VanillaTF2

Darkdwarf — This time around, we’re taking a look at mapmaking geniuses  Arnold‘s and  ScorpioUprising‘s latest maps in production. They’re both very different from those that make up the map pool of season 11 of ETF2L, and quite interesting to play – and spectate.

First is Cp_Croissant, winner of the 5cp section for the recent (a)symmetrical mapping contest over at TF2maps.net – since then the map has gone through a number of iterations from community feedback and is now in it’s eleventh beta version. Next we have Standin, a unique map similar to the “domination” modes one can find in Call of Duty. The map has recently had a massive rise in it’s profile thanks to it’s inclusion into the recent ESEA season’s map pool.

Read on for more info about the maps and their makers’ opinions about them.

Darkdwarf — Here’s two more maps that may define the future of our beloved competitive TF2. This week it’s the turn of seasoned map Cp_Obscure, recently having a face lift, and it’s designer Byte. As well as him, there’s Archy, the man behind Cp_Collis – a map, by comparison, not as well known but certainly doesn’t lack the potential.

As always, leave feedback to the creators, they really appreciate it!

Leftism — The introduction of new and innovative maps can bring with it a fresh air of enthusiasm within the community as the recent introduction of Cp_Foundry has shown. Thankfully, the tool used for TF2 mapping is free and openly available for people to use so we’re not limited to what Valve produce. In a series of interviews, Darkdwarf will be showcasing some of the up and coming maps all aiming for success in competitive league map pools.

Darkdwarf — A wind of change is blowing across the TF2 community, kudos to anyone catching the reference, as we are all looking to celebrate Christmas and the new year with an off-season. I’ll start off the celebration with a few articles about the future maps of TF2, because the game ain’t dead! I would have liked to go through the maps in detail in the article, but since I’m a bad div 6 player, I guess no one is actually interested in my opinion, so you’ll have to suffice with quick run throughs…

Trell — After the game Thursday night vs  Infused, I caught up with  Team Dignitas players to see if we could get some answers to some of the burning questions I had.  Beware the large wall of text!

First of all, this season in ETF2L can hardly be called one of your best so far. Is there anything in particular you believe is the reason behind this?

dajackal:  Two new players, hymzi back to play demoman, changed calls from Finnish to English.

cookye:  Oh you know, the lineup change.

Haza:  The main reason for that is probably the fact that we’ve only played together for 3 weeks.  Even though there’s 4 players that are the same, hymzi who’s switched to demo plays differently than mafu did, longás probably doesn’t play scout the same way hymzi did and I don’t play soldier like Punpu did (in addition to not being as good).  Also some of the matches (against cc and infused for example) were pretty even and I think we couldve won both of them, just didnt. Only 1 cap differences or so. So personally I’m quite surprised we’ve even managed this good.

Hocz:  Recent changes in our lineup has definately been the reason for this. Hymzi going from scout to demo and we have taken Haza to play soldier and longás as scout. Mafu and Punpu will be concentrating more on their studies and therefore can not play that much. It might not seem so big change for everyone because our new recruits are very good players but at this level of TF2 it is the little things that make the difference between winning and losing. We have improved a lot with our teamplay but it still needs little work. Also we need to work our rallyenglish comms a little. As you propably know we previously had a full finnish lineup.

Hymzi:  I think none of us were really expecting anything from this season.. We just changed our lineup and i had to change back to a class that i really don’t enjoy playing anymore + we had to bring in new players. We have been playing couple years with only finnish comms, so it was expected that its gonna take time to get used to. We are starting to get used to it now though.

longás:   Hymzi going back to demoman, Haza as soldier and me as scout with the “language change” are the main factors behind this bad season. We’ve been playing together for less than 1 month and we are getting really close scores against other top teams, we are improving fast and we’ll keep doing it.  The team didn’t expect too much from this season and they are happy with the team progression, there aren’t sad faces so everything is fine.

Hildreth — This week I took a journey into the unknown as I was contacted by The Enigma Zone Crew and set up an interview with a Welshman named Coleman who wanted to share the story behind his ancient clan and their move into TF2. Instead of doing results or anything else I have settled on just an interview to finish off my series for now. I got a lot more than a bargained for as I discovered TEZC are a clan full of rich history in many different games with Coleman himself being a regular LAN goer having real life contacts in the game:

Comedian — While it might look like an ordinary, calm and boring day, today marks the 1 year anniversary of when TF2TV came to be! With almost perfect timing, the south African TF2 community has, thanks to the hard work of Lolita and Lola done a wonderful interview with myself and eXtv’s Salamancer. below is a small excerpt from the interview.

On Sunday, 9 October 2011, competitive Team Fortress 2 (TF2) for South Africa (S.A) changed forever.The final match for the 16bit TF2 Face Offcompetition was shoutcasted by two of the most well known shoutcasters in Team Fortress. The attention we received from viewers globally added to the excitement and overall adrenaline as vinTage took on the undefeated and notorious Masters of TF2CSA.I am proud and privileged to present an interview with these two interesting and resourceful gentlemen!
Meet Lazar ‘Comedian’ Jovic and Eric ‘Salamancer’ Smalley.

You can read the full interview at South African Fortress.

Hildreth — First off for legal reasons, I should try to make it clear I am not importuning here for some sexual adventure (much to the disappointment of my love reject TheSucker) but rather introducing the name of the team I talked to this week, who have so far filled up that gaping hole in my week reserved for amusing anecdotes involving team names (see image below). With this cleared up I can get on with the business of pouring through hundreds of matches that have taken place in the past 2 weeks that I haven’t been here to watch come in from the sea of mass fixtures.

Hildreth — Last week I ventured down the alphabet to the ‘T’ section of my friends list to talk to some of the rulers of the Team Colonslash Empire. Due to this interview being so long with a lot of information and me being away next week on Holiday, I decided I would delay the release of this extensive and brilliant interview (much to the despair of the TC people). Now though it is finally their time to shine on the Div 3-6 review.

The obvious man to put the questions to is  Spike Himself, the original ‘Rupert Murdoch’ of the TC community who has watched over so many teams that he decided to take a breather from full-time management of his merry men and sit on the side-lines for a while. But now after a break from the game, the original dictator of multi-gaming communities is back to support more teams and try to heal his way up the divisions to Prem.

Spike might be a god but he isn’t the only man running the show so to add to his unique wit (“Porn is Good” – Spike Himself) I got 2 of his disciples: leader extraordinaire  Oxy and part-time Scottish Cyclops,  .OwnagePie as we talked about the how TC took over TF2, forming of TC.Academy and why .OwnagePie no longer braces the airwaves with Gamer FM.

Crasp — In this second interview I spoke to ESL’s main man when it comes to TF2: Anakin.

I must admit, Anakin is one of my favourite admins within the TF2 community. This little interview series began after I’d asked Anakin a bunch of things aboot ESL to satisfy my own curiosity and help me understand the workings of ESL while not being part of the admin team. Many thanks to Anakin for his co-operation in this little chat!

The man himself, in what looks to be a thread discussing Wire.

Crasp — Continuing the current trend of interviews appearing on VanillaTF2, I thought I’d have a crack at it. Summer has brought the now traditional lull in online TF2 leagues, which gave the heads of the main EU ones time to answer some questions that happened to pop into my head.

First up: one of ETF2L’s head admins, RaCio.

Güven — Hi! It’s the first time a Turkish guy writing to this blog, as the main writer of RTF2.com. To introduce my site simply, it is the only active Turkish competitive web site at the moment: with the latest news, match&tournament coverage writings, detailed beginner’s guide pages, montly fragvideo of the Turkish community(just like the CommFT Top 10 Plays series), Turkey based events like Ultiduo cup and Pubbers vs Pros match sometimes and some cool stuff on the site like our matchticker and the shoutbox. Actually we’re not totally strangers to the community that I made many interviews with the people from Europe TF2 in the 6 months period since we launched our site in March 2011, and have taken the matchticker + country flags plugin directly from VanillaTF2 techinicians. Also there is a North American community follower and writer with me too, we are 2 people who deals with all of the things.

So, 2 weeks ago I started a search on a motto that I heard from a random guy which was like “Medic is the fastest way to higher divisions.” and I directly asked 20 of the top medics of Europe! Is the motto true or wrong and why? Asked and being answered one by one and combined all of the logs together at the end.  Maybe it’s the biggest and crowded interview that tf2 community have ever seen. After writing its Turkish copy to my site, it’s here with its original English version for you, if you read more ofc.