I have no idea how Valve can make enough items that trading and suchlike will be an interesting metagame. I wouldn’t mind if they just threw in the towel and gave everyone all of the weapons as they were released – and incorporate the weapon selection into the class menu, so you can pick the right class and the right weapons for the situation very quickly.

Great graph. The pink area summarises my pain… of my 100+ hours of Medic, I’d say about 50 of them were effectively involuntary, trying to fix the team balance. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy Medic, but sometimes blowing stuff up is more enjoyable.

Maybe a recipe/pawn shop system could have worked, but direct player trading has issues.

I’m happy to have it all, of course, but oddly not nearly as happy as if Cloak and Dagger or Dead Ringer had popped up at random yesterday. Or if they had when I got 17 achievements as the Spy. I managed to have the progress, and the reward, without ever experiencing the progress-towards-a-reward that usually makes these updates exciting.

And to that chart I’d have to add “Losing due to my own incompetence”. :/

If you wanted to devote yourself to the pyro I’ve got a spare Axtinguisher with nowhere to go.

I wouldn’t mind it if Valve still encorporated the whole getting items after unlocking a certain amount of achievements as well as the drop thing, just to cater to the people who have insanely bad luck. Mind you, I guess it would be pretty agrivating if you find an item one achievement away from unlocking it…

Or do they still do that and I just really suck as the spy? =P

It’s good to know that TF2 provides a friendly neutral ground for humans and vampires alike. A LAN event might be less civilised.

I’ve got a complex interweaving sequence of trades lined up with my friends as soon as the trading system goes live. It reminds me of collecting cards. Ambassador? Got. Cloak and Dagger? Got … Got … Need … Got.

Redhawk: I lost the whole match by myself? Thus spoiling your killstreak? Dude, wins > kills, I believe.

PD102: I am always awake every night until dawn because I am cursed. Also, PCG was full of Arena-whinging till 4am and beyond for most nights since the update, as were many of the servers on my faves. I love the fun servers with the jarate, a lot of them have a mod for infinite jarate ammo, and one had the, uh, “jujizztsu” mod. It was awkward on there. I just went pyro.

Everyone talking about hats: It’s weird getting an unlock that’s cool, because you desperately want to show it to people and tell them about it, but you know they’re going through the torture you were going through until you got it, so it’s weird. Come on Valve, everyone will have everything by the time you put in the trading system (unless it’s now).

Anyone Awake really late at night at around 2am? Servers bound to be clear.

@DragonNinja You’re lucky — I just want the Spy and Engi hats. Fedora and Miner ftw

Actually, the PCG server is pretty damned sweet. I love how english we are on there. I am delighted that there is a space on the web for me to be as outragously British as I am.

Not to say this is what that guy was doing, but it is possible to produce the found-item messages artificially, without actually obtaining the items.

The B: Yep. Kind of wish it’d break again now, I have no self control. Hence venting my gripes in pie-chart form.

Nonomu: Good point, it was rude of me not to doff my cap to Chris’ Chartcore series. I wasn’t thinking about that when I was making this, it’s a post I wanted to do ages ago and it only just recently occured that this is the appropriate format.

Someone even got the fedora! That’s the one I really want, because I can’t quite summon the audacity to wear one in reality.

I know you guys must be sick of me talking about this, but yah I hardly experience any of this. It just seems that I live in a world where the server is allways full, but there are a lot of people joining and leaving, the teams are allways balanced (team scramble handles that), and fun is generally being had, either serious killing sprees fun or comical joking between players fun. You people can keep living in your arena hating world. I’m gonna stay in my happy bubble.

I don’t really like the PCG server because I usually lag there. It’s on my favorites, though.

Best thing about RPS server, apart from the people, is Redfort. :D

Did anyone see the bots yet? Because that moment when you join a 31/32 server, and sigh with relief at the very real signs of battle audible at the team select screen, is crucial in Valve’s de-listing mechanic. You’re on, like, a http://www.saigns.de server (which look like about seven dedicated valve map servers absolutely creaking with people) and you play for a bit, and everbody’s username has cheeky bot references, and that’s when you get suspicious. Then you build a teleporter on some stairs and hold up your entire team.

I love the PCG server because it’s usually quite easy going. When times are tough for the red team, a server that’ll accept the viability of a heavy rush or a permanent chain of medics is great for reaffirming your faith in the human race. It’s advertised in a mag that at least forty thousand people must read, but it doesn’t feel like a “pub” server, not all the time.

And I don’t believe I mentioned how hilarious that graph is. I like that the “winning” section is a great big chunk, almost bigger than any of the others, but it’s a quarter of the entire pie.

I play on the PCG Server, except now it has Arena maps on it which are horrible.

*Time spent waiting forauto-retry to get you into a server you know fufills most of the above.
*Time spent furiously clicking ‘join game’ because you’re convinced auto-retry doesn’t work properly any more.
*Time spent muting mic spammers
*Time spent sitting out in arena.
*Time spent sitting out in arena even though there’s only like four players a side.

I’ve got RPS, the OC and PCG on my favourites list, the OC isn’t bad, they do play turbine a little too much, but they also have some of the more creative player made maps on (frontier is awesome) and almost no arena.