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Team Fortress

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Team Fortress (sometimes abbreviated as QTF) is a team and class based online multiplayer computer game modification based on id Software's Quake. Team Fortress was designed and written by Robin Walker, John Cook, and Ian Caughley in 1996.

History

File:Team fortress HWG.jpg
A screenshot from the game.

The original Team Fortress released as freeware on August 24, 1996. The first release for QuakeWorld (v2.0) came on December 22, 1996. It was sufficiently successful that Walker, Cook and Caughley formed Team Fortress Software to develop Team Fortress 2 as a commercial mod for Quake II. Team Fortress 2 for Quake II was never fully developed and released. Walker and Cook later joined game developer Valve Software and released a port for Valve's Half-Life engine (Goldsrc) called Team Fortress Classic, which closely followed the gameplay, classes, and maps of the original. In 2007, a completely revised Team Fortress 2 was released as a retail game for Valve's Source engine.

Since its inception, and the subsequent release of the source code, Team Fortress has become an ever-expanding community project, with various server side modifications including , OZTF (Australia), MegaTF and CustomTF (USA) and TF2003 (Russia). Other, lesser-known modifications proliferated and typically made minor changes such as making small adjustments to the class strengths and altering grenade behavior.

Gameplay

The premise of the game is a class-based battle between opposing sides. A player is defined by which class they select (e.g., medic, sniper, demolitions man), with each class having strengths and weaknesses. Each class also has unique weapons and abilities.

Community

Community servers

Servers were quickly created all over the world, and were commonly listed and accessed via a browser utility for Quake-based games known as QuakeSpy, which later became GameSpy. Team Fortress became very popular, as players could find many servers without much difficulty. Upon joining the game, the player would be assigned to a team and would then select a character class. Active servers are still in existence today. The majority of games are now organized through IRC, these include clan matches, pugs (pick up games) typically comprised of 8v8, and quads (attack vs defence games) of 2v2, 3v3, or 4v4.

Servers

Used as online battlegrounds where other people can meet and join teams to battle it out online.

Clans

Many users desired more organized games, and "Clans" popped up everywhere. Clans often started from a group of friends, and grew from there. Players that wanted to join the clan were either personally invited, or had to go through a tryout to join.

Clans competed against each other on a regular basis. Games would be scheduled beforehand with a set time and a map. It was up to the Clan to decide who would be best for the game, and those members would meet prior to the game and prepare to play.

IRC community

IRC proved to be the primary form of organization and communication for Team Fortress Clans. There were many memorable community oriented channels, but the most prolific were the individual clan channels.

There are still surviving QuakeWorld Team Fortress IRC channels in existence today. This is where pick up games and clan matches are traditionally organized. A list of active QWTF IRC channels are listed below:

Region Server Channel Mod
Australia / New Zealand irc.enterthegame.com #oztf OZTF
Brazil irc.irchighway.net #qwtf OZTF
Finland irc.quakenet.org #kvadd TF 2.9
North America irc.gamesurge.net #fortress-legends TF 2.9 (and OZTF)
North America irc.gamesurge.net #megateamfortress MegaTF
North America irc.quakenet.org #customtf Custom-TF
Russia irc.quakenet.org #qwtf TF2003

Evolution

Team Fortress has evolved into an entire genre as fans of the original modification have created a multitude of slightly different versions for various games:

  • Fortress Evolution for Quake III Arena was intended to create a very close replica of the original QWTF, but was canceled and last released as an alpha build. It has recently returned as a standalone mod built upon Evolution Q3, but as a completely different project.
  • A mod titled Q3F, for Quake III Fortress, was developed for Quake III Arena, and while liked by some, it never saw a huge following. This mod was further developed into the Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory mod Enemy Territory Fortress, or ETF, in 2005; it had a notable initial following and many servers still operate, though it has since receded considerably in popularity.
  • Team Fortress Classic was an extremely popular mod for Half-life created in April of 1999. There are still servers and players for TFC today.
  • NeoTF is a modification of Team Fortress Classic, originally created by BillDoor in 2001. NeoTF adds many new elements to the game that can turn it into a completely different experience.
  • Unreal Fortress (abbreviated as UnF) existed for Unreal Tournament.
  • Unreal Fortress: Evolution first started out as UnF 2003 for Unreal Tournament 2003, but has been made into a mod for Unreal Tournament 2004 when Epic released the newer version of the game. It has never left the beta stage.
  • Another evolution of TF is the multi-games mod Weapons Factory that has several considerable modifications to TF classes which results in different gameplay, resulting in many servers having to put limits on specialists (non-soldier classes).
  • There is also a large Custom TF community presently active. Custom TF by Bill Kerney (aka Shaka[UVM]) has the normal classes of TF but also includes a "custom" option, where players have a set amount of money with which to buy weapons, armour, and skills.
  • MegaTF was another popular Team Fortress mod which featured new enhancements to each class like proximity mines, laser drones, and airMirvs. The community slimmed after the popular East Coast and West Coast Biscuit servers were shut down for unknown reasons. There is a MegaTF mod currently in development for the Amnesia server called "MegaTF United" being developed by XavioR and other Team Fortress modders.
  • Fortress Forever is a mod attempting to recreate the original Team Fortress Classic on the Source engine.
  • Quake 4 Fortress for Quake 4 (production on Q4F has ceased, however there is a Q4F modification in development by XavioR (aka avirox) called Quake 4 Fortress XT which addresses several of the incomplete factors of Q4F).
  • Team Fortress 2 is a stand-alone multiplayer game created by Valve. The game has a cartoon like look to it. TF2 was in development for more than nine years, and has had many changes to it along the way.

See also

News

Software

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