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Blogheads rise up! We're cutting through the malaise of this not-quite-standalone, not-quite-Steam transition period to tell you about the TF2C Mapping Community's new Custom Map Wednesdays.

Custom map servers often fall victim to the tragedy of the commons. When confronted by a vote-list of 80 maps they've never played or seen before, most players will just vote for whatever sounds funniest. Thus, people who are bored of official maps, but also don't want to irradiate their SSD by forcing it to download pl_fartworld_rc2 or arena_hogsucker_b5, have nowhere to go for highbrow novelty.

But no longer. Starting Wednesday, September 17th, AltTAB's custom map servers will be running a locked rotation of 10 maps every week—selected at random from a curated high-quality map pool. If you join the TF2C Mapping Community Discord server, you can select a role that will notify you every Wednesday when the switchover happens, so that you and all the other novelty perverts can hop onto the AltTAB custom map server and try the new batch with a full lobby. If you like the maps, stick around all week and play them to death. If you don't, sit on your hands until the next Wednesday.

Pull out your blog-reader issued BlogPhone® and scan the QR code above (or click here) to join the TF2C Mapping Community Discord and make those arrangements!

Image from comptf2c.com, credit Güven

It's been a minute! The process of getting TF2 Classic ready for Steam is involved and laborious. Or so I'm told from the team members actually doing it. I just write blog posts here. (Expect a more detailed Steam progress report soon!)

Last summer, we spotlighted the TF2C Competitive Discord. To reiterate, CompTF2C offers traditional TF2-style competitive gameplay with TF2 Classic's improved gamefeel and unique weapon/map library. The comp plugins are specially tailored to TF2C — Highlander factors in a team's Civilian when a match includes VIP or VIPR maps, teams' starting points in Territorial Domination are standardized, and (at time of writing) all our weapons are allowed.

This summer, we want to get you up to speed on where they've been:

• CompTF2C's official website and blog, comptf2c.com, is the primo source of information about TF2 Classic's competitive scene. Rules, ladders, and installation guides are all there.
• Starting May 30th, CompTF2C is teaming up with the TF2C Mapping Community — see last summer's spotlight — for an event called the HAMMER MONTH. (All-caps is mandatory.) For three weekends throughout June, competitive pick-up games in the Discord will take place on gorgeous community-made maps. Great opportunity to get into the hobbyist comp scene if you're timid, since vets won't be able to outplay you with layout knowledge.

Get involved! There's probably no better time to buy in.

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?