Halloween SCREAMshot Contest

Winners!

First I’d like to thank everyone that entered the contest, we had some really good entries and I was really impressed with everyone who took the time to enter! Second I’d like to thank our 6 volunteer and/or coerced judges! The 3 admins – Jinx, Akita and Austin, and the 3 players, Aznhax, Munch and Rev. Browning, you guys were great!

So now! The winners!

First place – This one really blew folks away with how well it was done, it was very smooth and had a good Halloween vibe to it. First place goes to MASTERFURRYX’s Halloween Engi and Crew!

Second Place – Following that one, the judges decided on Otterwolfy’s scary pyro image! They really liked how simple and to the point the image was, with the good backdrop and the fact that we all know pyro is just a scary monster anyways.

Third Place – Finally, our last screenshot winner goes to Rikes! The final screen shot was selected because…well…what do you think when you see this? Nicely done Rikes, the judges found your image funny enough to be our final winner!

All in all, we had some great entries, but these folks stood out the most to our judges. I want to thank everyone who took the time to enter, you all did great. If folks become more interested in events like this, we might try again come December or New Years!

If you were one of the winners, please contact me at your convenience on Steam, you should know me, I am Sekh, you can find me on the admin list if you haven’t already so we can get you guys your prizes!

Because I was so happy with everyone’s entries though, I would like to extend the prizes to everyone who entered, at least some form of “door prize” for entering. So if you submitted an image at all, shoot me a message on steam!

For those interested in seeing all the entries, I’ve created a rar which can be found here.

TFP July 2010 Newsletter!

Special Anthrocon Edition!

Totally not written by a lazy burd who takes forever to get out newsletters.

I don’t want to hear it! Nope! Lazy scribe burd has been in other countries! He has an excuse this time! I swear that I was working the entire 2 month period that there hasn’t been a newsletter, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! Yep. That is my story and I am sticking to it. So here we are! This is a pretty special newsletter full of all sorts of shiny things, so lets jump right in folks!

 

TFP Goes to Anthrocon!

 

So for those of you that haven’t been paying attention to the Fandom for the last few months, Anthrocon, the largest Furry Convention in the world ended last week. For the second year in a row, TFP has held its annual meet and greet in the Zoo area where everyone gets to chat it up and the admins get to ramble incoherently for an hour, as well as get information on what people think of the servers in person. This year we had a total of 30+ people show up for the meet! That is more than an entire server! We had more people at our little group meet up than many of the panels that are actually in the con guide, and there were many people that couldn’t find us so who knows what the total number might have been! We even had to steal a second table to fit everyone. I have a roll call sheet here that I did after we all wandered off, I apologize if I miss your name, I did this while standing in line for 2’s show so I was playing it by ear at this point.

1. Witchiebunny

2. Jinx

3. Nikkyvix

4. Sekh

5. Cmdr Lost

6. Nynnja

7. Pathia

8. Python

9. Draganta

10. Gavyn

11. A.M. Zinthos

12. Cyferwolf

13. Sivren

14. Matty

15. JousterL

16. Zenny

17. NightFurson

18. Pikacha

19. Tersi

20. Kit Kima (Spy!) (Also probably spelling error!)

21. Stryker

22. Artie

23. Shaggy the Batbear

24. Longshot Coyote

25. Kajiwolf

26. SpyingRedFox

27. Kasi the Kittejackal

Special Guest appearance by Aurafox disguised as Nynn’s phone as well!

I know I missed a few people, once again I apologize, it was kinda crazy that day. Here is the only known photo to still exist of the epic TFP Meet up, We apologize for the blur but it was taken by a scout as they sprinted through our lines yelling need a dispenser here….or something.

Next year we are trying to plan something really big and amazing, so stay tuned and as we get closer to that we will release more information on that! It is gonna be awesome!

Among other AC news, TFP member Hali of Firpine a.k.a Matthew Ebel gave an awesome concert on Friday, as someone who hadn’t heard him until then, I highly recommend checking out his webpage, his music is just awesome!

I also only got about 5 admins totally lost in Pittsburgh for about 10 minutes while trying to drive us somewhere! Navigational Burd will find the way! Eventually…..

You folk quite literally wore my voice out by the end of the con, I kept meeting more and more TFP members while wandering around and everyone was just so awesome that I eventually talked myself hoarse, way to go! :P

A final nod to the awesome TF2 Cosplayers that were running around the con, I know a good number of them play on our servers and they had some pretty awesome costumes done, including Radar Nocturn complete with a ginormous solid metal wrench that I have no clue how the Dorsai let him keep that damn thing, but it was awesome none the less. Hope to see all you folk next year!

Upcoming Server Events:

TFP’s Second Birthday and the Return of TFP Fun Server!: Due to popular demand both by players at AC and by you folk on the forums, we have realized just how much people enjoyed the old #3 screw around silly maps server. Also, we realized just how popular server #5 was with its more relaxed atmosphere. To this end we are bringing back this server style permanently by the end of this month in celebration of our second birthday! 2 years and 3000 members have to be right about something! In terms of rules this server will have a complete custom maps list of normal style custom maps (Think maps such as frontier, chaos, etc), as well as its own selection of wacky maps, such as Pacman! The server will have a shorter map timer, a maximum of 20 minutes per map, to alleviate being stuck on maps that a majority of the players may or may not like. We encourage people to send us map ideas, no matter what type of map it is, we promise to look into it for addition to this server. Plugins and the like are subject to change by the time the server comes out but for the most part this should be the final setup. Hope you guys enjoy the new server, expect it by the end of the month!

July Map Removal: Normally these map posts are about testing new maps, getting all sorts of shiny new toys for people to play with on the servers, but this month we are running things a bit differently. It has come to our attention that there are a number of maps on the server which are either just terrible, or kill the server due to their complexity or large download size. To help alleviate this the admin staff have constructed a list of these maps which we will be putting up for vote later today and it will last for 2 weeks, at which point the polls will be reviewed by the admins to see which maps stay and go. I won’t post an entire list here but if you wish to participate in the poll, and honestly, TFP as a whole, you will need to register on the forums at so that you can take part in things like this. The poll will be broken up into two phases over the course of two weeks or so to give people time to read both of them and vote.">so that you can take part in things like this. The poll will be broken up into two phases over the course of two weeks or so to give people time to read both of them and vote.

 

The first poll can be found Here

 

Upcoming TFP Server Changes:

Counter-Strike Server: Due to demand from a large number of players, we have just finished the creation of our very own Counter-Strike Source server! Currently it is running normal CSS, with the full stock map list as well as a large number of custom maps. For the time being we will be running the default game mode, if there is enough demand for it, or the normal game modes do not garner enough players, we will look into the addition of a Gungame server at a later date. For now, enjoy the CSS server safe in the knowledge that annoying children and complete jackoffs will be swiftly hit in the face with a giant damn hammer. Normal server rules apply in terms of behavior of course. We are accepting ideas on the map rotation so if something is terrible and we have it, or awesome and we don’t, friend me and toss me a line!

IP for the TFP CSS Server – 208.115.128.10:27043

Removal of the Bad Company 2 Server: Sorry folks, the server simply wasn’t getting enough use from TFP members to warrant us continuing to pay for it at the ridiculous prices that EA charges. We will have to see what the future brings in terms of this game, if they release dedicated servers which do not require us to RENT the server from them, and instead allow us to host it on our own boxes (of which we have many of excellent quality!), then we will see about bringing this back.

TFP Public Service Announcement:

So we have implemented a new system of Banning people. I tell you all this because the system uses this lovely automated program which allows for players to check our bans, why bans were made, and most importantly, allows for players to mail us demos using the “Submit a Demo” button! This means no more juggling your demos of speedhacker and trying to upload them to other websites for us to review! Now you can simply submit them directly to us with the button at the top! We hope people will record more demos now that its much easier to send them to us!

Among other things that you can do with this handy tool is if for some god forsaken reason you have received a ban from us, you can protest the ban using the “Protest Ban” function. We hope all of you folk never have to use this button, especially after I met so many of you and you were all so very cool, so lets not ruin that ^_^.

Sourcebans can be found Here

 

Members of the Month

The award goes to..

Every single member who came to AC and took the time to either go to the TFP meet up or find a TFP admin/member and talk with them. Seriously, you guys were awesome and made that convention amazingly fun, hats off to all of you.

Honorable mention

On a personal note, This is my newsletter and I can honor who I want! Honorable mention goes to JousterL and Zenny for teaching me how to Rave at the AC dance. Next year I’LL bring the glowsticks!

 

Mailbag Posting

 

Nothing new here, only thing of note in the last month was someone on 4chan attempting to troll the group by posting our the IP addresses for our servers to get them to harass us. Some 200 posts later, we’ve now come to the conclusion that a majority of that thread are all closet TFP players due to the inordinately large number of people telling the original poster to go to hell, or admitting they’ve played here from time to time. Enjoy the servers you guys! :P

 

Banned.

 

Lovely! For one month out of the year when all the Admins are away getting totally drun—I mean, doing our damndest to improve the servers for all players while at AC…. noone does anything extraordinarily dumb and gets themselves hit with a hammer! I love you guys!

The Future!

 

The future seems pretty bright for all of us here at TFP, we had an awesome turnout at AC (Twice what we had last year), the servers are always full of cool and new players, to the point that we’ve had to once again expand our server list to accommodate all of you! Once again I’m probably driving the tech admins up the walls with my constant running around like a madman going, “And then we can try THIS game! And what about a plugin that does THIS on THIS server!” but then again, two years and none of the servers have exploded for any extremely long period of time, so you guys better thank all our tech admins for keeping this place so nice and clean, they don’t get enough credit as is! Again, any ideas you guys have for games, server plugins, group events, advertisements, art, drinks that Sekh can consume at his next con, maps, articles for the TFP website, and anything else along those lines please drop me or one of the other admins a line and we will see what we can do! Hopefully Augusts’ newsletter doesn’t take so damn long right? :D

– Sekh the Scribe Burd.

P.S. I wasn’t aware so many of you guys read this! Thanks for all the nice things you said about it, I never know if people are reading them since its so hard to get comments on it ^_^.

TFP January 2010 Newsletter!

Hey folks, I’m going to try to put together a newsletter for the servers every month full of interesting and new things that are coming to the servers, upcoming events, and a mailbag of….things, that we in the admin staff receive on a daily basis. So lets get things started!

Upcoming Server Events:

Prophunt: Prophunt has been rescheduled for the 22nd of January through whenever people get tired of it. We had to cancel it because Valve pushed through the WAR update during our scheduled time. The instructions will be posted in a separate post, though you if you don’t know what prophunt is, I suggest viewing this video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9U8q30UmeU

Upcoming Server Changes:

We will be experimenting with a new Scramble plugin for the servers to alleviate the problems with stacking as well as people forcing autobalance through spectate. The new plugin will protect certain classes from being force autobalanced (such as medics with an ubercharge), and will not allow players who are autobalanced to join spectate until the round is over. Players will still be able to rejoin a team if it will not force an autobalance, the plugin will simply prevent players from spectating to force autobalance.

The new plugin will use varying parameters on how to determine if the server needs a scramble, as well as allowing for the traditional vote of “stt” (now named scramble) to prompt one as well. Once we have the plugin working, it will be pushed through to all servers. Comments on how well it works are encouraged on the forums.

Players of the Month

So I’m trying a new thing, just to give a thank you to players who have helped us out here with various problems with the servers. Player of the Month awards will go to people that help the Admin staff out with things, not to ingame skill.

First award goes to..

Biofreak – For catching 2 speedhackers and numerous trolls on demos and providing fast reports with steam ID’s to the admin staff. Good work keeping server #3 safe for the rest of the players! Thanks from all of us in the staff!

The second award goes to…

iller – For finding and documenting a new STT plugin which we have been searching for desperately to try and alleviate complaints of stacking. This is the plugin being tested later this week! Thanks again iller! Hopefully it works out properly!

Final award for this month goes to…

The crew of players who helped us test the extremely boring STT plugin that we have implemented across the servers. Thanks a lot everyone that came, especially Snippo, Articwuffeh, John the dragon and Devvy for staying to the final anti-climactic ending.

Mailbag Posting

So we thought it might be funny to drop some of the mail we receive from permabanned players and the stupid things they say for you guys to see some of the stupidity we have to deal with. Names have been removed where applicable.

So first up is something that was posted on the forums. After being banned for trolling for 3 or 4 months constantly, someone decided they were going to “get 4chan to destroy us”. As ridiculous as this is, we kept an eye on it and beefed up server security. Eventually he came back to post the link to his 4chan thread with the line “Say goodbye to TFP”. This is the final page before it was deleted from 4chan and he was banned for 3 days. Enjoy.

http://www.thefurrypound.org/asdasd/185761458.htm

Next is a reply we got from someone who thought it would be fun to spawn camp the doors on Steel. Now keep in mind, that the poster was simply warned, and after they continued, kicked a single time. No tempban, just kicked and told to read the rules. This was the results. I’ll post pieces of it as they were something like 12 pages long. This was the first PM we received, complete with commentary by myself to clear up some things.

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j158/ … ntary1.jpg

After a long bout of arguing over…really nothing, he was eventually banned for his trouble of being completely crazy. This was his final reply though, saved for your enjoyment.

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j158/ … ntary2.png

He was subsequently banned and indeed made good on his promise to use proxy servers to circumvent his ban and harass the forums…for all of 5 minutes before we turned on Administrators must approve new members at which point he cried foul and disappeared.

The Future!

So this final section is for things we are looking into for the future. Things in this section are VERY much in the planning/idea stage. They might never work, we still have to see if the coding in TF2 works, or talk with outside sources on how to get them to function properly, but I thought I’d share with you guys some of our ideas we are working on.

Player Teacher Nights Return!

We are bringing back player teacher nights at the request of some of our members! We will be scheduling a Scout night, hosted by Zareth, and a Pyro night hosted by our moderator Austin for players to learn interesting and tricky strategies involving these classes. Any other players interested in hosting their own teacher nights are encouraged to send either Sekh or Jinx a private message regarding the class in question. Times will be posted later this month.

We are looking into various things to make our servers more interesting. Some sort of TFP tournament is a current idea for our more competitively oriented players. Also looking into the possibility of a TFP DJ system for a player to guide music on the servers (optional of course, we wouldn’t force our terrible music choices onto people that didn’t want them.) We are looking into the possibility of a Randomizer event in the future, as scouts with miniguns is just too funny to pass up. I’m personally looking into the creation of some sort of dropbox for suggestions/ideas that people might have as well. We are also looking into expanding TFP into new games, anyone with interesting server ideas drop a line on the forum post that will be linked to this newsletter!

Finally, our biggest planned update is something we aren’t prepared to reveal until we are sure we can get it to work, but the member helping us is just too excited and so I thought I’d throw out some teaser images. BEHOLD!

Anyways! That’s it for this month, drop us a line here if you like the Newsletter and want to see it continued next month.

- Sekh the Scribe Burd.

It’s that time of the year again!

We’re bringing Halloween fun back with the Haunted Pound 2009! Witness the return of last year’s server-filling TF2 Sourcemod hit: Zombie Fortress! Now with more maps to play (and more stable server behavior this time! Really!). Starting this Friday evening and ending late Sunday evening, Three TFP servers shall be password-locked for you and those you invite, specifically hosting ZF and any maps we add for the event.

Additionally, one of the most unique payload race maps you will ever play has manifested itself into our playlist: PLR Animus, by Kim “Fearlezz” Nehzaty.  Exclusive for this event, getting this cart to move will need you to put some serious SOUL into it!

And as a little bonus for our alternative gamers, we’re bringing our Left 4 Dead servers back up for a special darling custom map favorite of TFP’s admins:  Night Terror! Spend an evening of fright in the Director’s twisted haunted house and movie recreations; the D’s just DYING to drop you in!

Our Killing Floor offerings are also still live.

It’s gonna be one hell of a night! See you there!
———————————————————–
CONNECTION DETAILS:
Team Fortress 2

• TFP #2 CST US  (password: zombfurries)
• TFP #5 EST US Members-Only  (password: zombfurries)
• TFP #6 EU  (password: zombfurries)

Left 4 Dead
To find our server when searching, you must first enable and open your game console, then enter this key whenever you start Left 4 Dead:
sv_search_key tfp
Server password: zombfurries

Killing Floor
Normal: 74.93.99.237:7707
Hard: 74.93.99.237:27032

———————————————————-
THE STUFF YOU MIGHT WANT TO PRE-DOWNLOAD:

Haunted Fortress 2009 Map Pack -  (61MB 7zip)  If you want to have the maps pre-downloaded before the event, use this link.  (Alternate Download Link )

Night Terror -  (141MB RAR)  You will need this if you wish to play the Night Terror custom campaign.