Commemoration of the Early TF2 Era: EU 2007-11 w/ Byte interview

On February 18 this year, Valve released an update to Source SDK Base, making the current Team Fortress 2 code publicly available. The community which has been creating its own TF2 content for nearly two decades can now make its own TF2 games (complete with Steam release). The possibilities are limitless, fitting to the tradition of the Fortress saga which started as a mod (of Quake) itself almost 30 years ago.

Major TF2 mods such as TF2 Classic and Pre-Fortress 2 that already existed off-Steam are preparing for their Steam releases * while the competitive community of TF2C has already kicked off its organization, CompTF2C, on whose soil this article is planted. These mods base their identities to the early (even pre-alpha) versions of TF2, they are searching for their places in the realm of Fortress games, and competitive TF2C is still figuring out its meta, the most viable game modes and the rules. There could be no better time to remember the early years of live TF2’s competitive scene, which were also full of chances, exploration, and innovation.

It has been five years since teamfortress.tv’s massive effort to review the previous decade of competitive TF2 (2010-2019), chronicling the era and its legacy.

This article aims to take it from its beginnings (2007-2009), with insights from a bird’s-eye view, then to the narrative of the period that followed after (2009-2011) with a depiction of its atmosphere and mentions of its milestones.

Page 1: The Early Meta Page 2: 2009 Team Formations Page 3: The Early Community Page 4: 2010 Breakthrough Page 5: 2011 Disaster Page 6: Interview with Byte Page 7: The Aftermath

The Early Meta

The very early meta is a fascinating story to reimagine. A good source still available today is the first 20 minutes of TheFragile’s* narrative in this YouTube video from 2015. Arguably the two most interesting facts about it are:

• Class limit on Demoman being 2, instead of 1.
• 1 Heavy – 1 Soldier being played full-time instead of 2 Soldiers.

Although being challenged, demoman class limit 2 prevailed at least up to and including ETF2L Season 2, more than half a year into the game which was released in October 2007. Its exact expiration date is in the archived, non-public, ETF2L Rules.

The still standing colossuses of the Heavy era after its end have been the the frag movie of Riemu, an ETF2L champion Heavy main, and his parts in BoneS’ Random Damage. Riemu played in 4Kings who won ETF2L Seasons 1 and 2 in 2008. The records are missing, but Riemu was most probably a full-time player of the roster during both, as well as the ESL competitions which were equally important at the time. We know he helped in the formation of team Vale! which made it to Season 5, however, his last recorded match on ETF2L being from Season 4, February 2009, shows that the reign of heavy weapons guys did not last a lot more than a year. By the end of 2009, around ETF2L Season 6, full-time Heavy meta was only a distant past for the newcomers; and running Heavy to mid on cp_well are the echoes of it. The last inclusion of cp_well in ETF2L’s map pool was Season 7, played spring 2010.

Game modes also consisted variety. ctf_turbine, the first community-created map to be added to TF2 together with cp_fastlane in July 2008, was a constant until ETF2L Season 9 (spring 2011). Despite making comebacks in Season 13 and 18, it was never going to be accepted as before. Another constant: cp_gravelpit, an A/D stopwatch map, would hold on another year. But it shared the same fate as Turbine, retiring as the sole representative of its game mode. During its time, Gravel Pit was played similarly to how cp_steel is played in Highlander today. Point A was abandoned; defense started from B. Just as Steel, it surfaced mostly when it was its week in the season; the usual scrim(PCW)/PuG maps were Badlands and Granary. KOTH, the only deviation today’s 6v6 has from 5CP, would be introduced to ETF2L seasons only four years after its initial release in 2009.

Rollouts were another area where the approach has been experimental, and the inventors were still among us. A certain demoman rollout on Badlands was still being called as the “ Byte – ryb rollout” at least until 2010. Upon question in mid 2010s, Byte was able to point out which individual jump of that rollout him or ryb had come up with. This educational video from late 2009 shows the limitations of not having Gunboats, Escape Plan, Crusader’s Crossbow and the Medigun movement buff on the rollouts. More importantly, it is a reflection of how Soldier was esteemed to be a class with higher priority and impact in comparison to Scout at the time. According to TheFragile, the driving factor that granted Scout its current place was the class’ real capability being showcased by extremely talented Scout players such as carnage; who was yet another actively playing pioneer, coming up with the term “Meatshot” which has endured and is still in use even now.

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