The HUD's main website has also been down for some days.

I've been trying out a weird system with binds where slot1 - slot3 (which I use to switch weapons) turns the viewmodels on so I can see what weapon I am pulling out, but mouse1 turns them off so the viewmodels go away when I need to start shooting stuff. I've been meaning to tweak it so viewmodels always stay on for melee, but I hardly use melee and have been too lazy to bother.

#27: the pedal I use is just some random electronic keyboard sustain pedal with a 1/4" audio jack, probably not more than $20 from a local music store. I've had it for years plugged into an electronic keyboard, so it is a solid pedal, but recently I acquired a weird mouse that happens to have a 1/8" jack in it, so I got an appropriate adapter and plugged the pedal into said weird mouse. When I press the pedal, it registers as MOUSE4. If you have such a pedal but no weird mouse like I do, you could try a 3.5mm (1/8") audio to USB converter, but I don't know if that will work, or what button it will show up as. I have seen fairly cheap USB foot pedals around online, but have never used one. If the quality on those are unreliable, both Fragpedal and Stealth Switch are more reputable but rather expensive options, probably overkill unless you are serious about including your feet into your everyday computer use.

I use a foot pedal for push to talk. I used to have to interrupt myself whenever I needed to do a rocket jump, but a foot pedal makes that problem go away.

Fixed the sniper emblem.

http://i.imgur.com/bYuidbm.jpg

Replacement HudasIscariote.otf: https://www.dropbox.com/s/alnzmwd8nqe58hf/HudasIscariote2.otf

Modified ClassSelection.res (to get the icons to line up a bit better): https://www.dropbox.com/s/18f8bzvw6cl4snr/ClassSelection.res

EDIT: did some tweaking myself

Screenshot: http://imgur.com/hrVy4Ml.jpg
Edited font file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/alnzmwd8nqe58hf/HudasIscariote2.otf

If you have any tips on getting the icons to align better, I'd appreciate it.

It looks like I used the wrong sniper emblem, but I'll upload a corrected version later tonight.

For the class selection menu, if you are going to use stylized icons I'd prefer the official icons like the ones on the class tokens. In order for icons to be iconic (i.e. to work), they have to be consistent. If everyone used their own different logos or icons for the same thing in the name of creativity people would just get confused. It's not a big deal because everyone not new to the game knows what the 9 classes are, but just a very minor request. Basically these icons:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/27/tf2icons.png/

Love the HUD and especially the captions. I think I'm going to make this my new HUD. Thanks!

Does the magenta/blue HP color scheme ever get confusing with the red-blue team colors or do you get used to it after a while?

Game mode is one of many factors that contribute to game flow. I never said it was the only one.

I don't know what you mean by a koth-esque timer, let alone did I suggest one. The idea behind a timer is that the round will end after some reasonable amount of time with a victor. No more 30-minute 0-0 ties.

I think you missed the point a little. Of course teams want to win. Of course teams will push when they have an obvious advantage. Stalemates don't happen when one team has an obvious advantage. What I am talking about is the stalemates, which happen when you have two teams with even position (uber, player count) on opposite sides of a choke. Pushing through chokes is risky, and if you do it wrong you stand to lose a lot of ground.

You are wrong here. In a pug or scrim, the difference between winning and losing is perhaps a bit of personal pride. When the difference between winning and losing a match is large sums of money, most people will certainly behave differently. That much should be obvious. This change in behavior is typically slowing the game down, taking fewer, smaller risks, all things that tend to reduce the entertainment value of these matches.

Let me make this clear. It's not that teams don't want to win. It's that they don't want to lose. If a failed push can result in losing a ton of ground, teams will wait for decisive advantages before pushing. In order to create these decisive advantages, they make small risk plays like off-classing or suiciding a player, while the rest of the team pokes and prods the other through the chokes waiting for those plays to happen. If the play didn't work the player respawns and tries again. These are low risk plays with a low chance of succeeding, resulting in long stalemates waiting for those advantages to be created.

Like I said just above, it's not so much that teams don't want to push, it's that they don't want to lose even more. A timer with a forced win condition at the end is my attempt at reducing the amount of time teams can afford to spend on these low-risk plays and go for something bigger and more daring.

You could just ask me ... I don't bite.
Basically it was brought to my attention that Gullywash is not the only stalematey 5cp map.

The 5 cp game mode is fundamentally prone to stalemates because it is too symmetrical and has no timer. In payload and koth, at least one team has a clear incentive to push or lose the round. Even if a stalemate occurs, one team will win when the round timer expires. This is not the case with 5cp, where the win condition is to take last and there is no round timer, only a 30 minute half timer. There is no push or lose incentive for either team in 5cp. It's only natural that when you raise the stakes, teams will play to not lose, and the way to not lose on 5cp is to simply hold on to your own last point, something both teams can do simultaneously. 5cp is thus prone to stalemates.

We can try to prevent 5cp stalemates by fiddling with unlocks, or attempting to edit / fix / rebalance maps. I think there is a much simpler approach. Change the 5cp rules so that there is a shorter (15 min?) round timer with a win condition when the timer ends. Do something, anything, so that the round is guaranteed to end with a definite victor after some reasonable amount of time before viewers get bored.

I'm curious as to what exactly is different about goldrush that makes it better than dustbowl. Besides the format change (CP vs PL), the map layout is nearly identical, and that map layout is a 3-stage linear spamfest.

Why goldrush but no dustbowl? Basically the same map. What I'm really saying is get rid of goldrush.

This hypothetical 6v6 highlander format doesn't actually exist at the moment. If it did, perhaps Valve would have considered it but I don't think Valve wants to invent a new competitive format for their lobby system and thus pass up on the experience the community has regarding existing formats. It is an interesting idea, if it had been done years ago - it's a bit too late to start reinventing / modifying 6v6 for this particular Valve initiative though.

Second most played, after Dota: http://store.steampowered.com/stats

Cool idea though.

Keep in mind that typical TF2 rounds last maybe 10-15 minutes. A public lobby / matchmaking system is not likely to have the same people stick around for a full match of 3-5 rounds. If we have 2-3 rounds of pick/bans with each person having a mere 20 seconds to deliberate, that is 6 full minutes per round, or 12 minutes for 2 rounds of simple pick-banning. That's why I suggested a faster automated system in my post.