed, like Gunboats. But this extreme restrictiveness seemed to dilute the fact that the Community weapon was supposed to be a reward. It should be a 100% Awesome thing to get a Community weapon; I shouldn’t have to bittersweetly choose which of my stranges to retire.
Smissmas is coming. *badum tss*
And if you don’t remember the previous Strange Parts Post, clickity.
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?
While I wouldn’t consider myself a “hardcore trader”, I certainly do it. Most TF2 players enjoy making at least one of the classes look as cool as they can afford, or grabbing strange versions of weapons they truly enjoy.
This pretty much requires using a significant amount of TF2 Outpost, which can be a great experience if you find a good trader. Unfortunately, the percentage of users who seem interested in making things fast, easy, and simple are vanishing every day. As a frequent buyer, my usual strategy is to search for something, open a bunch of tabs of online people offering a certain item, and then instantly close anyone who breaks the following rules:
Literally the day I write a blog post mentioning a desire for a “taunt kills” strange part, Valve releases one! And that’s not all; some very interesting changes have been made to the trading metagame. You can now use “Chemistry Sets” to make strange cosmetics items which track points scored. On one hand, I question the use of such things when nobody will see a cosmetic in a deathcam, plus points are largely irrelevant, but on the other hand Strange Genuine Archimedes. This is actually very, very good for the economy, and here’s why: Step 1: A player obtains a… [Continue Reading]
So I was leafing through my inventory, trying to figure out how to make loadouts using some stuff I never wear. It was when I tried to make a stat-obsessed LARPer parody using the Merasmus hat that I tried to fit as many counters onto one loadout as possible. Did you realize TF2 now has items that track stuff in every single loadout slot? Using the above loadout (along with three strange weapons, with 3 strange parts each, and a strange PDA tool), you now can track: · The number of kills on your primary weapon ···Three other random stats… [Continue Reading]
