Gamethread Oct 11

By Shamus Posted Sunday Oct 11, 2009

Filed under: Notices 39 comments

Hey, how are things going on the Twenty Sided Team Fortress 2 Server?

It’s been a while since I was in. This is not a reflection of Team Fortress 2, which remains as fun as ever, but is a byproduct of my intense and self-destructive Champions Online habit. (Yesterday I managed to level a character from concept to level 15 in under five hours. His name: Dr. Arson. His story: Not yet written. His powers: Probably in need of nerfing.)

Wonderduck asked:

Are the Twenty-Sided TF2 servers still active? Are headsets required to play? How much do you tolerate rookies?

Headsets are not required. I would say about a third of the players participate in the voice chat. The servers use “alltalk”, which means everyone can hear the voice chat of both teams. (If you want to do teamwork, you can use text chat, which can be sent to team-only.) This keeps the game lighthearted and banter-ish instead of competitive and rant-y. The server exists, in my mind, to welcome rookies to the game and be a friendly playground where they can feel free to suck for as long as they like without anyone giving them a hard time. I consider griefing or being hostile towards newbies to be a ban-worthy offense. There are players of all skill levels in there, and the game itself is built to try to make learning as painless as possible. (But this is a multiplayer FPS, so do expect to die a lot while learning.)

In order to preserve this atmosphere, I’ve added a couple of mods (who will hopefully say hi in the comments) in order to make up for the loss of Rutskarn, who has gone on to college. (Sniff. They grow up so fast, don’t they?)

Just a reminder that you can donate to keep the servers running. I took the second server down, as it was empty 99% of the time, so now we’re just supporting Lawful. It’s only $30 a month, so don’t go crazy or anything.

 


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39 thoughts on “Gamethread Oct 11

  1. Nick C. says:

    Maybe I’ll check the TF2 server out. I’ve never played an online FPS with a sane group of people.

  2. Wonderduck says:

    Thanks for answering! I suspect there’ll be a Wonderduck sighting soon…

  3. Jazmeister says:

    Everyone should try out a German server once in a while. Not that there aren’t Germans who are also dicks, but the atmosphere tends to be really great and light hearted. Just, you know, incase this one is stuffed full. Plus, you’ll end up learning German!

  4. [d20]Teldurn says:

    It’s been such a long time since I’ve logged in….and yet I still keep my [d20] tag in my name here. I’m guessing for loyalty and/or nostalgic reasons.

    Maybe I’ll get back into it sometime in the future. But I’ve been busy whittling my queued game backlog down to something relatively current. Just last month I finished Halflife 2 and Portal for the first time ever. (Yeah, I’m this guy.)

  5. Spider Dave says:

    Yeesh, I haven’t played in ages. School sucks all your time away.

  6. Pickly says:

    Are there any ways ot contact them if they are not been in game? (There have been some times during the day, usually early afternoon, when a lot of iffy people start coming on the server.)

    Also, are the servers set up to add votescramble? There have been several times when a votescramble would come in useful.

    (Other than that, I’ve been playing more rarely, but still enjoy the game if I get on at the right time.)

  7. I attempted playing TF2 a couple of times on the Twenty-Sided server. I didn’t have a good experience.

    First, everyone thought I was a guy (I’m a middle-aged woman – I don’t have a ‘girly’ voice. But I’m NOT a dude!)

    And second, when I asked questions, I was either ignored or treated with mild disdain (“What you mean, you can’t figure out where to go? It’s obvious.”)

    I wasn’t having fun, so I gave up.

    Leslee

  8. Simply Simon says:

    I still log on to the servers from time to time, but I’ve managed to get caught up in playing dwarf fortress recently, which apparently is quite so addicting…

    I’m going to try to log in some more this following week.

  9. OddlucK says:

    Leslee, it sounds like you got in on a couple of the rare (in my experience) moments when the D20 server(s) were overrun by the hyper-competitive, unforgiving, unfun “hardcores” who usually only come in one at a time and leave when they see the servers are more light-hearted than they like.

    Sorry about that. :( Maybe give it another go?

  10. Davie says:

    I’ve played the Twenty Sided server, and it’s quite nice. We never seem to have any gigantic fools there, and everyone’s relatively civil to one another. I’d encourage others to play there as well. Thanks for the update, Shamus!

  11. Rutskarn says:

    Leslee: Yeah, sometimes there’s just a bunch of jerkish pubbies on there, but if you catch it when there’s Twenty Siders on there it’s apples.

    I’m going to have to get back into this, although I might have to reset my admin rights–I think they went down when the server did, most recently (about a week ago?).

  12. Glad to hear things are still going well for Lawful… you guys just might make me use that TF2 game that’s been collecting virtual dust since 2007 :)

    On another note, is there an organized D20 presence in Left 4 Dead, or is that a more informal thing? I’d love to cut my teeth w/ some D20 folks on that one if I ever got the chance :)

  13. Shinan says:

    I started replaying TF2 just last week and I’ve had some fun joining random servers. I should try out the Twenty Sided server even though I’m Euro so I suppose there’ll be lag?

  14. Rutskarn says:

    Shinan: You ain’t got time to lag. Lag don’t hurt.

  15. [d20]thegrinner says:

    @Sean w/o an H: I believe there’s a server on L4D (there was last time I checked anyway, which was admittedly a while), though it seems to gravitate to either full or empty. Several of the fun folks with [d20] tags you see in Lawful also have L4D and are will jump in if messaged.

  16. Xed says:

    I’ve been meaning to play a couple of rounds of TF2 for quite a while now, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I just started university, so I obviously don’t have all that much free time on my hands. Still, glad to see that the server is still around, I’ll definitely jump in some time this week (or next weekend). My ping is just terrible (I’m from Germany), but it’s still usually more fun than any other server I’ve found so far.

  17. Neil Polenske says:

    Yeah yeah yeah TF2, but what about the L4D love? I’m on all the time and that server is either not up or empty. Wuzzup wit dat?

    This group more than any looks like it’d be the type to tackle the Silent Hill campaign.

  18. RedClyde says:

    I have the same problem, Neil. Well, I’m not on as much as I used to be, but I still love me some L4D. Feel free to add me: http://steamcommunity.com/id/redclyde .

    EDIT: I just checked, and the d20 server isn’t showing up on my list… At the Gametracker site, it says the server’s status is Alive, though. Hm.

  19. Randy Johnson says:

    Mr Butterwolf here, to answer a few questions: Europeans can typically play on Lawful with a ping averaging 100-150, which is within the acceptable range that TF2’s lag compensation works with, so you should have no problem.

    If you need to contact one of the Moderators, you can add us to your steam friends:
    FFJosh
    Rasonj

    @Leslee: If you ever ever want to play again and for some reason that DOES happen, send one of us a message. I would much rather a new person learned to like the game, than an old person liked playing on our server.

  20. Jabor says:

    Heh. I was getting ~250-300 ping to d20:Lawful, and I still found it enjoyable.

    Though it does limit my class selection somewhat.

  21. RodeoClown says:

    I play from the Antipodes, and the server is still fun – despite the 2-300ms ping.

    I have been there when the un-funs jump on, but I haven’t seen it too often.

    High ping pro-tip: Soldier is useless, you can’t judge rocket jumps. Pyro is awesome – because you can spray-and-pray and still occasionally kill people.

  22. hevis says:

    I haven’t played TF2 for a while now.. My friend finally managed to persuade me to try LOTRO trial.. I played 2 nights and ordered the game. Now it’s sucking all my free time. At some point I found a little bit of time to test that new l4d campaign.. I must say I really enjoyed it.

    As an european player, my ping on 20sided TF2 server is something between 150-200. That really is bad, as I like playing sniper but large ping makes it difficult.. Usually I end up playing as pyro or scout instead.

  23. Pickly says:

    Thanks ot Randy Johnson for telling the moderators.

    @ Leslee:

    I’ve found that evenings (U.S. Central time)tend to be better than afternoons or other times, although this does depend on the randomness of who’s on.

  24. someguy says:

    so, yeah, uh, basically… what about L4D?

  25. Manni says:

    Well, I just installed TF2 the day before yesterday. I find it kinda scary to noob around on a server when there are only 3-4 players per team. Feels like dragging the whole team down…

  26. Phase says:

    I hate lagging. I hate servers. I hate L4D. I hate TF2.

  27. Jonathan says:

    The map rotation is still not back to the original-it cycles through all maps. Right now it’s on CP Fastlane.

  28. Neil Polenske says:

    Phase, is there anything you don’t hate?

  29. Phase says:

    Y’know what I don’t hate? I don’t hate Vests.

    And I LOVE lasagna!

  30. Rosseloh says:

    I still haven’t taken the time to check out the d20 server… Really need to get around to that. Of course being terrible at TF2 doesn’t help me at all.

  31. Kdansky says:

    It was offline every time I checked last week :/

  32. Neil Polenske says:

    “Y'know what I don't hate? I don't hate Vests.”

    For the longest time, I thought he said ‘I don’t hate this.’ as is to say he was actually rather enjoying the zombie apocolypse…which is just as much in his character now that I think about it.

  33. Rainmaker, the gray says:

    The server was great. Actually, due to Shamus bringing up the server, I got the game in the first place. And it was the first time I played an online game at all!! (I am 25, so…)
    Right now I only paly occasionally on the server because I am in LatinAmerica and a ping of 200-ish is not to good to, let’s say, snipe.
    Anyway, the server (people in it most of the times) is real fun, and alltalk is better for newbies and light gamers.
    Thanks, Shamus!!!

  34. GnomishMight says:

    For all you far-away laggers, I have two words for you: “play engineer.” You might lag, but your sentry sure won’t!

    Besides, with a teleporter up, you don’t need to shoot people to be credit to team.

  35. CaptSpudGun says:

    Sounds like a cool place to play. Will it work for XBox 360 or PC only? All the Xbox servers I’ve been on are just full of noob haters who get really annoyed when you are a lamer like myself – though it is fun to listen in on the chat sometimes – some people take their games waaaay to seriously.

  36. GnomishMight says:

    Sorry, but to my knowledge you can’t join a PC server through XBox Live.

  37. lochok says:

    Umm – I know this is a late post, but is the server down? I’ve been looking since I got TF2 a couple of weeks ago and it never seems to be online

    1. Spider Dave says:

      I haven’t seen it in a while, and I have looked.

  38. Terrible says:

    Ditto lochok. :(

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