TeamFortress 2

[terralthra]

Hey, all -

I spend a lot of my gaming time playing TF2 these days. It's a free to play game, so there's no cost to play. The ecosystem and economy of weapons has grown fairly big over time, and you can buy them for money from Valve, or wait to earn them via achievements or the random drop system (or smelt random drops into metal to trade for a weapon you really want). In other words, it's funded via microtransactions, but you can play the entire game for free, never spending a dime, without having any real deficit to your gameplay ability in-game.

There's a tremendous amount of depth to the game and such, and like Allegiance, it's designed from the ground up to simply REQUIRE teamwork.

If anyone wants to get in on it, I'm happy to do some tutoring on the various classes and how the game works in practice. It runs on fairly old hardware (being like 6+ years old), so most people should be able to get in on it. I have a fairly huge inventory of weapons, misc and hats, and also a bunch of metal and keys to trade in case there's something you guys want that hasn't dropped for you yet.

Most competitive play is done using the Highlander mode (there can be only one!). That is, the teams are 9 v 9, and each class may have one and only one player playing it.

[Mordechaj]

I'd like to play TF2 with you. Can't promise anything about when it will happen though.

[Gandalf]

I've put something like 300 hours into this game, but haven't touched it for 12-18 months. I think I just played too much of it :p Mostly Pyro & Engineer.

If there were a group of us playing, I would be more likely to get back into it.

[Wyld Karde]

I break out the game for a few weeks maybe twice a year, usually around the big updates.  It'd be fun to get RT together for a few rounds.  I normally play Engie (Frontier Justice & Mini-sentry) or Medic.  Soldier if the team already has enough Engies and Medics, but I'm lousy at rocket jumping.

[notjarvis]

I like Engie too.

Can have a lot of fun with spy if you get yourself in a decent position, and the oppositions a bit clueless. And pyro can do an awful amount of damage if you manage to get in a crowd of people.

Trying to do sniper/soldier a bit more last few times i played for a bit of variety.

I'm awful at rocket jumping too - is there something I'm missing? can never seem to get it right.

I'm hardly getting any time for online gaming at the minute. Would love to come online with you guys if/when theres time.

[terralthra]

Rocket-jumping is kinda opaque, and I'm only average at it, but basically, there are a few tricks that you may not know about.

Trick number one: your primary momentum from a rocket jump comes from the rocket itself. Pressing "w" in the air slows you down to your run speed, so, when you're in the air, don't press "w". Ever.

Trick number two: crouching at the time of the rocketjump increases your rocket jump speed. Ideal is to fire the rocket, jumping simultaneously, while crouching in the air.

Trick number three: the rocket jump propels you kinematically directly away from the center of the explosion. Rocket jumps beneath you will push you mostly up. To rocket jump in a forward direction, you want to aim at a wall that "faces" where you want to go, somewhat below the center of the soldier model (aiming down from level, in other words).

There are some so-called "rocket jump training" maps you can connect to, though most are sadly lacking in instructions or tutorials.

[Gandalf]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UsffYtFMko