VanillaTF2

CUBE —  It’s been a while since I’ve written an update regarding the VanillaTV YouTube Channel, so here’s a news post to let you know what we’ve been up to and what we’ve got planned for the coming months.

Fragmovies of the Month

For any of you that haven’t seen, a couple of days ago we released a new series called VanlliaTV Fragmovies of the Month, which rates and reviews TF2 Fragmovies from the previous month and provides links to the full movies. The idea behind this is to help editors gain more exposure for their fragmovies and also to hopefully increase the quality of the fragmovies by giving new editors an idea as to what people look for in a fragmovie.

I want to give a massive thanks to  BoneS and  Skyride for helping me review the videos and since releasing the video, I have also been approached by decap and  FreezeR who will now be joining the panel to help rate and review in future months.

We’ve had some great feedback since releasing the video and will start thinking about which movies to review for February very soon, expect to see the February video around mid-March.

More updates after the jump…

1^⁵ᵀ    Epsilon eSports  (137 points)
2ᴺᴰ    Team Infused (130 points)
3ᴿᴰ  Crack Clan (114 points)
4ᵀᴴ  2  Broder (94 points)
5ᵀᴴ  2  Team Yoyotech (79 points)
6ᵀᴴ  3  Exotic Island (78 points)
7ᵀᴴ Karnage eSports (74 points)
8ᵀᴴ  Tryharders (43 points)
9ᵀᴴ  Team Decerto (34 points)
10ᵀᴴ    Quarantine (29 points)

Greg — Fifteen votes will go into each month’s rankings, ten of which are from the previous month’s top ten teams, and five of which are from our panel members, who will vote every month. The points system remains simple: a first place vote earns that team 10 points, 9 points are awarded for second place, and so on. The numbers in parentheses refer to the specific team’s ranking in the previous Month.

Continue reading to find out who the panel members are, and see their thoughts and opinions on this month’s rankings.

Fog — Hey everyone, sorry about the lack of a Week 8 Power Ranking, but I had no time to write the article due to various personal reasons. Hopefully this roundup makes up for the lack of power rankings

After a very exciting final week of the season, the LAN spots have been decided! After the week 7 matches finished up, the final LAN spot was still very much up for grabs. The teams played on the classic favourite cp_granary for Week 8.

Granary is a standard 5CP map that along with Gravel Pit, are the only maps used from the launch of TF2. The map itself is known for it’s generally flat terrain, and it’s easy rollouts to the middle point. There have been some changes made to the map from the game’s launch in 2007, with the biggest recent change being with the addition of the second entrance to/from garage. Granary is also known to be a slow paced map with clear choke points and limited possibilities for flanks. Teams will have to rely on their heavy classes to put out lots of damage and also have to rely on their teamwork skills to be successful on Granary. Now it’s time to go over what went down in the 8th and final week of the regular season before LAN.

1^⁵ᵀ (1)   Epsilon eSports (140 points)
2ᴺᴰ (2) Team Infused (125 points)
3ᴿᴰ (5) Crack Clan (102 points)
4ᵀᴴ (3) Team Dignitas (97 points)
5ᵀᴴ (4) Relic (89 points)
6ᵀᴴ (8) Broder (80 points)
7ᵀᴴ (6) CKRAS Gaming (61 points)
8ᵀᴴ (7) Team Yoyotech (58 points)
9ᵀᴴ (9) Exotic Island (36 points)
10ᵀᴴ (NEW!) Quarantine (13 points)

Greg — Fifteen votes will go into each month’s rankings, ten of which are from the previous month’s top ten teams, and five of which are from our panel members, who will vote every month.  The points system remains simple: a first place vote earns that team 10 points, 9 points are awarded for second place, and so on.  The numbers in parentheses refer to the specific team’s ranking in the previous Month.

Continue reading to find out who the panel members are, and see their thoughts and opinions on this month’s rankings.

Fog — The article is a bit late, but Week 7 is now underway. I’ve decided to stick with just Power Rankings for the rest of the season, so no more predictions or roundups (unless there is a good response for the roundups).

With only two weeks left to go before the end of the season, teams are going to be making the final push for the remaining 2 spots for LAN. At this point, Classic Mixup and Quantic Gaming have already secured their place for LAN (which team will be first or second is still up in the air). The race for the final LAN spots have heated up, with Area 51, High Rollers Gaming, The Experiment, and Mighty Ducks being in what is the closest race for 3rd and 4th that I’ve ever seen. This week, matches are being played on the recently made official map cp_gullywash_final1 made by Arnold.

Gullywash has seen many changes during it’s many revisions, the most noticeable change from the last Release Candidate to the final version is the addition of the drop-down at the middle/2nd point connector/choke. This opens up some new possibilities with flanks for soldiers and scouts, opening up the narrow corridor which slowed the game down a bit. Another part of the map that teams will have to watch out for is the passage to the last point from underneath, which also provides a massive point for players to flank and potentially backcap the final point with the team at last. The last point has 4 viable options when pushing into it, however, the last point is also notorious with being a hard point to push. With the rest of the maps for the regular season being the standard 5CP, maps should play in a similar style. Now lets get into the Power Rankings, which will be short and sweet due to my limited time.

Trent — Here’s eXtv’s newest global compilation, with frags from just about everywhere. Enjoy!

Fog — Due to exams, I had not had the time to write my articles. So this week’s Power Rankings will not include predictions (they were terrible), with the roundup for week’s 4, 5, and 6 coming in the following days (Week’s 4 and 5 will be combined).

We’re now entering our 6th week of the ESEA-I Season, and with only two weeks to go in the season, Things are only heating up for the final LAN spot. Now, after this week, there will be a two week break from the 19th of December to the 1st of January which co-incides with various holidays. This week, matches are being played on a very new and interesting map in cp_standin_b5, created by scorpiouprising.

Standin is unique map, as it has the distinction of being the only map with all 3 capture points available to be capped at all times. It also introduces ESEA, and probably the rest of the competitive communities around the world with a new map type, Domination. Similar to Domination mode in Call of Duty games, teams must capture all three points to win the round. However, once a point is captured, it does not lock for the team and it is always available to capture (Like KOTH, but with 3 capture points). For teams to be successful on this map, The most important thing is actually understanding how this map works. Teams who play this map like a regular 5CP map or focus on DM over strategies are going to run into a lot of issues. Other things to consider on this map is the abundant flankings areas with the map’s multiple entrances and exits to points and spawn, and the extremely close proximty from spawn to B point. This map is the smallest map in rotation, making the gameplay very fast and full of action (Great for Spectators, not so great for players). 

CommanderX – Myself,  djc, and  Greg have record a pilot for what will be the first of our (hopefully) weekly podcast covering the latest TF2 goings on, matches, gossip, and general scene news. Firstly i’d like to apologise for Greg’s intro, i don’t know what he was thinking, we’re all embarrassed for him, and it about sums up how much use he is without quad.  Secondly as a bit of a disclaimer, the views expressed in this broadcast are ours alone and are not condoned by VanillaTF2/TV or anyone else.

This is a pilot, so we want as much feedback as possible. Use the comment section or PM us individually. Let us know what was good, bad, what you want more of, what you want less of. We’re thinking of maybe doing it live next time to allow more audience interaction. Shoutout to  huhy (djc’s favourite ETF2L admin) for helping me with the technology side of stuff, that i’m useless with.

Hope you enjoy

Podcast Edition #1

Comedian — While it has mostly gone unnoticed to the European community, CommFT and eXtv are organising a community highlander discussion at 21:00 CET.

Attending will be Free and jinn from CommFT, eXtine and  Mikal from eXtv, Bubblebobbler, INF,  hein and  forn from UGC, Comedian from VanillaTV,  Hildreth from ETF2L, Agro and  Ruskeydoo from KritzKast, wm from Ozfortress and last but not least, dubel from CEVO to discuss the fine points of Highlander and everything surrounding it.

The plan is to have around 1 hour talking about the various questions, after which it will turn into a public chat where we will be taking from you, the community. Of course, like always, there is the risk of overtime, so dont take this schedule too closely to your heart, especially not with so many people attending.

you can listen to the discussion in the eXtv Mumble Server (dal.eoreality.net:64760) or tune in to eXtelevision for the stream. Read more for the The panel questions and details.

Fog — As North American TF2 content hasn’t been covered as much as it should be, I will be taking charge of NA TF2 content, and will try my best to provide more covereage of TF2 across the pond. For now, I will be focusing on ESEA Invite (comparable to Premier for ETF2L).

Another week of matches have finished for ESEA Invite, with matches this week being played on koth_pro_viaduct_rc3. Where’s the second map, you may say? The North American TF2 scene only runs matches on one map per week, with teams playing two matches per week on the same map. It’s probably a good idea to go over the basic rules of ESEA while we’re early into the article for those who have never watched an ESEA (or NA TF2 match in general).

The rules:

• - First to 5 (4 in KOTH matches, 2 in Attack/Defend) wins the match
• - Two (2) 30 minute halves (20 minute halves for Attack/Defend)
• - Once a team has won 3 rounds (or after the time limit is reached), half-time commences and the teams switch sides
• - If both sides are tied after the two halves, an overtime round is played with the team winning that round winning the match (similar to golden-cap)
• - Unlocks are generally allowed (Gunboats and Equalizers ARE allowed), but there ARE weapons that are banned.

More info can be found here: ESEA Rules

Trell — Actual cast posts may be a little short on the ground for the next few days; but just so you don’t start thinking that TF2 is dead and do something stupid like moving over to Brink (which I hear now has its own demo function), I thought I’d give you a rundown of what you’ve got to look forward to.

Tomorrow sees Insomnia 44 begin, with the popular TF2 tournament back in full force.  The Grand Final has thankfully been moved back to the Sunday now, and apparently our very own  Byte is going along for casting duties.  More news on this, as well as scheduling times, as we get it.

The Grand Final of the ESH Sapphire cup, where the winner takes home 300 Great British Pounds, and the second place takes 150, will ‘probably’ be played on the 23rd or 24th of this month.   Epsilon eSports and  Relic face off to take home the cash prize, over a Bo3 match, with maps to be decided between the two.  VanillaTV will definitely be casting this, and we’ll also be running a competition to win free games during the match!

The second edition of the Excello Zowie Team Fortress 2 challenge starts next week too, with the Open Cup kicking off on Tuesday 22nd November, and the Invitational Cup starting a week later, on Monday the 28th.  If you haven’t signed up to the Open Cup yet, you have until Monday 21st to put your team down for it.  Remember, winning the Open Cup gets you a guaranteed spot in the Invitational!

 huhy has been working on a Lithuanian only 6v9 Pros vs Pubbers match, to be played on the 26th November.  He’s somehow made it into the Pro side, no one is quite sure how – but we’ll have more information on this as and when we get updated.  Apparently there’s some Valve swag up for grabs too.

The ETF2L Premiership playoffs will be scheduled soon© as well, as you probably know by now, this will involve several games.  Relic will play Epsilon eSports, the winner of which will go on to face a match against  Crack Clan.  The winner of this match then has to play  Infused, who managed to grab first place prior to the playoffs.  Whoever wins in this game is crowned king/queen of Season 10 and gets the bragging rights until next season.  We’ll also see at some point  Broder face off against  Yoyotech to see who plays in the Premiership next season!

Finally,  Crasp reliably informs me that on the 1st December, there will be a one night Croissant cup, which has me imagining the top teams sat around a campfire, eating freshly baked pastry items.  This probably isn’t what he meant.