Sorry to make 2 new threads in one day, but this struck me as a good idea to have either a thread or a subforum for. I know it doesn't change very often, so perhaps a whole subforum would be unnecessary, but perhaps a general thread might be a good idea to keep track. Either that or both are terrible ideas and a simple thread in general every once in a while will suffice to discuss the front page news. On to topic.

Those stats are really surprising.

%kills points per hour vs %kills per hour
I am curious as to how the sniper is so high on the %points per hour but comes in third in %kills per hour. Not only that but it also comes way lower in assists per hour and caps per hour than the other 2 classes which beat it out for kills per hour. That being said, how the hell is it #1 in points per hour. That makes absolutely no sense.

%critical
I wonder why the knife comes in so low here. Does a backstab not actually count as a critical hit? Perhaps it is registered as its own special kind of hit that no other weapon is capable of.

Death Maps.
These are cool. For the most part they are about what you would expect them to be i suppose, highest kill areas tend to be choke points. However, look at the 2fort map. That is pretty cool. Notice how the hottest spot on that map is the left side lower entrance to each base. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that most people are right handed so they instinctively take the right entrance (from their perspective).

anyway, i think its pretty neat.

For those of you who have no idea what i'm talking about
Front page news link TF2 stats

For #2... Pretty sure they lowered the crit chance on the butterfly knife. Spies were stabbing people in the front, getting criticals and killing them instantly w/o the bother of trying to stab them in the back. AFAIK, backstab bonus damage is seperate from crits.

For #1... Pretty sure there are other ways of earning points, like killing cappers, getting headshots, etc... which might make up the discrepancy.

Getting a critical does not give a point. And i don't think defending a cap does either (not positive on that one). Even if defending a cap does give a point, i sincerely think thats enough to make up the difference, but i could be wrong.

i think defending a cap point does give points and also killing the guy with a briefcase. Thats my guess where the sniper gets ahead... defense.

I think it's interesting that the average life span is only around 45 seconds. Maybe that will convince them the spawn timer is excessive. 25-35% of the game spent waiting while dead is waaaay too much in my opinion.

...and how much of that average 45 seconds you spend traveling from place to place, since you move, so, friggen, sloooow, and the maps are not designed with quick action in mind? Not to mention how much of that average 45 seconds is spent waiting for rounds to begin, for warm up timers, and for hunting down that last guy hiding in last man standing mode? ...So how much time do you, on average, actually spend playing that game, do you suppose?

Sadly, back while I was torturing myself with TF2, while I found many servers that claimed to have zero respawn times, in most cases that was just a lure to bring in clientel (THE CAKE IS A LIE!) I only ever found one server that actually had zero respawn times, and it had a custom point-capture map that was locked in perpetual stalemate because of it (map uptime: 16hrs). ...and while that was fun, it just clinched the fact that the offense/defense dynamic of TF2 is so haphazard that it simply requires massive amounts of downtime to work at all.

God, just thinking about that game infuriates me. TG I don't have to "try" it anymore on the basis that His Pinkness might run a server for it.
_________________
"He holds the strings that move us, limb by limb!
We yield, enthralled, to things repugnant, base;
Each day, towards Hell, with slow, unhurried pace,
We sink, uncowed, through shadows, stinking, grim." - Les Fleurs du mal
Thothie

There are 2 different plug-ins out actually (or its the same one which allows you to change the time of the spawn). But basically servers will label themselves either "quick respawn" or "instant respawn." If you were playing on "quick respawn" servers there is still a spawn timer but it is half of the normal spawn timer, so anywhere between 5 and 7 seconds. If you are are playing on an instant spawn server, it is instant.

For some reason people have it in their heads that it is impossible win as the attackers on dustbowl on an "instant-server" even though... thats very far from the truth. Because of that, alot of people refuse to play on instant servers, and instead play on "quick-respawn" servers.

Instant servers are out there, but you have to look for "instant" not "quick."

Killing the guy with the briefcase is considered "defending a cap" in ctf matches, but i sincerely doubt that snipers defend caps more often than soliders and HWs. That stat isn't up there though so there is no way to know. I think valve forged them all!