Some of the names have changed, but the faces have stayed the same. 2fort is still a never ending struggle that leaves me unfufilled with a win, and absolutely destroyed when I lose. Yet I can’t seem to stop playing it.
If this is your first time reading a blog post, or first time reading in awhile you might not know me. I’m JiB, one of three Senior Server Admins. What does that mean? Well that means not only will I shoot your face off with my shortstop, I take the Newbs experience serious. SERIOUS. But no really. Any of the old school Newbs.. Before hats, or Mannco, or achievement weapons.. Might remember a day when Octo and I’s soldier – medic combo reigned supreme. Those days are long past, but I think it’s important to remember where we came from to get an idea of where we’re going.. And what better way than a story. I love stories.
I’ll set a scene for you. TF2 Beta days.. Octo and myself are Runnin’ circles around you on some random pub. I’m talkin, 30-40 kill streaks. It just wasn’t even fair. The idea of killing the medic first, or bringing a medic of your own to the fight wasn’t even an option. These ideas hadn’t even been explored. There was very little team work, and to be honest Soldier was a bit over powered back in those days.. Most of these people weren’t experienced FPS’ers like Octo and myself, and were just down right angry at the things we were doing to them. To the point where we really couldn’t play anywhere. We’d play for as short as 10 minutes to a few sessions before catching a ban. We’ve all been there. Counter strike, you’re headshotting fools and poof – you’re gone. No chance to state your case, they just didn’t like your company. So we did the only thing we could to continue our legacy.. Make our own server.
This is the kind of stuff that would happen. You thought I was exaggerating. You were either Really good or Really bad at TF2 back in the day.
Now I can’t really take any credit for the technological advances of Newbs, but I like to think fundamentally I was a strong influence. We all know without Octo, none of this would be happening. It started with one server, a rotation server. I remember the early talks with Octo well.. I told him how awesome the 24/7 2Fort/Well servers were back in the old TFC days. He was hesitant at first but he said he’d give it a try. Would people be able to handle only playing 1 map? No variety? Was there a good side kick to 2fort like Well in TF2? The answers are Yes, Yes, and No.. Mostly just trial and error. So here we are with this server where no one knows who the admins are, and we are happy as can be. Owning fools left and right, and we could even kick the griefers in the process. FPS heaven.
Time goes on and we gain a few regulars.. A couple good ones in fact. I still remember the day Octo messaged me “Yea some guy is tearing it up.. He’s pretty good.. He might have ya Jib..” “Whaat?” Turns out he was pretty good. Damn good. And Thus H34dsh0t h17m4n joined the ranks (pretty clever name i know..) Headshot Hitman was an amazing sniper. Back in the day where you could do the Lastinv glitch and shoot twice as fast, this guy was unstoppable. He’d headshot you 2 or 3 times before you could make it off your battlements. So what to do with such talent? Well form a competitive sniping team of course..[NES] Newbs Elite Snipers
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[NES
We did that for a few weeks, but that league eventually died to poor management. Was fun while it lasted, and that’s what got us thinking. Headshot Hitman really wanted to keep that going. So we all wore the [NES] tag even after the league ended. What was cool about the tag was that it was multi functional, Gremlin who played soldier sported [NES] as a Newbs elite soldier.. scout.. spy.. you get the idea. Reg’s start popping up wearing NES as a badge of honor, a badge of badass.. Yeah. That sounds accurate.
Around this time Koanrus emerged – you may have heard of him. Like I said, me and octo were stealth admins.. Raining down punishment to evil doers through console and not saying a word about it. We liked the anonymity of it all because we just wanted to play. We didn’t want to be feared or even respected for anything but our style. Koans emerged as the first regular to step up to griefers and team stackers. He used to police the server like it was his own, and we admired that. It wasn’t long until he became our first official admin recruit, and it wasn’t long after that he was hosting his own Newbs server.
Meanwhile, Hitman kept pushing for forums and a website and bla bla bla.. For months he talked about it. Until finally one day, Octo said he’d give it a shot. Since he’d be the one running it he naturally was the one to convince.
If you pulled up Newbs website back in the day, You'd see something like this
Shortly after we became [N], and shortly after that.. Forums followed. And the rest is pretty much history. Servers were added, more regs emereged. The first generation of Newbs. Names like Zeilo, Gremlin, Gabe, Dondi, Ggglgy, Sandoval, Grey Devil, Chode Sweat, Scott eats bullets, Dewar.. Andy and Steven (Pre {OSS}!)
Later we went semi pro, formed a Cevo team. That’s when things really got serious. Some of the best times I’ve had playing TF2 as well as my demise. If you check back to the 2008 Blogs, I have some pretty classy write ups of our endeavors : P. Some of this squad went on to be TF2 superstars.. Gggly, Dondi.. TF2 superstars that got there start right here, on Newbs very own Cevo team. Crazy. But just like a high school band, someone gets grounded or misses practice and the whole thing collapses : ) This is right around the time I took my hiatus. I was sad to see the semi pro circuit go.. And then the much awaited scout update, only to have the Bonk bat get nerfed.. Ahh.. Terrible terrible.
Epic times with Newbs Cevo
In between now and then a lot has happened. I’m just going to assume you’ve been with us awhile and spare you another 15 pages of history : P.. Why am I telling this story you may ask? I’ve been away, but never gone. I’ve watched the servers, lurked the forums, and have always had Newbs in my heart. Thinking back to where we started and looking at where we are now is pretty amazing. So I’d like to just take a moment and give a shout out to all the people who have made all the good times possible. Octo, first and foremost for creating this community. For keeping it going when people who were there to help just disappear for awhile (oops..: ) and for not selling out and running the servers just to make heaps of cash like some places do. A big shout out to all the admins, Jr. admins, and [N] members, and the donators for helping keep the servers and the good times rolling.
I can’t promise that I won’t disappear from time to time, but I’ll always be a Newb.
JiB
