Now the most of the SteamPipe conversion confusion should be sorted, here is the promised update for Project Ghost:

New rounds:

• Atomic Natasha Scouts
• Minor League Baseball Spamming Scouts
• Rockets vs Reflects
• Brute Force Body Bashers
• Fenway Park Flyers
• Fat Flying Heavies
• Death Sticks!
• Engiman with the Golden Wrench

New fixes:

• Small HP buff on round start
• Sudden death timer is based on number of players still alive
• Fix for revolver bug
• Weapon redundancy check

For more details about the rounds, check out our wiki page: http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/TF2Tightrope

Since the TF2 Steampipe conversion process will take a while and more than likely break a couple things the next update will take longer to implement than we’d like. It’s unfortunate we couldn’t manage to finish up another in time before the conversion but then again it would have broken right about now anyway.

We are working on getting everything.. working again asap but can’t give you an ETA.

We’d like to use this time to do another quick poll on the currently active changes:

(These were just the currently active changes i.e. some of them were experimental and not necessarily intended to stay. Some were just to test some claims or to try and push some borders to see what’s acceptable and what isn’t, etc. Suffice it to say not even the coder who implemented them likes all of them. But that’s why TF2Tightrope is like a beta.

I won’t tell you what’s what though because we’d like to hear your general reactions to these regardless!)

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Thank you for participating!

The next TF2Tightrope Time is on the 14th of April:
Where:
US Server – 64.120.11.226:27015

When:
Click here for countdown
Click here for your timezone
Central Europe (CEST): 02:00 (15th Apr)
USA Pacific (PDT): 18:00
USA Eastern (EDT): 21:00

Items to test: Vile Vacuum, SMGs, Big Earner

Remember to join the TF2Tightrope Steam group to receive Steam announcements – makes it much easier for us to get players together.

Now with the April Fools blog post out of the way I figured I’d take the time to explain what we’re currently working on now that PAX and Easter are over.

Lately we’ve been studying the balance of other games even more. Competitive classics like Halo and Counterstrike, but also modern staples of the esports scene like Starcraft 2, Black Ops and Heroes of Newerth.

There are two key things we’ve noticed about these games:
a) They are faster
b) They are more difficult

This confirmed our suspicions about TF2 and reassures us the many complaints from players we get are all true. Once this realization hit us we immediately implemented the following changes:

Disabled autoreload
Reload must be pressed again for each shot in the clip
Reverted Pistol change – M1 can no longer be held down to keep firing
Fire rate depends on how fast you can click

These are inspired by Starcraft’s “macro” mechanics and further help differentiate the best players from the less experienced. They add no extra strategic thinking requirements as our research has shown all competitive gameplay should have minimal metagame considerations in favor of raw mechanical skill.

When random crits are turned off, all weapons have a 100% chance to crit

Simple, straightforward change. Not only does this get rid of the hated inherent randomness but it also speeds up the game and rewards players for hitting enemies at farther distances where their hitboxes are smaller and move faster.

Trying to detonate stickies as Demoman before they are armed resets their arm time
Trying to airblast before the cooldown is over fully resets the cooldown
Trying to headshot before rifle is fully charged does no damage and resets charge

Emphasizes timing skills and punishes the rampant spamming of buttons. We’ll add this behavior to all the other similar weapons in the future.

Explosions do no splash damage unless it would hit multiple enemies
Splash damage cannot kill

Skillful usage of splash damage is rewarded, relying on it when you’re too bad to score direct hits is punished appropriately.

This is only our first batch of changes we hope will finally make Team Fortress 2 just like the other truly competitive esports. Tell us what you think!

To celebrate the 1st of April, we have 2 fun features enabled for 2 days.

Project Beta: When you spawn as heavy, you will have both jumpers and can only do damage by falling on people. Use respawn cabinets to reset to normal.

Project Ghost: A rare round can occur where both teams get a rather odd weapon set, with the aim being backstabs.

These will be available on all of our servers until Midnight UTC/GMT 2nd/3rd April.

Currently with 22 Unique rounds, it is time for some Project Ghost this week.

All changes active on both servers.

Last Major Changes:

• Removed medkits and ammopacks from maps
• Added crit glow to players some rounds
• Added Greased Lightning Pyros round
• Added Turbo Rocket Scouts round
• Fixed being able to remove some effects
• Completely rewrote how effects are handled
• Wrote an algorithm to reduce rounds from repeating based on when a round was last played
• Wrote some situational sudden death conditional code to prevent infinite rounds

The next TF2Tightrope Thursday is on the 28st of March:
Where:
US Ghost Server - 205.234.159.229:27015

When:
Click here for countdown
Click here for your timezone
Central Europe (CET): 02:00 (29th Mar)
USA Pacific (PDT): 18:00
USA Eastern (EDT): 21:00

Remember to join the TF2Tightrope Steam group to receive Steam announcements – makes it much easier for us to get players together.

Ahead of our planned release schedule, we have decided to launch the 2nd Ghost server in Australia. Europe is coming soon, but first we want to see more players before we go adding too many too soon.

USA Project Ghost server: 205.234.159.229:27015
AUS Project Ghost server: 119.252.190.72:28067

Changes:

Removed medkits and ammopacks from maps
Removed flares from Pyromaniac Spies
Added speed boost to Pyromaniac Spies
Added milk effect to Cleaver w/ Sandman round
Added crit glow to players some rounds
Added milk and speed boost to Fat Scouts round
Added Greased Lightning Pyros round
Added Turbo Rocket Scouts round
Added 5 second bleed in Crossbow Medic Battle round
Added speed boost instead of milk to Electric Engineer Dance Battle round
Fixed being able to achieve headshots with the Sydney Sleeper
Fixed being able to remove some effects
Completely rewrote how effects are handled
Wrote an algorithm to reduce rounds from repeating based on when a round was last played
Wrote some situational sudden death conditional code to prevent infinite rounds

Remember to post any bugs or suggestions on our forums. We really do appreciate it.

Bug reports: http://www.tf2tightrope.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=26
Suggestions: http://www.tf2tightrope.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=27

Things have been totally gnarly around here! And I mean the bad kinda gnarly, where things are gnarled!

Listen. Look. We had a couple bigger ideas we planned to implement like a projectile minigun, flamethrower variants and such. But it just didn’t want to work out this time. Still we made a bunch of framework improvements and new functions we can hopefully use on items THAT DON’T BREAK NO MATTER WHA- sorry. I mean, future items.

All changes active on both servers.

Changelist:
◦ Updated /loadout command
> now also describes changes to existing weapons (on top of custom weapons equipped)
> is automatically executed on resupply/spawn
◦ Removed Blutsauger, Liberty Launcher, Cow Mangler, Skullcutter changes
◦ Atomizer has 25% explosive damage vulnerability on wearer
◦ Neon Annihilator speed boost underwater while active, can’t destroy sappers
◦ Homewrecker plays damage resist sound when reducing Sentry damage
◦ Warrior’s Spirit allows own thrown sandvich to heal (+extinguish) you

The next TF2Tightrope Thursday is on the 21st of March:
Where:
US Server – 64.120.11.226:27015

When:
Click here for countdown
Click here for your timezone
Central Europe (CET): 02:00 (22nd Mar)
USA Pacific (PDT): 18:00
USA Eastern (EDT): 21:00

Items to test: Ascender, Atomizer, Warrior’s Spirit

Remember to join the TF2Tightrope Steam group to receive Steam announcements – makes it much easier for us to get players together.

Changelog:

• Medic health regen now working correctly
• Rounds will no longer repeat
• Adjusted map cycle to only play small maps
• Fixed some classes getting other weapons on ammo pickup
• Fixed the Persian Persuader getting stuck on some rounds
• Fixed being able to switch back to disabled weapons
• Fixed limited ammo weapons bypassing ammo limit
• Added 12 new weapon sets

A special thanks goes to SilverAlen, for pointing out several bugs in the initial version.

This time our EU server will get some love (though we may run a US event this weekend as well). All changes are active on both servers though.

We now also have rtv and nominate features enabled on both servers.

Note that with today’s update we’re at around 18 active weapon changes. Tell us which you like the least so your favorites don’t get pruned!

Continue reading →

Finally it is ready…

Start enjoying it here: 205.234.159.229:27015

Launching in the USA. Project Ghost is all about quick, 2 minute, death match rounds. What makes this so special? Everyone has to use the same weapon set! Bwahahahaha.

This small project is geared towards having endless fun and did I mention, it has nothing at all to do with ghosts?

Have at it, lads.

Hey folks! This time I, CoolJosh3k, will try one of these blog post thingimaboamajiggies…

I got some exiting news to reveal, but first a little tidbit:
“We will try to use the term TF2TightRope in future to refer to this community as a whole. In order to avoid confusion, we will try to specify ‘Beta’ when talking of our original servers.”

We have some rather exciting things we have planned. A long time in planning, I have been working to introduce new ways to play tf2. I have decided to call these “projects” and I hope that the when released the community will be overjoyed with the fun to be had.

Bah, boring I want the good stuff. Who reads the first intro paragraph anyway?

Introducing…

Project Ghost – Coming Very Soon!
Arena style rounds, fought with specific weapon sets.
Ever tried to kill someone with only your Soldiers Booties?
Ever played an 6v6 match of only the Ullapool Caber?
Ever imagined if you were all engi with only a mini sentry?
Ever been in a crowd of melee scouts, with only your needle gun?

Project Omega – Coming Very Soon!
Custom maps? Custom gamemodes?
Got some great custom maps, but never had the chance to see it on a server?

When the time comes, we will open a section on the forums for which you can go mad discussing each of these ‘projects’. There will be more projects announced in the future.

We’re getting new server admins! Radman, SilverAlen and JacquesLEB will have server admin rights to ensure events keep going smoothly.

There won’t be any new changes this time. We’ve worked on a bunch of changes but didn’t end up having the time to test them.

Try the items you didn’t get a chance to last time!

The next TF2Tightrope Thursday is on the 28th of February:
Where:
US Server – 64.120.11.226:27015

When:
Click here for countdown
Click here for your timezone
Central Europe (CET): 02:00 (1st March)
USA Pacific (PDT): 17:00
USA Eastern (EDT): 20:00

Items to test: Ascender, Vaccinator, Loch-n-Load, Kunai
Check the Wiki page for details

Remember to join the TF2Tightrope Steam group to receive Steam announcements – makes it much easier for us to get players together.

Remember – type “/equip” and go to a Resupply Locker to equip our first custom weapon for Sniper!