Normally, I couldn't care less who sees when one of my Strange weapons has ranked up, but, I've recently got a Strange Dead Ringer, and, whenever its rank increases, it notifies everyone on the current server, including my enemy team, that I'm using a Dead Ringer. Obviously, this is inconvenient when I'm feigning death, or going for "silent kills" (e.g. with the Spy-cicle or Your Eternal Reward).
Is there any way around this (i.e. can I stop these notifications going to everyone server-wide every time my Strange weapon ranks up)?
Best Answer
Short answer?
No.
Longer answer:
Notifications are sent directly from the item server to all other players directly on the server you're playing on. There's no way for a player or even a game server to prevent this from happening.
At least these notifications are just sent to a player's chat box rather than as a popup, which is what would happen when Strange items first came out.
Having said that, the only items you don't want people to know you've leveled up are the YER, Wanga Prick, Dead Ringer, and Invisibility Watch. Everything else across all classes you generally don't care if people know they leveled up.
Once you get past the early levels, it starts taking a long time to actually level up Strange items, so it becomes less of an issue.
Speaking as someone who has over 20,000 faked deaths on his Dead Ringer, I think I've only seen/heard once where someone commented on it leveling up. This is despite playing on primarily alltalk servers.