How difficult would it be to implement a switchable old layout? (With reduced functionality if needed to preserve compatibility)
Floating bars, Windows 8 color pallet, lack of any color other than blue-grey, and reddit layout may be nice for some people, but I significantly prefer the old layout.

If you want a cheap mech keyboard, your best bet is a model M. You can usually get one for around $30-40 off of Ebay plus shipping. The smallest of them still have a numpad, however.

If you're willing to do a little work, it's even cheaper. The one I'm typing on is an M2 which I got for $15 including shipping; all it needed was some cleaning up and a trace had to be redrawn.

sniper mains

For whatever reason, TF2 interprets the pause/play macro for music players as +taunt. I'm reasonably sure that it isn't Razer-specific; it happens with my g400s binds as well.

i have a couple
http://pastebin.com/EKwb3KDZ

Wall of text:

Deprecating the skill level of ESEA to the point that Open would be the least bit conducive to these bottom of Iron-tier players is obviously completely unacceptable; virtually everyone currently in ESEA would have to be moved up a division to even pretend that these players have a chance.

If someone has zero experience playing 6s and spends no time watching the format in order to learn it, it's only common sense that they will get rolled. If said person actually wanted to learn the format and have a chance of competing, than they would know better than to immediately join a league. Said person would (hopefully) watch some casts, some of Marxist's videos or any of the pretty voluminous (relative to size of the community) resources that have been created for this very purpose. After that, our devoted player would continue ascending through lobbies, eventually playing tf2mixes, low-level inhouses, or whatever the equivalent is at the time. At that point, it is simply a matter of practice to becoming a valid Open-level pickup, or simply making friends and making a team.

It doesn't require a low-level, easy to compete in, throwaway league in order to learn the game. There is simply a huge body of resources to learn the basics, the metagame, and the mechanical skills required to play at a decent level. There are also quite a few organizations (not sure of a good blanket term) which, from this perspective, exist entirely to help (tf2center, MGE, #tf2mix, inhouses), due to the complete and total lack of requirements other than a working knowledge of the game for tf2mix and a similar skill level for inhouses.

If the goal shifts from making it possible for self-motivated players to enter into competitive to herding as many pubstompers as possible into the format, clearly there need to be changes. In this case, a large, casual league is needed as learning the game outside of the game itself is not going to happen. Suddenly, instead of learning through a baptism by fire and developing a thick skin, players must be coaxed by close games, medals, and some level of support from iconic players. This is all to convey an idealization of the higher level, a mere idealization since the high level is played by those that (for the most part) found their way in through the method outlined before.

Thus, these players will sit in UGC (or whatever the low level league is at the time) for quite a while; whenever they leave to try in ESEA they are mercilessly beaten down by higher level teams and will frequently return to UGC, none the better.

This has been declared necessary, after all, competitive tf2 has such a small community that our entire effort should be in making more people play it, right? Rather than focus on pushing more dead weights who have little to offer and don't even have the drive to do it themselves into higher leagues, the natural Darwinism should be taken advantage of. If the only players who make it into the higher levels (read: Open and above) are those with the drive to do it themselves, the community will be much better off. Those that do so will probably stick around longer, even after they stop playing the game.

It's the simple fact that the current higher-level player base has been made this way that allows us to have ESEA LAN (among other similar events). This event which, despite (sometimes not even) only paying travel fees, is watched by a huge majority of the 6s players and is treated as the ultimate show of ability. This wouldn't be possible if the goal of every player in ESEA was to make a profit. If any attempt is made, no matter how successful, to make competitive TF2 a profitable venture for the players, it won't be a substitute for a simple passion for the game. ESEA is the monolith to this, the reason to buy into ESEA is not to win a large prize pot upon winning, but to play only against those that share a similar interest in the game.

Pure coop games: Magicka, Terraria+, Risk of Rain+, Castle Crashers*, Civ 5*, Portal 2, Orcs Must Die 1/2, Borderlands 1/2, BF3 coop, Tabletop Simulator.

Other: CPMA/Q3A/QL, BFBC2, Antichamber (Not actually coop, but playing it in parallel is fun), PoE, Killing Floor.

* Indicates comically bad networking which can be really annoying.
+ Indicates Hamachi or similar needed to play without setting up a full server/forwarding ports

http://puu.sh/dJw4O/0cdb9db3ef.png

SBG 24/7 surf_10x_tf2, 24/7 surf_air_arena

rip

beautiful

Seconding #8, a hollow door on top of two filing cabinets works wonders if you have the space for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8MIXIi0XDw

If you would like to avoid having to export and import your profile each time you change it, this lets you change LOD bias through the GUI.

Lines 3301-3321:

//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Purpose: returns true if we are running highlander mode
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
bool CTeamplayRoundBasedRules::IsInHighlanderMode( void )
{
#if defined( TF_CLIENT_DLL ) || defined( TF_DLL )
// can't use highlander mode and the queue system
if ( IsInArenaMode() == true && tf_arena_use_queue.GetBool() == true )
return false;
return mp_highlander.GetBool();
#else
return false;
#endif
}
int CTeamplayRoundBasedRules::GetBonusRoundTime( void )
{
return MAX( 5, mp_bonusroundtime.GetFloat() );
}

Pretty sure that that's a guarantee.

Also,

ConVar mp_highlander( "mp_highlander", "0", FCVAR_REPLICATED | FCVAR_NOTIFY, "Allow only 1 of each player class type." );

/b/