TF2 Newbs (Team Fortress 2) Blog

Today we got our very first entry in this years TF2 Themed Pumpkin Carving contest, hopefully many more follow shortly – remember the final date for entering the contest (grand prize a copy of L4D2) is November 2nd. Full Contest Details

In other Pumpkin News, a big atta-boy goes out to everyones favorite heavy, Scott Eats Bullets (And Arrows). Recently Scott sent in a letter to the Control Point podcast about our TF2 Themed Pumpkin Carving Contest and they read it during their broadcast! A huge thank you to both Scott and the folks at Control Point. People that help out others in the gaming community make up for a lot of nights dealing with idiots and griefers :) I know a lot of our regulars listen to the podcast, but incase you don’t usually check it out. Here Scotts Letter – it starts @ 37:49

The preview Demo of L4D2 comes out this evening (11pm Pacific) I’m sure it will be a good time for all (slow downloads, crashing, qq’ing, death, etc). Since L4D2′s release is fast approaching lets take a look back at psychonics L4D2 hypocrites page..

As you can see, the graph looks even more like pacman than it did before.

For full details, once again check out the man responsibles page L4D2 Boycott Lulz

Hey guys,

Scott here after a brief hiatus that saw me get addicted to World of Warcraft, drive across Canada, and buy and return a laptop. None of these events were related, but I’ve been a busy little fat man.

So anyway, as I was sitting in a meeting today I had an urge to doodle. And then I had a better idea. I wanted to see what the creative sorts of the Newbs community could draw. We’ve all seen Forte’s arts (and t-shirts and mousepads and such), and we know Dingo can forge stuff out of pure refined awesomeness, but I don’t really know what other people are capable of.

So I propose a contest. A recurring contest, where I am the only one who can’t win.

I propose… an art contest.

“But Scott,” you say, “I have no artistic skills!”

Well, neither do I. And you don’t need them, exactly. See, I won’t be judging these on quality. Oh no. I’m looking for whatever picture tickles me juuuuust right. To quote Family Guy, “That tickles me in a way that if Loretta tickled me in that way I’d say ‘Oh yeah, that’s nice’”.

It can be funny. It can be cool. It can be so mindbendingly awesome it reduces me to a puddle of goo and I have to spend the rest of the life having some annoyingly perky nurse mop the drool off my chin so I don’t gurgle. I’d obviously prefer one of the first two.

So, enough of the preamble. What’s in it for you?

Well, prizes obviously. I haven’t quite worked out the details, but I possess the rare ability to purchase items through Steam and deposit them into your account. It’s like voodoo, except it works (zing!). I can also possibly wrangle up a reserved slot, or if you want I could twist Octo’s arm until he coughs up a t-shirt. The choice could be yours.

Intrigued? You better be.

Now for the important bit. What you have to draw.

For the inaugural Scott’s Ultimate Art Newbs Contest (aka the SUANC), you will draw me…
…

a ROCKET CAKE

Interpret that however you want. It doesn’t have to be TF2-related if you don’t want it to be. The picture I like best wins.

You have 2 weeks. Deadline for submissions will be August 21st. A winner will be announced and contacted not long after.

The winning entry will be featured on the blog, and possibly elsewhere if I can get a gallery organized. I might post all the entries just for fun, depends on how I feel on the 22nd.

You can submit entries by sending me a link to where it’s hosted (I’m on Steam, look me up), or by emailing them to me at “scott at qv7 dot net”. Just convert that into a real email address. Put something about the contest in your subject line and also include your Steam ID if you’re not already on my friends list.

I look forward to seeing what your twisted little minds can come up with :D

Update:
1) If you enter multiple times, your second picture is compared to your first, and I get more critical.
2) Your entry doesn’t have to be a hand-drawn thing, it could also be photoshop, or a picture of a thing you made, etc

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.

There’s been a somewhat disturbing trend here on the Newbs servers the past couple days. More and more pyros have been taking to the sewers to defend, armed only with that most finicky of weapons. I’m talking about, of course, the flare gun.

I’ve mostly seen this in the sewers on 2fort, but I’m sure it’s happening other places. Since I haven’t seen it in other maps yet, this post focuses solely on 2fort.

Let’s take a moment to digest that. You’re playing defense, launching flammable objects into an area that not only contains easy access to water, but also contains a medkit, and is also a common route for medics (due to the usual lack of snipers in the area).

Let’s think about what this means to you, the pyro. Any of the above can end burning in a matter of seconds. Burning is your bread and butter, your raison d’etre (pardon my French). Burning people is what you do best, and in most cases, you do it very very well.

So why purposefully make your fire weaker? Why settle for an occassional hit, those times when the flare doesn’t mysteriously curve into a wall? Why settle for burning that can be removed in a matter of seconds? Why help those medics build their ubers?

Seriously, there’s a reason that heavy is just standing there letting you pop flare after flare into him. He’s not being intimidated. He’s not worrying about what you’re going to do to him. He’s laughing at your tiny baby gun, and the medic behind him is savouring the delicious scent of sizzling bacon and crackling medigun. Breakfast of champions.

Also, ammo. You get 16 flares. After that, you either have to find a dispenser or run up to the resupply, because there’s very little chance you’ve killed something to pick up its ammo. Your entire purpose can be replaced by many different classes, all of whom either have more ammo, do more damage, or have more reliable aim. In some cases, all of the above.

“But Scott,” you might say, “I get a ton of assists as a flare gun pyro!”

Maybe you do. Fire is fire, after all. But really, how many of those assists come from snipers headshotting the burning guy? I’m willing to bet that if the answer isn’t “all of them”, it’s “most of them”, where the assists not coming from snipers come from spies instead. These people don’t need your help, and your flare didn’t tip the balance. No, that guy was dead as soon as the sniper zoomed in, or the spy uncloaked. All you did was make them uncomfortable.

One final reason playing defensive sewer-spamming flare gun pyro isn’t such a hot idea: you open yourself up to the most humiliating way to die. Worse than the heavy taunt from around the corner. Worse than the bodyshot wallsniper with a medic. Worse even than the non-crit engie pistol.

I’m talking about the reflected flare.

Yes, a pyro with the air blast can reflect your flares back into you. You get rewarded with this little beauty:

The rarest kill icon in the game. The most humiliating way to die.

Do you really want that?

Flare gun defense is not a viable strategy.

Hi everybody,

I’m trying to determine something. Something that’s bugged me for a while.

This relates to 2fort, as many things in our community do, and has to do with what we call things. No, this isn’t the next installment of “How to talk like a Newb” (though that is coming). I just want to collect some thoughts.

What do you guys call the different parts of the sewer?

I tend to refer to the “pipe” or the the “tunnel” for the long straight section, the “platform” for the area with the health and ammo (where the engies always build), and the “elbow” for the curvy part that leads out to the water.

However, I’ve found that these terms aren’t always understood clearly, so I’m curious if I’m using the wrong terminology or if I’m just crazy.

We’ve established clear definitions of every other part of the map, so the sewers should be as well.

Feel free to dicsuss it on the forum in this thread, or in the comments here.

- Scott Eats Bullets