I recently saw the medi beam for viewmodel_fov 0, which works on sv_pure 2 and is as you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdi1uyaG6xU

I don't know if it helps performance though, but it looks like it could do

I kinda skipped through the video, but one thing I noticed was that you keep valiantly defending the point after it's capped, which is admirable indeed, but often I wouldn't do it by actually standing on it.
The thing that makes it tough to capture a point is that you're a massive target if you're physically standing on it, and will eat a lot of spam etc. If you own a point and need to defend it, instead of continually standing on it, I'd get into a position where I could easily kill people who want to just cap the point without first making sure they get the frags necessary for it (and by doing so making sure that I'd eat a lot less spam in the process).

The tide turner + demo nerf is really annoying in pubs though: 5 demoknights charging at you, good luck doing anything about it. It's frustrating to the point where I don't pub anymore; I really hope people will get bored of the tide turner soon. I get the impression that with every update valve pushes players more to start playing their beloved demoknight class.

I don't use the null-movement script because I like to suddenly stop by holding both strafe keys at the same time. If you strafe to the right, for example, then let go of D, press and hold A, and immediately press and hold D again, you will come to a sudden stop instead of doing the little 'slide'.
I was wondering if there's a way to script that without having to do such a (relatively) complex set of actions just to come to a sudden halt. I've had a reasonable amount of success by using the wait command, but as I'm sure everyone here knows, the wait command in any competitive setting, and even some pub settings, won't work.

Anyone happen to have any ideas for that?

If you use the huge files, computers tend to struggle playing them back (just consider how many GBs per second it has to load, show, and then discard again to load the next). You can still use them while editing though in most cases, and the final render shouldn't have the problem. Or you could do as AyR said and just encode them.

Star's videos actually introduced me to competitive TF2. I was aware it existed, but didn't actually follow it before then, let alone played it myself.

But even if Star did nothing at all to do with competitive TF2, how would that be such a bad thing? Just because I like the competitive side of things doesn't mean I can't thoroughly enjoy random funny stuff on pubs or whatever. If he can entertain people and put smiles on their faces just by making videos of him playing a videogame casually, then surely that's a good thing even without a competitive aspect to it?

Wow, I have to say I'm impressed with how quickly you manage to make these. Keep up the good work! :>

Great idea!
As for the players, I'd suggest to focus mainly on 'newer' players who are less well-known at the moment. B4nny, Platinum, Mike and such are famous already and have a lot of material dedicated to them, and I guess they'd make for a lot of hype. Personally I'd like to see more of the newer faces who have been giving the older 'celebrities' a run for their money.

I noticed it too, and I saw right underneath they were also promoting highlander open, which in my opinion might actually be a bigger deal, since that's directed at players who haven't played any competitive before.. with Valve promoting this (and also i52) on the blog, it seems they're at least trying to get some recognition for TF2's competitive scene, by introducing newer players to it.

I got that exact monitor about 6 hours ago. Suddenly people talking about scout saying it's 'clicking on people' made a lot more sense. Going from 60 to 144 Hz had even more impact than I expected. However, though I'd read about the colors not being great on this monitor, they were also worse than I expected, but by messing about with settings I got to a fairly agreeable quality in the end, and perhaps will do even more so in the future.

All in all I'm amazed by how much better 120hz+ is, and the gray colors seem like a small price to pay for that.

Hey, I've been saving for a 120 or 144 Hz monitor for a while now, and have more or less arrived at a point where I'd be able to afford one. Between reviews and price comparisons I've found a few that seem appealing to me so far:

- BenQ XL2411Z
- Asus VG248QE
- Iiyama ProLite GB2488HSU-B1
- Philips Brilliance 242G5DJEB

I'm a bit at a loss which one of these to get, though. Judging by the reviews I read I think the Iiyama one would have my preference, but I'm not entirely sure if that's rational. Would any of you know of any reasons that would make any one of these better or worse than the others?

Also, I don't always have 120+ fps, I even dip to 50ish on occasion, but that's while watching a stream on a hectic pub on snowy maps. Most of the time I do have 120+ fps. Would you say it's worthwile to even get one of these rather expensive monitors with this in mind?

3 AM, guess I'll be waiting for an EU version of this :(

I wish the people who will play/mentor/etc now good luck and a lot of fun. Godspeed, Hero of Pies & co!

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for something in return anyway, I think it's cool that you've made/are making these to begin with, let alone allowing everyone to get a free one. If you get to mine eventually after so many requests I don't think it'd fall into the category where you ask for something, but I wouldn't mind finding some hat or something to give anyway if you'd like that.

GUNSHOT BR BR BR BR BR BR BR BR BR BR BR BR BR BR BR BR BR BR BR BR BR BR BR BR BR BR BR BR-

..also, did you do the whole verify integrity blah that seems to be the first part of all TF2 troubleshooting endeavours? If that doesn't fix it I'd probably try custom particles, because I can't think of anything else that'd happen at an airshot (I used to use some for increased performance, found them in the 'FPS improvement compilation' thread), though I'm not sure if that'd really help, but might be worth trying. I'm also assuming you're playing on highframes or something similar, disabling gibs and such.

I've played a little over 100 lobbies on center, and will be playing my first season of lowest of low levels of highlander as soldier fairly quickly. Pretty much all of this was as roamer (well, soldier officially I guess, but in highlander 'soldier' is even more roamer than roamer). Would I still be considered new enough to partake in these newbie mixes (particularly with classes I never played due to higher responsibility)? Also, as I imagine this is hosted in the US, would you object to high-ping europeans joining (assuming it wouldn't be like 4am for me to begin with)?