@the people who say playing with people you know improves arena: I have to disagree. Like I said, my first lumberyard run was on my clan server with a bunch of friends, chatting both in-game and on teamspeak. At the beginning, we were gushing about how amazing the alpine environment looks. Five minutes in, all but one of us were complaining about how crap the gameplay was, and the one dissenter was instead complaining about how arena had hijacked the server config.

Now, some people have since warmed to it because it’s a more precise measure of their FPS e-peens, but I’ve got a league team for serious skill challenges. When I’m pubbing, I want FUN.

TF2 wouldn’t be half as fun for me with out all the of j-server and PCG chat peeps and arena wouldn’t be fun at all with out it.

You HAVE to work as a team and stick together with scouts pointing out where the others are over voice and only going in once they’re sure that a sniper or medic is on their own before getting out FAST.

Interestingly, I think valve developed this mode for the kinds of people who don’t like TF2. I’ve seen numerous highly competitive FPS players who looked away from TF2 in disgust (something I just can’t understand when it’s made so well) actually enjoying this mode.

Then again I’ve loved everything valve have done in TF2 so far so I guess I’m just wierd like that :D

I came to this conclusion because when I loaded up the arena server again without my friends today I did not have fun. All the fun was sucked out by what you wrote above (Pentadact). It just seemed like a hodge-podge of idea Valve thought would be a good idea together.

Fun casually, not so much competitively.

Apparently the auto-updater didn’t overwrite the map file, and now Steam says that I don’t have the same version as the server and can’t join. :(

Reason I like arena: It’s actually based around the kind of play that I love most about TF2 – where people are communicating and cooperating. If you and your teammates don’t use your microphones, yes it will be shit.

First game I played, we had one very chatty scout who actually did some scouting. He jumped all over the map telling us exactly where each enemy was at all times.

Arena mode: It’s alright. Only god ones are Lumberyard, Ravine, and Granary.

Heavy Unlocks: Alright, though I don’t play Heavy often, so I won’t really get the achievements, which is fine by me.

Alpine Environment: Frickin great.

I did play Arena_Well earlier today, and a heavy was getting damaged like crazy, while I was a scout coming from behind (Just havin fun, not trying, batting people to death, etc.). I notice him bring out his sandvich, and I ran up the hill, behind his back, and he started eating it. He had a mic, so when I started to bat him to death, he was yelling ‘No! No! No! No! Get away!’ but I killed him. Can’t wait for more kills like that.

Glad steel is going to be more available to play, and badwater looks ok, I would really love a payload in alpine.

HOW SILLY OF ME.

It was terrible. It was frustrating, then boring, then frustrating again. It also locked our server into “arena mode” which apparently means screwing up your player limit and server name, then limiting voting options to arena maps. All you people who are talking about what a great time it is to be a medic are right, but you’re also ignoring arena, which is the most anti-medic game mode ever conceived.

I can understand how some hardcore HURR SKILLZ people are going to like arena, so it’s nice that it exists I guess. I even understand why they started alpine off with one arena map; that’s the quickest way to get the tileset out there to community mappers. I just wish I could actually get some fun gameplay in on the sexy new environment.

You guys might want to reconsider one aspect of the update, though: Natascha is apparently pretty awesome if you’re a good heavy. My clan’s star heavy just won’t put her down, and she’s been the source of some really fun moments.

“Fixed a loophole that allowed players to pickup weapons of other classesW

Loving the new Alpine environments; bugger whether it fits the game, it just looks pretty

And the Heavy sandwich animation is hilarious

I thought Arena sounded like shite, but I got hopeful that it may cause players to work more closely as a team and create fun little moments (eg pushing enemies back into pyros with heavies). But how is it actually playing so far (I’m at work and have to wait to see the update in action)?

Can’t wait for more Alpine maps, and to see heavies eating sandviches.

I really wish Timberyard was a map outside of Arena- I really want to play there, but I want long term games, not just short bursts.

Apart from the last one, as I haven’t seen it yet.