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

Some of the names have changed, but the faces have stayed the same. 2fort is still a never ending struggle that leaves me unfufilled with a win, and absolutely destroyed when I lose. Yet I can’t seem to stop playing it.

If this is your first time reading a blog post, or first time reading in awhile you might not know me. I’m JiB, one of three Senior Server Admins. What does that mean? Well that means not only will I shoot your face off with my shortstop, I take the Newbs experience serious. SERIOUS. But no really. Any of the old school Newbs.. Before hats, or Mannco, or achievement weapons.. Might remember a day when Octo and I’s soldier – medic combo reigned supreme. Those days are long past, but I think it’s important to remember where we came from to get an idea of where we’re going.. And what better way than a story. I love stories.

I’ll set a scene for you. TF2 Beta days.. Octo and myself are Runnin’ circles around you on some random pub. I’m talkin, 30-40 kill streaks. It just wasn’t even fair. The idea of killing the medic first, or bringing a medic of your own to the fight wasn’t even an option. These ideas hadn’t even been explored. There was very little team work, and to be honest Soldier was a bit over powered back in those days.. Most of these people weren’t experienced FPS’ers like Octo and myself, and were just down right angry at the things we were doing to them. To the point where we really couldn’t play anywhere. We’d play for as short as 10 minutes to a few sessions before catching a ban. We’ve all been there. Counter strike, you’re headshotting fools and poof – you’re gone. No chance to state your case, they just didn’t like your company. So we did the only thing we could to continue our legacy.. Make our own server.

This is the kind of stuff that would happen. You thought I was exaggerating. You were either Really good or Really bad at TF2 back in the day.

Now I can’t really take any credit for the technological advances of Newbs, but I like to think fundamentally I was a strong influence. We all know without Octo, none of this would be happening. It started with one server, a rotation server. I remember the early talks with Octo well.. I told him how awesome the 24/7 2Fort/Well servers were back in the old TFC days. He was hesitant at first but he said he’d give it a try. Would people be able to handle only playing 1 map? No variety? Was there a good side kick to 2fort like Well in TF2? The answers are Yes, Yes, and No.. Mostly just trial and error. So here we are with this server where no one knows who the admins are, and we are happy as can be. Owning fools left and right, and we could even kick the griefers in the process. FPS heaven.

Time goes on and we gain a few regulars.. A couple good ones in fact. I still remember the day Octo messaged me “Yea some guy is tearing it up.. He’s pretty good.. He might have ya Jib..” “Whaat?”   Turns out he was pretty good. Damn good. And Thus H34dsh0t h17m4n joined the ranks (pretty clever name i know..) Headshot Hitman was an amazing sniper. Back in the day where you could do the Lastinv glitch and shoot twice as fast, this guy was unstoppable. He’d headshot you 2 or 3 times before you could make it off your battlements. So what to do with such talent? Well form a competitive sniping team of course..[NES] Newbs Elite Snipers

!”]

[NES

We did that for a few weeks, but that league eventually died to poor management. Was fun while it lasted, and that’s what got us thinking. Headshot Hitman really wanted to keep that going. So we all wore the [NES] tag even after the league ended. What was cool about the tag was that it was multi functional, Gremlin who played soldier sported [NES] as a Newbs elite soldier.. scout.. spy.. you get the idea. Reg’s start popping up wearing NES as a badge of honor, a badge of badass.. Yeah. That sounds accurate.

Around this time Koanrus emerged – you may have heard of him. Like I said, me and octo were stealth admins.. Raining down punishment to evil doers through console and not saying a word about it. We liked the anonymity of it all because we just wanted to play. We didn’t want to be feared or even respected for anything but our style. Koans emerged as the first regular to step up to griefers and team stackers. He used to police the server like it was his own, and we admired that. It wasn’t long until he became our first official admin recruit, and it wasn’t long after that he was hosting his own Newbs server.

Meanwhile, Hitman kept pushing for forums and a website and bla bla bla.. For months he talked about it. Until finally one day, Octo said he’d give it a shot. Since he’d be the one running it he naturally was the one to convince.

Shortly after we became [N], and shortly after that.. Forums followed. And the rest is pretty much history. Servers were added, more regs emereged. The first generation of Newbs. Names like Zeilo, Gremlin, Gabe, Dondi, Ggglgy, Sandoval, Grey Devil, Chode Sweat, Scott eats bullets, Dewar.. Andy and Steven (Pre {OSS}!)

Later we went semi pro, formed a Cevo team. That’s when things really got serious. Some of the best times I’ve had playing TF2 as well as my demise. If you check back to the 2008 Blogs, I have some pretty classy write ups of our endeavors : P. Some of this squad went on to be TF2 superstars.. Gggly, Dondi.. TF2 superstars that got there start right here, on Newbs very own Cevo team. Crazy. But just like a high school band, someone gets grounded or misses practice and the whole thing collapses : ) This is right around the time I took my hiatus. I was sad to see the semi pro circuit go.. And then the much awaited scout update, only to have the Bonk bat get nerfed.. Ahh.. Terrible terrible.

Epic times with Newbs Cevo

In between now and then a lot has happened. I’m just going to assume you’ve been with us awhile and spare you another 15 pages of history : P.. Why am I telling this story you may ask? I’ve been away, but never gone. I’ve watched the servers, lurked the forums, and have always had Newbs in my heart. Thinking back to where we started and looking at where we are now is pretty amazing. So I’d like to just take a moment and give a shout out to all the people who have made all the good times possible. Octo, first and foremost for creating this community. For keeping it going when people who were there to help just disappear for awhile (oops..: ) and for not selling out and running the servers just to make heaps of cash like some places do. A big shout out to all the admins, Jr. admins, and [N] members, and the donators for helping keep the servers and the good times rolling.

I can’t promise that I won’t disappear from time to time, but I’ll always be a Newb.

JiB

I got tired of having to find odd places on my keyboard to assign G-Keys to on my Logitech keyboard in TF2.

I wanted to be able to bind my G-Keys to build and destroy buildings and to specific disguises.

So I wrote a simple plugin (see link below) to enable that. Extracted to the tf folder, normally found in
<steam install dir>\steamapps\<username>\team fortress 2
it will create a “Named Pipe” whenever the game is running. Dumping commands into this pipe will run them as though you typed them into the console directly.
(more…)

First off, a big thank you to everybody who sent in rocket cakes (or cakes made of rockets, or rockets made of cakes, or cakes getting shot by rockets, and so on and so forth). The reaction this contest got brought a smile to my face and a spring to my step. Seriously. I bounced.

Secondly, an apology if you submitted a picture and I didn’t receive it. I had some people express interest but then I never received an entry from them. It might have gotten lost, or it might have been sent to steam when I was away. I checked my spam folder and didn’t see any rocket cakes in there, so I’m hoping it didn’t happen. However, if this happened, then I have no recourse but to make the saddest of sad faces and hope you don’t hate me.

If you submitted a picture and don’t see it here, that is the reason. I’m not ignoring you. I just didn’t receive it.

Third, this was a hard contest to judge. But judge I did!

I’m posting these in the order they appear in my pics folder. I’m posting all the entries, then announcing the winner at the bottom of the post. That way you have to read the whole thing. Literacy is finally getting used for evil. Or for good. I’m not sure anymore. What do you mean I’m rambling?

First off, Andy sent in a picture where the rocket is a cake, shaped like a rocket. So it’s a rocket cake rocket. Doubling up on the theme. nice.

Bonus: Metal Slug.

Next, Ggglygy. I don’t need to say anything else about it.

Bonus: the sun is wearing awesome sunglasses. Plus Space Heavy. Plus French for a touch of class. Je suis Scott, j’aime la gateau. Bein oui.

Third in this cavalcade of cake is NFreak, with a cake strapped to a rocket. Also the cake appears to be made of lies. I hate lie cake, but I like rocket cake. Is a rocket lie cake any good? We’ll see.

Bonus: First entry, submitted so fast I have friction burns. And rocket lie cake is pretty tasty.

Next up is octo, who proves once again that cake and rockets are best enjoyed with boobies.

Bonus: I love the tagline. I don’t know if you can read it in the squished blog frame. Maybe I should go back and edit these so they’re all links to the full sized images.

Fifth entry on the old blog rollout is Orsa, with some midair Soviet-powered control point destruction. Fro, bitches!

Bonus: Apparently that is Ggglygy on the control point. I came to get some but all there was left was cake. Babies.

Next up… Look at that, it’s Confehdehrehtheh, showing us all what happens when you replace typical explosives with delicious cake.

Bonus: Rocket-powered cake enema. That poor spy.

Nearing the end, SDHitmen proves once and for all that the cake is a spy. So you better blow it up.

Bonus: This spy cake got the Dead Ringer before I did. I also want a cake icon in my kill bars. (Hey octo, can we get a plugin for that? Please?)

Our final entry (that I know of, see point 2 above) comes from Shipster (or StrongBad36x for you old skool Newbs). This one adds a glorious new dimension to the proceedings, with animation!

Bonus: Those are awesome testimonials. Everybody should buy a rocket cake from this guy.

Those were the entries. You can see how I had trouble coming up with a winner, since I honestly liked them all. However, I can’t declare myself the winner (or can I…), so one of you has to be it.

In the end, the thing that just kept coming back to me, making me smile at inappropriate times and making me grimace at other inappropriate times, was the rocket-powered cake enema.

Congrats to Confehdehrehtheh on a cake well rocketed!

And now for a surprise!

I can’t just give one prize. There was too much awesomeness. So I’m opening up another branch of the contest to the community. The picture best-loved by you crazy Newbs also wins a grand prize! I’ll be creating a forum poll that will run for one week, so get your votes in asap!

You’re on your favourite map. It’s full of people, shooting, exploding, taunting, whatever. Everywhere you look, there’s someone. friend or foe, doesn’t matter.

So why am I asking where everyone is?

Well, I’m not talking about players. I’m not talking about our 9 valiant heroes and their 9 scum-sucking worthless doppelgangers. I’m talking about everybody else.

Who?

You know, everyone.

Let’s take Well, for example. You are likely familiar with it. Spawn behind a rocket, wander out through a warehouse, fight in the middle while dodging trains. However, what you might not notice as you run off to kill and be killed, is that there are areas of the map that should be full of people. Meeting rooms, offices, computer terminals, that sort of thing.

And yet, those places are empty. Devoid of life. So, where is everyone?

For example, here’s an office visible in an odd corner of the BLU base on Well.

There’s a desk, a clock, even a phone. But there’s nobody in that office. Nobody to answer that phone should it ring. Which it won’t, because there’s nobody to make a call on it.

Or how about this room? It looks like a shipping/receiving office, complete with a keg of beer (the bases on Well are a distillery and a brewery, after all). You can see plenty of empty chairs and a door leading deeper into the base, but you know what’s not in those chairs? People.

This room (or at least the RED version of it) also contains the loneliest lunch in the world.

I think the BLU version has a thermos in it. Which makes it the loneliest thermos in the world. Does it contain soup? Or coffee? Or some unholy combination thereof? Maybe it’s a good thing we’ll never find out.

Now, the easy explanation for why these rooms are empty is probably that the RED and BLU corporations cleared out their non-military personnel for the duration of the armed conflict. But if that’s the case, why is there bulletproof glass everywhere?

Nobody can shoot the distilling equipment. Which I guess is a good thing. Horrible waste of perfectly good booze otherwise.

In theory, these places could be maintaining their operations during the conflict. Maybe with a slight risk, but they look to have enough defences in place to ensure the workers are at least somewhat safe. Otherwise, they’re clearly protecting themselves from themselves. And that only makes sense if friendly fire is on.

It actually makes more sense to maintain at least a light crew of workers. The brewing business is very profitable, and most everybody likes to imbibe now and then. These companies are just taking money out of their own pockets. Rockets, teleporters, and $200 custom-tooled cartridges aren’t cheap, and all of the above get expended in large amounts. I weep for RED and BLU’s accounting departments.

This theory also involves some bouts of reasoning. Were the 9 bloodthirsty warriors brought in specifically to fight? Are they always stationed around the bases, even when production is ongoing? Is that why there’s bulletproof glass, to protect the workers from a bored heavy? And how awkward must the watercooler conversations be for the workers?

“So, good weekend?”
“Affirmative!”
“What’d you do?”
“Pushups. Situps. Beat a man to death with a shovel. You know, regular Saturday afternoon.”
“Oh, um, well. How bout you, big guy?”
“I ate sandvich and cleaned gun. Puny neighbour tried to tell me I park too close to curb, so I introduce him to Sasha. Then cleaned her again.”
“Screamin’ eagles!”
“Well, look at the time… Back to work… Later guys.”

Worker turnover must be pretty high if they have to spend their whole shifts wondering if today’s the day they trip over a sticky bomb, or the sentry recognizes them wrong.

Another theory is that the workers are, in fact, our 9 most hated enemies. Have they been pulled away from their regular duties to defend the base against the invading army? Or to take over the other side of the map in a bizarre corporate acquisition gone wrong? Are they just fighting this war so they can get back to work (and had it spiral ridiculously out of control in the process)?

Or, maybe nobody’s there because nobody wants to be there. A war that’s dragged on far too long, with the entire civilian population killed or displaced. Maybe there’s nobody in the office, nobody in the distillery, nobody to eat the lunch or coffee soup, nobody anywhere because there’s nobody left.

At least they enjoyed themselves on their way out.