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Also if you wanna watch me play Plants VS Zombies and other games with my buds, go here and take a listen while you game/eat/sleep/repeat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMHaHUTepBI

So called “free thinkers” when the administrator says there are 60 second left:

They said in the game development commentary, that the entire team work design was made under the assumption that nobody was going to work together nor communicate anything

Honestly, the idea that TF2 wins don’t matter too much due to their focus on micro events and a lack of “story” is an amazingly ironic allegory for the story itself and how the entire conflict we are fighting is over absolutely nothing

I'd argue the domination mechanic was WAY more important when the game first came out, and everyone looked exactly the same. It was a good way to tell who was the top scoring enemy

Everyone has their own objective, but when it’s that last minute it’s just a hivemind with all one goal

12:40 I think the word you are looking for is “emergent teamwork”.

I remember an old Valve dive into the topic, mentioning the design philosophy of TF2 is for the average player to just be doing their own thing. But when they raise their head up to look around, they think “man, we really are working as a team”, then put their head down and keep doing what they are doing.

pub pushes are like being a student and realizing the homework is due tonight

Team Fortress 2 is a horror game where you're locked in a lobby with 11 clowns. The twist being...there's 12 clowns.

9:00 "its good background noise to study or relax to." tell that to the scout i heard being burned alive with napalm there.

one time i saw a guy named Solider Jumpscare and he would just rocket jump and land in front of you holding an objector with the word BOO! written on it, and then he'd detonate himself

It was really fucking funny

12:55 "Nobody is ever in voice chat leading the troops into battle.", boy do I have a tale for you.
There was one time on a 2Fort match, where the opposing team was made up of mostly hackers spawncamping us. One guy on my team hopped on voice chat and told us what we'd need to do. He made sure that the Medics (about 5) built up their charge in spawn, while also making sure that everyone stayed away from the doors, and telling everyone else what weapons we'd need. As soon as the Medics had built up their charges, he assigned a Medic to almost everyone, made sure that we all knew what we had to do, and then told us to get out there. Guns blazing, ubercharged, we drove the hackers back. Eventually the hackers left, and we rolled over the opposite team to capture the intelligence and win the game.
That is the story of Garsaxon44, the man who united his team on 2Fort.

“Mission ends in 60 seconds” is a sleeper agent activation code

I remember some of the tf2 devs (I think in an interview or the dev commentary) talking about how the game was designed as a "single player" game where each class's objective is essentially selfish, but by pursuing it you end up helping your team.
a demoman who camps the enemy spawn is doing it to get big frags, but ends up helping the team by stemming the flow of enemy reinforcements. an engineer who builds a sentry in a good spot is doing it to get many frags, but ends up helping the team by providing a good safe area for them. a medic healing everyone is doing it to see the number go up and eventually become god with the über, but ends up healing the whole team in the process. et cetera.
it's a pretty good way to design a pub game, everyone ends up working together without even thinking about it.

8:52 i think the real crux here is "why watch someone pub in TF2 when you can go and pub in TF2 yourself"

The fortress is an illusion too. And the 2 too. Actually everything is an illusion; all I see are hats and bots

I have a hundred positive memories of moments in this game, but I couldn't tell ya if we won or lost that match.

I think you vocalized a key reason why I still love this game so much even in the midst of the bot infestation; there are very few other "team-based" shooters keen on delivering what is both a nominally team-oriented experience whilst also not sacrificing the goals, aspirations, and playstyles of the individual.

I remember a bit that I developed with a friend called the Engineer Traffic Association. We would set up on RED on a chokey map with distinct but narrow pathways (like cp_gorge before the bridge of the first cap) and block one of the paths with a dispenser. We would put up literal "Detour" signs with sprays and instruct BLU, calmly through text chat (or VC if alltalk was on), to take the alternative route to the point, but we would essentially act like friendlies and not shoot anyone until they destroyed the dispenser, at which point we hardcore beeline the person who destroyed the dispenser until they died. It was one of the funniest things I've ever done in this game and one of my fondest TF2 memories.

I love the domination mechanic, the game just lets you know incredibly loudly, "THIS IS THE GUY PWNING YOUR ASS, KILL THIS GUY!!!!!!" with a bunch of red arrows pointing at em, meanwhile the sounds that play when you dominate or get revenge are just really satisfying

hi uncle dane can you file my taxes