Team Fortress 2 - Hat Fortress 2: America's #1 War-themed Hat Simulator

[Sparky Lurker]

-Mysterious character on Mann family pic Trotzki'd from it.
-Classic Engie yeeted from the plot.
-Only mercs with proper conclusions are Scout, Spy and Soldier.
-7 years being passed is clearly a reference that the comic took 7 years to be made.
"Planned from the start".

 

[Stone Enjoyer]

-Classic Engie yeeted from the plot.

It was left a bit ambiguous, but the most popular theory seems to be that he was killed by the spy at some point, since spy disguises as him to attack classic sniper

Personally I'm still curious as to what happened to TFC medic, since there is basically zero mention of him anywhere in the comics

 

[BlueCandles]

Ngl i was kinda expecting a cameo from the FINAL BOSS at the end too. Steals the remaining Australium only to use the stuff to invent unusual hats.

 

[ReceiveAndAsk]

I was expecting a final panel of every single obscure lore character, including Robin Walker and Corey Peters.

 

[Kotol]

Just leaving a reminder that medic's full name is Herbert Ludwig.

 

[thhrang]

I saw this Tweet earlier.


This is funny, but the guy is missing the even funnier fact - Teams A-E are dead, TFC Heavy says as much.

So, Team Fortress has, in-canon, outlived all of the teams who look like Overwatch clones.

 

[chimpSculpture]

Read the last comic, I enjoy extracting a subtext that Valve has used the Administrator as a metaphor for how sickly the game's "community" obsession is with not letting go of the game and demanding to permanently work on the game. The reminiscing Hale and Maggie do is like Valve reminiscing on TF2's past but in a healthy way, accepting it won't last forever. But obviously the writers of this comic don't really have anything to do with the developers and won't share their feelings. The devs probably don't even have any of these strong feelings on the game anymore.

Looking forward to when TF3 is released in 2053 and I get to frag one of the descendants of the mercs they'll inevitably shoe-horn in.

I liked seeing the spy without a mask too.

 

[soy woah jaque]

"let it go" because that's the only option Valve has.

The only option Valve has? Seriously? Is merely fixing their game or having some minimal support too much to ask for a gazillion dollar corporation?

It was always going to mutate beyond the control of its creators as an online game, and it's either keep an iron grip on it and strangle its userbase or let it happen and have it grow, gnarled and unkempt. Neither are particularly good options

It would not mutate beyond their control if they simple gave a fuck and understood their own product, do I need to remind you that these morons invited uncle dane to Valve HQ to tell them what to do?
There's literally nothing wrong with keeping an iron grip and I don't understand what "strangling the userbase" means, "boo hoo Valve won't add my dogshit slop from the workshop into the game" "boo hoo valve won't nerf everything I don't like and turn the whole game into what I want"?

how sickly the game's "community" obsession is with not letting go of the game and demanding to permanently work on the game.

Don't really understand the Valve apologism here, they're not some poor small indie dev team that had no choice but to butt fuck their game and then abandon it. They raped the living shit out of the game with MyM and Jungle Inferno, and instead of cleaning up their mess and undoing their mistakes before dropping development, they just left it as-is in it's butchered state. And again, cleaning up the mess would be as simple as reverting the compfag balance changes and bringing back quickplay

 

[Sparky Lurker]

TF2 lore as a whole just felt a bunch setups with no payoff, this trend started since the tonal shift on the comics on 2011 "A Smissmas Story" where they just killed Old Nick on a comical fashion and never talked about the character again. While the previous lore comics like "War!", "Loose Canon" and "Meet the director" were way more gritty, almost everything post-2011 found itself on the humorous zone and never left and major plot points were just addressed as "lol, that happened".

I presume this tonal shift on TF2 plot happened because of the game going F2P and they wanted to get a wider audience, but it just feels distracting mainly when you try to understand all the lore tidbits they previously built just to end with epistle 3-tier metaphors, fourth wall breaks and "nothing really mattered". A touching callback/reference with the Mann's family picture, since the entire TF2 plot started with it, feels more like an insult when you remove a key element from it.

Thinking about, no wonder the only mercs getting a proper conclusion on the final issue were Soldier, Spy and Scout, they were also the main characters on "A Smissmas Story", it felt the writers were ending an arc that started with that comic rather than the TF2 lore previously setup with Mann's family picture.

Final thoughts: 6/10, not terrible, not good, just heavily flawed and a bit lame.

 

[soy woah jaque]

Final thoughts: 6/10, not terrible, not good, just heavily flawed and a bit lame.

Agreed, if this came out on time in 2017, the reception would have probably been way more divided, but since the current playerbase is mostly content-starved redditors and the bar is so low, Valve could take a shit on their plate and they 'd start clapping and eat it

 

[The Ugly One]

Except there is no other game like TF2 and there never will be another game that can replicate it.

What is it you think can't be replicated? The formula is easy enough to copy, although it seems everything these days is either battle royale or League of Legends: The FPS.

 

[Patrick Bait-man]

Don't really understand the Valve apologism here, they're not some poor small indie dev team that had no choice but to butt fuck their game and then abandon it. They raped the living shit out of the game with MyM and Jungle Inferno, and instead of cleaning up their mess and undoing their mistakes before dropping development, they just left it as-is in it's butchered state. And again, cleaning up the mess would be as simple as reverting the compfag balance changes and bringing back quickplay

Kill Valve apologists. Behead Valve apologists. Roundhouse kick Valve apologists into the Ghost Fort pit.

 

[NvII iS 8ulLt f0R 88C]

Kill Valve apologists. Behead Valve apologists. Roundhouse kick Valve apologists into the Ghost Fort pit.

Ghost Fort pit is too merciful, kick them into Breadspace.

 

[Patrick Bait-man]

Ghost Fort pit is too merciful, kick them into Breadspace.

...Brazil.

 

[Stone Enjoyer]

What is it you think can't be replicated? The formula is easy enough to copy, although it seems everything these days is either battle royale or League of Legends: The FPS.

While its possible to replicate features that make TF2 as fun as it is, a lot of them have fallen out of favor with modern multiplayer slop:

- Every game needs to be a competitive sweatfest where you are guaranteed to lose if one of your teammates is not good enough at the game. Leaving is also punishable because fuck you lol
- Everything you say is being constantly monitored because god forbid you say something about this year's most offended minority
- For the same reason, no player expression through custom imagery or modding, all limited to whatever the company picks for you

Everything now needs to be sterile and lame. And in a landscape like that, I dont think games like TF2 can be made

 

[soy woah jaque]

Everything you say is being constantly monitored because god forbid you say something about this year's most offended minority

Sadly this is only somewhat true in valve servers where theres no discord mods power tripping, and even then, if the server has enough trannies and redditors in it, you can still be votekicked for being hecking toxic. There's also the new steam wordfilter that censors heckin slurs unless you disable it manually. Almost all community run servers and mods have tranny admins with a long list of roolz to make the server a hecking inclusive safe space

 

[piombo]

What is it you think can't be replicated? The formula is easy enough to copy, although it seems everything these days is either battle royale or League of Legends: The FPS.

multitude of issues with it, here's the ones that come to mind:

1. tf2 was special since it went against the popular multiplayer shooters of the time (halo 3 and cod) and the niche shooters of the time (unreal tournament and quake), you try to do it again you end up doing the corporate norm that everyone already knows how to play
2. the artstyle while has been spelled out, is still something you just can't casually emulate since the amount of brainpower on the technical part is something that the average developer lacks, and on average it would be basically an emulation or a derivation that lacks the charm of the original artstyle (especially since it doesn't revolutionize since it's based on already existing material) basically
3. the only engine that can work is an id/source-based one since (barring hitboxes) the thing that makes tf2 so appealing is the quirkiness and jankiness of these engines, and afaik there isn't exactly something that succeeds in emulating these.

and this ignores factors like world/map building, game balancing, voice acting, sfm and gmod, tf2 is the type of lightning that won't come ever again, and i really don't want to be a pessimist about it, but it's retarded to pretend that people can catch this lighting again

 

[GNU Abyss]

I think it's less "move on" and more "let it go" because that's the only option Valve has. It's been skullfucked in every way possible and there won't ever be another like it, but I think Valve saw the writing on the wall before any of us could. It was always going to mutate beyond the control of its creators as an online game, and it's either keep an iron grip on it and strangle its userbase or let it happen and have it grow, gnarled and unkempt. Neither are particularly good options but the latter lets the people who care(d) about it decide when to call it quits.

More than anything else, I think that is the purpose of the comic, to say "yeah, we made the Mona Lisa, but unlike the real one, there's no bulletproof glass case and a bunch of dipshits have drawn black eyes and smeared pink lipstick on it, and that's just how it is - remember it as it was."

Dipshits that the company willingly let in to draw black eyes and, upon questioning looks from the public, told them this is what they wanted. The devs and artists involved with making TF2 happen may personally feel similar to the message of the last issue, but Valve the company itself is more like the Administrator to continue the analogy. Cannot pull the plug on the game because of aggressive code squatting (as opposed to their predecessors, old iD, who GPLed the code) and the complete inability to terminate a virtual market that they themselves have started (the Australium powering the TF2 corpse in this case).

 

[Eternal Spirit of Light]

For the same reason, no player expression through custom imagery or modding, all limited to whatever the company picks for you

Remember Call of Duty custom decals on guns? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

 

[The Homelander]

I actually found the ending where they're all at the dinner table pretty insulting. "We couldn't do this without you!" what, neglect the game and comic for 7 years just to drop a half-baked lore dump? The rest of the comic is okay. The humor was pretty on point. Frankly I think it was inappropriate to do a flash-forward and I don't like their "resolution" to the Scout-Ms. Pauling dynamic. I especially hate what they did with the administrator. Overall that was the longest turd I have ever waited for.