Rhythm Stick

Almost immediately after I thought my idea well had run dry, I hit on something of an idea. A rhythmic melee weapon. Basically, the weapon charges on a timed charge bar. The bar fills up, and if you can land the hit just as the bar hits 100%, you get a bonus.

The initial idea was as a training weapon, one that somehow taught new players to time their swings properly, or taught them how to engage foes at melee range, by encouraging the bonus to happen as they're swinging, or if not a bonus, at least a little celebratory noise. That way, they'd know when they were connecting with a melee swing.

But then I thought that maybe it could be a gambling thing. The bar's 0-charge leaves the weapon at fifty percent, with 100-charge giving the weapon 150% damage. Alt-fire to choose the charge. Whatever you pick, that's your melee damage for ten seconds.

Or perhaps the bonus isn't damage. Maybe if you can land it just as an enemy is using a melee attack, you counter his attack and deal a crit--a karate weapon that's ideal for melee mode!

This idea needs a little brainstorming.

Somewhat Burned Out

I've been a bit off lately. I haven't had any great ideas and there's nothing exceptional looking to come this way. Although I think TF2 is still one of the best games I have ever played, the compromise on the art style, the neverending expansion of meaningless noisy content, and the fact that my ancient computer cannot run the latest version has had me on the ropes.

I'm excited about the Vaccinator, I have to say, but even that hasn't been enough to inspire me lately. We'll see how things go after Christmas. Maybe new games will seek to inspire my tired brain, and I'll find some more stuff, locked down there in the content bowls deep under the surface.


Until then: if you're reading this, intrepid soul, send me your favorite SFM clips and items. I'm really feeling frazzed here and I could use the inspiration.

Sincerely yours,
Amin

Dominated

I really enjoy TF2, and I think it's starting to make people I play games with hate it. See, I did not play FPS games before I played TF2--well, I did, but it was a dabbling that I begrudgingly accepted while I hung out with people hungry for those fights. I certainly didn't enjoy FPS games at the time, and I still for the most part don't now, although they're much, much better.

However, TF2 has become my gold standard, and every time I play a new FPS, I'm astounded at the seemingly obvious design decisions laid out in TF2 that make everything else look like total rubbish. Recently I realized that I have never been teabagged in TF2, for example, and I realized this is because of two factors (well, maybe more). For one, TF2 has taunts, which are cooler than teabagging for just... so many reasons. I might have to watch a bit of Monday Night Combat to see if teabagging happens there, because it's the only other FPS I can think of that has taunting.

The second, and this is speculation on my part, is that TF2 has dominations. The game tells your victims when you're better than them. It even hangs a flag over your head that is designed to say "come at me, bro". I understand why it might not work in other games, games with smaller teams where often of course you know who's killing you, he's the only other guy on the map, or at least he's the only one that speaks with that particular Cold War accent.

Now, the absence of teabagging is no small thing to me; but the community feels less like a sack of soggy douchebags for it. Don't get me wrong, the TF2 community has its scumbags, just like anyone else, but it is so nice that they don't do that one thing.

Okay, so this wasn't the greatest discussion of why TF2 has better design principles than most FPS games. But thank Gabe there's no teabagging. Or Robin. Actually, I don't know who to thank.