Remembering
{pDs} WarMachine

<Episode 1>

Hey guys, welcome to the first edition of Remembering, where I reminisce about some of the good times we had in Team Fortress 2.

Right, you don't have to tell me: it's only a game. And, I'm crazy. I know. But I'm a social science major, and I like reading stuff like this. So if you don't like it, you can always leave me hate mail. My email address is zomgurgay@FU.com...

This first column is dedicated to {pDs} War, who recently left to work in the Middle East. May you stay safe, buddy.

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I used to suck at the Soldier class.

Really, I'm not a naturally good FPS player. When every one of you were busy rocket-jumping in Quake, I was probably playing Starcraft. I was more into video-games with story and characters, and all that boring crap.

But if you look under my profile, I have something like 300+ hours logged onto that class. For a guy who has so little hand-eye coordination, I certainly play that class a lot. Go figure.

I remember when I first stumbled into this community, I saw names like DickCheneysMechanicalHeart and WarMachine. I think Dragon was around back then, and not some crazy recluse that drops by occasionally to yell at recruits (ha ha, sucka). Those were the glorious days.

So I used to play Medic a lot. Back then, the Tempests were filled with Demomen who’d lay back, spamming grenades into tight corriders, hoping to get a kill. We had teams with 3 or 4 snipers, and the Engineers who loved them. We were Team Turtle. I used to call it fishing, 'cause there was a lot of sitting back and waiting.

Then this {pDs} Warmachine guy would show up from time to time. I had looked him up--he was ranked #1 on the servers. I remember that he was always helpful over the voice comm. He had an even-manner about him and rarely got upset. I liked that about the guy.

So sooner or later, I started following this guy around, keeping him buffed up with my Medi-gun. You see, he’d always play the Soldier.

Back then, I had always dismissed the Soldier as a beginner class. Slow and boring. I mean, a rocket launcher’s a rocket launcher. There were more exotic weapons—knives…and miniguns!

The miraculous thing was: this Warmachine guy was always topping the charts.

 
And he was always pushing--pushing towards the next objective, going toe-to-toe with bald-headed Russian vigilantes, juggling helpless Engineers around in the air, and going through the whole enemy team like a hot knife through butter.

With Warmachine around it was never boring. We were always on the offensive. It was a rollercoaster ride and you never knew when the next drop was. I mean, how inspirational was that? That sense of excitement…I loved it.

 
Sooner or later I started hitting the ‘2’ key in the class selection screen.

 
And that’s why I became the Soldier. I wanted to change the game like Warmachine changed the game for me. Ever resourceful, ever-changing, never stale: that’s the essence of the good Soldier.

Who knows? Maybe the game changes when I join the servers. I guess you could always ask my medic.

No wait. Don’t. She dies a lot and probably has bad things to say about me.

I'll call you a girl sam.

I do remember the earlier days of the tempests, especially as I was always on 2fort at the time. There was a general strategy of turtling, and I'll confess to being the sniper all too often. I had fun, I watched the hours tick by, and it was just ok.

 Then I'd watch exactly what Leon is talking about. A good key player that just moves the game with him/her. Bendy is one, Warmachine definitly one, and even folks like Se7en who are actively moving and pushing, even when it probably won't work. These guys make the games fun.

 Always thought soldier was the newby class, you learned the game and then chose a "real" class. Then I realized that this was true only so far as that being really good with the soldier took a lot more effort than the other classes. I aint there yet, probably won't ever be. I'm not a fps native and have as many hours logged in Civ games as anything else. But playing with guys like War and Leon made this game fun, trying to live up to their ability to dominate and activate the game, made it even more fun.

And Sam is a whiny little girl with ugly underwear.