You played it for an hour and you think it'll be the best shooter of all time? Is it really that good?

That
may
be
the
case.

I haven't played much NS unfortunately so I can't really say. Most of the time it's about 30 seconds of the humans setting up their position, the vampires scouting and preparing, and then 30 seconds of really fast-paced fighting. Some maps encourage longer fights that last through multiple spawn waves, but in comp it's significantly slower. Usually a minute of scouting and preparation and a fight that's decided within about 15 seconds. It changes depending on your team composition though.

The problem with the vampires at low levels is similar to the problem with spies in pubs and probably at the beginning of TF2. The game and community is on the newer side so people just don't really know how they're supposed to be playing, how they're supposed to hold, the sightlines they should watch, etc. I'm hoping that as the beta progresses the newer players will start figuring it out faster. If not, it's not too big of a problem as you have to play on both sides anyways.

I haven't queued a ton but I never had any issues when I did. I see a couple people complaining about queueing on the forums but I'm not sure how widespread that issue is.

Human side is really easy if you have any sort of situational awareness and at least mediocre teammates. Pretty much every vampire attack has some sort of audio cue you can hear before it starts, so if you keep your ears and eyes open you can dodge most of the initial damage.

Anyone here playing it? I saw a thread about beta keys a few months back but never picked it up until recently. Really been enjoying it, not so sure about the third person perspective but other than that it's been great. The F2P model seems to be pretty nice actually and normally I hate those things. Asymmetrical third-person class-based shooter for those who haven't played, you play as the humans for one half and the vampires for the other.

Plus recently I read something a dev wrote that I loved. People were asking why the devs were going to make two different classes from the same vampire "clan" (idk, I never played any Legacy of Kain) instead of giving different abilities to the original class. The dev said that they really liked the original TF2 where any time you saw a certain class you knew exactly what you were going up against, vs. now where class roles and abilities have been muddied. Dev said that was their inspiration for the gameplay in a lot of ways, and I think it really shows. It apparently has a comp scene already so that's cool too. Now if only I could get more than 8 fps I'd absolutely love it.

I agree with you in this case but wasn't there a CoD4 promod that still remains pretty popular? What changes did that mod make, and does anyone know why that didn't cause a harmful split? Or did it ruin CoD4's comp scene?

So against my better judgment I'm going to revive this thread with a few words of encouragement because I know Atomisk's still looking for a team. I've played with him since last August or so and think I have a decent idea of Atomisk's strengths and weaknesses. Keep in mind I'm a shitty Steel HL medic so my thoughts on this could be entirely off-base. His DM is good (really good for a Steel HL level, probably passable for low open), his jumps could use some work, his gamesense isn't the greatest, but he's also pretty keen on getting better and would be a solid pickup for a low open team that is as keen as him at getting better. He's dedicated to comp TF2 and you could definitely do worse than giving him a try.

But obviously the complaints here aren't about his gameplay and are more addressed to his attitude. Atomisk has an ego, loves to shittalk players, is incredibly blunt, hates players who don't share his dedication to improvement, is incredibly blunt, and gets really excited when he can beat higher level players in MGE. Most of these negatives are exacerbated in an Internet forum when you don't actually get the chance to talk to him. He's actually a pretty chill and funny guy, he doesn't take shittalking personally if it isn't meant personally. I ragged on him constantly in mumble, telling him he was shit, saying I wouldn't heal him if he didn't shut up (and then following through on the threat, you can check the logs), intentionally dropping him in ubers, etc. We're on good terms though (I think) because he realizes that these things are meant in good fun and I don't honestly think he's the worst TF2 player to ever touch a keyboard. If you're an IM player he doesn't know who hops into his mumble and does nothing but talk about how you're so much better than a Steel HL player, then yeah, he's gonna get pissed. I probably would too. If you're willing to be constructive with your criticism, he'll respect you and constantly talk about how excited he is to get mentoring/help from a "good player." Same thing goes with the MGE wins. He talks about how he beat b4nny in MGE because he idolizes higher level players. He's excited that, even with the obvious limitations of MGE, he was able to go toe-to-toe with an invite player. He's keen to climb the ranks, and those little milestones excite him. I don't think that's the worst thing in the world.

I'm sure he's going to get in here and ruin the goodwill by overreacting to some minor slight in this thread, but I still think he deserves a hell of a lot better than he's been getting in these last few weeks. If you're looking for a roamer who loves playing TF2 and you're willing to get to know him before calling him a fucking moron, then you'll get a player more loyal than a cocker spaniel and funnier than... a narcoleptic cocker spaniel or something. He does like anime which I consider a dealbreaker but I'm sure there are some nerds out there who'd appreciate that. Best of luck to you Atomisk, don't make me look like an idiot.

If scream actually is innocent like GMX says, then holy shit, he must be the unluckiest CS player in the world. Poor guy.

Marginally relevant, there's a fantasy LoL league with a $1,000,000 prize pool. Not sure if anything from there can be adapted to TF2 but it's worth a look.

If anyone's still paying attention, GMX has accused Epsilon of throwing a game against OverGaming last year. Source and more information here.

I hesitate to call it "fun" in the way I'd call Quake or Skyrim fun but I've never seen a game that was as incredibly designed. The setting, the mechanics, the plot all reinforced each other in a way that made the game feel real and actually emotionally significant. I played the game a while back and then came back to it after doing some work in a Central African nation for a while and holy shit, that game is the closest thing to a war torn nation African nation simulator that I could imagine.

I'll second the recommendations for SoC and CoP, both had amazing atmospherics. I didn't have any issues with Clear Sky though, I think I ran a mod and didn't run into any game ending bugs. SoC was actually the least stable for me but all of them were very much worth dealing with occasional crashes.

Far Cry 2 is the greatest game of all time.
F.E.A.R. is a good shooter, although the sequels aren't so great.
Driver: San Francisco is a fun game even if you don't like driving games.
Call of Juarez: Gunslinger is fun if you like Westerns and Western movies. Shockingly strong narrative too.
Unrest has amazing writing and was written by a friend of mine.

http://blog.counter-strike.net/index.php/2015/01/11261/

"All together, the information we have collected and received makes us uncomfortable continuing any involvement with these individuals. Therefore we will be directing our CS:GO event partners to not allow any of the following individuals’ participation in any capacity in Valve-sponsored events:

Duc “cud” Pham
Derek “dboorn” Boorn
Casey Foster
Sam “Dazed” Marine
Braxton “swag” Pierce
Keven “AZK” Larivière
Joshua “Steel” Nissan"

They've also been banned from ESEA: http://play.esea.net/index.php?s=support&d=ban_list

Well.

VP is built around pascha, to allow him to do whatever he wants to do that round. If he doesn't do well, they lose.

Titanfall was and continues to be fun though, even if I'm the only one who thinks so...