Team Fortress 2
Scream Fortress 2020
It's Halloween in TF2, which is the best time of year in game. This year's event has been pretty good. Not perfect, but pretty good.
Things I liked:
They opened access to Halloween maps early this year. Most years the event starts in mid to late October, but this year they opened access to maps on October 1st. Contracts and cosmetics didn't start til mid October, but it was a nice warmup to do the maps before then.
Two new maps. Both look great, and play pretty well too. Two is a nice number as well, since its enough for everybody to learn the layouts, and not so many that you don't fully learn or enjoy them all.
Contracts were reset. It would have been nice to get new contracts, but at least we get to (re) do contracts. I do enjoy going through the old ones. None are too grindy, and its a good excuse to sample them all instead of just sticking to your standard few.
I've had better luck transmuting this year. Last year I only had 2 good transmutes (parrot head for demo, unicorn hat for all classes). This year I wanted to get one or two more animal heads, and I'm very very happy to report I got a fly head for engie and the chicken kiev for Heavy! I was a bit disappointed how badly the kiev clips with lots of hats, but it looks great with the unicorn hat so I'm running that now.
Some of the new hats look great. The sugar skull for pyro and the raccoon mask for Soldier in particular.
The new unusual taunt effects look amazing. The spellbound/arcana ones in particular, and they brought back the moons this year too. The only really weak one to me is the static mist one, and even that isn't that bad.
The hat unusual effects are a mixed bag. Fifth dimension and some of the wispy flame ones I like. The vortex ones are pretty meh.
Things I did not like:
No spells. I guess that makes existing items with spells that much more special, but I was kinda hoping they'd bring them back. Even if they were untradable.
Some of the new crate hats should have been halloween restricted. Some really don't fit the aesthetic of the game when its not Halloween. Like, the bread biter is fine as a Halloween item, but seeing that in April in a non-Halloween server is going to be jarring. It feels so arbitrary which items are halloween restricted and which are not.
Old unusual effects are not unboxable. I guess that's good for me, as it protects the value of my 2 remaining unusuals (darkblaze modest scrap, and dark doorway antarctic eyewear). Still, it would have been cool to see some of the classic effects on the new hats and vice versa.
Overall though, its been a lot of fun. Its nice having a contract or two to do every night, the transmutes feel like a cheap crate unboxing, I've got 2 nice animal heads from transmuting, and the overall aesthetic of Halloween is always fun and in a weird way comforting.
Things I liked:
They opened access to Halloween maps early this year. Most years the event starts in mid to late October, but this year they opened access to maps on October 1st. Contracts and cosmetics didn't start til mid October, but it was a nice warmup to do the maps before then.
Two new maps. Both look great, and play pretty well too. Two is a nice number as well, since its enough for everybody to learn the layouts, and not so many that you don't fully learn or enjoy them all.
Contracts were reset. It would have been nice to get new contracts, but at least we get to (re) do contracts. I do enjoy going through the old ones. None are too grindy, and its a good excuse to sample them all instead of just sticking to your standard few.
I've had better luck transmuting this year. Last year I only had 2 good transmutes (parrot head for demo, unicorn hat for all classes). This year I wanted to get one or two more animal heads, and I'm very very happy to report I got a fly head for engie and the chicken kiev for Heavy! I was a bit disappointed how badly the kiev clips with lots of hats, but it looks great with the unicorn hat so I'm running that now.
Some of the new hats look great. The sugar skull for pyro and the raccoon mask for Soldier in particular.
The new unusual taunt effects look amazing. The spellbound/arcana ones in particular, and they brought back the moons this year too. The only really weak one to me is the static mist one, and even that isn't that bad.
The hat unusual effects are a mixed bag. Fifth dimension and some of the wispy flame ones I like. The vortex ones are pretty meh.
Things I did not like:
No spells. I guess that makes existing items with spells that much more special, but I was kinda hoping they'd bring them back. Even if they were untradable.
Some of the new crate hats should have been halloween restricted. Some really don't fit the aesthetic of the game when its not Halloween. Like, the bread biter is fine as a Halloween item, but seeing that in April in a non-Halloween server is going to be jarring. It feels so arbitrary which items are halloween restricted and which are not.
Old unusual effects are not unboxable. I guess that's good for me, as it protects the value of my 2 remaining unusuals (darkblaze modest scrap, and dark doorway antarctic eyewear). Still, it would have been cool to see some of the classic effects on the new hats and vice versa.
Overall though, its been a lot of fun. Its nice having a contract or two to do every night, the transmutes feel like a cheap crate unboxing, I've got 2 nice animal heads from transmuting, and the overall aesthetic of Halloween is always fun and in a weird way comforting.
I'm a TF2ber now
Chain of events:
I sold a bunch of crap on Steam Market, including a hat that netted me $600
I soon realized I could never spend all my Steam wallet, even after getting every game I wanted and every TF2 hat.
On black Friday I got a new laptop, which made it super easy to capture game footage.
On Steam winter sale I saw Vegas Pro 14 was on a 75% off sale, bringing it to under $50.
So now I make TF2 videos.
I sold a bunch of crap on Steam Market, including a hat that netted me $600
I soon realized I could never spend all my Steam wallet, even after getting every game I wanted and every TF2 hat.
On black Friday I got a new laptop, which made it super easy to capture game footage.
On Steam winter sale I saw Vegas Pro 14 was on a 75% off sale, bringing it to under $50.
So now I make TF2 videos.
Random Crawket Karma
Slowly learning, slowly improving? I hope? I need to get a better mic.
New Year TF2 Resolution
Content creation has been a fun challenge for sure. It's interesting because it puts pressure on you to play well, and then you have to make the commentary interesting on top of that. The good news is that I'm still trying, and I'm still learning a lot. Understanding that I suck at it now, but can only get better, is motivating.
One of my TF2 new year's resolutions is to try and get a "godlike" (20+ kills) on all nine classes in 2021. That shouldn't be too hard with some classes (Heavy, demo, engie), but I wouldn't be surprised if I fail to do it with a few classes (spy, sniper). It's a good goal though, and maybe it even results in me becoming a better player.
Here's the first godlike streak I was able to pull off in 2021:
One of my TF2 new year's resolutions is to try and get a "godlike" (20+ kills) on all nine classes in 2021. That shouldn't be too hard with some classes (Heavy, demo, engie), but I wouldn't be surprised if I fail to do it with a few classes (spy, sniper). It's a good goal though, and maybe it even results in me becoming a better player.
Here's the first godlike streak I was able to pull off in 2021:
Still trying!
My experiment in being a TF2 YouTuber is...progressing. There's a bit of an aimbot/cheater crisis lately, which has made it very hard to get good footage. Once I do get good footage, it's also still a challenge to make decent looking/sounding videos. I need to toy with the settings more, as the visual quality isn't as sharp as I see on some other people's channels. The sound is mostly a product of my crappy mic, but I should get a new one soon and hopefully that helps the quality.
Visual improvement!
In good news, I feel I made some progress on this front:
Subs
I haven't given up on making videos yet, which I take as a small victory. I've also slowly (glacially) started building up a community of subscribers. I'm up to 11 now, which is a piddly amount but still is motivating. I don't have a set goal for my channel yet, but it'd be neat to hit 100 subs in my first year. I think I can do it if I consistently put out videos, and consistently make small improvements over time with their quality.
Re: Subs
It's a weird goal, because I know these things are exponential and not linear. So I could see myself increasing subs at an excruciatingly slow pace for a year, and then overnight having the channel pick up subs at a crazy pace if the algorithm starts recommending it. But yeah, 6 weeks in I'm at 30 subs. Not terrible, but not amazing either. Hopefully I start picking up the pace as I get more polished videos.
2 months in!
Today is the 2 month anniversary of my first video. Feeling good about where I'm at. I have 55 subs, which is halfway to my goal for the year. I've made over 20 videos, which is a good pace. I've gone godlike with 4 of the 9 classes, and come close with 2 others. And most importantly, I feel I'm getting slightly better at all aspects of the video production. Just gotta keep grinding.
Reached 100 subs!
That was less than 2 months ago. Tonight I hit 101 subs, 77 days after I started my channel.
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Re: Team Fortress 2
I haven't looked but I am going to guess that's already more than your footbag subscribers, which is concerning in itself...
Footbag vs. TF2 subs
It's funny, I never checked my sub count on my footbag account in the 13 years or so I've had that account. But once I started my TF2 account, I became super conscious of my sub count on both accounts. I'm over 400 on my footbag account, but of course I've had that for over a decade so that's a piddly number for that amount of time. My TF2 account is less than 3 months old and I'm at 132 subs now.
The other thing that's been weird and interesting with my TF2 account is trying to figure out what people want. Some videos take me hours to get the footage and edit...and they end up getting way fewer views and engagement than other videos which took a fraction of the effort. Case in point, my last video was low effort but is close to 500 views, compared to the 2 videos before it which took hours longer to make and only got around 160 views each.
Reached 200 subs!
400 subs
I'm now at 401 subs! Not bad for 7 months of work. I still think I'm just one viral video from really blowing up. In related news, I bought a much better mic, so now my audio quality is a lot better. I wonder how many subs I'll finish the year with?
Oh, and I'm also getting close to catching up with my footbag channel, which has 415 subs. Having my gaming channel surpass the footbag channel has been a minor goal for some time as well.
Tied with IFPA for subs.
Achieved that goal shortly after my last post. As of today, I'm at 437 subs, which ties me with the IFPA channel!
Almost 500!
Painfully close to 500 subs now; less than 10 away. In a week my channel will be 8 months old, so I'm hoping I can get closer to 1000 subs by its first birthday. Sub counts are so weird... I've seen several other channels gain 500 subs in a week if the algorithm blesses them, so in a way it's weird to be proud of 500 when I know it's such a relatively small number. On the other hand, I'm proud that I haven't given up despite my bad algorithm luck. I think it'll make me more appreciative of a jump in subs if I ever do get lucky and get an influx of visibility.
Beyond views or subscribers, I've made several friendships with people I play with on an almost daily basis. Even though I've never met them in person, and in most cases don't know their real names or what they look like, it's been very good for me mentally to have regular social contact with people who share a hobby with me. Especially during these COVID times where I don't feel comfortable seeing the few friends I have that live in Denver. For that reason alone I'm glad I made my channel.
Beyond views or subscribers, I've made several friendships with people I play with on an almost daily basis. Even though I've never met them in person, and in most cases don't know their real names or what they look like, it's been very good for me mentally to have regular social contact with people who share a hobby with me. Especially during these COVID times where I don't feel comfortable seeing the few friends I have that live in Denver. For that reason alone I'm glad I made my channel.
614
I cracked 600 subs yesterday!
One of the more fun things we do whenever I break a sub milestone is to have a big party on an empty server, so usually 20 or so friends join in and we just game together and use the same voice channel for a couple hours. It's been a nice tradition for the past few 100 sub milestones, so hoping to keep that up.
One of the more fun things we do whenever I break a sub milestone is to have a big party on an empty server, so usually 20 or so friends join in and we just game together and use the same voice channel for a couple hours. It's been a nice tradition for the past few 100 sub milestones, so hoping to keep that up.