Squibbles
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Tf2, or Team Fortress 2 is a multiplayer FPS game made by Valve and released back on October 10th 2007. It is currently free on Steam, and can be bought on the Orange Box disk through 3rd parties for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One. Tf2 when first released originally needed to be bought at 49.95$ USD. It was later lowered to around 15-20$ USD on Steam and then in June 2011 when the Über-update came out it became F2P. Tf2 is the second game in the Tf line, the first game coming before it being Tfc, or Team Fortress Classic. Tfc was released on April 7th 1999 for Windows computers and August 12 2013 for OS X and Linux run machines. Tfc was based on a mod called "Team Fortress" for the 1996 game Quake, Valve hired the original makers of the Tf mod to create Tfc on the GoldSrc engine.
There are two sets of comic issues that go along with Tf2, the main line comics explaining Tf2's lore and story, and general update comics that came out with Tf2 updates. In total there are currently 25 comics published by Valve. 19 update comics and 6 main comics, while there was supposed to be a 7th main comic which would have been the last one it never came out. As addressed by staff members and artists who worked on the comics, the 7th issue has never been officially canceled. It's been put on hold until all the needed people can come together and finish it, which is probably and sadly never going to happen. There have been whispers throughout the years of what the 7th issues plot included but nothing has been stated by people who worked on the comics. A famous example of this is a 4chan post describing the last issue, the writing would fit Tf2s classic "goofiness" but has never been proven to be true. Many fan endings have been written, but again, nothing has been confirmed.
Link to Tf2's official ******* account: https://www.*******.com/@teamfortress
Tf2 has a large player-base and an active fandom community despite it's well known issues with exploiters and bots. Valve has failed to properly crack down on such issues with them never dealing with reports. Some of the well known botting communities on Tf2 are the "Pizzabots" and "Tacobots" who normally play as aim-botting Snipers. There are many well known hack clients and specific styles of cheating that you'll find in any FPS game, though Tf2 has it's own specialty exploits like "random crits" where if you're using a weapon that can deal random crit damage the cheat will boost your chances to getting a random crit or flat out making it so every hit deals random crit damage. Some players have chosen to go after these exploit groups, with past missions like #SaveTf2. Which in many peoples opinions failed, only ending up in a vague Tweet from Valve on Twitter. Recently though, another operation has gone up which is a lot more promising.
Link a video made by "TheWhat Show" discussing FixTf2: https://www.*******.com/watch?v=hBYvrroug2I&t=659s
#FixTf2 is the second attempt from the Tf2 community to get Valve to fix it's botting issue, coming out on Jun 3rd with a Petition going up that has gained over 300k signatures of the time of me writing this, Team Fortress 2 has also for the first time in the games entire life reached "Overwhelmingly negative" in recent Steam reviews. Many people are taking action against Valves inaction and refusal to maintain one of it's biggest revenue sources, to help get Valves attention and force their hand people are issuing boycotts of Tf2s market, some going as far as to ask people to not buy anything from Steams store (as Valve owns Steam). Others have been boycotting the game itself. Valve has yet to respond to the second wave of SaveTf2 but people are keeping their hopes up. There are many plans of action people have been talking about, ways to get Valve to deal with the issue and ways for individuals to deal with it. Many of these being far more productive than others, the main thing planned from this situation is to physically deliver all 300k+ signatures to Valves main office in Bellevue, Washington, USA.
Tf2 has nine recognizable classes to play as or as they are called in game, the mercs/mercenaries. These mercs are separated into three groups of three consisting of the Offense classes which are Scout, Soldier and Pyro. The Defense Classes which are Demoman, Heavy and Engineer. (two of these names are typically shortened in fandom discussion to just Demo and Engie.) and the Support Classes which are Medic, Sniper and Spy. I personally main Pyro and Sniper in my own game-play! These mercs all have standard weapon load-outs that can be customized with unlockable weapons that can be put into the different weapon slots that most characters have. The primary weapon slot, the secondary weapon slot and their melee weapon. People have come up with their own creative load-outs such as the Demoknight, where you take Demos normal stickybomb launcher secondary weapon and switch it out for a shield item which can be either the Chargin' Targe, the Splendid Screen or the Tide Turner. And switching his melee slot to a variety of swords instead of his typical scrumpy bottle.
There is again also the Trolldier load out for the Soldier where you use your primary rocket launcher, or whatever weapon you have equipped and you replace your secondary shotgun with "The Mantreads" item. The Mantreads have a very specialized way of dealing damage to other players that I honestly do not fully understand. But, there is one interesting fact about Mantread Soldiers that I will explain! For example if a BLU team Soldier wearing the Mantreads were to jump on top of a RED team Solider wearing The Mantreads who is ALSO standing on top of another friendly player (a BLU team member) it would deal multiplier damage, the damage dealt to the original RED Soldier is converted into damage then done by that RED soldier into multiplier damage against the bottom player. This is all very complicated, which is why I don't really understand it but I find it very interesting.
Anyway, like many other FPS games Tf2 has a massive player-run market for in game weapons, hats, and cosmetics. some of these items have sold on 3rd party websites for very large amounts of real world money or in game keys. Some of these have been the Unusual Burning Team Captain which last sold for 6,300 keys or almost 9,000$ USD. Or the Strange Golden Frying Pan which sold for ~3,600 keys or roughly 5,000$ USD. But the most expensive item to ever be old on Tf2 was a Unusual Poisoned Shadow Antlers for 25,000 keys. Or to put it bluntly, 30,000$+ real world dollars in USD. The antlers items are special in Tf2 as every class can wear them and they can worn on top of hats. It is the only way to stack unusual effects, these effects are very valuable to Tf2 traders.
The trading community in Tf2 is famous for it's strange members, especially specific collectors. Like for instance, LucyferVC, she collects the in game "Vaccinator" item for Medic, it is one of his numerous Mediguns he can use to heal other players and go various types of Über. With her collection being 5% of the total Vaccinators in existence currently. She has 40+ alt accounts to hold all of these items, she has well over 10k Vaccinators in all of her accounts. Due to her buying of these items she has accidentally inflated the price of Vaccinators. The standard Collector's Vaccinator on May 22nd, 2021 had 123 known instances and sold for a price of ~178 keys or about 254$ USD. It has skyrocketed to 1,214 keys or 1,724$ USD as of today even with it having less known copies,, being only 117 now. The lessening of numbers is either due to people "scrapping" their Collector's Vaccinators or the accounts having them being deleted/trade locked by Steam.
Link to LucyferVC's ******* account: https://www.*******.com/channel/UCvO3G_XRxVQhFgnOXkSzHQg
There have been other well known collectors or inflation incidents without the Tf2 community like a YouTuber called Elmaxo asking people to collect The Lollichop for fun back in 2023. With his video about it coming out on February 13th, 2023, the original price of The Lollichop was only 1 cent USD but has since raised to 2 whole cents! Elmaxo's attempt to artificially raise the prices of The Lollichop didn't exactly work, but it was a fun community effort. Speaking of Elmaxo, he's one of the most popular Tf2 YouTubers at the moment with many of his videos becoming large and reaching outside of the Tf2 fandom. Like his video on a T2 player named "Bing Soy" who was known for his strange tactics and unusual behaviour. He's also made videos of playing certain characters in specific ways like "TF2: How I got 1000 Kills As Sniper With ZERO Headshots" and "TF2: 100 Days of Spy".
Link to Elmaxo's "The Story of TF2's Strangest Player" video: https://www.*******.com/watch?v=FrQJIIbzoyQ&t=57s
Link to Elmaxo's "TF2: The Lollichop Incident" video: https://www.*******.com/watch?v=PAqYUObSTYw&t=526s
( Two of my favourite videos from Elmaxo )
And, thank you for reading. As you could have probably guessed I am very passionate about my love for Tf2 and it's community, I highly recommend you do your own research and play the game. Thank you for your time, have a wonderful day! P.S: if I stated any incorrect facts please tell me! I would love to fix it!
