CommunityFortress

This is a re-post of my guide from July 25th, 2010. I will try to re-post this every once and a while (after updating it with any changes) in order to guide our new visitors to the important websites of competitive TF2. Read on, newcomers...

I have seen a ton of new faces in the North American competitive TF2 community the past few months and I thought that it would be good to write up a post that details all of our site's features in addition to some other important TF2 websites. I know that new players always feel bogged down with information upon joining an online community and as a competitive site that wants to reach out to these players, it's our role to make it easier on them.

In terms of CommFT, our home page shows all of the articles that our team of contributors produce. The top button that is labeled "Podcasts" contains the two podcasts that shdwpuppet and Bill created for the site earlier this year (shdwpuppet will be taking up the project again at some point in the future). Likewise, "Videos" simply functions to sort articles by whether or not they have a video in them; we thought this single sorting button would be useful to highlight eXtvs and MOGs. The button labeled "Mentor Program" is just what it appears to be and links to a separate URL that hosts the section of our forums devoted to our mentoring program (the "Forums" button links to our vBulletin forums installation, which has the aforementioned Mentor Program as a subsection). Likewise, the "Comp TF2 Wiki" button links to a separate URL that hosts our competitive TF2 wiki. If you make an account on the main site, this account can be used to log in to both the forums and the wiki. The final four buttons on the top bar are pretty self-explanatory as well - the "PUGs" button links to TF2Lobby.com (you can read about pick-up-games for more experienced players HERE on our wiki), the "Demos" button links to TF2Demos.com, the "About" page explains the purpose of CommFT and the people who make it all happen, and the "Submit" button allows people to submit content to the site.

We also have a number of accounts on social networking sites with which we can stay in touch with our readers. I link all of our articles on Twitter, we have a YouTube Channel, and our admins post updates on our Steam Group. Of course we also have an RSS feed built into the site if you are old school like that.

Beyond CommFT, there are a ton of websites that you should have bookmarked. Most deal with North American competitive TF2. I will list them below:

TF2.com - The blog run by Valve where they tease us about updates and promote community events.
TF2 Steam Forums - The forums run by Valve where tons of people, mainly pubbers, argue about crazy TF2 ideas and the like.
TF2 Wiki - A general wiki run by some community members. Refer to it for general questions about TF2...our wiki is focused exclusively on competitive TF2.
TF2 Reddit - The TF2 reddit section that's run by a bunch of TF2 players. A great place to find weird and important stuff alike.
TF2 Lobby - A great place to play pick-up-games without needing IRC or using our website's built-in IRC applet.
CEVO - The first league to host TF2 events in North America and the largest league running today. Has divisions for both upper-tier and lower-tier teams.
ESEA - An exclusively pay-to-play league that is focused more on the upper tier of competitive play but has an Open division for skilled low level teams.
TWL - An always-free league that is focused more on the lower tier of competitive play.
UGC - An always-free league that focus on low/mid teams.
ESEANews - A TF2 news site run by ESEA with great articles written by rk and others.
Ubercharged.net - One of the oldest general TF2 blogs.
MantaEngie - Some crazy dude.
Friendly Fire Podcast - An older TF2 podcast.
Kritzcast - A TF2 podcast that's popped onto the scene recently.
TF2 Strategy - A website focusing on the strategical aspects of both competitive and pub play.
eXtelevision - eXtine's new website that highlights all of his work.
Apocalypse Gaming - A community of ladies and gents who love 6v9s and havin' fun.
TF2TV - The top casting site in competitive TF2 at the moment.
MyGamingEdge - Coverage of both North American and Euro league play.

Outside of North America, these are some important TF2 websites:

VanillaTF2 - A good place to read European competitive TF2 news and gossip in English.
AsiaFortress - Asian league and community TF2 site.
ETF2L - The biggest and oldest TF2 league in Europe.
TFPortal.de - A German TF2 website.
OnlineGamer.se - A Swedish TF2 website.
TF2Sverige.se - Another Swedish TF2 website.
TFortress.no - A Norwegian TF2 website.
TF2.fi - A Finnish TF2 website.
TFHQ.fr - A French TF2 website.
teamfortress.pl - A Polish TF2 website.
TF2Portal.es - A Spanish TF2 website.
2fort.cz - A Czech Republic/Slovakia TF2 website.
TF2.ro - A Romanian TF2 website.
TF2.co.za - A South African TF2 website.
OZFortress - The biggest league in Australia (also a community site).
TF2Connexion.fr - A boss French TF2 website.

And of course...for all your server needs...Apoplexy Industries or EO Reality! Let me know if I missed any good websites, regulars.