Idling account

They are actually the new TF2 dev team.

Valve would be able to generate cashflow by doing something that costs them nothing - give away virtual items for playing, just like MvM. Throw in a new thing like the Botkiller stuff and you get every single item addicted kid playing comp formats.

The lobby justification was to gather weapon ban data. They already have weapon equip data, i.e. what weapons are fun to play with. This would given them weapon ban data, or what weapons are not fun to play against (or have to use, for example the Vitasaw). The benefits in terms of gameplay improvements for all players could potentially feed into huge revenues by increasing player loyalty and participation.

Essentially the lobby system they suggested makes the game more fun for everybody, which is why they suggested it. Valve have always invested in feedback during development and focused on making fun games first and foremost. It would be just one more example.

It could definitely be a lot more popular, once you're inside the competitive bubble you forget how closed off from the general populace it is. There's a huge information gulf and no one is selling the scene. Events like Communities vs Pros and Highlander Open are very important in this respect and don't really happen enough, and introductory material for viewers is thin on the ground. Of course Valve's involvement lends anything legitimacy. It' still never going to be the centre of the games culture but it could advance from a backwater. Logs.tf has over 80 thousand different steam ids registered as at least trying the competitive formats of the game.

This is true, CS has grown up as a competitive game from the early days and it's community has the competitive background in it's DNA. Dota has been heavily backed because Riot back LoL and those games compete directly. TF2 was designed to be different and more of a casual experience, to be an unusually large break from it's predecessor, and the Mann Co experiment completely changed the direction of the game even from that.

The fact they offered it means they think it would have been beneficial enough (whether from gameplay improvements through ban data to maybe MvM style tickets) to do it if it got good uptake. The decision depended on good feedback from the comp community because those are the players who would use it and Valve don't want to make it only to discover everyone hates it. Mediocre feedback means no lobbies because there's no guarantee of any product for them at the end of it, so in terms of the business case it is potentially there for this kind of facility and recognised as such by Valve.

Maybe the system by which information got back to Valve was less than perfect, or maybe there's quite a few peeps here who haven't tried it and don't realise that it stinks. If it pops up out of nowhere I'll gladly look silly in exchange for the feature, but I can't see it happening.

Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron by Daniel Clowes (in fact any Clowes really, Wilson's really good)

If it has to be the super hero schtick then you could try Miracle Man by Alan Moore as Rockkkkkkk said. From Hell by Moore is really good as well, but is about Jack the Ripper.

If you have a tablet they make excellent comic book readers

Warning: You may not enjoy these at all

Changing the team names in the same way that we can change the player names might be useful. The scoreboard is shown several times over the course of a map and often shows Red vs Blu, or a joke name, or the name of teams who used the server previously.

TF2 Pickup had a partial implementation running for a while but a server problem trashed their records, I believe their intention is to build a more complete version soon but for any service it all comes down to manpower and finding the time to implement it all.

The win/loss system is one of the worst you can use, just using some simple in game stats without any balancing by opponents are better.

i52 Review. Yes I have spammed this across 2 threads, I apologise.

i52 Review added

AFAIK there are already server plugins that allow a great deal of customisation of weapon and item behaviours, albeit working through Sourcemod.

It was a problem Cube & Bones struggled with on the i49 fragumentary, nice of Valve to finally fix it though.

Really nice intimate feel, would be good to hear an occasional episode if you're bored. For a start I'm not convinced with the explanation of the teabagging incident, we need Darn's version.

I quite agree. Someone else made the point about damage, I pointed out that War's was higher in a comparable tournament. That's all.

They were both at the same tournament, i49.

If you can call defecting to LoL winning. Or even living.