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Completed a MvM Two Cities tour today (11th I've done so far) The reward?    - Onto a different subject, I had a depressing thought the other day: are TF2 hats a sort of precursor to the whole NFT thing?
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Dec 19, 2021 23:58
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Max Wilco posted:Onto a different subject, I had a depressing thought the other day: are TF2 hats a sort of precursor to the whole NFT thing? I don’t follow.
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Dec 20, 2021 00:06
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Max Wilco posted:Onto a different subject, I had a depressing thought the other day: are TF2 hats a sort of precursor to the whole NFT thing? They absolutely were. I think any old PGS trade thread veteran would agree.
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Dec 20, 2021 00:43
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Max Wilco posted:Onto a different subject, I had a depressing thought the other day: are TF2 hats a sort of precursor to the whole NFT thing? They're absolutely an original sin of a lot of predatory mechanics that came since the crates first started. I love TF2, but I remember buying keys to unlock crates, not getting anything good, then popping a few more open to see if I'd get another shot at a rare strange weapon or unusual hat. Nowadays after the saturation of lootboxes everywhere and learning how this kind of mechanic preys upon addictive tendencies, I don't touch them. Valve continues putting out the seasonal crates so people can continue spending $2.49 a pop to open them, and even making it so keys are effectively not universal anymore. It's an eternally ugly mark on an otherwise delightful game.
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Dec 20, 2021 00:51
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TF2 hats, and more to the point crates, are the precursor to a lot of horrible games industry poo poo but I don’t really see a direct link between them and NFTs. Honestly the stated goal of NFTs in gaming (to give players more “ownership” over virtual items) is something that Valve has made every attempt to avoid over the years. I only see them as a precursor to NFTs in the way that they are a precursor to most games industry predatory practices because they set the stage for it by being the first to really make it part of non-mobile gaming, but someone had to be the first so 
Ariong fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Dec 20, 2021 |
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Dec 20, 2021 01:16
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The closest thing I can think of is craft numbers, which evokes all the same "who cares" reactions that NFTs do
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Dec 20, 2021 01:33
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Valve has effectively gotten all of the supposed "benefits" of running NFTs without dealing with a lot of what people are pushing back on. People have "ownership" over their items (which never leaves Valve's control and doesn't actually belong to the end user) and they can sell them to other people through a controlled marketplace, of which Valve take a cut of each transaction. There's even unique identifiers and artificial scarcity to drive prices higher.
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Dec 20, 2021 01:49
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Ariong posted:TF2 hats, and more to the point crates, are the precursor to a lot of horrible games industry poo poo but I don’t really see a direct link between them and NFTs. Honestly the stated goal of NFTs in gaming (to give players more “ownership” over virtual items) is something that Valve has made every attempt to avoid over the years. The nature of the way hats were created and distributed meant that before you could just buy them in the store they were literally not fungible, and particularly special ones still are, like if you are a number collector, a vintage collector or you want a particular unusual particle. If you wanted X you had to make a deal with someone who had X and those people were varying degrees of scrupulous (two of my hats for three of yours, etc). The big difference between TF2 hats and modern NFTs is people wanted TF2 hats.
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Dec 20, 2021 02:09
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Simsmagic posted:There's even unique identifiers and artificial scarcity to drive prices higher. The random float number on item quality in CS:GO can make a huge difference in how valued your rare item drop becomes. And they also have paint seeds which can slightly adjust how the textures are displayed (xyz offsets). It doesn't matter for regular players but collectors care, or so it seems.
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Dec 20, 2021 02:14
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Reiley posted:The nature of the way hats were created and distributed meant that before you could just buy them in the store they were literally not fungible, and particularly special ones still are, like if you are a number collector, a vintage collector or you want a particular unusual particle. If you wanted X you had to make a deal with someone who had X and those people were varying degrees of scrupulous (two of my hats for three of yours, etc). So? NFTs aren’t terrible because of the non-fungible aspect. They’re terrible because of the blockchain aspect, which is environmentally devastating and adds no real value. Reiley posted:The big difference between TF2 hats and modern NFTs is people wanted TF2 hats. No, the big difference is that you don’t have to burn down an acre of rainforest to make a single TF2 hat. Ariong fucked around with this message at 02:19 on Dec 20, 2021 |
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Dec 20, 2021 02:14
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Ariong posted:So? NFTs aren’t terrible because of the non-fungible aspect. They’re terrible because of the blockhain aspect, which is environmentally devastating and adds no real value. They're terrible for the non-fungibility as well. Digital media solves scarcity, but like it's not 1:1 the same. It's the first wide-scale implementation of the broad idea of tradeable digital scarcity markets that we're dealing with today.
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Dec 20, 2021 02:19
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You can't right click an unusual and wear it yourself.
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Dec 20, 2021 02:23
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Honestly the aspect of nfts that made them get huge among a very small and stupid branch of techbros is the blockchain element. Blockchain = Bitcoin = hotness = $$ = totally investing bro.
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Dec 20, 2021 04:13
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I don't know about a precursor for NFTs, but lootboxes absolutely. And if I'm being honest, I think TF2's interpretation of lootboxes is one of the worst in the entire industry. Yeah, sure, Blizzard's done a lot of heinous poo poo. But at least if you got a lootbox in Overwatch or Heroes of the Storm, you could friggin open it without an extra price tag. Nor can you sell those skins for a shitton of money on a virtual marketplace, encouraging people to literally start speculating on said skins.
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Dec 20, 2021 06:16
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Yeah, I thinking in terms of the digital scarcity aspect, rather than the whole blockchain/bitcoin thing. It's the thing where there are Unusual hats and other items that are hundreds or even thousands of dollars. However, they aren't really worth anything. It's not something tangible like a car or real estate or something; in only really has value on Steam. You can potentially try to liquidate into real cash through something like Marketplace.TF or something (maybe not easily now, compared to a few years ago), but again, if you've got a hat that averages for something like $2,000, there's not really a market for it (save for maybe the people who would buy NFTs). I mean, if you want a specific hat with a specific unusual effect, you could effectively make it yourself by extracting the corresponding models and particle effects, and building it in Source Filmmaker or something else. Obviously, you can't show it off in-game, but if you want a Pyro's Beanie with a Kaleidoscope effect (which to my knowledge, is not a combo that exists), you can make it. Years ago, I pre-ordered Sam and Max Season 3, and got the Max's Severed Head hat. I used to get trade offers all the time asking for it, but I never traded it. Nowadays, that hat's valued at like $55 on Marketplace.TF ( it cost far more if it was Vintage quality, though I don't know how you'd get it in that quality), which I think is more than what I paid for pre-ordering the game.
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Dec 20, 2021 07:11
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Max Wilco posted:Years ago, I pre-ordered Sam and Max Season 3, and got the Max's Severed Head hat. I used to get trade offers all the time asking for it, but I never traded it. Nowadays, that hat's valued at like $55 on Marketplace.TF ( it cost far more if it was Vintage quality, though I don't know how you'd get it in that quality), which I think is more than what I paid for pre-ordering the game. Vintage quality on non-vintages came from the days of people deleting their items, asking Steam support for them back, and getting them back in vintage quality for whatever reason. Steam support returning item qualities in not exactly perfect conditions or exploiting some item related bugs related to gift wraps is how you got some weird poo poo around, like tradeable haunted metal scrap.
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Dec 20, 2021 07:32
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Runescape partyhats from ~2002 are probably the earliest case of digital items that became so sought after that people were willing to trade actual money for, so that predates TF2 unusuals by at least 7-8 years. e: The precursor to NFTs IMO would be those name-a-star companies that all promise to let you offically name a star if you pay them money, but really what they're doing is adding the name to their own private registry, which isn't recognized by any government or scientific body. IncendiaC fucked around with this message at 07:58 on Dec 20, 2021 |
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Dec 20, 2021 07:50
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You can also """buy""" an acre of land on the Moon or Mars, which will matter to precisely no one once it actually becomes relevant.
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Dec 20, 2021 09:16
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Im suprised no one has started selling NFTs of bridges from around the world.
Hihohe fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Dec 20, 2021 |
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Dec 20, 2021 16:23
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https://twitter.com/DailyTF2Memes/status/1472966481205936136?s=20
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Dec 20, 2021 19:43
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Baron von Eevl posted:Honestly the aspect of nfts that made them get huge among a very small and stupid branch of techbros is the blockchain element. Blockchain = Bitcoin = hotness = $$ = totally investing bro. Items on the steam market have historical price charts, making some people treat them as investments. Along with people who play the bid/ask spread on common items like keys and back in the day bills hats, max head, airbuds, etc. Same poo poo Roblox pulls. Girbot fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Dec 23, 2021 |
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Dec 23, 2021 04:36
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I wish people still played gravelpit.
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Dec 31, 2021 14:50
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Jippa posted:I wish people still played gravelpit.
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Jan 1, 2022 14:44
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What? Compared to Gravelpit Steel seems to get played on par with Upward and Badwater.
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Jan 1, 2022 16:26
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steel is definitely not played as much as loving upward
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Jan 2, 2022 10:50
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everyone seems to only want to play payload now, which is weird because payload isn't very good it does explain why they've suddenly decided that sniper is overpowered after 12+ years, though, since every payload map consists of a series of gigantic sightlines with no flank routes which one team is forced to ponderously trundle through in a predictable fashion if they want to win
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Jan 2, 2022 11:15
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Payload is casual friendly because there is a central location to always go to. Casual players love a meat grinder, so playing upward, bad water, and even dust bowl appeals to the majority of players. I still prefer 5CP and played a fun back and forth on snakewater, despite the other team having a super passive sniper that had about 6 dominations at any given point. We ended up winning 2-0, but had trouble pushing last, and for one point pushing out of our last.
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Jan 2, 2022 18:47
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Payload is fine, and does a better job of ensuring every class has a role than other modes. The real issue is servers that don't regularly switch between maps with a variety of modes, and I'd trace the decline of TF2 to when they started promoting single map / type gameplay. Dustbowl 24/7 servers already existed for those that wanted them, but on the whole limiting the game to specific modes makes it stale.
Kaal fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Jan 2, 2022 |
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Jan 2, 2022 20:58
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As much as I was looking forward to Meet your Match it definitely made the game feel a lot more stale and was probably the update that ruined it for me. I never really realized how much TF2 was both a community and a game to me and that's what made it so appealing, and with the matchmaking update the community is gone and only the game remains. Sure there are still some community servers that see people but not in the same way there was pre-mym, where the maps you played were left to the rtv vote and whatever admin felt like putting in, and you would see a lot of the same faces and names when you joined a server. TF2 just feels so empty and emotionless to me now. Also we're never getting the last issue of the bimonthly comic and that's the biggest sin of all.
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Jan 3, 2022 00:04
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Lol i still have a separate category on my steam friends list for tf2 server regulars from like 2011 that i cant bring myself to delete even if we dont talk anymore and some havent used steam in 6+ years
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Jan 3, 2022 00:23
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Simsmagic posted:As much as I was looking forward to Meet your Match it definitely made the game feel a lot more stale and was probably the update that ruined it for me. I never really realized how much TF2 was both a community and a game to me and that's what made it so appealing, and with the matchmaking update the community is gone and only the game remains. Sure there are still some community servers that see people but not in the same way there was pre-mym, where the maps you played were left to the rtv vote and whatever admin felt like putting in, and you would see a lot of the same faces and names when you joined a server. TF2 just feels so empty and emotionless to me now. very true, although funnily enough the ongoing robot apocalypse has actually caused a minor revival of community servers where you can get something resembling the old experience. the bots completely ignore community servers, so they now receive a steady supply of casual refugees. almost makes you wonder if that was the point.
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Jan 3, 2022 01:18
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The Rally® Signature Series™ line of LC events in the sunset years were always a lot of fun and there isn't really a game that facilitates that sort of thing anymore. A computer tries to give you a 50/50 winrate and you can't really meet anyone you're playing with in the same way you could a decade ago.
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Jan 3, 2022 01:32
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cock hero flux posted:very true, although funnily enough the ongoing robot apocalypse has actually caused a minor revival of community servers where you can get something resembling the old experience. the bots completely ignore community servers, so they now receive a steady supply of casual refugees. almost makes you wonder if that was the point. The botpocalypse was pretty conveniently timed with the introduction of the faceit matchmaking thing. 
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Jan 3, 2022 02:04
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Kaal posted:Payload is fine, and does a better job of ensuring every class has a role than other modes. The real issue is servers that don't regularly switch between maps with a variety of modes, and I'd trace the decline of TF2 to when they started promoting single map / type gameplay. Dustbowl 24/7 servers already existed for those that wanted them, but on the whole limiting the game to specific modes makes it stale. Dustbowl 24/7 is just one round of Dustbowl.
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Jan 3, 2022 03:34
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Dabir posted:Dustbowl 24/7 is just one round of Dustbowl. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF0ACRyNDbM
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Jan 3, 2022 04:29
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Dustbowl is eternal. It's simply the best map for pubs.
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Jan 3, 2022 10:27
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I completely agree. Not being able to pick a valve server and spend hours on it and make friends anymore really did change the game fundamentally. I would boot up, think of a game type I wanted to play and find a valve server with a few people and a good ping and that was it. I would be there for a few hours, and every round change we would all stick together because there was no long end of round stuff with map voting and staring at a scoreboard and no guarantee everyone will stick around. It really is sad to have lost that.
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Jan 3, 2022 10:47
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VideoGames posted:I completely agree. Not being able to pick a valve server and spend hours on it and make friends anymore really did change the game fundamentally. Yeah same. The old system was simply much better at fostering a community of players and allowing people to play a variety of maps and modes. The new system doesn't offer anything that the 24/7 servers didn't already do, and wrecked every other server in the process. And it kicked off a whole series of poor dev decisions as a result of the ensuing player collapse.
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Jan 3, 2022 18:25
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I tried to get back into the game and it was just full of Trump Lake bots spamming the mic and stealing people's names. Also for some reason whenever a vote kick happens I don't even get a visual prompt to vote. I just don't get the option to vote at all. YouTube Team Fortress Youtubers memes mislead me the past 5 servers I tried to get into was completely hosed.
Annointed fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Jan 5, 2022 |
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Jan 5, 2022 00:17
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Community servers are good. Don’t play casual unless your east coast during prime hours and have enough people to kick the bots out.
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Jan 5, 2022 00:28
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