The Fort, in its original form, goes back a very long time. It was originally created under the name Fort Bundy back in the days of the first Team Fortress, which – as some might recall – was a mod for id’s Quake (QuakeWorld TeamFortress). To be honest I wasn’t around to witness the Fort in its original glory. Its founder and main writer was Bundy, who was a respected member of the american TF community and its growing clan scene. To my knowledge the creation of the Fort and its main purpose was to comment on the ever-changing face of TF throughout its rapid development and – with its increasing popularity – to make a stand against the also increasing numbers of lamers and cheaters which started to afflict the game. Bundy used the term of "Player Accountability" to promote the idea that people should be held responsible for their attitude and actions in the online world (and more specifically on game servers).
I’d wish I could tell you more about the first age of the Fort. But, as I said, I never visited it during that time (I hardly knew about TF and even less about sites dedicated to it) and even after I joined the Fort I wasn’t able to secure much information, no matter how much I begged and offered lewd services 
. And sadly it appears all records of the old site are gone 
(If anybody can offer records or recollections of that time I would highly appreciate it)
The Fort went into a period of hibernation some time prior to the release of Team Fortress Classic. The second age of the Fort started a few months after TFC’s release. Soon after its revival Bundy was joined by an old friend from the days of TF, Totentanz, who later took over the reins when Bundy departed from the game and the Fort in 2000.
Totentanz not only wrote editorials and reviews for the Fort, but also created and maintained the “Coalition for TFC Reform HQ”-page which was registering bugs and exploits of TFC and tracked if and to what degree those were addressed by the infrequent patches (keep in mind, this was before the days of Steam and auto-updates).
In the early days of the Fort’s second age Bundy and Totentanz were supported by ben (aka Webzter) as a writer. I was invited to join the Fort a little later, in 2000. And during its final days in 2001 the Fort was reinforced by PainKilleR, a highly respected and very knowledgeable member of the prestigious american clan [CE].
The second age of the Fort lasted approximately three years (with declining efforts on our parts). The Fort shared the fate of many sites and people dedicated to a subject: They either grow bored with it and move on or they grow tired and finally are fed up with the surrounding issues and quit. It was foremost the latter which happened here: Totentanz no longer saw reason to dedicate time and energy to a game which issues Valve either didn’t care any longer or wasn’t able to address. With him leaving I was entrusted to continue the legacy. And a bit after that PainKilleR decided to quit as well, for similar reasons than Totentanz.
I tried to carry on my own, but I was growing tired of the game as well. The increasing amount of bunnyhopping was the final straw which killed my fun of TFC. The inability of Valve to address this major glitch, which completely screwed up the class balance, didn’t leave much hope for the game.
So, just like so many people, I moved on.
With Battlefield 1942 I found an interesting and entertaining hybrid of a more realistic game style and a – though simplistic - class structure. BF2, IMHO, improved upon that concept and with features like the commander-class it did a few things that the original concept of TF2 (as introduced back in 2000) had set out to do.
But then in 2007 TF2 was announced. The new concept was exciting. With all the existing WWII- and modern-warfare-games on the market the prospect of having a Team Fortress which was trying to keep true to its roots was far more interesting than having another BF-clone (no matter how good). And I thought the new style of models and maps was very appealing and well within the spirit of the more tongue-in-cheek kind of game style TF represented.
So immediately I was considering to become active again and to revive the Fort. But sadly this turned out to be not as easy as I thought it would be
PlanetFortress, once home of the Fort and an excellent meeting place for the TF community, had gone inactive (BTW: The site is still accessible. As is the old FORT. Give it a glance, if you feel compelled to see what we wrote about back in the days ). IGN, owner of the site, decided in its infinite wisdom not to reopen the site (why should they, with only one of the most exciting and eagerly awaited games by one of the industry’s leading company about to be released?).
Instead they opted to integrate the coverage of TF into Planet Half-Life. And while I might have had a chance to become part of the PHL staff and hopefully be able to move the Fort there I didn’t thought PHL would be the right place for it. Seeing how little they have done to make TF2 more than a poorly featured subsection I guess I made the right decision.
After that rather disappointing turn of events I postponed any plans for the Fort. TF2 was released and I was busy playing and enjoying it. And while the idea of putting the site back into the scene was never far from my mind I just wasn’t motivated strongly enough to do so.
Just recently, having found a new community to play TF2 with and exchange opinions, the idea became more prominent again. And after a few incidents and with all the rants and complaints surrounding the scout update I felt prompted to give in to the urge to make the voice of the Fort heard again.
So with the (quite extensive and hugely appreciated!) help of r007 I’ve tried to modernize the Fort, giving it a new logo and moving it towards a more blog-based system which is better suited to the Fort’s purposes.
But I hope that despite the new look the Fort still holds true to its original ideas and values, as much as I hope that the previous inhabitants of these virtual walls would approve of what I’m doing here.
In that regard this site is not only dedicated to Honor, Sportsmanship and Teamplay, but I also dedicate it to my former Brothers in Arms: Bundy, Totentanz and PainKilleR. I miss you ...
And thus begins the third age of the Fort 
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