are we ever

[Bridget]

Originally Posted by Iggy

I'm opposed to anything that removes the skill from the game. I'm not profficiant at everything, far from it. But I believe that removing the skill based part of the game will do nothing more than echo what TF2 has done to the genre. That said, I do favor changes that will allow beginners to learn to the game, and allow them to become veterans capable of competing with current vets.

Team Fortress 2 removed no skill, in fact I would argue Team Fortress 2 requires more skill to play at higher levels than Fortress Forever. Team Fortress 2 has a lot of casual players, which you ignorantly assume means the game is a skill-less shit-fest of easy, because the entry standard is so low. Players can immediately enjoy the game, and aspiring to a higher standard of play is completely optional.

Fortress Forever is different. There is no low entry standard, and as a result, there is no breathing room for the beginner. It is a do-or-die situation. You must either know how to play the game beforehand or have a huge dedication toward learning to jack yourself up to a standard suitable even for public play. Considering there is no low entry standard, players have no “foundation” to chill on while aspiring to higher levels of play, so they will just join a server, deathmatch as Pyro, then move on to a game where they can actually do something that feels satisfying.

Do you even play Team Fortress 2 actively? I mean, you were so confident in assuming my knowledge was incomplete because I didn’t actively beta test for Fortress Forever, so why not be a little consistent, and admit your opinion means jack-shit because you don’t play Team Fortress 2?

Originally Posted by Iggy

Part of the problem, lies with the gamer of today. I've said it countless times. Gamers want to be able to just join in, and kick ass... you know, pwn people.

Yeah, Iggy, it’s called a video game. It’s a source of entertainment, and as such, people want instant gratification; fucking deal with it. There’s nothing wrong with that. My suggestions have always been that beginners need something to tie them over on their way to mastery, something like the following:

Entry -- Gratification -- Gratification -- Gratification -- Gratification --> Mastery

But, people like you somehow lack the brain capacity to see how you could make the game instantly gratifying to beginners or people aspiring to mastery by making the progress itself pleasing, so you inflate the idea of instant gratification in your heads to mean removing the line to mastery, to make the game immediately conquerable (1) because you’re still stuck in the idea that gratification should only come from mastery (2).

1. Entry -- Poof --> Mastery
2. Entry ---------------------------------------> Mastery, Resulting Gratification

Originally Posted by Iggy

You talk out of your ass about doing this, that and the other thing. You know damned well that we have few active Devs(and I don't see people knocking down the doors to assist), and that the time they have is very limited. Yet you sit there and keep tossing out rants about how they should dedicate every waking moment to a game that frankly, they won't make a penny off of. These are people with real life jobs, families, and responcibilities.

Instead of bitching all the time, why don't you do something positive for a change? You put enough effort into being a negative nancy, redirect it and do something positive for once.

I have recognized this in the past, Iggy, why do you continue to bring it up? I realize there are only so many developers, all volunteering their time, and as such, only so much time and resource is available. That doesn’t justify that time and resource going to waste. Seriously, if you guys were using your time and resource toward fixing actual problems, I would be totally forgiving with the delays (to be honest, if you focused on what needed to get done, these delays wouldn’t exist.) but from my experience in the beta, that hasn’t been the case. What little time and resource has gone to waste on silly changes that will probably never make it to a patch. That’s what pisses me off; the terrible allocation of time and resource. As a result of your inability to simply focus on what needs to get done, the game’s progress is hindered, and players wait a year or two for a fucking patch.

And, please, stop trying to shovel the blame on to me. Why do you do this stupid tactic every time I am critical? "Fortress Forever sucks, okay, Bridget, why don't you do something about it?" It's mostly because I am not in a position to do that. I don't have the technical ability to do it. I have offered my skills to other facets of Fortress Forever development, but they have all been denied. I offered to write for you guys, but that was turned down. I want(ed) to write for the Wiki, but no effort has been made to fix the Wiki, which has been broken for months now. I, and others, have done a lot of positive things within our ability, even if you can not or do not acknowledge them.