TF2 Newbs (Team Fortress 2) Blog

We Hit Our Fundraising Goal!

It feels amazing. The monkey is off our backs. I know Octo was sweating a little bit, with two expensive machines sitting in his living room, not sure if we’d raise the money to actually ship them out and pay for our service to begin (you buy a year at a time). I have said this in like 4 places, but I really want to thank everyone who donated. Whether it was $5 or $500 it really means a lot to this community. Without your help Newbs wouldn’t be possible on this scale, and we only plan on growing. Our goal was $5000, and any money from here on out goes towards keeping these new machines up and running.

TONIGHT is the Newbs Fundraiser Party! Server #2 our trade server will now be switching over to the custom Trade_Casino_Newbs which was heavily tweaked by U[n]clesam (big shout out for all his work). ANY and all donators are welcome. We can only have 32 people in a server, but if more than 32 people show up we’ll put up a mirror server and pass along the chat. Join steam chat tonight to follow all the action, I’ll be giving away some hats and whatnots for those who weren’t able to donate but want to party down with us in chat tonight ( steam://friends/joinchat/103582791429672342 ) Doors for the server will OPEN at 7PST / 10PM EST and it will be first come first serve for those who have donated.  BTW Octo will be checking ID’s at the door, so donators only!

Big Text for those who didn’t read all of that:

Server #2 208.64.36.13:27015 / 8-20-11 / 7PM PST / 10PM EST – Be there

Admins Vs. Regs Results!

An epic battle took place last night. A well fought battle on both sides, but only one could stand victorious in the octagon.

Started out with a best of 3 on cp_well. This one was a back and forth battle.. I had so much fun playing this map that I’m really pulling for putting in a CP rotation server on the east coast.

that didn't go so well

The first round was very back and forth, but the second round the admins really got into a rhythm. Admins win 2-0.

Next map was pl_badwater, a favorite of mine because it’s always pretty chaotic, which bodes well for teh spy. Unfortunately for the regs the admins absolutely steamrolled through this map. Admin’s finished the map in around 4 minutes, and the regs were unable to capture the first point by the 4 minute mark.

The admins won 1-0 on Badwater. The question was then posed.. First cap on 2Fort takes it all? BAM. It was on. Let me tell you, 2Fort 13-13 with people who have all spent a good deal of time playing the map.. Not so easy. The only thing that allowed this game to not go into the 4 hour mark was the class limit on engy at 1 per team.

Blueberryy for the win!

At the 22 minute mark, the admins managed to sneak one out onto bridge, where blueberryy then snagged it and ran it home. The admins finish out the series at 3-0. Better luck next time regs ; )

Good times. It always takes a bit of planning to get these things going, but once we actually get playing it’s definitely worth it. If anyone wants to step up and organize a match like this once a month or so, I’m all for it.

-JiB

Wow, what an awesome turn out we’ve had so far! We completed Stage 1, and are well on our way to completing Stage 2. This really means a lot to us here at Newbs, I know Octo has been very pleased with the turn out. It’s amazing to see something that started so small, grow into what it is today. As I’m writing this we’re at $4125/$5000 (82.5%) which is phenomenal.

I wanted to give you guys an update on our plans for reaching our goal. We’ll be giving away the Burning Panama and Sunbeams Rack of course, as well as a ton of Steam games. We’ll draw names, and they get first pick from the lists. We’ll then have X amount given away afterwards during out Newbs Donator Party.. Which I’ll talk about in a moment.

Serious Business

Not for the faint of heart.

Tentative List of Games:

Octo’s List: 5 Winners

Worms reloaded (preorder) (includes Lumb Lid) $20
Super Meat Boy $15
indie fright pack – x2
plants vs zombies $10 -  (With promos)
aaaaaaaaaaaa $15
audiosurf $10
counterstrike source $20
day of defeat source $10
defense grid  $10
dino d-day $10
half-life 2 $10
hal-life2 dm $5
ep1 x2 $8
killing floor $20
l4d $20
l4d2 2 $20
metro 2033 $20
portal 1 $10

Jib’s List: 2 Winners

Renegade Ops – 2 Copies $15

UncleSam’s List:

Condition Zero,
Counter Strike,
Day of Defeat,
Deathmatch Classic,
HL1, HL1:S, HL2, HL2DM, EP1, EP2,
Blue Shift,
Opposing Force,
Ricochet,
Team Fortress Classic

Newbs Fundraiser Party!

Info from forums:

When: Tentatively 8/20/11 Saturday, in the evening – 6ish PST

Who: All donators will be invited (I think we’re around 50 donators), I’m assuming not everyone can make it, but donators have first priority for this event. After that, we’ll probably invite whoever is in steamchat at the time. (32 person server)

Where: Our BRAND new Trade map, Trade_Casino_Newbs (Any ideas on a better name? : P) UncleSam has brought our community great honor by taking an awesome map and adding some Newb touches to it. During our screening of one of the earlier versions, someone suggested we add a Disco to the map, which.. Let me tell you is coming along very nicely.

Whhat?: So basically we’ll start the evening off by announcing the winners of the steam games (list pending) as well as the unusual winners.. Hopefully they’ll be in attendance : )

THEN.. We’ll be giving away an array of hats and games for side contests like boxing or spycrabbing.

I’m planning on it being a couple hour thing, where we can all just get together as Newbs, and goof off.. Giveaway some great prizes, and break in our new trade map!

We haven’t met our goal YET, so next Saturday isn’t set in stone. I know Octo was hoping to reach $5000 by monday so he can start to get all the parts together, as well as have it up and running before our other GSP shuts down. If you’re interested in attending this event and haven’t donated yet, now is the time! We’ll be giving away several quality steam games, as well as a ton of hats!

We’re soo close to meeting our goal. If you have any friends that frequent the server and would like to purchase a reserve and have the money go towards a good cause let them know! They’ll get a shot at winning the unusuals, and can attend our wild after party : )

JiB

Newbs Stimulus Winners for July!

1st place – Darcblazer 1049 (2839) Spine Chilling Skull or Voodoo Juju!
2nd place – Scott Eats Bullets 14 (1807) Nv hat of your choice!

runners up if neither one claims within a week.
Brandon 865 (1608)
Grey Devil 10 (624)

Congrats guys.

Newbs Fundraiser!

As some of you may know, our trusty (if you’d call them that) GSP has quit supporting TF2! This affects servers #3,#4,#5,#6, and #8. We’ve had a pretty good run with them, but there has definitely been some hiccups along the way. We were truly at the mercy of strangers when it came to decisions regarding our servers. In the past we’ve had unexplainable lag or glitching, that the GSP’s never really had an answer for, and occasionally they’d just decide to change our IP addresses.. We just had to turn the other cheek, and keep paying their wild rates. SAD story, I know..

BUT TIMES ARE A CHANGIN’. One late night in Octo’s hidden lair, as he was soldering plush stickies to his motherboard – the thought struck him.. We don’t need no stinkin’ GSP.. Rather than find a mediocre replacement GSP, We’ll build our own server that we can maintain and make decisions at will with. Free Newbs from the corporate stranglehold these commies have on us! … So the idea was born, a brand new machine to be built in TF2Newbs honor to keep our servers chugging away, and the gibs flying. This way Octo can keep a close eye on the machine, make tweaks as necessary, and pay SUBSTANTIALLY less per month to run the servers! We just need to build them, and that’s how the Newbs Fundraiser was born.

What is it? You may ask.. It’s a lot like the other fundraisers you may have encountered in the past, except this one is chalked FULL of hat giveaways! If you thought Newbs Stimulus was making it rain on your TF2 noggins, hold onto your seats. I’m prepared to give away up to 30 HATS! WHAT?! CRAZY TALK. Yeah, well that’s what we do here. We give you a well groomed environment to play on, as well as some new swag to show off in the kill cams. How will it work you may ask? I’ll tell you.

This is a two stage fundraiser.

Stage 1 is building a rock solid machine that will be living on the west coast, that will be replacing the loss #3,#5,#6, and #8. Depending upon how it handles 4 to 5 servers, we may even add more (Octo builds machines like tanks). But reliability will be our first priority.

Stage 2 is building a slightly less tankish, but still respectable machine that will live on the east coast (I think Virgina has been talked about). Currently we only have one server on Ye ‘Olde East Coast slated for shutdown – Server #4 aka Octo-Land. This new machine will help expand the Newbs empire into areas unknown, and bring about a new generation of Newbs to the forefront. If we reach Stage 2, we’ll also be padding our Newbs Stimulus fund with some better hats, as well as hosting contests that have unusuals as prizes!

Our goal right now is to make it through Stage 1 as quickly as possible, because in one month we’ll be losing almost half of our servers. We want to have this new machine up and running, and ready to go before that day even comes. So far we’ve raised $1535 of our goal of $3000 for stage 1!! Koans stepped up to the plate big time, with a $500 donation!! Koans has been a loyal supporter from the get go, and is truly setting the bar high for those who are seeking the title of Newbs Elite. Haley has since stepped up and made an ‘official promise’ to MATCH Koans’ $500 donation in September. While this blog post was being reviewed by Octo another large donation came in from an Anonymouse individual. Big shout out to all the members of our community for stepping up and getting the ball rolling on our quest to be free of the man, all while cutting overhead to allow us to give away cool shiz : )

PRIZES?!?

How many of you people just scrolled here? I don’t blame you, that’s a wall of text haha.. You’re one of those people who cheated at those choose your own way books aren’t you.. PRIZES. Let’s talk about them!

But wait, I first have to tell you how you enter into the contest to win the prizes .. Silly.. Every $5 you donate gets you a ticket into our insane drawing. Picture women spitting flames, midgets getting shot out of canons type drawing.. Because there will be a lot of winners, and some people will forever have their hat lives changed. You can also give in game items as your donation. Every $5 worth of items you donate will go right back into the pool for other Newbs (and potentially yourself) to win! So let’s say you donate earbuds, you get 4 tickets into the drawing.. Just as if you would have donated $20 cash, and you have the opportunity to win them back! Crazy, I know. I’ll be handling the donations, so if you aren’t able to donate cash but would like to participate in our giveaways, contact me.

(For those of you who donated to the server expenses when Octo was extra poor after his car got broke into, your donations will count towards tickets in this raffle.)

Stage 1 Unusual Announced!

Not for the faint of heart.

 Stage 2 Unusual Announced!

Serious Business

This is our tentative layout for hat giveaways:

Checkpoint 1 – $1000 Donated: 5 Hats given away.

Checkpoint 2 – $2000 Donated: 10 Hats given away.

Checkpoint 3 – $3000 Donated – STAGE 1 COMPLETE: 15 Hats given away Update: Burning Panama!

Checkpoint 4 – $4000 Donated: TBD

Checkpoint 5 – $5000 Donated – STAGE 2 COMPLETE:  UPDATE: Sunbeams Rack!

So you can see how things could really heat up. There’s a potential for 30 hats to be given away, as well as 2 Unusuals! We’re not talking confetti either here folks.. These will be hand picked by yours truly.

There’s been a lot of talk about additional prizes to be added, and I’ll update you on those as they come. But as of now these checkpoints are confirmed. One item that was in the works, but unfortunately wasn’t able to be obtained

Koan's trying to catch a Fundraiser prize. This guy just doesn't quit.

How to Donate:

Go to www.TF2Newbs.com and you can’t miss the donate button. If you’d like to donate hats/promos or other prizes contact myself at http://steamcommunity.com/id/thejibberish/

Forum Thread: http://www.tf2newbs.com/forum/index.php/topic,7025.0.html

Thanks guys, let’s take Newbs to the next level!

-JiB

What a crazy month June was eh? With all the new weapons and hats.. I’ve been pretty busy to say the least. Hope your crafting went well, and you’re really enjoying the fact that you can demo charge and turn at the same time and not get banned for it (thanks valve!)

CONTESTS:

YEAh we’re famous for these.

June Newbs Stimulus Drawing!

For those of you who just joined Newbs, I think this would be a good time to educate you on what goes on with the Newbs Stimulus. Long story short we giveaway free hats every month. Every post you make is worth 1 entry, and super awesome posts or contributions I really enjoy get a “I like the Cut of your Jib” which is +50 entries. That’s how we roll.

1st Place - shaggz – Your choice of a Spine Chilling Skull or a Voodoo Juju

2nd Place - stickydot A hat of your choice

To claim your prize contact Octo or JiB. You have 1 week to claim your prize or we give your prize to the next person on the list : )

Make a TF2 Hat or Weapon and Win an Unusual Contest!

For those of you not familiar with Newb contest’s of this nature, I’ll give you one piece of advice. It pays to participate. Octo is quite generous in his prizes, and Reserve on all servers for a year is $130 value in itself, not to mention FOR LIFE. I must say I was impressed by the quality of the entries this year. The first place prize goes to a well deserved crafter who even made the wood grain stock for a school project.. Hard to compete with I know.

1st Place - Evil Muffin (Sniper Rifle) – Trophy Belt with Purple Confetti + Reserve for life on all servers

In Progress

Final

2nd Place – Brandon (Razorback) – Skull or Juju + Reserve for Life on all servers

Only Razorback that doubles as a boogie board

3rd Place - Impaired Scissors (various) & Smettbo (bonk helmet) – Reserves for Life on all servers

Get more chicks than a DJ with this hat on.

(we really need a bigger pic Impaired : P)

First Draw – Bullizard – Jarate – 1 Year Reserve on a server of your choice
Most Entries – Impaired Scissor
Only person who followed the rules – Smettbo (pictures with it on)
Guy with the most tf2 weapons laying around the house – king1853 – 1 Year Reserve on a server of your choice

See the entries Here!

Newb’s Caption Contest!

Something I just came up with randomly the other day (Trust me, a lot of what you see with Newb’s today came about this way ; ). After messing around with Gary’s Mod for the first time, I thought hey.. There’s gotta be a way that I can give away hats and justify wasting hours in Gary’s Mod.. Aha. And so it began, our first Newb’s Caption Contest. 1st and 2nd place get a hat of their choice from a Newb’s related backpack.

HEAVY SAYS.. ??

Check it out here!

Breaking News:

Seriously.

Announcing TF2Newb’s Trade Server!

Yeah I know.. Kind of a big deal. After a little poking and prodding at Octo I convinced him that a trade server would be a great asset to the community. I figured it’d give us a place to idle if that’s your thing, as well as a place to just goof off and demoknight for a couple hours (seriously that’s how I spent my morning..) You can also politely tell the spammers on #1 that we have a trade server if they really want to trade their Stout Shako for 2 refine. It’s currently running Trade_plaza, but I’m in search of a similar map with a boxing ring that isn’t a complete rip off of another trade servers map. Trade_plaza_epic has some potential, but we’re open to suggestions. Some features we’re currently toying with: All crits, lowering gravity a little, !bp (to check someone’s backpack), 32 slots, all talk, no spectate.. Totally open to suggestions as this is your trade server as well, so let us know what would enhance the experience.

208.64.36.13:27015

Add it to your favorites, hang out.. This will be where a lot of little events I dream up will take place. Eventually looking to have sanctioned boxing gambling (hats or metal), last man standing tournaments, Spy crab contests.. Basically free stuff for seemingly useless gaming skills.. Isn’t that what it’s all about anyways? : )

Questions, Comments.. Concerns. Come at me bro’

JiB…

In a Crips vs Bloods-esque battle, 2Fort and Payload took to the streets to represent their home turf. A number that’s been floating around is Payloads undefeated 16-0 run versus 2Fort.. 2Fort had one thing in mind tonight, to show they were not to be taken lightly, and that the last 16 losses were merely flukes.

The match was a best of 3, encompassing each sides strengths to provide the most even playing field. The first map was 2Fort. 2Fort is a map where with two identical bases separated by a brid…. Oh wait you’ve played 2Fort before? Oh who knew.. Well you probably haven’t played 2Fort like the 2Fort squad has. 8 out of 10 2Fort players had more time logged on the map than they claimed on taxes this year.. And that fact was evident by taking home the W, their first in the grudge match history. For the sake of time, 2Fort was given the victory after the first capture – because we all know Payload turtles ; )

The second map played was Badwater, which is the equivalent to 2Fort in the Payload world. Both teams played offense and defense, but Payload emerged victorious at 2-0. 2Fort had an epic last stand on the last point on defense, however Payload pulled out some old school tricks for the win. 2Fort struggled on offense, as Payload gave up little ground.

Bringing the score to 1-1, the match was brought to a tiebreaker on Granary. A sudden death scenario, where the first team to win the round would earn the title of champion, and take home the $100,000 cash prize.. (wait what?) 2Fort did their best to hold the line, but Payloads teamwork was too strong. Winning the tiebreaker forever etched their name into Newbs history as champions, bringing the lifetime score to 18-1 in their favor.

Payloads voodoo was too strong for 2Fort.

We then took part in the customary ‘Pick the other teams classes’ round, just for giggles.

All talk was left on, much fun was had by all.. It’s always a good time to see people out of their comfort zone. Ggglygy held it down for the 2Fort team with some epic spy maneuvers, but sadly it wasn’t enough.. Payload was yet again victorious.

While Payload took home the match, 2Fort earned the respect of many with a win versus their strong opponent. It goes without saying that the Payload squad is the better team when it comes to capture point and payload maps, but no one.. And I mean no one, walks into 2Forts server and caps the intel.. And that’s something to hang your hat on 2Forters.

I’d like to give a big thanks to those who participated. It can be difficult to make video game plans and follow through, as previous skirmishes have shown. However I was very pleased to see a full 12v12 even into the tiebreaker. Big shout out to Crap and Anonymouse for organizing the event. Crap more-so on the admin side of things, and Anonymouse with setting a time and getting teams organized. Very nice work – the Newbs community thanks you for your efforts.

Until next time, stay classy San Diego.

-JiB

Demos (Courtesy of Crap)
http://tf2newbs.com/newbs_upload/2011-6-payloadvs2fort1.dem
http://tf2newbs.com/newbs_upload/2011-6-payloadvs2fort2.dem
http://tf2newbs.com/newbs_upload/2011-6-payloadvs2fort4.dem
http://tf2newbs.com/newbs_upload/2011-6-payloadvs2fort5.dem