Well, as a Cleveland sports fan, I've pretty much spent the last forty-eight hours in a drunken haze, but seeing as I somehow failed to succumb to alcohol poisoning, I'm back now and here's another new Moments of Glory.
This one comes from Swedish player squideARN, who does a nice bit of work defending Gravel Pit C.
Well my friends, the Engineer update is upon us. The Engi has a whole slew of new toys. But what purposes do these new weapons serve? And will they be useful in the competitive scene? This article is here to help.
Note: Keep in mind that these weapons have only just been released, and future nerfs/buffs may be incoming, as well as additional information not available at the time of this writing.
Frontier Justice
The Frontier Justice is the Engineer's new shotgun. It only loads three shells at once and doesn't roll for random critical hits. However, whenever his sentry is destroyed, it gets a certain number of guaranteed crits depending on how many kills his sentry racked up before destruction.
Sounds overpowered, right? Guaranteed crits, without a charge-up time (Kritzkrieg) or a minicrit vulnerability (Crit-a-Cola)? Blasphemous!
The success of this weapon depends on your Engineer playstyle. If you turtle, it probably won't be of much use to you, since crits are not carried over between lives (think "heads" from the Eyelander). This is of course assuming you die along with your sentry, since you're within a well-fortified base that just got destroyed by an uber demoman or pyro. If you throw down sneaky sentries (see the Gunslinger later in this article!) and get an assist or two, or a few kills, then this weapon will work wonders.
Okay, so that covers tactics in pub play. But what about the competitive scene?
Engineers are used on Gravel Pit and occasionally to defend the fifth point on CP maps. The purpose of the Sentries they build is not specifically to kill mans but to block access to an area. While sentry kills certainly happen, generally the Engineer involved is dead before or as his sentry is destroyed. The "no random crits" certainly doesn't apply in competitive play... but the smaller clip size means that any self-defense the Engi may attempt is now twice as hard.
This weapon in its present condition is underpowered for competitive play.
Hey everybody, I just sat down with two members of TWL Division 2 Playoff team Gravity Gun Grenadiers [GGG] to talk about their team and The TWL playoffs.
Hey guys, why dont you take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourselves?
[GGG] BOLT: Hey, I'm BOLT from clan GGG. I main demoman.
[GGG] Spookr: I'm Spookyman-X and I play Scout for Gravity Gun Grenadiers. I've been playing TF2 since November of '07 so I'm pretty experienced, and I've been with the team since January of 2008, switching main classes several times over the years.
VG|Lange has stepped aside following the May edition, but CommFT has had multiple editors express interest in helping out. Lined up through Decap, n0ser is going to be taking up the editing reigns for the Top 10 plays of June. In the future we will be looking at other methods of organization in order to improve the clip submission process and the sorting of.
The quality of this series depends on user submissions. Right now we have about 20 submissions for the month of June. Submissions can be put in at any time, whether the month is finished or not. Submit your plays right after they happen. POV demos are preferred, but we can work with STV demos. League matches only for the Top 10, but clips from older months that did not get accepted, or clips from non-league 6v6/highlander games can be submitted to Moments of Glory at
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Send your submissions to
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with the month listed in the title. Please include the following information in your submission:
Download Link: Relevant Tick: Player Name: Team Name: Country: Description:
Thanks for your assistance with creating this show!
CEVO is pleased to announce the opening of registration for the next season of Team Fortress 2. Season 6 features three skill divisions: Professional, Main, and Amateur. Each has different entry parameters, competitive expectations, and prizes.
The regular event membership fee for the Professional and Main Divisions is $20 USD per player. However, any player who registers by midnight CST Sunday, July 18th will receive a discounted early bird rate of only $15 USD. Players may register for Season 6 without already being on a team.
Registration for CEVO Team Fortress 2 Season 6 opens on Sunday, July 11th at 7 PM CST and will remain open until Sunday, August 8th at midnight CST.
Things have been a little busy for me lately, and I know others have been occupied with things like the chase for Golden Wrenches and the culmination of the World Cup. Nonetheless, we've had some pretty good articles being posted lately. In particular, Schetter's discussion on the structure of sport leagues and how that relates to the TF2 communities endeavors. It took me a couple of days to actually get to it and read through, but if you haven't, it is definitely a must read.
Comparisons between eSports and Poker have been drawn before, particularly during the period of CGS and the desire for eSports to reach the same level of television success as Poker has in recent years. Schetter's article contains an excellent analysis on the functional differences between the World Series of Poker and Team Fortress 2/Team-based FPSs. On top of that, it's a pretty damning analysis of the inability of our current league structures to be able to provide for teams.
As it stands now, there is only prizes worth winning for a couple of teams out there. Taking 4th place in ESEA-Open nets a $150 dollar prize. Once you consider that 6 players are paying league fees and a monthly ESEA Premium fee, there is essentially nothing left. If sponsors are paying for league fees, or in the case of a LAN final paying for travel, ESEA is a for profit league, and they have to have a business plan that works. I've personally talked in the past, of the need for Gamers to be willing to contribute from their wallet towards supporting this community. However, pay-to-play leagues have shown to be unable to turn that money around in a fashion that benefits the gamers.
If the league is setup to be profitable, they have a minimal desire to spend much money on improving, or raising the % of money they end up paying back to the gamer. An increase in the amount of money they are receiving from sponsors will probably trickle down to the gamers, but they will always put forward the argument: "If you want bigger prize pots, pay more money in, or get more people to pay in".
With a non-profit organization that works due to community volunteers and paid positions (from money coming in, either donations or sponsors), the initial prize pots will be small, but the future potentials will be enormous. Talking with Schetter and reading his article sparked a hundred amazing ideas from my head, and I look forward to sharing those with you. I think it'd be rude to cut in though, so I'll be eagerly awaiting Schetter's 3rd part before I post again on the topic...
We're up to 97 wrenches! Who's Excited? **Thumbs pointed at chest** This GUY!!!
Well it is that time again, TWL is gearing up for it's playoff season (right as valve announces the engineer update no less) and the TF2 teams have never looked so sharp. It will be a fierce fight (well, except for Division 1, we all know who is going to win that one).
Division 1 Well, only three teams actually completed this season, and all but THPS has been served up a few Forfiet Losses. With Tony Hawk and crew scoring a first round bye, it is up to Incestual Princess and Immigration Enforcement to show us a good time.
Incestual Princesses vs Immigration Enforcement These two teams have yet to actually face off this season, but based on their performance against the milestone of THPS, I am going to have to give this one to the Incestual Princesses. If either team even shows up, it will be a close match, but in the end, Immigration Enforcement will be unable to send the pretty princesses across the border. 5-3 Incestual Princesses.
With all the news about CEVO and XPL and ESEA, sometimes it is hard to remember the smaller league, the one without the big names or the cash prizes. And that is why I am here. I have been brought aboard as a regular columnist for league coverage in TWL. TWL offers a great opportunity to bring fun back into competitive TF2. Without all the pressure and drama of the big leagues, teams can join TWL to just goof around, compete with teams at their level and get their very first taste of competitive TF2.
In my time here at CommunityFortress, I will bring you guys weekly coverage of the newest rankings and matches of the previous week, plus announcements and other important information about Team Fortress 2 on TWL. I will also be doing unofficial blogging about TF2 unrelated to TWL. So, without further delay, I will get started.
Lately I've been pretty critical of the Team Warfare League's TF2 admins, calling them everything from lazy to stupid. I don't apologize for any of that. I'm kind of a jerk, and I've made peace with that. Also, most of my comments appeared to be pretty spot-on by the way the league was being run (or run into the ground, as it were). Still, I had faith that, with the right set of admins, the league could once again bring in some of the top-tier teams in future seasons and build itself back up into a legitimate competitor for best league.
And then the playoff brackets were released.
Now, don't get me wrong, going into these playoffs, I wasn't prepping myself to pounce all over TWL no matter what the brackets actually looked like. Quite the opposite, in fact. I was more of the opinion that it would take a group of complete idiots and a failure of truly epic proportions to screw up the simple art of playoff bracketing...
eXtine : Yyaaaoooooo ... ... ... I just wanted to shout ;)
Graham : yea i agree...i know cevo is working on a redesign but its not ready yet
marv : Hello
Jesus : @Graham, it's more like they're a big mix of design fads to the point where it's obnoxiously ugly. CyberSports Network is absolutely hideous. If we want to be taken seriously we have to step up our game on that front.
Graham : Jesus- yea a lot of them could use some work...most were made in the early days of website development and have to have a lot of functionality...usually results in confusing layouts
forsaken : lol
Jesus : Is it me or does every gaming league have absolutely terrible web design for their website?
forsaken : This cevo bans natasha thread is exhilarating!
Wolfy : tf2lobby appears to be down as well =/
bcarr : Schetter: DA MAN WITH DA PLAN, FO SURE MAH GAMEAS
schetter : site's down atm; working on it :) in the meantime you can hit up our ustream page if you're looking for vods: ustream.tv/channel/tgbf-tv/v3
I'm all for banning the Wrangler, at least temporarily. It's a very unique and potentially powerful weapon; I think extensive playtesting in pugs and...
Think about it this way, if you go to a game store and the clerks told you to shut up and do what they wanted, would you just live with it, or would...