https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWCsXMatcXQ

my good friend from school Pankeyman showe me tf2

friend

well he was kinda an inspiration to many competitive players here in argentina aswell, sad he stopped playing due to work, life and stuff :(

Browsing around youtube out of boredom lead me to a set of old SalTV casts, starting looking into tf2 more shortly thereafter

I saw a bunch of funny tf2 vids on youtube, so I decided to try it and I was poor, so i didn't have many games at the time.

Watched i46 Ruwin destroy everything on two continents while raiding WoW:CATA

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A friend showed me Jerma and Star videos back in 2011.

the rocketman himself Shibby2142! and playing half life on orange box and trying tf2 on xbox

Literally saw the "Meet the Spy" video and found out it was FREE TO PLAY. I later realized some friends at school were playing that game and played with them. I played for like 1 year, took a 1 1/2 year break, and have played ever since

.

I was frequenting a furry brony Star Fox fan site that had a TF2 community server.

leptir1(when he used to post pub sphee videos) and ster

There was this podcast called Control Point, from the Dead Workers Party dudes. Eric Fullerton and Wes something, I forget their names. They got me hooked. yz50 got me hooked on comp when there was the valve sponsored pros vs pubstar stuff.

Went to Gamestop one day and found an Orange Box there and I really wanted to try Portal. Had to download some weird program called Steam, then eventually I got into PC gaming and downloaded Tf2.

listened to the podcast failwizard mentioned, also watched tons of shitty gmod videos and wanted to try it out

i was p young and when i first played i was scared that my parents would get angry because of the gore in the soldier tutorial lol

A guy on a zelda forum convinced me to play it with him back in 2011
It was my first fps so I was a bit unsure but he gave me a bunch of weapons and I had a lot of fun on a Mario kart server testing them out for a couple of weeks before I figured out the server browser
This threads also reminded me of a video the yogscast did ages and ages ago on that toyfort map during the uber update , i remember watching it so maybe it had an effect, can't remember. It was around the time I think I stopped playing minecraft so it makes sense that it might have had an impact

My friend showed me pyro in a pub in around 2008. The same person gave me his alt account, where the name was Monkey Suit. I found comp way later through people I met in pubs (London Calling).

my aunt bought me the garrysmod and tf2 bundle but i didnt want to play tf2 until i saw extv top 10s

I'm not gonna lie, I got into TF2 because my fiance told me I could buy in-game cosmetics to customize my character. When dressing up his mercs from his meager selection of awful hats wasn't enough anymore, I made my own account.

Shortly after I downloaded the game, I read about the ESEA LAN stream on the official website while trying to find the comics and watched a bit, and decided competitive was what I wanted to do.

Assembly Summer 2010 Grand Final
Power Gaming - Team Dignitas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOAxlde347c (cast in finnish)

3D modeling class had a final project where each of us made a hat and imported it into the game.

Also Spy/Sniper fanfiction.

friend showed it to me and kept telling me about the unusuals he unboxed

Started playing because it was free. Kept playing because STAR_

.

i was like fuck wizard101 its to expensive i want a free to play game and found tf2

https://youtu.be/_f2brU8hBWc

this

tuz

Back in 2010 I played Portal at some fellow's place. A year later at college my sister expressed a desire to play Portal. I bought the Orange Box on amazon and we played it from time to time. We played on my sister's xbox (which I later purchased). The year after that I stayed at the College during Christmas Break and decided to try out Half-Life 2. I was amazed by it, even though I hadn't played the original Half-Life (grew up with no internet and a computer the school gave away because it was obsolete). After playing through Half-Life 2 and the episodes I didn't want to play through them again and Portal was still too fresh in my mind, so I tried out Team Fortress 2. That ended almost instantly, since the xbox wasn't hooked up to internet and I wasn't very interested in a multiplayer-only game.

Summer of 2014 comes around. I'd played through the Mass Effect games a few times, gave Assassin's Creed a go, somewhat enjoyed L.A. Noire, when I thought, "You know, I should try out Team Fortress 2 again. It might be fun." So I did. I played mostly 2fort and Dustbowl. Very often there weren't enough players to make a game worthwhile.

A couple of months after that I watched all the Meet the Team, Expiration Date, etc. I came across the Free to Play trailer. It dawned on me that the PC community must be much bigger and more interesting (remember, I grew up with no internet, played Spyro and Rayman on Playstation). I fired up my 2011 Macbook Pro, downloaded Steam, and bought the Valve pack. I used the cardboard back of a spiral notebook as a mousepad, plugged in my wrap-around headphones, launched hl2.exe and started playing.

I probably got 15fps playing on my Mac. It didn't matter. Then Steam support for 10.6 ended in late 2015. Because I hated 10.9 and 10.10, I bought 10.8 and used Time Machine to go back to 10.6.8 every time I had finished playing TF2 for a spell. I couldn't play on a regular basis, but I always played at least once a month.

A year after switching to mouse and keyboard I became aware of Tip of the Hats. I decided to watch the old ToTH vods on youtube. Like so many others who first get introduced to the comp scene, my instinct was to favor Highlander over 6s. However, I became engrossed watching HRG play. I had no idea about competitive strategy, but my impression was that they were awesome. I started watching more vods, ESEA and I-series.

Fast forward to today. I am coming up on 1000 hours played, planning to pug and dm and find my way onto a team for season 25 (math teaching prevents me from committing this season) and going from there. I have a nice machine, having moved on from my Mac in terms of gaming (it still faithfully renders video for me).

TLDR: TF2 can be played (painfully) on console; also on Mac; I love this game and wish I could play it more.