TF2 Update and "contribute"

[Pocket]

You know, I just remembered what they said in the commentary about how characters and weapons in the game were designed to be as distinctive as possible. Won't having a dozen visual variations of each weapon royally screw that up, no matter how selective Valve is about choosing them? There are already a grand total of 46 distinct weapons and items visible to other players (I left off the watches and PDAs but included the paper mask), with presumably three more on the way for the Engineer, with some already hard to distinguish from each other at a glance. Possibly more than any other FPS ever. Adding different looking versions of these same weapons will only make it worse, especially for new players.

 

[Ninjilla]

I think the whole idea of that was toned down a bit as they kept releasing weapons. But overall you can still whats what and who is who on the battle filed from sound cues and death icons and many items still look varied.

 

[Thingy Person]

You know, I just remembered what they said in the commentary about how characters and weapons in the game were designed to be as distinctive as possible. Won't having a dozen visual variations of each weapon royally screw that up, no matter how selective Valve is about choosing them? There are already a grand total of 46 distinct weapons and items visible to other players (I left off the watches and PDAs but included the paper mask), with presumably three more on the way for the Engineer, with some already hard to distinguish from each other at a glance. Possibly more than any other FPS ever. Adding different looking versions of these same weapons will only make it worse, especially for new players.

Where do you people get the information that these will be skins for existing weapons? Why do they ask you who can use the item you're uploading on the upload page rather than having you select from existing weapons?

 

[Hawk]

Nobody's saying that's for sure what Valve is going to do, but most of us think they'll probably stick with their principles when including user-created content--that is, weapons that don't vary wildly from the norm.

I assume they're not going to give the soldier a giant laser gun. Examples of things I think they would put in? A different kind of soda for the Scout and they would assign it slightly different effects. Or a somewhat different-looking shield to replace the Demoman's Targe. Or a slightly different rocket launcher for the Soldier with a larger clip size but some other downside.

I don't expect the community weapons to become a TF2 free-for-all.