TF2 Newbs (Team Fortress 2) Blog

According to the official tf2 blog post yesterday around 4.5% of the user base of TF2 would be effected by the removal of items for manipulating the item system (using the idler). I just couldn’t believe it, because most of my friends list was idling every day, so 4.5% seems awful low. I started logging players that had the halo in their backpack vs players without the halo (people I assume were idlers since they didn’t have a halo). Right now its sitting at 35.61% of my users having ‘no halo’ :) If you’re interested in tracking my servers ratios, check out http://tf2newbs.com/haloVSnohalo.png or if you want a text version http://tf2newbs.com/haloVSnohalo.php

Meanwhile Daimao (famous hat modeler) has suggested an alternative system to valve – he proposes That the ‘cheaters’ should be forced to wear devils horns / have a health penalty for a period of time as punishment. I think it’d be great if the devil horns did come out (officially or unofficially) but I’m not sure valve would want to be seen as penalizing the already super angry faced crowd of idlers who think that its just not fair that they lost their ill gotten gains already.

I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about players being banned / players refusing to medic for players with / without halos. I’d like to make clear that the Newbs Community is not going to be a place where this is takes place. If I see people trying to give other players a hard time (in game) for wearing a halo or for not wearing one I will see that they are removed from the servers. There is a lot of belly aching and qq regarding this decission by valve to bitch slap everyone who used the idler, keep that argument on the steam forums please. All hats are allowed on our servers. If you did not get the halo and wish to wear one, be one of the first 6 players on a server and you will reserve access to our hatme plugin which includes the halo. Thank you. And now back to your regularly scheduled programming….

Today it was announced that all items/drops that were earned by players while using an idler will soon be removed, and that all players that didn’t ever idle will soon be rewarded with a new hat. Since most the people I knew idled, I thought I’d go ahead and post some shots of what the halo looks like:

Be sure to check out the TF2 Newbs servers, all server starters (first six players on any server) are rewarded with the ability to wear any in game hat (including the halo!)

Update: The halo’s proper name is ‘Aura of Incorruptibility’

TF2Newbs is proud to announce something badass and wonderful that makes the world a better place.

Newbs Daily – The TF2 Comic of win.

What we need -

Artists – Duh
Inkers – convert the hand drawn picture scans into vector images
Image Colorers – take the ‘inked’ image and add the coloring and shadows
Writers – Someone has to come up with the ideas and the jokes.  This can all be observations of trends, things that were said in game (that wouldn’t be inside jokes)

The Newbs Daily strip will be released at a frequency of.. Hmm, we are still working on that detail, it will depend on responses and how fast the scripting goes.  We would like to have several recurring artists that are interested in having their comic run at a regular interval.  We plan to also include guest artists in the rotation if outside people become interested.  The goal here is to have a fun time and have a funny / light hearted strip that can help bring some joy to the world.  The current plan is to rotate through the artists to keep things fresh and poppin’ and to remove any unnneeded pressure on participants :)   Artists will be able to do short series of strips on consecutive release days if they’d like to.

We are hoping for a healthy mix of styles and methods.  We don’t want to put limits on peoples creativity so if you have the skill to do hand drawn, computer drawn, machinima (think screenshots with word bubbles) creative work than we want you on board.

If you have any interest in being a featured artist or helping out with any of our other jobs please drop me an email: [email protected]  Be sure to put ‘Newbs Daily’ in the subject line so it isn’t considered spam, or hit us up on the TF2 Newbs Forums – TF2 Newbs Forums – Comic Helper Thread.

Stay Tuned – I’ll be posting additional information soon!

An interesting thing popped up on the forum earlier.
In this thread.

Quote from: Slooms on August 21, 2009, 08:07:01 PM
Psst, Andy. I’ll give you twenty bucks if you punch yourself in the balls.

The fund is proposed.

Quote from NFreak on August 21, 2009, 12:22:23 AM
I’ll throw in a penny.

The fund is now in effect.

Currently $20.01 for Andy to rack his own nuts. Lets open our hearts and wallets for this noble cause!

Also, the art contest is closed and I’m in the process of determining the winner.

[Editors Note: The fund has grown since Scott wrote this, I'm not sure if the funds will be held in escrow to ensure that they are infact real, or what, I'm just relaying 'news']