10 top tips from Team Fortress 2 professionals

Team Fortress 2 isn’t entirely about hats. Somewhere within is a game you can be good at. Some people are better than others. TCM Gaming have been sitting at the top of nearly every professional TF2 gaming league for the past few years, and as such they’ve managed to accumulate a vast sum of knowledge on how to not get yourself stabbed in the back, headshotted, blown up with a cluster of stickybombs, or killed by a sentry gun over, and over, and over again. They explain exactly what to do, and what not to do. Check it out:

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TF2 Competitive Problem

Hey guys I was just reading some TF2 news and found this awesome article written TCM Byte and how he sees the current situation of TF2 competitive and the factors at play that have not let TF2 competitive community get much of support to grow as much as the others top competitive games. Check it out:

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Valve Releases a Massive Holiday Update

Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM)

  • Improved sv_pure:
    • Materials / Models / Sounds / Animations are more comprehensively protected.
    • Switched from CRC to MD5 hashes for stronger per-file validation.
    • Fixed some issues between custom files and server whitelists over level changes.
  • Added HL2:MP to the list of dedicated server games when starting a server via the Tools tab in the Library

Team Fortress 2

  • Added Medieval Mode, a game mode where players are restricted to using olde weapons.
  • ‘Your Eternal Reward’ changes:
    • Spies can now change their disguise weapon via ‘lastdiguise’ while using ‘Your Eternal Reward’
    • Already-disguised ‘Your Eternal Reward’ Spies are no longer forced to switch to displaying the melee weapon when they make a kill
    • Spies no longer play speech lines when making a kill with ‘Your Eternal Reward’
    • Sentries no longer track ‘Your Eternal Reward’ Spies after they backstab someone
  • ‘Natascha’ changes:
    • Spin-up time increased.
    • Slowdown-on-hit effect is reduced over distance.
  • Added ‘The Medi-eval Medic’, ‘The Hibernating Bear’, and ‘The Expert’s Ordnance’ item sets.
  • Added new weapons: ‘The Claidheamohmor’, ‘The Back Scratcher’, ‘The Boston Basher’, ‘The Fists of Steel’, ‘The Amputator’, ‘The Crusader’s Crossbow’, ‘The Ullapool Caber’, ‘The Loch-n-Load’, ‘The Buffalo Steak Sandvich’, ‘The Brass Beast’, ‘The Warrior’s Spirit’, ‘The Candy Cane’, and ‘The Jag’.
  • Added 20 new hats.
  • Added a prototype item testing map, and associated functionality, for contributors to test their work. Further details in an upcoming blog post.
  • Spies can now see TargetID’s of players and objects regardless of their own disguise status.
  • Fixed some speech lines continuing after the speaker changes class
  • The Spy ‘Sap Auteur’ achievement now increments in cases where the Spy was the assister in the building destruction.
  • Fixed the arrow burning effect getting stuck on if you changed class in a respawn room with your arrow lit.
  • Fixed a Flamethrower bug that allowed players to rapidly fake the Pyro’s airblast effect.
  • Throwing the Jarate or Milk now returns you to your previous weapon, instead of your Primary.
  • Added leaderboard to track duel wins.
  • Added ability for players to donate money directly to the creators of their favorite community maps.
  • Increased backpack size by 100 slots.

Check out the Australian Christmas update here


You’ve done me proud, boys.

I’d just like to take this opportunity to write up this short article and give a big shout-out to the local TF2 players for the perseverance they have shown during the low-activity period due to exams and holiday plans. After seeing the pickup channel bustling with activity, getting up to its usual pace of game-making on regular 30- to 40-minute intervals, and even getting two pickups running at the same time, as well as seeing a lot of new clans slowly starting to form and converge on the match servers, I feel it’s safe to say this low is finally at an end.

Another thanks goes to TF2.co.za and ISgaming for making a lot of effort to get more players informed, involved and enticed for what local TF2 has to offer this upcoming pre-season leading into 2011. With the build up of activity at this rate, we could have the most active season local TF2 has seen yet.

So give yourselves a pat on the back; you’ve earned it. And good luck for next season; it should be a Hell of a ride.