Still don't get why people say it's not p2w. I mean yes you have to be skilled to actually win the game, but any grinding that can get bypassed by paying money is p2w. It's just like MMO's where you still have to grind for levels, but you can also pay for powerups and nice gear in the p2w models. Although I guess you can call it more of a pay2play model more than p2w. If you could only buy skins and every champion could only be unlocked through IP I'd consider it not p2w, but the fact is you can skip the grind by paying money. Just think of D3 with trading/AH; you can grind for 10000 hours and eventually get amazing gear on the same level of the best, or you can buy the best weapons right away. The grind in LoL is much smaller, but there was definitely an advantage gained by buying weapons in D3 similar to buying Champions and stuff in LoL (and even buying rune pages, having only 3 rune pages restricts you to playing a much smaller pool of champions optimally). You still have to grind your levels in D3 (just like LoL's levels and rune grinding), but there's a good advantage by paying. The LoL community is just big enough that a good portion of players have almost everything at this point and aren't affected by this issue anymore.

But still, play LoL if you actually like it. They built a pretty good competitive scene and mainstreamed a huge part of e-sports. I just don't like PvP oriented games grind-locking the competitive portion of the game or skipping a good portion of it through money. Also don't like the Tribunal and whatever where you can't play because you having (horrible) emotions. Would rather see muting and low priority than pure account locks.

Then you have two useless DPI buttons. I have the drivers so I can assign them to other shit. It's useful for turning off DPI toggle and getting 2-3 extra buttons to do something (top menu default is also garbage).

And that's basically why TF2's probably not going to grow. The people who can affect the community the most more than likely have jobs and other obligations. To each person, their time is valuable, and I don't see that time of the collective TF2 6's being enough to ever replace even a fraction of a percent of valve with their 3 billion net worth to help the game. I mean look at what Lange has done for the past few years and where we've ultimately ended up at; not very far from where we started 5 years ago. I don't want to stop anybody from trying because if they do have passion they should do it, but I don't think it's right to call people out on not doing it. I don't think you'll find anyone who's played since launch that's not disappointed at valve in some way and disillusioned with the scene.

I don't want to be the Jehovah's witness or Mormon of TF2, and I don't like the aspect of actively recruiting people to play 6v6. I don't mind advertising big events, but just generic competitive TF2? That's just desperate. The big games have these huge events, often sponsored by the company that made the game (see LoL, CS:GO, Dota2, HoN, SF, etc). Big events are the things I feel that bring people into a game. Unless you're like SSB where you have way more casual players into the mix and is easy to spectate, you won't be able to host the events that bring people in. Plus this is around the time between Melee and Brawl where you'd normally end up with a CS:S situation that honestly keeps the community at large a bit bigger, even if splintered.

That's why I see TF2 6's will shrink to the small leagues. Highlander is probably going to fine for now though so I guess there's always that competitive part of TF2 (and honestly feels supported by valve much more).

I'm betting TF2 will shrink a bit more and stabilize. I think for a lot of people there's been a lot of disappointments and not that much hype. As much as we love the game, when's the last time you thought "this is why I play tf2"? Never pug with the people I used to anymore, have a job and much less time for games, felt pretty meh over the LAN finals. Even if the size of the comp community stayed the same, I think a lot of people want to see growth, not stagnation. Without a lifeline from Valve I don't think there's any chance of keeping as many players. Even pub TF2 was disappointing with the last few updates. I think the competitive community has already done a lot for TF2 (look at all the insomnia fundraisers and what not), but it hasn't felt rewarding as before.

If you still have a core of TF2 people you still stick around with you might stick longer, but I think for a lot of people it's more fun to jump to another game where there's a much better system and support already in place and still very enjoyable.

I do wish http://steamcharts.com/app/440 has more years recorded. I'd love to see how much the numbers for TF2 has changed, considering it had more average players in August 2012 (MvM update) than it does today.

Are you actually advocating shitting out crappy new unlocks so we have to keep downloading updates every 2 weeks? Unless you just want more reskins, but it's much better to actually have them spaced out.

Also this honestly doesn't seem like a major update (although it replaces any Christmas events since it ends next year). I mean all they did was add ducks and a new crate.

Ironic since they created tc_hydro and there's still cp_steel as a map.

tf2dead

Web pugging was the way to go because IRC is a really annoying hurdle. It's just too bad that no web pug service has a proper chat system like IRC. IRC pugging stayed alive because of the pug community (played since #tf2pug when we pugged gravelpit), back then everybody knew each other pretty well even with over 60 regular puggers. Hell even the gather bot worked until cinq made a better bot with better support. The core IRC puggers are pretty much gone from IRC so it's no surprised nobody else joins up. There's really no incentive to even pug anymore because I barely know anybody and center is garbage level pugs.

I probably should have finished tfqueue though since it'd at least bridge more skill levels instead of lots of invite pugs and barely any mid tier pugs.

Also Cinq did nothing wrong (aside from ban weeble that one time). He carried the pugging community hard.

If it gets big it has the potential to RIP Twitch. Not anytime soon though, but holy fuck they make it easy.

200K viewers. CS GO big

220K now. VACaction just increased support for C9 and NiP if anything.

See, I would rather see something happen because of this shit instead of Brown:

Skip to 7 minutes. Small info, he has an airsoft gun without an orange nozzle on it, someone called in saying a kid had a gun that's probably fake but couldn't tell, but a either way a legitimate call.
http://www.wkyc.com/story/news/local/cleveland/2014/11/26/tamir-rice-shooting-video-released/19530745/

Because this is completely retarded (driving straight up next to a kid who supposedly has gun then shooting him right away when he's completely alone and isolated). Though this time there's probably going to be a lot of shit happening to the cops (lying in the report etc). It should be a good lesson not to fucking take the orange nozzle off of fake guns.

I don't think you understand how going after a robbery suspect works. If he was anywhere hot on the trail he wouldn't have stopped you. They also normally split cops at the scene and the rest on patrol are on the lookout for the car. A few will probably be on the lookout in the general vicinity, but he's probably not part of that group.

Definitely an overreaction, but considering the phone call they received ( http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/30/opinion/williams-crawford-walmart-killing/ ) they didn't realize what they were getting into. If anything the 911 caller should have been charged for being a ridiculous liar. I also don't think it's good walmart policy to let people carry airsoft guns out of box all over the shop. Still pretty tragic that he died.

Brian Claunch's case, I honestly don't get why they don't have specialized guards for the mentally ill. Unless police officers regularly deal with homeless they're not going to remember training that well I'm betting. Overreaction for sure and I hope they at least now force officers to get refresher training for dealing with the mentally ill, but the whole situation should ideally never escalate to that point it needs cops. Needing the cops normally implies that someone's well being is in danger and you'll often need the threat of deadly force to get them to comply (doesn't work well with the mentally ill obviously).

In all, I mean yeah maybe 75% of jurors are biased towards police or something, but there seems to be a good reason why they're often getting acquitted of wrongdoing. I won't argue there's a discipline/training/corruption problem with some police departments and racist isn't an issue though.

Nope. Jeez, haven't you seen the Monkey Paw in Simpsons Treehouse of Horror II? I bet you're one of them.

Guns are basically the "solution" for overcoming a power inequality. A sword, club, sickle, longbow, etc. They all take skill and physical power to use. A gun requires minimal physical strength and skill to operate on a basic level but one of the greatest forces a person can personally wield. I believe the gun is the staple of human technological advancement. Even if you believe it's "evil", I think it's an inevitable product of technological advancement. Besides if we make all the stapleguns and nailguns and glueguns disappear we'd lose out on time and money in furniture/wood fields. Why would you be against economic efficiency? What did craftsmen do to you?

Btw you should instead of saying "gun" say "firearms" and possibly "non-historical" and stuff like that. Honestly I hate that this thread has devolved into a gun violence thread because of your tumblr post, but it's already done. I'm fine with guns, even if they make the world a more dangerous place. I'd rather see corruption and retarded though processes disappear before guns do. Heck, why not just remove the homicidal nature from humans instead of guns? I don't get the point of hypotheticals like these where you pick a random smaller issue instead of the biggest issue(s).

We tumblr now?

It's surprising easy to outrun a car through an alley or residential. You should try that some time and see how cars catch up to people who know how to use their surroundings (unless you think it'd be better to just run him over right away).