As a prelude to some clips we’ll be posting (gravelpit and viaduct scrims ), I wanted to mention a few tools available for recording TF2 demos that you can upload to youtube or other sites.
Chrono likes using Wegame, which actually comes with its own plugin/program tool that lets you record straight from ingame or from a demo. The quality is a little crappy, but its quick and easy and gets the job done (as you can see below)!
Volt (who used to play with the Terribles and now for the new Harmonic) has a few tips for batch recording demos here (post #14), should be a way to let you record all the raw files overnight and stitch/edit and compress them the next day. The problem here is making sure the settings/configs are the way you want them, which leads in the next tool.
A few months ago, some people came up with a standalone (well, not really) tool to record demos, taking out most of the messy config editing and coming up with a simple plugin/hud/menu system to record demos as you watch them with keybinds. I personally haven’t used it before, but I probably will try to use it this time to get some videos recorded.
I also want to record some voiceover/commentary for the demos, which will probably involve using Audacity and then mixing the audio file with the TF2 audio file along with the video output.
As for compression: I still need to research my options, but VirtualDub, MEncoder, MeGUI, and other programs are worth looking into for those of you interested in some technical fiddling.
Let us know if you have any experiences with these, or with any other recording tools!
First off, on our end, a big welcome to Synthos, our newest soldier after Panda decided to move himself to backup. A week or so in and we are making some progress getting settled down, and we should be good to go once CEVO picks up and TWL starts. We played VIR evenly in our qualifer match for TWL, so expect us to move up to Div 2 (since 90% of Div1 and 2 teams currently are dead or not doing TWL). As for CEVO, we may get a forfeit win against Infinite Rage (which died a few weeks back), which works out since we are still getting used to scrimming together.
ESEA teams are finalized and ready to go, with 40 teams in Open and 8 in Invite, 2 (or 3?) of which are sponsored by Blight this season, who is also sponsoring an Open team as well (!). A lot of last minute roster changes, with some familiar names coming back after a break from competitive TF2. Viaduct is the first week’s map, so hopefully we will get a chance to learn the map as well.
CommFT has put out two good articles, one is a roaming soldier roundtable with some good comments about what to think about as a soldier playing away from the medic during holds and some pushes; the other article is put out by Sigma talking about things to consider before deciding on a push. Both are very, very enlightening especially for teams who are looking to improve their chemistry and become more aggressive in their playstyle; check them out!
Finally, a couple of good frag videos from the Invite teams, with Area 51 (Muscle Milk and Moolians) putting out a team-oriented frag vid, and Pandemic (who is now sponsored by Blight I think) with some sweet frags in their vid as well. Both are very professionally done, worth a watch just for some of the movement and coordination from the A51 vid.
Recently, the team got back together after a bit of a break we did some scrims. Actually, these scrims are pretty much the first with our new member, Synthos (playing in this scrim as spectator).
Just a small clip of a badlands scrim when we were trying to take the enemy’s spire. Enjoy!
UPDATE3: Videos are up check the bottom of the post
Yep it’s finally the weekend to go to PAX East 2010 in Boston at the Hynes Convention Center. The TF2 tournament is in the freeplay area on the 3rd floor, starting at 6pm. Details are limited, and it’s hard to tell who’s even going to be there, but it should be interesting to watch even if I can’t find a team to join If there’s a decent team looking for a medic or soldier to ring for them, contact me!
EDIT: Updating live from PAX, about 10-12 teams it seems have signed up, mostly casual, (the rest of the pug team I’m playing with hasn’t even heard of competitive TF2 -- ‘can we have 2 medics?’ XD) but I did recognize a few famous faces, see if you can recognize them below! Start-time is delayed until 7PM due to steam issues, I’ll have more photos of some matchplaying later. I kinda wish I had bought a BYOC ticket now, they gave out a free copy of Battlefield Bad Company2 =O and a Nvidia bathrobe…?
UPDATE2: Congrats to ‘Snuggies’ for taking the tournament, 16 teams in total (!!!), with a bunch of (I assumed) PA guys (aka FARTS) facing off against them in the final on gpit (2-0). Snow Bear University had a tough granary match against them in the semis which was a pretty intense game to watch (5-1). The TF2 cosplayers also had a decent pug team going and made it to the semis, sorry I didn’t catch your ingame tags The rosters:
Overall I think it was a very smoothly run tourney (except for some steam issues in the beginning). Despite many people not having played comp 6v6 before, everyone seemed like they had a lot of fun, and the comp players had their good games in the later runs. There were quite a few chuckles when it was announced that cp_well was the first map, and that an admin had to be present to watch you turn mouse acceleration off, but I think it was a pretty big success, with 16 teams signing up in the end. Double elimination would have been fun, but would have taken quite a long time
And now for more pictures and videos after the break!
Before we start off, a big welcome to our visitors from ubercharged and from reddit! You guys made quite the spike in the visitors graph on our site statistics. reddit folks gave us almost 50 times our regular traffic amount. Rest assured, we’re really a competitive team, just that we have our fun pubbing as well sometimes So stick around, maybe you’ll get interested in comp play as well. Check out TF2lobby, check out commFT (links are in the lower-right hand corner in the site sidebar), there are lots of resources around to help you get started.
On a related note, CEVO is about to start as well! Get those rosters filled. Preseason starts today and runs for 2 weeks (cp_gorge!!! and turbine are the maps), and the regular season starts April 4th. This will probably be the league that our team will focus the most on right now, until TWL starts. Looking through the Amateur Central conference, it seems like we’ll have our fair share of good competition, so it should be fun
Lastly, shoutout to AG: great job in ESEA this past season Here’s the video that conebone made for these guys -- nothing too impressive, but always fun to watch a frag vid for a team.
Nvidia recently rolled out and then retracted their 196.75 drivers. Why, if it supposedly gives a 30% performance increase for most old-ish video cards (like my 8800GT)? It doesn’t play nice with the fan controller. More like, it doesn’t turn up the fan at all, leading to serious overheating issues for some (the most common card I’ve seen is the 9800GT being mentioned). I have heard, on various forums, how people have fried their cards and/or mobos. To be honest, I am using the 8800GT along with the new drivers, and I do see a noticeable performance jump, but I’m only feeling safe about it because I manually turn up my fan every time I play TF2 anyways. This is on top of underclocking my card, but to be fair, my card was factory overclocked so it’s just running at stock speeds. For those of you wary though, feel free to rollback to something older, which can be done without finding the old version of the drivers actually! But just an fyi, the 196.21 I think is the latest.
And now the obvious comparison: did Nvidia really not notice this at all? If they cited a 30% increase, surely they playtested the drivers in various systems and applications…
Also an aside: Sigma and company have released their latest Focus Fire episode featuring detox and VG on gpit from the ESEA-O playoffs, and we may start hosting these on our blog! So expect to see some future blog posts and summaries of these episodes popping up on our site!
Lastly, a trickjumping video for your Sunday morning -- yes, these are all pretty useless in comp play, but the editing is nice and the jumps are flashy, which makes for quite an entertaining vid. Please don’t try these in a scrim
orzTF2 is now sponsored by SavageGaming! ESEA Season 8 registration ends Jan 3rd, make sure you sign up!07:10 AM December 14, 2010from web
CEVO is over! 1-2 loss vs. natures on gpit. best of luck to everyone else. orz is looking for a solly and scout for next season!07:13 PM November 09, 2010from web
ESEA Season almost over - 3 losses in a row :( but 2 last badlands matches vs. carnal gaming and the terribles. Hope to finish strong!11:52 PM October 22, 2010from web
), I wanted to mention a few tools available for recording TF2 demos that you can upload to youtube or other sites.
If there’s a decent team looking for a medic or soldier to ring for them, 
The rosters:
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