Thoughts from a New Player

by [CPFF]Grunt, 12/19/98     After reading a lot of editorials, and having played a lot in the public servers, I felt that us newbies should have their opinions aired every now and then.

    Although many people out there have been playing TF for ages, there are still new people coming into the game. And why not? It is a great game! And there will be many people playing Classic TF long after TF2 has come out. And we newbies, well, ok. We suck. We die. We are cursed with the dreaded Demon of High Ping. We're gibbed, fragged, sawn, hacked, diseased, and mutilated in a million different ways. But as one who has died a thousand deaths, I can say that I'm having fun. And that's what TF is all about. So go on...shoot me...I like it.

    But one thing that is not fun is these immature fools on the public servers. A lot of attention has been paid to the lamer/spammer/idiot argument. And as a newbie, I'm afraid I must apologize for my fellow newcomers. You see, I'm of the firm opinion that most of these fools are newcomers to the game. At least I would hope so....if not, then TF is in more trouble than I think it is. Being newcomers, they haven't learned the rules of sportsmanship. They probably never have had to work together with anyone else as a -team- before. Although they all _act_ with the mentality of an eight-year-old, some are even probably Geezers like me (although Geezers who have never gotten beyond the childhood booger and fart stage!).

    The only reason I can think of this occurring is because of one word: anonymity. These morons would never do anything like this in the real world to someone's face. They would get the living crap beat out of them. But here in the TF world, they can hide behind a nickname, and no one will ever know the real person behind their little ego fantasies.

    But as the voice of (some) newbies out there, don't be afraid. You have worked hard to build a great TF community. The idiots will move on. They have short attention spans. They will cause havoc for a while, and then when no one is paying attention to them anymore, they will go to another game. Eventually all children tire of their new toys. And when they are gone, us good newbies will still be here with a bullseye on our chests. And before you know it, we won't be newbies anymore. Heck, we might even be standing next you in the trenches, waiting for the enemy offense to come charging in, getting ready to gib the next wave of....newbies.

[CPFF]Grunt
Clan Planet Fortress Farm - you gotta love the minor leagues!!!!!

©1998 - "[CPFF]Grunt" - All Rights Reserved

Gentle Camper

by ]Sand[Man, 12/19/98     Last month, I ran across a gentlemanly Camper, yes, that's right, a perfect gentleman. I'll set the stage, it was on I'm 12's server and the map was yes (don't choke) 2forts. I can't remember his name just the fact that he was a LPB Soldier with a ping of 27, and a very good shot. Someone complained that he was camping in the ammo room, the one that leads to the snipers deck. So, he decided to inform everyone playing with the following messages as he played:

1) Crossing Bridge Now
2) Approaching camping area
3) Now Camping!!!!

    Now this is quite extraordinary, to inform your enemy where you are. You see, we had at least 4 to 6 guys constantly fighting him, whether to defend, maim, or kill, he was almost (almost) unstoppable. I think the key was that this was a public server with no current snipers on our team. It was absolutely hilarious to see "the dogs" after this fox, me included. I'm not sure whether he was a gentleman with steel balls, or just wanted the opportunity to frag as many people in one spot as possible. Or maybe he was a distraction for the enemy scout, I don't remember the capping status. But i've never seen anything like it, before or since. So, if you want to camp nicely, and have got the guts, tell the enemy your doing it! ;)

]Sand[Man.

©1998 - "]Sand[Man" - All Rights Reserved

Semi-editorial on camping

by >V< SPEEDenator, 12/19/98 Not a full blown editorial like I'm known to write, but it's been a while. :)

    Now that we have a definition of camping, I'd like to follow with my own definition of "respawn camping."

    Respawn camping - slang for camping in an enemy's respawn area, typically using the enemy's supplies to replenish and attacking enemies while they still have the default armament.

    A tactical rational for respawn camping is that a single attacker can keep enemy defenders from returning to their positions and can keep enemy attackers pinned inside their own base by preventing the enemies from entering the playfield at their point of origin - the respawn. This way, other attackers are better able to enter the enemy base and capture the flag, and defenders face less opposition (and thus less likelihood of giving up the flag).

    A further justification is that if the map "allows" it, it must be OK. 2fort4 was notorious in this respect, as people would often camp the deck respawn via r-jumping to the deck or through the drop in the L-passage. However, even with 2fort5r's adjustments, people continue to respawn camp by sneaking in through anti-camping devices (i.e. the team-specific door on the deck in 2fort5).

    However, this is just Machiavellian bull. John Cook did not design 2forts so that a demoman could enter the enemy respawn, lay pipes around the respawn area, and detpipe people before they could even get out the door. The fact that people continue to bypass the obvious, but flawed, preventive measures against this just indicate that this is in fact "cheap" play.

    In sports, there are two ways to play the game. The first way is that both sides play hard and by the rules, and afterwards, are able to all go to the same pub and get drunk together. The second way is that one or both sides use every single niggly little rule interpretation and advantage to win, and both sides end up going to separate pubs to grumble about the other side. If you've even been party to those kinds of events, it's quite obvious which provides the better entertainment value.

    In TF, there are also two ways to play the game. There aren't any hard rules about sportsmanship nor are there referees or coaches or owners. But there is nevertheless a difference between winning with honor and just winning.

>V< SPEEDenator
GM of Fifth Element

©1998 - ">V< SPEEDenator" - All Rights Reserved

Spawn Camping

by [CUiH]Telastyn, 12/19/98 Hello,

    This is an editorial written in response/about the poll conducted on December the 11th about wether spawn camping is acceptable or not.

    I find that hitting the spawn rooms is not only acceptable, but something people should do if a defense is weak enough to let them close enough to do it. I think that if the defense allows people near the respawns they deserve what happens. I consider the resupply/spawn rooms more like supply lines of war, not hospitals as the Hal used as his real world analogy. As in war, if an offensive can strike at a supply line they debilitate their enemies and every commander realises this as a target, some even design strategy around disabling the supply lines.

    I think that it is much less enjoyable or necissary in public fun play because it isn't fun, also defense isn't organized enough to stop people. 2fort5 unfortunately has the spawn rooms too accessible. A soldier can easily rj and the nail gren the spawn rooms without people defensive camping/spamming (which is worse Imho). As the offensive coordinator for CUiH (itfl east coast champs 1997-1998) we would camp the ledge and spawn rooms, not because we were cheap (is debatable) or too skilless to kill people 1v1, but because the entire enemy team was dead. We usually played 2 defense, 1 sniper, 7 offense. The enemy defense would be obliterated to the point that instead of waiting for the flag to return from capture we had 3-4 guys that could sit near the upper spawn room and engage the enemy once they came out of the spawn room (since all 10 of their guys were in the spawn rooms.)

    It would've been tactically unsound to pull our guys back from that area or to send 6 guys down the spiral due to it's small size. I hate coming out of the spawn room into a nail gren, but not because of the enemy, but because of my teammates letting them. One good defensive engineer can keep people from coming via the ramp room, one good defensive soldier can keep people from rj'ing the grate and one good sniper can keep people from rj'ing the ledge. But the easiest way to keep from being spawn camped is to control the middle territory, or the enemy's territory.

[CUiH]Telastyn

©1998 - "[CUiH]Telastyn" - All Rights Reserved

Half-Life, Half-Hype, and TF2.

by UnHuman, 12/19/98 Half-Life.. the game behind TF2... Great Game.. Awesome Single Player action.. these are the things that make it 'Game of the year' and 'Best shooter ever!'.. But.. what about Internet play?

(groan)

Persoanlly I love the game. But, i cannot see this mammoth thing being the game that TF2 is going to run smoothly on..

Long ago, I had an RA show.. episode number 3 was all about the 'upcoming Half-Life'... Clips from the Half-Life Preliminary Findings CD, etc... (this was a non-playable demo presentation put out.. well, a while back.) I think the same way now as i did then, (of course I'll probably be proven wrong) but, theres a lot going on with the engine, and the game when in multiplay.. the server and client will have to be totally re-done for TF2,and i do hope that it shall be.. Otherwise..

Half-Life's multiplayer, right now, i can say, is no where near as fun as the single player game. It's not smooth, people that get all the cool weapons kill tons of people while they run around looking for somehting besides the pistol, and, with no offense, it gets boring, same DM all the time, kill, die, kill die..

This, on the main, is due to the overpopultion of the internet as of late, and, of course, the servers themselves. Of course, us folks with 33.6 and 56k modems, (runs badly on 56k, much better on 33.6, as most games do) are going to have some lag, and sluggishness... I just hope that the net-capabilities are ready for a game like TF2.. or, the officially named, 'Half-Life: Team Fortress'

I expect the guys at Val, (including TFS), have already thought of all this, since the add-on will be commercial, and i'm also sure they don't want to be tied up in support handling for a year after the game's out, so i have to think that it will be different for TF. Right?

So, going back to .. May, when I put out show 3, about Half-Life, I can just about say my opinion is the same as it was then... (This was before the TF2 project was with the 'mysterious engine')

*hoping Half-life will be ready for TF2...*

UnHuman

©1998 - "UnHuman" - All Rights Reserved

Half Life and the CD-Key Issue

by .At.Tubaboy-J-, 12/19/98 I would like to address this issue in public, in a vain hope to get Valve's attention at their costly mistake.

I recently purchased my copy of Half Life and a copy for a close friend who couldn't get it immediately. I installed it, started playing it and generally had a great time. I have come across a few bugs. The worst thing about these bugs are that they lock up my system. Multiplayer runs pretty well. as long as I don't attempt to connect to the chat rooms. Whenever I do that it locks up my system. Their current ping system is pitiful. I ping my servers, locate a decent server that has a ping of 170 or so (56k modem). I think great, a good server, I hop on to see my lag jump up to 300+ and on occasion 600. The CD Key problem has not affected me (yet, and knocking on wood). If I am affected by this dilemma, then I'll become more upset about it. Half Life is new, I understand that, and I realize that they don't play test it on Modems. I believe that HL will get patches that will correct this issue. However, TF2 could be in serious doubts... if the games continue to stay this laggy without improvement by the release of TF2, TF2 will not succeed. I for one will not switch over to TF2, if my pings continue to stay at 300 plus. I enjoy my ping of sub-200 on games, even Q2 I don't get any higher than 250...

Not sure if you'll want to post this or not, but please try and get into contact with any Valve employees that you may know and attempt to persuade them to fix the problem. TF2 will be a failure if the lag doesn't improve. On a couple other notes. Why did Valve not include Teamplay with HL? This was one of the biggest downfalls of Q2 in the beginning. It does not promote clans with this FFA style of play, and also it will produce boredom. I enjoy playing FFA's, but I also enjoy Team DM... TF2 may be the most popular Quake 1 mod, but take a look at Quake 2 and the popularity of AQ2... that says it all. People want Team DM, with some serious goals...

Thanks for your time,
.At.Tubaboy-J-

©1998 - ".At.Tubaboy-J-" - All Rights Reserved

TF2 is only for Half-Life??

by BlackKnight, 12/19/98 Disturbing news:

TeamFortress 2 is only for Half-Life? What the hell is this, a joke? Now the whole TF playing Community has to buy another $40 - $60 game just to continue their frag fest that they started about 2 years ago? Come on... TF 2 should be for Quake 2. More then 80% of the Quaking Community has already bought Quake 2 and thought when TF 2 came out all they had to do is download it... But now some idiot comes up with the idea to put it out for Half-Life making it more expensive for us just to have fun. I don't know about you guys, but unless I hear 99.9% good about TF 2, no way am I or my friends spending more and more money just to continue the Frag Fest that we've already started on TF 1, but we'll just continue to frag on TF 1, until one of you programmers, designers, or idiots listen.

*BlackKnight*

©1998 - "BlackKnight" - All Rights Reserved