CommunityFortress

Lineup:

Techyworm (Soldier)
Dawn (Soldier)
TRIPOD (Scout)
Freakshow (Scout)
Yellow Tetris  Block (Demo)
Jeebus (Medic)
Solblind (Scout/Soldier)

We asked a few of them their initial reactions to the idea and their expectations of what is to come in the coming months...

Techyworm

My initial impressions are that games are far funner when people communicate a lot, and everyone who says that comp players drain the fun and life out of a game are totally wrong. And my expectations are that I'll learn a lot of new skills and get generally better at TF2, which will make it more fun when I'm playing normally.

 What was your initial reaction when you read the idea?

 It sounded like a great opportunity, and I was surprised all the spots hadn't been taken already.

 What did you think of the walkthrough of cp_granary with Wildcard and Buffalo Bill?

 Very informative, I know Granary far better now.

TRIPOD

Hmmm, let’s see, the team you gathered is very good. At first I thought that competitive play is easier but when we had this granary training it changed my mind a lot about competitive players. We should be Ok as long as we work as a team though.

 What was your initial reaction when you read the idea?

 I felt that I should join this because I always wanted to start playing comp but I just couldn't find a group clan whatever so this is kind of way to comp play to me.

 What did you think of the walkthrough of cp_granary with Wildcard and Buffalo Bill?

 It was long really long but I kind of enjoyed it in my own way :)

Freakshow

This is extremely well-organized. My initial idea was probably "LOLCOMP", but this might actually work! I expect this to be fun, interesting, and hopefully we can kill some taboo demons as well.

 What was your initial reaction when you read the idea?

 "Oh wow. Something exciting I might get into!"

 What did you think of the walkthrough of cp_granary with Wildcard and Buffalo Bill?

 It was informative, even though my mind hurt a little afterwards.

Hmmm, I was curious as to how our team would work together because the skill range is varied and also because we have had relatively little time practicing together, not to mention it was going to be our first real match. When I originally read the thread I was very interested because I feel there isn’t enough communication between the comp players and the pub players so this seemed like a very good idea, not to mention that I had always wanted to find out what comp was like but never really could get into it, so this seemed like a good way to try it out with the help of some people who knew more about it to help me out.

 Up: I had this idea in my head for quite a while now and was willing to try it, but I could never quite get myself to do it for some reason or other. I talked to Buff about it, and he was interested. Over the course of an hour or so we talked and thought about it and we actually got the details pretty fast.

Buffalo Bill: Up got me thinking about it and I initially ran with it as a hypothetical situation thinking “nice idea in theory but it won’t work.”. As we continued our conversation though, what started as a suggestion turned into a solid plan quite quickly and I got enthusiastic for it. At the end, I simply said “I’m willing to get this rolling if you’re up for leading them.” to which Up replied he was willing to do so. I created the threads on ETF2L and on the Steam Forums, and we had our first 4 signed up quite quickly with the remaining 2 signing up the next morning.

Up: Once we started getting signups, I created a Steam group for them all. Without either Buff or I saying anything to them, they all added each other and hopped in the same server to get used to each other's playstyles and such. Needless to say, I was incredibly impressed. I really hadn't expected this kind of commitment from the first 4 random people to sign up from the Steam forums. The next day, I came online to Buff telling me straight away that we had our last two players. He also informed me he and another competitive player had spend TWO HOURS walking them through tactics on granary without a single complaint and yet again, 4 of them were in the same server fragging it up, once again without any input from us.