aabicus

I write articles! I also make games, release videos, voice act and lots of other cool things.

How to Come Up With Ideas For New Daily SPUF Articles

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The Daily SPUF loves publishing articles written by members of the community! TF2 is such a multi-faceted game that no one individual can master or even care about all of it, so having a fresh new perspective on our beloved game is important for the blog’s coverage. But a lot of people write to me saying that while they’d love to and want to write an article, they can’t think of what to write about! Writer’s block can hit all of us, and I’m no exception. But here are some common themes that routinely produce great articles to get those… [Continue Reading]

“Mirrored Maps” event results!

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That event was, in my personal opinion, one of our best yet! Ultimately Team 1 swept in a 3-1 victory, losing only Lwobtsud to a ninja backcap by team 2 spy John Caveson. But the real point was to try some mind-bending maps that challenged the hundreds of hours we collectively have on the classics, and I saw more than one person bump into a wall during the event. Kip‘s streams of the event are posted on Youtube for those who’d like to rewatch the event. Thanks Kip and KobeKun for casting the event! And if you missed it, don’t… [Continue Reading]

Why the Ball-Kicking Boots Is My Favorite Cosmetic

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My two favorite cosmetics are Archimedes and Giddeon, but if you ignore the birds then my favorite wearable has to be the Ball-Kicking Boots. Generic-looking, yes, but they spawn a soccer ball for your team. In my opinion this trumps any possible visual bonuses from anything else. A free soccer ball has a whole host of uses, almost none of them combat-oriented. Here are some opportunities no other cosmetic will give you. 1. Give your whole team something to do while stuck in spawn. If you’ve played TF2 for any amount of time, you’ve probably gotten bored while confined to… [Continue Reading]

Cross-Updating Announcements: An Apology

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A reader and writer of our blog, Sn❽wman, just informed me that because I didn’t update the 10v10 Mirrored Maps blog announcement like I did the SPUF announcement, he had no idea signups had come and gone. I feel really bad about that, I just didn’t know we had readers who weren’t also SPUFers. In the future I will make sure to update both announcements with up-to-date information as to the status of signups and other aspects of events like these. (Note that its unlikely I will ever have people sign up through the blog; you will probably need to… [Continue Reading]

10v10 “Mirrored Maps” Tournament

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===============IMPORTANT INFO========== Where: The SPUF Server When: Saturday March 22 at 6pm GMT Rotation: pl_retawdab, cp_tiplevarg, cp_lwobtsud ======================================= It’s been a while since we had a SPUF server event, so for this one, we’re keeping it simple. 10v10 Highlander on these mind-bending takes of your favorite maps! Best out of three wins, but even if one team wins the first two we’re doing the third, because half the fun is trying these maps out! Rules: -damage spread and random crits disabled -It’s highlander+bootieknight 10th player. Bootieknight player must equip a shield and booties (Why are we having him? So two… [Continue Reading]

Analysis of the Persian Persuader’s Health Regen

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If I’m not using the Ullapool Caber or Pain Train, I’m using the Persian Persuader. Health regen is a great thing to have on the Demoman, and the Sticky Jumper synergies surprisingly well with the Persian because it doubles the health return you get from ammo. (I’ve mentioned this before). But I never really understood why. Finally, I got around to doing some testing to figure it out, and I learned that the Persian derives its health return from the amount of primary and secondary ammo on the wearer. (For these purposes, the Booties are considered a stock grenade launcher… [Continue Reading]

Beloved Daily SPUF Redirect URL Shutting Down, Millions in Mourning

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If our fair blog were a TF2 playstyle, he’d be a roamer. A while back we switched from spufblog.com to blog.spuf.info, and left the old URL as a redirect that aabicus was paying 18 dollars a year to keep running. Well, it didn’t seem that useful so we’re closing it down. If you don’t interact with the “spufblog.com” URL, this won’t affect you, and really this won’t affect the visible blog in any way. So if you need to, check and update your bookmarks; the old URL was on the first page of the SPUF megathread for some time.

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]

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]

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]