VG: You Never Forget Your First(time playing TF2)

Last night I played a video game on the internet with other real live people. Not a big deal, in the grand scheme of things, since people have been doing it for years now. Just not this person. I've been so terrified of getting annihilated and verbally abused by obnoxious douchebags to the point that I avoided any serious online gaming.

Oddly enough, this fear never stopped me from accepting challengers way back when arcades existed (Ryu 4 life!). For some reason, though, playing online just seemed much more ... exposed? visible? I'm not sure what the word should be, but the idea behind it being that if/when I crash and burn, the whole world be able to see it.

So Team Fortress 2 goes free and it's simply too big, too famous, and the 'Meet the' movies too entertaining to pass up. The first two times, I relegated myself to playing Dustbowl with some Easy bots. Did okay, but was far from getting on the leaderboard during those practice sessions. Despite some of the anti-F2P sentiment I was noticing online, I finally decided to heed some advice I read on the Penny-Arcade forums and simply jump in with real players.

So I decided to go with the Medic, since I figured he's useful to have regardless of the situation. And then the most amazing thing happened ....

I didn't totally suck.

In fact, after an hour's play, I had my self a nice collection of Medic achievements - 6 or so AND I managed to kill a Spy with the bonesaw (Very nearly had a Sniper, too, but he got away)- which felt REALLY good, given the number times I was stabbed in the back.

Now, I'm under no illusions that I'm some kind of prodigy. But overall, I felt positively reinforced by the experience. Which is the point, I guess. As for the abuse, the worst I got was "Hey Medic, with the ubercharge at the end, that would've been a good time to use it."

So, if you run into me (kingworks) playing TF2 sometime, do me a favor and slow down so I can heal you already - or, if you're on the other team, hack you to death with my saw! ;-)