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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.

Hi, blog readers! We admire your loyalty to these legacy-style online newsletters, instead of getting your TF2C news from Twitter posts, or 11-minute recap videos, or AI-written summaries of 11-minute recap videos. In fact, we've got just the thing for old souls like you.

Renaissance Revival 2​

Renaissance Revival 2 is the sequel to a legendary TF2C weapons pack dating back to 2020, just months after our official release. At the helm of both is Yakibomb, a tireless institution of our modding community; medieval mode's #1 fan and #1 critic. I have it on good authority that they wept when we announced Krepost. The massive credits list for this mod includes other familiar faces, though — SilentFox3, Reagy, Wendy, and more — and an uncountable glut of people whose live TF2 workshop items were lifted with permission. (Seriously; if you didn't contribute to this mod, then you've spoken to, played with, or used to online-date someone who did.)


Click the image or download here!

Yakibomb might stop putting together world-class mod teams if we send like 500 people to ask them a bunch of dumbass questions, though, so I'll knock out a basic outline of what to expect from Renaissance Revival 2:

• These aren't just weapon reskins. These are (over 70?!) new weapons that are treated as unique equippables in your Loadout menu. An incredible amount of work has gone into making them distinct from each other and distinct from weapons in live TF2, in terms of balance and behavior. There are parameters in here I've never seen before.
• This mod won't work on regular public servers, like our VaultF4 Standard group. To use these custom weapons, you'll either need to join (or host!) a community server that's been specially set up to support it, or start an offline match against bots.
• If installed correctly, you'll be able to join normal servers without any issues — the server's list of valid items takes priority over yours, so you won't be able to use your Renaissance Revival weapons, but you won't crash or be banned or anything.
• Installation instructions are in the README that comes with your GameBanana download.

We love what's been done here and we're apt to look closely at RR2's contents for any future (as in, post-2.2) changes we make to Medieval Mode. If anything in this pack strikes you as pure genius, we read the suggestions channel in the Discord as often as we can, and give real consideration to what we see. Maybe this will help guide your thinking?

Speaking of future changes, we hope to come bearing more "from the top down" news soon — mark my words, this will be a good summer to be a TF2 Classic fan. Thanks for sticking around!