Team Fortress turns 25 today.

[Hadrian Hardrada Cicero]

The series that started off as Quake mod to a hat-trading economy simulator economy with wacky Australians and Ubercharged Russians with a minigun has turned 25 years old today as of August 24, 2021.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q9aCNbQNNw


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[reynad5150]

The series that started off as Quake mod to a hat-trading economy simulator economy with wacky Australians and Ubercharged Russians with a minigun has turned 25 years old today as of August 24, 2021.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q9aCNbQNNw


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Good vibes,

The half life version of this mod was my inspiration for becoming a video game developer when I was younger. Happy Birthday TF!

 

[TamagoSuki]

This thread gave me a little bit of a fright, I was afraid I was getting old. I AM getting old, but not TF:Classic levels of old I'll sit comfortably in my TF2 level of old for a few more years.

 

[Vaporweeb]

And just about a week after Quake's 25th! I had no idea it was made so soon after Quake.

 

[Hadrian Hardrada Cicero]

And just about a week after Quake's 25th! I had no idea it was made so soon after Quake.

It's origins predates Quake a little as the developers of the mod, Robin Walker and John Cook, said that the name "Team Fortress" was inspired by a map the two and some people who would get together to have LAN parties called "Fortress.wad" which the map of the wad would later become the (in)famous 2fort maps seen in many FPS games including TF2.

This guy here does a better job at the whole thing.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZHm1MVCW8Y


along with this video here too.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRtiGDtrxhU

 

[Rikstah]

The series that started off as Quake mod to a hat-trading economy simulator economy with wacky Australians and Ubercharged Russians with a minigun has turned 25 years old today as of August 24, 2021.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q9aCNbQNNw


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Wasn't old enough to play this mod, but I do remember my older brother and his mate talking about it.

Can't believe it has been this long.

I miss the 90s and early 00s.

 

[Shrug]

I never really got into the original Team Fortress, but TF2 is one of my favorite games of all time and really defines my internet experience from 2008-2014. I have some really fond memories of playing on community servers for hours, spouting the shitty memes from it with my friends, and watching those weird Gmod animations. It's interesting how a Quake mod evolved into something so wacky, and created such a fun (and sometimes incredibly annoying) community.

 

[Rikstah]

I never really got into the original Team Fortress, but TF2 is one of my favorite games of all time and really defines my internet experience from 2008-2014. I have some really fond memories of playing on community servers for hours, spouting the shitty memes from it with my friends, and watching those weird Gmod animations. It's interesting how a Quake mod evolved into something so wacky, and created such a fun (and sometimes incredibly annoying) community.

One thing I really miss about 00s gaming was the community server / gaming forum vibe. People forget that PC gaming was a niche thing back then and nowhere near as mainstream as it became in the next decade.

I wasn't big into TF2 but I did play the other source games (CS and DOD source). Spent hours chilling with people and got to know alot of them really well (long MSN group chats lol).

Makes you sad / nostalgic that certain aspects of gaming will never be the same again.

 

[dimensionalist]

I don't quite remember the first one. It started as a quake mod?

 

[punishedgnome]

I am so god damn old.

 

[Hadrian Hardrada Cicero]

I don't quite remember the first one. It started as a quake mod?

Babby.

Yes the original Team Fortress game started out as a mod for Quake, it has a fascinating history too. Eventually in 1999, Valve they bought the rights to Team Fortress and went on to developed TFC along with first Counter Strike Game (Counter Strike 1.6) as a mean to showcase the Goldsrc engine's, which was a heavily modified quake engine, capabilities and to advertise the hammer editor to startup game developers who were looking to use an engine to make their own levels or games. Rest is history when 2007 rolled around.

 

[Materia]

I've got like 8k hours in this game, interesting to see shrugger here btw

 

[Mеченый Яков]

@Mamisu how does it feels to be as old as team fortress?

 

[vale-aroma]

TF2 is the last bastion of an pvp game that hasn't devoted itself entirely to hypercompetitive e-sports culture. TF2, no one cares if you run trolldier, demoknight, pyroshark. Are they sub-optimal? Of course. But no one cares, because no one's under the delusion that their gameplay today is going to be the deciding factor between whether they get to the majors next season. If you play off-meta in Valorant, CSGO, LoL, etc, you'll get kicked, flamed, reported. There's no community servers, no wacky alternate gamemodes, no one friendlies or taunts or has fun with experimental strategies, no one talks about random shit in voice chat. It's just sad.

 

[Hadrian Hardrada Cicero]

TF2 is the last bastion of an pvp game that hasn't devoted itself entirely to hypercompetitive e-sports culture. TF2, no one cares if you run trolldier, demoknight, pyroshark. Are they sub-optimal? Of course. But no one cares, because no one's under the delusion that their gameplay today is going to be the deciding factor between whether they get to the majors next season. If you play off-meta in Valorant, CSGO, LoL, etc, you'll get kicked, flamed, reported. There's no community servers, no wacky alternate gamemodes, no one friendlies or taunts or has fun with experimental strategies, no one talks about random shit in voice chat. It's just sad.

Here's the thing, most TF2 players want to get into community. This is an actual fact. The problem is due to the way Valve comp is set up and most of the competitive scene is hosted by private community servers. At this point it's fair to say that TF2 is the Melee of the class-based shooter genre (I refuse to call it a "Heroes shooter") since Valve clearly has no idea what the community wants, and this led to awkward moments where a large number of casualfags blame compfags for ruining TF2 for many number of reason I cannot go right now and look up. Point is that there is a strong demand for competitive TF2 but Valve is too incompetent on how despite it hosting various competitive scenes in other games. This guy here best explains the whole issue.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-8PPlw4eTA


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WVxtZR1Pp4


On a side note, would anyone be interested in making a TF2 general thread? I know not many people don't play it but considering we have an official steam group with clan tags and all, I wonder if anyone's interested.

 

[vale-aroma]

Here's the thing, most TF2 players want to get into community. This is an actual fact. The problem is due to the way Valve comp is set up and most of the competitive scene is hosted by private community servers. At this point it's fair to say that TF2 is the Melee of the class-based shooter genre (I refuse to call it a "Heroes shooter") since Valve clearly has no idea what the community wants, and this led to awkward moments where a large number of casualfags blame compfags for ruining TF2 for many number of reason I cannot go right now and look up. Point is that there is a strong demand for competitive TF2 but Valve is too incompetent on how despite it hosting various competitive scenes in other games. This guy here best explains the whole issue.

I've spent a lot of time looking through these videos/posts, and all of them miss the central problem of orienting your focus towards competitive - culture. All of the competitive players balance changes are good ideas in a vacuum, but competitive is not a door that can be opened lightly. When you allow competitive culture to take root in a game, you open the door for that culture to take over the entirety of the game. The game becomes either the competitive mode, or practice for the competitive mode. The culture becomes locked in a cycle of optimization that only ratchets towards further metagaming & e-sports. No one will play 12v12 anymore, because it's too chaotic and isn't good practice for 6s, people in casual mode will bitch and moan about their teammates running demoknight because it's hurting their ability to practice soldier pushes. You can't just have competitive mode and then let the rest of the game be as is. Making the game competitive & optimizable opens the door for that spirit to dictate the culture, and this culture trickles down. CSGO allows community servers, but how many are there compared to TF2, especially when you compare them proportionally? CSGO has a "casual mode", but it's anything but. LoL, Valorant, and DotA 2 don't even have the bare minimum CSGO allows. The point of defending bad balance, or not wanting competitive focus was never about the changes themselves - it's the fact that once you give competitive culture an inch, it takes a mile, and now you're getting screamed at by a 14 year old because your less that optimal play is ruining his ability to grind his ELO score. This video covers it very effectively, how this cultural shift took place in WoW:

[media]
]View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKP1I7IocYU[/media]


I don't want competitive to stay away because I think they're wrong, or their balance changes will ruin the game. But this is where all the TF2 youtubers' focus on weapon balance changes and removing random crits is missing the forest for the trees. I want competitive to stay away, because the fact that TF2 is a bad game for competitive is the reason we still have a game that's a middle ground between Garry's Mod or VRChat & any other multiplayer game. It's enough of a real game to have actual gameplay, but it still has that spirit of comradery and freedom that comes with a lower stakes environment. I was in skial 24/7 harvest the other night and saw a group of half a dozen players make friends over their shared love of the phlog. Another night recently, I was in trade_plaza and someone was talking about all the fights he got into over the course of his childhood. You don't see that in other games, because other games don't have the kind of leeway that lets players do that.

 

[№56]

I've been playing a lot of TF2 Classic over the past week or so. It's really fun. I haven't played the base game for over a decade, so I'm not up-to-date on all the community drama surrounding balance changes, bots, random crits, etc., but from what I can tell TF2C does a great job of addressing all that by rolling everything back to how the game was at release plus some quality-of-life-changes. Some of the post-release weapons, like the Sandvich and Flare Gun, have been included along with almost all of the post-release maps, and there are also some additional game modes like VIP (from the original Team Fortress) and a four-team arena mode that I haven't tried yet. There are no hats included whatsoever and the lootbox/trading mechanics are all gone.
It's not a perfect solution to TF2's problems but I would highly recommend it to any fans of the game. The community is active and surprisingly non-sweaty for a mod that's trying to deliver an "old school" experience. It was very easy for me to jump in and start playing again despite having been away from the game for so long.

 

[Deleted member 3373]

TF2 is the last bastion of an pvp game that hasn't devoted itself entirely to hypercompetitive e-sports culture. TF2, no one cares if you run trolldier, demoknight, pyroshark. Are they sub-optimal? Of course. But no one cares, because no one's under the delusion that their gameplay today is going to be the deciding factor between whether they get to the majors next season. If you play off-meta in Valorant, CSGO, LoL, etc, you'll get kicked, flamed, reported. There's no community servers, no wacky alternate gamemodes, no one friendlies or taunts or has fun with experimental strategies, no one talks about random shit in voice chat. It's just sad.

This is why I've given up on the gaming scene. TF2 is something I had a lot of fun with but video games today rely way too much on being competitive experiences. The multiplayer scene is ruined because any hope of socialising is gone. Oh well. I'll never forget the time I killed a spy whilst it was invisible as the sniper.

 

[h00]

This is why I've given up on the gaming scene. TF2 is something I had a lot of fun with but video games today rely way too much on being competitive experiences. The multiplayer scene is ruined because any hope of socialising is gone. Oh well. I'll never forget the time I killed a spy whilst it was invisible as the sniper.

The surface level gaming scene is for sure like that, but theres tons of fun social games that are still there. Basically any FPS with voice chat is still social (War of Rights is a great example).
But yeah you do have to dig through steam or subscribe to some curators to find them, but fun casual social games are very much still present, and you can still find full servers.