I'm a bit cynnical toward the bit on the creative emulation... We marvel at created things not just for their sudden existence or appealing quality, but for the human element that produced it.

For that I think we get into all that sci-fi theorizing of humanizing a robotic mind, but... say for instance I program a computer to recreate the entirety of Picasso's art work. Great! Maybe I can sell the creations for a decent price, but its value is nothing next to the original. Why?

Okay, so what if a computer creates original art work...something visually amazing? Something never before seen but a marvel to be seen. Consider how it is appreciated. A fine work of mechanical art — but always with that stigma, that asterisk: "created by machine." Wouldn't it lack a certain wonder of the human genius that created it?

We turn our noses up to PED users in sports because their accomplishments are artificial. What then if a robot athlete hits 900 career home runs? If a robot writes a poem, what heart does it come from? Most poems are useless without the human connection, experience, autobiographical history behind them. Could a robot even wrote a poem? The video says it can write, sure, but could you teach a computer to do more than info dump with the proper syntax, grammar, tone, and meaning? Technical writing could be done. Could prose? Prose is poetry acting on a timeline. Prose is crafting the human condition with words into an isolated narrative. Even if a computer could do it, it isn't genuine. It isn't genius. It's function. We marvel at the author just as much as we marvel at the story when we read...

The word art comes from artisan. At the center of artisan is the individual. It is the implied value of craft — why we pay extra now for artisan created things. Any computer fabricated creation would just make all human crafted works artisan. Consider the consumer...human. So long as that remains so will the superiority of human creativity/human excellence.

We could all marvel one day in a video game tournament when a computer controlled avatar beats the best human...and then we'd say "great, now lets turn off the A.I. and do a human only tourny." Because that is what we are interested in. Because while function can always be emulated and improved by a machine, we can rest easy knowing we have a monopoly on being human — and so long as we remain the ones holding the reigns that will always be most important. A computer in a game is an aimbot. No matter how well it aims, how well it does, how unbeatable it is, it is an aimbot. Who claps their hands when an aimbot lands a shot?

Well I thought the loadout thing sounded bogus, but when I read the whole list I thought 2 things...

1) Current players will hate this
2) This ought to make it easier for new people to break in

Specifically the part about movement becoming more intuitive (re: auto-piloty), ought to do a lot to help newer players stick with the game. I always felt my aim was fairly good, my abilty to time items passing, but my movement god-awful. This didn't make me complain about the game, I just didn't play it outside clan arena (where I felt I could improve my FPS aim and then move on to another FPS). I feel as if there were a whole lot of players in the same boat as me there.

Moving to STEAM allows for a whole new wave of interested players to see what the buzz is about. You don't want their first experience being some guy who has played the game for 10 years flying around the map at some unreal pace, picking up every item before you see them. These changes (barring the loadout oddity which I don't understand) ought to alleviate that.

If all this is real, I should like to see a "classic" or "pro" option added to the game. Something along the lines of small handicaps removed for those players who understand the game more deeply: similar to how CS changes small things in competitive mode. For that I think weapon specific ammo, and no weapon counters are a few things they could reintroduce.

Entry players would have a smaller hill to surmount to play the raw game, and should they so choose, they could learn a few more skills to make it to the pro level. That would make sense to me.

In summary though, I agree with some people in this thread who think this isn't a horrible thing. QL is dead. Might as well take the opportunity of a STEAM release to issue some wholesale changes that can help keep new blood flowing in a game that has all but bled out.

I may have drove him to this after failing to watch mini from outside. I've let you all down and I'm sorry.

awesome

I highly recommend chocolate chips and coffee.

Hey guys, dont sweat it. Here is a link to my 100% bad but absolutely original soundcloud tracks. Feel free to use any of the music to your heart's content. https://soundcloud.com/justindanford/tracks kappa

No Classic buff. Game is d...oh forget it

My jaw dropped. Incredible work. I'll be adding you to my "suspected wizard" list.

Agreed. I nominate myself for best performance as a gravelpit griefing pyro.

I remember being tasked to build that terrible stair-room sentry. The beginning of my comp tf2 career. Never forget.

looks like unreal and halo had a baby, but a few points against it:

1) Vehicles
2) Maps did not look like arenas
3) Did not see weapons that seem to highlight pinpoint accuracy (could be just a vid flaw)
4) Visual clutter

panda__ is my new favorite person

Pfft, I carry cbear. Guy doesn't even know how to say gullywash. Also, "my little nemo." Case closed.

Been playing a lot of CsGO lately. Compared to that community, this one is full of saints.

looks very cool, my first thought was they want to show the area of damage but then I realized that would only help the one doing the damage, and so kind of a step backward in the whole nerf demomen thing