Team Fortress 2: Too late to jump in?

[QuadrAlien]

Nothing wrong with starting at the free weekend - indeed, I started on a free weekend back at the Heavy update. There'll be plenty of other beginners about. In fact, there seemed to be quite a few on my clan's Arena server even last night... It got a bit annoying, repeatedly explaining how to get the extra items when I suspect it'll all be outdated by about Friday.

 

[Kajt]

It's never too late, buy it and join the fun!

 

[DigitalSushi]

I've obviously seen that Valve is doing a free weekend of TF2. I started to look into the game's mechanics and style, and quite frankly the amount of planning and information involved with just doing simple things like forming a decent class-based team is staggering. I feel like I need an introductory 2-week course to the game before I even jump online. And I don't want to just jump into a game and burden my teammates with my extreme lack of knowledge, nor do I think it's fair for them to guide me through some sort of live tutorial while we play.

I'm willing to learn the nuances of a game if a fun experience can be achieved, but is what is required to be more than a meat puppet achievable in this free trial period? Also, how is the gaming community? Is it open to new users and willing to do a little hand holding, or is it like the Counter-Strike, kill all noobs and declare pwnage community?

I recomend it, only for the fact it doesn't have grenades.

Try it out, I recomend the Medic and the Heavy for starting on, the Scout and the Spy are the most difficult to master, the Medic so you can support your team and learn the maps, Heavy when you want to learn how to defend.

The Heavy is very slow so is good to learn how to read an enemy, because you have to plan your firing in advance, if in doubt, get on the bridge to fire at everyone from cover, but remember a Sniper is a Heavy's worst enemy.

After a few hours learning the maps with the medic in support of a better player you can dip your toes into a class you may prefer.

 

[Kstreitenfeld]

What "unlockables" are we referring to? Do they make a big impact on gameplay?

Different weapons / gadgets for the classes.

The originals are normally better / just as good. It's mostly for fun. All of the new weapons are either entirely different from the other one (ex:Flare gun vs Shotgun for Pyro) or are balanced by pros & cons (ex:Backburner vs Original for Pyro, the Backburner gives you a 100% to crit when hitting a targets back but at the same time thats the only way you can crit and you lose the ability to use your air blast).

 

[Satki]

I played it from launch to the first content pack, I'm waiting for everything to be added before I go back

 

[yourbeliefs]

Ok here's a stupid question. I pre-loaded the game, but it keeps prompting me to purchase the game, or rather, there's no "launch" feature like with my other purchased games. I've never done one of these "free" weekends before. What am I missing here?

 

[DigitalSushi]

Ok here's a stupid question. I pre-loaded the game, but it keeps prompting me to purchase the game, or rather, there's no "launch" feature like with my other purchased games. I've never done one of these "free" weekends before. What am I missing here?

Strange, well expect the adverts to try to force you to buy the game, but what are you pressing at the prompt?, if its "NO FUCK OFF VALVE" then expect nothing to load, if you normally let the adverts to play then it should launch and start updating itself.

After that free to run in the game, you know after its synced all the patches and everything, the first time on a game for me on Steam it always freezes for like a whole minute, and a WHOLE REAL LIFE MINUTE is a long time.

 

[DigitalSushi]

It's too late, just skip it. Valve ties all the unlockables to pointless and boring achievements that you will have to grind away at for hours if you want to be up to speed.

"double jump 1000 times"
"light 5000 people on fire"
"Headshot a scout with the sniper while he is the middle of double jump and lit on fire by a pyros flare gun after being backstabbed by a spy who did 30 crabwalks and a backlip"

Wrong, they have already stated that they plan to add new ways to get the unlockables instead of the current achievement grind.... Plus, there are a lot of easy achievements to get the unlockables too.

What "unlockables" are we referring to? Do they make a big impact on gameplay?

Not at all, we are talking about "being called a ****** a million times", which would happen regardless of the unlocks or not.

 

[Twilight_guy]

No, its never too late for TF2. I suggest that you read a guide on the game first though. (engineer is tough if you have no idea what you're doing). You can ask for help and depending on the server and player at the time you'll either get friendly advise, begrudging advice, or profanity(what you get is usually pretty random but most people will help you if no other reason then just to not be a man down). It'll take you a few games to get your landlegs and then a few hundred hours to be "good" but that's normal for most involved multiplayer online games. My advise: Go for it, dood! It's free so what the hell, right?

 

[Twilight_guy]

Ok here's a stupid question. I pre-loaded the game, but it keeps prompting me to purchase the game, or rather, there's no "launch" feature like with my other purchased games. I've never done one of these "free" weekends before. What am I missing here?

It's not the start of the free weekend yet. I think it starts when the update is released.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Ok here's a stupid question. I pre-loaded the game, but it keeps prompting me to purchase the game, or rather, there's no "launch" feature like with my other purchased games. I've never done one of these "free" weekends before. What am I missing here?

Strange, well expect the adverts to try to force you to buy the game, but what are you pressing at the prompt?, if its "NO FUCK OFF VALVE" then expect nothing to load, if you normally let the adverts to play then it should launch and start updating itself.

After that free to run in the game, you know after its synced all the patches and everything, the first time on a game for me on Steam it always freezes for like a whole minute, and a WHOLE REAL LIFE MINUTE is a long time.

No, I mean there isn't even a "Launch" option with this game. All I see is "Pre-load info", "Purchase," and the other typical options. I just don't see a "Launch" anywhere. It's like getting into a car and not having a hole for the ignition key..

 

[oliveira8]

Ok here's a stupid question. I pre-loaded the game, but it keeps prompting me to purchase the game, or rather, there's no "launch" feature like with my other purchased games. I've never done one of these "free" weekends before. What am I missing here?

Hehe. The free weekend hasnt start yet.

Only on Friday to Monday if not wrong. You could download now to prevent the servers from getting filled up during the Free Weekend.

Try tomorow at night and it should be unlocked.

Edit: Tho it says starts Thursday...it probably unlocks when the patch comes out. Hold on tight and check Steam later on. Valve usually updates games after lunch/middle of the afternoon.(its only noon there if not wrong.)

 

[yourbeliefs]

Ok here's a stupid question. I pre-loaded the game, but it keeps prompting me to purchase the game, or rather, there's no "launch" feature like with my other purchased games. I've never done one of these "free" weekends before. What am I missing here?

It's not the start of the free weekend yet. I think it starts when the update is released.

Oh... well that would explain it but last I checked, it said the free weekend started TODAY, not TODAY @ xx:xx am/pm... I was expecting to jump into this when I got home..

http://store.steampowered.com/app/440/

Buy Team Fortress 2

FREE WEEKEND starts Thursday!
Pre-load TF2 now and be ready to play when it starts. Must have Steam installed.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Ok here's a stupid question. I pre-loaded the game, but it keeps prompting me to purchase the game, or rather, there's no "launch" feature like with my other purchased games. I've never done one of these "free" weekends before. What am I missing here?

It's not the start of the free weekend yet. I think it starts when the update is released.

Oh... well that would explain it but last I checked, it said the free weekend started TODAY, not TODAY @ xx:xx am/pm... I was expecting to jump into this when I got home..

Yeah, Valve works on Valvetime. They tend to do things at their own good pace. It makes stuff better, but its also a bit aggravating. Yet, <a href=http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Time>sometimes humorous.

 

[oliveira8]

Ok here's a stupid question. I pre-loaded the game, but it keeps prompting me to purchase the game, or rather, there's no "launch" feature like with my other purchased games. I've never done one of these "free" weekends before. What am I missing here?

It's not the start of the free weekend yet. I think it starts when the update is released.

Oh... well that would explain it but last I checked, it said the free weekend started TODAY, not TODAY @ xx:xx am/pm... I was expecting to jump into this when I got home..

http://store.steampowered.com/app/440/

Buy Team Fortress 2

FREE WEEKEND starts Thursday!
Pre-load TF2 now and be ready to play when it starts. Must have Steam installed.

Oh when working with valve games sometimes you need to add hours/days/months/years to the actuall release.

Team Fortress 2 was going to be released in 1999...it only came out in 2007!

But don't worry, the free weekend will open later on tonigh(even if its at 23:59 PM...) or tomorow morning.

 

[Istickell]

Im going to do this.
I have the game for the 360, but i hear that it is better for pc. I don't like playing with a mouse and keyboard though

 

[yosophat]

Well I'm the kind of guy that typically refuses to play a multiplayer component of a game until I play through the single player campaign. When I got L4D, I didn't even browse for an online game until I played through all 4 campaigns single player from beginning to end, because I figured I wouldn't be that helpful online if I was constantly wandering off or getting lost or not knowing all the random intricacies of the game. However, with TF2, with there being no offline component (that I know of anyways) I'm just thrown into the action with a bunch of other people who are relying on me. Obviously there's always an experience curve with online games, but I like being able to at least get my fundamentals down before I team up with others. It's like if I joined the army but didn't get to go through boot camp and was thrown into the battle field on day one.

If you do decide to play go to servers with low player count they are more team oriented and helpful, but as the number of player increases it tends to become a cluster fuck of death. There is a developers' commentary for the original maps and it also explains some functions of the classes, but the game is very simple. One of my friends rarely plays but he can hold his own against me; besides if you are doing bad there is nothing anyone can do about it, except complain. Just don't worry about being bad at the game you already play one FPS, L4D, just aim and click*.
*(disclaimer thats not all you have to do)

 

[oliveira8]

*snip*

Sometimes you need to dodge rockets. ^^

 

[yosophat]

Im going to do this.
I have the game for the 360, but i hear that it is better for pc. I don't like playing with a mouse and keyboard though

yeah it is. unless they updated the 360 version, but its a completely evolved game from its original version. I have friends who have the 360 version but I don't like jerking joysticks around with a bunch of men on screen.

 

[DigitalSushi]

Ok here's a stupid question. I pre-loaded the game, but it keeps prompting me to purchase the game, or rather, there's no "launch" feature like with my other purchased games. I've never done one of these "free" weekends before. What am I missing here?

Strange, well expect the adverts to try to force you to buy the game, but what are you pressing at the prompt?, if its "NO FUCK OFF VALVE" then expect nothing to load, if you normally let the adverts to play then it should launch and start updating itself.

After that free to run in the game, you know after its synced all the patches and everything, the first time on a game for me on Steam it always freezes for like a whole minute, and a WHOLE REAL LIFE MINUTE is a long time.

No, I mean there isn't even a "Launch" option with this game. All I see is "Pre-load info", "Purchase," and the other typical options. I just don't see a "Launch" anywhere. It's like getting into a car and not having a hole for the ignition key..

I don't drive a car so I don't understand what your getting at. Is it like getting your girlfriend in bed and finding that... ohh .. ohh thats nasty.

I wish you the best of luck