Author: aabicus

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A Love Letter to TFC’s Escape Mode

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Author’s note June 2020: I’ve updated the server addresses at the bottom of the article. Both servers are still active, go play on them! As far as I know, “Escape” mode never made it to TF2 in any fashion, so whenever I get the urge for it, I crank up Team Fortress Classic and play with its healthy repertoire of Escape maps available. Also (unlike the TFC proper servers in my area) it still has a healthy playerbase today, which I link to at the end of this article and anyone who wants can go play with. At its core,… [Continue Reading]

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Stranges: Dota 2 and Us

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A lot of games show you your killing stats by default. Originally Team Fortress 2 wasn’t one of them. Then Valve decided they’d like to try making some money and in the Uber Update placed a single key between you and the stat-tracking weapon of your dreams. Like it or not, this was amazingly successful. They followed up on this by adding stranges (and most of the other item qualities) into Dota 2 when that totally-not-a-sequel-to-anything-owned-by-Blizzard became a thing. However, while I don’t play Dota 2 myself (I tried it once but I didn’t inhale) I’ve heard from my friends that… [Continue Reading]

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A Model Modeler

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Chemical Alia has a long history with Team Fortress 2; one of the original winners of the Polycount Contest with her Saharan Spy set, she’s also well-known for her female TF2 models and Dota 2 item submissions. She took some time out of her busy schedule to talk to us! 1. How did you first get into 3D modeling? Have you considered modeling professionally? I come from a fine art background, and I didn’t learn to model until after I graduated from college.  After that, I went to grad school to learn how to model art for video games. I’ve… [Continue Reading]

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The Secret Way Scout Can Still Fire Nails

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All glory to Trebel for this awesome visual bug he found. This glitch could be very old. I wouldn’t be surprised if this existed since the first release of TF2 in 2007. The conditions are simple, but rather unlikely in normal play. 1. Spawn as scout on a map with Resupply Cabinets. Equip the Scattergun. 2. Jump on top of the Resupply Cabinet and reload your scattergun so it ejects a shell onto the top of the cabinet. 3. It’s not a scattergun shell, it’s a nail! What? This is almost certainly a holdover from TF2’s Development, when Scout’s primary… [Continue Reading]

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This Week in TF2 History 

February 23 – March 1st

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Bye February! Nice knowing you! The last week of February has always been a popular time for TF2 updates, possibly because of the natural progression from Winter to Spring leaving Valve feeling optimistic and energized. Or random chance. Who knows. February 28, 2008 saw a reduction in the comically oversized reserve ammunition carried by the Soldier and Demoman. Before this update, Soldier had 36 reserve rockets, and Demoman had a whopping 30 Stickybombs and 40 Grenades. If only the Persian Persuader had existed back then… Tournament mode also became a thing, which disables autobalance and map objectives like flags and… [Continue Reading]

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This Week in TF2 History 

February 16th-22nd

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Pretty tame week here, but there were some highlights. In February 19th, 2008 Valve added the gimmick that dropped weapons restored half of your weapon’s reserve ammo. To be honest, I was unaware this hadn’t been in the game from start. February 16th, 2009 saw one of the largest Stickybomb nerfs that wasn’t the arm time one; reduced damage rampup at close range turned demoman from a generalist into a generalist with a close-range weakness, which really made a big difference. The weapon was also renamed “Stickybomb Launcher” instead of “Sticky bomb Launcher”, as far as I know the only… [Continue Reading]

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This Week in TF2 History 

February 8th – February 15th

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Love is in the air! At least, most other places. Not much love happens in Team Fortress 2 around this time, unless you count hundreds of ring messages cropping up and blocking crucial elements of your custom HUD. Yes, I’m talking about the Something Special for Someone Special, that $100 ring that made Cracked’s list of The 5 Most Absurdly Expensive Items in Online Gaming. It was added to the game on February 14th, 2012. Also added at that point was the Snapped Pupil, which is actually the byproduct of a troll post on Facepunch that a modeler ran with.… [Continue Reading]

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