VanillaTF2

 Hildreth – It’s been a couple of months since the end of ETF2L’s inaugural Highlander season but this week it all starts up again with 6 weeks of 9v9 action to go between Season’s 11 and 12, making it a busy period in the TF2 calendar. So far we have over 200 teams signed up for season 2 at the moment with SNSD the current holders and still yet to be beaten although Colony cut it close with an exciting finale in the first ever Experimental Highlander cup. To add to this ETF2L have a cash prize pool of up to £1000 (courtesy of an anonymous Highlander loving donator) for the winners and second placed team in the newly formed Premiership for the top level teams, to add extra incentive to those to practise and beat SNSD – I don’t want to see another gold medal parading on  TheSucker’s chest, do you?

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…

Hildreth — So I have managed to write two parts of a three part series of articles in about 5 days, then work took over and I needed three  weeks to complete this part 3, YET it has taken  Torden a good nine months, and counting, to finish part three of the Unicorn man series. Not a criticism of the man, I just want to know what happened to the Unicorn man, it is like a TF2 children’s book to me. Having been informed by  CanFo about a potential spot in the eSports Yearbook for my article, I owed it to the man to keep it professional and eliminate all my  TheSucker being bad jokes. Unfortunately I failed on the professionalism part in the first sentence of the article, so we’re stuck with bad puns and more Sucker truth bombs.

So anyway we’re back with four more months of TF2 coverage, from the lonely hills of Telford, Shropshire to the heat and humidity of Dallas, Texas the big TF2 LANs kept rolling in. Meanwhile the most active and competitive period of the year – the Autumn season had officially kicked off in Europe.

TL:DR Disclaimer – This article is long, I can sum it up by saying ‘stuff happened’ and also, those of you with a sensitive disposition to TheSucker I advise you do not read this article. Thank you. 

atmo — For some time now, gamers with a curious predilection for real headphones have been rather limited for choice when it comes to microphones. There are certainly plenty of standalone microphones out there, but ones worth buying are few and far between. These few models range in price from €10 to €100, depending on your budget and purpose.

AntLion Audio’s ModMic sits just a shade below the halfway point, priced around €35 or £30 shipped from   eXtine’s hometown of Portland, Oregon. At this price, the main alternative would be the Giant Squid Audio Labs Mono mic which ostensibly uses Panasonic’s WM-61A capsule electret. However, this was found to perform beneath its capabilities without additional power, something that neither the 5V of a standard 3.5mm nor a USB soundcard were able to supply. How will the ModMic stack up?

Hildreth — Welcome to part two of my three part article series documenting and reviewing the calendar year of 2011 in the world of competitive TF2. I would like to apologies to the Aussies, Africans and Asians for not really featuring you in these articles but I prefer to focus on the two main scenes which I actually know a something about. Anyway without further ado, I present to you the months of May to August of this year.

TL:DR – TF2 dies, gets born again and we have an awesome LAN.

Hildreth — 2011 was a great year for me personally; being the year of the ‘panda’ in the Chinese calendar – might have made that up, it could be a smaller animal with a likeness for orange vegetables – and has been one of the most eventful years, dare I say ‘THE MOST’ eventful year in our competitive scenes history. We have had the biggest LAN to date, TF2 going Free-2-play, launch of a new casting organisation and many, many great matches. It has also been a year of doubt and controversy. The slogan ‘TF2 is dead’ being printed on TF2 discussion boards everywhere and still being typed by many there has been dispute and frustration over unlocks, LANs and growth in the TF2 scene. There has been more gossip, controversy and drama than you’ll ever see on Maury. TF2 has changed – rising stars of TF2 have gone ’pro’, old pros have gone on the Brink of losing interest and leaving the scene. Coverage has changed and developed with new people writing articles, making videos, volunteering to cast or stream and hell we have even seen a new game mode start to become accepted in Team Fortress 2. To start it off I found a gem of an old-fashioned TF2 rant/commentary by  Foster with an actual positive outlook for 2011 and to steal a quote from it made by  Darn:

“Unless TF2 gets a proper LAN tournament in 2011, it will be the last year.”

Make of that what you will.

It’s been a long year. I intend to go over it month by month highlighting the memorable matches, the big dramas and the key events that defined our scene this calendar year. To avoid a TL:DR fest I will split it up into 3 parts, one to release now, one of New Years Eve and the last part in 2012. I would like to apologies to those who do not follow the Gregorian calendar, if for example you are Jewish please re-read this again in 9 months.

atmo — One of the biggest difficulties for  PC gamers conscious of sound-quality is matching their precious headphones with a decent microphone. Having skipped the flimsy or overpriced all-in-one headsets that are otherwise popular, you must find a separate microphone for the voice chat that is so often integral in multiplayer gaming.

A lot of these microphones are expensive, require lugubrious preamps and mixers, or are inconveniently large. Then there’s also the cheap desk-stand mics that sound like you are transmitting from a goldfish bowl several miles away.