Christmas is here and as some of you already noticed BadGamers TF2 server is back for the holidays!

With the War Update the soldier and the demoman have received extra weapons, equipment and abilities along with some new maps ctf_doublecross + cp_gorge so make sure to check them out.

Also the good people of ye olde Control Point podcast have released yet again one great Christmas Episode full of holiday spirit and tongue-in-cheek TF2 carols so don’t miss this one!

Happy Holidays from BadGamers TF2 and have a great year 2010!

The Sniper vs. Spy update boosted the player amounts nicely but as the summer is getting hotter and hotter the inevitable summer vacation (as seen last summer) has shut the server down. I in behalf of BadGamers TF2 server would like to thank everyone who has contributed to the server and TF2 these past 20 months and hoping you have a nice summer!

Check out the screenshot gallery at xfire for some screens from our players and also check out the player stats below courtesy of gametracker.com. TheCLQ.com has also some good data about the top maps played each week and weekly player stats.

See you at the Clan Arenas of QuakeLive.

Weather is getting rougher as German mapper MrMof placed his new WIP map cp_redfort to the new darker shaded setting that came with the sniper/spy update map arena_sawmill. Theme is fitting this single-staged attack/defend castle siege right on the money, check it out yourself!

MrMof is of course familiar to BadGamers TF2 server players from his earlier maps like cp_boulder_v5 and the same high standard of map-making and the quality of the self-made custom textures is obvious on cp_redfort and his other projects.

One to watch is his Omaha Beach-esque-WIP-map cp_frontline with loads of tailor-made WW2 equipment models that fit right into the TF2 theme. Cp_frontline is still very much in its early stages so we’ll have to wait for the public betas a bit longer but follow the progress on MrMof’s blog. (category cp_frontline)

cp_redfort_b3 shot #2

cp_frontline models and a WIP shot

(all pictures by MrMof himself)

The Sniper Update – Day 1

The Huntsman bow

The Sniper Update – Day 2

Pipeline – a new nocturnal dual-cart map map for the brand new payload race gametype plus two arena maps Sawmill and Nucleus

The Sniper Update – Day 3

The Razorback – a tribal shield on your back will protect you from a single backstab

The Sniper Spy Update – Day 4

Espionage equipment:
The Dead Ringer watch – feign dead while actually being cloaked and moving in for a backstab
The Cloak and Dagger spy watch – infinite cloak when you stay put

The Sniper Spy Update – Day 5

Meet the Spy and the Spy Achievements

The Sniper Spy Update – Day 6

The Ambassador
Powerful yet accurate revolver with slower firing cycle

The Sniper vs. Spy Update – Day 7

The Jarate and the Sniper Achievements

The Sniper vs. Spy Update – Day 8 – Out NOW!
Hats off for the release featuring community created map pl_hoodoo by Tim “Youme” Johnson

The update is going to go live this weekend and in order to maximize the mayhem there is a free TF2 weekend to go with that starting up this thursday so get the game, lock and load and join us on the BadGamers TF2 server!

Just a quick heads-up, the server was updated today as Valve released a fix for several annoyances, one of those undocumented ones being very slow connection to steam cloud and creation of a minidump every time the server was restarted. Cp_junction_final received a update to comply with tournament/stopwatch play and if you have fiddled with your stats and wish to reset those annoying padded ones you may do so by pressing the reset button (the in-game one…)

The loadout changes seem to be the most interesting ones, check out the screenshot and speculation about the additional headgear and equipment slots posted at badpower.com

This was not yet the the Sniper Update announced this month, we are eagerly waiting for the hordes of snipers from down under!

European Team Fortress 2 League (where all the competitive European TF2 action seems to be happening) has been hosting a mapping contest for the past two months in order to find good 5-point push gameplay CP maps and as the deadline has been reached the submissions should already be in!

Straightforward CP maps like Valve’s original Granary and Badlands have been well adopted by the professional players and with the class limits narrowing down different class configurations and everyone striving for the best possible lineup the matches face a risk of becoming quite repetitive. ETF2L competition guidelines addressed this by instructing the mappers to pay extra attention to on how the teams could use alternative classes with their special strengths in their maps.

BadGamers TF2 has been running betas (edit: now version 1.0 final) from Vilepickle’s Cp_follower (in the first picture) and with strong opponents like MangyCarFace’s Cp_yukon, tarmo-’s Cp_greenvalley and Icarus converting his payload map Pl_waste into Cp_waste the competitive gaming crowd should have some new maps to battle within.

Cp_greenvalley by tarmo-

Cp_yukon (Ash Ridge) by MangyCarFace

cp_waste by Icarus

All screenies by the authors themselves.

The Scout Update for TF2 is bound for release this Tuesday and as the previous class updates have shown us we’re looking forward to get some new scout-specific achievements, new unlockable items available for weapon sidegrades, selected community maps bundled with the update and hopefully some new gametypes or maps from the Valve crew themselves!

This is what the countdown has revealed so far:

- A stunning new item called the Sandman

- Two community created maps arena_watchtower by Joshua “JoshuaC” Shiflet and cp_junction by Sean “heyo” Cutino

- BONK Energy drink plus 35 scout achievements

- Another A/D map cp_egypt created by Sean “heyo” Cutino and an update to cp_fastlane by Arttu “skdr” Mäki

- The Force-A-Nature double-barreled shotgun packing enough recoil to rocket you to skies

- Item unlock order revealed: 1. Force-A-Nature 2. The Sandman 3. BONK Energy Drink

Almost all of the community maps are already familiar from our BadGamers TF2 server custom map list so bundling them with the update will free up some space from our map host mirror. Expect some new maps solving that empty space problem soon and remember that not every player needs to be a scout…;)

Misc pictures of the update contents below

The Sandman

arena_watchtower and cp_junction

BONK energy drink and achievements

cp_egypt

The Force-A-Nature

Tested some maps on our LAN party last weekend and here are the latest findings

- a new arena map by heyo : arena_harvest_v2
- payload contest entry pl_repository updated to pl_repository_rc
- payload map optimized for small download pl_swift
- hectic vertical action in ctf_death_valley
- classic but more compact warpath re-textured cp_warpath_v3

BadGamers lan party gathered record number of participants (22) with reinforcements from Ken0bi and Rokkai. so that meant that there was some good TF2 action going on all weekend! GG everybody and it was nice to see folks travelling from all over Southern Finland as well as the local peeps.

In a related news, found a youtube clip containing some frags from BadGamers TF2 server, watch Iso-Arska’s TF2 Gameplay Collection 1 here. Good stuff and if someone else has some material from the server drop us a comment with a link!

Download the pack. Vote for the maps in this TF2Maps.net thread. Doit!

Payload mapping contest deadline over at TF2Maps.net has been hit and overall nine entries have been submitted to take part of the competition in which the best Badwater Basin-style single-stage payload map is decided. The entries with their WIP links are as follows:
pl_zig, pl_cashworks, pl_reservoir, pl_halfacre, pl_stovepipe, pl_tranquility, pl_repository, pl_frontier and the late submitted pl_vipersden.

You can download all of the contest entries in one big 7zip-package (133MB) (grab vipersden separately ATM) and test yourself which one of them can be dubbed as “better than Badwater!” Voting at TF2Maps.net will be opened when people have had time to play all of the entries properly so check back to see when that is starting.

I will check out the maps myself and add at least the most polished ones to BadGamers Team Fortress 2 server ASAP. Have fun!