I'm a relatively new on-line gamer (6 months) and I just wanted to pass on how much I enjoy your webpage. The commentary is spot on, and the forum is pretty helpful. I get a kick out of guys who have just started playing handing out the advice....but the forum is addictive. Just reading helped me understand that CL_Flushentitypacket is more of a server side issue than client side (I THINK that's what I got from that....). I have to watch out about replying to things too quickly myself. For the most part the main commentators in the forums seem to be intelligent with a good sense of humor.

While you are dishing out the helpful hints on how to employ cheats and ways to crash servers for the likes of the Addict of "Deth" and Player(1), maybe you could help me out with these items to improve my game.....

1. Spamming tips for improved Lag infliction. Is it better to spam as the HW or the pyro? Can you truly lock somebody's graphics card up by employing all Mirvs while a pyro is firing and dumping grenades in a 30 person battle of 2 fort?

1.1 Is it better to spam your own spawn room as an HW or a Demoman? How does FF enabled help out with this? I heard that if you get -50 on your score, you WIN!!!!

2. As a spy, can I feign in front of the spawn room door in 2 fort to impress my buddies? Everyone will stop at the door to see my neat trick.

3. How can I bind a lengthy message to a hot key to fill up the screen with my repeatedly witty "Shut-ups"? Everybody loves that!

Thanks for the help! Soon I will be Gret and all peeps will want to be down wtm e killa cLan!

La Bullette le Spounge

P.S. As a 56ker who bought cable service a week before the patch (TFC being the ONLY reason), I STILL say there's nothing as addictive as TFC (Biased, unexperienced opinion, but...). I think the patch is fine. I saw great improvement in members of my Clans play and overall reduction in their lag, and I thought it evened out the playing field somewhat. My only problem is with Flushentity, and it seems that the lower my lag is the more frequent it happens. Go figure.

There's nothing quite as thrilling as being called a no good rotten #@#$%^^$# LPB! It means I'm doing my job. So, until Duke Nukem teams up with Lara Croft in an on-line Panty Raider CTP, make mine TFC!

Slick: Lol, love the first part! Ahh, that made me feel better seeing that... For comentary by myself, uhmmm it's not uncomon that I see most people who like the patch (just like any other patch) It is true however that there are/were many clans that left TF 1.5 because they played TFC. I believe this was attributed due to the fact that there weren't any gameplay changes for about a year, then these were made that freaked everyone out. -- Ohh well, patch debates is old news anyway, lets move on to having fun with this game.

The December 18, 1998 "I Want My TF II" news post was NOT made when TF2 was going to be a free add on mod for Quake 2. It was made a short while after Half-Life was released. I remember reading that and thinking, "kick-ass, it's finally coming." Kind of ironic, I suppose.

Slick: Ahh, seems I did have my dates messed up. Thanks for pointing that out to me. -- I'm putting this in the mailbag for general reader knowledge. Robin must have made that just to assure people that TF2 would exist in the future.

ok here is whats on m mind

I think iputting in a mail bag is a great idea . however I don't think it should be all tech support lik the first one. Half that mail is from people who don't know their head from their ass as far as TFC goes. Id hate to insult people like that but its true. It took me 5 minutes to figure out how to update halflife. these mails are mostly from people who have the game for a day at most and are intent on looking at usefull websites or reading manuals. or just plain playing around with the game.

oh and one more thing

people who complain and complain about the changes in TF1.5 realy need to get a life. The only major changes are : less lag. better sniping. faster spy desguises . faster sentrygun updates , a more powerfull HW guy, and a less powerfull conc grenad. Half the people who are so damn mad complain about the conc jumping thing solley . Look the games makers said them selves that the conc jump was NEVER suposed to be that strong. I mean if thats your only way of winning as a scout/medic you must realy suck becouse its such a lame skill . a good sacout shouldn't need a conc grenade or even a gun for that matter all he needs is to be fast and smart enough to get in to the enemy base and get out. and as for the HW guy thing well if your stupid enough to get close enough to a HW guy for him to kill you fast , well you just suck at TFC

Slick: I'll let these opinions stand as they are. I've addressed it down below in the 'Slick Spot'

i have an idea. yes, single player team fortress. i'm obsessed and can't get enough. others, like me, only have 1 phone line and can't go on to play mplayer when they hunger. so, make a single player. it might be hard, but it could be easy. different parts of the game could be for seperate classes, start game and choose class to beat the game as(different missions for each), somehting of that sort. anyway, hope you hear me out on this one....i've really been thinking about it for some time now.

p.s. whoever the reader may be, please take a couple minutes to respond to me about what YOU think of the idea: great, ok, where's the beer?

Slick: Those of you who are veterans like myself will remember that originally TF was a single player mod for quake. And after that it was based on the idea of Lans, never really intended for the internet play.

It's still possible to play Quake start to finish as a TF Character (you pick at the beginning and give it hell). I played that myself a couple months ago just for memories. It was great fun.

Single Player TFC wouldn't be that hard really, it would take a team to do it as I see it though. -- Your tossed into a role as a sniper, you need to get in to an enemy installation, and snipe the ambassador, but first, a soldier or hw guy needs to clear the area outside for you. Each new map is a bunch of new rolls that would take bots and enemy AI to complete while you are a different character completing a task from detonating a facility to providing emergency cover for the prez. It's very possible, but it would take a whole team of developers to do it though (i.e. Valve) but I'd prefer Valve to produce TF2 with bots than TFC Single Player any day.

I have some thoughts, for those people who don't spend time to actually type with proper grammar. It's not hard to sit down and type properly..You know, it also makes you look like you've got a fully intelligent, educated self. I may get hated for my thoughts, but it's pretty crazy with all the superiority complexes, and people who think they '0wnz j00'.. I have to say this much. People are forgetting about what a game is made for......

Entertainment!

And you know what entertainment means, it means something to enjoy watching or having fun doing. Games are created for this very reason. And people shouldn't forget this. I want people to join to have fun, not to go for most frags, least deaths, and all that.... If you just have fun, sure, only time I see taking the game even remotely serious is a clan/squad match, or battle on that lines, other than that, it's all for FUN! This is to knock some sense into you serious folk.... It's fine to cuss or swear now and then, that's natural, but if you're having fun, there's no need to annoy other players... I see this happen everyday.

Slick: Grammar isn't the issue. There isn't anything wrong with celebrating a kill either (I tease my friends at a lan party all the time when I make a good bout with them) People just aren't nice on a public server all the time. Just play on servers where you know the admin (if you don't know one, find a favorite server and get to know the guy) then begin to get to know the people who frequent the servers, it'll prove useful to having a better game when you know on some level who your playing with. That's one things I loved about being in a clan, just playing on our server (in public mode) with other guys I knew from the clan. We demonstrated respect and just having a good time, and others would follow. It's just the mentality that people have when they play. Until one by one people realize that they should just have fun or give it a rest, there will be no end.

You are kidding right? Valve has screwed all of us who aren't 56k owners. This game is crap now. You want good net speed, buy a real modem! Valve can keep TF2. Your opinion is quite obviously bios. You haven't been spending the money we have for your speed. If this "user friendly" crap is the route Valve wishes to take, I say to Hell with Valve. To Hell with there garbage netcode! To Hell with there company. I'll buy other companies games, plenty out there. Clans are dropping like flies because of this. The entire TF community is disgusted by this rape of our game.

Fix it or we will leave!

[STAR]Vlad the Impaler

Slick: Read this article, then think it over again.