What is TF2maps.net?

TF2maps

    is a forum founded in 2007 dedicated to the people who create and test new maps. Members can share their projects and experiences. 

    

    If you're looking for an active community, this is your place. You don't even have to be a mapper. They host map testing events a few times a week, so you can just hop on their server and have fun, while you help out with testing too!

    They also host an annual event, the 72Hr Jam, which along with its fundraiser managed to survive throughout the years, unlike many others. You either donate at least $5 and get a very cool badge, or contribute something, and get two very dapper badges.

72Hr Participant Badge

2020 72Hr Jam Donator Badge

    There is also a special badge reserved for only the top forum members. The ones that contribute an extraordinary amount to the community. It's also distributed to the top three winners of any Major TF2Maps.net event.

Map Maker's Medallion

Go and visit the site if it piqued your interest. 

If you're more interested in the map testing events, visit the Steam group.

Get to know the sub-communities of Team Fortress 2

    TF2 famously has countless different ways to be enjoyed. Some players play friendly in Casual, some players try their hardest on TF2Center. Some people are taking a little break from stomping complete servers and only enjoy the community hubs. Some are currently writing a paragraph about what other people do in TF2. The point is: our game gives a home for all kinds of people with all kinds of interests. 

    This page is going to serve as a (hopefully) comprehensive list of subcommunities within the larger TF2. I'm only going to include Youtubers' Steam groups if they actively host events there.

Random Acts of Team Fortress 2

- Gifting and Cookies!

A community dedicated to gifting. 

TF2 Maps

- A home for veteran and aspiring mappers.

These guys create and test TF2 maps.

Team Fortress 2 Wiki

- The official resource for the Team Fortress series.
The guys editing the official Wiki.

Fuck YeahTF2

- A blog for anything TF2 related.

Home for the artistic Team Fortress players.

Team Fortress 2 Sub-reddit

-A Subreddit dedicated to Team Fortress 2.

The official subreddit of tf2.

True TF2

-Subreddit dedicated to serious Team Fortress 2 discussion

The home of serious TF2 discussions.

What is Random Acts of Team Fortress 2?

Random Acts of TF2 

    is a subreddit dedicated to gifting and giving. Members can initiate and join giveaways. The sub was created on February 11th, 2013.

    As of right now ( April 2021 ) the community is closing in on 15,000 members. It has seen a significant increase in the last few years. 

    They hold regular events like the yearly April Showers and the Christmas Secret Santa. Participants of these events receive the Philanthropist's Indulgence. 

Philanthropist's Indulgence

    Every month people can nominate a person they think had contributed the most to the community the last month. The winner of this vote is to win the Altruist's Adornment. This month's [POLL] seems to be won by u/Ieatgar.

Altruist's Adornment

    Their Hall of Fame is reserved for the most generous people who give away high value items.

    They also have a Steam group.

Related Kritzkast episode.

Me and my Das Ubersternmann

    

Stormy Storm Das Ubersternmann

    Since my return to Team Fortress in 2018 I've been in love with the Das Ubersternmann. I really, really, really wanted a Stormy Storm one for a long time, but at first, I didn't have enough keys, and then no one would sell me one. I like the look of it, the hat and the effect fit very well together, and when it's painted Waterlogged Lab Coat? A masterpiece. Back when I discovered it, the one on sale was for 46 keys and I didn't have that much so I watched it disappear from the market after a week or two. I kept checking the backpack.tf page every single day until I got fed up and started looking up owners. At that time there were around 10 in existence. After about the fourth owner, one would sell it to me for 28 keys, so in the January of 2019, I got my first Stormy Storm Das Ubersternmann. The hat 

    

    Unfortunately, 5 of the 28 keys were borrowed from my friend. I though I'd put it up for sale again because at that time I had just made my first profitable trades and I was on the roll. It was a dumb decision but I put it on for sale for 33 keys and sold it in four days maybe. It was a mixed feeling but since you cannot advertise something on backpack.tf and not accept the offer when someone actually gives you the asked amount, I sold it. The guy put it on marketplace.tf for $100 and sold it very quickly. $100 translated to about 55 keys back then. A collector bought it who at the time of writing(2021.04.15) still owns it.

    I didn't have one for a long time. I had other hats, but nothing could be compared to this one. One day however someone unboxed a fresh one. It was on backpack for a short while, but I didn't want to give as much as the seller was asking for so I had a buy order for 30 keys. He must've gotten bored because in a few weeks he sent me an offer for 30. I was over the moon. I thought I'd never sell it again, however, as with everything in this world, I had a price. I put it on backpack for 100 keys. Not immediately though, only after a month or two. I didn't think anyone would buy it for that much but someday I weird guy came and offered me 100 keys without even trying to bargain. I checked out his profile and he didn't have anything else. Just the hat and achievement weapons. He seemed to just buy exactly 100 keys and look around backpack for a hat he liked. What I didn't understand is why he chose mine though. At that time he could've easily picked up a nice Amaranthine, Stare from beyond, Ooze, It's a secret to everybody, Cloudy Moon, Frostbite, anything that's a hundred times more flashy than Stormy Storm. That's exactly what I bought with the keys I got :) Sale :-)

    After about a month he put it on marketplace for about $250 and I tried to bargain. I waited until the very last day you could sell items on marketplace and offered him an amount in keys, but he ended up selling it for less than I offered him. Guess he needed money. In fact, he actually told me he needed money, but I didn't think he would have such a big problem with taking the keys and selling them instead of the hat. He sold cash worth 39 keys. At the time of writing (2021.04.14) he still owns it.

    That brings us to my final (as of right now ;) ) one. Two more were unboxed within a week. What are the chances? They figured since one was sold for 100 they wouldn't put it on sale for 39 like the price suggested it, and both were being for sale for 52 instead. Since one was a big trader, not caring about individual hats and the other was a bot, I couldn't even bargain. I ended up waiting until 1 sold and I immediately grabbed the other one. As of right now, ther e is an active price suggestion for 50-53. We'll see if it gets accepted. The hat

Painted Das Uberstermann collection

    This is not the end of the Das Ubersternmann saga though. While I was on the hunt for my dream Unusual, I also had been collecting the different painted variations. Of course, if you're willing to spend enough money, you could easily get all 29 within an hour, but where is the fun in that? I bought all of them, with one exception, off of backpack. The exception is the Color of a Gentlemann's Business Pants, which I painted myself. I've got to say that when painting this hat, you get a bang for your buck. It has a lot of paintable area. 

My complete collection, unpainted included.

  Waterlogged Lab Coat Das Ubersternmann

    Aaand finally, I also started buying up extra ones that have the Waterlogged paint. No reason, I just like them. There is only one which is notable, and the reason is that it was crafted by PyroJoe. I also made a Steam Group for Waterlogged Lab Coat Das Ubersternmann owners, as a joke. If you have one, you can join here:link

 

How To Duel

If you own a Dueling Mini-Game item, you can initiate a duel by equipping it in the action slot and pressing H ingame.

    I have, as of writing this, 790 duel wins. About 690 of which are from Casual. Mostly Kong King and Highpass. The rest were farmed with the help of my friends on a private server. In this Blog I'll tell you what I've found to be the best way to get yourselves some Duel wins!

How many wins do I need?

There are five milestones you can achieve with dueling.

First one is the Bronze Dueling Badge which requires you to participate in a duel. No win neccessary.

Second one is the Silver Dueling Badge which requires 240 duel wins. (Badge level 25)

Third one the Gold Dueling Badge which requires 490 duel wins. (Badge level 50)

Fourth one the Platinum Dueling Badge which requires 740 duel wins. (Badge level 75)

And the fitfh and final one is the max Badge level which requires 990 wins.(Badge level 100)

 Why on Earth would I farm Duel wins in Casual?

    The reason most of my duel wins are are from Casual is because I didn't want to farm all of them on a private server. That way I could've had all the required wins in a single day, but it wouldn't have been such an accomplishment. It took me a few months and it felt really special when I finally got it.

If Casual, which Gamemode?

While theoretically Capture The Flag would be the perfect place to duel someone, because nobody's paying attention to the objective and most people are just DM-ing, the duel only ends when the round ends or one of the players leave so CTF's long round times make it far from ideal. In fact, KOTH is the most suitable one, because a round lasts about 3-5 minutes and it's still mostly DM. I can highly recommend KongKing and Highpass.

If Private Server, how?

You can easily host a server from your own computer. Follow this video. It's how I made it.

Okay, so you've got yourself a server, which map? You can 1v1 on an Arena map so it's not as boring, but it makes it way longer. My 100 duel wins from a private server were on arena_lumberyard. However the most efficient map is achievement_duel. Here is a download link.

Notes

Don't take every duel seriously, becuase you'll go mad. Sometimes you lose and it barely costs you anything. Get over it. Some people will get 1 point and stay in spawn for the rest of the round to win. It rarely happens but if you sweat to win every duel it's an infuriating thing.

Also, Every 10th duel win, you get a random drop and Dueling Minigame. Which contains 5 duels. This means that even if you want 740 wins, you don't need (740/5)=148 Dueling Minigames. Only about 80.

Also, if you leave(or you join a new game) while dueling, you'll get a timeout for 10 minutes.

Also, once you get a higher Dueling Badge, you can't use the lower ones. For example, as I mentioned, I have the Platinum Badge and I couldn't use the Gold, Silver or Bronze ones, even if I wanted to.

111 Team Fortress 2 stuff to do when not complaining about lack of updates/abundance of random crits

    I've made a list of things to do related to Team Fortress 2. When you're bored just pick one and have fun! Some of the points are seasonal and some require spending money, so please pick one that is suitable for you.

1. Play Control Points mode
2. Play Special Delivery
3. Play King of the hill
4. Play Mannpower
5. Play on a trade server
6. Play Attack/Defense
7. Play Capture the flag
8. Play Arena mode
9. Play vs Saxton Hale
10. Play Mann vs. Machines
11. Play Players Destruction
12. Play Territory Control
13. Play MGE
14. Play Dodgeball
15. Play Robot Destruction
16. Play PASS-time
17. Play DeGroot Keep
18. Play Payload
19. Play Payload Race
20. Play on a Jump server
21. Play Surf
22. Play Deathrun
23. Play Slender
24. Play Jailbreak
25. Play Gungame
26. Play Randomizer
27. Play on a x10 server
28. Play Prophunt
29. Play Stop That Tank
30. Play super tryhard
31. Play friendly
32. Play Competetive
33. Play on a community server
34. Play lobbies on tf2center link
35. Play Team Fortress 2 Classic link
36. Play Open Fortress link
37. Play Pre-Fortress 2 (beta yet)
38. Play Team Fortress Classic link
39. Pretend you're a new player
40. Unbox your first hat
41. Unbox an unusual
42. Unbox a warpaint
43. Buy a skin
44. Craft a rare weapon
45. Craft a hat
46. Buy a Vintage weapon or hat
47. Buy a Genuine weapon or hat
48. Craft a Killstreak
49. Buy a Spelled item
50. Get an Australium from MvM
51. Listen to a Kritzkast Episode link
52. Watch a tf2 video
53. Finish the Jungle Inferno Contracker
54. Finish the Halloween Conracts
55. Buy an item that has two qualities
56. Get your first 5 killstreak
57. Get a Godlike
58. Play on a potato.tf event
59. Play your least played class
60. Read a Tf2 comic link
61. Play Demoknight
62. Watch End of the Line link
63. Play Ninjaneer
64. Play melee heavy
65. Buy a strange weapon
66. Upgrade your strange weapons rank
67. Buy an Unusual Weapon
68. Upload a new spray
69. Translate a tf2 Wiki article to your language (if you're native English speaker donate $10.000 to charity) link
70. Make a nice loadout on loadout.tf link
71. Contribute something to the workshop
72. Join a giveaway on r/RandomActsOfTf2 link
73. Get the Altruist's Adornment on r/RandomActsOfTf2 link
74. Join the Secret Santa on r/RandomActsOfTf2 and get the Philantropist's Indulgence link
75. Donate to Tip of The Hats link
76. Donate to 72hr Jam 
77. Watch Expiration Date link
78. Buy a Costume Set
79. Contribute to 72hr Jam 
80. Play on all the official maps
81. Buy a map stamp
82. Duel someone
83. Get yourself some profit by trading
84. Buy a Set
85. Use a gimmicky weapon or weapon combination
86. Play Pogo
87. Make yourself a poster in SFM
88. Play Wall Jumps
89. Try Trimping
90. Try C-tapping
91. Try Jurf
92. Try Sync
93. Use a Secret Saxton
94. Get all the MvM medals
95. Buy a taunt
96. Kick a bot
97. Browse tf2tools.net link
98. Watch the Meet The Team videos link
99. Learn something new about tf2
100. Play on community made maps on tf2maps link
101. Paint an item
102. Buy a Haunted item
103. Watch an SFM animation
104. Try to get the Dueler/Gifting Mann from Gifting Land/ Philateler
105. Watch Team Fabulous 2 link
106. Kill a bot
107. Create a map with the Hammer Editor
108. Make a post on the tf2 subreddit link
109. Play a game on teamwork.tf link
110. Make a new friend
111. Play in a tournament

Team Fortress 2's history of 6vs9 games

    The first time a team of nine mopped the floor with a team of six probably happened during tf2's beta status in 2007 when a few players disconnected and their team got wreckt. However that is not what we're here for today. I'd bet you're more intested in the deliberate attempts to balance a game with six high skilled and nine average skilled players.

Asymmetric Accolade

The medal was added to the game on January 15th 2015. It was awarded to all the people who took part of the 6vs9 events(with the exception of Pros vs Youtubers). 

Wiki page

(sexy isn't it?)

Clash of the steam titans

The first instance of such an event taking place was held on July 8th 2009. Unfortunately I didn't find a video of the event or any information on how it went down, but there is a list of players posted in the steam group. I find it fascinating to dig thorugh archives that probably nobody had looked for over a decade.

List of players

6v9 2:Electric Boogaloo

The second event didn't seem to make a big impact. It didn't even have a poster. However it was undeniably held on January 16th 2010.

Page of the event

Lazy Sunday: European Edition

 

The European Edition took place on June 6th 2010. Unfortunately no video coverage.

Battle of both worlds

The battle of both worlds took palce on June 26th 2010. It's the first 6v9 event that is uploaded to Youtube, albeit the quality is very 2010.

The game

Heavy

 Winter Wasteland

Winter wasteland took place on Jan 8th 2011. It was the first instance where amongst the pros b4nny played.

The game

Tf2 blog post

European Thunder

European Thunder was held on March 6th 2011. It was casted however it's not on youtube, However the Pubstar team's Engie uploaded a few clips form the event.

almightybob's best bits

list of players

Spring Cleaning: Communities vs. Pros

This event was held on May 14th 2011. It doesn't have a banner, nor an uploaded video. However this was under a new team of organizers. This was the first Communities vs Pros event hosted by eXtelevision. The premise was that they would take one person from nine different sub-communities of tf2.

Trailer

Summer Sizzler: Communities vs. Pros II.

Summer Sizzler was held on September 17th 2011. It was a special one, because amongst the players was Robin Walker, the creator of Team Fortress 2.

The game

Cold War: Communities vs. Pros III.

Cold War was held on February 11th 2012. 

The game

Pros vs. Youtubers (teamfortress.tv)

(image is KingRaja's thumbnail of the event)

After a few years of not having these    big 6vs9 events on September 15th 2015 nine       youtubers     took on the challenge of fighting     Froyotech. 

The game

KingRaja's video

Pros vs. Youtubers (Essentials.tf)

Then on August 16th 2017 the last big 6vs9 event was played. Since it's relatively recent the quality is pretty good and it's frankly pretty entertaining.

The game

These are most of the 6vs9 events worthy of mentioning. I left out a few that didn't have a cool poster and wasn't properly documented. However feel free to message me with links,videos or anything that should be added to the article.

Please visit the Pubstars vs Pros wiki page. It doesn't feature a lot of the events but you can check out the player lists there. wiki page

My thoughts:

It has been a special few days going through the old discussions and posts in the Steam groups and it's incredible to me how small tf2 was around 2010. When such an event happened, the whole community came together and enjoyed the game. When choosing players for the Communities vs. Pros events some of the communities had less than 300 members. Today every unknown Easter-European server has more than 1000 members in it's Steam group. Maybe these kind of events should be brought back. Anyways, thank you for reading and keep on playing!

Old forums to visit in your freetime:

SPUF69 - the organizers of the original events: link