Being that it’s Valentines day I thought I’d show the blog some love. Couple updates, but really it’s about the hot chicks and upcoming prizes that you won’t want to miss.

Newbs Stimulus is still going strong!

1st Place – Terres                         (ticket 1136)
2nd Place – ChaosNinjaSteve (ticket 1257)

Congrats to the winners! Keep the posts and quality content coming to improve your odds of getting free hats!

NewbsMas has ended!

Had a great showing this year with a lot of diverse content. Our monkeys have been tabulating votes for weeks and promise results soon!

TF2 Rift Promo:

Valve’s Team Fortress 2 is about to be invaded by Rift, the upcoming MMO from Trion Worlds. Both companies announced today that Steam customers who pre-order Rift by March 1st will receive two exclusive melee weapons in Team Fortress 2: the “Sharpened Volcano Fragment” and “Sun-on-a-stick.” Additionally, the Valve team is adding a permanent Team Fortress 2 achievement that grants players a redeemable code for an equally exclusive (and terrifying) headpiece in Rift, the “Well Spun Hat.”  (Images/Text http://www.riftjunkies.com)

Discussion

Hard to say what the value of these bad boys will be.. However I can say that the word ‘Genuine’ in front will be worth more than it should.. as always in Hat Fortress : )

College Mansion Competition:

Video games and hot chicks rarely coincide.. Except when you’re playing with Newbs. Haley’s friend Candice took part in a swimsuit contest known as the College Mansion Competition.. If you missed it, take a gander.

Shes on the left

Well being the good Newbs we are, we attempted to rig the voting. And apparently it ALMOST worked. Had we had a little more time and proper planning, I can assure you she would have reigned supreme.  During that process Dewar and Octo went in together on some decks of cards featuring these fine ladies. If you’re 18+, you may want to pay close attention to our next few contest give aways ; )

Future contest winners will not be disappointed

In our conquest to help Newbs members put away those Ghastly Gibuses, we’ve been taking from the rich and giving to the Irish all month. If you missed it, don’t worry we’re just getting started.

Our 1st Annual “Its a holiday about pumpkins” story contest was a success with prizes going to the top 3 spots. Koans dug into his bottomless pockets to make sure you got yourself a pre-order of Super Meat Boy or a copy of Poker Night at the Inventory for you and that special someone.

• First place is Red Badger for $25 Steam bucks.
• Second place is Major Dewar for $15 Steam bucks.
• Third place is King for $10 Steam bucks.

We also wrapped up our 3rd Annual Team Fortress Newbs TF2 Themed Pumpkin Carving Contest. With the top 2 entries receiving more of Koans money in steam games!

• First Place: NFreak $25 steam bucks
• Second Place: Sharpevil $15 steam bucks

We’ve had less participation this year than in previous years on these competitions, but that doesn’t mean the prizes stop flowing. A great example of this is our Newbs Team Fortess 2 Christmas and other Winter Celebrations Contest in which contestants had to submit something holiday related. Although the competition was stiff, I still managed to win $20 steam bucks for my entry. How in the world did I win money with an entry like this? Well Octo felt since it took him a few months longer than it should have to judge it, that every contestant was a winner! He also gave out a reserved slot on ALL SERVERS for every entry.

Not only did I win $20 for this, but your mother has a laminated copy of this hanging on her refrigerator. Happy Hanukkah Mrs. Feuchtwanger!

Which brings us to our most recent contest: The Newbs Stimulus Plan. If you haven’t heard about this one.. Shame on you. Haha, no really.. shame on you. It’s our latest and greatest, and it’s designed to bring the hat poor’s backpacks on par with the likes of Octo and Crap (full vintage sets – oh yeah). All entries in the previous contests I have mentioned received 25 bonus points towards the Newbs Stimulus raffle. We compiled 3647 entries this month and plan to top that in December. Octo wrote the code for the lottery, so plan on this being a monthly tradition. Without further ado, this months winners:

• 1st Place: Stax1 Voodoo Juju or Spine Chilliing Skull
• 2nd Place: The Shark (Stout Shako)

Stax1 came in with 84 entries, and The Shark came in with 26. The Sharks entries were composed mainly of his bonus entries from another contest. What does this mean? It Pays to Participate. Literally, we here at Newbs rack our brains trying to conjure up new and exciting ways to give back to our great community, so take advantage.

Current Contests:

Newbs Stimulus December is under way and the same rules apply:

• Each post = 1 entry
• Great Threads / Posts (I like the cut of your Jib) = 50 entries
• Winning or Submitting info for other contests = Bonus Entries
• Signing up for the forums = 20 entries

We will now be awarding 30 entries for referrals to the forums. If you refer someone, have them post a topic in our [N] section with your name in their post. This only counts for new sign ups as of December 1st.

Prizes:

1st Place: Choice of Voodoo JuJu or a Spine-Chilling Skull!

2nd Place: Chieftain Challenge!

Drawing will be held January 1st, so get busy!

Newbsmas has Began!

Its that time of year again – Newbsmas.  As you all should know by now, Newbsmas is an elusive holiday, it begins and ends on different days each year.  This year it will be ending January 15th (2011).  The celebration is the same as last year.  Create a TF2 Themed wintery craft, story, item, short design, comic, whatever give it to the contest, and sit back and wait for prizes of great joy.    More details to come.  Prizes are great as always and will be announced shortly.

A more formal blog post detailing Newbsmas is on the way. Keep an eye on the updates in this thread.

Other Notables:

Think you can jump? A chance at 30 bonus entries for Newbs Stimulus! (Ends 12/3/10)

Want to win an unusual? Sharpevil of [N] is giving his away! If you’re a current [N] member it might not be too late!

Newbs Hat Lottery: 1 scrap gets you in the running for a crafted hat!

Whether steam bucks or sexy hats are your thing, remember it pays to participate this holiday season.

-JiB

In case you missed the 12 page thread, we had an epic 12v12 / 11v11 highlander last night on cp_well.

Fisticuffs. The only way to settle a dispute.

People started filtering in 20 minutes early or so and we were looking to be right on schedule for our start time. However getting 24 people together does take some time. I think overall the load in was smooth-ish.

Take 1

Payload won the first game pretty handily. At this point the server was overwhelmed by the sheer awesome these teams were spewing and decided it needed to crash hard. It’s never been temperamental before, but Murphy’s Law states when you get a bunch of people together who are on a mild time schedule to kill each other.. There may be issues. The server rebooted pretty quickly and seemed much happier after that. 2Fort was not left without a few AWOL players, but that was solved pretty quickly. Thanks to some Newbs legends who answered their call to duty,(CarotidArtery, Yellow Frog, Stax) the game continued on at 11 v 11.

For those who persevered, I salute you.

Payload got the best of 2Fort and swept the first round (4-0). For the second round we thought it’d be fun to have each team pick the opposing teams classes. Payload had flexed their muscles, now it was time for some fun.

Pure comedy

Unfortunately I didn’t snap a screenshot until we had lost the third game, but you get the idea. It was a blast. We turned on all talk and just let loose. These games were actually pretty close, and with a ton of fail on both sides. Yellow Frog as scout, JiB as engy, Gabe as spy, and Gggly’s medic spam = Good times. In the end Payload had their way with 2Fort winning 7-0. The last game was the most epic, as 2Fort pushed the last point several times, but failed to take home a W. I was very happy with the turn out, and want to give a big thanks to Crap and Dondi for helping put this together. Crap helped keep the peace after the server crashed, and was kind enough to do a server gift once things got rolling again. Dondi did a great job coordinating the event, and keeping the thread updated. Octo also came through in the clutch while at Cotixan to get a few config issues sorted out.

Ultimately, I consider the evening to be a success. The Gauntlet has been thrown, and it’s only a matter of time until 2Fort shines like we all know they can. Newbs on Newbs – it just doesn’t get any better than that.

JiB

Ahh.. Welcome back to the conclusion of From Demo Fro to Unusual – One Man’s Epic Journey. I hope you are well rested, and that you haven’t traded your soul to the devil after reading our first installment of From Demo Fro to Unusual. Today we’ll dive deeper into the unusual world of unusuals and discuss what to do and what not to do to be successful in this crazy virtual realm of hats we reside in.

Okay so where did we leave off.. Ahh yes.. The starter unusual. Now I failed to mention in the first post that it’s not essential to have a starter unusual. You can easily obtain a lot of unusuals for a Max’s Set or 8-16 vintage hats (depending on quality).. However I didn’t want just ‘any’ unusual.. I had my heart set on the grand daddy of all unusuals. A Soldier hat with flames *shock and awe*. If it was easy it wouldn’t be a journey now would it..

First thing we’ll discuss is the unusual market itself. Basically there’s 14 possible effects. Ranging from fire to flies in most cases.  You’ll find that one man’s junk is another man’s treasure but for the most part the list looks something like this.

Upper Tier:

• Burning flames (Red)
• Scorching flames (Green)
• Sun beams
• Purple energy
• Green energy
• Vivid plasma

Middle Tier:

• Ghosts
• Searing Plasma
• Hearts

Lower Tier:

• Tf2 Logo
• Peace
• Confetti
• Flies

Now there are some exceptions to the rule when it comes to effects. For instance the Stainless Pot with flies, or the Handyman’s Handle with Flies have a certain comedic value to them. Also there seems to be a population of players (girls?) who REALLY want unusuals with hearts. Not too sure on that one. There’s also hat combination’s that just make sense. The Modest Pile with sunbeams, the Brigade Helm with Flames (Really any pyro hat with flames), Chieftain with flames, Kabuto/Hound Dog with sunbeams, Hot Rod with flames… You get the picture. Basically any hat that looks like it should have that effect on it is worth substantially more. Some people argue sunbeams are the best effect. For me, any hat on fire bodes well, whereas it’s hit or miss with sunbeams.

Also note that certain classes are more sought after than others. For instance soldier is the most sought after class, followed closely by demo. A lot of people consider a nice soldier unusual to be worth 2 of the same effect on a less sought after class (IE sniper or engy). Why is this you may ask? Well It takes a certain type of person to set out in search of one of these unusuals in the first place, and it appears that certain type of person is more apt to want to blow your face off than to play a support role – go figure. Another factor to consider are the polycount sets. The soldier’s polycount set is broker than Owen Wilson’s nose.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse. Owen's plans for the next update include: Grenadiers Soft Visor

The softcrap looks just like it sounds, and the loadout just doesn’t make sense for sentry busting. Don’t get me wrong I love a good black box but 3 rockets in a clip make it exponentially harder to break a SG. This means most hardcore soldiers would rather sport a badass unusual than the polycount hat. This is the opposite for scout whose polycount set is actually pretty good. Most people would rather use the Special Delivery set than have a batters helmet with confetti. Therefore more people want soldier unusuals versus scout unusuals.

Why am I telling you this? Well don’t get me wrong, if you weren’t trading your V. Medic Mask for a V. Ye Olde Baker Boy 1:1 I wouldn’t be telling this story now would I : ) . Even if you don’t ever plan on trading your hats, know which ones are more valuable than others because there will come a day when you think “Oh gee, a Demo Fro how cute – Bill’s hat is stupid anyways..” DON’T BE THAT GUY.

Alright so not all effects, classes, or hats are created equal.  I took this knowledge and attempted to exploit that. I found a fellow who enjoyed wearing bunny ears more than having a heavy Bandana with energy. Not a bad trade. Unless you consider the fact that I have 3 hrs logged as heavy.. But that’s besides the point. Energy is a top tier effect. I mean look at it, eating babies while having your head look like a butane lighter.. Badass.

So now what? Trade that beast! AND FAST. Ideally you trade it for the hat that you see yourself growing old in. All you need to do is find someone who LOVES heavy and absolutely hates their Stout Shako with green flames.. Easy right? Unfortunately you stand a better chance of finding a female with good looks who cooks and cleans off of E-Harmony than that trade happening. So my next step was to acquire a mid tier soldier unusual. Applying ‘Soldier Unusual 2:1 Law’ I knew if I got a decent soldier unusual 1:1 for it I would be making progress.

So I come across a fellow with a stainless steel pot with plasma. PERFECT! The soldier unusual of my Dreams!! Wait, did I say plasma? Wait searing plasma? Motherf..

Ohh yea - cause Nothing says Soldier like yellow and purple beams coming off your spaghetti pan!

Not to be an unusual snob but this just didn’t really sit well with me. Searing plasma? I came all this way for freaking searing plasma? I felt like a medieval knight saving a princess only to find out she’s into girls and alternative music.. Will it ever end? This was definitely a gamble on my part. I downgraded my effect, but I knew that the Soldier Unusual 2:1 Law had my back. I took the next few days off from the trade servers and devoted more time showing your mom how my rockets taste (Was that necessary?). It was nice to have some extra particles next to my head, but I wasn’t satisfied..  Rest is for the weak, and I was so close to unusual epicness I could taste it.. 

It’s hard to imagine starting with a non vintage Demo Fro and ending up one trade away from unusual immortality. At this point you have all the proper tools to get the hat of your dreams, it’s just finding it and taking it so to speak. So before I blow the motherload on what happened next, I think we should take a moment to discuss how important a good wingman can be in your quest at this stage of the game.

A good wingman. If you’re on a serious journey as I was, you’ll come to meet a lot of people along the way. These people will inevitably share your love of trading and finer things. Unfortunately a good majority of them are douchebags.. You remember Golem in Lord of the Rings? Yeah, I know you do. That’s most people in this fiery underworld of unusuals. They hobble around murmuring about their precious hats, meanwhile holding down ‘V’ while eating their Cool Ranch Dorritos in your ear. However, there’s always a few exceptions. You’ll come recognize some of the regulars in the trade channels, and will inevitably trade a few things back and forth over time. You’ll cry about how you wish you hadn’t of traded your earbuds for a luger now that Poker Night at the Inventory came along and ruined everything.. These are the people who will help you excel when all odds are stacked against you. A lot of trading is having the right items at the right time. For instance, I had a guy wanted to trade me a Soldier stash with burning flames for a Max’s set and a Soldier’s Medal. Oh dear lord, could this be so? Too bad I just traded my Soldier Medal 15 minutes ago.. What to do?! The only thing I could. I called Octo on the other side of the country in a panicked state:

‘Uhhh.. WHATS UP? Uhm.. hope you’re not busy but I Reallllly need your soldier medal for like.. half an hour’.. ‘

“What…”

“Yeeea.. but this is burning flames here for god sakes”

Boom. Soldier Medal in my backpack. Needless to say that trade failed horribly, but Octo was there in the clutch. He had my best interest in mind, and knew I’d make it right. I gave Octo his medal back along with some compensation for his clutchness and proceeded in my hunt. Not to say some stranger off steam forums is going to do this for you, but I think a few of my good friends would have known I was good for it.

A good wingman can also help you in your search. Specific hats with specific effects are pretty limited, so having someone keeping an eye out for what you’re looking for is a godsend. Speaking of which one of my buddies is looking for a Stout Shako with.. Eh nevermind.

Anyways, back to the story.. So One thing I failed to mention about the Stainless Pot with Searing Plasma was that this individual had a soldier medal. He knew my energy effect was superior, but did not fully understand the ‘Soldier Unusual 2:1 Law’. So in order to make our trade proper he offered a soldier medal in addition to his stainless pot, if I added ear buds and v. medic mask. Ahhh.. I know, I know.. But I can always get another medic mask if I need it.. This soldier medal was going to seal the deal on my final Unusual and I knew it.

To this point I had gone from Non Vintage Demo Fro to this to that to this to that, to two Max Sets with some Soldier Medals.. To an unusual heavy Bandana with energy, to an unusual Stainless Pot with searing plasma – with a spare Max’s Set and Soldier Medal. I advertised that I wanted to upgrade my Soldier unusual and that I would throw in a Soldier’s Medal to get an energy effect and would give Max’s Set for green or red fire. Many days passed, and I wasn’t sure if the Stainless Pot was going to pull through for me.. Until one I got a pm on steam forums stating that he had an Unusual Chieftain with Burning Flames, and would trade me for my Stainless Pot, Soldier Medal, and Max’s set. Wow. Talk about full circle eh? The very hat that started this whole thing. Up until this point I had my sights on a Soldier Stash with burning flames because I didn’t think I had enough to jump into the polycount with good effect realm. (Seriously, polycount unusuals are ridiculous.. See Kabuto with sunbeams). My original plan was to get my unusual and have either the Solder Medal or Max’s Set left over.. What to do? Pshh, the only reasonable thing to do. Get the Chieftain then get another Max’s Set and Soldier Medal haha.

What now? Now you're in trouble. Muhahaha.

Check out our forums
Newb’s Stimulus Plan: Free hats every month for forum members

Foreward: Okay so you took the bait. This is a bit of a glory/brag blog post.. But I worked HARD for it and i’m quite proud of meeting my goal. I’ll tell you how I did it, and give you some tips that I learned along the way. Okay so now that we got that out of the way.. Onto the story.

So if you’ve been following the blog like a good Newb you’ll remember my ‘Newbs Recap’. A story of my return to TF2 along with some Newbs history.. Well consider the next chapter to my story.

Upon returning to TF2 a lot had changed since I had last played.. I left right about the time that items started to drop and hadn’t been back since. Well the polycount update sounded interesting, and the scout set was intriguing so I thought what the hey.. I’ll give it a shot. Coming back to the game and enjoying all the new weapons was a blast. But it’d didn’t take long for me to realize that I REALLY needed a milkman hat for my gaming experience to be complete.. But how? Trading of course! I set out on a journey to find a milkman. Not having any concept of crafting, or value of one hat to another.. I started offering anything I had tradable for a milkman. To my dismay hardly anyone had a milkman at this time, and if they did they bought it. Argh.. BUT.. You can craft them! 4 refined? pshh.. No problem I said. After formulating a strategy, I began my hustle. I traded crates for a about 2 days and finally got enough metal to craft my Milkman. Joy. That extra 25 hp really got me going.. But now what? The joy I felt obtaining after getting my milkman slowly faded into “Well that was easy..”

So I thought hey, how about trading some hats? I’m way behind the times with no vintage hats.. And only a Bills hat to trade. Well I waited until I saw something I like and said hey, Demo man.. That fro looks mighty dapper, how about I trade you my Bills hat for it? Instant trade. Sweeet.. a DEMO FRO.. Boy TF2 sure is fun.

Yeah.. wasn’t long after that I read Crap’s post about how Bill’s hat was worth 3-4 hats that my love of the trading system faded. ‘Wait what? Bill’s hat is worth.. Motherf..’ So naturally I had to figure out what was hot and what was not to never let this happen again.. And that’s where things really got crazy.

Trade servers, fancy WoW-esque trading lingo.. And steam forums of course. Craigslist for TF2. I hadn’t really seen an unusual at this point, so I didn’t realize how badly I needed one.. I saw a TF2 logo, a circling heart.. Flies. Hrm, novel but not all that exciting. Until the day.. I saw an Unusual Chieftain with Burning Flames. holy. sh mackerel. So naturally I trade the guy. Like UHH YEA.. and I add everything I have into the trade box hoping he’s as excited by my milkman, demo fro, crates and a name tag as i am and just gives me that awesome hat. ‘LolZ I ned Luk 30-40 haotz noob, or luk, 4 unueusleasz’. Motherf..

So yea that was about 3 weeks ago. Since then it has been my unyielding goal to obtain a burning flames unusual. Why? I’m not really sure. Was it to get the ‘last laugh’ with that fine gentleman in the unusual trading server? Was it so I could sit on said server and laugh at all those who try to offer me crate hats for it? No. Pretty sure it was only because of how Badass it looked. Sure, I get 6 or 7 kills, steal your intel.. air shot you as you’re dropping off battlements. Happens all the time. BUT, doing it while having your head on fire? THATS SOMETHING.

So for the last few weeks i’ve been hustling this and that, one of these for 2 of those.. And working my way up the ‘backpack ladder’ so to speak. Get a max set, then another.. Then SOLDIER medals are tradable oh gawd.. The rarest most un-noticable item in game I NEED one of those haha.. Ear buds? Sha.. Who wouldn’t want to have little musical notes magically falling from your head.

Finally the day arrives that I’m ready to go after an unusual. This is not for the faint of heart. I do not recommend this to any sane TF2 player. It’s a jungle out there. Hustling hats is one thing, but unusuals are just nasty. The evil in people comes out. Scam artists, paypal for hats, steam games.. A dark underworld surrounds me. The items you thought were so awesome, and so sought after apparently are only worth 1 refined here. If you’re lucky. Oh god don’t bring up the luger. Whatever you do. Chat spamming, Mic spamming, 12 year old kids yelling. This is an unusual trade server. Don’t believe me? Wait on autojoin for 5-10 minutes and see what waits inside.

It was at this point that trading stopped being fun, I was in over my head. Surrounded by the very things that ruin the game. But my quest was noble.. I just wanted a Badass hat. Is that so wrong? Time was of the essence.

It was at this time I realized you can’t break into the unusual market with max’s set alone. Oh no, you need a starter unusual. One with a good effect, but has absolutely no value to you. Because it’d be too easy to get what you wanted right away.. Now wouldn’t it.

Behold:

Mm.. Babies

My starter unusual. Now you might say, Wow. That’s pretty badass. You made it! An Energy unusual on a black bandana? Dude congrats. (yeah you probably wouldn’t say any of that but, you know.. hypothetically) This hat COULD be someone’s dream hat. It is not yours. This in my opinion is the scariest of trades. Something you’ve grown to love and enjoy, your beloved max set or 12 vintages including your medic mask for THIS? A hat of a class you never play?! Yeah, don’t mess this one up kids. Otherwise you’ll find yourself learning a new class to show off that green confetti you worked so hard for ; P

So you have your starter unusual. Now what? Ah.. Things to take note of in my starter unusual. Nice Effect. Someone, someplace will think this is the best hat ever and want to give their babies for it. Will you find them? Probably not. But, these trader types out there would like to think they could so they’ll deal with you. Let’s take a moment and examine the guy you’ll likely get your dream hat from:

Unusual Dealers may exhibit one or more of the following traits:

• Doesn’t advertise hats, merely wears them around while taunting.
• Will Cancel a trade with you if the first hat you include in the trade box isn’t amazing. Will laugh and harass you on mic if it’s a halloween mask.
• Spend a lot of time ‘gambling’ hats while taunting with equalizers. (Never do this)
• Are constantly talking on the mic about their last trade and how they royally robbed that guy (don’t let this scare you)
• Douchebag.

It’s important to understand the ‘unusual hat dealer’ because he inevitably will hold what you value so dearly. He will know this. And he will exploit you. Don’t let that happen.

Aha, you thought I would share ALL of the secrets of the Unusual underworld in just one blog post? That would be too easy my friend. Too easy. Tune in next time for the conclusion of *dundundun* From Demo Fro to Unusual.

>>>PART 2 of 2

JiB