A Pickup is like a clannie with mixed players but they get picked 1 by 1 by each team captain (or lately on a 1-2-2-2-2-1 picking mode).  Pickups are a good way to play together in a more organized way than compared to public servers, it teaches you more aspects of competitive gameplay.

TF2 Pickups Format

Team format : 6v6
Class restriction : 1 Medic, 1 Demoman and 2 of any other classes
Server mods : *Crits disabled (No random crits for any class) *Deadtalk Enabled  (Your can still talk with your team while dead)
Maps : Push maps are used most the times.

Those “Push” maps are 5 control based capture points like: CP BADLANDS, CP GRANARY, CP WELL, CP FREIGHT and  CP FOLLOWER just to name some of the popular ones that we use at the moment.

The pickup game when played on push map will have a 30 minutes or 5 rounds limit to win the game, so  if any of the teams don’t reach 5 round wins after the time limit of 30 minutes then the team with more rounds won will be the winner. But in case of a draw after time is up then will be played a “Golden Round” where the first team to win a single round will be winner of the game.

Before joining a pickup you must have played TF2 for a while. If you’re a beginner with TF2 don’t even think about joining a pickup unless you already have played pickups on any other competitive game like CSS OR COD4. Because the others will notice it straight away and start moaning about you. And to avoid any bad experience trying to get into the competitive scene just make sure you know what’s your class main objective on the 6vs6 format. You don’t have to be very good but at least have some experience and in case you need some help with your class playing role click the following link:  “TF2 Competitive Classes Help”

Just beware that you have to be able to play more than one class,  because your captain will select the best choice for each class according to each player class request but you may get a situation where 3 players would like to play scout and if there is no agreement between the players, then the captain will take the final decision to assign the classes for each player based on what he thinks will bring the best balance for the team. Remember that leaving a pickup because you couldn’t play your class is unacceptable and you may get a warning or even getting a temporal ban from the tf2 pickup channel.

Another situation that you may find when you are new to pickups, is that sometimes will be frustrating to be the medic very often without not enjoying the class at all, but don’t give up, it happens and once you get your opportunity to play with your favorite class and the rest of the guys see that you play it well, then they’ll keep in mind that you did well on your preferred class.  Though lately that problem is not happening so often as we having some players keen to medic now and then.

Playing pickups can help grow this community because brings the fun and competitiveness into TF2. If you would like to see TF2 having some good competitions and tournaments like COD4 and CSS have at the moment, then joining pickups is a good start to help this community and to learn how to improve the required teamwork skills at the same time.

So you think you are ready to join a pickup? Then the first thing you need is an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) program to connect to the server where the TF2 channel for SA runs and be able to add yourself to a game. Just to get you started we’ll use mIRC you can download it Here

Ok so now we going to install it and we’ll guide you step by step to setup it up to connect to the TF2 channel that we use for the TF2 pickups in SA.

Step 1   Installing and filling details

By now you should already have clicked on Run application then click install, next, agree, next and so on, then before you click on finish tick the box that says “Run mIRC” and then you’ll see the following:

Fill up the your details, name, email, nickname and alternative nickname. You don’t really have to put your real name or email address.

Step 2   Connecting to Server

Click Connect, then click Servers then look for “Shadowfire” then click on select.

Now you can click on connect after that you’ll hear some beeping then it will connect to the Shadowfire server.

Step 3   Joining a Channel

Now it will pop up a favorites channel box then we going to enter the channel name #tf2 then click on join and after few seconds you’ll be in that channel when you see at list of users online on the right side bar, some chat going on and if a game has started you’ll see the map that is going to be played and the players that already added. Is going to look like the following:

Step 4   Commands to use in channel

Ok now you gonna have to get familiar with some commands to type in the channel just like a normal chat:

!help “will show a list of all the commands”

!game “will request if there is any game in progress”

!add “will add you to the game in progress”

!rem “will remove you from the game in progress”

Step 5   Joining a game

So an admin has started a game, now all what you have to do is !add then you should see your name on the list, then just wait until the gets full and when that happens you’ll receive a message  that will pop out at your left sidebar just under your channels list <GameBotTF2> PLEASE WAIT WHILE I MESSAGE ALL PLAYERS THE SERVER AND PASSWORD
<GameBotTF2> SERVER AND PASSWORD HAS BEEN SENT TO ALL PLAYERS.  TYPE !GETPASS IF YOU DID NOT RECEIVE IT. Make sure you have those pickup servers listed on your favorites on Steam, if you don’t have them here they are:

SGS TF2 PICKUP I SERVER     196.4.79.74:27015

SGS TF2 PICKUP II SERVER   196.4.79.74:27016

IS TF2 PICKUP I SERVER        196.38.180.26:27175

Step 6   Reminder

If for any reason you won’t be able to play the pickup just don’t forget to !rem or quit the program because you don’t want the rest of the players to swear at you next time. Now if the game already started and you cannot play for another reason, just find a sub to cover your spot or if you cannot find it then ask someone else to find that sub for you.

Just stick to the rules have fun and enjoy…  If you need any further help contact us at webmaster@tf2.co.za