Started on Starlight, one of the more complicated servers to get into pretty much right off the bat. That said, been having a blast and the core game mechanics are awesome! It's definitely a game where you have to ask and rely on other players to help you out in the beginning, but it makes up for it in roleplay potential and ability to goof around. Explore a few servers and find the right place for you!

I would heavily recommend this game to anyone who enjoys modded experiences in other games, multiplayer roleplaying games, and customization both in character and gameplay.

My one gripe (and I'm not sure if this is a server customization thing?) is the number of hours it takes to unlock certain things that really ought not take as long as it does. I get the hour goals for things like higher rankings to ensure you understand the base game mechanics, but for cosmetics it's a bit unpleasant. Again, not sure if this is individual to the servers so it could just be a server thing though.

I may sound like a hypocrite here, but I'm nominating this game for the labor of love award.

Team Fortress 2 came out in 2007. As of today, it is over 14 years old.

I began playing Team Fortress 2 a bit before October of 2020, I believe. Having gotten into the lore, comics, fanart, and media of the game, my interest was piqued. All that time beforehand, I believed it was still pay to play. It was not.

It was a riot.


Confusing, sure, but for a game that came out in 2007, it still holds up astoundingly well against other games far younger and more technologically advanced than it. A garbled mess of code? Sure. Bot problems? Absolutely. Neglect? I beg to differ.

Neglect is when the developers allow a game to fizzle out and die because they can't bother--or don't care to--do the bare minimum upkeep for the community to stay alive. Not only was Team Fortress 2 built upon an unbelievably strong framework for a community to thrive on, but the servers are still running to this day. Player counts continue to rise; I mean, I joined in 2020, when the bot crisis was beginning to rear it's head, and I was having a blast! And here's the thing. Creators still love this game.

There are only a few developers working on the game today. Instead of letting it drown in the depths of server-shutdown hell, they decided that it wouldn't do to milk the money cow dry and throw it into the garbage.
And yes, I agree, there's a lot of financial incentives involved. I'm not disregarding that, because it's true.
But after Christmas of 2020, the developers have realized that they can't get away with what they pulled and cleaned up their act. Bug fixes, for one, could have been left behind in lieu of more money. But they decided to fix things. Sure, implementing a new large update would put a lot of stress on a tiny team's shoulders, but the community has already done enough of the legwork for them to run the final mile and keep the game afloat.