TF2 Newbs (Team Fortress 2) Blog

Hey guys, just thought i’d update you on Newbs plan to take from the rich and give to the poor. The idea is we would like to have monthly contests giving away hats, weapons, name tags etc. for your participation in the Newbs community. How will this work you may ask? Read on..

Okay so let’s face it, the forums need a little spark. Newbs should not only be the best place to play TF2 we’d like to make it one of the best online communities. I think we’re there as far as members go, we just need some participation. The last couple weeks we’ve been making small tweaks to the forums to optimize them. Deleting useless threads, and rewarding those who are contributing good content.

For example. Did you know there’s a TF2 Newbs Steam skin? Sha’.. This is the kind of stuff we’re talking about. Quality contributions are going to start to be recognized and rewarded.

INTRODUCING the ‘I Like the Cut of Your Jib’ forum incentive!

How does this work you may ask. Simple. I’ll be taking a more active role in the forums and seeking out quality posts and threads. Are you great at soldier and want to give us some tips? Do a write up! Plush sticky bombs? Do it! Hell I think we made the 10 o’ clock news with that one. You get the idea.

I made an awesome well thought out thread. Now what?

If your thread or post is deemed exceptional you’ll get one of these badboys

What does that mean exactly? 5 Karma, and 30 50 entries into our monthly drawing of items that we’ll be giving away.

How else can you get entries? POST! Every post you make counts as one entry into our monthly giveaway!

Okay so let’s recap. What’s going on?

Newbs is giving away Hats / Weapons / Name tags / Whatever every month. We’ll have a monthly drawing and the more entries you have the higher your chance of winning! You gain multiple entries by submitting awesome content to the website, and one entry per post! There’s a lot more to this, but these are the basics. Great content + great posts = TF2 items for free for you.

This month we’re starting we’re coming out strong.

1st Place this month gets their choice of Either a Voodoo JuJu or a Spine-Chilling Skull!!

2nd Place this month gets a Soldier Stout Shako hat

All Posts from Nov. 1st to Nov. 30th will count as entries! More info to come, but in the mean time get posting!

Quick Summary:
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

Official Rules can be found here
View your entries here

JiB

As some of you may know, today we had an event where I opened 100 crates, with 100 keys, and recorded the results for all to see!!! 

The full results can be seen at http://tf2newbs.com/box_results.txt the first column is crate type, then second is the name of the item found.   If someone wants this in csv, let me know and I’ll put that up too.  Or you can just look at the backback and see all the goods (in the order they were found) http://www.tf2items.com/id/tf2newbs_crate_event  the 2 items on page 3 were random drops.

Unfortunately no unusuals were found, but all is not lost.  Through fuzzy mathematics it appears I broke about even on the entire endeavour.

Lets break down the items, and the math….

Columns are number found, crate type, item name, estimated value (based on valve store)

     11 #1 distinct lack of hue (2.49)
      7 #2 duel game (0.99)
      7 #1 equalizer (1.99)
      6 #2 australium gold (2.49)
      6 #1 vita saw (0.49)
      5 #5 name tag (4.99)
      5 #1 gunslinger (2.45)
      4 #3 bushwacka (4.99)
      4 #2 l’etranger (2.49)
      4 #2 blackbox (2.49)
      4 #1 scottish resistance (0.49)
      4 #1 old guad (2.49)
      3 #2 shortstop (2.49)
      3 #1 name tag (4.99)
      3 #1 abundence of tinge (2.49)
      2 #5 southern hospitality (0.49)
      2 #5 powerjack (2.49)
      2 #4 whoopee cap (4.99)
      2 #4 pain train (1.99)
      2 #3 distinct lack of hue (2.49)
      2 #1 nappers (2.49)
      1 #4 duel game (0.99)
      1 #4 battalion backup (4.99)
      1 #4 abundence of tinge (2.49)
      1 #3 stout shako (4.99)
      1 #3 homewrecker (2.99) [cost of buying things to craft it]
      1 #3 duel game (0.99)
      1 #3 description tag (2.49)
      1 #2 stuntman (4.99)
      1 #2 puglists (4.99)
      1 #2 pain train (1.99)
      1 #2 chieftains challenge (4.99)
      1 #2 a deep commitment to purple (2.49)

I based prices either on how much it’d cost to craft, pricing of similar items, or just what what it is worth in trade / etc.  For example: nappers are nearly worthless to trade, but crafting two of them gets you another hat, which is probably worth at least 4.99 in the steam store.  

Summing up the total for all those brings us to MSRP of $244.50  – thats even with me considering the chieftan and the stout shako as $4.99 hats, when they can trade higher than that. 

For this event I spent $249.00 (in two chunks, since steam wallets can’t hold that much) to get 100 keys.  I begged and pleaded for free crates.  So if we ignore the interest I could of been earning on this money if I had invested it instead of spending it on keys in a video game I came out about even.   I might be a little off with the values, but if you consider that it brought a bunch of people together, and that a lot of people had a good time I think it was worth it.

So I’m pleased that I broke about even on store value, unfortunately in game value of many of these items is pretty weak compared to the store price.

My results lead me to believe that opening crates isn’t necessarily a bad method of attaining items, as long as the crates are found or were obtained for nearly nothing. 

If anyone out there wants to donate a unusual hat to a good cause, let me know on steam  http://steamcommunity.com/id/octodhd

Yup, we’re at it again.  We’re having the annual pumpkin carving contest, with 3 prizes (listed at bottom of post).   The contest is simple, carve a pumpkin with a TF2 theme, take a picture, send it in http://www.tf2newbs.com/contests/2010-Team-Fortress-2-Pumpkin-Carving/Pumpkin_uploads/ and wait to win excellent prizes and the respect of your peers.  So pick up a pumpkin on the cheap today or tomorrow, carve/paint/etch it to your hearts content, and submit it.  You’re a winner, now prove it.

In addition to the pumpkin carving contest we are also offering a new contest for people better at the written word.   Write a piece of fanfic involving the TF2 universe, send it in ([email protected]) and cross your fingers.  We havn’t advertised this contest very well, so theres probably a good chance that there won’t be a lot of competition, which is good for you, since it’ll be easier to win.. :)

The prizes for both contests are the same:

1st – $25 worth of games from steam

2nd – $15 worth of games from steam

3rd – $10 worth of games from steam

All entries are due by midnight pacific November 2nd.  Judging will happen on the 3rd.  Please be sure to at least include your email address in the filename, feel free to make it a text file zipped with the pictures.  If you have any additional questions about submitting please contact octo (octodhd’s steam community page)

This evening I was floored by the generosity which was shown tonight on #4.  Koben started giving out single gifts, then did a full server gift, then BPN (psychonic) did a full server gift.  The gift giving did not stop here.  Koben rolled out with at least 3 more full server gift drops.  I’d like to thank…. wow, as I wrote this koben did another one and left.  Several hats were found, and much fun was had.

A huge thanks goes out to the people who were giving out random gifts.  It brightened my evening and made people very happy.

My GSP has informed me that while attempting to fix a ‘minor’ problem they managed to lock them and myself out of the machine that is hosting 4 of our servers (#3, #5, #6, #8).  They’ve stated that they plan on completely reinstalling the machine.  This is all well and good, but will be a pretty significant outage for us, since we have 4 game servers on that one machine.  In the meantime, we have an update coming out in 20 minutes which I’m unable to apply since we’re locked out of the box, so the servers will be up but probably wont be usable :(  Also when the servers crash I can’t restart them.

I’m not sure the time table on them fixing this, I’m at the point where I want to send them emails every 5 minutes, but I dont think that will help them get anything done…

On to the good news -

98.158.146.158:27015 NewbsTF2.com #01 24/7 2Fort (Los Angeles)  NO CLASS LIMITS

I’ve added a new West Coast 24/7 2fort server..  I am thinking about adding a Chicago based 24/7 2fort server also (thats in another post)
while our servers are down, we still have some other fun servers we can hang out on

208.43.15.128:27015 NewbsTF2.com #09 STOCK-MAPS RTD [SMACKworld]  – this servers a little +lols but not so much that you need to be suffering from major head trama to enjoy.  The flavor and format of this server may change around a little bit, but we have a _GREAT_ person donating this server to us, and he can do all the customization and cool modifications we could ever want – so check out Psychonics server and give it a go round.  I think his round times are too short, but what do I know, I’m a 24/7 2fort player.. :)   This server is in DALLAS

tf.packhead.com:27015 NewbsTF2.com #11 — Chicago’s Payload  Server | HLXCE – I don’t think many people know, but we do have something real special here.  We have The Pack[head].  The Pack offers great VPS hosting to people at a reasonable rate, and even offers discounts to TF2Newbs Members.  Besides being one of the most on the ball hosting providers I’ve ever talked to he runs a great Payload rotation server in a datacenter in Chicago.  He needs a bit more love from us, since I’ve been slacking and not working to help get this server populated.  If all goes well the Pack can do waht the Pack can, which is a lot – which means more servers and more fun.
If you’re sick of all the normal payload and 2fort crap our community seems to want to serve up, we also have 2 crazy funhouse servers bringing such hits as cyberpunk, and cyberpunk…

74.53.203.12:27015 NewbsTF2.com #10 Crazy CmptrWz’s Insanity [Dallas]
216.6.231.134:27015 NewbsTF2.com #10.1 BAN’s Ice Cream Party (AllTalk|RTD|FastDL)

Sorry about servers being the bust, but at least we have some options