Team Fortress 2/Headscratchers


 * The Engineer can build teleporters and healing machines in seconds. The Medic has a healing gun that can heal fatal wounds quickly, can keep people alive indefinitely under gunfire, and never runs out of ammo. The Spy is bursting with futuristic gadgets (well, he has two). But the Sniper is using a gun that would be considered primitive and obsolete in the real-world present day! It can only fire one shot at a time, needs to charge and somehow slows him down while zoomed in. Why is there such a discrepancy in the advancement of technology?
 * Simple. As an experienced hunter, outdoors man, and assassin who lives in a camper so he can travel to hunt sites and job sites, The Sniper considers himself a self-sufficient man. He likes to improvise and use the tools at hand like a hunter in the woods/jungle/Savannah would. He's a hunter. Even in the present there are several varieties of guns and rifles available at every Wal-Mart, yet some hunters still choose to hunt with bows and arrows, and bows and arrows are sold alongside the guns in the sporting department. Why? Because it's not always about killing your prey with the most practical, efficient, newest technology available, sometimes it's all just about the thrill of the hunt.
 * Well then it's a good thing ''it isn't set in the present day, because if it were set in the present day he would probably be in a lot of trouble, which it isn't. Good thing it isn't set in the present day, am I right?
 * Because it's how he rolls. Same as how he uses a bow. Ancient medieval device, but he uses it. Why? Because that's what he likes using.
 * This seems supported by the Loose Canon comic. It paints Australia as the most technologically advanced country in the world, while the Team's lone Australian uses weapons he (most likely) made himself for some reason. Feels like a deliberate weaponry choice.
 * The game is set in the 1950s-60s, I'm guessing he's just a lot more practical and straightforward than his compatriots.
 * This, the sniper rifle may be 'primitive', but it's guaranteed to do pretty good damage from all ranges, the Razorback may be 'primitive', but it cancels out one of the spies most deadly attacks, Jarate may be...pretty crude, but it decloaks spies and puts out flaming team members.
 * Present-day sniper rifles generally do not increase in stopping power the longer the user looks down the scope.
 * Probably justified that it would be rather difficult to do a snap-shot with a sniper rifle. The "charge" time is the time it takes for you to get your aim down or something.
 * Judging from his primary mode of transportation -and residence- he's also probably way more financially troubled than the guy with 11 PhD's, the mad scientist, or the secret agent extraordinaire.
 * If what he told his mom is true, he at least makes more than a doctor. It's probably safe to say that he lives simply because that's what he wants.
 * His weapons are outdated and clunky, and he can still kill you with ease. The Sniper is just that freakin good.
 * Actually it's probably due more to the fact that he kills people at ranges where their weapons have little effect on him.
 * According to the backstory, Sniper was, for most of his life, a steve irwin-style hunter in the Outback. Assuming that the sufficiently advanced Australians haven't changed the area, his bow, sniper rifle, jars of piss, etc; are going to be pretty much the best things he can get his hands on. When he's hired he's probably used to them, and doesn't want to give them up for other ones.
 * Australia is the most technologically advanced country, but that doesn't mean the average Australian uses it. Pretty much any depiction of any Australian besides the Sniper fighting is using his bare fists. That means the Sniper is technically using more technologically advanced weaponry.
 * The Sniper's rifle is not really that bad considering it can be accurately fired while standing and doesn't prevent him from running just by carrying it. A real world sniper rifle (the statistics vary a bit based on model) is usually close to 5 feet long, 30+ pounds, and fired cartridges designed to only be fired from a prone position. You could not run around with one of those and fire it like the Sniper does.
 * If by "real world sniper rifle" you mean "anti-materiel rifle", then you are correct. If you mean "sniper in a squad support role like the Sniper here", then they either use M14-based semi-automatics, or rifles based of the Remington 700--the exact rifle the Sniper uses. Both of these weapons weigh closer to 15 pounds than 30, and judging by the ammo in Sniper's vest pocket, he is either using their 7.62*51mm NATO ammunition, or 7mm Remington Magnum-- both of which were designed so they could be fired from an upright position.
 * Think of this way. Remember how the Sniper gets defensive about being called a crazed "gunman" instead of a professional "assassin"? Now think about photographers. We have digital cameras now but the most hardcore photographer would probably still use film. It's kind of like that.
 * That would be mostly because digital cameras are much easier to photoshop; it would be a bit of a slippery slope to use them.
 * If the Huntsman ad is any indication, he really does favor primitive weapons just because.
 * We could justify it by saying that the gun doesn't really need to charge, but it's a gameplay thing to simulate him taking his time to set up his shot just right. We could say more easily that he slows down when scoped because, well if you could only see 1% of the angles you could normally see, and had a big piece of metal on your face, wouldn't you want to walk kind of gingerly?
 * Are we SERIOUSLY trying to explain how a weapon from this game would work in real life? How does looking down the scope make the shot stronger? Well, how about how people can walk through certain other people but not others, and how someone can be invisible in the first place?
 * Yes, we are. More to the point, with the addition of the Machina the Sniper also has a piece of fancy, futuristic weaponry that he can use. This throws off a few of the theories about him preferring primitive weapons or not having access to better ones.


 * If BLU is a construction company and RED is a demolitions company, why is BLU always the attacking team while RED is always the defending team? Note that this setup means RED is more likely to have Engineers building stuff and BLU is more likely to have Demomen tearing things down.
 * Because the "companies" are only fronts for intelligence agencies.
 * This Troper thinks you're reading too much into it. It's just a front for fun and frantic team-based multiplayer.
 * Apparently, someone had the same thought on the Fridge Brilliance page. I think they had a decent answer.
 * Its because the R.E.D is always about to launch a doomsday weapon. Dustbowl, for example, has that nuke at the final point.
 * It's actually kind of clever when you think about it; BLU is destroying RED's toys to prevent further destruction, becoming what they hate in their quest to stop it. The nice thing about TF2's 'plot' is that it's full of subtle touches like this that don't interfere with the game but make things a bit more interesting.
 * Perhaps BLU is destroying things so they can make more money rebuilding them with their construction business.
 * Also the fact that according to the comic introducing the engineer update it's possible to infer that the BLU team attacked first, thus explaining why they're on the offensive. Plus the official backstory basically says that they're a front for organizations that each control half the world.


 * Wait, I'm confused...was there a Team Fortress 1?
 * Yes, originally a mod for Quake, later re-released as Team Fortress Classic for Steam.
 * IIRC, neither were offered for standalone sale or advertised, that might be the source of the confusion.
 * Team Fortress Classic was a separate mod made for the original Half Life based on the Team Fortress mod for quake. It WAS sold and advertised as a standalone game, and was featured in pretty much all Half Life 1 collections that were sold more than a full decade before Team Fortress 2 was released.


 * Why is the Sniper's in-game voice nothing like his Meet the Sniper voice? I hate his in-game voice.
 * We have your sniper, and replaced him with one of our Skrull brothers. Give up all your control points, and have an unarmed scout deliver us two thousand units of metal. No disguised spies, or you can pick his gibs from the floor.
 * You can keep him.
 * *backstab*
 * SKRULL-CHECK *fwooooooooooooosh*
 * I hear no difference between the two.
 * Agreed. The sniper's a lot calmer in the video, and in combat his voice is rougher from all the shouting and war cries. It's the same voice, under different situations.
 * I noticed no difference until I checked the game files. the pre-update sounds have only 1 voiceclip where he sounds like he does in Meet the Sniper. Post-update, the "new" Sniper voice is added as achievement, taunt and voice menu sounds.


 * Why does the Announcer sound more distressed when a point is being contested then when it's being outright captured?
 * My guess is that the announcer (if its an AI) is programmed to be loyal to whomever controls the point, so they are only distressed when its about to switch hands because once it does switch hands, she automatically becomes loyal to the new owner, so she wouldn't be distressed.
 * Jossed, but the actuality is pretty similar, seeing as the Announcer has partial control over both RED and BLU.
 * Another logical guess is that she just gives up, but the person above me has a good one.
 * Made better when you know that the Administrator is voiced by the same person as GLaDOS.
 * She could also be shouting at BOTH teams to get off their asses and get to the contested point, to either cap it or defend it. Either way, she's shouting.
 * ^yep


 * This Scottish troper gets the urge to claw her own ears off every time she hears the Demoman speak. If they couldn't find a voice actor who could actually sound convincing, why make him Scottish at all?
 * He's probably a parody of the Scottish stereotype. Yeah. The black, Scottish cyclops stereotype that is so common nowadays.
 * All the accents are like this. On purpose, allegedly, to fit in with the pulp spy-fic/early 20th century advertisement feel.
 * So that's why the Medic fails at the plurals in his own language. Less bugged now.
 * Aye. Valve said in an interview that the Sniper "is about as Australian as the Demoman is Scottish". Stereotypes, not attempts at being accurate.
 * The Sniper isn't very Australian! Now it makes perfect sense as to why he has no mustache, the every other Australian (even the women), as seen in the Engie comic.
 * This Texan Troper can't figure out why people--including That Female Scottish Troper--get their underwear in such a wad over the non-American accents, when not even the Engineer is an authentic Texan. Grant Goodeve, his voice actor, is from Connecticut. You'd think that knowledge would tip people off that Valve did not care about getting the accents "right."

And to be quite frank, this troper is glad they didn't focus on geographically-correct accents. The voices of TF2 are a treat to listen to the way they are.
 * At the same time, though ... I'd like to see the people complaining about how awful the accents are put their money where their mouth is, and come up with their own "accent-ally correct" versions of the various classes. While matching the original voice actors in quality and ham.
 * Yeah... somewhat disturbed that people thought they were trying to be accurate there....
 * This troper is more bothered by the fact that six or seven of the characters are complete stereotypes while the Engineer and somewhat the Soldier are ambiguously American and the Spy is a complete enigma. GENTLEMEN.
 * Wouldn't you expect a Spy to be an enigma? More seriously, he's less a parody/stereotype of a specific country and more spies in general, I assume.
 * Dunno, murdering someone in secret rather confronting them head on sounds like it goes hand in hand with the negative cowardly French stereotype.
 * The Engineer and the Soldier aren't stereotypes. Yeah. Good luck with that.
 * Well, not regional stereotypes. They're still stereotypes, of the evil-contraption building genius and the Full Metal Jacket style insane military man.
 * You really can say that it's not obvious where the Engineer is from?
 * Yeah... his bio lists him as being from Bee Caves, Texas. It's pretty obvious where he's from. And what makes it crazier? Bee Caves is a REAL PLACE.
 * Wow. I thought it was a Stealth Pun, between "a structurally superfluous new bee-hind" and "Bee Caves", implying he came from "the ass-end of Texas".
 * This Troper is pretty sure all the cities mentioned in the various bios are real places.
 * Wow, we just went an entire section about the accuracy, or lack thereof, of the classes accents and not one person points out that the Bostonian Scout has a Brooklyn accent.
 * We have a trope for this: Reality Is Unrealistic. If their accents weren't obvious fakes and exaggerations, people wouldn't believe they're actually real and think they're faked. There was that Jamaican girl from Buffy the Vampire Slayer who people thought was faking - despite that the actress was Jamaican. I've seen people say that Forbidden Siren for the Playstation2 had corny fake British accents despite that the voice actors are British - The publishers just took the already-English version and marketed that because voice actors cost money. (I hear several games that are released in America first just use the American English voice tracks to save money)
 * I think what's interesting about the accents is that they don't sound as stereotypical as I would expect them, like Valve just created a new spin on stereotypes. To me, Heavy doesn't sound like a Russian stereotype (think Yakov Smirnoff) because I thought he just has a rough voice. Also, I don't think he ever switches the 'w's with the 'v's except for the Sandvich thing.


 * In the game, the Heavy Weapons Guy is a Large Ham who apparently thinks the whole thing is a game, judging by his attitude. In the Meet the Heavy video, he talks rather quietly and takes the whole thing deadly seriously. Which one is the real Heavy Weapons Guy?
 * Looking at the video, he's not so much taking the fighting seriously as he is taking his gun seriously. About 90% of the time he's just talking about Sasha, as well as pausing for a big belly laugh for some reason.
 * No, he's not actually taking ANYTHING seriously (also, the belly laugh is for a specific reason, next). First he acts all serious with the enormous cost of the weapon, then laughs to show he doesn't give a dingo's kidney about how much it costs to kill his enemies. This is further strengthened by his attitude at the end where he laughs and taunts. He IS, however, very passionate about his gun, but still isn't serious about his job, just the actual gun.
 * It's actually pretty simple. In the video, Heavy is talking with someone in a calm, safe atmosphere. In the game, he's being shot at and spraying down waves of enemies with an enormous gun. There would obviously be a change in his emotional state.
 * Also, look at the Meet the Spy video. At the start, the Heavy comes charging down the hallway, screaming at the top of his lungs and busts through a door. Then, after he sees the briefcase is still there, he stops screaming and just goes "Oh, alright then." And a couple minutes later, he's sharing laughs along with the Soldier at the embarrassment of the Scout.
 * Same with Meet the Heavy, really. After the "interview", we see him in the heat of battle firing his minigun with a childish glee, exactly like his in-game personality.
 * The "Meet the Team" videos are made to make you laugh at stuff - Their characters are nothing like they are in the Excuse Plot.


 * Am I the only one who thinks the Scout looks half-Asian?
 * Yes. Yes you are.
 * Y'know what, I thought the same the same thing watching the "Meet The Spy" Video. Scout does look vaguely Asian in it. Maybe one of his grandparents was half-Asian.
 * Actually I find Scout looks a lot more like moot from 4Chan. Which leads to some interesting Team Fortress 2 theories...
 * "Here lies Scout. He ran fast, and died a /v/irgin..."


 * All this nonsense about the Pyro being a woman. Really, Valve only started planting evidence that he could be female after the speculation started flying concerning his gender. Am I the only one who sees that they are just trying to mess with our heads? And more importantly - why the hell does it matter whether the Pyro is a man or a woman anyway?
 * Because video game nerds are all horny bastards who have nothing better to do than ponder the sex lives of fictional characters. Besides, everyone knows Pyro's really a robot.
 * See, I'm just reading this and all of a sudden this comes up on my screen. I'm a video game nerd and I take great pride in not caring about the private things the characters do. I am offended. Although a robot would be cool.
 * I'm more bothered by the immature jerks who are all "lol, Pryo can't be a wommen, womminfolk are icky/belong in the kitchen/would be gangraped faster than you can say Pyro" with varying degrees of seriousness.
 * Say, that reminds me. You know what else bugs me? People who comment about the purse in his locker saying, "Men can have purses too, way to gender stereotype!" And then turn around and say the Pyro can't be a woman because he's fat.
 * I always thought that Pyro couldn't be a woman because she was fat- the more weight you have the more visible your boobs are, whereas anatomically correct skinny girls would be nearly flat for the same reason. That is, if there aren't other factors messing with the proportions. Look at Heavy's stature, then at Pyro's, there should be a LOT more chest area if Pyro was a chick. And this is coming from a female troper, fyi.
 * If Pyro is a woman, she probably binds her breasts. Or maybe she removed them herself cause they got in the way, being that she's Pyro.
 * Well, when's the last time you've seen a fat female character in a video game?
 * Plenty of times, actually. Not as a main character, though.
 * Because purse-toting pyromaniacs are otherwise so common.
 * Actually, the purse has been there since the beginning. They've added fuel to the fire with the new domination voiceclips for some classes though ("you fight like a woman").
 * And now Valve is just trollin us with the new UI. It will randomly give you a class, and say "Why not try him out? Beat XX points." With the pyro, it will randomly switch between "Try him out" and "Try her out."
 * You all know she's hot underneth
 * This Troper thinks that the purse in his locker belonged to his wife, who had died previous to the events of the game, and he's simply keeping it as a memento.
 * It's made clear in The Soldier's bio that he hates Nazis so much he went on a Nazi killing spree that didn't stop until 1949. That being the case, why the hell is he willing to work on the same team as the Medic, who is so very Nazi?
 * Maybe it's not that he hates Nazis, but that he loves killing.
 * The prospect of killing people for money erases all national boundaries. After all, the Heavy (Soviet Russia) and Medic (Germany) are best buds when, a few decades ago, they'd be trying to kill each other.
 * Medic convinced him he's not really a Nazi. Maybe that he's not really German. This is the Soldier, after all.
 * Probably because as much as he acts like one, according to Valve he's not an actual bona fide Nazi, so Soldier would just stay clear.
 * It wouldn't make sense if he was. What bona fide Nazi would agree to work with a multi-ethnic, most certainly multi-religious team? And he has no qualms about killing the German on the other team.
 * A few things. 1: The Medic seems to me like someone who doesn't give a damn about political ideologies. 2: The Soldier probably just likes killing in general and killing Nazis was a good excuse seeing as there was a war on with them (he did continue killing people until well after the war was over). 3: The Soldier in his domination lines seems to have a surprisingly good understanding of geography and the world in general (for instance he understand the geo-political situation with England and Scotland and uses it to taunt the Demoman. The only exception being thinking that the Engineer is Canadian, or perhaps not being willing to accept the fact that he is American) so he probably realises that being German does not make the Medic a Nazi, which is more than can be said for a lot of TF2 fans.
 * Do they state that the Medic is a Nazi at all? He could simply be one of those Germans who were not involved in the Nazi Party in any way.
 * It's officially stated he's NOT a Nazi, despite everything else that says otherwise.
 * The simplest reason is that the Soldier doesn't hate Nazis, he hates America's enemies. He thought the war was still going on in 1949, and stopped right after he learned it was over. Since America and Germany aren't at war anymore, he has no reason to fight the Medic on his team.


 * In "Meet the Scout" where is the fight over Sandvich taking place? It looks like the central area in Granary, but at the end, when Scout is eating, it's clearly a port or dock of some kind (you can hear seagull, buoys, and see a ship in the background. [1:20]) is that an unreleased map or an early build of Granary?
 * It's just Granary. The ship is there and can be seen pretty well from the BLU side of the map. Go see for yourself.


 * The Sniper is probably drinking coffee to make Jarate, but wouldn't he be avoiding caffeine for the effect it'd have on his hands? Or is he just that used to it by now?
 * Maybe it's decaf.
 * It IS decaf. See the orange handle on the pot?
 * He's less worried about shaky hands than he is about sleeping on the job. He only drinks coffee to keep himself awake.
 * Maybe it's tea?
 * Tea also has caffeine
 * It does have less, though (and for some anecdata, This Troper can get the jitters from drinking a single cup of coffee very easily, but drinks a LOT of tea nearly every day with no ill effects).
 * Maybe he's just that good.
 * Watch the Meet the Sniper video again. He's pouring coffee out of an orange rimmed decanter, indicating that it's decaf coffee.
 * I'm much more worried about the quantity of Jarate he's capable of producing from ONE POT OF COFFEE than anything else here...
 * He's probably refilling it during the jump cuts. We never see him pour a new cup or fill up jars either.
 * Caffeine has a diuretic effect... but then he's drinking decaf coffee, which means it wouldn't affect him more than any other beverage, but yet he appears to have produced about 2 and half litres of urine in less than 8 hours, so how did he oh no I've gone cross-eyed.
 * He could just be saving up previous urine for his Jarate. After the Sniper update RED and BLU probably mandated everyone to save their pee in jars, hence why the Sniper can instantly get a jar by visiting a resupply cabinet.
 * In the Jarate comic, the Sniper gets pills that triple the size of his kidneys.


 * Why would an Australian say " God Gawd save the Queen"?
 * Australia is part of the Commonwealth, you know. It has a little Union Jack on its flag.
 * Word of God also says that the Sniper is as Australian as the Demoman is Scottish, so...
 * If I remember correctly, I think Australia didn't get its own national anthem til relatively recently.
 * Not until 1984, many years after Team Fortress 2 is set. Before then it was, of course, "God Save the Queen".
 * It's important to note we're referring to a hired killer here. That phrase may be less patriotism and more bragging that it's take God to save the queen from him.
 * Actually, judging by the whole Sniper's personality, valve is intentionally annoying Australians, who hate little more than to be considered British. That's why his voice actor's from England.
 * His voice actor is from the United States.
 * To this Australian history student it makes perfect sense. The game takes place in The Sixties. God Save the Queen was still the national anthem, and Australia was still quite culturally, economically and politically heavily connected to and influenced by Britain, and thus an Australian from that time would likely be a lot more British-influenced than most Australians today.
 * You could argue that the Sniper is really just a British expat. There's a lot of them out there, there are more constantly arriving (and there was a massive surge in the Fifties and Sixties, the latter decade possibly being when the game is set) to the point that roughly half the people in Australia are either expats or the children of expats - and that's just the English. Many could easily end up with Australian accents, and certainly Australian cultural attitudes if they were raised there as children.
 * The account given of Australian history in the Loose Canon comic either explains this or makes it even more confusing - as of at least 1890, the Australians of TF2 apparently choose their King based on kangaroo-boxing. Therefore, the Sniper could actually be referring to Her Majesty the Queen of Australia, who in the TF2 timeline may be an entirely different person from the Queen of England.


 * The BLU Soldier and the RED Demoman are supposedly friends in this, and the Announcer Lady is horrified at this fact, to the point where she orders this whole war thing.... but this takes place during the Meet The Spy update, where the RED Spy kills the BLU Soldier. Wouldn't that solve the whole "friendship" thing? Or is this setting aware of the whole Respawn aspect, so once the BLU Soldier respawned, he'd be free to hang out with his buddy RED Demoman?
 * There are more than one BLU Soldier and RED Demoman. If you watch the videos, these "mook" classes die in droves, usually against the "main character" classes.
 * It's not unreasonable to assume that technology like Respawn exists. What better way is there for Blutarch and Redmond to ensure their mercenaries can keep fighting? The Administrator wanted the Soldier and Demoman to fight each other so they wouldn't be friends anymore, not that coming back to life later is an issue.


 * ...the Soldier's name is Jane Doe?
 * John Doe is the name used when a male body cannot be identified. Jane Doe is the female equivalent, however...
 * It's hilarious.
 * Some are of the camp that he's faking his name. But really, does the Soldier seem like someone who would have the presence of mind to disguise their name, or even one that feels he would need to to begin with? Plus, it's more fun this way.
 * No wonder he became a psychotic killer obsessed with proving his military masculinity. Guy feels like he's got something to live down.
 * The Soldier tries twice to kill anybody who goes to his house before checking to see who they are. He thinks Lincoln invented stairs. He's easily paranoid enough to get a fake name, and nuts enough to pick "Jane Doe."
 * What bugs me about this is how everybody seems to accept "Jane Doe" as his real name without even considering that, gee, maybe the obviously fake name is a fake name.
 * This is a world where mercenaries can run around wearing Christmas trees on their heads without anyone batting an eye. Is an unstable, macho-man lunatic being named Jane Doe that unbelievable? Rule of Funny people, Rule of Funny.
 * This is the guy who went on a self-funded one-man rampage across Europe, got booted out from the army, talks to cardboard friends, lives with a magician, thinks Sun Tzu beat up a bunch of animals on a boat, and Rocket Jumps because he doesn't know he can't, and you're concerned about his poor choice in cover names?
 * And if it's not a cover name -- i.e. the Soldier's name is Jane Doe -- no wonder he insists people use "Mister" before it, hence the "MISTER JANE DOE" sign on his apartment window.


 * This is more Wild Mass Guessing, but are there any theories on who the guy just off-panel of the Mann family photo with his face obscured is? The same name obscured in the will? ...a relation to the Pyro?
 * Valve loves to troll its fanbase, so they'll probably leave that unanswered, for fans to speculate upon in vain forever.


 * How come there are two of each class, but only ONE announcer?
 * Because she's on both sides.
 * Which raises the question as to why she owns both companies and makes them fight each other.
 * Where is it implied that she owns both companies? I thought that she was just an executive for both companies, and not the (only) one who pitted them against each other.
 * Actually, it's more implied that she's a contracter for both companies. RED and BLU both turned to her to wage war on the other, and it's in her interests to propagate it as long as possible. Hence why, in loose canon, she deliberately prolongs both of their lives.
 * Ummm, just checking in...In case you guys haven't noticed, SHE LIKES MAKING PEOPLE KILL EACH OTHER! It's not exactly subtle.
 * Considering the classes for both sides are completely identical, as both BLU Demoman and RED Demoman look the same, it's possible that they're just two different announcers.
 * Actually, Valve has explicitly shown that the announcer for both sides is one woman, known as the Administrator.


 * The new weapons. The original classes/weapons (once they settled down) make for a good game, why risk messing that up? Why put the designers in the impossible position of coming up with something new that doesn't change a good thing? Let 'em loose on a new game using the engine rather than cramping their efforts, and/or get 'em working on some good maps. I can see it's a strategy for extending the games life but I don't buy it: the risk of pissing off existing fans is pretty high and the novelty value doesn't equal a new game.
 * The fact the game is still going strong should tell you everything: Valve aren't stupid, and do think things through before implementing them.
 * That's the entire point. Novelty value does not equal a new game because they aren't trying to make it new in the first place. They're trying to extend the life of the current one. And as noted above, it's working.
 * They even have a dedicated game for testing these weapons (TF2 Beta) and most of them have a rather noticable drawback for a situational return. They're more or less used to break stalemates and for customizing to player's tastes.
 * The game is more or less itself a beta for all of Valve. It was stated in a interview that they put stuff in TF2 to see how people will like it in other games they make.


 * What is beauty?
 * In the eye of the beholder. Or is that the vitreous humour?
 * It's within the purview of your philosophical conundrums. I can't answer that for ya.
 * This problem isn't practical.
 * Heavy Weapons guy is beauty. THE FARM is beauty. Bullet is beauty. Crap is beauty. Oh man, that's beautiful. Demoman? Is not beauty. Because that would fall under the purview of black Scottish cyclops.


 * As of the Engineer update, the Engineer has an unlock called the Gunslinger, a robotic hand. Instead of being a glove, the blog post outright says it's a replacement hand. It also says he sawed his own arm off for it. Also, the robotic arm blueprints were designed by his grandfather. Blutarch himself said he "spent a small fortune" trying to make sense of them. All this adds up to the biggest question: how the hell did the Engineer saw his hand off, build a robotic arm, surgically attach it, and manage to not kill himself, without any help? I'd say the Medic helped, but I doubt he'd be able to understand the blueprints, and I sure as hell wouldn't trust him to cut my arm off and replace it.
 * The man builds a dispenser that heals everything from gunshots, bone-saw slashes, explosives damage and removes glass bottle shards, and you ask how he survives cutting his hand off? Seriously though, he probably just stood next to his dispenser and took a deep breath. The guys don't even really flinch with an arrow through the skulls if they survive it, so cutting your hand off is kinda easy to shrug off.
 * Simple, he built another robotic hand, used that one to replace his original hand, and used it to attach the new hand.
 * He had it all along. After pulping his right hand with an oil drill in his youth, his then-alive and still taciturn grandpa installed a basic prosthetic without much explanation. He didn't understand what really made it tick and couldn't afford to take it apart without being able to put it back together, so it slowly fell into disrepair until it couldn't really do much except hold things and pull triggers. Discovering the blueprints let him fix it up and reveal it with battle modifications, since with his current mercenary career he didn't have to bother with things like "not freaking people out" anymore.


 * Okay, for a few weeks, a number of places have listed the Engineer's name as Dell Conagher. Now, all of a sudden, it's Delmond. Can anybody tell me where this came from? It's not in the Loose Canon comic, which only confirms his surname and the shortened version of his first name. Was there some blog post on the official site I missed or something?
 * The name isn't as serious as you seem to expect it to be. They gave the Engineer, who builds the blocky, square, unsafe machinery, the name Dell right after releasing the comic for the Mac update, which gives the unnamed Dell line of weaponry that the Team uses a foil in the form of Mac. It's a joke.
 * Dell is also probably short for Delmond.
 * You guys missed my point. Everybody called him Dell the first few weeks after Loose Canon came out because the comic explicitly spelled it out. Now all of a sudden, his official name is Delmond instead, and I'm wondering where it (as in where the name "Delmond") came from because I cannot find an official source for this change. I get the joke and understand Dell is short for Delmond, it's that nobody explained where the name "Delmond" came from.
 * And to add to that, why is Valve's offical TF2 wiki still listing the Engineer as "Dell"? I think somebody got fooled by the old TF2Wiki.
 * Since when have people started referring to the Engineer as Delmond? I haven't seen that name used.


 * If the Heavy can punch people to death barehanded, why can't he at least attempt to use his fists to defend himself whenever his team loses a game?
 * His fists. They are no longer made of steel! He can still use them to shoot people though.
 * Losing brings great shame to him and to the Motherland. He loses the motivation to fight.


 * If so many of The Engineer's achievements are based on using The Wrangler, why is it the last weapon the Engineer unlocks?
 * Because so many of its achievements are based on using it, and a few of those that aren't take time, like the ones for hauling buildings or picking up metal from dead buildings. So it makes sense for the Wrangler to be second rather than last, because doing all the non-Wrangler achievements to get the Frontier Justice and the Gunslinger would A: take time B: create the conundrum of having to do more achievements to get the Wrangler.... most of which involve the Wrangler.
 * Also, you can get the Wrangler before the achievement by a random drop or crafting.


 * When will we ever Meet The Medic or Pyro?
 * Not meeting Pyro is semi-understandable, what with a total lack of coherence and all and it may be difficult to meet a character without signing then in to a definitive gender, which would mean valve would have to stop trolling their fanbase. Or maybe it's just valve time... but I see no reason why not to meet the Medic, voice actor issues?
 * Good news, everyone! I share this quote straight from the Team Fortress 2 wiki: "Attendants of the Spike TV 2010 VGA Awards report seeing a private screening of a final cut of Meet the Medic during the event, suggesting a release of the video in the near future." We may just be meeting the Medic soon enough!
 * Also, I read somewhere that they were also planning on making Meet the Pyro, and having everything be from the Pyro's point of view.
 * Part of Meet the Director has several screenshots featuring the Medic in the background, including the high quality model. Coming soon!
 * Sooner than you think! The Saxxy video award winners are being announced tonight (6-8-11) at 3pm PST. Most likely they'll be releasing Meet the Medic when all the awards have been given out.
 * Meet The Medic is out as of the Über Update.
 * Good news; Meet the Pyro is coming out this year. Revealed here.


 * Wait, I'm confused. This is set in the 50's-60's-ish timeframe? Where the hell did the Scout get his earpiece? ...Forgive me if those existed back then, I was born in the early '90s so I wouldn't really know... obviously.
 * The same place they got teleporters and invisibility watches. Which is to say, probably Australia...
 * That earpiece is just a simple aviation headset with one earpiece. Those have been around forever.


 * Is there any reason the game requires such massive (from 300 MB to 2 GB) updates almost daily without any real changes occurring?
 * Sounds like it's an issue on your end. The game isn't updating that often, or with that large a file size.
 * It's not an uncommon issue to suffer these ridiculously oversized patches, but to date nobody has figured out why is happens.
 * And now the incoming update is nine gigabytes. Considering my internet speed, I guess TF2 has been rendered unplayable for me.
 * I'd recommend reinstalling then. I had the same issue, and that appears to have cleared it up (3.7MB update FTW!). I can't guarantee it will work but 9GB is greater than the entirety of TF2, so there's nothing to lose at this point.
 * Mmm, what the installer says is downloading is not necessarily what is actually being downloaded. Sometimes even a nine gig update is just a 40 meg update which requires the entire thing to be validated for some reason. It's weird.
 * But as we all know, 90% of every update comprises hats.


 * In Medieval Mode, you can use the Scout's Mad Milk, but not the Sniper's Jarate? What the hell?
 * Because it's only the tenth century. Jarate hasn't been invented yet!
 * Specifically, Saxton Hale hasn't invented the Jarate pills yet. Presumably, the Sniper's kidneys receded to their natural size.
 * What, and there was such a thing as radioactive cows then? I think not...
 * The Sniper has a melee weapon that crits on anyone who would normally take minicrits. They already have one of two ranged weapons in the mode, either anti-backstab or +25hp shields and a melee. They don't need to be even more powerful.


 * This doesn't really bug me, but I do find it a little odd that Medics have to push the handle of their mediguns away from themselves rather than towards themselves in order to heal people. Maybe I'm missing something here, but it seems like it might get a bit awkward.
 * It's somewhat reminiscent of a fire hose nozzle. I'm not sure why fire hoses are designed that way nor whether the reasons are applicable to a medigun but I'd hazard a guess that it was the original inspiration.
 * My guess regarding fire hoses: Those things fire a lot of water with the consequently large recoil, so you need to be stand and aim properly before firing. Forcing you to push forward means you can't accidentally open the valve by, say, tripping.
 * Also, the mediguns are modified fire hoses, so they'd have the same handles.


 * If the Medigun can heal Heavy's chest, Scout's tooth, Demoman's arm etc, as seen in Meet the Medic, why can't it heal Demoman's eye? Or the scar on Sniper's face?
 * Probably something to do with how recent the injury is.
 * I'm still wondering why ribs don't grow back, if teeth do.
 * Ribs CAN grow back (the Medic actually knows very little about medicine), especially if you have a machine implanted in your heart and the medigun's set to Regenerate. As for why Demoman's other eye didn't grow back, it's maybe due to the injury being not recent enough to be recovered. So there's a sort of time limit as to when you can regenerate certain injuries, or else you'll lose those things forever (such as if the Medic had not discovered the ÜberCharge, Scout would still have a chipped tooth and so on, time paradoxes aside).
 * Or it did heal the Demoman's eye, but he's decides to leave the eyepatch on. (Or he's too drunk to take it off.)
 * The Medigun probably can only heal wounds and such. Scar tissue has already healed (albeit poorly) and therefore would be unaffected by the medigun.
 * The Medigun can only revert people back to a state they were at when the Medic first scanned them in. It's Quantum Regeneration. That is why it also repairs clothing and leaves the Demoman's eye alone. He was already missing it when the Medic scanned him. He was wounded after that point and the medigun reset him to the previous state. But he didn't scan in the weapons, which is why they don't refill ammunition or repair broken equipment. (Razorback, Caber, etc.)
 * Or it could have something to do with the Demoman's eye no longer belonging to him. Remember, it was possesed by the Bombinomicon when he was seven.


 * In what map does Meet the Medic take place? It kind of looks like Yukon, but I can't be sure.
 * A modified version of Badwater, according to Valve.


 * What is the Pyro? I don't mean as in what gender, but in terms of gameplay, what are they supposed to be? Spy-checkers? Everyone can do that, the Pyro just makes it noticeable. Assassins? Spies and Scouts have them beat in every way, are much more inconspicuous, and Pyro doesn't even have a decent way of getting around the map. An ÜberCharge counter? Really too uncommon to base him entirely on that. A friendly Engineer's best friend, and an enemy Engineer's worst nightmare? Spies have the nightmare part down and other Engineers can handle their friend's stuff just fine. A self-sufficient walking fire-ball? Well that's what he really should be, but Valve has rarely released Pyro weapons that go towards that play style. Every single thing I just mentioned regarding the Pyro exists in the forms of many different weapons of varying quality. Every other class has their role down-pat. Their unlocks branch them off to playstyles that they are suitable for, but not ideal for with standard unlocks. But the Pyro feels like a novelty class that exists only for Valve to throw silly stuff at and seeing what happens. Because even they don't know what the Hell the Pyro is.
 * Short range combat specialist.
 * Well Heavy has that covered what with all of the buffs he's gotten.
 * The Pyro is an ambusher. Someone that jumps out from around the corner, or out of some cover, and fills the area with flame. Doesn't need the level of stealth or the mind games of the Spy. Just hide somewhere, and surprise an enemy. Even if the Pyro dies, the flames will stick around for a bit unless some water, a source of health, another Pyro, a Sniper with Jarate, or a Scout with Mad Milk is nearby, and those flames can eat a significant chunk of health, potentially enough to kill someone that was caught unawares enough to get a couple seconds of flame burn.
 * The Pyro doesn't need to be anything, the Pyro merely is. On the other, more serious hand, maybe he's supposed to be the true Mario of the game- easy for beginning players to use with potential in all sorts of areas.
 * I play the Pyro to annoy the other team. Shooting rockets back and hurting them, dominating spies, making sure they are always on fire and maybe getting the drop on a medic/heavy combo for massive damage are a few of the ways to roll.
 * I support the above theory that Pyro is The Mario. Sure, other classes can do one or two of the things he can slightly better, but what other class can very effectively Spy-check (even the Dead Ringer stands no chance), destroy Sappers (Homewrecker), reflect projectiles like rockets and arrows, extinguish burning teammates and toss enemies around (compression blast), potentially Back Stab (quick one-two with the Axtinguisher), and pretty much cause a Total Party Kill with a stream of crits all by their lonesome self? It helps that he has the highest balance of Speed and Health of every class.
 * The compression blast is the very most important of his abilities. His fire can make the enemy run backwards to save themselves with water.
 * That's a very useful ability, too.
 * Pyro is quite a Mario, excluding long-range combat (long range harassment still works, flareguns can make snipers bugger off for 10-20 seconds a time). The flamethrower is pretty strong in close-range, and he has maneuverability over the heavy and his minigun, can be used as a makeshift smoke grenade (though I cannot confirm the effectiveness of this strategy), and it's the single best way to spycheck in the game. One puff and a spy is screwed. The shotgun fills out medium range combat. Some of the melee weapons (mostly the Axtinguisher) help with the role of an ambush class, but the most multi-functioned of all is the airblast. It's about the best counter to an Über Charge, can quickly kick out unwelcome visitors with ease, reflects most projectiles, and moves away sticky traps, and your mere presence on the battlefield may cause enemy soldiers to resort to shotguns, it also extinguishes burning teammates, and allows you to push a guy into a corner and kill him very quickly. Not to mention he also occasionally blasts people into huge ravines and off cliffs.


 * If I remember correctly, the Engineer built all his unlocks himself when the Engineer update rolled around. So why is he holding the Frontier Justice when the Heavy and Medic pass by him and sniper in Meet the Medic?
 * Obviously, the Medieval Mode time-travel screwup flung various objects from TF2's present into its past. Demoman also has a Scottish Resistance at one point in the video, and a couple Soldiers are wearing more recent hats.
 * None of the updates were necessarily released in in-game chronological order. The Engineer Update could very well have been before the events of "Meet the Medic", in the game universe.
 * Same goes for the order of the Meet the Team videos, considering that Medic's is all about the invention of the ÜberCharge (and shows his prototype medigun).


 * Why did the Soldier just get ANOTHER SOLO UPDATE?
 * There are still two rockets left, so there is a chance that some other classes will get some space-goodies too.
 * Also, the weapons were designed by WETA Workshop for the Soldier- basically they asked Valve "hey, we designed some cool weapons, wanna use them?" and Valve was all "gosharoonies, we sure do!"
 * And oh hey, Australian Christmas delivered a rocket just for Engineer and Pyro. Happy now?


 * Why does the Spy use a revolver? Those things are far from silent -- IIRC, there is exactly one kind of revolver that can even be silenced.
 * Probably because the spy relies on disguising, cloaking, and backstabbing more. The revolver is probably incase he gets discovered.
 * And as this troper will confirm from personal experience, it's entirely possible to get kills with the revolver and sneak away scot-free.


 * In Payload, why doesn't the defending team just destroy the train tracks to prevent the bomb cart from moving. Yes, I know its a game and if they wrecked the track there would be no game, but is there any attempt to lampshade this?
 * Because most of the time, the tracks are probably used to ship materials to and/or from the RED base. I think there actually is some lampshade and the level designs, like Goldrush I believe the starting area for BLU is a gold mine. If RED destroyed the tracks, it would stop the bomb, but it would also stop the flow of whatever resources were being moved along those tracks before BLU put their bomb on it.
 * So the tracks are vital to both sides, gotcha!
 * I think the tracks are made of Australium, thus are indestructible!
 * I was going to add 'why don't the RED guys destroy the wheels of the BLU cart then throw it from one of the convenient high places, then?' when it occurred to me that the RED team probably have it in their contract/orders to keep the cart intact- after all, the woman who issues their orders sent the cart to start with.
 * I always assumed that the entire cart was made of some sort of indestructible material, which would explain why it never explodes/gets permanently damaged no matter how much chaos happens around it.


 * Melee crits are accompanied by a special animation, right? Heavy's uppercut, Pyro's horizontal chop, Soldier's backhanded swing, etc. So why don't the classes always swing their weapons that way for guaranteed crits? Ranged weapons only crit when their projectiles are covered in lightning aura, but the melee weapons don't have this restriction; it's just a different motion on the user's part. The Heavy and Engie both have Ph.Ds, they should be able to figure this out.
 * It's alleviated somewhat by the fact that most of the melee weapons have very high crit rates compared to the others, hinting that they're aware different motions have some kind of unique, lethal effect.
 * Besides, the Heavy's degree is in Russian literature.
 * When crit-boosted (by for example a Kritzkrieg or winning a round), all weapons will have the user perform the special animation. However, the crit damage can still fail to apply, for example when hittin an enemy under the crit-negating effect of Battalion's Backup. Video game Critical Hits in general are meant to simulate a lucky hit, so just doing the motion may not be enough for the characters. A horizontal axe swing can get lodged in your ribcage and puncture your heart, or it can just graze your arm. So even if the Pyro always did horizontal swings, that would not guarantee him crit damage.
 * Do they crit because of the special animation? Or do they get the special animation because of the crit?
 * In-universe, they don't do that because they are smart. In a real fist-fight, you can't just throw the same punch over and over and hope that the opponent won't figure that out.


 * If the Heavy is capable of carrying and firing a minigun without any problem, why must he use his fists to fight? Where's his giant war hammer?
 * He likes using his fists to fight. He's good with them anyway, and a war hammer would add extra weight.
 * He's also got experience in boxing.
 * Because only babies need weapons to help with melee combat.
 * They are made of steel!
 * Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking And hammers are left to the Pyro.


 * So why does a man with eleven PhDs (who is also skilled in building a variety of deadly contraptions) run around a battlefield with a wrench constructing the same four things over and over, while getting shot at? Seriously, he has eleven PhDs. Anyone who can say that should not choose a job with any sort of physical danger involved.
 * Exposure to Australium is known to mess up the brain.
 * He likes it? And many sources imply that these mercenaries are paid a LOT! Plus, remember that every person on the team is insane in one way or another. Perhaps this is the Engineer's insanity.


 * Just what was the Soldier doing with all those kids in the Halloween comic?
 * Trying to keep them fed. Or taking them trick-or-treating.


 * A Machina is crafted using a rifle and a righteous bison. It seems the only purpose of the righteous bison is to allow the Machina to fire tracer rounds. Why wouldn't the Sniper just leave that out?
 * The purpose of the Bison is to let the bullets go through multiple targets, not make tracer rounds.
 * Yes, but how often does he get the chance to headshot two people at once? Seems like an unfair trade-off.
 * If the Righteous Bison was left out, then it would just be an ordinary Sniper Rifle.
 * By the logic of crafting, urine can be crafted into marble, soda can turn wood into aluminum, and food, wood, and animal hides can be smelted to make metal. Very few of the crafts make any logical sense.


 * Why does everyone say the Engineer is the Only Sane Man? To me, only the Soldier and Pyro seem to be truly insane. The others are just a bit casual about killing. That doesn't make them insane.
 * He's more like the Least Insane Man. I'd argue the Pyro may not be insane because we don't know what he's thinking, but the Administrator has stated in the comics that they're all psychopaths.
 * While the Soldier is the most disconnected from reality, I'd say the Medic is probably the most insane in terms of sadism and sheer bloodlust.
 * Original Poster here: the Administrator is hardly a reliable source, and I guess the Medic could be viewed as insane, but I still don't see how the Scout or Spy are, for example.
 * I could do more research into the mercs, but their happy willingness to kill people and gloat about it qualify them as psychopaths, at least. (Listen to their domination lines.) And the Administrator is a reliable source. She knows enough about the mercenaries to blackmail them.


 * How can the Scout push the cart twice as hard as anybody else, especially people like the Heavy or Soldier?
 * Otherwise he would have little role on offense for Payload.
 * I'm pretty sure the question asked how the Scout can push the cart with the strength of two people. The cart itself is a little confusing - all we see is a cart with explosives (or a vehicle with teeth), but it acts like a dispenser, providing ammo, metal, and health to the BLU team. It can also roll backward on its own, if unattended for a while. So it must be a magic cart that responds to Scouts better in the same way control points do.
 * You're assuming Scout is physically weaker than other classes because he's a Fragile Speedster. However, he can run and jump much faster and higher than the rest of the team, which by Newton's second law of motion F=ma suggests that his leg muscles are are actually very strong (although this is offset by the fact that Scout is the lightest class). With the right technique, he could actually be very good at pushing carts.


 * In the 2011 comic "A Smissmas Story", Scout thinks the child is the Spy, disguised. However, the Scout and Spy here are on the same team (BLU), meaning Scout should have seen the Spy, with a paper plate with the kid's face on it, if it were the Spy. However, he must've just saw the kid, no plates involved, because the kid wasn't the Spy, so he wouldn't have confused them. What's up with that?
 * The masks may be only for players to know if the Spy's on their team, while in universe his disguises are perfect to anyone. May or may not be a choice on the Spy's part.


 * In the Third Annual Scream Fortress comic, it's revealed that the RED Soldier lives with Merasmus, a wizard. Less than two months later, in the 'A Smissmas Story' comic, the BLU Spy mentions offhandedly that the BLU Soldier happens to live with a wizard. Does this mean that the RED and BLU Soldier are either the same person, or that the two Soldiers are so eerily alike that they even have similar roommates?
 * The comics were made by different artists so I'm pretty sure it was just a mistake by the artist of the Smissmas comic. Kind of like how "Meet the Director" had a lot of errors when it came to the mercenaries' uniforms.
 * They share the same appearance so them sharing the same type of roommate as well isn't so odd. Maybe Merasmus can split himself into two people or he has his own double.
 * I shrugged it off as Merasmus moved out of the place with RED Soldier and in with BLU. The Halloween Update has Soldier saying "I Need a Roommate" as one of his robot dialoguebits. So one could ague that RED lost a roommate and BLU gained one.
 * It seems that some things in the universe aren't considered part of "BLU class" or "RED class". They're just considered part of the class as a whole. Take, for example, the Spy. In Meet the Spy, it's shown that the RED Spy is sleeping with the BLU Scout's mom. In game, however, both the RED Spy and the BLU Spy wield Ambassadors engraved with a picture of Scout's mother, and Spies on both teams will say "Well, off to visit your mother!" when dominating a Scout. From the looks of things, it's not "RED Spy is sleeping with BLU Scout's mom". It's "The Spy is sleeping with the enemy Scout's mom". The same could apply to Merasmus; He's not the BLU Soldier's roommate or the RED Soldier's roommate. He's just the Soldier's roommate.


 * Why do (noticeably enough) fans posit that the Soldier talks to his shovel? Sure, he's used it for more than a decade, but it doesn't mean he must get that attached to it. I'm being pedantic about canon here, I know, but is there any source for this assumption?
 * As far as I can tell, it's that a) there's a predecent for this sort of thing by other characters in the game(read, Heavy and Sasha), b) Soldier once had a tea party with several cardboard cutouts and chatted to them and c) It's Soldier. He's crazy.


 * When Demoman claims to have shagged the Medic's wife, does that mean the Medic is actually married? Or does Demo just think he is for some strange reason? What sort of woman would want to marry an unlicensed Mad Doctor who's off being a mercenary all the time, anyway? Is she even a normal person? Or maybe she's The Baroness and way scarier than he is and he's totally whipped. Or is Demo just implicitly calling Heavy a woman, if you see what I mean? Although that would tend to backfire a bit; it would be a little odd for a 1960s mercenary to brag about shagging a man twice his size... or is he claiming to have committed unnatural acts upon Archimedes? Anyway, it seems most likely that Medic is in fact a bachelor, but Demo doesn't know that and figures that if he were married, that remark would offend him.
 * You seem to have answered your own question. We may never know whether or not the Medic is married, though this is a domination line, so it's meant to insult in a Your Mom sort of way. This will probably open another can of worms, but I remember reading a fanfic that said the Medic does have a wife, and they're in an open relationship. They don't see each other much anyway. There was also a statement along the lines of "but, he thought, of all people, she could've chosen someone better than the opposing Demoman". All fanon, but amusing to think about.
 * Your 'most likely' possibility seems to hit the nail on the head nicely. Alternately, Demoman is constantly drunk. He could just be sleeping with Scout's mother and got confused.
 *  "What sort of woman would want to marry an unlicensed Mad Doctor who's off being a mercenary all the time, anyway?"  This may be why she's cheating on him.
 * With another mercenary who's presumably only off the job at the same times her husband is...
 * Or she's just as crazy as he is.


 * Kinda had a moment of fridge logic here: if the Pyro's Airblast can knock people into the air and keep them there as long as he has ammo, whats stopping him as using it as a double or triple jump?
 * The magic, not quite understood system called game balance. If the Pyro could use the flamethrower's compression blast in a jump, players could theoretically get 10-11 jumps before landing.
 * I know that its obviously for game balance I'm simply point out the fridge logic involved. On another note the airblast seems to defy Newton's Third Law (for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction), once again if it can knock back the Heavy of all people, shouldn't the Pyro suffer more recoil then what he seems, woo more fridge logic.
 * Well, there you go. There are a lot of game elements can't can't be explained.


 * As seen in Meet the Spy where BLU Spy's head was blown off by BLU Soldier, friendly fire is turned on in-universe. How are they going to demonstrate the Pyro spy-checking in Meet the Pyro? Will Pyro just be that good at picking out a spy just by looking at them instead?
 * Negative Continuity? Or they could turn friendly fire off.
 * WMG: The BLU Spy was the RED Spy who used a Dead Ringer.
 * That would be physically impossible. And also incorrect; they clearly show you the BLU Soldier was wrong and that the Spy he killed was a BLU Spy.


 * Another Headscratcher in regards to the Medic's primary weapon; if the Medigun can heal injuries, what makes it unable to heal the Demoman's leg when he has the Bootlegger equipped, or the Engineer's hand when he is using the Gunslinger? Some other Tropers have suggested the Medigun can only heal recent injuries, but the removal of a leg or hand is rather recent, if you switch from a weapon to one of the Bootlegger/Gunslinger.
 * Perhaps the gun can only heal if there's nothing too solid in the way. There's already a replacement foot or hand for those two items. Then again, how can canon explain equipping then removing the Bootlegger, assuming the Engineer can wear his glove over the Gunslinger? (Merasmus...?) Maybe that one isn't canon.


 * Why has the Medic never appeared in any of the comics? It seems like he and Pyro are kind of the Out of Focus brigade: Pyro barely ever appears in the comics, "Meet The Medic" was the second-to-last one to come out, "Meet The Pyro" isn't out yet...
 * It's because the Medic's characterization (mostly insane, with a tenuous grasp on medical ethics, as far as we know) is hard to insert into supplemental material. The probable reason "Meet the Medic" was the second to last to be released is that a video about him is more complicated than the others; while everyone else is shown working alone or able to hold up on his own in a fight, the Medic is firmly in the support role, meaning the TF2 Team had to make a video about healing and interacting with a teammate. The Pyro is hard to characterize when the TF2 Team is so reluctant to give it character other than "fights with fire".
 * Well, most of the comics are rather old. I'm guessing they avoided using those two in the comics until their 'Meet the' videos came out, so as to avoid contradicting/discrediting any possibilities for the videos as they worked on them. They might appear more in later comics. It also might be a case of slight favouritism at work- the Soldier appears in almost all the comics, for example (plus, making Pyro understandable would probably be tricky in comic form).
 * Um... the comics are made to showcase weapons/updates, and those two have been getting the short end of the stick in new equipment terms?
 * Not really. The Sniper has the least weapons, but he has appeared in several comics.


 * Team Fortress 2 is set in the 60's, yet Team Fortress Classic seems a bit more modern-day. How could it be that the Engineer from Team Fortress Classic is the TF2 Engineer's father?
 * Maybe RED and BLU waged war until the technical advances in TFC became Lost Technology. Alternatively, they do know that wizard that likes to manipulate time...
 * Hats that remove hats. How does that work exactly? Why can't you just have an option for the Sniper (for example), to just take it off?
 * You expect Valve to pass up an opportunity to have more hats?