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

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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

If all that kept it popular for 20 years was whimsical graphics + a particular multiplayer formula, that can be replicated pretty easily (especially since the multiplayer formula was an updated of the already-popular TFC). I don't buy for a minute that hitbox glitches were in any way essential to the game's popularity, any more than being able to glitch the pyro rocket through floors was what made TFC popular in the first place.

The modding scene being something no corporation (including Valve) would tolerate in the Current Year + N makes more sense to me. It seems to me to be the last of the old breed of PC games in that way, although it sort of straddles the old and new with the ability to customize to your hearts content combined with lootbox corposlop. Everyone began cracking down on mods soon after. Gets in the way of your seasonal events and battle passes, I guess, plus somebody might say "nigger."

But then, mods are all policed by trannies anyway today. Somehow, playing a custom map in a first-person shooter is an autogynephilic experience, and I don't comprehend at all why this is the case.
 
If all that kept it popular for 20 years was whimsical graphics + a particular multiplayer formula, that can be replicated pretty easily (especially since the multiplayer formula was an updated of the already-popular TFC).
Watering down TF2 to muh "whimsical graphics" and "particular multiplayer formula" is something some retarded Redditor that started playing within the last few years would say and above all else incredibly insulting to the original developers that sunk 9 years of development to ultimately make what would be Team Fortress 2 in 2007.

If your immediate thought when looking at TF2 today is "can be replicated pretty easily", you don't care about the game. Fuck off.
 
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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.
TF2 got fucked over as soon as the Portal 2 writers got involved post that game's development, which may explain the sudden tonal shift. Flanderization hit the game hard too, nearly every character has become a parody of themselves

Consider how the soldier was portrayed in the WAR comic vs the stuff that came afterwards. One portrayed him as a paranoid loner hiding out in a random apartment, the others as a comic relief grinning dumbass who now canonically lives/lived with a real actual wizard and is constantly stripping naked.

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It's also pretty obvious that the Spy, Soldier, and Scout were the writers favorite characters - allowing them to set up a kind of 'straight man/comic relief/punching bag' odd couple routine that persists through most of the comics. The Medic gets some moments here and there, Heavy gets a few pages too as does the Sniper (Scene of him in his old house is awesome), but Engineer and Pyro fans must be pretty pissed as they pretty much take a backstage so the Soldier can be a retard and the Scout can be a dumbass.

In retrospect, the Demo actually doesnt do ANYTHING in the comic. He kind of just shows up in the bg and occasionally gets a 'lol ur drunk' line. They couldn't even give him a shot of him with the eyelander cutting off robot heads or something? He doesn't even blow anything up. Demo-cels, its so over.
 
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.
I think the Tonal shift had been going on for quite a while by the time the Smissmiss comic and Free to Play update happened, starting all back with the creation of the meet the team shorts, the scout update, and while the game was in development. TF2 was always a bit campy with the spy-thrillers it took inspiration from, if you notice a lot of the early maps aren't just places, they're places which act as disguises for the spy bases, missile silos, and secret plots the Mercs know nothing and care nothing about. But eventually TF2 drifted away from that tone, although I agree 2011 was the turning point along with the introduction of Gravel as a serious plot point and Redmond and Blutarch.
Which together marks the series turning away from it's spy-thriller inspirations for an even more comical and light-hearted tone.
The 2011 time frame also marks the introduction of the deeper lore and all the ARGs which were probably something included due to the Portal 2 writers coming onboard after that game's completion.

Soldier, Spy, and Scout getting the most focus makes a level of sense to me as they have a funny dynamic. Scout and Spy also have interpersonal drama which allows them to change as characters and have arcs to a degree the others can't really. The Mercs are all flat characters in the first place and I don't think anybody in the writing team felt like giving them a big change, not to mention the main cast is so large the writers just have to pick some to give more attention than the others.
Although I think Sniper should of had more focus and we should have seen more Engineer and the Demo man as well.

But one thing I will dispute wholeheartedly is Espitle 3 or the "leak" ever being canon, or having any connection to Half-life. All of the Half-life games were gameplay first, story second, so literal fanfiction written by a then former author that has none of the input from the game design team who would be telling what the writers what to design the story around holds little to no weight on what Half Life 3 would have been. Not to mention it ends with a monologue that is very obviously Mark Laidlaw looking back on his own history.

And here we are. I spoke of my return to this shore. It has been a circuitous path to lands I once knew, and surprising to see how much the terrain has changed. Enough time has passed that few remember me, or what I was saying when last I spoke, or what precisely we hoped to accomplish. At this point, the resistance will have failed or succeeded, no thanks to me. Old friends have been silenced, or fallen by the wayside. I no longer know or recognize most members of the research team, though I believe the spirit of rebellion still persists. I expect you know better than I the appropriate course of action, and I leave you to it. Expect no further correspondence from me regarding these matters; this is my final epistle.

Yours in infinite finality,

Epistle 3 is more self reflective if anything. And while we have reason to believe, and I do believe that the story as is now is not the story as is originally planned, I do not believe the supposed comic leak was ever a script that had been written.

>comic picks up right where the 6th left off with Engineer and young Administrator taking an elevator down
>Administrator asks Engie about his thoughts on life, death, religious beliefs, etc. and Engie just says he's a man of science and reason
>they walk down a long hallway as Admin explains that some things can't be explained and people are better off not knowing
>doors open and Engineer sees something off-screen that puts him in a state of shock
>scene changes to the rest of RED team looking for the remaining TFC mercs, Soldier and Zhanna are toying with some of them by threatening to cut off their ears
>Spy is about to interrogate/torture TFC Engineer before Ms Pauling steps in and asks him if he knows what his son has been up to
>classic Engie is surprised to learn his son is working under Mann Co and Pauling says he should come with them when they go back to see the Administrator, though she really wants him to tag along so both Engineers can make a better life extender for the Admin
>after searching for a vehicle to leave on they find one of those massive Carriers from MvM to drive off the island
>Hale says he needs to go back to Mann Co first before they get to the Admin, Pauling argues that she's more important but Hale says that without his company the war is meaningless since there's no weapon supply
>Pauling eventually agrees after the mercs say they enjoy having guns, Mags calls Darling telling him to come to Mann Co HQ as soon as possible
>Hale bursts into Mann Co only to find Olivia playing tea party and dress-up with the robots
>before he can say anything, Maggie steps forward and recognizes Olivia as her biological daughter, stolen from her when she was a baby
>Charles arrives and it's revealed he's the father
>Hale is livid, moreso after realizing that Darling technically owns Mann Co now, until Bidwell reminds him of the company policy where any opposing CEO can become the CEO of Mann Co if they beat the owner in a fight

>Darling says Hale can't do that since he isn't a CEO of a company, Hale asks if the mercs own any companies
>Scout chimes in saying he owns the Tom Jones Memorial Museum and gives ownership of it to Hale
>Hale kicks the shit out of Darling while Mags watches in horror and the mercs and Olivia watch in delight
>Hale reclaims his title as owner of Mann Co and kicks Darling out
>all's well that ends well
>
>except Pauling reminds everyone about the Admin and the lack of Australium, the latter of which enrages Darling since it's the entire reason he wanted Mann Co in the first place
>cuts back to Engie and the Admin speaking to the mysterious figure hinted at in comic 6, Engie still in utter shock
>Admin talks about her blood debt and the promise they made years ago, how all the deaths were part of a tribute
>cuts to the mysterious figure, turns out it's Abraham fucking Lincoln
>except it's not really him, it's some cosmic entity or messenger assuming his form or something
>Engineer asks what the fuck is going on
>decades ago the Admin made a pact with some eldritch force in exchange for power of some sort, it's intentionally left vague
>all the bloodshed for the past century or so has been her part of the pact, like a mass sacrifice to said being
>Lincoln explains her time is up, Admin is furious saying she basically gave her life away to serve them and even then it wasn't enough
>at this point she snaps, and starts walking towards a control grid in an attempt to prep every missile/rocket RED and BLU ever had, saying it's enough to pay off her debt and wipe out the entity in one fell swoop, "a perfect stalemate"
>Pauling, Hale, and the Mercs bust through the door right in the nick of time
>both Engineers have a touching moment where they reunite as Pauling is asking what the hell is going on
>Admin rants about how Pauling and the mercs didn't do their jobs

>Zhanna is the first one to step in and tell Admin to fuck off before Scout and the rest defend Pauling as well
>Admin is furious that they can't see what they're dealing with and points directly at where Lincoln was
>he's not there, he's at the control grid and arming the nukes to go off after a timer
>blips out of existence like the fucking G-Man while the Admin has a genuine look of fear on her face
>she collapses and Pauling runs to her, both Engineers run to the grid to try and open it up and defuse things
>Admin's time is up and she's apologizing to Pauling for insulting her, says she should take the blame
>her and Pauling share an intimate moment, they nearly kiss
>Admin suddenly rapidly ages forward back to her old wrinkly self and dies on the spot
>Scout and Spy console Pauling before Spy shouts at Zhanna and Soldier to not cut Admin's ears off her corpse
>Engineers are struggling to stop the timer
>barely a minute left, Heavy steps forward
>gives a speech about how grateful he is to have been with the team and if they die he'll go out with pride
>all the other mercs chime in and say their part
>when it gets to Engineer he shouts out that they stopped the timer,everyone breathes a sigh of relief
>except the timer restarts
>at this point everyone is beating the shit out of the control grid in an effort to stop things
>after enough damage the entire thing shuts down completely, only for the missiles to fire anyway
>several panels of other TF universe characters watching the world end
>Sniper's mom in space watching everything in the rocket
>fade to black as the comic "ends"
>next few panels show the far future, cavemen roaming
>Sniper's mom and the Australium rocket crash landed on Earth
>the cavemen are exposed to Australium and pick apart her red/blue clothes from her corpse
>final panel is the cavemen fighting in red and blue cloth, enhanced by the Australium
>the war begins anew
For one thing, the Enginners dad was already killed off screen by Spy in issue 6, although I concede that offscreen deaths are non-committal and they could of had him come back with little-to-no explanation. But a non-committal death is exactly that, a death they don't have to commit if they needed him, but he had even less focus then his son.
Secondly Miss Pauling and the Mercs also don't really care about the war itself, they're trying to complete the Australium job and wouldn't need weapons at this point in time as they alredy got the cargo drop.
Thirdly, and I think the biggest is that Olivia Mann was in no way ever the daughter of Darling and Mags. For one thing, even in her first appearance Olivia is clearly half-asian, not to mention Zehpinian's wife was Bette Darling. A character introduced in the ARGs and the comics written by the same writers who are writing comic 7, not to mention up to this point she had little-to-no importance outside of being the mother of the Mann Brothers and the fact that Charles Darling was named after her from a meta perspective. But mind you, that means Charles Darling was made a Darling with the idea that the Manns and Darlings are related in mind.
So if Olivia died and Mann co went to the nearest of kin, Charles Darling would have inherited it and I think that is was part of the original script instead of what the leak proposes. Or he might've been the one to adopt her instead of Hale, which makes sense as Hale and Mags go off to do their own thing anyways, although that ending isn't a happy one for Olivia as she's still trapped.
I also don't think the Admin's actions make sense in the leak, she was trying to clear the debt away and even tried the nukes first but later tried to stop them. Addtionally Abraham Lincoln was already a character in TF2's lore, he was the original Pyro and he died while trying to rocket jump up a flight of stairs due to being killed by John "Tower of hats" Booth.
The life extender machine made for him was also retconned into being made for Gray Mann, so while TF2s Lincoln is vastly older than his real life counterpart and has a plot hole related to him, we don't have any reasons to believe those are anything more than minor plotholes.

So we don't have any proof of the fake comic leaks ever being canon and we never really had a reason to take them seriously in the first place, they just came from a random 4chan greentext on /v/ with no verification and we don't have possible hints towards them being canon in the works we have now. Although I have seen people bring up the moonbase stuff, the supposed ending does not bring that up and Asteroid was released in 2014, 4 years before the supposed leaks so the writer of the supposed leaks could have written the administrator taking into account her panicked dialogue from 2014.

Edit: Also I don't think think the backstory matters that much to the narrative beyond what we were already shown and none of the characters in universe really care about it either, aside from the Administrator and Gray. One of whom was already dead by issue 7. Us not getting even more lore dumped on us is just a sympton of the Mercs being flat characters who don't have a reason to care about the deep lore, a problem which already existed before the comic was a thing.
 
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If all that kept it popular for 20 years was whimsical graphics + a particular multiplayer formula, that can be replicated pretty easily (especially since the multiplayer formula was an updated of the already-popular TFC).
this statement alone pretty much outs you as a tourist at best, you can't just call the artstyle "whimsical graphics" when the entire thing shapes how the game is played, and even if (to look at it VERY superficially) it's just an improved iteration of the absolute pile of autism that is tfc it still is based thro years and years of experimentation to make it more understandable and digestible for the average player of the time, you can't just look at the end result and pretend to understand it from top to bottom.
I don't buy for a minute that hitbox glitches were in any way essential to the game's popularity, any more than being able to glitch the pyro rocket through floors was what made TFC popular in the first place.
they boosted the uniqueness of tf2, and since you can't read for shit, figure out that players hated and still hate the hitreg of this game and instead look at other big examples, one that comes to mind is the entirety of explosive jumping, and that can't be simplified since it's a very fun and autistic janky mess.

the modding part is an aftermath to the main game being irreplaceable, custom maps wouldn't exist (and non-emporium ones are still done to this day) if players didn't have the reason to subject themselves to the eldritch horror that is hammer (a major reason why most mappers are trannies).

but to make a simple tldr, understand the effort put to release and make pre-f2p tf2, then the metric fuckton of factors that made tf2 an uncontestable game and then fuck off proper you retarded tourist.
 
While I agree with your assertion that the art style is integral to TF2's success and longevity, I think you're getting way too heated over what amounts to a simple disagreement. And calling someone else a "tourist" because you happen to disagree with them about what does/does not make the game special is corny as fuck. This thread reeks with this bizarre sentiment of "real" fans vs "fake" fans. As if enjoying TF2 a different way or for different reasons than you is worthy of a pile on. Everyone has a different reason for playing and loving the game, and in my opinion that's the very thing that makes it so great. There's so much to love about TF2. Get off your high horse and relax.
 
Watering down TF2 to muh "whimsical graphics" and "particular multiplayer formula" is something some retarded Redditor that started playing within the last few years would say
That's literally what the poster I was responding to said. He listed three things:

1. The art style
2. The multiplayer formula
3. Hitbox glitches and "jankiness"

Do you just open up your computer to look for something to be mad about? I genuinely asked you what you think makes it you unique, and you got mad that I even asked. For someone so passionate about the game, you sure do hate talking about it!

some retarded Redditor that started playing within the last few years

I played back when it came out and moved on before it went f2p, but nice try! Never unlocked any hats. I ask the questions I do because I enjoyed the game when it came out and played it for some time, but how people talk about it today utterly mystifies me.

you don't care about the game

Video games are toys.

you can't just look at the end result and pretend to understand it from top to bottom.

I haven't spent 15 years playing it over and over, no, but sure, it had a coherent visual language. The various classes had unique silhouettes, the levels were navigable without pointless visual clutter, and I suppose anything you can say about it in that regard, I'd probably agree with. If you want to say there are plenty of multiplayer games that don't "get it" (the last few Call of Duty games are a great example of not "getting it"), sure, true enough. I'd probably agree it should be held up as a sterling example of how to do visual design in a multiplayer game right. I just don't see it as a singular achievement in visual design whose basic elements haven't been recaptured by another game in the last 15 years, and couldn't possibly ever be recaptured. This sounds a little like Star Wars fans insisting every throwaway line and piece of background scenery had meticulous thought behind it.

understand the effort put to release and make pre-f2p tf2

I was just as disappointed as everyone else when TF2 seemed to have gotten shitcanned back in 2000. I wasn't impressed by the long development cycle (I worked for 6 years on a product that had been in continuous development since 2002; do I get a cookie?), but what came out of it was a good game.

However, the outrage my questions have engendered suggest that the real uniqueness is that by playing it for 15 years straight, you and others have formed an emotional connection to a video game that transcends any particular qualities it has, so the mildest of questions comes across as an attack on a loved one. I'll leave you to it, then.
 
That's literally what the poster I was responding to said. He listed three things:

1. The art style
2. The multiplayer formula
3. Hitbox glitches and "jankiness"

Do you just open up your computer to look for something to be mad about? I genuinely asked you what you think makes it you unique, and you got mad that I even asked. For someone so passionate about the game, you sure do hate talking about it!
I'm not offended by the question, I'm offended by you acting like TF2 is nothing more than a formula that is "easy enough to copy", something disposable. That's extremely simple minded.

I played back when it came out and moved on before it went f2p, but nice try! Never unlocked any hats. I ask the questions I do because I enjoyed the game when it came out and played it for some time, but how people talk about it today utterly mystifies me.
You played it sparingly for a few years and left it at that, while I and many others in the thread have been playing it consistently for over a decade having grown a major attachment to it. Very big difference.

Video games are toys.
Tell that to the people that have been playing arena shooters for over two decades like Quake (which planted the seed for TF2 and single-handedly created Valve).

haven't spent 15 years playing it over and over, no, but sure, it had a coherent visual language. The various classes had unique silhouettes, the levels were navigable without pointless visual clutter, and I suppose anything you can say about it in that regard, I'd probably agree with. If you want to say there are plenty of multiplayer games that don't "get it" (the last few Call of Duty games are a great example of not "getting it"), sure, true enough. I'd probably agree it should be held up as a sterling example of how to do visual design in a multiplayer game right. I just don't see it as a singular achievement in visual design whose basic elements haven't been recaptured by another game in the last 15 years, and couldn't possibly ever be recaptured. This sounds a little like Star Wars fans insisting every throwaway line and piece of background scenery had meticulous thought behind it.
The incredibly passive way you've been talking about TF2 and it's design aspects proves you don't particularly care that much for it, yet like many other tourists on the Internet today you feel a need to talk about it for whatever reason and shit up discussions.

However, the outrage my questions have engendered suggest that the real uniqueness is that by playing it for 15 years straight, you and others have formed an emotional connection to a video game that transcends any particular qualities it has, so the mildest of questions comes across as an attack on a loved one. I'll leave you to it, then.
No shit we have an emotional connection to it, why else would we have been playing it for this long or discussed it for pages upon pages in the first place? And the reason we're so defensive about TF2 is because of how truly awful the community has become in the last several years with it's completely warped perception of the game and everything surrounding it (ever heard of gatekeeping?)
 
chimp out that doesn't answer anything and should be negrated to shit
cooled down a bit and figured out that i should try again and give a proper answer to why tf2 can't be replaced in itself, and it's best answered with a question, can you replace the Internet with the internet?

barring the (still important) aspects of artstyle and gameplay, there's still to remember that tf2 was a lounge game fundamentally speaking, you could play the game, and/or you could use it as an hub to socialize and talk about whatever the fuck you wanted, the golden period (2009-2012/2013) was the definition of the Internet, it was filled with people of all kinds (don't forget that this game was like sliced bread, everyone and their mothers talked and memed about it) in their own micro communities that could decide to play the game in their unique way.

and yes, after meet your match it became the internet we all hate and loathe, but you still have to understand that this game despite the absolute rot that plagues it, which ranges from the devs to the new """"""players"""""" and content creators, is still the banner of the Internet by itself, you can host servers, have decals and sprays of any kind, host maps of any kind and freely express yourself without repercussions from the company/devs themselves.

and after this much, let's make the theory that some company makes a game that does everything that tf2 did right, will it still be the same situation? can you get the Internet in this era of the internet (even if you can freely express yourself)?
 
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I won't go so far as to say they are art
Video Games are, quite literally, the careful combination of several artforms together to create an interactive experience that aims to leave an impact on the person experiencing them. I'd qualify them as art in the same way that literature which transports a reader to an entirely different world within your mind's eye is. Some games are more artsy-fartsy than others but they technically are all 'art'.
 
I won't go so far as to say they are art but calling them toys is underselling them. Is the television a toy? A book?
They're something you play with to entertain yourself. So yes, toys. For the most part, you're just playing with action figures in digital form. When your giant cartoon man shreds a lanky doctor to bits with his minigun and grabs a flag, it's just not all that different than when you had Raphael stab Shredder to steal back the Party Wagon.
 
They're something you play with to entertain yourself. So yes, toys. For the most part, you're just playing with action figures in digital form. When your giant cartoon man shreds a lanky doctor to bits with his minigun and grabs a flag, it's just not all that different than when you had Raphael stab Shredder to steal back the Party Wagon.
Then how are books and TV different?
 
If all that kept it popular for 20 years was whimsical graphics + a particular multiplayer formula, that can be replicated pretty easily (especially since the multiplayer formula was an updated of the already-popular TFC). I don't buy for a minute that hitbox glitches were in any way essential to the game's popularity, any more than being able to glitch the pyro rocket through floors was what made TFC popular in the first place.

TF2 discourse has been in purgatory for years now. For years, we have been subjected to obnoxious video essays and pretentious write-ups about why the game is so great, and why no other game has been able to scratch the itch.

Trying to say anything new about "what made TF2 great" without beating the smoldering ashes of the dead horse is neigh impossible, so I'll try to keep it brief. The reality is that, TF2 was a hit because it was designed to be fun at every skill level. The fact that you can throw a 5000 hour veteran into the same server as a 60 hour fresh install and still have a blast is why the game survived for so long. It accomplished this by offering a wide variety of playstyles that all offer wildly different skill floors and cielings. Bad at combat? Go engy and build a nest. Good movement, but can't aim? Play medic. Extremely cracked at rocket jumping, and want a challenge? Play trolldier,

The truth is that, TF2's success isn't impossible to replicate. Its just that no one wants to replicate it.

TF2 came out 20 years ago. To put that into perspective, it was released around 10 years after SUPER MARIO 64 came out in the US. Think about that for a second. Think about how narrow the ~12-18 target demographic was in that era. Look at the types of games that released in that era. BioShock, Halo 3, CoD Modern Warefare, Mass Effect, Bioshock. Games that were dialed in at catering to aspergic teenage-young adult males.

Gaming is now big business. The gaming industry is bigger than Hollywood, which is insane compared to 20 years ago. Companies now want to appeal to as many people as possible when making games. It just so happens that most people don't want to hang around the weirdo geeks (I say that lovingly, to be clear.) that made their franchises great to begin with. So, they deliberarly alienate them. Its the same phenomena in the table top gaming and comic book worlds. Look at the shit-fucked state Magic: The Gathering is in.

Ironically, devs that try to appeal to the largest playerbase as possible ultimately wind up boxing themselves in. In the same way that bland pop music is always what tops the charts, bland games are what usually wind up making the most money. Games where everybody is kind of doing the same thing, playing with the same watered-down mechancs. You wind up with monstrosities like Fortnite. Everybody has played it, but few truly "love" it. The types of games that you are your friends can all agree on, but nobody truly resonates with. Its like going to Taco Bell with your mates after a night of drinking. Not because anyone truly loves Taco Bell, its just easier to go there than try to find something that everyone really wants.

The nerdy goobers that grew up playing TF2 are now all, well, grown up. Sorry guys, but we aren't the target demographic anymore. We're unc. Old and lame. We're busy starting families, buidling our careers, businesses, and have much less time for games now. We're now the obnoxious boomers that ramble about how Stairway to Heavan was the greatest song ever recorded. In a way, those boomers were right. You still see the odd High School kid wearing Led Zeppelin shirts. In the same vein, new players still get sucked into TF2, and appreciate what makes it unique. However, the cultural moments that birthed those IPs are now long gone. And with it, there is room for new art to explore different concepts.
 
I'm going to be a big fucking sap right now.

I still remember the day I bought the Orange Box.

I still remember the people I played TF2 with.

I still remember watching the wall in front of the spawn point turning into an art gallery of vulgar and offensive sprays.

I still remember getting screamed at for micspamming anime theme songs.

I haven't played Team Fortress 2 in years, but it's still the most played game in my Steam library.

This comic really made me happy.
 
I read the final comic, and man it feels so weird how long its been, I almost forgot about it, but I'm glad it finally ended. I had no real expectations for the ending as it has been so long, but it is nice to see it ended in a positive note.

I'm honestly going to miss Team Fortress 2, may play a few games this week for old times sake since I don't think I ever had this much fun with any other shooter game.
 
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