All things must come to an end - usually by circumstances beyond one’s control - and it looks like it’s that time for me, now. As of late, my work schedule, which wasn’t exactly relaxing and liesurely in the past, became a slice of Hell. We’re at 40% manning, and are no longer a 24-7 shop. I’ve gone from my comfortable graveyard shift, to one that runs 6am to 2pm, Eastern time. As you might guess, going to bed at 10pm, to wake up at 4:45am puts a serious cramp in my social life - even one online. Add to that, my marked decline in interest in playing TFC, or being involved with it, brought me to make some hard choices.
1. I’ve completely dropped any and all involvement in the TFC Reform Project. I’ve given control to it in total to Warthog. A combination of the lack of time and a complete lack of interest in the game has brought me to this point. My disgust with several glaring loopholes being exploited to hell that completely DESTROY the spirit and intent of the game and it’s design - by what I thought at one time were fine, outstanding members of this community. For those of you who can’t read between the lines, I’m referring to the "BunnyHopping" techniques that allow a HWGuy to outrun a Scout, and still fire his Chaingun. And if you want to argue semantics as say I don’t know what I’m talking about by using that particular term AGAIN, frankly you can blow me. See that motto up there, the one that says "Dedicated to Honour, Sportsmanship and Team Play"? Use of that exploit violates the first two completely - there is NO grey area in that call, folks. If you say otherwise, you’re lying to yourself and your fellow players. Add to this the last patch, which Valve led us here to believe was slated to fix many of the recurrant and annoying bugs - instead only offered the new models. Oh, yes - and a couple of minor bugfixes - oh joy. Some of the models I do like, some I don’t. That’s not the point. I started the TFC Reform Project as an effort to get Valve to fix, and continue to maintain a mod which at that time was SERIOUSLY broken. I managed to achieve most of the former, but since Counter-Strike has become their Golden Goose, I doubt we’ll see much action on maintaining TFC any time soon.
2. I’ve handed command of The Fort to my valiant comrade in arms, Teatime. Like my mentor, comrade and personal idol in things TF before me, Bundy - I will be retiring into a capacity where I reserve the right to pop in and add my own blend of madness to this place - but expect it to be a rare thing, indeed. Perhaps it’s good that my appearances will be rare indeed, because my few posts on the forums as of late seem to have brought up some bad feelings, as to the content of them. Oh well, as the French would say, "C’est la guerre". Teatime has my full confidence that he will be able to continue his sterling job of trying to beat some semblence of manners and intelligence to the uncultured ones that plague the game that is TF. I’m hoping that you continue to give him support and insightful feedback to this game that has captured the minds and spirits of so many of us for so long.
3. I’ve decided to discontinue ANYTHING to have to do with TFC, or any other Half-Life engine related mod. Last week I deleted Half-Life off my hard drive, and I haven’t felt so good about doing something in a long time. John, Robin and the other guys that came up via the QTF/QWTF community - I have all the respect in the world for you guys in particular. You people gave me a game that literally took control of my free time, and gave me countless hours of enjoyment. In particular, I offer a heartfelt salute to David Sawyer, the genius mapmaker that brought us what I consider to be the best damned TF map EVER made, CanalZone. Some of my most fondly remembered playing time was me hunting Ramirez thru his own map, on the legendary CTSNET 24/7 CZ server (bows head in a moment of silence for it). He made me earn every frag I managed to get on him, and usually was the one ending up respawning. But I managed to learn that map completely as a result of those great times. Thank you, Ramirez - I will treasure those memories for a LONG time.
However, in this modern age, when you do move to the model of having to make games for a living, rather than making them as a labour of love - some things must by necessity be sacrificed. TFC started off as a great idea, and one that excited me - as something to hold us over while the legendary TF2 was being made. But time has passed, and passed - and still nothing. I still remember hearing TF2 would be out for Quake2 - and I bought that for the express reason. I played less than 20 hours of Quake2 online, because I only bought it for TF2. I played the single player game to kill time while I waited - but it never popped up. Then Half-Life came out, and it was said TF2 would be made for that. I’ll be truthful and admit I bought HL for it’s own merits as much as for being able to play TF2 with it, and in the beginning HL, and then TeamPlay HLDM, and finally TFC was good - but them it was announced, TF2 will be it’s own game. So we wait more. And then They scrap the old engine, and start again - so we wait more. Then they start using TF2 technology in TFC, and TFC get’s turned into a guinea pig. That wasn’t so bad, and I agreed with the idea, initially - until they made two decisions which started my slow decline into hatred for this game. First, they put in the netcode which penalizes you for having a good connection. Getting lag-sniped, and infected or backstabbed by HPB’s who were literally across the room from me - if it was reality, imagine being knifed from over 6 metres away - started to made me get disgusted. Then the decision was made to make it "easier for someone to get right into the game" - which I term changing it into AOL-Fortress. Couple that with the decline of the Moral Fibre of the so-called "community", and it caused me to no longer want to be involved in this game. At least the TFC players are head and shoulders above the cesspool that is the vast majority of the CounterStrike community - that’s a really good mod, ruined by it’s players. I only enjoyed it when I played either at LAN sessions, or on passworded servers with friends I knew would NOT be arseholes.
I’ve always held the opinion that if you usually do something to have fun, and it’s no longer fun for you - don’t do it anymore. So, finally having freed myself from my self-imposed obligations to the community, I’ve taken my own advice and left it behind. GG Valve, but in my opinion, not only are you no longer the only TF game out there, you’re not even close to being the best of them. When I need my TF fix, I’ll continue to play Quake3Fortress or Unreal Fortress, but presently my game of choice, when I get the time to actually play, is Tribes2. As for my thoughts on TF2 - I’ll sum it up like this: "I’ll get excited over it when I see a demo or the finished product. Until then, I could care less." Only so many times you can jerk people’s chains, before they start to not care anymore - and I’ve hit my threshold.
It’s been real, it’s been fun - and occasionally it was really fun. But not in my recent recollection. If you want to get hold of me, my email will be there. You can find me playing usually on East Coast Tribes2 servers, and sometimes on a Q3F one. But usually I’m just working. To all the true believers out still there - keep fighting the good fight, while the flame still burns. Just don’t let get to the point where it starts to take you down - learn when to walk away before you become bitter and spiteful.
Totentanz out. *salute*
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