TF2 Newbs (Team Fortress 2) Blog

Hey all. The TF2 community has changed radically over the past two years. A lot of the hardcore players have left to pursue other games or responsibilities, yet the game continues to attract more casual players than ever. A minor adjustment to the TF2 Quickplay — defaulting the “Play Now!” button to search only for Valve servers, as opposed to community servers or both — has poisoned the well with longtime players, as well as doing harm to the population of community servers.

The TF2Newbs servers haven’t been very active of late. But the blog continues to draw traffic, although much of it is from hits from search engines.

Overall, the blog has passed 275,000 lifetime hits!!

http://www.tf2newbs.com/newbs_blog/2014/07/04/itemfaq/

The “TF2Newbs’ Guide to More and Better Items” has passed 15,000 hits, and continues to grow!  Team Fortress 2 continues to attract new players that then use their search engines to learn more about basic TF2 facts, such as earning achievement items and what refined metal is for.

http://www.tf2newbs.com/newbs_blog/2014/01/06/a-tf2newbs-guide-to-mvm-item-hunting/

My first FAQ, “A TF2Newbs Guide to MvM Item Hunting”, has also passed 15,000 hits! I don’t think the Mann vs. Machine horde mode is as popular as it once was, but there continues to be demand for Australian weapons, so somebody’s got to keep killing those robots. Golden Frying Pans still drop once in a while as well; as of this posting, currently 107 exist in the game.

http://www.tf2newbs.com/forum/index.php/topic,14017.0.html

(Sorry, hyperlinks are busted.)

I just started a thread asking Where (and What) You’re Playing on Steam Lately. Log in and tell us, so we can meet up and play together.

By the way, Valve’s updates have been few and far between for a while now. Methinks Valve is finally hard at work on their next game. They’ve already polished their next Source engine; so they could be making the next incarnations of their franchises, such as an overhaul of TF2, that mythical Half Life 3, or even some new game. They’ve sold hardware, launched an OS, made a new engine; it’s about time they actually publish a new game. Oh wait–it very well could be Left For Dead 3….

[N] Obey

Hey guys,

Scott here after a brief hiatus that saw me get addicted to World of Warcraft, drive across Canada, and buy and return a laptop. None of these events were related, but I’ve been a busy little fat man.

So anyway, as I was sitting in a meeting today I had an urge to doodle. And then I had a better idea. I wanted to see what the creative sorts of the Newbs community could draw. We’ve all seen Forte’s arts (and t-shirts and mousepads and such), and we know Dingo can forge stuff out of pure refined awesomeness, but I don’t really know what other people are capable of.

So I propose a contest. A recurring contest, where I am the only one who can’t win.

I propose… an art contest.

“But Scott,” you say, “I have no artistic skills!”

Well, neither do I. And you don’t need them, exactly. See, I won’t be judging these on quality. Oh no. I’m looking for whatever picture tickles me juuuuust right. To quote Family Guy, “That tickles me in a way that if Loretta tickled me in that way I’d say ‘Oh yeah, that’s nice’”.

It can be funny. It can be cool. It can be so mindbendingly awesome it reduces me to a puddle of goo and I have to spend the rest of the life having some annoyingly perky nurse mop the drool off my chin so I don’t gurgle. I’d obviously prefer one of the first two.

So, enough of the preamble. What’s in it for you?

Well, prizes obviously. I haven’t quite worked out the details, but I possess the rare ability to purchase items through Steam and deposit them into your account. It’s like voodoo, except it works (zing!). I can also possibly wrangle up a reserved slot, or if you want I could twist Octo’s arm until he coughs up a t-shirt. The choice could be yours.

Intrigued? You better be.

Now for the important bit. What you have to draw.

For the inaugural Scott’s Ultimate Art Newbs Contest (aka the SUANC), you will draw me…
…

a ROCKET CAKE

Interpret that however you want. It doesn’t have to be TF2-related if you don’t want it to be. The picture I like best wins.

You have 2 weeks. Deadline for submissions will be August 21st. A winner will be announced and contacted not long after.

The winning entry will be featured on the blog, and possibly elsewhere if I can get a gallery organized. I might post all the entries just for fun, depends on how I feel on the 22nd.

You can submit entries by sending me a link to where it’s hosted (I’m on Steam, look me up), or by emailing them to me at “scott at qv7 dot net”. Just convert that into a real email address. Put something about the contest in your subject line and also include your Steam ID if you’re not already on my friends list.

I look forward to seeing what your twisted little minds can come up with :D

Update:
1) If you enter multiple times, your second picture is compared to your first, and I get more critical.
2) Your entry doesn’t have to be a hand-drawn thing, it could also be photoshop, or a picture of a thing you made, etc

The title says it all.  Due to the postive response received from the recent submission by everyones favorite fatty Scott Eats Bullets I’ve decided to try something new(ish).  I’d like to expand the number of authors on the blog.  The rules/restrictions/wants are pretty simple:

• Subject matter needs to be TF2 related, I would like it to have a TF2 Newbs tie-in most of the time, but its not required in every post.
• Must be readable
• Must be fun or informative
• Must be (mostly) original (compilations are ok – but sources must be sited)

If you think you have what it takes, or have some ideas for topics for someone else to write about, leave a comment, post about it on the forums http://www.tf2newbs.com/forum/index.php/topic,1896.0.html, or talk to me (Add Octo On Steam) directly. 

whoaaa. Took a couple days off of blogging out of respect for NFreak’s Crab Spy Calendar. Thought it would be noble to keep it at the top of the blog list for a few days, and if you havn’t checked it out.. do so.

Now on with your regularly scheduled bloggage.

————————————————————————————————–

Screendiddles

TF2 Party !

haha the soldiers face is classic

The start of the tower… party hats required

Courtyard towerage

Boxer Koans

And now comes the time in which we break dance..

————————————————————————————————–

The Word On Teh Street

————————————————————————————————–

RPOTD

and i leave you with none other than.. the random.. picture of the day

JIB