VanillaTF2

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.

Torden — After a random guy making a random request on the ETF2L, we got left with a brand spanking new contribution of random stuff. It’s been a good while since last time we received a rant, leave us a message of what you think of it.

Unicorn Bob — DM servers and MGE mod are fine tools to work on honing your aim and movement. Doing them regularly has a noticable effect on both of them. It’s just a shame most of the people playing both are utter cunts who look only at their stats – be that the skill rating on MGE or killhunting to improve their K/D on DM.

I tried to stay out of this one, but slowly seeing the whole mess escalate I needed to clear my own thoughts and get them in order. What better place to do that than for everyone to see on Vanilla?

I’m sure many of you fine readers have come across games that saw little to no changes over the many years it was alive, as well as those with patch-happy developers at the helm. The unlocks issue determines which category competitive TF2 will ultimately be remembered for long after it’s demise. This is especially true for us because we, the community, have the power to shape the 6vs6 format to our liking. I know of games from either category with both successful and terrible competitive scenes, so this issue is not only a chance to leave behind a lasting legacy, but is also the very crossroads for whether we live or die. As proof of this, we are already seeing this issue split the community in half, with a number of teams refusing to play with unlocks allowed. Having the top teams leave the #1 league since the dawn of competitive TF2 is not a good sign for the future of the game. We have come to a crunch point and a firm decision needs to be made.

Here’s another one, by  Telebear:

One of the biggest issues standing in the way of TF2 becoming a successful e-sport is not to do with sponsors, lans, or numbers of players, but rather its ability to be a game that is able to excite and entertain spectators, do this and the rest will follow.

Simply put, TF2 in its current format is a boring game to watch. It does not posses any of the qualities that makes other games an exciting prospect to watch, it does not have the speed or match pacing that a game such as Quake has, nor does it have the deep strategic depth that makes Starcraft so watch able.  TF2 is simply too slow and not in depth enough to ever be a spectator game in its current form.

As with pretty much all online communities, there’s an awful lot of drama within the European TF2 scene. It only takes one glance at the ETF2L forums, and this site itself to notice it. With topics such as “Unban BeaverN!” and “AC Admins are the Gestapo!” popping up rather often and filling themselves with puerile arguments, you would be forgiven for closing your browser, walking away from the PC, and going to cry in a corner at the sheer stupidity of it all.

At times it seems nobody can actually discuss anything logically at all!

Over the years I’ve always found myself in some kind of organisational capacity when it comes to online games. I ran a couple of Quake 2 clans, a Day Of Defeat Team and even, worryingly, a pretty successful CS Team.

Maybe I was lucky back then, the players with whom I spent many hours practicing, discussing tactics, devising the most complicated set of set of CTF binds ever known to man and playing official games with all seemed to be on the ball. We’d arrange a game at 8PM and everyone (opposition included) would be messing around on the server from 7:15 onwards, we used to start games early on a pretty regular basis back then and continue playing long after the game was over.

Why is it then, that my experience of TF2 is so massively different?

With great power comes great responsibility.

You’ll probably recognize the mundane quote from the first Spider Man movie. It doesn’t exactly take a great mind to come up with such a word of wisdom. Nevertheless it perfectly describes a challenge for any institution of authority or influence. -Be it ETF2L or this very site.

Essentially, both our services are the products of passionate souls doing free work with the best of intentions. But yes, both of us have established a responsibility for fair treatment. And for this site, a dilemma shows it’s face when having to judge what to publish and what to censor.

My latest dilemma concerns both of the mentioned institutions. A player contacted me with frustrations of the ETF2L anti cheat team seemingly doing unfair treatment, supplied with a couple of examples. On one hand [as this site stands as an independent institution] we’re the last instance to be able to voice one’s opinion and share information. But on the other hand, some accusations (confirmed or unconfirmed) can be damaging and should be handled with care.

So in an effort to pretend to be a decent journalist (yesyes, laugh) , I contacted new head admin of ETF2L, Racio to shed some light on the cases in question.

by Torden

One of our least not unpopular features is back: The rant. This writers takes a journey back to try and pick up on some loose ends about unlocks.

Banning/restricting weapons has always been cause for a huge debate, especially when Division 1 decided to have a gentleman’s agreement and only use regular weapons + the Medic unlocks. Curious to their mindset for this, I asked one of the most experienced Div1 players which weapons should be banned and why. Today’s class is the Scout:

“For the Scout, I would ban the Force-a-Nature, Crit-a-Cola and the Sandman. The Force-a-Nature because it has no real positive use in the game. Bouncing people around the map is frustrating for everyone involved – frustrating for the player being bounced, frustrating for the FaN scout’s partner as he tries to finish him off and can’t, etc. In some situations it’s imbalanced, in other situations it’s nothing short of retarded.
I would ban Crit-a-Cola because scouts hit hard enough as it is! Sure, the Crit-a-Cola effect means the scout takes huge damage from rockets and pipes, but in the time it takes for a Soldier/Demo to see a Scout and fire two rockets at him, the Scout will likely have been able to fire at least 2, more likely 3 mini-crit shots, which could would likely total around 200 damage even from mid range. When you add in the fact that it can be used with über, it becomes pretty clear that it shouldn’t be allowed in competitive play.
Sandman, urgh, so many reasons to ban it. It was originally a stun effect, now it’s a disarm and slow effect. Those effects should only be found in RPGs. They completely break the flow of the game and achieve a far too significant effect for a relatively minor action. BAN!”

“It’s just DM”

The charge laid at the feet of koth_viaduct and in the past, the mid point of cp_well. What does it mean? Is it true that these maps are so far removed from the standard Team Fortress 2 gameplay that all they promote is the random fragging of opponents?

Snowie takes on the discussion, with a comprehensive look at “then” and “now”, click “continue reading” for a well written article.

Our favourite ranter is back with more words that form sentences. Having had the questionable pleasure of reading it through, let me be the first to recommend not pressing the “continue reading” button.

Remember my expose on the greatest demo of all time, Line (who is currently available for a div1 team)? That piece of writing caused major political reforms in 23 separate countries, eradicated religious extremism, invented the cure for cancer and stopped famine outright. And now, the story is being turned into a movie starring Daniel Radcliffe as Line and Laurence Fishburne as Loco. But enough about the past. Now, it’s time to look at the information I just received. It took five months, thirteen days to arrive on horseback from Kazakhstan, but now my sealed package is finally here, I can reveal the shocking truth:

A MOVIE STAR has been playing in the TF2 community undetected for years!

It’s time for another rant. This guy want’s to delve into the challenges of A/D maps once more. May the debate of the strong willed internet people commence!

By many, A/D is considered a very interesting game mode, allowing for a different flow in the game from 6v6, and many find it a test if skill to see how teams adapt to the different dynamics of play. There are several new challenges present, and the unpredictability of the match is also a component in making A/D intense. But is it actually a good mode for competitive TF2?

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