Ladies and gents, it's here: the final week of UGC's Season 4 Highlander League!

Also, a hurricane!  Here in not-so-sunny Philadelphia, seven buildings collapsed and three small terriers were carried off to the great doggy park in the sky there to bite the legs of Hell Bear.  Hell Bear does not take kindly to biting of any kind.  Dark weather ahead, boyos.

But while the worst is over for fair Philly, the eye of the storm is hovering over tomorrow's UGC matches in what will be the final round of the season. All the pain and effort and glory boil down to tomorrow's slugfest.  Who will glow with victory?  Who will sulk in the shadow of leg-bitten Hell Bear? Who will owe me five bucks on the books?

Without further ado, let's recap week 6's highlights and get down to the final nitty-gritty!

Dr.shdwpuppet sits down with Stay Classy players Equalsd + visitor, getting their take on their epic victory over Avoided and claiming the 2nd place spot in ESEA-Intermediate this season.

With CEVO's Open registration table reaching around 65 teams as the time of this post, it looks as if CEVO S8 is going to be a huge success in at least one regard. It remains to be seen whether or not the Main division will fill up but Open is undoubtedly going to be a vibrant division given its current team count. Team registration ends on Sunday, September 4th so those of our readers who are interested in getting involved in competitive TF2 without paying entry fees ought to check out the main news release on CEVO S8 from CEVO|DMorgan HERE. Note that CEVO S8 is a 6v6 event and has more than eight weeks of play.

Community Fortress will be needing writers for the CEVO season so anyone who is interested in covering the action should get in touch with Free or myself via forum PM.

The group play stage of the CommFT-Zalman 6v6 tournament is underway and we are currently half-way through its two week range. Until September 3rd, teams will duke it out on cp_badlands to decide the top two teams of each of the sixteen groups. The resulting thirty-two teams will progress to the single elimination stage of the tournament which will stretch for five weeks with the finals likely occurring after the ESEA LAN.

For those of you who are interested in following the results of the event, I announced the group play placements on August 21st and they can be found below (note the group thread links so you can see teams' communications and results):

1. eMg, Ancient Psychic Tandem War Elephants, Sunday Funday [group thread link]
2. The Experiment, Cloud9 TF2, Sugarcube [group thread link]
3. Classic Mixup, tA eSports Organization, M^5, The Noble Gases [group thread link]
4. Area51 Gaming, No team name yet, Paramecia, Otaku6 [group thread link]
5. simpLicity, So Chill, Pootis Bros, Raw Is War [group thread link]
6. compLexity, Commonwealth Gaming, The Weight Shakers, Amish Driveby [group thread link]
7. Kawaii Kingz, Team Beaver, Team M'kay, MeatRod [group thread link]
8. 54BOMB99, Pretty Boy Swag.TF2, Team Config, TEAM FORTRESS TWO FORT (Team 2) [group thread link]
9. Modern Mixup, We Form Like Voltron, Team StompFest, The (anal) eVacuation [group thread link]
10. John Couch's BBQ Sauce TF2 Team, Crysis / Binary Gaming, Serious Group.TF2, Volcanic Kitties [group thread link]
11. 20 MINUTE TOAST, errday`, Fragophilia, Dropaholics [group thread link]
12. Red Flag, Fragnetic Gaming TF2, Ass Pounders, Magical Frolicking Unicorns [group thread link]
13. Banned From eHarmony, Nait is 16, ProTF2, Superior Posterior [group thread link]
14. Vector Gaming, iCarly Fan Club, EAZY Mode, Boyz n the Hood [group thread link]
15. Oedipus and the Motherfuckers, 2 plus 2 equals Fruit, Bear Grylls' Adventure Time, Team Echelon [group thread link]
16. TEAM FORTRESS 2 FORT, PLEASE DON'T YELL AT ME, PLEASE., Something Scientific, SSizzle Pop and Gang [group thread link]

We hope to have some of this week's group play matches casted by eXtv and we will definitely have tons of cast coverage on the single elimination stage of the event. Stay tuned to the site for info about all of the action!

ESEA has announced that if they get 20,000 Premium subscribers by the end of the year (there are currently ~14,000), then they will host a $100,000 "Revival" LAN. Assuming that this LAN would have TF2 as a game, this is good news for the community if the grand total can be realized.

In the words of lpkane,

The announcement is simple, if we hit 20,000 Premium members by the end of the year, we'll throw a massive open LAN tournament next summer and guarantee a total prize pot of at least $100,000. We'll support whatever games are part of Premium come next year, and if the community wants it, we'll make a point to throw one hell of a BYOC to go along with the main event.

Check out the announcement HERE.

After a month and a half of registration, I am happy to announce that today (August 20th, 2011) is the last day of registration for the CommFT-Zalman 6v6 tournament. At midnight EST, registration will close and the group play stage of the tournament will begin. To register, go to this thread.

If we reach our 64-team limit (as of this posting, we have 54 teams), we will have 16 groups of 4 teams each. Teams will be seeded based on their experience, skill, and accomplishments in past events (with the most weight placed on ESEA S9) or randomly placed into groups if their competitive 6v6 exploits are unknown to the admins. The teams in each group will play one another once, like in the World Cup, and once all of the matches are played in each group, the two leading teams of each group will proceed into a single elimination bracket. Teams will have two weeks to play their three group play matches. The single elimination bracket will have 32 teams and will progress until a champion is crowned. The top teams will receive prizes from Zalman and random tournament participants will have a chance to win prizes as well. Check out the prizes HERE.

As many people are aware, there is a weapon ban discussion going down in this thread. We will post the final weapon ban list and the configs later tonight (so voice your opinion there soon if you care about the weapons in the event). The rules have gone up in this thread for all participants to become acquainted with.

So if you aren't registered, get registered today! If you are registered, stay tuned to the tournament section of the forums for group placements, weapon ban announcements, and config releases. Remember that the group play stage only lasts two weeks so teams must play their matches in a timely manner!

Ladies and gents, there comes a time for every competitive team to undergo the pressure-cooker of late-season grind.  You're tired, your caller is tired, and your captain is tired.  You're asleep at the wheel when you most need to be alert and squirrely.  You want the season to be over and yet, somewhere in the back of your heart, you also know the time is upon you, the make-or-break moment of going home with your tail between your legs or giving it your all.  Win or lose, do you close out the season like a chump, or do you go out (or win) fighting as hard as you can?

Week 6, ladies and gents, was the funnel into that grinder.  But before we get into the jaws of hell that is Week 7, let's recap the highlights of Week 6!

Welcome, welcome! On today's agenda is a quick throwdown of yesterday's TF2 update, which includes a bunch of Deus Ex, a few new cosmetic effects, and plenty of Aerosmith references (for some reason).

Here's the link to the patch notes on the official wiki, if you're in doubt about my mystical prophetic teachings.

Onward! What'd we get in terms of weapons, those fascinating shooty-type deals?

First up is the first Engineer weapon in who knows how long, the Widowmaker! It's a brand-new shotgun that doesn't require a reload - no more awkward shell reloads, right? This baby's powered with your own metal reserve, and it's costly at 60 metal a shot. To compensate, every time you land a hit, all the damage you deal is added back to your metal reserve.

The biggest issue players are already having with this weapon is that it sucks way too much ammmunition to justify the lack of reloads. 60 damage? That's three shots. Assuming you're dealing 30 damage on a shot, which is a medium-range shot, you're still only at six shots, same as a good Shotgun - and you're sucking down your ammo supply for buildings! A solid Pistol and maybe even a Gunslinger may be able to back it up for offensive Engineering, but the metal depletion could tie you to your Dispenser more than you'd like.

It is once again time to announce another epic "Communities vs Pros" showdown!

EndOfReality.net, eXtelevision.com, and PubComp.com are proud to present the “Communties vs Pros II” event September 17th 2011 at 9pm EST featuring an eXciting line up of players battling it out in a 9v6 format. Three maps will be played: pl_upwards, cp_yukon, and pl_barnblitz.

One of North American's top TF2 teams, "The Experiment”, will battle it out with a hand picked community team. Experiment's 6 players, TLR, -ww (WonderWall), Justin, Carnage, Dummy and Pyyyour, are at the top of their classes and they will be competiing against a highlander team including Valve software's very own Robin Walker as Sniper.

In typical event tradition there will be great eXcitement and prizes given to the players involved!



We hope you are ready for the climactic end of TF2's biggest summer yet?

Ladies and gents, trigger-happy Cow Manglers and hype-building Soda Poppers, welcome back to Screaming Eagles.

Late, you say.  This edition of Screaming Eagles is late!

Well, yes, but it's not my fault.  You see, someone in the server was running Sandman and I happened to take a baseball upside the head.  I lost time. When I came to my fists were full of cream cheese.  Tethered to my leg, a young billy goat.  The goat was a-chewing.  A-chewing and staring.  I slowly came to realize that he was now my goat, and had been for some unknown span of time.  Him and the cream cheese and the very great shame.

That accursed Sandman!  But it's not just that ridiculous bat and it's infuriating stun ball.  You see, on my long slog home with the goat and the cheese, I've had time to consider the effrontery of certain TF2 weaponry and why it's bad for the game and the community.  I've pondered and I've meditated.  I shucked fistfuls of soggy cheese across vast stretches of pavement.  The time for thought is over--let us speak now of the arsenal of shame!

In last week’s edition of Splash Damage, I discussed the Free to Play announcement and I proposed that the competitive TF2 community has “found it challenging to actually confront new players with the merits of playing competitively”. I argued that all of our methods to attract fresh blood to the competitive community are indirect and that they seem to have only a limited impact on the average TF2 player. I concluded by hypothesizing that perhaps we need to devise more direct ways to approach new players with the idea of competitive play.

The comments of readers on the previous edition revealed the diversity of opinions among community members about what it really is that deters new players from joining the competitive world of TF2. Some said that new folks find competitive play too challenging while some said that new players are afraid of leaving their comfort zone. Others argued that the classes used in competitive play (chiefly Scout, Soldier, Demoman, and Medic) are not numerous enough and surmised that many non-competitive players wish the other five classes featured more prominently. All of these comments are worthy of discussion and each has roots in the truth.

That's right folks, I just received the prizes from Zalman for the CommFT-Zalman 6v6 tournament (remember that registration for the event closes on August 20th). Their marketing guys are phenomenal and promptly shipped us the prizes prior to the start of the event as I requested. Shoutout to Mr. Yang at Zalman for being great to work with. And, without further ado, a photo of the prizes...



Press Read More to see the CPU coolers up close.