Aaaaaand it's official

I don't care anymore. I ran out. All out of care. I don't know if it's been 50/50 work and personal stuff, or more one than the other. Either way, although I did a decent job before the last 4 weeks of SEOing this blog (by my standards) and having good content, I just don't really wanna do it anymore. I'm not even really excited about TF2. It's like someone is spiking me with Zoloft or something.

Anyway, for those few fanatics who still swing by to see if I have any info, I suggest www.totaltf2.com . They seem to be quite up on things over there, in as far as content, forums and regular updates. I'll be very curious to see if they can compete with whatever is considered the "official" forums for this game, which back in the day, used to be planetfortress.

So since it is unlikely I'll be updating this again anytime soon, let me say farewell, and I'll see you in 2fort.

News on The Medic

One of my sources, a fine and diligent fan of Team Fortress 2 news has confirmed some troubling news. The Medic class in Team Fortress 2 will not have any weapons that spread infection. This is a historical first for this class, and as a huge fan of the class (as should be obvious from my handle) I am very disappointed. The medic will have the health gun (as depicted in many videos, and this screenshot), the bonesaw melee weapon, and a syringe launcher that acts as an uzi strength machine gun, but with no infectious properties. This may be prone to change of course, but as of now, with the loss of grenades and infection, the medic has been severly nerfed as a combat class.

More info in the coming days. Please check back often.

Instant Teamplay Revisited

I just thought I'd further encapsulate my previous article with the following example. Imagine you're playing Battlefield (or Call of Duty, or America's Army, or whatever big FPS you normally play. Except Counter-Strike, - I must admit that the biggest and baddest of them all, at least according to gamespy's numbers - is one that I've never been able to get into. Maybe this example doesn't apply well to them.), and within minutes of joining the public server, instead of the normal immaturity in chat, you realize that people are actually using team message to declare what they are doing. Everyone is doing it. This makes you want to help them out, and since you've got a pretty good idea of what everyone is doing, you can make an informed decision on how to best help the team, even without asking anyone.

That is what I miss in online gaming. That is what all the Battlefield public servers are still missing, despite the developers best efforts. And if the problem isn't exclusive to Conquest style maps, then we should be seeing a return to that level of intrinsic cooperation with Team Fortress 2. That's probably the best I can paraphrase it. Anyway, I felt this was missing from my previous article, but I didn't want to just edit it, as I wasn't sure how many of you would catch it.

Alas, I have more content. First off, I want to hype the new add-on to Sid Meier's Civilzation IV, Beyond The Sword. I feel it's an important product for all of PC Gaming. It appears to be (and I'm paraphrasing Gamespy reviewers here) the biggest expansion for any game... ever. Depending on how you look at it, it is two to five times more content than the original and previous add-ons. And some of that content are public user mods that were streamlined, bug-tested and then packaged with the add-on. Only good things ever seem to happen when PC game companies go the extra mile, and really support their mod community by acting as their peers and not their superiors. Counter-Strike and Team Fortress are other examples of this, as is Red Orchestra, I believe.

So it is noted, that I have my game to tide me over under October 9th. It's fair to assume that since most people who find this are FPS fans first, that they won't find a slow paced game like Civ IV up their alley. Well sorry then, the best thing I got for you is Team Fortress Classic, and you probably have given that a try before now. I'm currently also playing The Godfather to keep my aim sharp, but again, I wouldn't recommend that for everyone. Decent AI though, and great weapons and weapon interface.

It is coming down to crunch time for The Team Fortress War Room. I am keenly aware that even though this site was designed for Firefox, it looks atrocious on IE, and that is unacceptable. I hate CSS with a passion, I really do. Just really tough for me to sift through it, find the right places for things, and learn the proper methods to do exactly what I want to do with it. Hopefully in the next few weeks, I'll hammer that out though, along with finally hooking up with some social bookmarking sites. If anyone can link me to a simple tutorial for that (social bookmarking, not CSS), it would save me time, and I'd really appreciate that.

I also plan to review other sites like mine, other bigger Team Fortress resource sites. Feel free to leave your links in comments. Well, as long as they are relevant. Otherwise, they'll just get deleted, and I'll have to set the blog to send comments to me first for approval.

Team Play First - First on Team Fortress

If memory serves me correctly, Team Play First was a movement created during the waning years of Team Fortress Classic, and then carried over to (and popularized by) the Battlefield Series. TPF was exactly what it sounded like; an organization dedicated to gamers who felt that team success was more enjoyable than individual success. In Battlefield (and I suppose when the majority of the first waves of TFC gamers left for greener pastures), the emphasis on cooperation public servers is basically nil. Back in the hey day of Team Fortress and Weapons Factory, things were quite the opposite, and I think a large part of it was due to the difference between TF CTF (Team Fortress: Capture the Flag), and Conquest Mode.

If I haven't covered it before, Weapons Factory was Team Fortress for Quake 2. Team Fortress originated with Quake 1. It was being designed for Quake 2, when Valve signed up the Team Fortress Developers, with the intent to eventually make TF for Half-life (TFC). In their absence, other developers made a basically identical version for Quake 2. Weapons Factory was this game, and was comparable to TFC. I believe if it weren't for Valve's unparalleled dedication to their fan mods, Team Fortress Classic would never have taken back its fanbase from Weapons Factory.

Getting back to the original topic, Throughout my long history with Weapons Factory, any player with more than a few weeks of experience would immediately be compelled to cooperate with the team leaders, to ensure team success. It was simply an unwritten law. You could play whatever class you wanted, but you could tell what the team needed simply by observing the score, and the flag status messages. Experienced player's would immediately type "I'm on O" or "I'm on D", depending on whether they felt the team needed more offense or defense. Whether their assessment was correct wasn't always certain. But this simple communication meant that everyone knew what the majority of their team was doing, and they could base their decisions on this. And this was in the days before Teamspeak and Ventrillo. Everyone just typed quickly and briefly, that's all.

I deeply enjoyed my years of BattleField and Desert Combat experience. But despite the great features added to Battlefield emphasizing troop commands, enemy spotting, and calling for support, I'd have to say that all of the Battlefield titles (on your average public server) pale in comparison to the nature of spontaneous cooperation and teamplay that Team Fortress fosters. Maybe it's because of the larger map area, or the nature of conquest, or the tremendous advantage of vehicles, or the addition of individual awards and medals. But other than in clan scrimmages and matches, evidence of a fully unified and coordinated team is extremely rare. I had high hopes that Team Fortress 2 would bring a return of this style of play, independently of any player base that formed due to being fed up of solitary-styled play in a team game. It is, after all, named "Team Fortress 2" But since Valve seems to be embracing conquest ticks over flag caps for TF2, that hope is hanging by a tenuous thread.

Shacknews Review, and Cloverfield too.

Hey all. This review of Team Fortress 2 is so utterly wonderful, I feel I've done it a disservice by not working hard enough to find it and link it here. Since I'm an honest type guy, I'll admit that it might not be new to all of you. But still, it is quite good. About 2 pages long and all of it easy to read, and informative.

http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=386&page=1

My favorite part of it is where they confirm that the vast majority of the Team Fortress Classic (TFC) team was retained for the full development process of Team Fortress 2. That may not sound like a big deal, but believe me, it's a fantastic sign that this product will live up to the hype. It might even be worth the wait. :)

I'll expound more on that in a few days, but for now, let me get totally off topic. Some of you might have seen an awesome trailer if you saw Transformers or Live Free or Die Hard in theaters this summer. A trailer that starts out as a party, shot on a hand held camera, and then turns into an exploding New York City, complete with chaos, screaming, explosions, roaring... and finally the head of the Statue of Liberty rolling down the street.

I've been keeping busy by researching it, and keeping the wikipedia article spic and span. Also, I've been a guest columnist at http://projectcloverfield.com , so if you like my writing style, (or good movies) you might wanna give it a try.

Much more as we near the release date.

Team Fortress 2 Release Date : Oct 9th!!!

Thank you so much ://lanothon.blogspot.com/ !!!!!

The Orange Box, including Half-Life Episode 2 (standalone), Portal, and (drum roll.....) Team Fortress 2 will be in stores October 9th. October friggin 9th!!!





It's only been six years or so, since it was first pushed back. I'm only a little excited. I can only speak sarcastically right now... a little.

I know I'm setting myself up here, but I believe that they are going to stick to this one. First off, they have been showing more and more of it in the trailers. Second, this is probably one of those projects that they just wanna get done with - not because they have any clue how popular it's going to be, or because it's sheer superior quality demands for it to reach the outside world
. It's gotta come out soon because Valve is probably sick of dealing with it all the time. I bet at least half of their staff doesn't remember a time when Team Fortress wasn't in development. It just became that project that hung around, no matter how much or how little work was put into it. It just wouldn't die, and it just wouldn't leave the house. Reminds me of a cousin of mine.

Another reason is probably the targeted involvement of Xbox 360. That has become a serious task in development. Now, since consoles - especially new consoles still trying to make those big signature titles that will define the system - make more money than PC titles, there is more financial incentive for Valve to make a bigger impact in the world of consoles, and in that (and only that) way, this is great timing for TF2.

This is me shouting from the rooftops. Team Fortress 2 - October 9th!! Portal - October 9th!! Half-Life:Episode 2 - October 9th!!

Oh, almost forgot - http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/half-life-2-orange-box/796824p1.html

Meet The Heavy

If they can put this much dedication and polish on the entire game, in the actual playing experience, then this game will be scary good.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1zfts_meet-the-heavy-team-fortress-2

Still, trailers usually aren't a fair representation of actual play, so I'll remain skeptical till it comes out, this September or October.