TF2 Newbs (Team Fortress 2)

First off, a big thank you to everybody who sent in rocket cakes (or cakes made of rockets, or rockets made of cakes, or cakes getting shot by rockets, and so on and so forth). The reaction this contest got brought a smile to my face and a spring to my step. Seriously. I bounced.

Secondly, an apology if you submitted a picture and I didn’t receive it. I had some people express interest but then I never received an entry from them. It might have gotten lost, or it might have been sent to steam when I was away. I checked my spam folder and didn’t see any rocket cakes in there, so I’m hoping it didn’t happen. However, if this happened, then I have no recourse but to make the saddest of sad faces and hope you don’t hate me.

If you submitted a picture and don’t see it here, that is the reason. I’m not ignoring you. I just didn’t receive it.

Third, this was a hard contest to judge. But judge I did!

I’m posting these in the order they appear in my pics folder. I’m posting all the entries, then announcing the winner at the bottom of the post. That way you have to read the whole thing. Literacy is finally getting used for evil. Or for good. I’m not sure anymore. What do you mean I’m rambling?

First off, Andy sent in a picture where the rocket is a cake, shaped like a rocket. So it’s a rocket cake rocket. Doubling up on the theme. nice.

Bonus: Metal Slug.

Next, Ggglygy. I don’t need to say anything else about it.

Bonus: the sun is wearing awesome sunglasses. Plus Space Heavy. Plus French for a touch of class. Je suis Scott, j’aime la gateau. Bein oui.

Third in this cavalcade of cake is NFreak, with a cake strapped to a rocket. Also the cake appears to be made of lies. I hate lie cake, but I like rocket cake. Is a rocket lie cake any good? We’ll see.

Bonus: First entry, submitted so fast I have friction burns. And rocket lie cake is pretty tasty.

Next up is octo, who proves once again that cake and rockets are best enjoyed with boobies.

Bonus: I love the tagline. I don’t know if you can read it in the squished blog frame. Maybe I should go back and edit these so they’re all links to the full sized images.

Fifth entry on the old blog rollout is Orsa, with some midair Soviet-powered control point destruction. Fro, bitches!

Bonus: Apparently that is Ggglygy on the control point. I came to get some but all there was left was cake. Babies.

Next up… Look at that, it’s Confehdehrehtheh, showing us all what happens when you replace typical explosives with delicious cake.

Bonus: Rocket-powered cake enema. That poor spy.

Nearing the end, SDHitmen proves once and for all that the cake is a spy. So you better blow it up.

Bonus: This spy cake got the Dead Ringer before I did. I also want a cake icon in my kill bars. (Hey octo, can we get a plugin for that? Please?)

Our final entry (that I know of, see point 2 above) comes from Shipster (or StrongBad36x for you old skool Newbs). This one adds a glorious new dimension to the proceedings, with animation!

Bonus: Those are awesome testimonials. Everybody should buy a rocket cake from this guy.

Those were the entries. You can see how I had trouble coming up with a winner, since I honestly liked them all. However, I can’t declare myself the winner (or can I…), so one of you has to be it.

In the end, the thing that just kept coming back to me, making me smile at inappropriate times and making me grimace at other inappropriate times, was the rocket-powered cake enema.

Congrats to Confehdehrehtheh on a cake well rocketed!

And now for a surprise!

I can’t just give one prize. There was too much awesomeness. So I’m opening up another branch of the contest to the community. The picture best-loved by you crazy Newbs also wins a grand prize! I’ll be creating a forum poll that will run for one week, so get your votes in asap!

You’re on your favourite map. It’s full of people, shooting, exploding, taunting, whatever. Everywhere you look, there’s someone. friend or foe, doesn’t matter.

So why am I asking where everyone is?

Well, I’m not talking about players. I’m not talking about our 9 valiant heroes and their 9 scum-sucking worthless doppelgangers. I’m talking about everybody else.

Who?

You know, everyone.

Let’s take Well, for example. You are likely familiar with it. Spawn behind a rocket, wander out through a warehouse, fight in the middle while dodging trains. However, what you might not notice as you run off to kill and be killed, is that there are areas of the map that should be full of people. Meeting rooms, offices, computer terminals, that sort of thing.

And yet, those places are empty. Devoid of life. So, where is everyone?

For example, here’s an office visible in an odd corner of the BLU base on Well.

There’s a desk, a clock, even a phone. But there’s nobody in that office. Nobody to answer that phone should it ring. Which it won’t, because there’s nobody to make a call on it.

Or how about this room? It looks like a shipping/receiving office, complete with a keg of beer (the bases on Well are a distillery and a brewery, after all). You can see plenty of empty chairs and a door leading deeper into the base, but you know what’s not in those chairs? People.

This room (or at least the RED version of it) also contains the loneliest lunch in the world.

I think the BLU version has a thermos in it. Which makes it the loneliest thermos in the world. Does it contain soup? Or coffee? Or some unholy combination thereof? Maybe it’s a good thing we’ll never find out.

Now, the easy explanation for why these rooms are empty is probably that the RED and BLU corporations cleared out their non-military personnel for the duration of the armed conflict. But if that’s the case, why is there bulletproof glass everywhere?

Nobody can shoot the distilling equipment. Which I guess is a good thing. Horrible waste of perfectly good booze otherwise.

In theory, these places could be maintaining their operations during the conflict. Maybe with a slight risk, but they look to have enough defences in place to ensure the workers are at least somewhat safe. Otherwise, they’re clearly protecting themselves from themselves. And that only makes sense if friendly fire is on.

It actually makes more sense to maintain at least a light crew of workers. The brewing business is very profitable, and most everybody likes to imbibe now and then. These companies are just taking money out of their own pockets. Rockets, teleporters, and $200 custom-tooled cartridges aren’t cheap, and all of the above get expended in large amounts. I weep for RED and BLU’s accounting departments.

This theory also involves some bouts of reasoning. Were the 9 bloodthirsty warriors brought in specifically to fight? Are they always stationed around the bases, even when production is ongoing? Is that why there’s bulletproof glass, to protect the workers from a bored heavy? And how awkward must the watercooler conversations be for the workers?

“So, good weekend?”
“Affirmative!”
“What’d you do?”
“Pushups. Situps. Beat a man to death with a shovel. You know, regular Saturday afternoon.”
“Oh, um, well. How bout you, big guy?”
“I ate sandvich and cleaned gun. Puny neighbour tried to tell me I park too close to curb, so I introduce him to Sasha. Then cleaned her again.”
“Screamin’ eagles!”
“Well, look at the time… Back to work… Later guys.”

Worker turnover must be pretty high if they have to spend their whole shifts wondering if today’s the day they trip over a sticky bomb, or the sentry recognizes them wrong.

Another theory is that the workers are, in fact, our 9 most hated enemies. Have they been pulled away from their regular duties to defend the base against the invading army? Or to take over the other side of the map in a bizarre corporate acquisition gone wrong? Are they just fighting this war so they can get back to work (and had it spiral ridiculously out of control in the process)?

Or, maybe nobody’s there because nobody wants to be there. A war that’s dragged on far too long, with the entire civilian population killed or displaced. Maybe there’s nobody in the office, nobody in the distillery, nobody to eat the lunch or coffee soup, nobody anywhere because there’s nobody left.

At least they enjoyed themselves on their way out.

It’s been a while since part 1 of this series was posted. And yet, we’ve all survived. Somehow.

Melodrama aside, let’s talk about some more of the stuff we silly Newbs say, so that strangers will have an idea what we’re going on about. We’re happy, you’re happy, everybody’s happy. Especially happy engie.

Man that guy’s happy.

So, I forget what we covered last time, but that’s in the past, so it matters less than the future. Unless you’re a historian, in which case you already know what we covered last time. You can write an essay about it. You have all semester, it’s worth 10% of your final grade, and you can have unlimited deadline extensions. But you won’t write it, will you?

This bitter flashback to history majors I knew in university is completely unrelated to our first Newb-centric term.

A Crab Battle is, quite simply, a melee fight. It works best if you’re in a sewer or tunnel, but really, if people are fighting with fists and axes and shovels, it’s a crab battle. This one was popularized by our good friend of many names, Grey Devil/Crab/Comrade Crab/Bag’o'Crabs/Got Crabs/King Crab/you get the point. It’s loosely based on this video.

Just a note, it’s considered very rude to interrupt a crab battle, so if you shoot a melee fight you’ll likely get yelled at and/or called a baby. Such is life.

Following the melee theme, let’s talk about Uberwanking. This is what some people call “medic chaining” or some other boring term. This is, of course, that thing where two medics with ubersaws uber and melee non-stop. I forget who came up with the term, but I know I did my part in popularizing it.

Anyway, uberwanking is pretty lame, and I’m glad it’s not done too much these days. Danke, dummkopf.

Speaking of medics, all aboard the Pain Train! Also called a Medic Train, or a Sewer Party. This one’s kind of out of date, since nobody really says it much anymore. Anyway, this was that happy occurrence where a medic would gather up a horde of willing accomplices, and go charging through the 2fort sewers intent on busting some heads. This one is all Dingo.

The proper response to a call of “all aboard the medic train” is, of course, “Woo woo”.

This last one only really happens when the admins are the only ones on the server, and are bored. Or waiting for people. Or other situations, I guess. Anyway, Skybox Shenanigans happen when someone noclips into the skybox and starts building dispensers in the mini models.

Didn’t understand a single thing I just said? It’s okay, I am qualified to give you a quick lesson in TF2 map terminology. Aren’t you lucky?

Anyway, noclip is a standard fps concept. It basically lets you walk through walls. And floors. And ceilings.
The skybox is the area around the map. It’s generally a picture of the sky, and it surrounds the map so that no matter where you look, you see sky.
The mini models are a set of map objects that are generated outside of the map. These are small things that are embedded in the skybox, so that when you look outside the map, you see interesting stuff on the horizon. Due to ow they’re rendered, the mini models are shown in the skybox at a very large size, so they look normal. Stuff like the silos on 2fort or the train on gravelpit are mini models. Maybe the ship on granary too, but I’ve never checked it.

When you build things in the mini models, they are also shown at a much larger size, giving the illusion that there are enormous dispensers or teleporters off in the distance. It’s a hilarious visual effect, and not good for much else than goofing around, really.

I should have written this article a long time ago, since some of these terms are used a whole lot anymore, so if you give me suggestions now, I’ll get another installment out real quick-like. Promise.

This post was written while listening to this.
Good times.

The moon hangs low in the sky, casting a pallid sheen over the cobblestones below. The night fills with anticipation and dread. Tensions mounting, the survivors huddle together, waiting, preparing for their final fight.

Then they hear it. Footsteps crashing down the streets. The lumbering horde appears, and rushes toward the last hope for humanity, fists and bats flailing.

A shimmering crimson streak leaps forward into a fiery explosion, reducing the horde to a bloody pile of assorted pieces. A victory cry rings through the empty streets,
“MAGGOTS!”

More than an excuse to write TF2-themed zombie fanfic, this post actually has a point. Wow! I feel it fair to warn you that there is awesomeness below.

Every Friday night, from 10 PM EST (7 PST) until midnight (9 PST), on server #6, we are having Zombie Fortress. Oh yes.

If you have a bad memory, join Jigen’s Custom Crew, and you’ll get a reminder before it begins. You’ll also get the fast track on map playtests and other nifty stuff, so join the group and be awesome.

Back to business. If you haven’t played Zombie Fortress before, this is a really fun TF2 mod that pits the zombie BLU team (consisting of melee-only scouts, heavies, and spies) against the survivor RED team (consisting of everybody else with modified weapons). When a survivor dies, he becomes a zombie. When a zombie dies, he respawns. When all the survivors die, the zombies win. When time runs out, the survivors win. Easy as that.

I don’t remember all the special rules that apply to the classes, but they’re all explained when you spawn. I know demos get health for bottle kills, and I know sentries don’t supply ammo or metal (they’re more of a barrier than anything). I think snipers get ammo for headshots too, but again, I’m not sure. You should join and play as each class to help me learn. I think that’s a wonderful idea.

We have a set of maps intended for Zombie play. These don’t have capture points or intel (but we can play on regular CP and CTF maps too), so the only way to win is to kill everyone, or not get killed at all, depending on what team you’re on.

These maps are, in no particular order:
Zombie Dustbowl – Exactly what it sounds like. It’s Dustbowl, tweaked for maximum zombie effectiveness. This seems to consist mostly of turning the lights down and making things spooky. Works for me! Oh, and all 6 points are in one main area, not split up into three stages. And they take longer to cap. And zombies spawn all around them.

Twilight – No wussy vampires here, only zombies and big guns. And some trucks. And a hole in the floor that will kill you if you walk in it. Anyway, this is a pretty small zombie map, but it’s a lot of fun. Multiple routes through the buildings, and a great place for the survivors to toss up a bottleneck and spam to their hearts’ content.

Just a note, there’s a gap in this map that can allow a survivor to get into the little forest behind the fence, and thus be very hard for the zombies to reach. Fair warning: If you jump off into the trees, you will most likely be kicked. Keep it fair, everybody.

Asylum – A zombie outbreak in an insane asylum. Oh man, that’s a bad combo. Includes destructible environments and a bell that lets the zombies spawn in the basement if they manage to ring it. Good luck, survivors. You might need it.

Panic – No link for this one since FPSBanana seems to have lost it. Anyway, this one’s set in what looks like some sort of hotel or lodge. I can’t really tell which. More destructible environments, moveable map objects that you can make barricades out of, and some pretty cool breakable windows. Smashy-smashy!

We might be playing some other maps, but those are the big 4. Jigen is hard at work testing any new maps that come out, and your participation can help influence which maps we use in future events. We have a forum thread for Zombie Fortress discussions (Which you can find here), so come on by, give us feedback, discuss how much fun it was, and so on and so forth.

If you were there for last week’s zombie killing, we have removed Lake because it was broken, and next time we won’t turn Alltalk on. So if you’re alone on the Survivor team, you are really alone. So very, very alone. And tasty-looking.

Remember, that’s Friday, 10PM Eastern, server #6!

See you there!

So there you are, playing a game on this fancy “Newbs” server. You’re doing your thing, launching crit rockets into people’s faces, when you hear “Fatty in the sink room!” on the voice chat. Confused, you stop to ask what that’s supposed to mean, and get destroyed by a spy (he never really was on your side, don’t you know?).

Has this ever happened to you? Well now it doesn’t have to!

Rather than hang out with us and slowly learn what all the weird things we say mean, here’s a handy guide. We’ll have you talking about sink rooms and hairdryers in no time!

The first term we’ll cover has already been used a few times in this post, and if you play enough 2fort with the Newbs, you’ll hear it about 400 times per match.

The Sink Room is the area of the map right outside the courtyard.

The origin of this term has been lost in the sands of time (although I think the illustrious Koans R Us came up with it). So named for the sink that resides beside the doorway in the blue base, this room is the home of many epic battles. Most offensive pushes end here, ravaged by flames. Many briefcases are dropped here, ravaged by flames. Many pyros have died in this room, not on fire, but if pyros burned I’m sure they’d be ravaged by flames as well.

Fun fact: the red sink room doesn’t actually contain a sink. It does, however, contain a wagon wheel. Don’t go near the wagon wheel.

The next term we’ll cover isn’t native to Newbs, but we do use it a lot. Plus it segues into the next term nicely. So there.

A Fatty is a heavy weapons guy (and this is his weapon. It weighs 150 kilograms and fires 200 dollar custom-tooled cartirdges at 10,000 rounds per minute. It costs $400,00 dollars to fire this weapon for 12 seconds.) Sorry, lost my train of thought there. So yeah, fatty. Of “Eat it fatty!” fame.

The next term, however, is pure Newb.

A Hairdryer is sometimes better known as Natascha, the heavy’s unlockable minigun. So named for it’s high-pitched spinning sound. This term was the result of a conversation between myself, Dingo, and Hal Jordan. One of them contested that it sounded like an air conditioner, to which I replied it was more like a hairdryer. History was made.

Combining the last two, you get a Hairdryer Fatty, which is generally ineffective unless Hal’s the fatty. In which case you’re best off crying in the corner.

Moving on, we get another term that I’m not sure had its origin here, but you’re likely to hear it.

Saying “I’m faster” implies that you, not the scout, are the faster of the classes. This naturally makes you the ideal candidate to carry the intelligence. This phrase is often uttered by fatties, but also sometimes from soldiers or possibly pyros. I’m pretty sure Ggglygy was the one to popularize this, despite the fact he actually plays scout, and therefore really is faster.

A fatty who is faster can sometimes lead to a Fatty Cap, in which the intel is captured by a heavy. This is remarkable because, as the man himself will sometimes say, “Not usually my job”. I’m not sure who came up with this one, or if it’s even a Newbs native, but I know I’ve done my share of fatty capping. It’s the second most embarrassing thing in the game, right after getting sniped by a sniper who’s holding your intelligence.

There’s a subtlety to the fatty cap that bears explaining. If the fatty picks up the intel in his own base, there’s not much special about that. There’s not much danger to getting the cap, and if the fatty didn’t do it, somebody else would. No, to get the full effect of the fatty cap, you have to start from at least the enemy’s side of the bridge. Ideally, you start from the intel room, carry it the entire way, and cap while the enemy wonders how you’re evading their assault with your enormous bulk and snail-like run speed. Then you laugh, as you tear them asunder with crit punches, for you are heavy weapons guy, and THIS IS YOUR WEAPON!

Sorry, got carried away there.

Wrapping this up, we as Newbs have a rich lexicon, which can’t be encapsulated in one post. Therefore, you can probably expect more entries in the “How to talk like a newb” series.

Until then, this is Scott Eats Bullets saying “Pow! Ha ha!”

Honorz time.

The MiC Spam vote.
Nominated: Aristotle, OSS Steven, ggglygy, Jib, OSS Andy

OSS Andy – The classic griefer. The kind of guy who made valve put in a mute function. Random screams, battle cries, derrogatory statements. Utter Balligerance. Earning a good deal of bans from running his mic. (get it?) Andy, spams the only way he knows how. In your ear.

Congrats to andy to winning this by a landslide. You’ve really out done yourself

————————————————————————————————–

Honorz.

Take one for the team.
Nominated: Grey Devil, Golden Marmoset, Octo-Dhd, Viva Gabe, Darthvegan, Crater Face

Golden Marmoset: PyrO? A MadMAN. I have personally witnessed Golden Marmoset keep an intel alive for several minutes all by himself. Comes in guns blazing and does his best to keep the momentum going in his team’s favor. Let I remind you, Pre Update, only REAL team players played Pyro..

Octo-dhd: This man eats and sleeps team play. A true support class player. I have yet to see a more dedicated Engy. His sg’s up before the scout rush. No quick caps this game fellas. No stickies on spawn or hackers on his watch. If the intels alive, he’s there. Spy, Scout, Medic. Whatever the team needs to keep the intel alive. A visionary.

It was a close race, but octo and golden pulled out a much deserved win.

congrats to the winners. More to come.