i've got it guys

we need to add a dragon to snakewater

nice ad hominem shitpost

Considering it took them 9 years to make the first one and they've outright stated they haven't even considered porting tf2 to source 2 (which implies there's no existing base to work off of and they'd be starting from scratch today) I'd have to say probably not. It'd be another 7 years before we're even in territory of a chance it existing, and that's if they started TODAY on it

TF2 has landed them huge dollars, and the mega success of overwatch shows them that 'goofy' shooters can completely dominate the online genre, so the idea of TF3 (or any sort of sequel game) is at least somewhat plausible. But I would much sooner expect an eventual source2 port and complete weapon system overhaul before I do a sequel. Valve didn't work a decade and spend another decade maintaining a franchise just to trash it for a new lineup later on. I'm fairly certain they want TF2 to stand on its own feet for as long as possible (even though it will collapse on its own weight without an engine overhaul or complete retweak of the existing weapon pool) People keep arguing that the game will never die, that people have this argument every year. The difference is we're actually beginning to see the repercussions of the years passing. The game is struggling to be balanced and fixed because of broken coding. People are leaving the scene because not enough is happening. TF2 with a completely new playerbase of zero veterans and even more bugs is still a living game. But it's not an ideal one.

Not only that, but it takes a long time and EXTREME dedication to bring the potential we've seen to the table. Look at recent GF stream or even i58 itself, they are fantastic streams but they no doubt still end up with clashing audio levels, incorrect screens being shown, confusion between desk hosts and casters about what is going on, "New" faces working on it will require time to get things down and by the time they master it they end up burning out or losing a handful of their working partners

Youtubers larger than me have done similar, and it did obviously help to some extent but in the end most casual players will end up not viewing or not participating in the deeper comp community. Dane for example plugged i58 in a recent video, and many older youtubers years back would frequently make mention of leagues or charity events, but those viewers come for entertainment, not recommendations. I really don't see the comp community growing to a point people want it to without direct valve support.

Of course the game will never "die". but the snake will shed its skin. the new will replace the old. and a time will come the people who make these things happen will be gone.

The fact of the matter is, if Valve doesn't do anything, we'll see LANs stagnate and slowly disappear as time passes and people running behind the scenes move on to other games/jobs. With an optimistic outlook, this won't happen- We've seen Valve at least WANTS competitive TF2 to work, They don't seem to want to support the existing 6s scene (so to say, they probably want to balance and tweak their own competitive mode more before they start supporting tournies). I think once they're happy with the 6s meta/viewing experience, we'll start to see more Valve support and hopefully some growth from the exposure.

My concern is how long this will take. We've seen it take years to get to even the infancy of official comp support, who knows how many more people will leave before Valve can finally say "ok we're ready"? Imagine if they did ingame things to support tournaments.. taking a note from CSGO or DOTA, having exclusive skins/items given for supporting the prize pool. Constant rebalances, reworking useless weapons based off of statistics and feedback, the game could flourish.

But i wouldn't hold your breath for that.

equip force a nature, laugh taunt after every kill as well

cant wait to see scottjaw at i58

ah, my ringer didn't go off until the blog post was made. weird

It is a blog post.

Valve knows classes are meant to be specialist and generalist, the game was designed to work that way

They just don't want to force people off their favorite classes (spy/pyro/engi/etc) so they're doing this half-assed effort to allow players onto the classes and not actually provide any in-game tips or popups saying shit like "ENGI AND PYRO ARE GREAT DEFENSE CLASSES BUT LACKLUSTER ATTACKERS, CONSULT YOUR TEAM ON WHEN THE BEST TIME TO SWITCH MIGHT BE!"

Man, it really sucks seeing so many before-and-after opinions of TF2 from so many veterans and big names in the scene. So many old videos of people enjoying the game, feeling at least a hint of optimism for its future (during that streak of valve being more vocal about comp support), people who would defend the game with their life over competitiors, but fast forward to post-mym and valve really fucked the bucket hard. I've yet to see anybody think valve knows what they're doing on this, and even the optimistic people fully admit that "Valve DOES want tf2 to succeed! They're just refusing to do any logical steps to fixing it!" I don't understand why it's so difficult for them. I want to hang out for them, but every week that passes just further shows how inept they really are about it

i love rogue in this, it perfectly summarizes his presence at the lan

"Thicker skin" is an alternative resolution, not a solution. People who are toxic beyond the point of "basic" BM are people who need to be called out on their shit. There's no way to control it, obviously. Like clock said earlier you'll find the trashtalk everywhere, the only difference is in other places people have an incentive to not do it (sponsors)

The main issue is when you're in a position like rando, a lot of newer competitive players will look up to you as a role model and saying shit like that creates a self-fufilling circle of developing toxic players who think funny twitter burns are a cool way to get attention. Players should develop to filter out trashtalk like that but if you're high level and you're trashtalking like that you're just not a healthy minded person. Trying to tilt someone strategically through personal insults is also immorally low (not that i'm aware of if any of that is going on in this scenario)