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[ank]

(TF2 is also not as awesome as you may think!)

What is this.

LIES!
and hats...

[IronTomato]

Actually, the issue is also playing the game. According to the OP, he uses nearly all of his free bandwidth as it is, without playing TF2. Adding the data transfer might very well push him over into the 'paying for overage' zone.

Yes, but I spend a some time on youtube (A moderate amount) So I could cut down on the Youtube'n to make room for improvement, which would help plenty. That was my plan.

IronTomato - I'm guessing you're liking somewhere rural to have such a tiny data cap? (At least the articles I see complaining about it mention issues with internet in rural areas a lot.)

Spot on. Story time, children:
The family was sick of crappy dial-up, so we went about looking for high-speed internet. We live out in the boonies so it was very difficult to find. We heard Time-warner cable was building a line down our road, so we figured "Ok, we'll just get time warner once they're done." WRONG. For some reason they decided to end the line right in front of our house, and wanted $3000 dollars that we didn't have if they were to extend it further. Then there was hughes-net; My aunt has it, and she says it's got about a 5 second lag before it starts actually sending / receiving a signal, which leads to a ton of programs thinking that there is no connection. Ever. All that was left was verizon.

[Rex_Nex]

Here I am with hughesnet and verizon... I feel for you. Expensive and strict limits... eh...

[Werdna]

Have any friends in town?  If they don't have data caps you could always beg an invite to their house with your PC and have it slurp down the game from there.

Just a quick google search shows people claiming 30-100MBps per hour of play.  There's some things you can do to limit the usage - first, tell Steam that you're on dialup or the next level above dialup, and it will automatically adjust your data usage downwards.  Second, disable the download of custom sprays, sounds, and maps (unfortunately, this will limit your server choice, but TF2 still has many active).  Lastly, there are some console variables you can play with to tell the game to send/receive updates less frequently, they are rate, cl_updaterate, cl_cmdrate.  Do some research on them, they'll affect your gameplay slightly.

Be careful when reading on the internet about speeds; a lot of people have no idea what the difference is between Kbps/Mbps and KB/s and MB/s, they use them interchangeably and they are not the same.  Kbps and Mbps are kiloBITs/megaBITs per second (lower case 'b' = bit), and KB/s and MB/s are kiloBYTEs/megaBYTEs per second (upper case B = byte).   Most 'speeds' are listed in Kbps/Mbps, and you need to convert that.  There are 8 bits in a byte.  So a lot of the napkin math I saw out there about this topic was hard to take credibly.

The most accurate sounding analysis I saw was:

For years, developers had to keep the plain old modem in mind with its 56Kbps bandwidth. Which means multiplayer communications were limited to that speed.

It's hasn't expanded much, a safe upper value today would be 100Kbps. That would be 12.5KBps, 750KB per minute, 45MB per hour or, at 120 hours, 5.4GB a month.

That's assuming 4 hours of play a day.

[IronTomato]

I rarely play online for over an hour.

Here I am with hughesnet and verizon... I feel for you. Expensive and strict limits... eh...

(Hugs)

[Facekillz058]

You guys could try Fairpoint, for internet, if it's in your area.
It's high speed and I haven't seen anything about data restrictions.

[IronTomato]

Fairpoint

How about the price?

EDIT: I have an idea. One of you kind fellas could download the latest windows version of TF2. Then, you put all of the program files up on mediafire (If mediafire can store files that big) I would then go to a library or somewhere with wifi and download the file onto my tablet. I bring the file home, put it on my PC and BOOM. Everybody's happy. Well, I'm happy, anyway.

...Is this possible?

[Frumple]

May vary by area. We've got $35/month for the low end, here. You can check here.

It's worth noting that fairpoint's kinda'... well, iffy, in other ways. Or at least has been, here. And they're still overpriced for what they offer. But, better than nothing, and hella' better than monthly limits.

[Lectorog]

Mediafire has a 200MB limit, I think; I know there is a limit. I don't know of any free site that will host something as large as TF2.

[Frumple]

Multipart file. That's pretty standard for huge stuff like TF2. Most compression software (7zip, winrar, etc.) has an option to file split like that. Then you just upload 50 or so 200 meg files. Download them later, uncompress, and voilą. The thing in its entirety.

[IronTomato]

I checked. Prices starting at $24.99 per month, and the speed was better than the one I have now. Is $25 per month a lot? (I have no idea) If so, I'll tell my parents about Fairpoint, but I really don't want to get new internet just so that me and my bruh can play TF2. Also, I think we might have a contract with Verizon. I'm pretty sure I don't though.

Multipart file. That's pretty standard for huge stuff like TF2. Most compression software (7zip, winrar, etc.) has an option to file split like that. Then you just upload 50 or so 200 meg files. Download them later, uncompress, and voilą. The thing in its entirety.

Androzip does that. I can feel the testosterone kicking in.

[10ebbor10]

I dunno. Only prizes I can compare with are those in Belgium. You'd get  these

Downloadsnelheid : 4 Mbps
Uploadsnelheid : 256 Kbps
Downloadvolume : 15 GB

for the same prize. Which makes it quite good, I suppose.

[Cthulhu]

For the record, Time Warner is also fucking awful, so you didn't really lose anything by missing them.

I have Fuse with no data limits and about 10mb/s download speed.  God damn I feel lucky when I talk to people with Verizon.

And yeah, as was mentioned, TF2 isn't all that great.  I think Tycho said it best when he called it twelve billiard balls in a clothes dryer.

[Werdna]

Team Fortress 2 was released in 2007, yet still has a metric crap-ton of active players filling out servers, and it is still actively developed for.  How many multiplayer games can you name that are still enjoyable and still have warm bodies filling servers after 5 years?

There are a bazillion games out there that wish they were a fraction of not-awesome as TF2 is.

[IronTomato]

And yeah, as was mentioned, TF2 isn't all that great.

That's an opinion. I think it sounds interesting. I would like the ability to choose your class, trade guns and other weapons with people on steam, and I like that each class has its own stats and strategies. There's something for every player that way. Oh, and hats.

EDIT: Mom said $24.99 was cheaper than our internet, so called up Fairpoint on the phone. They say they "probably don't" have coverage down our road, but they're contacting their engineer, to make sure. Let's hope that engineer isn't a spy.