So we had our second DayZ event, once again run by TFP Member Reverend Browning, with assistance from some other folks. Since I was not able to be present for this event, I asked him to write up a recap for everyone interested in how it went. It’s a bit long, but a good read. As always, we encourage more folks to come to our events, they always turn out ridiculous, even when they don’t go as planned! Such as this one! Enjoy the recap folks.

————

While the latest DayZ Meetup was not quite what I expected, everyone involved said they had a really good time. We ended having a full roster of 12, plus myself (which I stupidly forgot to screencap) and I was amazed that we only had a single casualty the whole night (due to friendly fire, no less).
That being said, there were many things that went wrong on Friday, and most of them were my own fault. First, while I was able to eventually get everyone’s game up and running who showed up to the event, and we are glad that everyone was able to make it, it was at the expense of everyone else who was on time, resulting in what someone lovingly dubbed “BarnCon 2012″.

Shortly after everyone was finally assembled, I began experiencing constant connection problems. Here, I really have to thank Caigan, Purplecat, and Bunnys (sorry if I got the name wrong!) for providing a measure of leadership for much of the event. By this time, everyone was rather restless from the festivities of BarnCon, and, instead of the stealth-heavy, tatical northern approach I had envisioned for the event, I suggested we instead set our sights south to Chernogorsk, the largest city in the game, and burn it to the ground. Here, my compatriots did not disappoint.
After picking the city clean of medical supplies and military hardware, we struck out for the nearby town of Balota, and it’s loot-rich airstrip and military camp. It was on the way to these that the second error I had made came to bite us: I did not clearly indicate which version of the game we would be playing, which caused much of the waiting and confusion as some people were forced to upgrade and others were forced to downgrade just to get on the same server. In our case, the server we had been using for the event shut down on our way to the airstrip to update itself to the version we weren’t playing. Another half-hour later, we finally found another server running the appropriate version and everyone regrouped around a convenient haybale. Our group set upon the airfield at last, coming out of the ordeal with naught but a few broken legs, and we turned our sights south to the tent camp. A few people changed weapons and, just for kicks, we decided to head back to Cherno (as we were now on a new server), but not before I snapped a group shot.

This time around, the city was somewhat less fruitful, and it was suggested to simply go for the grand prize: the Northwest Airfield – the most dangerous PVP area in the game, with loot second only to the elusive crashed helicopter. Sadly, my connection problems worsened around this time, and I was running behind the group for most of the rest of the night. I did manage to grab this shot of us all huddled in a barn north of Vysota, just as we’d left Chernogorsk behind.

We stopped off in Kozlovka to scavenge for food and to see if, by chance, a bus had spawned, where further tragedy befell me: a single zombie lying in wait in a garage got off a lucky hit, and I caught a infection, slowly draining me to half-health. From here on, I had to maintain a safe distance from the rest of the party, lest they catch the same disease. The group continued north at a run, with me keeping up as best I could, skirting around Green Mountain and pausing briefly at a pond northwest of Pogorevka, where I caught the last picture of us all assembled:

After a short rest to refill our collective canteens, the trek resumed. We arrived in Vybor, the town nearest the North West Airfield, and picked the grocery store there clean. From there, it was a short jog to the first of the military barracks, holding some of the best loot spawns in the game. From here, the group began systematically checking the hangars and the ATC tower, and it was here, at the end of the night, that we had our unfortunate friendly fire accident.
Undeterred by the loss, and armed with an entire airfield’s worth of hardware, someone made the bold suggestion of returning to Cherno to terrorize the Bean Coast once more, and it was here that my crappy connection could finally take no more, and I was finally forced to call it a night. I like to believe that somewhere, there is still a roving gang a dozen strong setting Chernarus on fire, and laughing all the while.
I’d like to give a huge thanks to everyone who made it: Caigan, Purplecat, Pathia, blueskydragon, Salem, Moonstruck, Ageia, Sivren, Bunnys, and whomever else I’m forgetting. The event didn’t go quite how I’d planned, but it was excellent nonetheless.
As for future events, I believe they would work better if they were smaller, but held more often, as there were several people in chat that either did not know an event was going on or showed up after the roster was capped. For me, personally, I don’t know when I’ll be able to host another event due to my horribad connection. For now, though, I just want to say that I love the community that has grown up around this game, and especially the response you lot have shown for my silly little squad nights. Until next time!

Hello again everyone! Time for a new post! This time we cover Anthrocon and information regarding our meetup, as well as a short story recap of TFP’s first excursion into the hardcore survival mod DayZ!

Anthrocon 2012 Meetup!

So it is time again for Anthrocon! This year we will be holding our 4th annual TFP Meetup in the Zoo and hope to see even more folks there this year! Last year we had around 50 people show up, we ended up taking over an entire corner of the zoo!

Due to how packed the schedule is this year, we had to select a time a bit later than usual. This years Meetup will be held at 6:10 pm on Saturday in the Zoo. This is directly following Matthew Ebel’s show in the main ballroom, and an hour and a half before Kage’s show in the same location. This should give us enough time to have our meetup and people still attend the shows they want to see. Once again we will have our TFP Flag at the table so that you can find us. Just look for the largest group of people you can find and that’s probably TFP.

Once again, that is Saturday at 6:10 pm in the Zoo.

TFP’s 1st DayZ Event – Recap aka How TFP caused 2 server admins to rage crash their servers

So normally I don’t do detailed Recap’s of our various events, but this is an exception. For those that don’t know, DayZ is a hardcore survival Zombie Apocalypse modification for the military simulator, ARMA 2. It is incredibly difficult and features no rules governing player interaction, which means anyone could be a bandit trying to kill you for your sweet items. The following is a recap of our first event that was held Wednesday, the 30th. Players involved were Reverend Browning (Event Leader), Sekh (Event Helper), Purplecat, Python, Caigan, Snookers, Sivren. We had a few others but they left very early.

Our story begins with everyone on the coastline of Chernarus, spread out and alone. Browning and Python manage to link up at the large lighthouse on the south coast. Sekh and Sivren link up in the far West and other players are spread few and far between. Immediately the party at the Lighthouse comes under sniper fire. Unable to locate the shooter they proceed to take cover, taking intermitent gunfire over the course of the next 20 minutes. Fortunately the sniper had a bolt action and was a terrible shot. Sekh and Sivren begin the long run from their spawn location to the lighthouse, which took at least 20 minutes. Upon arriving Python and Browning perform a diversion in an attempt to help the other group locate the sniper, Python is slain but Sekh and Sivren locate the group, which consisted of a sniper and his guard. Getting the drop on them they easily take the two enemies down, and move to loot their weapons. Not 5 seconds later the server dies mysteriously. We have assumed at this point that the two people killed were server admins or some form of hackers, and rage crashed after dieing in such an undignified manner.

After a brief excursion into a nearby city which wasted nearly everyone’s ammo and blood fighting a near infinite horde of Zombies, the entire group linked up in Castle Rog. Sekh was ambushed while checking a small room and nearly killed by a survivor with a pistol. In the ensuing firefight Browning and Snookers were slain, one by the survivor and one by the massive Zombie horde they attracted, but not before killing the survivor in response. Fortunately they spawned nearby and proceeded to link up with us at Rog. Here is a picture of our dangerous party before we set forth!

At this point the sun is going down, so we crack our glowsticks and proceed to move towards Berezino. Due to the time we lost a few people, leaving only Browning, Sekh, Python, Sivren and Snookers left. While attempting to refill our canteens Python fired his Lee Enfield rifle in an attempt to kill a Zombie and thus attracted every zombie in a 5 mile radius to his position. We watched in horror as he was devoured, nothing any of us could do to the sheer number of zombies he brought upon his head.

Finally reaching Berezino, we replenished our medical supplies and ammo, and then using all the ammo on the subsequent massive horde of zombies, we finally scrambled in an attempt to ambush a car as it zoomed past. Unable to steal the vehicle, we proceeded to our final destination, the North East Airfield. While walking, we discussed the topic of crashed helicopters and the wonderful military loot they usually have, to which Snookers responded, “What, like that?” and lo and behold, not 10 feet away was a crashed Huey. We cleared out the incredibly high amount of zombies milling about it in an attempt to find sweet military gear, but it seems someone had arrived before us. Still, we have an awesome picture of it.

Following a bit of shuffling, we finally reached our destination. The Northeast Airfield, with some of the best military loot in Chernarus. As we begin to loot it, someone hears something strange. “Is that a…car…?” Browning asks. “Extinguish glowsticks!” he shouts, just as a car rolls up to our position in the Air Control Tower. At this point it is too late. We are spotted. Three men jump out of the vehicle and open fire on our position. Everyone hits the deck as automatic fire rips over our head. Seconds later every window in the tower is blown out as a frag grenade goes off just outside our position. Sivren is covering the stairs while Browning and Snookers return fire. Sekh moves inbetween the levels assisting. As they reload, Snookers stands up and drops one with a single shot from his Lee Enfield. At this point we notice we are engaging the administrators of the server we are on. Sivren goes down in a hail of gunfire on the bottom floor, but not before returning fire with his AK. Sekh peeks around the corner, face first into an enemy wearing Nightvision Goggles. Fortunately, Sivrens fire had blinded the man due to his muzzle flash and Sekh was able to drop him with a barrage of AK fire. At this point, Snookers stands once again and drops the final enemy with another precision Enfield shot. Sekh moves to loot the body infront of him, taking his Backpack, Night Vision and Silenced M4 assault rifle. Again, not 10 seconds after the final target goes down, THIS server mysteriously shuts off (a different server from the previous one).

When it comes back, the only players that rejoin are the dead admins, and our party. All the loot is gone. We proceed to loot their car, leaving it on the tarmac as our small group has no need for a noisy vehicle. Crossing the airstip, it begins to pour down rain. We make our escape into the darkness, lightning all around us.  We stop miles from the airfield and inspect the few things Sekh managed to loot from the one body. Inside the backpack we find an M249 SAW Light Machine gun, which is given to Browning. Snookers takes one final picture before we log off.

The color saturation is due to the Glowsticks we were carrying and the rain, as well as Snookers high GAMMA to see at night.

In the end, the final tally for TFP was

Casualties – 5, 1 to Zombies, 4 to Survivors

Kills – 6 – 5 Military geared survivors, 1 low tier survivor

Zombie Kills – Too damn many

Server’s destroyed by Admin rage after dieing to us – 2

We hope to run another event in the future, we had a ton of fun. Probably after AC!

Hope you folks enjoyed my incredibly wordy story recapping our DayZ event. Next time we will take more pictures. I hope to see a lot of people at Anthrocon this year! Look for our TFP Flag!

Quarter Three – 2011

Newsletter

Events, New Games, Fun servers, AC Recap, Website Revision

Alright, so here we are for another newsletter issue, slightly late but that is to be expected. This time around we are going to talk about some of the upcoming events, server changes, a revision to the main TFP Webpage and other odds and ends, as well as a short recap of the Anthrocon 2011 meetup that took place in June!

Upcoming Server Additions

For a long time now, we have been getting requests for both an American server similar to server #3, as well as a server that runs the Saxton Hale and TF2 ware gametypes. Security issues with the former prevented us from running it until recently when those issues were fixed, and the demand for this type of server doesn’t seem to have disappeared in the meantime, so we are happy to announce that in the near future, we should have a new US based “Fun” server up and running, once we can make all the plugins place nice together. What you can expect from this server:

• Vs. Saxton Hale gametype
• TF2 Ware gametype
• More leniant map selection, expect some more goofy maps that you won’t see on other servers
• 25 – 30 minute map timer, slightly more than 6, but less than 4/5
• Possibly interesting events being run due to more allowance for dumb experiments

Upcoming Server/Game Events

With more and more items and weapons being added to TF2, we get a lot of complaints about how X is unbalanced or Y breaks the game, which may or may not be true. In an effort to make the game more fun for people that think this way, we have announced our next event, happening later this week, which is the TFP Wayback Machine, circa 2007. This event will be run on server #6, and will consist of locking out all items that were not around at the launch of the game in 2007. (Exceptions for Hats and Strange Weapons that are of Default weapons). We will be running this event all weekend, and hope folks enjoy playing old school TF2 like many of us remember from years ago.

We are also intending to run a few more similar events in the coming weeks, and plans have already been made for a “Pre Polycount” event, banning all Player submitted weapons and promotional weapons that were added to the game after the final Valve Class update, the Engineer. Once again, Strange Weapon versions of the time periods items and Hats are not affected.

New TFP Game/Server

As part of our ever expanding, ever hopeful dreams of bringing a long term TFP server to another game, we are once again launching a new server simultaneous to the release of Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad. We have noticed a large number of players have purchased this game, and hope that we will have a server active and playable on launch day. For those that don’t know, RO2: Heroes of Stalingrad is a realistic WW2 FPS, based off the successful Red Orchestra Unreal Tournament mod. The server information will be posted prior to launch and we expect to be running an event on it later that week.

The server will be running Realistic settings, with an exception made for kill notifications if possible. More information on server settings to be posted when it is launched!

Minecraft Information

With the upcoming 1.8 patch, many members of our Minecraft community are already aware of the changes coming to the TFP server, but incase you are not aware, here is what you can expect.

With 1.8 the TFP Minecraft server is going to be reset, due to the large number of changes being made to the world engine that require a complete map change to take affect.  Normally Caigan would be here to make sure everything moves smoothly but he is currently away from his computer and won’t be around for a little while. Until then, all players need to be patient while we try to migrate everything properly ourselves and hopefully not break anything in the process.

The Furry Pound Website Revision

For a long time now we have had this fancy website, but it is admittedly a little hard to use and not particularly user friendly for the submission of content. In the next month we hope to change all that when we launch the major website and forum revisions currently being worked on by admin-cat Salen. It is our hope that when we launch the new website that our players can submit their own articles to be published on the site, and we can reach a larger amount of our players!

The forums are currently under possible revision as well, which we hope will provide our players with better connectivity with each other. We are investigating a method of allowing our players to connect their forum account directly with their steam account, making it easier for people to find each other, keep track of each other over the forums, and allow new members to be easily invited to the group. The forum changes if they are accepted should be launched a little after the website changes, stay tuned for more information on it!

The Furry Pound 2011 Anthrocon Meetup – Recap

Our final topic is the recap of our 2011 Anthrocon Meetup, which was held once again in the Zoo area of the Westin Hotel during Anthrocon last June. In 2010, we had around 28 members show up and hang out with us, which we felt was a pretty good number. This year I am proud to announce we had over 50 members show up, filling an entire corner of the Zoo. The meetup somehow lasted for a full hour of people listening to this Bird ramble about stuff, which I have no idea how that happened but apparently people were entertained. I tried to get our signup sheet to as many people as I could, but I know I missed a few folks, so I apologize! I don’t have a scanner here, but I did take a picture of the final signup sheet with my terrible phone for those that want to see it!

Anthrocon Signin Sheet

We hope to see an even larger turnout next year at the 2012 Meetup, keep an eye out for the big TFP flag which will be making its second appearance!

The Future

As TFP gets larger and the interest of our players spreads out, it is hard for us to predict what people will be interested in, like or dislike. We try to make the best guesses we can but we never actually know if something we plan out is going to really connect with people. We hope with the relaunching of our website to be more user friendly and allow for more custom content created by our players that we can find the things people want to play and provide it to them. As always, this community benefits the most from the players in it, who help out the new people (including the furries that have joined us through the new TF2 – F2P system), help keep the servers clean of trolls and other trash, and introduce themselves to the new people who have decided to brave the chatroom or post on the Shout section of the steam page. We thank everyone for continuing to keep this community the best private furry gaming group on the internet and hope that folks will continue to help keep it that way.

Quarter Two – 2011

Newsletter!

Replays, Servers and Maps!

Hey folks, I think I finally figured out how to make these without stretching to find content. I’m gonna try to make them every quarter or so, unless something super fancy shows up and I need to make one right then. I have a couple different topics to hit on this newsletter, mainly upcoming changes to server 6, various plugin functionality on all TF2 servers, a new TFP server, and information regarding our 3rd annual Anthrocon Meetup!

Server Changes and Replay!

First things first, we have just finished adding Replay functionality to all our servers! We had to hold off until Valve fixed a bug with Linux servers which prevented us from being able to run it stably, but all is well now and you should be able to record your kills and fails with ease now! Please shoot us a message if something breaks or it starts causing issues so we can look into it!

TFP Server #6 Changes

Next are upcoming changes to TFP Server #6, which will be having a overhaul of its current maplist, as well as some plugin additions over the next week. I’ve been trying to keep track of which maps are getting played and nominated, as well as which maps have a tendency to vacate the server when they are voted on, so the following is a list of all the map changes currently being implemented.

Maps for Removal – CP_Stag (Not played at all), CP_Wildmire (Most folks consider it unfun), CP_Titan (Broken by the latest Valve Patch) CTF_Casbah (Generally hated), PL_Pharaoh (Considered too large/chokepointy). TC_Hydro (Yea I know. It kills the server, and everyone hates it, so off it goes.)

Maps for Adjustment – CP_Redfort (Now Medieval mode, reduced to 15 minutes max), CTF_Moonbase (Reduced to 15 minute timer), PL_Whalerace (Reduced to 2 full rounds, or 12 minutes, that is about as much as people want of Whalerace)

Map Additions – And here are the new maps! I am taking a Cave Johnson approach to maptesting this time around, in other words “We are throwing maps at the wall here and seeing what sticks.” so the maps might be enjoyed or hated, the bad ones will be removed within a week or so. I will list the names here and a link at the end to a forum post with all the download links for those that wish to download it early.

CP_Crossroads, CP_Antiquity, CP_Karst, CP_Teddy, KOTH_Gatehouse (12 minute timer), Koth_Ashville, PL_Salvage, PL_Mesa, CTF_Landfall, CTF_THISISASURPRISE

As well as the return of (limited) Arena maps, in the form of arena_lumbermill, arena_offblast, and arena_hardhat – All set to 12 minute timers with no sitting out.

Download the new maps from this forum post – http://www.hiddendisguises.com/Forums/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=78&p=21042#p21042

Last I am investigating the possibility of adding some fun plugins to #6 which can be triggered by any Admin in your game, including Roll the Dice, which is a popular random gameplay adjusting mod. All fun plugins will be limited to admin triggering them to avoid them becoming stale or taking over the server, and will only last until they are turned off again.

TFP Brink #1

With a number of our players picking up Brink, and the games easily set up server configuration, we have recently launched a Brink server for testing to see if folks are interested in using it! The server is located at – 72.22.219.149:27018, which can be entered into either your Steam server browser, or the ingame direct connection option. You might need to leave the port off, so test it either way. We will be scheduling a get together this weekend on the server to test it out with a large group of TFP members, check your events for more info!

ANTHROCON 2011 MEETUP!

Alright! Next month is Anthrocon, and for the 3rd year in a row we are going to be having our annual TFP Meetup! I just wanted to remind folks to be thinking of this as they make their plans, and to stay tuned for more information to come later this month on our plans. We are trying to get something new and interesting to happen this year, but we are waiting a bit longer to make sure everything is in place. Stay tuned to the TFP News section once we are ready to make an announcement about the meetup location, time and all that. Hope to exceed last years meetup of 30 people this year!

The Future

Nothin fancy this time around, we are just trying to make sure everything is running smoothly and that each valve update doesn’t set the servers on fire with some new broken who-sa-whatsit. We hope to talk with players at Anthrocon this year about the Future of TFP, including games folks are interested, as well as changes they would like to see. Last years meet up resulted in Server #6, which has since become one of the most popular TFP servers we have, so who knows what new ideas folks will have this year!

January 2011 Newsletter!

One Year Anniversary!

So here we are! One year after starting my semi-bi-annually-maybe-sometimes newsletter, I’ve made it an entire year! That’s a full year of random information! I am so proud. I hope you folks are enjoying these, or at the very least getting the information you are looking for about the servers! This month we have a good deal of technical and server related information for everyone, since we’ve had some changes and a couple other folks would like more information on the state of various servers. A small upcoming event, and a new server in the works as well!

Upcoming Events:

No exceedingly large upcoming events this month, we just finished up a maptest and those maps that won will be slowly working their way onto the servers. I have a smallish event planned for possibly later this month, but it’s a surprise so I guess you all will have to keep an eye out.

Server Information and Changes

So lets get started on the servers. I’ll break it down into server groups so that it is easier to read and understand.

Server’s #1 is currently down due to damage to the server boxes and a change in location. We do not currently have an ETA on its return, it could be very soon, it might not be for awhile. Until then we encourage folks to use servers #6 and #5, as they are running almost identical map cycles as servers #1/#2. We apologize but Act’s of God are hard to predict. Server #2 was just returned to us today, and has a new IP of 72.22.219.149:27016 please keep us informed on the how well you guys think the new server is running!

Server #4 and to some extent #5 are experiencing lag issues. We are aware of these issues and are attempting to solve them. They are a particularly irritating sort of issue that comes and go seemingly at random, so bear with us as we attempt to lock this down. To this end however, we understand that #4 is possibly the most popular server we have, so we have worked up a temporary solution which is…….

Server #7 is now a Stock server. For those of you that have previously played on #7, understand that it is now an entirely new server. It is in a different, more viable location (Chicago), and is running an alternate map cycle (Stock). Please update your favorites accordingly and try using it when server #4 is inevitably full. It’s new IP address is 74.94.122.126:27015 or you can find it by clicking this here image!

We hope you folks will be patient with us while we work out the kinks in our servers. Remember that we still have servers #6 and #7, which are running optimally, and server #5 which hasn’t really acted up yet, though we are watching it carefully.

As for other servers..

TFP Minecraft Server will be returning to active duty very soon. You all built so much stuff that the harddrive that was storing it started to die. It was unable to save fast enough to be of any use, so sys admin Sumigaki has purchased an entire NEW harddrive just for the Minecraft server. Caigan, the other minecraft admin is investigating the use of mods on the server since Minecraft has now been put into Beta and there are all sorts of interesting mods floating around. Expect more information soon.

TFP Monday Night Combat Server – We are currently investigating the possibility of adding a Monday Night Combat server to our lineup. A large portion of the admins have been playing it together and find it absolutely hilarious. The servers are small and easy to admin, so when the game is finally released in full, we might put up a public server for everyone, I for one would like to not have to deal with the random pubbers so we will see!

Finally as a last little change, we will be changing the MOTD that you folks have seen every time you log into the servers a bit. It will still have TFP’s lovely mascots, but soon it will also have relevant new information such as IP changes, events, etc. We will attempt to make them eye catching enough so that you notice it when we change them, but this way we can inform folks of IP changes to the servers much faster and more efficiently. The rotating advertisement plugin on the servers will be getting an update as well.

The Future!

Sorry for the rather dry newsletter this month folks, but we are working on getting the groups servers repaired so no major events planned for January. I hope to have some more fun things to talk about next time…maybe in February. There’s a major convention coming up in March (Furry Weekend Atlanta) that a number of us will be attending, so we might make a little TFP meeting out of it if folks were interested. Other than that, just keep telling us what you guys enjoy and we will attempt to get it done!

TFP August 2010

Newsletter!

Lazy Bird of Summer Edition!

Alright, so here we go again! Time for the latest edition of the TFP Newsletter, this month with all sorts of cool information on new servers, upcoming events, and other various bits of information here and there!

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Upcoming Server Changes:

Alright folks, so if you hang around the main TFP chat for the last few weeks, you’ve probably heard me talking about the changes myself and fellow admin Sumigaki have been trying to get set up on server 6. Last week we launched the server and it’s been getting really good reviews from the people that have been frequenting it, so I encourage everyone to try it out if they have the chance! Details of the various changes that 6 has undergone are below!

• Server map timer is reduced from 40 minutes to 20 minutes, with a possible final reduction to 15 minutes per map. This allows for faster rotation through the maps, and steam rolls are less frustrating due to the rapid rotation to a new map, and new team.
• Mix of stock maps (no arena), popular custom maps from the main TFP servers, a few custom maps I’ve chosen myself, and a small number of “fun” maps such as the wacky races and whale race maps from the older server #3.
• Future addition of a cvar activated members only script such as the on server #5 used to have, to allow for members only nights!

All these things combine to make a rather different style of server from the other main TFP servers.

IP for TFP #6 – 68.232.166.231:27015

P.S. – Silly things can happen on some of the maps, since admins have the ability to choose special maps from a seperate list, such as this video made by Devvy of Munch being “abused” on Pacman – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB3BlJcyMzM

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Our second edition this month is that TFP has gone full International! In the first entry by someone other than myself, the new owner of TFP’s Australian/Oceania server has written up an entry on what his server is about for you folks to read! With this server, we now have a server in almost every major geographic zone from which our players hail from! So, here is Leon, the owner and head admin of TFP #10, the AU server!

“Well TFP’s second (group) anniversary has been and gone and with it came a new TF2 server! All the Aussie furs out there will be pleased to know that TFP’s 10^th server is a 24 slot server hosted in Sydney. It is hoped this will provide a place for Oceania and South Asia furries to play with better pings.

So what maps and mods will this server be running I hear you say? Well I’m glad you asked! Presently TFP runs servers of different sorts, some with custom maps and some without. The AU server for the foreseeable future will not be running any custom maps, the main reason for this being that Australian players have internet quotas and players who have gone over their quota would have to wait 20-60 minutes for a custom map to download.

However, to make up for the lack of custom maps, the AU server will be running special weekend events where different server side mods will run on Friday and for the duration of the weekend (For instance the popular presents mod that was running on the opening day). This allows the server to be unique and fun without players needing to wait for large map downloads. On top of this the AU server will run the standard set of mods such as RTV and Scramble etc.

If you have any suggestions or feedback, please poke one of the TFP admins or myself about it, we’d love to hear from you!

With all that being said, Look forward to seeing you on the AU server and hope you’ll have a great time :3

-Leon”

IP for Server #10 – 202.157.179.70:27053

So there you folks have it! The two major server updates for TFP this month! Hope you guys take some time to check out the changes!

Upcoming TFP Events:

No events this month folks, as its a little late to do an announcement for one anyways. However, we will be having our annual TFP Halloween event in October, so look for more information on that soon!

TFP Staff Additions

So, with the addition of new servers and the return to school for many staffers, we’ve expanded the TFP staff again to encompass three new members. In a hilarious stroke of luck, they all happen to be Birds, so my dreams of a bird TFP army continue! Your new staffers are as follows! Be nice to these guys, they are around to keep the servers clean :)

• Griffin
• Sparra
• Jouster

Also, a number of moderators were promoted to full administrator, meaning they are now fully available to answer any questions you have, and help with any problems you have (We do continue to ask, if you have a problem on the servers to record demos and submit them to sourcebans, we’ve received a large number of ban submissions, we do watch these demos you folks attach, and have banned a good number of hackers and griefers with you guys help! Thanks again!)

The Future!

So we’ve been working really hard keeping things running smoothly around here, trying to find new and interesting events for you guys to enjoy, it’s tough trying not to repeat ourselves too much! We are looking into running Randomizer in September sometime, or possibly as part of the October event. Other things are the possible return of Prophunt in the near future, as it was an incredibly popular mod, so that is something that could show up soon as well! Until next month, enjoy the new servers and keep us informed on what you guys want to see! See you…sometime….ish….in September!

- Sekh the Scribe Burd

TFP February 2010 Newsletter!

Hey everyone, time for my second installment of the TFP Newsletter, little late this month since we have been working on some important things which I will go into greater detail below. Hope everyone is having a great month, and hopefully some of the things below will make it more interesting.

Upcoming Server Events:

Player Teacher Nights for February: No game play mods this month, as the month is a little shorter and we decided to let prophunt run for a few extra weeks since it was so popular. So this month we have two separate players who want to give a lecture of sorts on their preferred classes. The two nights, with dates to be announced soon are, Pyro Night hosted by Moderator Anti-Austin, full of interesting tricks on how to best ambush and incinerate various classes. and,  Scout Night hosted by Zareth, who will hopefully shed some light on why the scout is so hyper.

Upcoming TF2 Server Changes:

Alright, so here’s our big changes.

We know many players are experiencing the lag issues on servers 1/2/4. This is caused by a few things, most of them are caused by the number of people attempting to join these servers instead of the others. In an attempt to alleviate this issue as well as provide our players with more servers to spread themselves across, We are initiating the following changes.

Server #6 will be moving to the Americas. It has come to our attention that the European players simply play on servers 1/2/4 anyways instead of #6, so we will be moving #6 to a to be decided area of the United States, and keeping its config, so it will be a stock server the same as #4, but keeping No Crit and No Spread. Hopefully this will give people more stock options, as well as a more agreeable ping for this interested in a No crit server.

Next big change is that Server #5 will no longer be members only except during events, or when we decide that it needs to be. It will keep all other settings, effectively making it a clone of #1/2. This should give people more options for custom style servers that seem to be so popular amongst our players. #5 has been empty except during events, so this change shouldn’t affect people much.

Map Changes – We will be implementing a change in map rotation soon to remove maps that simply aren’t being played, or kill servers when they appear because of dislike. There will be a vote on the maps to be removed on the forums once we decide on a final list, so if you really want a map removed, or kept, you will need to register on the forums and make your opinions known. This change will extend to certain stock maps from the custom servers (1/2/5), since there are certain stock maps that empty the servers out.

New Server/Game

In response to the recent interest in a new game for TFP, we began a search for what people might be interested in last month. After reading through the posts, we are ready to try our latest idea in Non-TF2 games. We will be adding a new server to our collection which will only be used for HL2 Source Mods. This server will rotate every 2 – 3 weeks to a new Mod which will be decided by player interest. After a mod has been played awhile, an announcement will be made and players can download the next mod in the rotation and play that for awhile. Hopefully we can keep interest up through varying the play style of each mod. We will be running this server as long as interest is maintained in the servers style.

Players with interesting new ideas on which sourcemods we should try are encouraged to post in our thread regarding future TFP games located here: http://www.hiddendisguises.com/Forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1662

First Mod – The first mod we will be running is the recently released over Steam – Pirates, Vikings, and Knights II. It has a similar playstyle to TF2 in that it is a team based game with humorous classes and interesting maps. I highly suggest downloading it and trying it out with us, if you don’t know what it is, try watching the video below!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoK9kGZVZlE

Members of the Month

Renamed to members of the month as it’s not based on actually playing.

The award goes to..

Gami/Axel – For helping keep new players informed on the rules of the chat room and deal with the people who decide they simply don’t want to play nice with the rules. Thanks for the assistance guys, its much easier on us to not have to watch over it every second of the day.

Honorable Mention

Munch – Munch gets an honorable mention for being the first person to suggest PVK2 as a mod we could try on the forums, although he wasn’t the only person to do so, he was the first to post it. Thanks for the info Munch, hopefully it works out well this month!

Mailbag Posting

So this month, the mailbag is dominated by a single person. Someone so insane that they have an entire section dedicated to them. I thought of editing this up into some sort of epic story, but decided instead that simply giving you the pastebin and a simple description was the only way to do this justice. You will simply have to make your own opinions on the insanity that is this man.

Some names redacted by request of the people that sent the logs to us. Name of the guilty changed. Entire thing had to be pastebinned as it was far too long for this simple newsletter.

The First Signs – This was the first thing we received from this person, it was totally out of nowhere, hence the confusion.

http://pastebin.com/fca7260b

The Confrontation – Here he was requesting information about his ban. We attempted to inform him of it, and it kind of…went downhill from there.

http://pastebin.com/f73bc321c

The Tragic Truth – The truth comes out, plus more insanity. Insanity the likes of which I have never before seen. Warning – Super long.

http://pastebin.com/f3c78bfac

tl;dr version – We had an insane kid who thought he was a super spy in a hacker shadow war, complete with super computers such as NOVASTRIKE who wanted us to believe that his phishing attempts for account information where not him at all, but instead some sort of crazy super hacker who was stealing his account information in an attempt to destroy steam. Or c4 a house. Or something. Just read the thing. It’s worth it.

The Future!

There are a lot of changes this time around, so the future is mainly just making sure we don’t break anything with all the different things we have done this month. We are looking into a possible Randomizer event for TF2, as well as working more on the TFP Achievements. More information on those two things in March.

Well, that’s that for the February newsletter, hopefully it helped clear up some things as well as give you guys some information on the exciting new changes we are putting through. Same as last month, comments are always appreciated either on the forums or on the announcement thread.

Sekh the Scribe Burd.