Hooray for video posts! I know you guys love them (*ahem*), and you’ll love this one too. No really.

The Australian competitive team Intensity pulled together an 11-minute frag video, featuring the usual 6v6 shenanigans–but unlike most other videos, the editing is nothing short of incredible. Props to decap and Torn Productions for their awesome work.

The video is a 440MB monster, so I dare not embed it on this page. Check it out on PLDX instead, or please to be clicking on the screencap below.

On a side note, that cooperative double-airshot at 10:05 nearly made me JIMP.

Foreword

Welcome to Thirty-Six Rules of Fighting, this guide was first published on the now-defunct Team Fortress 2 wing of Gamereplays.org. But now, it’s here on Ubercharged for your reading pleasure, ain’t that great?

Anyway, let’s jump straight to the point, I’m EchelonThree, the writer of this guide, and one thing which pisses me off the most is how common-sense seems to disappear when it’s most needed.

So I was thinking for a while, and thought to myself, “Hey, what are the biggest mistakes that could have been most easily avoided?”

Then I played a while more, and within a few rounds, “Hmm… we wouldn’t have lost if some people had some basic knowledge of standing on the point”.

I’ve also considered that clan players aren’t likely to need a guide on how to play, so what I’ve attempted to do here is to shift the emphasis of the guide away from advanced players and on to beginning and improving players.

I guess that’s why I’m here now, writing this guide for all of you to read, enjoy, and perhaps have a good laugh at what I feel are the simplest, but yet most often ignored things…

Oh wait, I’m publishing on Ubercharged now! So I need to include this nice little guarantee for all of you, I promise the following in thie part and the parts to follow:

-          NO twitch aiming! (I promise, nothing on adjusting your mouse sensitivity, you shouldn’t rely on equipment anyway)

-          NO fancy tricks! (No fancy tricks, just good, effective ones)

-          NO frills (Nope, we won’t go into the damage spread of the shotgun to 5 decimal points.)

-          100% idiot proof! (Moron-Proof too!)

-          100% effective! (If it isn’t, TAKE IT UP WITH ME!)

-          THIRTY-SIX simple ways to improve your play!

-          All feedback replied! (Really!)

-          Not 100% satisfied with this guide? Take it up with me!

-          Provides all your daily TF2 nutritional needs! (it’s high-fiber!)

So, have fun, and enjoy the guide!

-          EchelonThree

Introduction or… How to Use This Guide

I’ll be publishing a new part of the guide each week for the next five weeks.

In a battle, the action often happens too fast for you to see, but behind every fight, there are tactics and strategies working their magic, creating an advantage for one side or the other. This guide will break down some of those principles for you.

The key principle of this guide is that it won’t tell you many things that you “shouldn’t” already know; what you’ll learn is everything that you should know but isn’t ever put into practice, along with things that you probably didn’t know, but yet play a major role in-game.

The guide works like this, we’ll learn a few pointers about what to do (or not) in battle through these thirty-six key points and tactics. On the way, there will be mini-guides (the aptly-named “Serious Zones) which teach concepts of fighting, some concepts are simple, such as area-denial, and some are long and complicated, such as battle simulation.

Without further rambling ado, here are thirty six stratagems that seem obvious but are rarely seen in combat.

Oh yeah, at the end, I do give out my mailing address (for the impatient ones, it’s echelonthreeguides@gmail.com , feel free to send in any questions, suggestions, complaints, or advice to me, thanks!

The Guide

1. Don’t be too aggressive

Question: Do you want to end up like this?

If you remember my defense guide (for playhaven and ubercharged readers, it’s still being updated), there was something I wrote about a rear and a forward guard. The forward defense team goes and kills off any defenses, while the rear guard stays in reserve and pushes forward or covers a retreat for the forward group. (On a public server, a group of 4 can easily accomplish this.)

Now, if you push too far forward, your support players will be too far behind your forces to cover them effectively, and the concentrated enemy offense can break your lines one at a time.

Also see point 5 – If Fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight!

2. Stand on the point

“Offensive point capture may not proceed should one of the defenders be standing on the point; make good use of this fact to prevent and stall for your teammates to come to your aid. At no point must you waver and desert your point lest you grant the enemy the advantage.” – Sun Tzu

While you may not be able to stop the capture, you might be able to stall the enemy long enough for help to arrive in the form of a pyro, demo, soldier, or any other class that’s good . Even a scout standing on the point could give your team a chance to reach it and assist and make a game saving defense.

A point only takes a few seconds to cap, as such, it helps to apply this strategy at all times and ensure that you have someone on the point at all times, like a heavy.

3. Splashing is better than missing

A good soldier will be able to dodge your rockets in a duel every time if you go for a direct hit. If you go for a splashshot, you’re assured of getting a minor hit on him and at least doing some damage. It doesn’t take much brain for you to figure out what to do.

Of course, if you are confident of getting a direct hit on a target (think along the lines of your average (that is, dumb) sniper, gunhumping engi, or watch-me-I’m-invincible heavy), then take the shot and you’ll be rewarded with excellent damage.

4. JUMP!

A height advantage is crucial in defeating your opponent. You must obtain every possible edge you can get and by doing this you achieve that. As a soldier, jumping can grant you a slightly better firing angle, as a heavy, it gives you the element of surprise when you jump down on someone and rev your gun, as a scout; whatever… let’s put it simply: you’d damn better be jumping.

Jumping also helps you defensively: you can evade splash damage if you time it right. Be warned though, during your jump it’s easy to predict your movements.

A smart soldier will “break fire”; that is, instead of timing his shots in a single volley of 1-2-3-4 (which will be easily evaded by jumping), he will 1-2—3—4, taking advantage of the fact that you have jumped too early and are unable to jump to avoid damage, or worse, timing his shot to juggle you.

See also point 9 – Taking high ground.

WARNING: Serious Zone! – Breaking Fire

Breaking fire is better known in the business as “holding fire” or “lifting fire”, that is, to stop firing on a certain target and waiting for the enemy to attack or attack someone else instead of mindlessly suppressing him.

This is a very useful technique in TF2, by holding your fire; you force the opponent from being able to predict your shots, more importantly, you conserve your ammunition for a more important target and have time to reassess the situation.

See also 34 – Fool your enemy.

End Serious Zone

5. If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight!

If you see an opportunity to take the fight, you should do so, and attack immediately to win the battle if possible. If defending, you should then pull back to regroup and resupply so as to absorb a counterattack.

On offense, if you see that you will win the fight if you attack, then you must do so; many games have been lost by pulling back to “build up ubers” when there were no sentry guns, then attacking with ubers when there were too many sentries up.

6. Don’t rely on sentries

“In Soviet Russia, sentry guard YOU!!” – Leonidas Trotsky

Sentries are the core of any defense, and any defensive team should have at least one engineer, after all, a sentry doesn’t miss anything, it sees the sniper hiding in the corner, and it sees the demoman sneaking behind you.

Sure they’re easy to take down with an uber, but the very fact that they often cause medics to use uber to take them down should be a good enough factor – the enemies have wasted an uber that would have been used to wreak havoc on your team.

Anybody who stands still for more than a few seconds in the path of a sentry gun is very likely to wind up as a kitchen colander if he doesn’t think fast.

Many people therefore base their defense on the fact that they have sentries set up all over the place, right?

Wrong.

A simple fact that any good player would know is that sentries are extremely easy to defeat – it’s the people covering the blind spots that screw you. More often than not, sentries which are unguarded wind up like this one here:

A sentry gun isn’t supposed to be a miracle solution that kills anybody and everybody who comes into an area, it’s supposed to keep anybody and everybody out of that area. Your job is to make sure nobody gets an angle on your gun, and to use a counteruber should an ubered demo come in.

In reality, you aren’t guarding the point; you’re guarding the sentries that are guarding the point.

WARNING: Serious Zone! – Area Denial

Area denial is the concept of keeping a key area out of enemy hands by preventing them from occupying it, that is, having a strong deterrent that assures them of death or heavy damage should they enter.

A sentry or a sticky field is a good example, enemies will have to stay away or be blown up, shot to death, maimed, impaled by rockets, or any combination of the above. Heavies? Not really, a heavy can be outsmarted or evaded, but you can’t dodge a sentry gun’s bullets if you’re in the way.

Generally, when applying area denial, the objective is to defend the most area with the least required manpower, and maybe a bit more for backup. An engineer’s sentry is an excellent method, the engineer can lend in his shotgun to the main fight, and the sentry watches his back.

End Serious Zone

The Engineer is possibly the most misunderstood class in Team Fortress 2, and that’s saying a lot when people still claim that there’s not such thing as a skilled Pyro or a useful Sniper. But while people generally know what each class does and the different kinds of play styles for each, people’s usual interpretation of an Engineer’s play style is “Build sentry, build dispenser, ensure neither dies while the sentry guards an objective” and that skill is only down to how well they deal with Spies and how well they place their sentry. And so the Engineer is generally regarded as just something you have on defence to stop Scouts from capping everything.

Some of the more enlightened will recognise two Engineer play styles, the second being that of the offensive Engineer- an Engineer who goes around building ambush sentries to confuse, delay, and weaken the enemy.

However, while these are the two extremes of Engineer playing, they are not the only way to play the class. How you do that, as the Engineer would say, falls within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy.

As is rather heavily implied by the title, there are four basic ways to play the Engineer, although each has variations, and there are a few Engineer players who don’t fit any of those four groups. Each play style is based on a different interpretation of what the Engineer is useful for. The Turtle Engineer, The Pod Engineer, The Aggressive Engineer, and The Offensive Engineer. The first one we’ll cover is the famous Turtle Engineer, the original play style of Engineers and still the most common, especially on attack/defend maps like Dustbowl.

The Turtle Engineer

Building of Choice: Level 3 Sentry
Weapon of Choice: Wrench
Personal Philosophy: “You don’t cap a point covered by a level 3 sentry, and a level 3 stops momentum pronto.”

The basic strategy of the Turtle Engineer is, as covered above, “Build a sentry and dispenser, upgrade them, keep them alive.” While it’s simple, it’s hard to argue that a defence isn’t stronger with a level 3 sentry guarding the objective or an important chokepoint, and if the team helps out by guarding the sentry from Spies and Demomen, it can form the cornerstone of a powerful defence. This is also the type of Engineer that benefits most from other Engineers- two sentries can cover each other’s weaknesses, and even a good Spy will have a bit of trouble dealing with two Engineers at once with sentries covering each other- stab and sap won’t work as well, and they can split up with one unsapping while the other attacks him.

Additionally, the more Engineers there are, the more sentries there are, adding knock back to ubers and killing people in the range faster, and the more dispensers there are, meaning that if a sentry is destroyed the Engineers can work together to quickly get a new one built and upgraded using metal from the surviving dispensers.

However, while this remains the most popular style for a reason, it is not without its faults. The Turtle Engineer can be cleared out by an ubered Demoman without a lot of effort, and in most cases it will take a long time to set up a new base- the Turtle Engineer is by far the slowest to set up of all the types of Engineers, and so suffers in fast paced games. Additionally, on any map where the team’s objective is something more than just defend, Turtle Engineering leads to stalemates and while it stops your enemy from winning, it doesn’t help your team win. In many maps, especially CTF, Turtle Engineering can also be very tedious, with long stretches of doing nothing but sitting and waiting for an enemy. If the team doesn’t help a Turtle Engineer, they’ll often get constantly overrun by people attacking their sentry from out of range, or a spy attacking at the same time as another player, an experience which can be very, very frustrating and rarely helps your team.

Because of these weaknesses, Turtle Engineers are a rare sight on most 5CP maps (except for the last point on Badlands), and almost never seen on Arena maps, due to the long set up time for their bases. The exception to this is Lumberyard, where a sentry can be built that covers the middle point without running directly into the enemy team. This type of Engineering is also arguably the easiest, since simply putting a sentry down on a point and hitting it can be effective. However, skilled Turtle Engineers will find excellent sentry spots and be able to build and more importantly re-build their bases rapidly to keep a constant obstacle for the attackers. And if you ever doubt the usefulness of a Turtle Engineer, have fun trying to take out a sentry farm.

So that wraps up the famous defensive-centred Turtle Engineer. Next time we’ll look at his polar opposite, The Offensive Engineer.

Apologies for the slowness! New content will be on the way shortly.

In the meantime, we’ve updated our servers’ IP addresses to make them far more memorable, in case they got accidentally removed from your faves list (though the old IP’s still work). Here’s the low-down on the public UC servers.

To connect to one of the servers, open up the development console in TF2 and type in

connect [ip address]

Alternately, of course, you could just click one of the server banners on the right.

EDIT: I LIED. I LIED. Only mumble.ubercharged.net is working as of 12:56 AM GMT, September 28th. uc1, uc2, and uc3.ubercharged.net are still down.

Ubercharged #1 (Official Cult of the Locomotive) is located in California, USA. The IP address is

uc1.ubercharged.net:27015

The server runs an almost-vanilla configuration, though alltalk is on. The map rotation consists mostly of official Valve maps, with the addition of a few of the better custom maps.

Ubercharged #2 (Esteemed Disciples of the English Muffin) is now located in London, UK, to better serve our European clientele. Its IP address is

uc2.ubercharged.net:27015

This server is slightly modded – expect to see some really funky stuff going on here with your weapons, but only occasionally. The majority of the time, it’s vanilla. Expect to play a pretty even mix of official maps and good custom maps.

Ubercharged #3 (AH MEN Leisure Lounge) is located in Texas, USA; however, it may move to Chicago. The IP address is, who woulda thunk it,

uc3.ubercharged.net:27015

This server, unlike the other ones, is geared toward competition. This server has a rotation composed mostly of competitive league maps (five-CP maps, Turbine, and some 3-CP maps like Gravelpit).

New! Mumble server

Huge thanks to like 45 ninjas for donating a Mumble server to ubercharged! For those who aren’t in the know, Mumble is a voice-chat client (the open-source equivalent of Ventrilo).

To get it working, first head over to the Mumble website and download the client. Once you have it installed, fill out the following server information:

Label: Ubercharged
Address: mumble.ubercharged.net
Port: 64738 [the default port]
Username: [the name you want to connect with, i.e. himmelstoss]
Password: [leave blank]

Don’t forget to set up your microphone with the audio wizard. Also, set Mumble up as a push-to-talk system, to prevent noise. If you want to stay sane, it may be helpful to turn off text-to-speech (Audio menu -> uncheck Text-to-Speech).

Obviously, rules apply. Don’t spam or say things that you wouldn’t say in a social setting. If the admins don’t like you, you’ll be muted, kicked, or banned. That said, if you have a mic, we invite you to try it out.

There are already some great articles out there about how to play sniper, but I wanted to focus a little more on one aspect of sniping. As a sniper, there come unfortunate times where you must fight classes one on one. This becomes exceptionally difficult for you, because your main weapon is extremely hard to use at close ranges consistently, so I’m here to give you some tips on how to fight each class one on one from both a distance and close quarters. Note: This guide assumes you’re using the standard weapons for sniper.

Scout

Scouts are the fastest class in the game, so hitting their heads is a bit of a problem. At long ranges, it’s best to go for body shots rather than headshots. Scouts only have 125 health, so you don’t even need to fully charge a shot to kill them in one hit. If you’re having trouble hitting them, or you’re not very good at aiming, try to go for multiple quick body shots. Without charging, your rifle does 50 damage, so if you can get 3 fast shots off against him, he’ll be dead. Even if you can only get 1 or 2 shots off, it dramatically increases your chances of killing him with your SMG when he gets close to you.

At close ranges, your chances of hitting a Scout with a sniper are slim to none. Whip out your SMG and fire at him while backpedaling and dodging to the nearest medpak. Both of you have extremely low health, so health is extremely valuable in this situation. If the scout tries to make a run for the nearest medpack before you,  it probably means he’s at a very low health. This is the point where you should whip out your rifle. You should know where the medpack is, so scope in to it, and prepare to snipe the scout right before he actually gets the medpak. DON’T waste a shot trying to go for the headshot on the Scout, because chances are that he’ll die from the partially charged body shot anyway.

Soldier

Soldiers are fairly easy to snipe, because of their slow speed and relatively large heads. However, in a one on one situation, your task becomes a lot harder, because they can rocket jump and cover large distances very quickly. From a distance, you’ll want to go for headshots or charged body shots. If he rocket jumps towards you, and he probably will, DO NOT stand there and try to snipe him in the air. If you do this, you just become a sitting duck for him as he flies towards you from above. Contrary to what your common sense would tell you, run TOWARDS him if he would land on top of you, or PERPENDICULAR to him if he’s not that close. Doing this will create the largest gap between you and him. If you pass directly under him while he is rocket jumping, he will have to turn 180 degrees and re-aim at you. This gives you time to get away from him, and prepare for a rifle shot.

If his rocket jump is successful, and he gets close to you, don’t pull out your SMG or kukri. The soldier has too much health to be killed quickly with an SMG, and the kukri is basically useless because it’s impossible to get close enough to use it. Even if you do get close enough to use the kukri, the soldier has more health than you, so a point blank rocket will kill you and leave the soldier still alive. The best bet at this point is to use the rifle, and to just take really fast quickscope shots at him. Because of his slow speed, his head shouldn’t be hard to hit, and because he took damage from the rocket jump, it should usually almost kill him. If it doesn’t, at this point it is okay to use the SMG and finish him off. However, when trying to snipe him, don’t spend too long aiming at his head, because you just become an easy target for his powerful rockets. Take very fast shots at his head, and if you miss, dodge and try again. These battles are usually the fastest of the one on ones, and it won’t make a difference if you try and make a run for the nearest medpak.

Pyro

Pyros are, in my opinion, one of the easier classes to kill as sniper. At long range, there is nothing they can do except dodge and shoot flares at you. Dodge the flares and headshot them. ‘Nuff said.

At close range, all 3 weapons are equally good against the pyro. Personally, I like to pull out my rifle and just headshot them, and maybe finish them off with the SMG. This is generally easy to do, because many pyros don’t strafe or jump very much, which makes it easy to shoot their head. If you’re on fire while this is happening though, aim for their chests. The fire causes you to automatically recoil, and with luck, it will recoil into their heads. If it doesn’t recoil, you will at least hit their chest and cause enough damage that you can finish them off with the any of the 3 weapons. Also, while you’re doing this, try to head towards a medpak, but don’t stop shooting at him, because chances are you’re going to die unless you kill him first.

Demo

All right. Basically, demo is the exact same thing as soldier. They have a little less health than the soldier, and are a little faster, but the exact same tactics apply to taking them on one on one.

Heavy

Everybody would almost universally agree that heavies are the easiest class to snipe. At long ranges, their minigun is still very accurate, and all you have to do is hide behind cover until you see them stop shooting, and the pop out for an easy headshot with your rifle.

Heavies have the most health in the game, so the only way to make a significant dent in his health is to use your sniper rifle. At close quarters, the best thing to do is to just run away from the heavy while firing your SMG at him. Once you are at a safe distance, try to find cover and headshot him. Remember, he will be wounded from your SMG, so one charged headshot will kill him. He is too slow to keep up with you, so if he ever gets to close, simply run away and try and snipe him again. Also, because he can’t keep up with you, you can run to the nearest medpak and heal up, no problem.

Engi

Engis are probably the 2nd easiest class to kill. At long ranges, their weapons are basically useless, and it is very easy to snipe them while they’re standing still trying to harass you with their pistol, or when they’re working on their buildings. There’s really nothing they can do to stop you, so just dodge a little and headshot them.

In close quarters combat, it is similar to if you were fighting a scout, except slower. You have the choice of using any of your 3 weapons this time, and you can use either the pyro or the scout strategy for fighting them. Just like the scout, you should also run towards a medpak, because you both have low health.

Medic

Yet again, I’m just going to be lazy, and say that medics are just like engis or pyros in long range combat. The needlegun actually does quite a bit of damage to you, so when you’re trying to snipe medics, don’t stand in place too long, because you can die very easily from a mass of needles.

Medics are really quite annoying when it comes to fighting them in close combat though. Your main close quarters combat weapon, the SMG, is nearly useless against their powerful needlegun. Their needlegun does even more damage than your SMG and it gets even worse, because they have more health than you. If they happen to have the blutsauger equipped, which many of them do, you’re at even more of a loss, because they can regain almost half of the health they do to you. The other weapon that is useless against a medic is the kukri. If they’re decent at melee combat, you’re basically dead because it only takes 2 hits from a saw to kill you, but it takes 3 hits from a kukri to kill them. The best thing that you can do to kill a medic is to try your luck at close quarters sniping. A single headshot will kill them, and if you can get off a few body shots, that should kill them as well. These battles are also fast in comparison to the soldier, so don’t bother going to the nearest medpak, unless it’s close.

Sniper

There is only one real strategy to winning a one on one fight with another sniper. If in doubt, assume that they have both better aiming skills than you, and they have a better reaction time. The best thing to do, is to jump around and dodge, and randomly take extremely quick shots at their head. Immediately after you shoot at them, crouch, even if you think you hit them. If they happen to be aiming at your head, and you miss, your crouching may throw off their aim and make them miss the shot. If you did hit them, then you crouched for nothing, but it’s not like it really matters.

There’s an art even to being a weighted companion sniper.

When fighting one on one with a sniper, anything goes. You can try and close quarters snipe them, kukri them to death, or kill them with the SMG. It’s the same as fighting an engi, except they don’t have a shotgun to point blank you with. Health is also a big issue here, and just like the engi and the scout, try and head towards the nearest medpak, but remember, don’t just travel in a straight line path. That just spells headshot.

Spy

Spies are very similar to engineers in the respect that they stand still often while trying to shoot you. The same tactics apply to them as sniping an engi, except they do have a very powerful ambassador that can headshot. As long as you don’t stand still, you should be fine.

In close combat, they’re pretty much just like fighting a sniper or an engi. All 3 weapons will work fine, but remember to not turn your back towards the spy. Doing so will just set him up for a backstab.

Well, that’s it for this tutorial, and I hoped you gained some valuable tips for taking on people in 1v1 battles. Take this advice on to the battlefield, and hopefully you will win that next mano-a-mano deathmatch.

Team Fortress 2 was released October 10, 2007, bundled with the Half-Life 2 series and Portal. Portal was the immediate standout, pretty much stealing the Orange Box show. Yet here we are, almost two years later, and Team Fortress 2 has become an insane success. If you were to show almost any gamer a screen shot from Team Fortress 2, I’d say there would be an extremely high likelihood that they’d be able to identify it in seconds. Team Fortress 2 has a massive, growing community, is more popular than Rick Rolls (according to Google Trends), and can pretty much be considered the definition of commercial success (as long as you stay away from the Steam Forums). So what happened? What went right and allowed such success? Well, there are three unique things that put Team Fortress 2 where it is today: the Art Direction, the fact that it’s Dynamic, and the brilliant Internet Advertising.

The Art Direction

This is a perfect example of some of the stylistic elements that make Team Fortress 2 so visually distinct. No other game looks anything like Team Fortress 2, and the style is very intricate and hard to replicate, as anyone who has ever tried their hand at mapping will tell you. “Pixar movie from hell” doesn’t exactly do it justice. I’d say it’s more like playing a game set in a retro propaganda poster, and in fact, Valve has outright stated that they based the characters on the art styles of people like J.C. Leyendecker and Norman Rockwell.

How does this key in to Team Fortress 2’s success? Well, there are a few ways it helped out. One, it’s eye-catching; I was initially drawn to Team Fortress 2 based on the fact that it just looked so nice in addition to the fact that it was made by Valve. Two, it’s distinct; you are never going to mistake Team Fortress 2 for Call of Duty, or Halo, or any other generic multiplayer game. Three, the art makes Team Fortress 2 one of the clearest and easily understandable games out there. Despite there being so much going on in Team Fortress 2, the art allows it all to be clearly presented. Each class looks distinct, each weapon is distinct, and the plethora of visual cues in the maps make it so that even if you have never played Team Fortress 2 before, you can jump in and understand what is happening in a matter of seconds. For example, the first time I played, I was unlucky enough to be up against a very skilled spy. I was totally psyched out the first time I saw myself running towards me across the battlefield, and even more confused when I walked past myself and ended up with a knife in my back a few seconds later. Then, when I respawned, I saw a friendly spy running around in a paper mask, and I immediately understood what had happened.

The Dynamic Evolution

The main reason that Team Fortress 2 has done so well is the class updates. Had it not been for the class updates, Team Fortress 2 wouldn’t even be close to how popular it is today. So far, we have received six major updates, and almost each time there was an update, Team Fortress 2 experienced a huge influx of new players. One of the most brilliant marketing moves Valve has ever pulled were the free weekends. I myself joined during the first free weekend, and in the subsequent ones I have convinced various friends to give Team Fortress 2 a try, and every one of them immediately went purchased TF2 after the weekend was over.

Furthermore, despite all the badmouth and controversy surrounding achievements, they (and the unlockable weapons they bring with them) are the main contributors to Team Fortress 2’s success. Call it grinding, call it unfair, call it gimmicky, you went out and did everything you could to get those achievements didn’t you? They made you play the game, from a marketing perspective, that’s a success. This is why the random drop system is such a bad idea, it led to idling, which means people aren’t playing the game. I know this argument has been made before, but when a gameplay mechanic leads to your players not playing, you need to remove that mechanic.

But I’m not here to debate whether or not random items, idling, or achievements are good ideas. So let’s take a look at this whole “Dynamic Evolution”. That is a pretty redundant phrase, though it sound intelligent so I’m going to stick with it. Essentially, what I mean by saying it is that Team Fortress changes and well, evolves as time goes on. Seriously, those of you that have been around for a while, just think about what has changed since you started playing. I bet you can’t name every change, there are just so many. Anyone remember the glory of the Backburner’s “Pluse 50 Health Boost”? How about when the only gamemodes were CP, CTF, and TC? This constant shifting means that Team Fortress 2 never becomes truly repetitive. Just as a mechanic starts to get dull and predictable, it changes or is removed. Growth of the game over the long term means that it can grab hold of players and won’t let go.Valve is in and interesting position now, they could sustain Team Fortress 2 for as long as they want, provided they keep updating. Eventually, the size of the game files will become an issue, or the graphics will become dated, but I would say that Valve could continue updating Team Fortress 2 for at least another three years and it would still be practical from a business standpoint. And even after that, the community is strong enough that Team Fortress 2 could keep going on for quite a while before fading away. I’d say that it’s ultimate lifespan is about nine years, as long as it took to make. That’s pretty good, I can’t even remember what games I was playing nine years ago, they’ve all faded out of memory.

The Advertising

The days before any major update have become rather formulaic by this point. There are four to seven days during which Valve releases small bits of information about the update, and slowly builds up excitement. The speculation and anticipation builds up, reaching a peak the day before the update is released. Imagine if the updates were just released, no build-up, no waiting, just churned out as soon as Valve was finished. Sure, the existing playerbase would be happy, but would it draw in nearly as many new players? During the last two updates, popular gaming site Kotaku posted at least one article each time Valve added new material to the page. That’s free advertising some companies would kill for. And Kotaku isn’t the only site that did it, many others did as well.

And then there are the Meet the Class videos. Each one of them is a short, hilarious, memematic piece of marketing brilliance, Meet the Spy being the crowning jewel of them. I have seen each video multiple times, and they never seem to lose their humor value. But more importantly, I’ve sent the videos to various friends, who then sent it to their friends. Sure, it’s simple viral advertising, but it worked fantastically. The fact that the Meet the Spy video was leaked actually worked in Valve’s favor. Not only was clever, funny, and amazingly well done, it also was surrounded in the controversy of being leaked. And of course, Team Fortress 2 fanboys were going berserk sending it to everyone they knew. The night of the leak, if you searched “Meet the Spy” on YouTube, about seven pages of identical videos turned up, it was as though everyone and their mother had uploaded the video.

In conclusion, Team Fortress 2 is an experiment. It’s a test, a trial run. Valve has used Team Fortress 2 to try out a large variety of things that they wouldn’t dare try anywhere else. When you are a company like Valve, and you are held to such high standards, you can’t afford to make mistakes. But because of what they did with Team Fortress 2, they can make mistakes with it, so long as they fix them. They can try out mechanics and concepts, and learn from the reactions that they get. And with that knowledge, they can expand, make things better. Most importantly, they can be original. They don’t have to worry about ruining a game with a bad mechanic, because they can simply go in and fix it. So they aren’t bound by the fear of ruining the game, and as such they don’t have to adhere to the formula of what has been done in the past. Has this worked? So far, has their experiment, been a success? They’ve given us a game where you can shoot arrows into the skull of a massive Russian who is eating a sandwich while invisible, paper-masked spies run around trying to avoid the licking flames of a raving lunatic, and somehow, they’ve made it all work perfectly. I’d say that’s a success.

It is all about hats these days. How to find hats – how to make hats – it makes me sick that Valve could not implement my original idea of giving everyone a new haircut – likely due to lack of good programmers  – and opted to hand out bunch of strange hats instead.

And the propaganda – how hats are symbol of power and class and such. Has it come to this? Hats dignifying or disgracing us? Facial hair has been a symbol of power and manliness for much longer than hats. Man had facial hair before he had fire. So, as a proud member of Beard Team USA,  I took the initiative to draw mustaches on all classes, not to mock them, but to bless them with character.

Below you will find my humble attempts at avatars for a Mustache Team BLU, a dark and chillingly cool counterpart to Valve’s fiery favorite Team RED, for I am tired of everyone loving RED over BLU and for I always have the utmost sympathy for the underdog.

Grow that ’stache above your upper lips and women will not care if your MD diploma is real or not.

Most women say that mustaches are ‘eww’. In truth most women had mustached fathers and secretly they admire it, according to Freud.

Our beloved soldier in his younger days, here seen taking a break from breaking bones in France,  during WWII.

Real spies do not use fake beards or cameras. They blend in with a beautiful mustache.

Scout was an aspiring police officer before he was ‘hired’ by BLU. “The Officer” is a mustache style famous for instilling fear in criminals and diner owners.

It is no secret Pyro is a woman. Well, Pyro can not sport a mustache so even if he’s a he, he won’t ever be manly enough, so I chose to picture him/her in a feminine environment.

A proper mustache is to the Australian what red wine is to the French. Ask madlep, our resident Australian if you don’t take my word for it.

Mutton chops are back in fashion, and are great at adorning big chins. Does this guy not inspire awe in you or am I terribly terminally obsessed with facial hair?

And finally, we have everyone’s favorite, Samuel Jackson, thankfully already bearing some great chops, so I spared him of my hairy wrath.

Thank you for your time, and please consider participating in No Shave November and reconnecting with your testosterone whichever sex you belong to.

So, we got linked by valve… again.

This is becoming kind of fun to wake up in the morning and see a nice little traffic bump that lasts a few days.

Anyway, welcome to all the new readers. If you haven’t seen the site before, I don’t blame you if you run scared after reading a few posts. Especially stay away from the universally despised competitive guide, and the forums. Doubly so if you are suffer back problems, heart conditions, nausea, dizziness, or are pregnant.

We’ve had reports that the ubercharged twitter feed is plagued by spam #hashtag promotions, Evony ads, and tweets about cornflakes. So avoid that as well.

And you shouldn’t go near the ubercharged.net TF2 servers either (unless you’re a train fan and/or lover of shenanigans)

Please direct all complaints to Robin Walker and the Valve TF2 team for sending you here. ubercharged.net denies all responsibility for any injury real, imagined, or virtual.

In fact, I’d just leave now and avoid the hassle.

DISCLAIMER: I may be completely wrong about all of this. If you haven’t been an Ubercharged patron for a while you may not know that I am not very good at predicting things.

I think we all are aware of the upcoming update (be it Soldier, Engineer, or Demoman) and the promise it holds.  Included in it will be a way to get some of the most coveted items in TF2–items that were previously reserved for the very lucky and the obsessed. I am of course referring to hats.

From the clues we have been given on the Valve blog, the system that will be implemented will involve crafting weapons you already have into ones you don’t or into hats. Now, there are several angles this system can work on so I decided to write a “pre-update” guide on all the possible ways it can work.

Option 1 (Points):

Each item is worth a certain amount of points. You can “melt” these items down for the points and spend them on any hat or other unlockables you want.

Example

Lets say I find a Sandman while playing. Instead of the normal options I would see (i.e. “destroy”,”keep”, “equip now”) There would be a fourth option called “melt for points”. This option would allow me to add the points the Sandman is worth to my pool of points which I can spend on any item I want.

How to Prepare:

This is the easiest one to prepare for beforehand because you simply need to collect items. This may, however, have something to do with the levels assigned to the weapons so be sure to take higher leveled weapons over lower leveled ones.

Option 2 (The Blender):

This system would be made in a way that if someone wanted to get a hat for a specific class, they would need to mix several items for that class together.

Example:

Lets say I want the Masters Yellow Belt for the Sniper. I would acquire this item by taking 4 Jarates, 3 Huntsmen and a Razorback (or something like that) and mixing them into the hat.

How To Prepare:

Decide what class you want to get a hat for before the update comes out. Then collect the items for that class you get randomly and keep them in your backpack. When the system comes out you can mix them into hats. (It is recommended you combine this strategy with the strategy for option 1 just to have your bases covered)

Option 3 (Item Levels):

It is possible that items would start to level up as you use them in a way that once you get a level 100 item you can trade it in for a hat

Example:

I have a level 98 Axetinguisher and in a round I get 8 kills with it. It will then be a level 100 Axetinguisher and I would have the option of either trading it for a hat or resetting its level for a hat. This system would need to be implemented in a way that makes farming impossible.

How to Prepare:

Unfortunately, this system does not seem like you could prepare beforehand unless you can “blend” two of the same item together to make a higher leveled weapon.

I am personally preparing for the item creation by getting 2 of every item to start. Then I am going to collect Heavy items so I can get my Ushanka.

“And then he herded 2 of every item into his backpack and he beat the crap out of every single one!” -The Soldier

If you’ve been lurking ubercharged for a long time, you should no doubt know how to make your own Bonk! Atomic Punch soda.How about making your own jarate? In just three steps, too!

And for the record, those three steps do not involve pissing in a jar, closing the jar, and throwing the jar at people.

Credit to ubercharged’s own Pyrit for the original artwork

Ben over at NerdBalloon came up with an (alcoholic) cocktail that, in appearance, at least, resembles the Jarate we know so well. And yes, I’m aware this is old news, but sending them a little traffic isn’t a bad thing. You’ll need ten cans of apple juice, a cup of honey, and ten days of sitting tight while you wait for the concoction to ferment. If all goes well, you should end up with a bit of bottled urine hard cider.

#1. Buy 10 cans of apple juice ( pure pressed ) and pour 9 of them into a suitable container. You must be able to keep the container airtight, so using a carboy (large glass bottle) is best. You can use a large pot or bucket and cover the top with plastic wrap.

#2. Heat up the last can of juice to a near boil, then add 1 cup of honey or sugar and dissolve.

#3. Add the hot sweet mix to the rest of the juice, then add bread yeast to the now warm mixture. Be certain to poke a small hole in the plastic, or plug the top of your carboy with an airlock device ( this allows the CO₂ that is generated during fermentation to escape, and it keeps the oxygen out.)

That’s it! in 10 days time the yeast will have fermented the mixture down to an alcoholic beverage (6-7%) that your friends will think is pee. Keep extra Jarate in mason jars next to your computer, because you never know when you’ll need a sip. Duty!

Notes: The longer you wait the better it tastes and the clearer it looks. Using wine yeast or champagne yeast ( $.80 a package ) produces a fairer tasting Jarate. Adding more sugar will boost the final alcohol content, but too much will kill the yeast so be modest. Do not bottle the Jarate before the recommended fermentation period; otherwise you could explode your bottles due to excess carbonation.

Via NerdBalloon. Be a good reader and pay them a visit already.

Ubercharged takes no responsibility for any unwanted pregnancies that may arise as a result of drinking this. You have been warned.