They have had 2 weeks. We have had years. Imagine coming to TF2 for
the first time and you dont' have 9 classes with 3 weapons each to
learn, you have 9 classes each with 3 to 5 loadouts, each having the
possibility to VASTLY change how you play the class. During beta there
was only a handful of maps (that was one of the gripes I remember, so
few maps), so learning them all as they were added wasn't much of an
issue.
In making TF2 completely free you eliminate the credit-card problem of
a lot of potential players: either they don't have a credit card (or
more likely, Mom won't buy the game for them). By eliminating this
problem you introduce a wide variety of players to the TF2 userbase,
people who remember TFC, people who played Quake, people who were born
after Half-Life 2 was made. Just think about that last one for a
moment and feel terrible.
I'd love to see more teaching in TF2 but the game is harder to
recommend to new players just because if they don't want to learn a
bunch of mechanics or caveats then they are kind of out of luck - TF2
is fun in part because of the "controlled chaos" the battlefield can
feel like it has certain days.
A lot of good teaching comes from the players themselves though, if
you run a fun server and have people that like to use their mics (I
run an All-talk server so that helps in making it feel more casual),
then just get on the mic and let them know "rightclick helpimonfire
rightclickrightclick" and after enough time they will catch on. The
new players are good and bad - in one respect hunting spies has never
been easier (remember when we would decloak RIGHT behind someone,
mashing M1 to stab at the earliest convenience?), but getting a
coordinated push has gotten much more difficult.
Team Fortress 2 is a very team-based game, a lone wolf can only do so
much. This means any skill disparity on your team is felt in full -
but do not lament, for not ALL new players are terrible unteachable
messes.
On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 11:36 AM, ics <
ics@ics-base.net> wrote:
> I mean seriously, after 2 weeks ,they are still dumb as bricks.