- Jul 30, 2021
- 762
- 475
Heyo, I'm back at it again. This time at 5am and while pretty tired so you bet your ass this is gonna be good.
Topic No. 1: My Journey to Work Today
So, lemme start you off with something that may/may not be relatable, depends on how old you are I guess. I take a, usually, 20-minute drive to work whenever I have a work day. (Gasp.) Today was a little different however. I left my house about ten minutes before I normally do; Why, you ask? Well, we had a planned road closure going on today and so I was going to have to take a longer detour route. "No problem!" I thought to myself, cluelessly. So I drive to the intersection where the road block was supposed to be, and to my utter shock, the road is open and cars are going down it. "Huh, I guess it must be clear then." I say as I roll a -1 for perception and drive down the main road despite the roadblocks still being present, just not halting our progress. So I march forward, driving a couple miles, until I get to a stoplight where the main road intersects with the quarry road. Now, this wouldn't be strange... if it weren't for the work truck sitting its fat ass in front of both lanes. So, as it turns out, the road was in fact closed. "No problem!" I thought yet again as I angrily yet diligently turned around and went 80 in a 60 back towards the intersection, blowing past one of my fellow cars when it was legal to. And back at the intersection I was, stuck behind a truck that was going a smooth 55. Reluctantly I maintained my speed behind them, after all these were the back roads I was about to go on. And just when I get to the spot I was supposed to detour to... "ROAD CLOSED" on the dirt path to the right on me. "ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS!?" I yelled in my car, probably scaring away a flock of birds. So, I had no idea how to get to work, and was just following the other road. I call my boss. "What? That road ain't supposed to be closed." rings through my ear as I hold my phone up to my face, freezing inside my car. I'm in the middle of nowhere basically, following a road I've never been on and having no idea how to get to work. I was losing time, so I finally bit the bullet and stopped in yet another dirt road to pull up google maps. As it turns out, it was a pretty simple way back. Just cross more dirt roads! Oh joy. So I did just that, and lemme tell ya something... them roads weren't kind to me at all. My poor car was raddling, rumbling, trembling with such force that it felt like I was on a wooden rollercoaster. And I ain't even been on too many rollercoasters before! There were so many bumps in the road, potholes, mildly slick mud, and of course the puddles from last night's rain. Good god almighty it was a trip. But I made it, and I still managed to make it to work on time somehow. ...to a work with no functioning computers, mind you, but work nonetheless.
Topic No. 2: A Post-Tropic Crisis World
So, it's been enough of a "hot minute" to talk about this, right? We're cool? Well, even if we're not, I'm gonna go into how I feel about it. Tropic Crisis, to me, is purely about the maps. I do like some of the weapons, the... one, warpaint I've seen, I haven't really seen the cosmetics, and the killstreak/unusual effect stuff is pretty cool. But for serious, it's about the maps to me. And unfortunately, I really don't think Tropic Crisis has a very strong selection to pick from. The maps were Embargo, Favela, Cachoeira, Patagonia, Salvador, and Overgrown. So, let's get into it, shall we?
Topic No. 3: Frustrations with the TF2Maps Staff
So, this is a bit of a touch subject, and I know I'm definitely biting the hand that feeds here, but I do think it needs to be addressed. There's been a severe lack of people getting trained to be hosts lately, and a general lack of tests in general. To me, this should not be happening; After all, it's Summer, right? At least here in the US it is anyway. And yet despite this, it's only been me and a couple people actually hosting tests on the American side of things for a while now. Now, don't get me wrong, I do enjoy hosting. I mean come on, who else would want to play a buncha custom maps? But I do have like, human limits y'know? I need breaks just like other people do, and especially so since starting my StD test nights. They're fun, but they're long and exhausting. And when I'm gone it really feels like not a lot happens over here, and it's frustrating! Maybe that's a bit egocentric, idk. But what I have seen a lot of over the last two months or so is that, despite multiple people asking, multiple times for training, apparently "no mods" are ever available TO train people. Now look, I ain't gonna name names, but there's definitely some people who never even seem to try to answer the call. Like they don't give an excuse, they just don't say anything, even when online. It's... really, deeply upsetting to me, to see that happen. I wish a lot more of our staff was visibly active here. That probably won't ever happen but like, man. You signed up for this, can't you please be here a bit more and do stuff around here?
Topic No. 4: I'm Running for Moderator
Yeah it's as simple as it sounds. I submitted an application a couple of weeks ago. I want to try and get things moving around on TF2Maps a bit more speedily. More map tests, more communication with the public, hopefully some fulfilled ideas... I understand I may not be the best for the job in all aspects but I'm trying to do what I can just as a VIP to improve things around these parts. I love TF2 Maps, and I like TF2Maps, so to me this is a pretty good win/win either way. I want to train people, I want to spread what knowledge I have, I want to give people a fun time every Wednesday Night at 7:00PM and have it MEAN something! Hahahahaha XD. I really wanna thank the people who keep coming by weekly to play, y'all are awesome and make me so happy I get to do what I love, even when I'm horrendously losing. I wanna keep trying, man.
...aaaaaaaaaaaand that wraps it up today. I typed for an hour and a half, OOF. But now I gotta pack up to get home, I gotta go down that terrible road again remember? Lol. Hope y'all have a nice one, it's nice just jabbering these jaws around every once in a while.
Topic No. 1: My Journey to Work Today
So, lemme start you off with something that may/may not be relatable, depends on how old you are I guess. I take a, usually, 20-minute drive to work whenever I have a work day. (Gasp.) Today was a little different however. I left my house about ten minutes before I normally do; Why, you ask? Well, we had a planned road closure going on today and so I was going to have to take a longer detour route. "No problem!" I thought to myself, cluelessly. So I drive to the intersection where the road block was supposed to be, and to my utter shock, the road is open and cars are going down it. "Huh, I guess it must be clear then." I say as I roll a -1 for perception and drive down the main road despite the roadblocks still being present, just not halting our progress. So I march forward, driving a couple miles, until I get to a stoplight where the main road intersects with the quarry road. Now, this wouldn't be strange... if it weren't for the work truck sitting its fat ass in front of both lanes. So, as it turns out, the road was in fact closed. "No problem!" I thought yet again as I angrily yet diligently turned around and went 80 in a 60 back towards the intersection, blowing past one of my fellow cars when it was legal to. And back at the intersection I was, stuck behind a truck that was going a smooth 55. Reluctantly I maintained my speed behind them, after all these were the back roads I was about to go on. And just when I get to the spot I was supposed to detour to... "ROAD CLOSED" on the dirt path to the right on me. "ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS!?" I yelled in my car, probably scaring away a flock of birds. So, I had no idea how to get to work, and was just following the other road. I call my boss. "What? That road ain't supposed to be closed." rings through my ear as I hold my phone up to my face, freezing inside my car. I'm in the middle of nowhere basically, following a road I've never been on and having no idea how to get to work. I was losing time, so I finally bit the bullet and stopped in yet another dirt road to pull up google maps. As it turns out, it was a pretty simple way back. Just cross more dirt roads! Oh joy. So I did just that, and lemme tell ya something... them roads weren't kind to me at all. My poor car was raddling, rumbling, trembling with such force that it felt like I was on a wooden rollercoaster. And I ain't even been on too many rollercoasters before! There were so many bumps in the road, potholes, mildly slick mud, and of course the puddles from last night's rain. Good god almighty it was a trip. But I made it, and I still managed to make it to work on time somehow. ...to a work with no functioning computers, mind you, but work nonetheless.
Topic No. 2: A Post-Tropic Crisis World
So, it's been enough of a "hot minute" to talk about this, right? We're cool? Well, even if we're not, I'm gonna go into how I feel about it. Tropic Crisis, to me, is purely about the maps. I do like some of the weapons, the... one, warpaint I've seen, I haven't really seen the cosmetics, and the killstreak/unusual effect stuff is pretty cool. But for serious, it's about the maps to me. And unfortunately, I really don't think Tropic Crisis has a very strong selection to pick from. The maps were Embargo, Favela, Cachoeira, Patagonia, Salvador, and Overgrown. So, let's get into it, shall we?
- I think I'd like to start with the token "odd one out" of the bunch, which is Overgrown. I think Overgrown is a fantastic 2CP map. To me, it feels like it fixes most of the flaws Gorge has and that makes it quite the fun time. The reason why I single it out here though is that, well I mean simply put, it's not a Tropic Crisis map. Like, it wasn't made for it, it wasn't updated for it, hell it didn't even really get a bugfix (though tbf, not that it needs one as far as I can tell) for Tropic Crisis. It definitely feels out of place, and personally it just comes off as the team not having much faith in their own work (earned or not) to 'sell' well.
- Next up, we have a duo between Embargo and Salvador. I think both of these maps are pretty unenjoyable, from a mix of a gameplay and aesthetics department. In Embargo's case, the map just doesn't feel GOOD to play around in. There's a bunch of weird holds, the truck takes up a buncha space in the map and the map doesn't really work around the truck, the announcer is quiet and it's hard to hear when I need to like, really push myself to help my team... it's, ugh. It makes me frustrated. As for Salvador, I'm gonna be honest it's probably just my genuinely distaste for PD. Like, nothing against Midlou, love that dude, but I ain't a fan. Both of these maps suffered from some pretty "oof"-tier optimization issues last time I played them, which coincidentally was the Tropic Crisis Gameday I ran. Finally for these two, I genuinely just get a lot of sensory overload from both of them. There's a lot going on, the maps are pretty noisy texture-wise, it feels like they cram way too much into both maps and it makes them hard to play imo.
- I think next up will be Favela. Favela is a very weird spot for me. It feels like the map wants to be a deathmatch map, but it kinda just fails to do so because the map feels so... disconnected from itself? I felt like fights were very sparse and that the geometry around me was a lot larger than it should've been, like I was suffering from Alice in Wonderland Syndrome or something. And this isn't to mention the gamemode, which I'll admit is better than the last iteration of it that Blade made, but I still have some pretty strong feelings about it. I just like, idk man, it doesn't feel focused! It feels aimless.
- Next we'll do Patagonia. Patagonia feels... eh. I think it's a significant step-up from the Embargo, though I don't think that's saying much personally. What gets the map for me is that I feel like there's a lack of strong routing for BLU on both stages. I consistently felt like I wasn't able to push through the map unless we basically wiped all of RED, which probably isn't normal? There was never an instance where like, we had the "game-winning tap" on the cart, it was always just "die die die die die die die" and then "oh the enemy gamers got bored and unintentionally let us cap." I felt this really strongly on Stage 2, which at last just felt like a 1-choke. It just wasn't very fun.
- Finally, Cachoeira. This map I feel is the most competently made of the bunch, though I will admit I may have a bit of bias when I say that given I directly gave feedback on its older counterpart, koth_oar. That said, I still can't understate enough how poor of a decision I think it was to keep the spawns facing away from each other. It fucks with player flow so badly, and unironically I found myself defaulting to walking into the wall side of the spawn area just because the map was mirrored and has messed up flow. Players don't want to turn their mouse right out of spawn, they want to walk FORWARD! Augh! Sorry, had to get that one outta me. I remember having some lag issues on the map as well, though they may have been fixed by now.
Topic No. 3: Frustrations with the TF2Maps Staff
So, this is a bit of a touch subject, and I know I'm definitely biting the hand that feeds here, but I do think it needs to be addressed. There's been a severe lack of people getting trained to be hosts lately, and a general lack of tests in general. To me, this should not be happening; After all, it's Summer, right? At least here in the US it is anyway. And yet despite this, it's only been me and a couple people actually hosting tests on the American side of things for a while now. Now, don't get me wrong, I do enjoy hosting. I mean come on, who else would want to play a buncha custom maps? But I do have like, human limits y'know? I need breaks just like other people do, and especially so since starting my StD test nights. They're fun, but they're long and exhausting. And when I'm gone it really feels like not a lot happens over here, and it's frustrating! Maybe that's a bit egocentric, idk. But what I have seen a lot of over the last two months or so is that, despite multiple people asking, multiple times for training, apparently "no mods" are ever available TO train people. Now look, I ain't gonna name names, but there's definitely some people who never even seem to try to answer the call. Like they don't give an excuse, they just don't say anything, even when online. It's... really, deeply upsetting to me, to see that happen. I wish a lot more of our staff was visibly active here. That probably won't ever happen but like, man. You signed up for this, can't you please be here a bit more and do stuff around here?
Topic No. 4: I'm Running for Moderator
Yeah it's as simple as it sounds. I submitted an application a couple of weeks ago. I want to try and get things moving around on TF2Maps a bit more speedily. More map tests, more communication with the public, hopefully some fulfilled ideas... I understand I may not be the best for the job in all aspects but I'm trying to do what I can just as a VIP to improve things around these parts. I love TF2 Maps, and I like TF2Maps, so to me this is a pretty good win/win either way. I want to train people, I want to spread what knowledge I have, I want to give people a fun time every Wednesday Night at 7:00PM and have it MEAN something! Hahahahaha XD. I really wanna thank the people who keep coming by weekly to play, y'all are awesome and make me so happy I get to do what I love, even when I'm horrendously losing. I wanna keep trying, man.
...aaaaaaaaaaaand that wraps it up today. I typed for an hour and a half, OOF. But now I gotta pack up to get home, I gotta go down that terrible road again remember? Lol. Hope y'all have a nice one, it's nice just jabbering these jaws around every once in a while.
