A relatively old and short interview (about a month old) that I was too lazy to post until now. It's with eHfK, head ESEA TF2 admin and discusses the upcoming ESEA LAN, ESEA's future plans with TF2 and more.

You’re stepping down as an ESEA admin after this season, any reason why?

I've really enjoyed everything I have done with ESEA and trying to build a community around it for TF2, although it wasn't as successful as I had hoped it would be. It is a very stressful job, as some could imagine. I often find myself being the middle man between an upset community and management that doesn't want to budge. It has also become a very time consuming job, and as I am nearing the end of my university career, I think it would be best for me to focus on my studies. Who knows though, I may just pull a Brett Favre.

Valve ANNOUNCES portal 2! So says the Valve press release in my inbox, extremely short of details:

VALVE ANNOUNCES PORTAL 2

Sequel to 2007's Game of the Year Coming This Holiday

March 5, 2010 - Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Left 4 Dead, Counter-Strike, and Half-Life) and leading technologies (such as Steam, Source), today announced Portal 2 for shipment this coming holiday season.

Portal was originally released in 2007 and earned over 70 industry achievement awards.

For more information, please visit www.steamgames.com

The following was posted on the CEVO site:

UPDATE

We have decided on the following maps for this season's map rotation:

Preseason 1 - cp_gorge
Preseason 2 - ctf_turbine
Week 1 - cp_badlands
Week 2 - cp_granary
Week 3 - cp_gravelpit
Week 4 - koth_viaduct
Week 5 - cp_freight
Week 6 - cp_obscure
Week 7 - cp_yukon
Week 8 - cp_mainline

The custom maps from this list will be posted in the TF2 files section prior to the associated match date.

If you have not signed up for CEVO S5, signups close March 14th. You can read more about the event HERE.

About a month ago I created a medic roundtable with some of the game's best Medics. Since then, I have received a lot of requests to do more roundtables with other classes. The next class I am doing is the demoman. The class I wish I could play well.

When TF2 competitive was just starting out, it was like the wild wild west, no class limits, no rules. There was always a big debate on how important the demoman is in 6v6, or even 8v8 play. I remember a thread debating if teams should run a sniper or demoman all the time. I also remember a team that ran 5 demos and a medic...good times. That was before the tf2 players started understanding exactly how much the demoman can do in a match. Once more and more players started playing demo to their full potential (sticky jumping, air-piping, sneaky traps), it was no longer a debate on whether the demo should be in every single starting lineup.

Sure, I could have gotten invite demos like Solid Snake, destro and ducky. But the 3 demomen I chose were a lot easier to reach and I know will give me a timely answer. Hate if you want, but these 3 demomen chosen are no doubt in the list of top 10 demos in North America.

b4nny is the demo for eMazing Gaming, the #1 seeded team in ESEA-Open.
You Must Recover is the demo for Apocalypse Gaming, the #2 seeded team in ESEA-Open.
Droog is the demo for Vicious Gaming, the #3 seeded team in ESEA-Open.

Another reason I chose the three of them is that I have played against all three and I feel like they all have a different playing style, but all three have found a way to successfully play at the high level of TF2. I always thought there were only two types of demomen, the aggro demo that causes a lot of damage (and take a lot of damage too), some aggro demos would be destro, ducky, chupa or most Euro demos. Then there are the defensive/trapping demos. If we put it in football reference, they would be the shutdown cornerback, take out half the field/map and forces the opponents to only work with the other half. One great sticky trap (Big Interception) could change the tide of the whole round. When I think of classic trap demos, You Must Recover, SolidSnake and Arc come to mind. But after talking to these guys, I realized that there aren't just 2 playstyles, every demo has their own level of aggression and in the end, it really depends on what the team needs most. Good demomen adjust to the needs of their team while the stubborn demos keep playing their own style and blame their team if he is not getting enough support by scouts or heals from the medic.

Instead of bullshitting more about what I think about the demo, why don't we just get straight to the interview? So without further adieu, dj's Demoman Roundtable.

Signups for TWL Season 6 are still underway!

Qualifiers have already begun for the next season, but it's not too late to join. To get a qualifier match and attempt to place in a higher division, see this thread for more details. Whether your team is new or old, TWL guarantees close, competitive match-ups with it's divisional ranking system.

The map list (subject to change, and in no particular order) is as follows:

TGBF.TV is proud to present a cast of Apocalypse Gaming vs Hostile Faction on cp_gravelpit for ESEA Open playoffs. The match will start at 11 EST/8 PST and will determine who plays Vires Gaming in the winners bracket finals.

The casters will be djfivenine and m0lk while Schetter will be producing the match tonight.

This will be a clash of playing styles on gravelpit.

Hostile Faction is known for their talent and individual play while Apocalypse Gaming is know for their strategy and teamwork.

Some argue that Gravelpit is suited for the team with the best teamwork. But you can also argue that one medic pick, one sticky trap, or one soldier controlling the roof on B can change the tide for the whole match.

Join us and tgbf.tv for this exciting cast!

Valve continues their quality Developer Blog posts with an insight into the process on developing new tools for the Engineer. Read more for information about the upcoming Engineer update and a couple shout outs at the end!

We're plugging away at the Engineer update. He's an interesting class to work on, because he creates a larger footprint in the game than any other class. This means we have a lot of options to work with, and the resulting set of ideas is truly daunting. Since we've already built and playtested some things that haven't worked out (with no false modesty, I think we've mastered the art of rapidly making things that aren't fun), we thought it might be interesting to give you some of our failed experiments.

The first was a new building internally known as the Repair Node. We gave Engineers the ability to replace any current building (teleporter entrances and exits were considered one building for this) with the Repair Node instead.

While deployed, the Repair Node would draw from a pool of energy to fix damage to nearby buildings. When the node ran out of energy, it would stop repairing and regenerate up to full, creating a window of opportunity for the attackers. When sapped, the Repair Node's repair function was disabled for the duration of the sap.