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The very talented agentart posted this pic over on Team Fortress 2 Fort.
He’s also got a page of his own stuff at deviant art.
I’d buy one.

You’ve probably seen this by now, but there are some kick ass pictures made with Garry’s Mod over at NeoGAF forums. They are really funny. Go check them out now.

If you haven’t heard of Garrys Mod before, its basically a sandbox game (although its closer to a tool), for manipulating objects and scenes in source engine games. The new beta of it works with the orange box games.

The team stack picture in my last rant on team stackers was made by me using Garrys Mod. I’m still pretty n00b, but you can do some pretty cool stuff with it. Its surprisingly easy to learn, but getting the characters into the exact pose you want is a little fiddly.

Still, I’m quite happy with the way my first attempt turned out.

So it was another Saturday night that I sat down to play some Team Fortress 2. I dunno what it is about the weekends, but the morons come out of the woodwork more than any other day. Last time I was ranting against drunken idiots on voice comms. This time I’m pissed about something that screws up my evening’s gaming even more - the dreaded team stack of doom.

Now I know that I’m an old boring sod with no time for organised clan play. So I’m pretty much sentenced to public server games. Because of this, I rarely expect the quality of gameplay to be stellar. You get a mix of teams. Some days you get steam rollered, other days your guys go on a rampage getting critical hit after critical hit, other days you have a good tight game. Those are the best. My ideal game has both teams neck and neck the whole way, pushing each way, attacking and counter-flanking. This goes all the way to the end - then my team wins by a fraction (ok, I’ll accept losing by a fraction over a steam roller game as well).

At least normally I like to think that a bad game is a factor of random chance. Its to do with the fluctuations of the tides and the interplay between vibrations of particles at a quantum level (yeah, I know people try to get on the winning team when they join, but bear with me). So it royally pisses me off when I see one side deliberately full of clan players from the same clan owning all in their path and capping out levels in less than a minute and spamming LOL PWNED in the console.

The obvious thing is to just change servers when this happens - but here is the problem with weekends, every populated server within 100ms ping had a clan stacked up on one side.

I’m not some kind of irrational stack hater: Stackable furniture is great; I’m kinda ok with haystacks; and I use stacks in a computer science sense most days one way or another. HOWEVER. There is no place for the evil team stack described here.

I tried to play their game for a while. I’d look for the stackers and try to join their side. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. Places on the stacked side are full, and players on the other team are constantly coming and going. So its hard to sneak into a spot. Plus I just felt dirty. I’d get on a team that won round after round without resistance, and I had to put up with the 13 year old shrieking from the stackers on voice comms when they won - which was every 30 seconds or so. Plus, even when you’re winning it just gets boring after a while.

The other side to that coin is that some stacking clans just suck. If you do manage to do the nasty and sneak onto a stacked team, its likely that you only got on cause that clan sucks no one wants to play on their team anyway. Yes, that happened to me as well.

Just as I was hitting rock bottom, and contemplating playing through portal (again) to relieve the frustration, I stumbled across The Older Gamers Australian Team Fortress 2 server. I nervously clicked on the server info and was dismayed to see 10 TOG players on the server. “Oh great another server and they’re all going to be stacked on one side again!” I thought. Not so. The TOG players were a shining example of perfect symmetry, balance, and harmony with nature. A model citizen in the desolate fog of the depravity and despair that are a hundress other stacked servers. I stayed on there and had a couple of good games.

So this is a big thumbs up to the TOG guys. They’ve got a nicely run server in a dark stormy night of blatant clan stacking. I know where I’m going back to.

UPDATE 15 Nov 2007

They’ve finally pushed me over the edge into OCD behaviour. So I’ve started collecting screenshots of blatant stacking, and have put up a permanent clan stackers hall of shame page.

I’ve basically had “Still Alive” on continuous loop on iTunes for the past week after realising you could extract it as an MP3.

I’m getting so sick of it, but I just can’t stop playing it one… more… time…

We do what me must
because we can.

After their first video I posted the other day, The finc guys are back with more random hilarity.

Personal favourite is the bit where both teams full of demomen explode all their stickies at the same time on a packed control point. The Southpark ending cracked me up as well.

Nice work lads. Keep up the spam

This is messed up. Portal took me 3 hours in two sittings. This guy did the whole thing in 18 minutes.

Not the usual Team Fortress 2 stuff we do on this site, but cool all the same.

The Valve guys have pushed another update out. Nothing major by the look of it, just a few bug and exploit fixes. Who knows though, maybe they managed to unofficially un-nerf the pyro that they “didn’t” officially change a couple of patches back. I hate the bendy flame.

Team Fortress 2 Update Released

November 7, 2007, 5:52 pm - Alfred Reynolds

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Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

• Improved paged pool memory tracking
• Fixed crash on importing spray logo that claimed to be a valid jpeg file, but wasn’t
• Fixed Medic’s uber-charge stats tracking
• Fixed a bug in scoring Engineer building destruction
• Engineers no longer earn points for using their own teleporters
• Freezepanel hud improvements now trigger on usage of the “jpeg” command
• Fixed Spies exploit enabling them to attack while disguising, without losing disguise
• Fixed Spies being able to attach sappers through thin walls
• Fixed several melee weapon switching exploits
• Fixed exploit that allowed players to teleport with the intelligence
• Fixed a client crash related to MP3 playing
• Improved client handling of stats when a connection couldn’t be made to the stat servers. Fixes several cases of stat loss

The Dead Workers guys have released episode 3 of their Team Fortress 2 podcast Control Point.

Sentry going up! And so is episode 3! It’s up and live, so listen and give us some feed back. The main discussion today revolves around the engineer class. The unsung hero that has stopped so many flag runs that you have no clue about.

Topics Include:

• The Engineer Class
• The new Control Point server
• Run Speeds for all classes
• Hax and exploits! Be warned they are out there and know how to tell if people are using them
• Spies! and More Spies!
• Upcoming Machinima collaborations with Rob from Witty Wizard
• And be sure to join our Steam Community: Control Point.
• Sentry Placement + Other tips
• Halloween costumes a plenty
• And Much More!

Download - Episode 03 (75:45)

Chobbomuffin, ShanDogs, and I were having one of our usual bitch sessions yesterday about the quantity and (lack of) quality of new players on our servers. Personally, I don’t have a problem with newbies, and I encourage them to join in and give it a go - as long as they’re on the other team. The problem is, usually they aren’t. There is some freak rule of statistical probability that says the first time someone installs Team Fortress 2 and boots it up - they will be on my team. Kinda like how there is some law of nature that the probability of dropped toast landing buttered side up is proportional to whether you are over carpet or kitchen tiles, or that the rambling drunk guy on the train at night will sit down next to you and try to start up a conversation.

ShanDogs suggested that the best use of the immense media power I wield through this site would be to drop a few tips to bright eyed newbies to try and help them lift their game a little. We’ll start with the simple aim of increasing their life expectancy to one minute.

Just spawn as Soldier

Seriously, if there is a no brainer class to play - its the soldier. If you don’t know what you’re doing, and you’ve played any shooter released since 1996 (notably anything to do with Quake or Unreal Tournament or the 100 clones of them), then the soldier should be nicely familiar. The solider is a good one to get comfortable with, because if you don’t know what you’re doing, just go soldier and charge up the front. Who knows, maybe you’ll get a lucky critical rocket or two and do some good.

Now don’t go getting your hopes up that the soldier is the glory class killing machine that all the pros play - its not (hint: demoman or spy). The soldier is cannon fodder. They are the anonymous meat shields up the front, soaking up damage and pushing back the enemy so the guys who really know what they’re doing (hint: demoman or spy) can move in and really do some damage.

OK, so you probably won’t last a minute with that bit of advice. But at least you’re helping your team. Think Normandy Beach. The doors on the boats opened, dozens of guys charge out, most of them drop dead after a few seconds. Not great if you’re those guys, but France hasn’t been run by the Nazis for a good 60 years, so the whole thing worked out pretty well in the end. You get to go down in a blaze of glory, and even do a few dramatic battle-charge-screams if you can mash the voice menu keys quick enough. All you need is a stylised beige slow-mo death sequence backed by a dramatic orchestral score and you’d fit right in as an extra in a Hollywood war epic (if you ignore your lack of buffed physique).

Don’t go demoman or spy

After dropping some unsubtle hints in the last piece of advice, you may be thinking that to own it up big time, you need to play the class the pros play. No.

Let me tell you about skiing. Skiing, not unlike Team Fortress 2, has a learning curve that may be off putting to the beginner. The needs of a newbie skiier are far different to an advanced skiier. Newbie skiiers need skis that are forgiving, easy to handle, and somewhat imprecise - which is fine. That is what they need. Advanced skiiers on the other hand, have equipment that is far more finely tuned, and will spank you in the ass if you screw up - but if you know what you’re doing, you can handle it to get the best performance from it.

In Team Fortress 2 terms - the soldier is the newbie snow-plough-4-life skis, and the spy and demoman are the hardcore pro racing skis.

Demoman/Spy

Soldier

Now in skiing, if a pro picks up the newbie skis, they can still ski. They just might not be as elegant or efficient than if they had something more suitable to their level. However, if the newbie puts on the pro gear, the results are not pleasant. They won’t be able to control them, and will generally fall over their face before they can form their first snow-plough turn - usually to the amusement of the more advanced skiiers on the chairlift above them.

This is exactly the same as Team Fortress 2. A good player playing the soldier relies on spam and lucky critical shots the same as a newbie. They might be a bit more polished, but overall, they’re doing the same things. BUT. If a newbie tries to play one of the trickier classes, they’re probably going to cake it before they’ve made it across the map.

So, the first time you boot up after downloading the Orange Box, leave the trickier classes for a few games first. Your team mates will appreciate it.

Before all you soldier lovers send me (more) hate mail, just take a moment to think about it and realise I’m right.

Wait for the rest of your team

The number one killer of new TF2 players is solo charging (obesity and sugar dependency come 2nd and 3rd - get out and do some exercise if you’ve been playing all day. Please). This game is designed to be played as a team (hint: the word Team is in the title - a lot of people seem to miss that one). If you charge the enemy position alone, you will get slaughtered. Simple. Some classes last a little longer than others, but the outcome is inevitable.

Alone, you are a sitting duck. To really make any progress on any of the game modes, you need to group up and move and attack (or defend) together. Part of the game design is that it is very difficult for a solo player to “own it up” and make a difference alone. If you don’t like that, go back to Counter Strike. A co-ordinated team however, can tear a new one over a less organised team.

To add salt into the wound while you are watching the respawn timer, you should realise YOU DIDN’T ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING EVEN IF YOU DID KILL HALF THEIR TEAM. OK, maybe you got a few personal points on the board, and you enlarged your e-manhood a little. But they’ll respawn just as fast as you do. That turret you managed to one-man kill? It’ll be rebuilt by the time anyone notices it was gone if no-one was behind you to capitalise on its absence.

This isn’t your daddy’s deathmatch

One of the funniest things in Team Fortress 2, aside from watching a pyro trying to take on a soldier and getting their backside handed to them, is watching a pyro log onto any of the major game forums and starting a thread bitching about how Valve needs to alter the game balance so pyros can duel soldiers on an even footing

What is this? Quake or something?

I wonder if these plebs use a fork to try and drink soup? USE THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOB PEOPLE!

Seriously, spend a few minutes working out what the pros and cons of each class are. This is not a deathmatch game. Its rock/paper/scissors on steroids. There are some niche classes in the game that only make sense in certain situations, and there are some that are more rounded. A sniper isn’t much good in a close range spam fest fire fight, and a heavy isn’t much good in the open.

If you happen to be a hyperactive 8 year old, and just want to deathmatch it up, see the first tip on soldiers.

Take it slow

Finally, take a bit of time to watch what’s going on. As mentioned in the team members tip, mindless charging is a bad thing in Team Fortress 2. If you ignore that piece of advice and charge in with the intentions of “owning it up” anyway, just slow it down a tad. There’s the simple logic that your life expectancy goes up by approximately 1 second for every second longer you take getting across the map, but you can also deduce a lot of what is going on by just watching and listening to your environment.

Poke your head out into a new area to quickly scope out where the enemies are, and form a mini plan of attack in your head. Even if that plan is only “IM GONNA PWN THOSE GUYS OVER THERE”, at least you’ll know where “over there” exactly is. You may even spot sentry turrets, snipers, or sticky bombs - all knowledge that may help you last longer than a minute in game.

As well as watching, you should also be listening. Mainly for turrets. After dumb charging; obesity; and sugar dependency, sentry turrets are a major risk factor for new Team Fortress 2 players. This doesn’t have to be. You can hear them from around the corner. Once you know the usual hiding places engineers put down sentry turrets, you can listen for their distinctive beeping sound before you break cover and walk out into the open. If you hear them, think about if you can take them out (you probably can’t, because if you followed my previous advice, you are playing a soldier and not a demoman or spy, and you probably aren’t a good enough soldier to take them out), and either plan an attack, or a way around.

Conclusion

I hope this has been somewhat helpful to someone. Give it a shot, and let me know how it works out. If you don’t find this useful, and still continue to have an excessively short life span in game, drop me a line and let me know what servers you play on. I’ll make a point to avoid them.

Luke Mckinney saw the post I put up the other day linking to his Team Fortress 2 motivational posters, and liked ubercharged.net enough to do a custom motivational poster for us featuring our own Heavy Drinking Guy (aka Steve).

Cheers Luke, love your work.