That was my favourite pasttime before the update. I doubt my usual server haunts will see a huge amount of newbies (they're usually very populated regardless), but I shall have to indulge myself today.

Speaking of the Steam stats earlier, guess what:

1.6, always on top.

Pretty fucking fast.
I ambushed a heavy as a Scout and after I unloaded a shot and he was then all spun up and firing.
Did the same thing to a Sasha heavy and kicked his ass.

Good: Got the Bazaar Bargain crafted and I have the weapons needed to craft the Shanahsahwhatchamacallit

Bad: I have no reclaimed metal to finish the recipe.

Result: :C

I think i have a spare reclaimed you can have.

After Heavy's heart explodes and hits one of the birds, look in the window. Miss Pauling?

Also, I crafted a detonator, I'm not liking it so far. The explosion is really small and hard to time, and you lose that lovely 90 damage the flare gun does to burning players. In the hands of someone who knows what they're doing it's probably better but at the moment I'm probably switching back to flare gun.

I've found it difficult to use too, I'll probably go for some of the other kinds of weapons in the update and see how I like those.

Seems like the best place to ask...

As somebody who has never played TF2, what's a good class to try from the start and where's a good place to start looking to play?

I mean, I'm looking to avoid open hostility from people who have no idea who I am, y'know?

I'd say medic. You get to stay out of direct combat situations yourself but still get to be part of the frontline, so you get to see other classes in action. Also, no matter how much practice you need, you can still provide benefits to your team. That said there isn't really a wrong class to play as and you should give all of them a go eventually so you can have a feel for them. You can play offline mode against bots for a little while to get a feel for the classes before trying your hand in the Real World.

You could join the NPF Unlimited steam group and join the fun whenever people are playing, just sit in the chat room until people start a game.

The Soldier is an easy class to get into. He's got a rocket launcher, so it's basically a point-and-click deal, and he's got a lot of health too. It's great for learning basic map objectives, as well as what each class is capable of. The Soldier has a lot of fun tricks you can learn eventually (ie. rocket jumping) but you don't need to learn those right off the bat.

As for a good place to start looking to play... well, I just recommend you click the Find a Server button and try different gametypes. Control Points is good to start with to learn the dynamics of objective-based gameplay, but you can really pick any one you like.

EDIT FOR ABOVE: Medic is fun too, yes, and it's a great way to help without really knowing what you're doing - damn near anything you do will help the team in some way or another. I recommend Pyro and Heavy for a similar reason - you can do a lot of damage in a satisfying way even if you don't know the "optimal" ways to play each class. But once you know more-or-less how to play, it's best to just experiment with all classes; once you get a drop, for example, you might want to switch to whoever uses your new weapon so you can give it a whirl.

Evaluation of today's play session:

Tomislav Needs Nerf Badly. 90% of Heavies are using them now. And there are a -lot- of Heavies.