CATEGORY: Interview

Fortressmen of the Month #3 brings together two competitive veterans who were rivals across two different Team Fortress games, yet companions at the same international LANs, 15 years after standing at the top of the European scene. Coinz competed for ECA in Enemy Territory Fortress and later for YoYoTech/TCM Gaming in Team Fortress 2, while Moose played for Clan United (ETF, TF2) and then for Crack Clan/Power Gaming (TF2). Both came to TF2 from the short-lived but competitive tournament scene of the still-young ETF, joining a wider migration that saw entire clans from games such as Team Fortress Classic make the same transition.

For Coinz and Moose, however, the move was far more than a passing fad. They remained at the forefront of TF2 as the game’s competitive domain evolved from humble beginnings into a major scene with multiple leagues featuring several hundred teams each season.

In this interview, they look back at the online ETF competitions, discuss TF2’s unique gameplay and their adaptation to it, revisit the major European TF2 LAN tournaments where their paths crossed, and recall TF2’s early prospects as a major esport—including the first attempts to engage Valve on the game’s competitive future.

Fortressmen of the Month #2 goes big, bringing together the key developers behind Quake 4 Fortress—an ambitious project that built hype, attracted community support, hosted playtests, and fostered a growing player base between 2004 and 2006. Development came to an abrupt end, with the work that had been completed wrapped up in a “v1.5” release. For those who played it during its lifetime, Q4F remains a project remembered with nostalgia and a lingering sense of what might have been.

Now, after nearly twenty years in the games industry, Q4F lead developer Jeremy “photeknix” Raymond and lead programmer Jared “3j” Cone look back on their journey. They begin by discussing the history of Team Fortress as they experienced it as teenagers before turning to the Fortress mod they created as young adults. They reflect on Q4F’s ambitions, its distinctive design, its road to QuakeCon 2006 and meeting Splash Damage, and, despite all of its promise, its eventual downfall. Finally, they offer a glimpse into the game industry careers they have built since those early modding days.

You are reading the first article of United Fortress, or united.tf, a new web site aiming to pay homage to the legacy of Team Fortress games and mods. Ideally, the desire is for it to bring coverage from all Fortress domains, supporting them, fighting the disconnection between their communities. However, it is a personal, limited effort, so no promises are given for now. Currently, its biggest trick is the interview you can read below in this article, and The Wall. The Wall is a catalog for all the active Fortress titles, together with a selection of their most useful communities and platforms. It took more than a few weeks, dozens of hours and thousands of messages to dig through, asking around for the history and technical information documented there to present them honestly. The people who have helped find, verify and hone the information are credited below.

Fortressmen of the Month

The United Fortress blog opens with a new interview series: Fortressmen of the Month. The goal is to speak to two members of a Fortress community and document it, possibly every month, but at least every few months. The guests can be game developers, veterans, server hosts or anyone from any Fortress domain to bring insight and inspiration, and to shed light on some history.

The first of the series is an interview with Aberrant, a.k.a. Agent, and Cloud, a.k.a. MasterMind, from the MegaTF community, the former being its current developer while the latter a community lead, who have been playing and contributing to the game for almost 30 years now.