You're absolutely right. Infact, it's the community that has helped keep the game popular and liked. Valve's TF2 team (or perhaps Valve themselves?) has more or less stuck two fingers up at the majority of decent communities and imposed their will on them. Valve make no effort to make the player aware that there are other types of servers out there with a unique twist to the original Team Fortress 2 game. Instead, they just make their shop and quickplay stand out and be the focus of attention. Unlike the old days, Valve also doesn't provide much acknowledgement on the mailing list (or other methods of discussion such as SPUF?) or take onboard many suggestions or ideas from the community. Did I miss much? I expect someone will criticise what I said but at this point I don't care, it's pretty much the truth as far as I can see. Team Fortress 2 has virtually become a cash machine with little effort from the team and little acknowledged input from the community. Yes yes, I know the game is years old, but that isn't an excuse in my opinion. It must still be making reasonable money, but if it continues the way it is then probably the only people still playing the game will be a turnover of newcomers who will probably play no more than a year at best and then move on.
Right now, it would be nice if newcomers were made aware that quickplay isn't the only method of joining a server. There are other servers out there with unique twists that some of these newcomers may well be entertained by. It would also be nice if the bugs that have existed for weeks or months actually be fixed before introducing additional items or features - for example, floating miscs on you from a dead person spectating you (particularly happens on mann vs machine), new windows on the HTML MOTD not working correctly (broken since they changed the browser engine), certain sounds such as minigun spinning stop playing after some time of playing TF2 (e.g. an hour or more, particularly on mann up - requiring a snd_restart), mann vs machine maps playing the wrong soundscape. That's just a starter, but I imagine not too hard for the developers to fix (if they were allocated time for being able to do that). Writing this I doubt it will make any difference - Valve will do what they want to do and continue that way. If anything I'm expecting criticism towards me from someone on the mailing list. On 10 December 2014 at 14:10, dan <[email protected]> wrote: > On 09/12/2014 09:21, Paul wrote: > >> I too am disappointed with this update, so much that I'll most probably be >> spending my money on some other games this month. I thought there would be >> more to the winter season/event than just duck collecting and some new >> items (mostly cosmetics). A map would've certainly been nice. Oh well, >> people can't expect everything I guess - especially when there are bugs >> that still haven't been fixed for weeks or months. >> > > I'd say you absolutely should expect everything. > > Or at least a lot more than you're getting. > > Back in 2007- when updates were, at least in appearance "free" you could > make that argument > that you shouldn't expect anything, let along everything. > > But ironically they are spending less effort on game design these days and > just throwing > out items whilst they're making more money from it than they did > > It's not as if Valve are releasing other games. I mean, if TF2 doesn't get > decent updates because > they're working on a cheap plastic controller, a featureless music player > and adding > "levels" to Steam I'm a bit more than disappointed. > > Call me old fashioned but steam used to be a bit of a flaky thing that let > you buy HL2 et al > and updated TF2 for "free" and the world was good. > > Now we're supposed to sit clicking 'yes' and 'no' on long lists of indie > shovelware and then > buy these games that we don't want to play in exchange for getting a > higher level? > > Is that Valve's best idea for game design? Steam levels? Yikes, how the > mighty have fallen. > > Perhaps because of this kind of "feature" the quality of the player base > has nose-dived. > > In that sense I can sort of understand why Valve might say something like > "this map is too confusing for new players" because sitting at the > computer and > facing the right way is probably too confusing for the kind of people > Valve have attracted > by turning steam into a game where you can get a badge ("whoo!") by > linking your steam account to facebook. > > I'm losing IQ points just describing it. > > Since this is mostly due to the way that the game is now monitised. Valve > could at least > use some of that money to improve the game again. > > In the sense of it being a Team based FPS shooter with each map have some > kind of "winner" > and an objective to that end rather than in the sense of it being an item > collecting game > where you are given items randomly that you didn't really want and then > try to fend > off a bunch of greedy buffoons trying to scam or hack those items from > your account via steam. > > Valve seem to have run out of ideas. e.g Stopping people > going to spectate on their servers? That is so, so dumb. I mean, there > isn't > a lot of cheating on their servers, but now you can't spectate someone to > check if there is. > > Adding an option to vote to disable auto balance? I mean, sure people > don't like being switched > but not having auto balance is always worse. > > If you were going to give an option to disable anything it should be > disabling the moronic > scrambling every 2 rounds. > > Valve, you cannot solve the current problems with the game by doing either > of > 2 things (a) Trying to force your players to make choices that are, well, > choices. The clue > is in the word choices. > > If you ever think that's a good solution quit your job and go back to > stealing golden wrenches and writing plugins > because this is the level of thinking of a plugin writer / server admin. > It's logic that says "I can't do anything > to improve the game, so instead I'll try and impose my will on the > players" It's understandable that the community takes this > approach - because they genuinely can't do anything to improve the game. > But Valve, you can. Throw > some money and expertise at the problems instead and come up with > something better than votes or features that > remove choices that players have had since 2007. > > A better idea would be to seriously ask yourselves "What exactly did we do > wrong? Why do people not play the game now? > Why do so many people all play spy and sniper?" - don't try to paper over > the cracks of the problem > with voting or features. e.g If you force people not to play spy or sniper > you haven't removed the > problem, you've just hidden it. > > At least now if you join a server that has all spies and snipers you know > they are buffoons. > > In the same way that if you scramble a server full of crap players they > are still crap afterwards. Scrambling doesn't make > you better at playing the game. > > Instead, ask yourselves why you didn't have that player base in 2007. > Sure, when you released an update for the scout with achievements you > got nigh on everyone playing scout for a bit - kind of inevitable. But, in > general, common sense prevailed. > > and (b) you cannot solve problems by adding votes for everything. I know > you get fed 24/7 in the USA about how great democracy is supposed to be, > but it really > isn't. Not for games. e.g just see how many are just trying to scramble > every time the other team has scored a point. This > goes to your own dumb decision to scramble if a team wins rounds. > > A team winning isn't a sign that the team is unfairly balanced. Besides > anyone who thinks shuffling players randomly will balance the game needs to > think about that some more (cf Apple who had to change their algorithm for > shuffling on the ipod because 'randomly' selecting songs doesn't result > in what people hope it would) > > Right now the game doesn't need new items or new maps. It needs updates to > make it worth trying to win again - which, > in essence, is the only reason to play a game. It's what a game is. > > I know you have this thing where so long as you're getting money from them > you don't care if people don't play but > why not find some way of splitting them out onto their own servers? > > If people like to conga, you could write dance mat game for them or > something. > > Right now TF2 is like going into a room full of people nominally playing > chess and > when you sit at the board the other guy picks up a piece and pretends it's > an aeroplane and he's making aeroplane noises > and you say "C'mon, play fucking chess" and he says "You're a tryhard" and > Valve, the people running the chess > competition say "We don't like to change the way people play our games, > and that guy bought a hat!" > > So you sigh go to the next board and the guy picks up the piece and starts > chewing it and sticking it in his ear and > you realise he's 8 years old and only went to play in the competition > because it was free to get in and his dad wanted > something to keep him quiet. (Although from the constant singing and > repetitive shouting of the words "fuck her in the pussy" > that didn't pan out) > > So you go to a 3rd board and the guy starts to play chess. Actually play > chess! Excited you make a few deft moves and you take his queen. > You're on a roll when a guy from Valve comes over and turns the board > through 180 degrees "to balance the > game because you're winning" - What? Fuck it, you roll your eyes and carry > on playing - at least this guy is playing chess. > You manage to take what was once your queen and get back in the game, > when, suddenly, 3 Valve > security guys grab you by the jacket, drag you towards the door and throw > you out the building. As you fall to the floor one of them says > "You've been voted off" > > -- > Dan > _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux
