TF2 Newbs (Team Fortress 2) Blog

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

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

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

This week valve has been giving out ‘Golden Wrenches’ willy wonka style to lucky tf2 crafters. They have been allowing us normal folk follow along on The Engineer Wrenchlog. Early this morning (2 or 3 am eastern) Drunken F00l managed to find himself a golden wrench. Good for him. He’s done a lot with his backpack viewer (http://tf2items.com) and previously brought us the idler client thing whcih caused quite the fuss a few months back. The steam powered forum people seem to think there is some sort of grand conspiracy going on since he’s a known guy, so they’ve been calling for his wrench to be removed. A short while ago their cries for ‘justice’ were answered and his golden wrench was stripped from him, and it appears he was vac banned :(

I don’t have a god in this fight, but I thought drunken contributed far more than he took away from the greater community. I’m sure the whine from the forum people hurt everyones ears up at valve, but I think a VAC ban might be a bit much. If you feel one way or the other feel free to post below, I’m also going to link to the ‘unban fool’ community group.

Unban drunken f00l steamcommunity group