TF2 Newbs (Team Fortress 2) Blog

Its been a little while since I’ve wrote anything. We have quite a few upcoming events / special nights / etc planned.

First off – the HlstatsX:CE Stats will be archived and reset May 1st, they will be restarted sometime on May 4th.

This week:
Saturday Apr 25th – ‘No Spies Saturday 2Fort’ Where: Server #5 (69.12.37.15:27015 ) 3-6PM PDT

Sunday Apr 26th – ‘Stats Free Sunday’ Where: All Newbs servers with HlstatsX – No stats after first map change on Sunday, until first map change on Monday.

Monday Apr 27th – ‘Melee Madness 2Fort’ Where: Server #5 6PM?-8PM? PDT (This will be posted on the forums)

Tuesday Apr 28th – ‘Payload Playtest/Special Stats Night’ Where: Server #7 7PM-??? PDT Event Details

Coming Soon:
Friday May 1st – ‘Stock CP Speed Rotation’ Where: Server #8 6:00-9:00pm PDT.

I’m also working on bringing some new custom events to server #4, these should take place sometime in the near future – I’d like to do a play test of both of the mods done by Cmptrwz before we open them up to the ‘public’ =)

We have added an ARENA Rotation server due to popular demand – we’ll be testing it for a month to see how popular it ends up. Its based out of Chicago. Its ip is 69.12.91.12:27015 – I’ll try to schedule a few planned sessions for the regulars to see if we can boost the popularity of it. If you’d like to be a part of the server start up team please let one of the following people know: Grey Devil, Ggglygy, irlubomirsky, or octo-dhd :)

In other news I’ve been informed by YOU’RE ALL SPIES!!!!! that he is retiring from TF2 / Newbs Server Administration.  Many of you know SPIES, and have had him help you out on the jump maps, or played with him on the payload servers.  SPIES has contributed a great deal to the Newbs Community both by bringing in new quality players, and for proposing some of the community changes that have brought us to where we are as a community today (Such as the jump servers).  You will be missed, good luck in whatever you decide to do heading forward.  I do still plan on having the Newbs San Diego meet-up though, so please remember to post in the thread so we can schedule a date that works for the most people.

-octo

Last year for Koansrus’s birthday he held a contest and gave away cash money prizes, well actually he bought gifts on Steam for people – but anyways….. This year will be a little bit different, on Koans’ B-day (March 30th) he’ll officially be turning old as dirt. To celebrate this lifetime achievement he will be having multiple mini-contests on the different servers. When will the contests be? _ITS A SECRET!!!_ Koans intends on joining a (random) server, enabling all talk and calling for an impromptu competition. The difficulty and goals may vary widely. Up for prizes are some games koans has laying around – there will be approximately 10 mini contests (which means 10 prizes)…. I’m sure he’ll post more on the forums detailing which games he has. He will be _SHIPPING_ these games to the winners, so if you don’t want to share your home address (this would be ALL people < 18years old) – politely decline the gift and still get the kudos and respect from everyone for being a badass.

Good luck, and happy birthday in a few days Koans.

Since the inception of the TF2 Newbs server (a stock rotation server) on the first day of beta one of the challenges has been to keep the server full, or at least populated enough where I don’t have to sit there for 6 hours by myself.   Unfortunately due to things outside of my control we’ve had to change the IP addresses of our servers a couple of times, combined with our rapid expansion in total servers (currently we have 8 maintained by me + 2 donated to the community by others) early in the day its common to find the servers empty, requiring people interested in playing to sit on an empty server waiting for those first few people to join.   When I have time, this would be me. Oh how I yearned for a way to easily invite my friends who were around to come play too. Once in a blue moon I could hit shift-tab, bring up the overlay pick a friend, and invite them to the game I’m in.  But most of the time the option just wasn’t there.  I then learned from someone very very smart, that all you need to do in order to get the invite option to come back is to change your ‘status’ on steam, and it’ll magically reappear.

Here are some non-resized pictures to help.

Oh look no invite

Lets go change our status

Oh yay! I can invite now

You know you want it, I know you want it, so get me the picture. Huh? Oh yeah, I started that backwards huh. Okay, heres the deal – We all love scouts, especially scouts with bats right? And what better way to show how much we care about scouts (and their bats) than to let everyone know that our belts can bonk with the best of em. In order to get this wonderful, rare custom belt buckle all you’ll need to do is win a little contest.

You like games right? Well the name of this game is death. The next time you get killed on a Newbs server (Not those Newbies only servers, I’m talking about the servers named ‘NewbsTF2.com #’ ) pay close attention, if the freeze cam of your killer looks badass, press F5. Gather your best 3 deathcam shots, and send em in (details will follow in a future blog post). Be sure to keep the screenshots a secret, you’d hate to tip off the other competitors about how badass your screenshots are right? :)

Oh btw, a protip; if you hate tga’s, in console type: bind F5 jpeg
My screenshot directory is listed below, yours is likely very similar:

C:\Program Files\steam\steamapps\octodhd\team fortress 2\tf\screenshots

Simple huh? Yup it is. All screenshots must be from TODAY forward, and only pictures from the Newbs servers are eligible to win!!

The grand prize (the belt buckle) was donated by our very own dingo… Shes a girl, so if you report on this be sure not to call her a guy.  The contest will be decided by me, octo-dhd.  I am very sad to have to part with the belt buckle, but my loss is your gain.  So be sure to take advantage of my great sorrow.

Valid servers for screenshots:

#1 24/7 Dustbowl                    113.212.76.18:27015
#3 24/7 Bad Water                   113.212.76.6:27015
#4 24/7 2fort (Octo-land)           69.12.37.3:27015
#5 24/7 2fort (Koans Kingdom)       69.12.37.15:27015
#6 Custom Rotation (Koans Kingdom)  69.12.37.16:27015
#7 24/7 Payload Rotation            69.12.37.14:27015
#8 New York Rotation (Octo)         69.12.108.39:27015

For complete contest details check out: http://www.tf2newbs.com/contests/2009-Team_Fortress_2-Deathcam_Screenshot_Contest/

Question time… So whats 10cm x 3.5 cm (thats ~ 4 inch by 1.4 inch in real numbers) that packs a painful punch? Hey! get your mind out of the gutter – Why an ornamental ubersaw pin of course.  Dingo has struck again, and it might hurt a bit.  I was thinking about doing a real fancy write up, but I think the pictures speak for themselves – its cool, its wearable, it looks good, and its one of a kind. So if you ever see a girl out and about with a badass ubersaw pin on, you’ll know its the one, the only, the Dingo.

Oh also, please be sure to pass this around and let everyone know how cool Dingos creations are, and by extension the rest of us are for knowing her.. :)

See the page devoted to Dingo’s Ubersaw pin (it also has links to other things shes done such as the plush demo sticky bombs)