Skeletons, Vampires and TF_Zombies, oh my!

Spooky scary skeletons!
Spooky scary skeletons!

“Medic, it’s not Halloween.”

I know, but since it’s January and everyone’s depressed, I thought I’d write something about one of the lesser known TF2 commands. The TF_Zombie is a sight to admire, and there’s some rather cool stuff about them that you might like to learn about! Plus, you liked the skeletons on Helltower, right? Yeah, I thought so.

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On Ponies and Mercenaries

If there’s an aspect of the TF2 Community that our blog has overlooked, its the extremely prolific video-making community. Several notable SPUFers are also Youtubers, and today we’re interviewing someone from the “mashup” community, where TF2 aspects are combined with media from another franchise. 2007excalibur2007 is well known for his “sentence-mixing”; taking TF2 audio and juxtaposing it over visuals from other media, especially the My Little Pony:Friendship Is Magic television show. ————————- Tell us a little about yourself; how you got started, how you got involved in your favorite fandoms, or how you crafted your own image in the mashup… [Continue Reading]

The Importance of Weapon Balance

Weapon balance is, undoubtedly, one of the most pressing issues in Team Fortress 2, after hats and trading. It seems like either Valve can hit the nail on the head and fix a broken weapon, or they flop around like a fish, trying hard to accomplish something but ending up exactly where they were. Today, I’d like to discuss the importance of weapon balance and how to aide Valve. If I had to gamble my money, I would say that you, at one point or another, had to play against a broken weapon. Regardless of whether it was the Pomson,… [Continue Reading]

Some Weapons with Surprising Synergy

Ever since Valve released the Axtinguisher, weapon combos have become a huge part of Team Fortress 2. From the Sandman/Cleaver to the Jarate/Bushwacka, Valve has released a number of weapons obviously designed to go together, and for that reason they do so very well. But sometimes there are weapons whose synergies are not so obvious, who were clearly built for widely different roles, and yet somehow they can combine to create a lethal combo to the keen player who can see untapped potential. Here are a few I’ve discovered throughout the years. 1. Beggars Bazooka / Righteous Bison The Beggar’s… [Continue Reading]

Trade Maps

Trading servers are a dime a dozen. They’re dime-a-dozen back-stabbing scumbags… No, wait, sorry, I was thinking of Spies. But there are lots of trade servers, from trade_plaza to trade_minecraft to trade_rawr to trade_achievement_idle_noglass, and so on and so forth. While some of these maps, like trade_minecraft_realms, are wonderfully made, with all sorts of pretty things, randomized spawns, health kits in convenient places  and stuff, most trade servers are incredibly simple. Two spawn rooms and a room in the middle connecting them.

Boring, eh? Well, let’s go deeper…

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Advanced Doomsday Strats (and some glitches)

Since my last article on sd_doomsday, I’ve played the map a lot more, and learned a lot more about how to maximize your presence and worth on the battlefield. I’ve also learned a couple of glitches with the map, and since I don’t have enough of either to justify its own article, today we’re killing two monkeys with one stone. Strat 1- Best rollout: This is, in my opinion, the most optimal way a single player can spend the opening minute of the round to help his team: sticky-jumping over to the enemy intel door and controlling it before they… [Continue Reading]

Force-A-Nature: The Superior Scattergun

The Force A-Nature is a peculiar weapon. Seemingly underpowered, people constantly set it aside in their backpacks to collect dust or be converted into metal, but does it deserve this kind of treatment? I say ‘No, of course not!” The Force-A-Nature is different weapon, like the Quick-Fix. You have to think differently. Think mobility and disorientation. The FaN trades off six shots and a little damage for two shots, more pellets, knockback, and faster firing speed. At first glance, you may think “Why on earth would I use this? Six shots is much better than two, and knockback is a… [Continue Reading]

Explaining Ubercharges to Patients

"I HATE IT when an Uber goes wrong!"
“I HATE IT when an Uber goes wrong!”

“So there I was, Uber ready to go, and the Heavy spinning up his minigun. I tell him, I’m about to deploy my uber, get ready. It’s time to go. I deploy my ubercharge, and the stupid Heavy fails to kill ANYONE!”

I bet that sounds pretty familiar to most of you Medics out there. I too have been in the same situation, and I have spent a long time trying to work out how to fix it. Of course, results my vary, as some people understand Medics, others don’t.

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The New Popper-Cola Combo

Let’s face it: The new Soda Popper is pretty sweet. The new movement mechanic activated from hype that causes the Scout to have up to 5 jumps after getting off the ground has a far better purpose than farming situational mini-crits. It still does good damage without the mini-crits. I believe the weapon was buffed rather than nerfed, since there still isn’t a damage penalty that doesn’t allow you to land two good meatshots identical to the Scattergun’s damage. But besides that, what we’re overlooking right now is how it affects the old Popper-Cola Combo (Soda Popper + Crit-a-Cola of… [Continue Reading]