Team Fortress 2 is utterly brilliant. While every so often Valve will release an update that breaks the game balance (every new class update seems to about do that), overall they do a pretty good job of maintaining a balanced game while keeping things fresh and interesting.
When we play (a few times a week mainly), we’re usually playing the control-point maps, which basically entail standing on control points to capture them with the goal of capturing all points and winning the round. I also happen to enjoy the “payload” maps, where you push a cart along a defined track, with a bomb strapped to it, trying to blow up the other team’s base.
When we first started playing, we did nothing but play 2-fort, which is a “capture the flag” map. The flag, in the case of TF2, is a briefcase filled with enemy intelligence. 2-fort was a familiar map from the original Team Fortress game and we literally never left it… for days on end. So needless to say we’re a little burnt out on CTF and 2-fort.
Anyway, on to the subject matter… I usually play medic, and occasionally Pyro or Engineer. I would prefer to get a drop that’s a medic hat, but I would also like the fireman’s hat for Pyro or any of the engineer hats with a preference to the welding helmet.
Two of my friends both play soldier almost exclusively. One of them got a really great medic hat, and eventually grew tired of waiting for the trade function to be implemented so he crafted it into scrap metal.
The other night while playing, I got the brand new soldier’s drill-sergeant hat… it’d only been available for a few hours at that time. We still have no trade option.
Words can’t describe how terrible I am at playing soldier… ironic really, considering that back when I was good at Quake or QuakeWorld (and by good, I like to think I’d have been competitive good back then, if only competitive tournaments existed where I lived) my preferred weapon was the rocket launcher. I remember one time on dm3 running down the stairs from the rocket launcher room and nailing a triple airshot. Granted the range wasn’t huge, but it was still impressive.
It was nothing for me to go into a public game and amass several hundred kills quite quickly… despite it being free-for-all deathmatch, people would actually gang up on me with their strategy being preventing me from getting to where the rocket launcher was.
God I wish I could get that good at a game again. 