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Whoever said Discord was "the embodiment of chaos" and "a demigod of mischief and trickery" and "voiced by John de Lancie" may have been two-thirds onto something. That said, Discord is also a great tool for community organization — something we struggled (and failed) to spotlight in our community roundups, which have mostly featured Gamebanana uploads or creative work sent to us directly.

To reattain balance (and hopefully close the book on this "monthly roundup" thing so we can make them more irregular, and thus more impactful), let's talk about two of our big ones.

TF2C Competitive (link)​

Yes, there's a TF2 Classic competitive scene! 6s, Highlander, and MGE (under maintenance, so I'm told) are all on the table, marrying traditional comp gamerules with the bespoke features and vastly improved game-feel of TF2C.

The only negative thing to be said about competitive TF2C is there often aren't enough players — so that's your responsibility to fix. Pick-up games are hosted irregularly each week based on availability (but usually on Fridays or weekends), and what this subcommunity needs more than anything are some warm, eager bodies. If you're in North America and are seeing this the day it was posted, there might be a game's worth of people ready to go.

TF2C Mapping Community (link)​

Our broader level-design community also hosts weekly games (EU and NA) through its Discord. That is to say, you're welcome to join as just a now-and-then playtester, even if you have no interest in making maps.

Veteran mapmakers, and Hammer-teurs alike, operate in the TF2C Mapping server, and there's an emphasis on how TF2C level design diverges from live TF2 — both in terms of exclusive gamemodes, and designing around our unique weapons and traversal tools that Valve couldn't have anticipated.

Here's a quick rundown of a few maps in their test shuffle:

• Dynamo (Capture the Flag), a visual overhaul of Turbine where the main item of review is the slick artpass;
• Ember (Payload), a single-stage payload map in a seaside town, with an emphasis on ground-level cover in wide fightyards;
• Mirages (Medieval Mode/Control Points), where narrow walkways lend the Brick's knockback some devastating utility;
• Bloinkus (Four Team/Arena), whose nauseatingly tight layout circles in on itself like a racetrack, blending the teams up into chaotic four-way brawls;
• and Export (Four Team/Domination), which splits four teams across three points — RED and BLU fight over theirs, GRN and YLW fight over theirs, and the real prize is the point in the middle.

(...and so, so many more.)

Give each of these servers a shot! Joining is free. The worst you can do is lurk, right?

Pull through, blogheads! It's time for another feature, eleventh hour be damned.

Renaissance Revival Version 2.1​

Last month's spotlight, the Renaissance Revival pack, has gotten an update! Dozens of new staves, glaives, and other fantasy-historical weapons await you (as long as you install the pack, convince your friends to install the pack, and pester your Discord server's "network guy" to mount it to a server — network guys act begrudging, but they secretly love chores like this).


As a reminder, even if you don't plan on playing it now, you can install RR now and keep those assets pre-loaded in your TF2C files, in the event that a kindly "network guy" hosts a public match. In fact, there's really no reason not to install it.

PropHunt​

We at TF2 Classic are known for our Christ-like acceptance of sinners, harlots, and all sorts of wretches whom the live TF2 community won't abide — including those who enjoy alternative gamemodes like Dodgeball, Randomizer, and now PropHunt.

Our hosts at VaultF4 — the unfortunate dog to the ringworm infestation that is our mod — have a 30-person PropHunt server, alive and kicking, here in TF2C. The gamemode port is in beta, so expect the requisite level of jank, but if you're on the fence about pretending to be a traffic cone in a class shooter, you might not be the PropHunt type in the first place. Truly, the community roundup is wasted on you.

Learn more about PropHunt and the port here, and look out for it in the server browser! Be the brave boy that joins an empty lobby. Start the wave.

As TF2C’s art lead, I don’t tend to be very involved in the gameplay side of things. Yet it has a lot of topics ripe for these behind-the-scenes blog posts. For a look into one of those topics, I asked our gameplay folks about their process for designing achievements. Here’s some of what I heard.

The game’s achievements can be grouped into three general categories:

Tutorials
Tutorial achievements are designed to introduce players to mechanics that they might not otherwise pick up on. They’re particularly helpful for more obscure interactions, like the Wrench’s ability to defuse thrown Dynamite Packs.

Progression Milestones
Progression milestones are intended to encourage desired behaviors and help build useful habits. For example, rewarding cumulative healing or playing a variety of maps. They also give returning players longer-term goals to look forward to.

Challenges
Challenges are designed to be more difficult tasks. These give achievement hunters harder goals to push for. They also act to reward more general players for a skillful or lucky move. Examples of challenges include landing a long-range RPG shot or surviving a full round as VIP.

There are some more general considerations, too. For instance, it should ideally take more than a month to complete all achievements, but it should also be easy enough to earn one every day or two. When we release new weapons, achievements should accompany them. These new achievements should also come with counterparts for existing weapons, though. This helps to keep older stock still feeling worthwhile to use. Lastly, achievements should be spread fairly evenly between classes. However, it's important to keep in mind that different classes will get different types of achievements more easily.

To compliment all of this, the difficulty-based completion sounds and increased progression pop-ups help improve the game feel around them.

It was around this point that I asked “So when do you start painting pretty pictures?” I could sense some weird looks behind the screen; I think I’ll stick to the art department. Here’s hoping they don’t nerf my account’s damage or anything.