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!
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.
As we awaite Minecraft… come quickly plz :D