I’ll have to give these stupid hats one thing: It’s really a step towards individualizing players. As such it can help you to recognize not only a class, but also the person playing it. Which, if you know that player, gives you a better chance to anticipate moves and actions. So, for example, you may recognize if the Heavy you’re approaching is not a slow lumbering noob, but a skilled and experienced player, probably with a medic in the tow.
That kind of personalization of appearance is (...)

Firstly, I’ve no wish to belittle the genuine work carried out by the Fair Trade Foundation, who are indeed trying to better the lives of genuinely poor working communities around the world. To paraphrase from the Fair Trade Foundation’s description of their work: “Fair trade contributes to sustainable development for workers and their communities. The Fair trade movement empowers citizens to campaign for an international trade system based on justice and fairness”
Now, quickly to the point (...)

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Last week I felt grizzled. Today apparently I’m supposed to feel primeval. If thinks keep proceeding that way I’m probably “ancient” by the end of next week.
On other news: First hints on the engy update. Note carefully the words “coming soon”, which translated from Valve time could be any time between today and kingdom come.
Still, apparently it’s drawing near. I assume end of may could be a realistic estimate.
As a devoted engineer I feel excited, but of course at the same time am dreading (...)

"Hire Date: September 18, 2007”, it says. That was when the beta was released for those pre-ordering the Orange Box. I remember I was very excited. I had seen the first trailer (which at that point even showed a game slightly different than what we got eventually, still featuring grenades and a 2Fort bridge without a roof) which promised a TFC with a much cooler design. Apparently Valve had discarded any plans for a more realistic military-oriented game as initially planned. Which after all (...)

Up-to-date news. Exclusive information. High quality journalism. Competent commentary from within the heart of the community.
Okay, not quite.
I freely admit my plans were a bit more ambitious when I set out to revive the Fort a year ago. I was hoping I would be able to keep a closer look at the general tendencies and opinions within the community. I also thought I would be able to make the site a bit more known and attract a wider audience. I guess my plans and expectations were (...)

I assume you know the Highlander-format for TF2. If not I suggest you read the excellent article of Junta on the topic first. Still, in a nutshell: Highlander consists of a team of nine players, with each class represented exactly once.
Highlander would probably be an amusing obscurity if it wasn’t one of the few deviations actually used in the competitive scene besides the common 6vs6 format. This fact has promoted the Highlander mode to a legit format and has been bringing it increased (...)

Chess is a tactical game two players play with each other.
Each player commands 16 game pieces, composed by 6 different types of pieces, each type with different abilities. The main difference between the different types are their ability to move (direction, distance) and their ability to capture an opposing piece.
The most restricted piece is the pawn, able to move forward (and only forward) one square in a straight line and he can only capture other pieces sitting diagonally in front (...)

If you look in your game browser you will see quite a number of servers set to a max of 32 players . Now we all know that playing with 32 people on a regular Valve map is basically just spam; and kills are more based on being hit be a random projectile than by the skill of a player.
Now we can scoff about those stupid admins setting up 32-player-servers all day long (perhaps even set to fast respawn *facepalm*) and look down on the players actually submitting themselves to such an (...)

An acquaintance of mine had a streak of bad luck:
A few months ago he found his Steam account locked; obviously hijacked by another person. How this could have happen is not quite clear. Even with support of Steam it took a few attempts for him to regain complete control of his account again.
Now just a few weeks ago Steam informed him that his account was banned as result of cheats used.
Now I’m in no a position to determine if aforementioned acquaintance did indeed cheat himself or if (...)