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Finally, I was wondering what the hell the deal is. I support them 100%, and will honk at them while they picket. If that’s true and they just want 4 more cents, c’mon.

EndgameRadio Hero Chris Taylor talks about games, and if they can make you cry: Sob: Chris Taylor Talks Weepy Gamers

Let’s just say it right now: Video games are going to dominate the freaking future. You’ll see it in your own lifetime.

We’re warning you, though, it’s going to get weird. Beginning with …

This list was awesome up until they point they called the Burger King games ’shitty.’ I know it’s Cracked and it’s supposed to be funny but come on. Those games were amazing.

I still love the game but for various reasons my playtime has been cut down, and haven’t had time to raid. Only the minimum amount of arenas per week. They’ve been going well, we finally got our original 5 man back together. [Rogue, Warrior, Warlock, Druid, Paladin]… It’s not the most stacked group in terms of classes but my original plan with the team was to pick people I felt could get along with first and foremost, and then worry about playing/winning/losing.

Some of our teams highlights:
“The Pizza Game” - We had ordered pizza before the game started, which I realized a few games into our set was probably a bad idea. We get into an epic battle and of course the doorbell rings. I yell “Sorry just a minute.” and then get back into the game, and of course the guy knocks again, and it gets really awkward really quickly. I just apologize on vent ’sorry guys gotta get the pizza.’ I throw caution to the wind and just try to ressurect Ama, our warrior of death, and go run and get the pizza. When I come back and sit down, I see Ama running around, some rogue trying to beat on me, and the rest of their team dead. We won!
“5 Stealthers” - Blade’s Edge: We start our game and are met with… Nothing. The game says we’re against 5 people, but we see nobody. Obviously 5 stealthers, invis mages, etc etc. So we make the call to all jump onto the pillar, and wait. The second we hear a shanking noise, our Warlock starts to hellfire. Warlock kills 3 of ‘them,’ and then we finish off the other two. It was 5 rogues. Their team name was “Five Rouges.” Yes, I spelled it like they spelled it.

“2 Pallies is lol” - I’m in a 2v2 with two rogues and a ret pally (I play an arena healbot pally if you haven’t figured that by now). Normally the ret pally does games with one of the rogues but they weren’t around so I got in the games with the ret pally. Pallys are fun but I kind of assume we’re not going to win more then we lose, when we play ret+holy pallies. Playing with another paladin is fun as hell but they don’t really have the overall burst, and ret gear doesn’t have resilience so they tend ot be a bit squishy. So we zone into Blade’s Edge, and we see a pally and a warrior… and the pally… used to be in our guild? So I yell “ZOMG!” and he yells back “ZOMG!” and so we go to it. The ret pally and I do ‘bombing runs’ where we zoom into the pally and stunlock him and do what we can to burn him down, then when our cooldowns wear off, we split up and try to kite one or both of them around. Uusally the warrior is going after me, beating away on me while I try to juggle him long enough to get mortal strike off me. This bombing run pattern happens quite a few times, with one of us breaking off to try to get out of combat to get a few drinks in. This goes on for quite a while, until we manage to get the pally to bubble, and then burn him down again. He gets to 20, I hammer of wrath him, judge righteousness, he BoP’s himself, my friend can’t hurt him, I got nothing left, and that overextention left me below 20% health because the warrior was being on me, which means he chopped my head off with an execute. This was FOURTEEN MINUTES LATER, and we lost by 6%. Really fun though, in terms of playing with a team that’s more about control and skill then mashing buttons and hoping for big numbers.

And then last nights epic game, “OUR DPS IS DEAD!” - This requires a bit of a background: When we were leveling a warrior to be an MS warrior in our group, our Druid and Warlock focused on playing together in a 2v2. They got to about 2100 rating and were, I think, broke top 20 on our server. The pairing is just redonkulous. Between the druids cyclone CC-supreme, and the Warlocks curse of Exhaustion Spec, it’s just a retarded duo. Add to this that our Druid is probably the best BG/world PVP healer I’ve ever seen, (I’ve always stood by druids being the best BG healers because HoTs > direct heals if your team is good, because you can MOVE…) He is so slippery and you just can’t kill him. The lock is just geared to the teeth and a really smart player. I say all this because these two have seen the cream of the crop in terms of teams, and have come across some of the best Arena players in the game (our battlegroup: the cluser of people we play with, are home to many of the teams that topped off the official tournaments, and is also home to the Tichondrius server, which is hailed as the most brutal server ever.) As a result, the druid especially houses much resentment over Warriors as at that level of play and gear they are just retarded.

Now, I play a crapton with the rogue on our team, he’s my rogue squadron, I’m his pocket healer. We make people die. We join BGs just and only to kill people, not to win, just to murder. So we have teamwork there too. He makes people go away. Our warrior has been playing warrior since before beta, so has grown with all the changes, and is also our MT. but instead of respeccing and re-gearing every week, we just level’d a gnome to be an MS warrior.

So we get into a fight with a wonky group, I actually can’t remember the class makeup at the time, but due to my nubness, a few of our players dropped so we went back and forth and ended up with myself and the druid standing, along with their warrior and paladin standing. Our druid gives the expected hemming and hawing about how stupid warriors are (They are, mind you,) so he and I decided to be dicks and just see how long we can last. He says “We can’t win, we have no DPS…” Between his amazing HoTs and my mana legs, they can’t put enough of a dent in us to kill us. I hadn’t even used my bubble yet. Just as we decided to relent and let them kill us, we see the paladin try to res someone, (Which we interrupt) and that gave me new hope and inspiration to do so myself. So I run out of line of sight and start a res. The druid kept the two of them locked up long enough so that the res actually went off, and I res’d the rogue. We get the rogue back into fighting shape, so that gave me enough time to sneak away and res our warlock, who we then also topped off and brought back into the fight. Lastly, just to be a dick, I picked up our gnome, dusted her off, pulled her soul back from lands past, gave her back her soul and sent her back into the fight to help win what was one of the most ridiculous comebacks in any game I’ve ever played. Normally in that situation I would have bent over and gotted’ but never give up!

Not an arena story, but a fun Battleground story:
Myself and 3-4 other guildies zone into an Alrathi Basin game, (along with a few arena-mates as well, which is an important note: playing with your arena team members makes you hardcore.) Sure enough we see that we are up against a server group, Blackrock I think. A few of the random non-guildies are like “Ah well, a guild group. Everyone farm honor and defend stables.” I speak up. “NO. WE ALL GO TO MINE.THEY WILL NOT BREAK US.” The gates open and we all run to mine. They quickly 4 capped the other nodes but then when they came down to mine, we ripped them a new asshole. They slowly churned away, coming down into the meat grinder, only to get destroyed. If anyone of our 15 people got killed, they came back less then 30 seconds later with full health and mana. 8 Minutes we held Mine. I got 320,000 healing, and didn’t die. It was so epic.

I play WoW for PVP so these are the things that make me cheer out loud.

Steam - Steam is awesome, I had no idea. The tech is great, I had all the games installed and ready to play in a very short time, all ready to be played with just a simple double-click. The whole friends concept I understand to be fairly new? But it works well. So far my favorite feature is the ability to queue up for a server and wait to hop in when the next slot opens up. And again, since the functionality is inside of the games, you can queue up to join a game, and if it’s slow-going you can enter ANOTHER game and play while you’re waiting. It makes playing with your friends incredibly easy, you just have to wait. This is a HUGE perk in my eyes, as just ‘playing games with friends’ is a huge, huge priority for me.

The profiles are awesome as well, check me out, yo.

And in case you missed my spam, my tag is Sharkzug, (evilzug was taken, probably by me, but I can’t find my password and it won’t send it to me.)

Team Fortress - OMG.
Just plain OMG. Where do I start.

Playing each class is such a different experience. Playing a Spy is entirely different then playing a Soldier. Each class has it’s Strengths and weaknesses. Here’s a quick rundown:
They divided them conceptually into 3 categories:
Offense:
–Scout: Fast as all hell, caps points super fast. Can double-jump higher and farther then other classes. Few Hitpoints, meant to be more agile then a powerhouse. I.e. dancing around a heavy weapon guy and beating him down with a bat instead of trying to outgun him.
–Soldier: Rocket does awesome splash damage and knockback. Sort of slow, only has 4 shots until a fairly slow reload, but good all-around. Very good pick-up-and-play class. Somewhat weaker up close because rockets are harder to aim.
–Pyro: Good ambushing class. Fire does damage-over-time, and great for spamming in big skirmishes. Very deadly up close but you’re not chasing anyone down. Pretty tough, same HP as a Soldier. Great for exposing spies because the fire keeps burning. Underplayed/misunderstood for sure.
Defense:
–Demoman: Grenade launcher and mine-planter. Spammable attacks, like grenades can be banked off surfaces. Leaving mines in places is a psychological deterrent too.
–Heavy Weapons Guy: Slowest class, biggest target, but most hitpoints. Super spammy spray of bullets but you slow to a crawl when using it.
–Engineer: Super defensive, can build and support turrets, resupply dispensers and teleports. Weak personal weapons.
Support:
–Medic: Healing gun heals and then buffs allies to 150% health capacity. Relatively weak weapon.
–Sniper: Capable of picking off people. Laser sight exposes if/where you’re aiming at. Have to hold aim for about 5 seconds before it goes to full power (one shot kill?), while you’re aiming your field of view is very restricted.
–Spy: So much to say about one class, haha. Able to impersonate any class, friend of foe. You appear to the enemy as one of them, basically. However, on any attack (shoot or knife,) your costume drops. Capable of going into stealth for about 10 seconds, that recharges in about 30. If you get behind someone and stab them with a knife it’s an instant one-shot, no matter the class. Relatively weak amount of HP, pistol is powerful but single shots and harder to aim. Can also use a ‘electronic sapper’ item that doesn’t break stealth when used but disables any of the engineers items (Turrent/dispenser/teleporter). The engineer can wrench the sappers off but while they are slowly doing damage, they are disabled and leave the engineer with the choice of fixing turrets or shooting at the spy.

Let me be clear: All of the classes are fun. So far I’ve got the most epic thrills from playing Soldier and Spy.

My soldier skills come out when I’m playing defense on 2 fort. I lumber around the base and shoot at anything that moves. If it’s a spy, it gibs, if not I trade a few rockets and then if I take so much as a scratch I head back and get health back. I had a run of 19 points and 16 kills in one life. The momentum really builds, it gets so thrilling when you just nail two and then three people in a row, or you pick a little dinky scout of the air with a totally lucky shot. Splash-damaging people is awesome too, especially scouts trying to double jump off the roof of the bridge. It’s simple pleasures, belting 4 rockets at the enemy’s rampart, running away to reload, and seeing the scoreboard report that a sniper just got gib’d. I love it!

I’ve also had some amazing runs as a spy. At first I didn’t think it would be something that I’d enjoy, I never really was any good at the class. I gave it a shot and in a matter of a few kills, the long-repressed murdering bloodthirsty Rogue in me bubbled to the surface. Just the ‘psychological’ game alone can be fun for hours, even just antagonizing one individual just to get under their skin and remove them from the effective game. My most rockstar game was I think on Gravel, on offense, pushing into the last point for Red. There’s the cap platform in the back, but next to it is a rock with a healing case on the other side, a natural and clear shot for a sniper. I run in as a spy, dressed as a sniper and just camp that area. Because people are pushing so hard, they tend not to notice. If I catch any stray bullets, that healing pack brings me back to full life. If anyone wanders around the corner, like a soldier or a sniper or HW to take advantage of the long range enjoys a knife to the back. If I’m feeling daring I’ll dip out to sap some of the turrets that are usually placed, and then vanish and run on the far side of the spawn point for them. They run away from you so you can shift into an offensive class and nobody questions you cuz you’re coming from the spawn point. A good exercise in spy-ing is to just see how long you can live in their base, ‘defending’ and not even trying to kill anyone. Just looking like you’re fitting in. 6 backstabs in one life, not too shabby. The opposite is fun as well, waiting until you hear a big firefight in your base, shifting to a support/helper class like pyro or medic, and then running into the fray to ‘back up’ your friends. They get confident they have people behind them helping them out, so they tend to not turn around as much. Wait for that heavy weapon to spin up or that demoman to aim and bank his shots and SHANKsplat.

The average of 24 people to a server feels perfect, too. With 9 classes to choose from, you have to take that into consideration, and it sets a tone for your success or failure. Seeing 4 engineers for example, can be good to see if you’re on a defensive posture, but really bad if you’re trying to push and take points.

Team and class synergy really shines for a few classes.
Heavy Weapon + Engineer - Impenetrable spray of cover fire. A well placed turret, dispenser, engineer, and HW spray so many damn bullets you can’t even deal. And even if you can sneak a spy around to sap the turrets you have to shank two people quickly or get owned.
Medic + Any ‘Offensive’ Class - Scary to see if you’re on the business end of this pairing. Medic + HW is obvious: 450 hitpoints and a a spray of bullety showery doom is death. Medic + Soldier is a little more agile, but being able to take a few extra shots with my rocket while eating a shot or two in the face is awesome. Healer + Pyro - The pyros weakness is that it has to get into close range to coat people, but a Medic fills that weakness rather nicely.
Close Offense + Ranged Offense - Pyro + Soldier/HW is nuts. This is a little more advanced but if you get a good rhythm in, anyone nearby doesn’t know who to aim at.

I realized a bit into it that none of the classes have grenades of any kind. This used to be one of the cooler points of the game, with each class having it’s own types of grenades. You may even remember, in the character-introduction-teaser that they put up, the demoman takes out a sentry turret by throwing his double-explosion bomb thingy on it, and then the second set of explosives blow up the engineer. I missed them at first, but I’ve come to realize the game is much more balanced without them. Now, the defensive or camping classes like snipers and engineers are stronger, because not every class has some way to LOS them. Anyone can get good with a well-placed grenade but now you need teamwork and class balance to punch through.

This made me lololol, for reasons stated above. As a side note, many of the skills I’ve picked up playing a healer in WoW carry over into this game, especially using terrain for your advantage. I.e. letting the DPS and tanks guard the front and hiding out of line of site of enemies.

Check out my ownij at TF2 on my steam profile.

SO MUCH FUN. PLAY THE DAMN GAME.