ubercharged.net

In an attempt to cut down the amount of Comment Flame Wars that have been going around, I, Paper Shadow, wish to show you someone I met on the internet very recently. His/Her name is Cuddle Pyro, and I think he/she is a proper badass, just like myself.

A quote from the above link:

Welcome to Cuddle-Pyro’s page! Here you will be able to view a fine collection of photos featuring everyone’s favorite sock pyro! Cuddle Pyro’s daily activities, travels, and adventures shall all be documented and posted here your your viewing pleasure!

I’m not sure who is the genius behind Cuddle Pyro, but I think that he/she has created something awesome. The first picture was uploaded on January 10th 2009, and the latest on April 2nd, so it is fairly recent. Since then, the Cuddle Pyro has been joined by the Cuddle Soldier, with the Medic and Spy coming very soon. I forgot how I found this; I think it was a random Google Image search for something relating to Pyros, when I saw this:

So thank you, Cuddle Pyro, you have touched our hearts with awesomeness.

/lazyarticle

What happens when you get a bunch of unconventional Pyros together and give them Fraps and an empty server? A tutorial of how they do it! This is a video by Gamefr34k on the intricacies of Pyro and how to use the compression blast in everyday megalomaniac industry fighting, from blasting people off cliffs to CB-jumping. At 25 minutes, this is a sit-down, but one well worth it.

For a higher-quality version, visit Gamerfr34k’s website.

Players:
Magnetro/Gamerfr34k
Don Newman
Aztech
{TF2F} Rizz
Huey Lewis
Peterson!
Taraph75
Jammar
Geoff

Now you have NO excuse to be W+M1 cause it’s too hard otherwise.

Alright everyone, time for a tactical pop quiz. You’re playing a RED Scout using all the unlockables. You’ve just used Bonk! to run past a sentry and get into the sniper deck to the right of the main tunnel on Gold Rush stage one. You’re dismayed to find no Snipers, only a rather unobservant Heavy, made complacent by the server’s general lack of Spies. Do you shoot him with the Force A Nature? Try to stun him with the Sandman? Or just run past the dozy git and jump out the window to wait for some actual snipers to show up?

D)None of the above.

I know what you’re saying “Oh, that’s not a tactical decision, you just did it because it was funny.” and while there is some merit in that, it WAS a tactical choice. If I’d blasted a couple of FaN shells into the Heavy, he would have turned around and introduced me to Sasha’s $200 shells in an uncomfortably intimate far before I could have managed to fumble more of my five dollar ammo into my own weapon, and then I’d have died doing nothing more than a few damage, easily healed by the downstairs healthpack less than a hundred feet away. Not really a worthwhile sacrifice. The little pieces of a circle pointing in the direction of where you’re being shot from means that as soon as you shoot someone, they’re going to know about it. Even without them, a sudden HP drop and loud cracks would probably make the Heavy turn around.

There’s three basic points on the combat timeline. The first is when you see an enemy and decide they’re going to die, the third is when they (or you) die (or escape), and the second, crucial point is when they figure out your nefarious plan to kill them and decide that they’d rather it was you who got kicked back into the respawn room (or that they’d rather be somewhere else before you get a chance to murder them). This instant awareness to being attacked and rough location of the attacker means that soon as you shoot someone, the second point is reached and they start fighting back.

So if you’re sneaking up on someone, your goal is to make the time between the second and third points as small as humanly possible, but you’re safe between the first and second as long as you don’t get unlucky and they happen to turn and see you.

One unsung advantage of (most) killtaunts is their silence. The Heavy and Scout killtaunts make no noise until you hit- the Scout’s make no sound at all if you miss(although if you’re under the effect of Bonk! he’ll yell his head off about being untouchable and demand that people look at him). Because of this, as long as you’re out of a player’s rather narrow frame of vision, they won’t know you’re there until they’re already dead. It may take a while from the start, so if they turn or move you’re in trouble, but during this time so long as they’re distracted by a big battle or something that they’re guarding, you’ll give them no hints that you’re there.

So unless a teammate comes along to save you, or you luck out and happen to turn, enjoy your makeshift back stab, courtesy of the Scout.

by BlackHarpyGoddess

Alright, let me start out by saying I think the Force ‘A Nature is the best unlockable VALVe has put into Team Fortress 2 thus far.

Hold on now, I don’t mean best in the way you think. I don’t think that the FaN is superior to the other unlockables. Rather, I think it comes close to what VALVe intends the unlockables to be. This has been said about the Scout Update in general, but I don’t believe that. I think the FaN is really the only good unlockable in the entire update, for the following reason:

It is stupid to play Scout normally with the FaN

I say “stupid,” because it’s not impossible to do it, just really dumb.

Now, let’s clarify what I mean by “normally.” I mean the style of Scout you see so often: charge in, Scattergun blaring, and relying on your speed and erratic jumping to keep you alive until you kill everything. Not that this is the best way to play the Scout, in fact, I’ve played against Scouts whose MO are to get behind enemy lines and use the Bat for quick kills, but it’s the easiest way to play Scout, because the Scattergun has a very quick reload time.

This playstyle is sometimes called the “Ninja Scout” by the criminally dorky.

The FaN doesn’t have that

In fact, the Force A’ Nature is the antithesis of the Scattergun. Low clip size, slow reloading – if you play the “normal” Scout with the FaN, you will get one shot off, double jump and fire in the air, and the FaN will knock you into a wall, where you’ll be hit by a Rocket, bullets, or two hundred dollar, custom-tooled cartridges while you reload at a snail’s pace.

However, people don’t seem to realize this, and play “normal” Scout with the FaN, with mediocre results. I can’t count how many Scouts I’ve killed who were reloading with the FaN, and remember, I’m a career Medic.

You can still play normally with the other class unlockables

For example, if you play Pyro with the backburner, you don’t have to be an ambusher, you can still charge in from cover and burn people without the airblast, while getting a lucky crit or two when they run. With Natasha, you can still be an offensive Heavy, the slowing ability will help prevent enemies from escaping. Finally, with the Blutsauger… No, that’s another article.

So what is the FaN suited for?

I don’t play a lot of Scout. My Steam stats will tell you it’s my third most played class, but that’s from the Scout update, trying to find an achievement server that wasn’t full of morons or griefers.

However, I can see what kind of pay style the FaN could work for. When you look at Scout tutorials, there’s always a little mention of the Scout being good for hit-and-run attacks. The Force A’ Nature can be maximize the effects of this playstyle.

This kind of playstyle works either on Offense or Defense. The object of this playstyle is to hop in front of a group of enemies, unload both Force A’ Nature shots, and retreat to reload and perhaps grab a health pack if you took a lot of damage, then try again. Try to focus both shots on a single target for maximum damage. It’s not wise to try this around sentry nests, but if you can find a place to get the shots off where a sentry can’t kill you, you’re good.

This playstyle has two main aims.

To Kill and Distract

If you keep jumping in, doing a little bit of damage, and jumping back out, one or more of your targets will eventually get fed up and come after you. This is good, you want this. If your enemies are trying to kill you, it means they’re not trying to do whatever they should be doing. If someone comes after you, you can either run away or kill them. I recommend doing whichever one takes up the most time.

Strangely, this is a team-oriented playstyle. You’re not going to get a lot of kills using this method, and you’re not trying to. As I said earlier, you’re trying to draw your enemy’s attention away from the objective of the map and onto you. You’re aiming to do just enough damage so that your target has to seek out a health pack or find a dispenser. If you’re on defense, you’re trying to waste the attacker’s time. If you’re on offense, you’re trying to keep the defenders occupied long enough for your team to build up an Ubercharge. You won’t get the highest score, but your team members will thank you.

Don’t get a big head though, you’re still last in line for the teleporter.

A quick look at the GCFs again for the 3rd article in my unused content after the recent update involving the backpack brought me this huge nugget of info hidden in tf_english.txt in the Content GCFs. Noticeably involving the “new system” for weapons.

The Backpack hides a few secrets.

//—————————————————————————————-
// Items
“TF_Open_Charinfo”            ”Open Character Loadout”

“Item”                ”Item”
“SelectedItemNumber”        ”#%selecteditem%”
“NewItemsAcquired”        ”%numitems% NEW ITEMS ACQUIRED!”
“NewItemAcquired”        ”NEW ITEM ACQUIRED!”
“NextItem”                ”VIEW\nNEXT >”
“PreviousItem”            ”VIEW\n< PREV”
“CloseItemPanel”        ”OK, RESUME GAME”
“ChangeLoadout”            ”EQUIP THIS ITEM NOW…”

“CharInfoAndSetup”        ”CHARACTER INFO AND SETUP”
“Loadout”                ”LOADOUT”
“Stats”                    ”STATS”
“Achievements”            ”ACHIEVEMENTS”

“CharacterLoadout”        ”CHARACTER LOADOUT”
“SelectClassLoadout”    ”SELECT A CLASS TO MODIFY LOADOUT”
“NoSteamNoItems”        ”LOADOUT NOT AVAILABLE – COULD NOT CONNECT TO STEAM”
“LoadoutChangesUpdate”    ”NOTE: LOADOUT CHANGES WILL TAKE EFFECT ON RESPAWN.”
“EquipYourClass”        ”EQUIP YOUR %loadoutclass%”
“Equip”                    ”EQUIP”
“Keep”                    ”KEEP”
“ClassBeingEquipped”    ”%loadoutclass%”
“ChangeButton”            ”CHANGE…”
“DoneButton”            ”DONE!”
“EquipSelectedWeapon”    ”EQUIP SELECTED WEAPON”
“ItemSel_PRIMARY”        ”- PRIMARY WEAPON”
“ItemSel_SECONDARY”        ”- SECONDARY WEAPON”
“ItemSel_MELEE”            ”- MELEE WEAPON”
“ItemSel_PDA”            ”- PDA”
“ItemSel_ITEM1″            ”- ACCESSORY”
“ItemSel_HEAD”            ”- HEADWEAR”
“TF_BackCarat”            ”<< BACK”
“TF_CancelCarat”        ”<< CANCEL”
“TF_BackToMainMenu”        ”<< BACK TO MAIN MENU”
“TF_ResumeGame”            ”<< RESUME GAME”
“InventoryCountOne”        ”(1 OTHER IN INVENTORY)”
“InventoryCountMany”    ”(%s1 OTHERS IN INVENTORY)”
“CurrentlyEquipped”        ”CURRENTLY EQUIPPED:”
“CurrentlyEquippedCarat”    ”CURRENTLY EQUIPPED >”
“ItemsFoundShort”        ”(%s1 ITEMS IN INVENTORY)”
“ItemsFoundShortOne”    ”(ONE ITEM IN INVENTORY)”
“NoItemsExistShort”        ”(NO ITEMS EXIST YET)”
“NoItemsExistLong”        ”(NO SPECIAL ITEMS FOR %loadoutclass% EXIST YET.)”
“NoItemsFoundShort”        ”(NO ITEMS FOUND YET)”
“NoItemsFoundLong”        ”(NO SPECIAL ITEMS FOR %loadoutclass% HAVE BEEN ACQUIRED YET.)”
“NoItemsAvailableTitle”    ”AVAILABLE:”
“NoItemsAvailableTitle2″ “BASE INVENTORY ONLY.”
“ItemAcquireReason_Achievement” “ACHIEVEMENT EARNED”
“NoItemsToEquip”        ”YOU HAVE NO ITEMS FOR THIS LOADOUT SLOT”
“SelectNoItemSlot”        ”Empty”
“BackpackTitle”            ”BACKPACK”
“X_DeleteItem”            ”X DELETE”
“X_DiscardItem”            ”X DISCARD”
“DeleteItemConfirmTitle”    ”ARE YOU SURE?”
“DeleteItemConfirmText”        ”Deleting this item will permanently destroy it. This cannot be undone.”
“X_DeleteItemConfirmButton”    ”X YEAH, DELETE IT”
“Backpack_Delete_Item”    ”BACKPACK – DELETE ITEM”
“DiscardExplanation”    ”You picked up this item but you don’t have room for it in your pack.”
“DiscardExplanation2″    ”Delete an item below to make room or press discard to throw your new item away.”
“Discarded”                ”DISCARDED!”

“LoadoutSlot_Primary”    ”Primary weapon”
“LoadoutSlot_Secondary”    ”Secondary weapon”
“LoadoutSlot_Melee”        ”Melee weapon”
“LoadoutSlot_Grenade”    ”Grenade”
“LoadoutSlot_Building”    ”Building”
“LoadoutSlot_pda”        ”Primary PDA”
“LoadoutSlot_pda2″        ”Secondary PDA”
“LoadoutSlot_Head”        ”Head”

“ItemTypeDesc”            ”Level %s1 %s2″        // s1 is the level number, s2 is the item type. Example: “Level 4 Medigun”
“of”                    ”of”

// Attribute descriptions
“Attrib_ClipSize_Positive”            ”+%s1% Clip size”
“Attrib_ClipSize_Negative”            ”%s1% Clip size”
“Attrib_UberchargeRate_Positive”    ”+%s1% ÜberCharge rate”
“Attrib_UberchargeRate_Negative”    ”%s1% ÜberCharge rate”
“Attrib_DamageDone_Positive”        ”+%s1% Damage done”
“Attrib_DamageDone_Negative”        ”%s1% Damage done”
“Attrib_HealRate_Positive”            ”+%s1% Heal rate”
“Attrib_HealRate_Negative”            ”%s1% Heal rate”
“Attrib_FireRate_Positive”            ”+%s1% Faster firing speed”
“Attrib_FireRate_Negative”            ”%s1% Slower firing speed”
“Attrib_OverhealAmount_Positive”    ”+%s1% Overheal bonus”
“Attrib_OverhealDecay_Disabled”        ”Overheal bonus doesn’t decay”
“Attrib_OverhealDecay_Positive”        ”Overheal bonus decays %s1% slower”
“Attrib_OverhealDecay_Negative”        ”Overheal bonus decays %s1% faster”
“Attrib_HealOnHit_Positive”            ”+%s1 Health on hit”
“Attrib_HealOnHit_Negative”            ”%s1 Health on hit”
“Attrib_CritChance_Positive”        ”+%s1 Critical hit chance”
“Attrib_CritChance_Negative”        ”%s1 Critical hit chance”
“Attrib_CritChance_Disabled”        ”No critical hits”
“Attrib_AddUber_OnHit_Positive”        ”Add %s1% ÜberCharge on hit”
“Attrib_Medigun_CritBoost”            ”ÜberCharge grants 100% critical chance”
“Attrib_DamageDoneBonus_Positive”    ”+%s1% Damage bonus on hit”
“Attrib_CritVsBurning”                ”100% Critical hit vs burning players”
“Attrib_DmgPenaltyVsNonBurning”        ”%s1% damage vs non-burning players”
“Attrib_NoCritVsNonBurning”            ”No critical hits vs non-burning players”
“Attrib_ModFlamethrowerPush”        ”No compression blast”
“Attrib_ModFlamethrower_BackCrits”    ”100% Critical hits from behind”
“Attrib_MaxHealth_Positive”            ”+%s1 Max health”
“Attrib_FistsHaveRadialBuff”        ”On Kill: +50 Health on nearby teammates\nOn Kill: +10% Crit Chance on nearby teammates”
“Attrib_CritBoost_OnKill”            ”On Kill: %s1 seconds of 100% critical chance”
“Attrib_Slow_Enemy_OnHit”            ”%s1% chance to slow target on hit”
“Attrib_Spread_Negative”        ”%s1% shot spread penalty”
“Attrib_BatLaunchesBalls”        ”This bat knocks out a mean stun ball”
“Attrib_DmgPenaltyVsNonStunned”        ”%s1% damage vs non-stunned players”
“Attrib_Scattergun_HasKnockback”    ”Knockback on the target and shooter”
“Attrib_BulletsPerShot_Bonus”        ”+%s1% bullets per shot”
“Attrib_NoDoubleJump”            ”Disables double jump”

// Unique item names
“TF_Unique_Achievement_Medigun1″    ”The Kritzkrieg”
“TF_Unique_Achievement_Syringegun1″    ”The Blutsauger”
“TF_Unique_Achievement_Bonesaw1″    ”The Ubersaw”

“TF_Unique_Achievement_FireAxe1″    ”The Axtinguisher”
“TF_Unique_Achievement_FlareGun”    ”The Flare Gun”
“TF_Unique_Achievement_Flamethrower”    ”The Backburner”
“TF_Unique_Achievement_LunchBox”    ”The Sandvich”
“TF_Unique_Achievement_Minigun”        ”Natascha”
“TF_Unique_Achievement_Fists”        ”The Killing Gloves of Boxing”
“TF_Unique_Achievement_Bat”        ”The Sandman”
“TF_Unique_Achievement_Scattergun_Double” “The Force-A-Nature”
“TF_Unique_Achievement_EnergyDrink”    ”Bonk! Atomic Punch”

“TF_Wearable_Headgear”                ”Headgear”
“TF_Unique_Headgear_Scout”            ”Batter’s Helmet”
“TF_Unique_Headgear_Sniper”            ”Tooth Belt”
“TF_Unique_Headgear_Soldier”        ”Soldier’s Helmet”
“TF_Unique_Headgear_Demoman”        ”Fro”
“TF_Unique_Headgear_Medic”            ”Medic’s Helmet”
“TF_Unique_Headgear_Pyro”            ”Pyro’s Helmet”
“TF_Unique_Headgear_Heavy”            ”Football Helmet”
“TF_Unique_Headgear_Engineer”        ”Mining Helmet”
“TF_Unique_Headgear_Spy”            ”Spy’s Helmet”

All the bolded stuff is very interesting stuff. Most of it hints at a new dropped randomized item system. Be on the lookout for this.

One day, a few weeks ago, I was in the mood for some procrastination, so I fired up ye olde TF2 and joined the ubercharged server. Unfortunately for me, the server was hosting a low-grav melee-only Zombie Fortress party. Now, I can’t say I enjoy low gravity, melee-only, or Zombie Fortress, let alone a twisted combination of the three, so I left my Vault 101 and ventured out into the wasteland.

And what I saw there was not pretty.

Server 1: Liars

I opened up my favorites list and was sorely disappointed – all my other favorite hangouts, such as the second ubercharged server and the Team Fortress 2 Fort servers, were either completely empty or completely full. I set one of the TF2F servers on auto-join, went AFK for 10 minutes, and returned to find that there still wasn’t a slot free.

So I did the unthinkable – I clicked the “Internet” tab for the first time in months and watched as a list of thousands of servers grew on my screen.

I joined my first server, a 32-player 24/7 Granary place with 19 players onboard. Granary’s one of my favorite maps, because of its open nature and fast gameplay, and regardless, I hadn’t played that map in quite a while.  I sat through the loading screen, hit “Continue”, joined a team…

…and found myself alone in that vast, superficially agro-industrial complex.

It took a second for it to sink in. I had been fooled by a crappy server running a decidedly evil script, giving the player the impression that there were 19 players online, when in reality, there were none. (By the way, the server is run by HL2Land.net – think twice before joining their servers). And for what reason? The losers wanted to push their Gametracker rank up. Undeserving idiots. I ragequit.

Server 2: More liars

I went back to the “Internet” tab and found a Goldrush server (called “The Tempest”) with 23/30 players online. I’m quite averse to 30- and 32-player servers (I’ll shortly mention why), but I thought that I could probably do some spying. I joined and again, was greeted by an empty server.

Again.

Ragequit.

Server 3: Reserved slot fail

Back to the server browser, I navigated to the “friends” tab. I saw a 24-player dustbowl server with 23 players on, so I quickly joined it before that last slot was taken. I checked out my TF2 stats as the game loaded – “Retrieving server info” – “Sending client info”. And then a dialog box popped up. Apparently, I had been “kicked due to slot reservation”. I looked at the server browser again. It still had 23/24 players. Basically, the last slot was set to autokick all but a select few.

Now I was really miffed. I’m somewhat aware of the intricacies of sourcemod, and while I don’t disapprove of reserved slots, I am amazed – no, shocked – by the stupidity of that server’s owner. SourceMod has three methods of handling reserved slots (check out the nitty gritty on the SourceMod wiki), yet the server’s operator had chosen the worst method. Wonderful. Just wonderful. To whoever runs “TrU Servers”, don’t expect me back.

Server 4: The 32-player spamfest

Next up: a 32-player Payload Rotation server.

First off, once I became more active on ubercharged, I pretty much stopped going to 32-player servers. I think it was a pretty good decision on my part. In the nurture of 16- and 24-player servers, my playing skill exponentially improved.

I was joining my first 32-player server in months (and yes, this one actually had players online ), and I could see that I hadn’t missed anything. One word describes a 32-player server: Spam.

After playing for a few minutes, I could feel my TF2 skills slipping away. I hate to say it, but it really doesn’t take much to get kills on such a server. Player density is just way too high – by randomly spamming rockets, grenades, or stickies into an area, it’s completely possible to have the explosion damage someone. There’s always someone there. I think it’s fair to say that random spam does not take skill – yet spam wins the game on a 32-player server. The team that spams best wins. I know this statement is going to piss hundreds of readers off, but 32-player servers don’t reward skill, at least not as much as smaller servers.

I’m putting this in contrast to an occasional hangout of mine, the Team Fortress 2 Fort server(s). Their format is largely competitive – 16 players, competitive maps, no crits, no damage spread, no sandman – consequently, some of TF2’s best competitive players hang out there. The skill level is stratospheric in comparison to your average 32-player spamfest. Getting a kill there takes good aiming and good sense.

It suddenly made sense to me – why my skill exponentially increased after ditching 32-player servers. I just didn’t need to try hard enough. Now, every kill felt hollow, devoid of skill. I strongly prefer having to fight for my kills – extended 1v1 duels are, to me, among the most fun things TF2 has to offer, especially in the context of a game. Small servers offer plenty of that because of low player density. If you try to pull a 1v1 duel on a 32-player server, you’ll be interrupted within ten seconds by someone’s crit-rocket.

But spam aside, the last straw for me came later. Our team won the round and proceeded to slaughter the other team during humiliation. I sent a critrocket toward a pyro and got a direct hit, but the pyro didn’t explode. I sent another over. Then I shovel-bashed the pyro. Nothing worked.

A good chunk of the other team rage-quit the game (what noobs). Although the teams were 11 players to 15, a player on the other team typed !swapme into chat and got switched to ours, making the teams 10-16. Noob. Rage-team-switching speaks to the player’s lack of skill and sportsmanship, but this? That takes noobishness to the next level. Beautiful. Hell, I didn’t even know that you could type !swapme – I had never heard of it before. Maybe it’s because I play on good servers.

You see that icon? The autobalancer may be irritating sometimes, but you should respect it and actually make a stand with your new team. Don’t be like that idiot.

I shortly found out where !swapme came from. A message popped up in the chat box: “Donators get reserved slots, invincibility during humiliation, and much more! Type !donate to see all the benefits!”

That was too much for me. The reserved slots aren’t all that bad if implemented correctly, but invincibility during humiliation? Are they that concerned about their HLStatsX rank? I typed !donate and found a slew of other cheap gimmicks, such as special hats, the aforementioned immunity to the autobalancer, and a different color in the chat box.

That is just ridiculous. I realized immediately that I didn’t need to play TF2 with these idiots. I left the server – again.

Well, I learned a lesson. Once you find some good servers, add them to your favorites and stick with them. Oftentimes, it’s not worth venturing out into the wide world.

Since there seems to be some demand for this, I fired up GCFScape and a few other programs and decided to take another look at the land of TF2’s content. All of the stuff in this article is viewable using GCFScape, VTFEdit and the Source SDK. Again, I’ve decided to start small with this one again.

Found in the content GCF under “resource”

A small fact that not many people know about the source engine is that in most of the early games, the kill icons and other small HUD icons were stored in TTF format, the small format as most fonts, making them usable in word or such. Three fonts were left in from Counter-Strike it seems, under “TFLogo”, “tfd” and “tf”, cementing the whole TF2 was built from the Counter-Strike code thing. As you can see, this is the Counter-Strike logo font and the HUD font, and the final smaller HUD one I left out for space.

// Weapon strings
…
“TF_Weapon_Medikit”        “Medikit”
…
“TF_Weapon_Tranq”        “Tranquilizer Gun”
…
“TF_Weapon_Flag”        “Flag”
…
“TF_Weapon_Watch”        “Invisibility Watch”
…
“TF_Weapon_LunchBox”        “Lunch Box”

…

// Hints

“”Hint_spotted_a_friend”                “You have spotted a teammate!”
“Hint_spotted_an_enemy”                “You have spotted an enemy!”

Found in the content GCF under “resource”

This stuff was found in the big text file TF2 uses to store most of the text you see in-game. The first batch of stuff is what appears to be weapon strings, the first two are left over from development of course. I found the next two things I found interesting; TF2 counts the flag and watch as separate weapons. The Lunch Box is just the sandvich for those going WTF, it’s just got a strange name behind the scenes. The hints cement the whole minimap thing. The text is from notably Counter-Strike’s minimap.

Found in the materials gcf under “materials/Skybox”

At first glance this looks like Badland’s skybox, but it’s not. Badland’s skybox is lighter and is already in the GCF under a different set of files. This is notably under a series of files with “sky_night_*” prefix; It’s not used in any of the current maps, which leads to the conclusion VALVe has some kind of map planned, or was working on one and scrapped it. I’m pretty sure this thing was not here before the Scout update, VALVe keeps messing with my mind.

Found in the content gcf under “models/Tools/camera”

This doesn’t just fall under the “Why would they model this?” category, this falls under the “Why would they model this so well and not use it.” category This thing looks incredibly nice and the texture is pretty high quality. Too bad it’s not used.

Found in the content gcf under “models/flag”

I’m not saying anything about this. Just… yeah…

Found in the content gcf under “models/turret”

These appear to be very early sentry guns. These have animations and everything, but also seem to have a more TFC look .

Found in the materials gcf under “materials/console”

Not even surprised this is here. For those who never played TFC, this is the menu background from that. It was probably a placeholder for the background in development or something.

This just about sums this up. I’ve got a part three of this planned for those who are looking forward too that. There is still a bit of stuff left to show you, but that should be the last part.

/neatstuffthatyoumighthavealreadyknown

Yeh don’t need nottin’ but a bat an’ some bonk.

Props to TrainInMyButt for going through countless trials to bring such gold.

I’ve decided to continue my “Some things you may have missed” post from nearly a year ago, and with any luck, I’ll update it on a monthly/ quarterly basis for the folks who don’t have the time to go searching around for the neat little extras for TF2. Mainly from FPSBanana, but I will be getting in bits and pieces from other TF2 related sites. So with out further ado, lets get going!

Custom Models: Fixed Grenade Launcher

Coming at us from user Ampersand on the FPSBANNA website, comes a fixed grenade launcher custom model for use on servers without sv_pure 1, sv_pure 2 or certain Admin plugins. Many already know this, but in the Beta version of Team Fortress 2, the Demoman had six grenades to spill out. However, they were removed for balance issues. Unfortunately, Valve never updated the Model to show only four grenade slots.

Ampersand has released a fixed version here (as well as fixing the un-moving chambers while reloading), along with the promise to update more models such as fixing the One-handed Sticky Launcher, pipes connecting the Pyro and his Flamethrower and a Beta-Style Rocket launcher with the rocket sticking out. Well worth keeping an eye on.

HLstats:CE Forum Signature Generator

From the user Supernova on the Fester’s Place website, comes a slick looking, ready customisable signature creator for the communities out there with bustling forums and HLstats:CE. The signatures should work with a wealth of other games that support HLstats:CE, but it has only been tested so far on TF2.

The signatures actually fully link up to the players HLstats:CE stats for a nice and clean look with a wealth of random, self changing background pictures and changeable fonts, what you want displayed and much much more. They even update as you play and can feature anything on them from Kills per Death to Total Sandviches eaten to Favorite victim . To download them for your own use, check out the website here for samples and instructions*.

Standard HLStats forum signature:

Supernova’s:

The difference is nothing short of stunning. Supernova has told me that quite a few popular servers a picking this up now so don’t be surprised if you see it around more often. It can also be used on other games, and is customisable for anyone who wants pictures in the sig changed to match the game.

Soon enough there should be more options such as “Favorite enemy” for the person who has killed you the most, or be able to update your own pictures to this so you could have a compile of screenshots from only your personal server’s community!

Definetly very cool addition for those who do care about HLstats more than their official TF2 stats.

*Contact your oft-used server’s admin to link up the server with the new sigs.

32 Player font

Now here is something for everyone, whether or not you play 32 player servers anyway. Again from FPSBanana comes a more condensed font for use on the tab/score screen courtesy of DanTycoon. The font size itself will only change very slightly, if at all, but it will push the names closer together on the list, without any overlaying avatars or names.

Download it from here!

To see the difference, the one on the left is the old font, the one on the right is Dan’s (with obvious self promotions on my “l33t heavy skills” I’m actually terrible).

Maps: cp_observatory4

I typically don’t like showing off maps as there are just so many innovative or interesting ones, we could have a separate blog devoted to them, but this one caught my eye in particular. This map by Icarus is a blend of cp_steel and cp_gravelpit style, with separate caps opening up, but it being very possible to win without all points. The map is built around points A, B and C. Capturing either of the first points will open C for capping, but both A and B give their own different additional bonuses for the Blue team to push forward, as well as extra time to strike.

The map is the perfect size and has just enough nicks and knacks for all classes to be usable. Wide open spaces for Snipers, rocks and high platforms for Scouts, plenty of sneaky places for Backburner Pyros and Spies alike, its got it all. Ending in a giant platform for C that leaves a dramatic finish for both teams. But my undoubtedly favorite thing about this map, is just the level of care and detail gone into it.

Looking around, you will find little tongue-in-cheek jokes like a Spy being put to a James Bond style laser death, a cp_steel-esqe rocket blasting finish or a giant “Yield, right of way” sign facing the Blue team. On top of that, the invisible wall treatment is actually quite lenient, giving clever engineers a piece of the action with well placed sentries and scouts or soldiers plenty of areas to flee to and gain height advantages. It’s a gem, and certainly deserves to be on any map rotation, if even only for a test. You can download it here.

Misc.: Cel shaded TF2 lighting*

A touchy post, but I found it worthy of a look at. If you remember back the old, OLD TF2 trailer lighting schemes were much more solid and blocky. DanielAwesomo added this custom lighting which should work on most servers that brings you pretty close to what TF2 was to have looked like (Player Models only!). I would post screens, but it gives a horrible impression compaired to seeing it in game so I can only recommend you try it in-game to see it yourself. Download it here to see what you think.

*And before you go saying it, no, the current vanilla TF2 is not Cel Shaded.

* * *

That’s all for now then. Catch y’all at a later point in time when some more interesting bits and pieces surface.

You know what really saps my sentry?

The whining teen

When I was starting out TF2, it was one of the first FPS’s that I had played, and so I was very new to the whole idea of being able to speak into a mic to give each other information quickly and to spam music (the latter obviously is the main reason for having a mic).
And the second thing that struck me (the first being the giddy ‘Holy crap holy crap this is sooo awesome’ feeling) was an annoying high pitched American voice complaining about a sniper who was supposedly hacking the game to get headshots by aimbotting (no offense to our American readers).

The person playing sniper happened to be a friend of mine and the one who introduced me to TF2. Admittedly, he was very, very good; he had been playing sniper games and FPS’s on computers since he was about 8, thus his awesomeness was understandable. But the kid just wouldn’t shut up…

It was just a constant torrent of:

• ‘quit cheatin!’
• ’stop it!’
• ‘your so obviously hacking!’
• ‘quit it!’
• ‘now your just targeting me!’
• ’stop picking on me!’
• ‘admin, kick him!’

Being a noobish beginner I had no idea about muting players, so I sat there in silent suffering, waddling around as a heavy getting a staggering and rather depressing 44 deaths to 15 kills. Eventually this admin message showed up in the chat box:

‘If you want this guy to shut up, then please change to scout, wield a baseball bat, jump up and down on the roof [of 2fort] and don’t attack anyone.’

The vote was unanimous, except for the American kid, who was now wailing:

• ‘come on guys!’,
• ‘but he’s cheatin!’,
• ‘I’m just trying to be heard!’,
• ‘Gimme a break!’,
• ‘I promise I’ll be quiet…’,

…and other such pleas, while he ran and picked up the intel in our base and was running back.
Much to the server’s pleasure, he was then kicked (and banned I think), and then there was an epic bat fight on the bridge. I was finally completely happy and starting to get into the fun and excitement of TF2.

…and that’s when my computer died.