How do you guys do it??

[gold163]

I think when you reach the point of over 2,200 hours played, your playtime vastly outnumbers your menu/loading/etc. downtime. That stuff can only be a couple dozen hours at most.

[Acrylik]

u have a tendency to not play the mmo even when you're logged on to the game at times. i used to sit around afk in eve and wow a lot either waiting for people to do 2's/3's or waiting for a fleet to form up/wartargets to undock or enter system.

[gold163]

A friend once remarked that MMOs are glorified chat rooms for nerds. No offense to MMO fans, but I think it's partly true. :/

[AppleShrapnel]

A friend once remarked that MMOs are glorified chat rooms for nerds. No offense to MMO fans, but I think it's partly true. :/

None taken, and I agree completely.

It's nice having such a fun lobby. What other chat room can you run around with friends and kill things?

I think when you reach the point of over 2,200 hours played, your playtime vastly outnumbers your menu/loading/etc. downtime. That stuff can only be a couple dozen hours at most.

Most likely, yes. It really kinda depends on the person and how chatty they are, I suppose... *shrug* I guess he really likes TF2.

EDIT: Oh hey, post #100... what do I win?

[AttackGorilla]

I was in a hardcore guild in Darkfall where people admittedly were broke, out of a job, and still spent all day and night playing the game, and that is all they would do (other than making a quick run to McDonalds or something). It always made me feel so bad every time I would hear over one person's headset their baby crying in the background and they would continue playing the game completely unaffected. Some people just get obsessed I guess...

[gold163]

Woah, holy shit. O_o;

[TheRani]

It's also possible that it's counting the time he stays logged in and leaves it idle while he's doing other stuff.

[gold163]

Maybe, but he posts screenshots pretty regularly. I think he's legitimately playing the game for the most part, which amazes me but after reading the replies in the topic it's more understandable.

[Cactuscat222]

Maybe, but he posts screenshots pretty regularly. I think he's legitimately playing the game for the most part, which amazes me but after reading the replies in the topic it's more understandable.

It is also probably 50% Hats. Hats are always the answer.

o.o

[JoystickMonkey]

TF2 - 750 hours played.

[Irony]

Well first we go out to a nice dinner, maybe a movie.

When we get to my place, i'll play some soft music. Maybe something romantic, light some candles and...

.....

Wait, why's everyone talking about TF2?

[Heatinmyharbl]

I actually just checked all my steam friends play times for TF2 for kicks gold163, and my good friend's time played blows yours outta the water. XD

Granted, my friend's probably been playing for a much longer time frame, but, he has logged 4315 hours on TF2. I can guarantee all of you he is the dirtiest spy you will ever see.

[gold163]

O_O

Yeah I guess there's a correlation between total playtime and skill as the Spy, because I am a TERRIBLE spy.

[Zidders]

I had 2k hours in TF2, 99% of that on medic.


That was in early 2011. Since then, I don't play as much. I reset my stats in 2010 because I'd done a lot of acheivements and wanted to watch my stats as medic a lot more, see how I was performing, whether or not there were areas of my gameplay I could focus on and improve. I've put in almost 400 as medic since then. I started playing TF2 in 2008. I actually got most of my hours in when I was still working (I didn't become disabled until late 2008) full time, paying bills, putting a roof over my mate and i's heads.

We still spent plenty of time together, it's just that instead of watching tv and doing other things, I played TF2. I don't think 2,200 hours doing something you absolutely love is a bad thing, necessarily. It all depends on the circumstances. Your friend might just really like TF2. I personally love playing medic for a lot of reasons, the main one being that it's one of the few things i've ever been amazingly good at. I don't say that because I have a huge ego-it's just a fact. I've always been good at support roles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH4D7Uod4Cg
This is MY jam

[Heatinmyharbl]

I've honestly never even really tried spy, just doesn't fit my FPS style. That being said, he is also an incredibly filthy Demoman/Huntsman Sniper. He's just incredibly good at the game in general, tends to happen when you have over 4k hours logged. His spy is definitely his best though. My favorite class to play in TF2 is medic, and I've avoided being back stabbed tons of times just because I've watched my friend play spy a lot and I know that you can NEVER be standing still or facing one direction for more than a second in that game.

My best shooter is definitely Halo, though. Grew up on Halo/console shooters. Such a shame Call of Duty is so bad

[gold163]

At the risk of turning this into a Call of Duty thread, I think the series suffers much of the same stigma that Diablo 3 does.

[Zidders]

At the risk of turning this into a Call of Duty thread, I think the series suffers much of the same stigma that Diablo 3 does.

The difference between TF2 and D3 is the fact that everything in the MAnnCo store (with a very few exceptions-I believe the only items you had to buy were the hats they were selling to raise money for Japan after the tsunami) also drops in game. The only time you're limited as to what drops you get is when you're a free player..and then all you have to do is buy an item-no matter the cost-and the restriction is removed.

You don't ever need any special drop to enjoy the full game. The vanilla weapons work just fine. All the new fangled weapons are balanced in a way that makes them fun alternates but every weapon is just as viable as another. Every weapon comes with pros and cons. It means people start out with a supply of weapons that allow for a variety of play styles, while all the extra weapons that have been added afterwards allow people to fine tune their playstyle.

It's funny-people claim all the new weapons make the game easier, less complicated to play. I've played enough medic to know that the game really hasn't changed all that much, it's just that it's making it a bit easier for people who wouldn't normally have been able to get into FPS games and become good at them an easier learning curve.

Trust me- you won't last long against a team of good players unless you get good yourself. No matter HOW easy a weapon might seem to make a class to play, it won't matter because it just means people who are already good at that class will start playing amazingly well, instead of just 'good'.

[gold163]

The difference between TF2 and D3 is the fact that everything in the MAnnCo store (with a very few exceptions-I believe the only items you had to buy were the hats they were selling to raise money for Japan after the tsunami) also drops in game. The only time you're limited as to what drops you get is when you're a free player..and then all you have to do is buy an item-no matter the cost-and the restriction is removed.

You don't ever need any special drop to enjoy the full game. The vanilla weapons work just fine. All the new fangled weapons are balanced in a way that makes them fun alternates but every weapon is just as viable as another. Every weapon comes with pros and cons. It means people start out with a supply of weapons that allow for a variety of play styles, while all the extra weapons that have been added afterwards allow people to fine tune their playstyle.

It's funny-people claim all the new weapons make the game easier, less complicated to play. I've played enough medic to know that the game really hasn't changed all that much, it's just that it's making it a bit easier for people who wouldn't normally have been able to get into FPS games and become good at them an easier learning curve.

Trust me- you won't last long against a team of good players unless you get good yourself. No matter HOW easy a weapon might seem to make a class to play, it won't matter because it just means people who are already good at that class will start playing amazingly well, instead of just 'good'.

That's all well and true but what does that have to do with Call of Duty or anything I said?

And I do think the game (TF2) has changed, and not for the better. Honestly, the game was always easy to get into to begin with. Right now, however, certain weapons just give a class too much power in many cases as far as I'm concerned. Demoknights being an extreme example. The Chargin' Targe -- whose brilliant idea was it to give Demomen resistance to like 90% of the game's weaponry? I don't think that's very balanced. And practically every new Demoman melee has this insane range that makes it really unfair to go up against. The Huntsman is pretty bad, too. For the longest time the idea of giving the Sniper a weapon that does so much damage without needing to charge for very long just stuck out to me as wrong. It still does, but the Machina's even worse because it just does so much damage no matter what. There's no counterplay to that. Stuff like this consistently ruins my enjoyment of what I used to consider a tightly balanced game. It sticks out too much for me to just ignore it most of the time. The vanilla weapons work fine, no argument there. Some of the dropped weapons are just ridiculously stupid. Spycicle, Your Eternal Reward, etc. are all game-changers. There's an absurd amount of things to keep track of. A lot of it depends less on skill and just knowing how certain dumb weapons work.

I still like the game but considering how much it's deviated from its original design in a number of ways, not the least of which is the stylistic consistency (seriously, the steampunk weapons do NOT belong in the game AND they look like total ass, not to mention the buttload of promotional items that really don't fit the original aesthetic by any stretch of the imagination), I just don't enjoy it or hold it in such high regard anymore. I think I would have played the game a LOT more if they had just been more careful with what they put into the game. Around the time Meet the Medic/Scout came out, I was fine with it. Then it just got worse and worse and now it's this clusterfuck of incredibly great ideas mixed in with horrendously terrible ones. The cons outweigh the pros to me. Whenever I log in now, it's just so I can get that next drop. If I reach my max per week I just lose the ability to care about the game until the next week. Eventually I lose interest and shelve the game for months on end. That's not a hallmark of a good game.

I also hate that Valve acknowledges how ridiculous hats are. Yes, it was funny at first. Then it was still kind of funny because they were being satirical. Now it's like a tired meme. People say "hats!" and I cringe. It's on the same level as Portal memes to me.

Spoiler: show

[AppleShrapnel]

People say "hats!" and I cringe. It's on the same level as Portal memes to me.

The hat is a lie.

*hides*

[Zidders]

That's all well and true but what does that have to do with Call of Duty or anything I said?
You mentioned the stigma. A large part of TF2's stigma is the cash shop
Demoknights
Situational awareness. Playing medic involves a lot of this. Be aware of your surroundings, have good headphones. The Demoknight has a charge sound that starts playing slightly before he charges-playing on a low ping server helps, too. They're pretty easy to avoid. About the only time I really ever fall prey to a DK is when things are really chaotic and I somehow end up in the middle of a crowd. This rarely happens unless the team is dealing with a bottleneck.
The Huntsman-
Again, while the crit is annoying, it's a really slow projectile and easily avoided if you're paying attention. Yeah, it's a cheap shot weapon but it's also really hard to use. You don't do well with it if all you depend on is cheap shots. You might not like it, but if someone is good with the huntsman, they more than likely deserve to be

Spycicle, Your Eternal Reward, etc. are all game-changers-
I agree but again, most of it falls down to knowing your class, paying attention and playing on a server known to be frequented mostly by good players or playing as part of a clan.

I still like the game but considering how much it's deviated from its original design in a number of ways

I guess I understand he sentiment. Fortunately for you, there are a large number of vanilla servers out there for you to enjoy. Speaking for myself? It's a cartoon. I like the goofiness and I would have gotten bored of it a long time ago if it weren't for the fact that all these new toys were added. I wish the medic had gotten more than he did but i'm happy with what he got. There's a reason he hasn't gotten more than what he has. His gear is probably the best tuned gear in the game. It's like having a medical bag full of custom made operating tools. No matter what the situation, all I have to do is quick switch my equipment and i'm ready to operate.

Though i'm giggling at someone who plays one cartoony game because it gives you more ways to customize your character and individualize it complaining that another, just as cartoony game let's you.

and that image is awesome!