Looking Back on Mr. Paladin and TF2

[Dr. Bum]

This is about Mr. Paladin quitting TF2, why I'm posting it now of all times I'll explain later but the main point of this is to say that in no way am I trying to convince him to come back and play the game. That is entirely his choice and I understand and respect his desire to move onto something else. If there is some rule I overlooked that prohibits me from talking about this (I don't know why there would be but eh) then by all means take it down.

Oh, and this will be a long post, so get comfy and grab some popcorn.

Anyways, fairly recently, I've been silent in TF2. Things have cropped up in the real world (school, gf, etc etc) and I just stopped playing it. Recently, I've been revisiting the title, playing in a few casual servers and surprised about how much change there was and how little there was. Throughout the summer I have been watching TF2 videos on Youtube here and there, and along with playing TF2 a little bit more I have also decided to catch up with my favorite TF2 youtubers.

And my favorite by far was Mr. Paladin.

When I first joined TF2, I joined along with my friends. Immediately what we decided to do was choose what class to main, in the hopes of becoming good enough for competitive play, and we picked our classes based on our playstyle in other video games, or whatever class we enjoyed in the game. We had a soldier, a medic, a scout, an engineer...and I was left with absolutely no clue on who to main. Pyro seemed gimicky, I am not really suited for a Sniper, etc etc. Soon after, one of my friends remarked how hard it was to be a good Spy in the game and how frustrating it was to deal with a good one, and said to me that by juggling around all the classes I was never going to get good at the game. So, to spite him, I decided to main Spy.

It was rough. TF2 players are relentless against spies and I found the learning curve to be very steep. I could never get real experience in the class because I constantly kept dying. You have to keep in mind at this point when I made this decision, I have barely played TF2. I haven't even TOUCHED the Engineer class so I didn't know how to properly take down the very class a Spy is suppose to take down. Along with his class, to be good at Spy you needed to be proficcient at every class it seemed to learn their habits and how to take advantage of that.

This is where Mr. Paladin comes into play. To give me that jumpstart I needed to play the class, I watched his tutorials and TF2 videos. Thanks to that, I was easily able to grasp the ropes on how to be a good spy (only to be painfully reminded how much several months of little to no gameplay hindered my spy skills, particularly embarrasing since I have an unusual) and I remember how happy I was when I began dominating pubs. I know that isn't too impressive to some people, but to me the only people I saw dominating pubs were people toting them fancy-shmancy unusual hats. And now I'm one of those people.

And it was all thanks to Mr. Paladin. I have been subscribed to him for about as long as I have been playing TF2 (which I still consider myself a novice at, without nearly as many hours as other people) and I have never missed one of his videos about TF2 (until I stopped around when summer began). I loved his commentary, he was more professional than Muselk and others but still was able to crack a joke here and there and brought mostly informative content about the game in an entertaining way. I thought his "How a Spy Thinks" videos were genius when he first started them, and I wished he started to do that sooner when I was trying to learn how to play Spy.

Mr. Paladin's take on TF2 was refreshing. He didn't focus as much on the craziness of TF2 and instead focused on how to thrive in the craziness if that makes sense. Although, I knew full well he was going to quit soon. He had to, I would be driven insane making content for the same video game for years on end. But part of me denied that, I didn't believe it would happen because I didn't want him to. I didn't want him to stop.

And now here I am. I recently checked Mr. Paladin's channel to catch up on some of his videos and noticed it was covered in Overwatch videos (I have Overwatch but my laptop is not powerful enough to run it, yet can oddly run TF2 at a decent quality just fine). I scrolled down his uploads list and noticed his last TF2 video was uploaded a month ago, which I found very unusual because Mr. Paladin would upload a TF2 video at least once a week. After digging around I decided the best place to look was his Steam group.

And lo and behold Mr. Paladin made an announcement: he was going to quit TF2. As I am typing this, I still feel disheartened by the sad news. Mr. Paladin was the guy who figuratively stood beside me as I played the game, giving me tips on how to play better and how to thoroughly enjoy the great game that TF2 was and I still believe is.

Mr. Paladin leaving TF2 to me felt like a mentor's last goodbye to his pupil, telling me that I no longer need him to play the game. That TF2 is my own game now. All this time I thought that becoming a great spy like Mr. Paladin was near impossible, but in a way, he left behind thousands of Mr. Paladins: all of the people who watch his videos.


In short, I would like to thank Mr. Paladin. Thank you for being with me my entire TF2 career up until now. Thank you for teaching me how to play the game, and for giving me pointers on how to play better. Thank you for making entertaining content that has kept me entertained for years, and has helped me feel better when I was feeling down. Thank you for everything you have done for the sake of TF2. And I can certainly say I will continue watching his new content.

Thanks for reading, and I wish you luck in your future endeavors, Mr. P.

[Dr. Bum]

The best spy mercenary in TF2 has now retired. I would assume it would be safe to ask you all: what memories have you had with Mr. Paladin?

[Dapper]

+1

[high mmr replays v2 (pinned mess]

[phone]
MrP is the reason that I am the spy I am today

[Dapper]

My tf2 story

I first played tf2 on another account, entirely f2p, have no idea what I was doing, got 1,2 hundreds hours in 2 years and quitted, was still noob when I quitted

And 2 years later, I was surfing YouTube, one day I saw a gaming video "how a spy thinks", I watched and it brought back my passion to the game, I was never really a power class person, and I wasted hundreds of hours on something I don't like, and I saw how good it feels to be a good spy, I decided to "main" it

I lost my old account, wasn't sad it was a f2p account, and I don't have much stuff in my inventory

And so, I joined tf2 again, I didn't play spy much(at all) 2 years ago, I didn't know you can fucking backstab as him I just disguised and try to shoot people either revolver...

So, I found out it's a hard class, won't write anything to explain that, and I was desperate to find the youtuber that brought me back to the game, couldn't remember his name and I thought the video name was what you think of spy, and I couldn't find it

And I found muselk before j found mr.paladin again, did like him but he was a bit(very) unprofessional, and on the suggestions from one of his video I found mr.paladin

I watched how a spy thinks 1-25 in a few days and practice and practice, about when I had 24 hrs as spy I did my first trickstab, a stair stab, it happens before I even notice it

And I was just like this guy, I did not have any idea mr.paladin quitted before just a few weeks ago, I came to fucking communist China, YouTube is banned

And I found this Chinese website that have a guy posted all tf2 video from YouTube on it, I realized mr.paladin is going to overwatch

And, same feeling as that guy wrote this thread

I respect anyone's decision to do anything they want, but I'm still sad, and me and my pathetic hours won't make a difference of anything

I looked mr.paladin's inventory, realized how poor his inven was for a youtuber with Idek how many subs

(Muselk)

If mrpaladin had half of his smgs it will be enough for him to conquer a small country

And, just for the record, I hate overwatch, not as a game, not its gameplay

Imagine your favorite game, or thing, was plagiarized by a company made the game/stuff you dislike the most, and your favorite youtubers fell for it

[Dapper]

Hey took a closer look at his profile, I have very similar(almost the same) playtime ratio with mr.paladin, except my time of every class played is about 3000 times smaller

[MrPaladin]

Dr.Bum - Thank you for the kind words :) I'm glad I could help ya and I hope everyone has fun in all the games they play :)

Dapper - "I looked mr.paladin's inventory" - I've given away most of my stuff in contests and such, some of what was left after that is now passed onto my son.

[stolen hi]

Mr. Paladin's spy videos taught me how to be a good spy, how to trickstab, how to use cloak well, how to aim, etc. Many thanks Mr. P.

[CoffeeCow]

I know how you feel Dr. Bum, my computer can't run Overwatch either, sometimes I feel like I'm stuck here in tf2.

[Dapper]

I still suck at gunspy
Aiming is so hard

[Dr. Bum]

@Dapper I still find aiming the revolver with the Spy kind of difficult, though I found that strafe-aiming helps me land more shots.

@CoffeeCow Sometimes it does feel that way, but I still find TF2 to be a very enjoyable game. Overwatch may be cleaner and more polished than TF2 but TF2 has that amount of shenanigans that are fun to mess around with from time to time that I don't think really happens in Overwatch given how competitively driven it is. Also, even though all of my friends who have played TF2 with me have completely moved on to Overwatch, I can still pull them back every now and then and to be honest those moments have been the better experiences I have had with TF2. So, really, I don't mind being stuck here.

Although I do sincerely hope the developers get their act together and fix the issues the game has, such as improving the matchmaking system (or bringing back quick play, former still needs to be fixed), giving the Pyro a proper fix, and the like.

[Dapper]

Originally posted by Dr. Bum |SCG|:

@Dapper I still find aiming the revolver with the Spy kind of difficult, though I found that strafe-aiming helps me land more shots.

@CoffeeCow Sometimes it does feel that way, but I still find TF2 to be a very enjoyable game. Overwatch may be cleaner and more polished than TF2 but TF2 has that amount of shenanigans that are fun to mess around with from time to time that I don't think really happens in Overwatch given how competitively driven it is. Also, even though all of my friends who have played TF2 with me have completely moved on to Overwatch, I can still pull them back every now and then and to be honest those moments have been the better experiences I have had with TF2. So, really, I don't mind being stuck here.

Although I do sincerely hope the developers get their act together and fix the issues the game has, such as improving the matchmaking system (or bringing back quick play, former still needs to be fixed), giving the Pyro a proper fix, and the like.

You mean a+d and not moving ur mouse?
I usually get panic in the gun-required situations, and prefer 2 or 3 earned crits over slow headshots that depends on my crappy aim
But in comp...

[MrPaladin]

Originally posted by Dapper Cadaver:

You mean a+d and not moving ur mouse?

Yer, like in the Amby tutorial.

[Dapper]

Originally posted by MrPaladin:

Originally posted by Dapper Cadaver:

You mean a+d and not moving ur mouse?

Yer, like in the Amby tutorial.

I find it very hard to chill and aim when getting chased by a closing in wm1 pyro...
And I don't think it's practice, I just suck at aiming...

[MrPaladin]

Originally posted by Dapper Cadaver:

I find it very hard to chill and aim when getting chased by a closing in wm1 pyro...
And I don't think it's practice, I just suck at aiming...

Remember this simple fact: It's only a game and you don't really die or get hurt.

Soon after that you start doing high risk things when the reward is worth it and come out the other side like a champion with 1 HP like you ment to do it that way all along. Practice practice practice, and do your best to avoid damage so you can stay alive, but when its time to pull the trigger on a risk because you're gonna die anyway then go all out like a cornered pit bull

[Dapper]

Originally posted by MrPaladin:

Originally posted by Dapper Cadaver:

I find it very hard to chill and aim when getting chased by a closing in wm1 pyro...
And I don't think it's practice, I just suck at aiming...

Remember this simple fact: It's only a game and you don't really die or get hurt.

Soon after that you start doing high risk things when the reward is worth it and come out the other side like a champion with 1 HP like you ment to do it that way all along. Practice practice practice, and do your best to avoid damage so you can stay alive, but when its time to pull the trigger on a risk because you're gonna die anyway then go all out like a cornered pit bull

So I just keep amby at hand all the time and starting using it whenever I normally try to flee?
I normally use the diamondback or stock cuz when the time comes I can't use amby so I hav no chance to practice

Will trade my other guns for a really expensive amby help?... So I will bring it all the time...