Some new stuff is coming out of the sourceruns community in the near-ish future and I'm so excited I just have to talk to whoever I can about it.

Spider-Waffle's amazing "Half Hour Half-Life" from years ago is finally going to have a proper successor in HL22, a speedrun estimated to finish around the 22 minute mark being worked on by Spider-Waffle and Quadrazid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peR7nkqhnvU

their progress on the project can be kept up with here
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AivfAnPipM1cdEVrY2NiRVpmdVJqREQ3ZHd1TDAyc1E#gid=0

And HL2 Done Quick is getting redone on the modern source engine to take advantage of the implementation of ABH (Accelerated Back-Hop), which has provided us many an enjoyable Portal run. It doesn't have a proper teaser yet but the project is currently being referred to within the speedrunning community as "HL2:DWaHMoV", (HL2: Done with a High Magnitude of Velocity). Here's a little something to whet your appetite if you're not yet aware of the potential offered by by ABH.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-8Q0fIhXwg

There's a while to wait yet for this one, but various channels are dropping tantalizing clips of progress, this channel being one of the most notable.

If you want to try these things yourself:
for HL1, google New Gauge Half-Life, learn how to bhop, and find yourself some scripts.
for HL2, learn ABH and have fun flying around at mach 2. Until you graze a pebble and get sent flying into the skybox. But if you can avoid that it's a blast.

Capn, I think the deal is that roamer is the least "vital" to the team, as in if a team had to strip off one player, it'd probably be the roamer. But it's not because he's weak, it's just because he's generally the only player that can be removed without compromising the core structure of the team. But even that depends on the team's playstyle.

In other words I think you've mentally transposed "least essential" with "worst", which is understandable, but still notably different. Even if he IS the least essential (again, depends on team playstyle), he's still essential from time to time.

And even if he was objectively the worst, that doesn't necessarily mean he needs a buff. The goal isn't to make all 6 players of perfectly equal performance, but to make the game as a whole play well while allowing all players to enjoy themselves. I think roamers are pretty well off in that regard.

sorry, you probably don't want to read anymore text walls telling you why people think you're wrong, but I don't think anyone's adressed the source of your confusion so much as say "this is why roamer is good", and I thought that might be something worthwhile to you.

I think the ability for a person to make inference actually represents their intelligence fairly well. If there's a particular individual you want to gauge the intelligence of, try arguing with them. That'll usually tell you pretty quick.

I once had a friend who, like Renhet up there, cared a lot about intelligence in his friends and it rubbed off on me for a while. After he disappeared (still don't know what happened to him) and I migrated back to my previous mindset, I realized I'd been pretty miserable caring so much about smarts.

so basically, intelligence level is like dick size- it's nice to have but you can't do much about it so don't bother worrying. Enjoy your life.

I thought this was a good idea until I read this

If we thought the pastebins were bad, just wait till the screencapped frag records are thrown in the mix. People +/- frag pretty carelessly, I can already see nerds using that garbage as argument ammo.

Just wait for the commercial releassssse

surely you can contain your raucous boners with $300 on the line. It'll be a much better product by then anyway.

same as the everyone above.
except my fov with the medigun is 25, because it lets me see it in the corner so I don't accidentally run kritz, but it's still out of the way.

colored WASD keys is like a pen painted with a red arrow pointing toward the tip to remind you which end to use.

Something deep down inside me keeps me from giving my money to any company that has colored WASD keys.

tl;dr at bottom

Hey I'm new to ESEA and don't really have any friends to try to break into the scene with so I'm hoping someone will try me out. I can pay my fees.

Experience:
I'm pretty new to comp. No league experience. starting lobbying about a year ago, and later quit to start playing Power Pugs and #tf2mix. I've been doin that for a couple months and I'm never at the top of the scoreboard but I think I hold my own decently well. You can only get so far just pugging, after all.

Availability:
mon-thurs are pretty much clear.
friday before 5 PST is ok
weekends are busy until night. Late games are probably okay.

So what am I looking for, and what am I good for?

I play this game (and most multiplayer games) largely for the satisfaction of improvement. If your team wants to get better, I'll be right there talking strats and reviewing demos with you. I think patience is my greatest virtue. I never rage, and I gladly accept constructive criticism, even if it could be worded a little more nicely.

The inconveniences of drafting me?

My mom and brother are both disabled and I have to help them often, which can limit my free time. I try to get them both set up with everything they're likely to need when I'm getting ready to play something, but if we scrim several games in a row without a break or an emergency arrives, I may have to go take care of that.

Also I play Quake Live! If you duel, let's talk. QL name is "Nil".

tl;dr I'm really new and have a lot to learn but also love improving so if that's what your team is about, hit me up. I can pay my fees.

steam ID: http://steamcommunity.com/id/jash

now to try to play tf2 without sacrificing my non-working life to the tf2 gods...

Thanks for the info, you guys helped a lot.

If anyone can help, I'd like to LFT for S14 but I'm just always busy on particular nights, so I need to ask, is there a particular night games are usually scheduled on? Are there any conventions generally adhered to? Or do teams usually comm it out on a case-by-case basis and just try to find something that works?

basically I don't want to end up on a team only to find I'm making 11 other people work around my schedule every week. thanks for any help.

It's a neat aesthetic change, but it also seems to make characters "pop" less against the scenery.

But if you use it, you're just pubbing, so whatever tickles your fancy.

yes it increases FPS a little but not nearly as much as it would if valve added a proper hat removal option.

last I checked it works but you have to update it every time new hats are added. Also it only removes the cosmetics, it won't put back the regular hat. eg if someone is wearing a bonk helm, then you'll see that scout as completely hatless, rather than wearing the vanilla hat.

I used this for a while but eventually uninstalled it because hats are helpful for comming sometimes.

I knew lange was good at making tf2's problems go away but damn