TF2: A historical perspective

[Stayne]

Yeah, I know, another here's-my-two-cents-on-TF2 thread. But please, bear with me.

I feel that I owe an explanation for creating a new thread on the topic, rather than just continuing on one of the others. The explanation is simple, I think that I can help put TF2 more in a more historical perspective relative to TFC and QWTF.

As we all know, Team Fortress began as a mod for the QuakeWorld engine. It was extremely fast-paced, action-packed, ground-breaking game. The concept was interesting enough for Valve, a new game studio, to hire the TF mod team to produce TF2 in the long run, and to produce TFC in the short.

So, what was TFC? TFC was the classic version of TF on the new (at the time) HL engine. It was a segue. It was the holdover until the bigger, badder TF2 was completed. It was only intended to keep the TF fans happy while TF2 was in development.

And what was the idea for TF2? Was it to be a continuation of TF and TFC? We already know the answer to that question:

http://curmudgeongamer.com/uploaded_images/Tf2old_soldier-744727.jpg

TF2 was to be nothing like TF/TFC. TF2 was to be a modern war game, like a modern Day of Defeat, Battlefield, or one of the many other "realistic" army games. It never, at any point, was meant to build upon TF/TFC.

Over several reinventions, TF2 adopted a look that is actually much truer to its origins. I suppose we, the TF players, can take relief in that. I know that many of us, myself included, are disappointed that the TF2 devs didn't build upon the strenghts that kept TFC alive for such an incredible time. How many multiplayer games has TFC seen rise and fall? But, that disappointment aside, taking a more historical perspective on the evolution of the development of TF2 has helped me appreciate the final product. I hope that it succeeds and keeps TF alive for several more years.

[InnerFury]

ohh man this reminds me of all the fruit booters that said tf2 was going to be so realistic and just like cs or dod, and now its like im playing pixars toy story.

btw i think tf2 is great.

[Stayne]

ohh man this reminds me of all the fruit booters that said tf2 was going to be so realistic and just like cs or dod, and now its like im playing pixars toy story.

That's what happens when they change directions with the development. It WAS going to be like cs or dod. Movement-wise, it IS like cs and dod.

[kno[x]]

TFC was the classic version of TF on the new (at the time) HL engine.

Pretty inaccurate statement.

[tyson^cool]

That's what happens when they change directions with the development. It WAS going to be like cs or dod. Movement-wise, it IS like cs and dod.

yeah thank goodness for all the rj'ing and double jumping in cs and dod

boy oh boy

[Stayne]

;1567239']Pretty inaccurate statement.
Pretty unhelpful response. If the statement is inaccurate, please correct it. As I see the history, TF2 was announced in 1998, a year before TFC came out. TFC was a port of QWTF to the hl engine for the purpose of 1) showing how different a hl mod can be from hl and 2) to hold TF fans over until TF2 was released.

I didn't lift this idea from wikipedia, but wiki collaborates this view (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Fortress_2#History).

yeah thank goodness for all the rj'ing and double jumping in cs and dod
Now, tyson, you know better. The statement about movement is referring to how movement speeds are clamped to max player speeds and how repeated jumping is prevented by forcing a small pause between jumps. Both of those are similar to the movement systems in CS and DoD. The minuscule rocket jump in TF2 is about 1/2 what it is in TFC, and the doublejump was blatantly lifted from UT but with a smaller second jump. You left out demoman's grenade jumping, btw.

[pitsniper]

Pretty unhelpful response. If the statement is inaccurate, please correct it. As I see the history, TF2 was announced in 1998, a year before TFC came out. TFC was a port of QWTF to the hl engine for the purpose of 1) showing how different a hl mod can be from hl and 2) to hold TF fans over until TF2 was released.

I didn't lift this idea from wikipedia, but wiki collaborates this view (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Fortress_2#History).


I think he is argueing over the term "classic version" of TF, even though tfc has classic in it. I think just port would be better version, unless you want to call fortress forever a classic version of tf as well. I remember most of the people I clanned with at the time refusing to try tfc because it was too slow in many respects. On top of everyone moving so slow, and projectiles such as rockets, the grenade splash was huge. They removed the grapling hook, they introduced non-ctf maps, the player models were larger in height (at least they seemed to me). They had mostly new maps. I thought the graphics looked more cartoon like at the time. Sadly, that is all I can remember.

[Stayne]

I think he is argueing over the term "classic version" of TF, even though tfc has classic in it. I think just port would be better version, unless you want to call fortress forever a classic version of tf as well. I remember most of the people I clanned with at the time refusing to try tfc because it was too slow in many respects. On top of everyone moving so slow, and projectiles such as rockets, the grenade splash was huge. They removed the grapling hook, they introduced non-ctf maps, the player models were larger in height (at least they seemed to me). They had mostly new maps. I thought the graphics looked more cartoon like at the time. Sadly, that is all I can remember.

While I don't argue any of those points, especially given that no one bhopped in the beginning, TFC is much closer to TF than TF2 is to either. The classes in TF and TFC maintained more general roles (a medic could dm a solly, infect the hw, kill an sg, then conc out with flag) whereas player roles in TF2 are relatively confined (medic can heal teammates... kill ppl sometimes).

And if TFC introduced non-ctf maps, TF2 did away with ctf entirely.

Any way you cut it, TFC was much truer to the original than TF2 ever was. And that is the point of my original post. TF2 was never meant to be like TF/TFC. The TF2 we have today is actually much more similar to TF than originally planned.

[kno[x]]

pitsniper kinda got what I meant. TF and TFC are very different. Many things in TFC were changed from TF to call it a "classic version".

[aXeman]

1.5

[Paddyjack]

For the nostalgic out here, here is the intro video of QTF back in the days:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4R1ghwJ85k

It is correct btw... while the maps were somewhat similar in size in TFC vs QTF, the models of TFC were indeed bigger, making space more cramped. The original ramp room in 2fort looked a lot bigger in QTF than TFC for example.

IIRC, when I was playing QTF, the talk was that the next upgrade to TF would not be on Quake anymore, but on a new game called Half-Life. I remember I bought buying this HL game only to be able to play what we called in those days TF2. Playing Half-Life was a blast though so I didn't regret it. However, a few months after, Valve announced that TF2 would be a stand alone game that we would have to buy even if we have HL. The TF community at this point exploded. People were feeling cheated. To appease the community, Valve then announced they would port QTF to the HL engine (which was based on Quake anyway) in a game called Team Fortress Classic. And TF2 as it was announced never went live, except that I often think DoD is what should have been TF2. The current TF2 is obviously not what was originally planned to be.

[Stayne]

Thanks for that, paddyjack. :)

Maybe I'm misunderstanding (or being misunderstood). I am not trying to claim that TFC is exactly the same as QWTF. I know there are differences. What I was saying is that TFC was called "classic" because it was porting QWTF to the new HL engine. It was trying to maintain the essense of QWTF. Whether that was achieved is a matter of opinion and preference.

As for the TF1.5 comment. TF1.5 is what valve called TFC after one of the WON patches. I think it was when the new player models were introduced. However, when steam was released they went back to simply calling it TFC (look in the steam games menu).

Anyways, as paddyjack stated, TF2 was never meant to be a continuation of QWTF or TFC. It was always going to be something different, something more DoD-like. This release is actually much more like TF than was originally planned.

Why is that important? Well, for me, realizing that TF2 was a little truer to its base than was originally intended helps me cope with the enormous changes that are in the game. I mean, dear god think of what it could have been!

[tyson^cool]

Now, tyson, you know better. The statement about movement is referring to how movement speeds are clamped to max player speeds and how repeated jumping is prevented by forcing a small pause between jumps. Both of those are similar to the movement systems in CS and DoD. The minuscule rocket jump in TF2 is about 1/2 what it is in TFC, and the doublejump was blatantly lifted from UT but with a smaller second jump. You left out demoman's grenade jumping, btw.

Now, Stayne, you know better than to always act like your opinion matters. It doesn't, and your long winded posts are usually filled with inaccuracies. There is no pause between jumping and landing like those found in CS and DOD. You can actually continually jump, but it doesn't give you a decent speed boost akin to bunnyhopping in TFC. Yes I'm an inferno member, and yes I think you should probably stop posting all together.

[Syrion]

By the way, there were non-CTF maps for QWTF... and they were beloved. Canalzon was the most played QWTF map outside of 2fort*, I think--at one point there were at least three canalzon 24/7 pubs, and there was a league which played only canalzon. Hunted also existed. The problem was that the entities were crap in Quake, so you couldn't do much without kludges. TFC added more non-CTF maps because its entities are better.

[16Valve]

All I wanna know is...

When the SDK for TF2 is released, who's going to simply take TF2 and simply add classic grenades and put CTF maps back in.

Sure it "sounds" like FF but I really like TF2. I'd just like TF2 to have grenade spam. No, really. I actually miss spam at this point.

Call it TF2:C (for classic) ;)

[Toastie]

they probably wont release the SDK, they never publically released the TFC SDK at least, although its likely not much different than QWTF's SDK

[Stayne]

Now, Stayne, you know better than to always act like your opinion matters. It doesn't, and your long winded posts are usually filled with inaccuracies. There is no pause between jumping and landing like those found in CS and DOD. You can actually continually jump, but it doesn't give you a decent speed boost akin to bunnyhopping in TFC. Yes I'm an inferno member, and yes I think you should probably stop posting all together.

I was mistaken on the jumping thing. It felt that way when I played the first time. I think my framerate was shit and.. I dunno.. I suppose I was just used to TFC/FF movement and the TF2 movement was so different. Anyways, ya, that was incorrect. I have also been able to get more lift on rocket and gren jumps in a listen server, so that part isn't as bad as I originally thought.

But, that being said, I guess the actual point of my post has been discredited now, even though you haven't actually addressed it. Brilliantly done.

Keep on trollin'!

[deadlyseven]

stayne i see what youre saying, and i really find TF2 to be awful. but TF2 might as well has been another army shooter, too me it is that much different. either route they took or were going to, we got Effed in the A, and im aware people do like TF2. i just cant get into it, ive tried it drunk as shit too, and vgames are always fun drunk as shit

[dylan]

TFC was an attempt to bring qwtf to the hl engine, just as DMC was an attempt to bring quake to the hl engine. Same weapons, same maps, similar gameplay, but Half-Life-ized (a bit slower, no jump+hold bunnyhopping).

TF2 is a modern adaptation of that game. Developers in the quake days did not make games as fast as they did just to make games fast. I think it was more along the lines of experimentation. Fortunately for us, those games were fast. But now a more modern audience seems to enjoy realism and tactics over an insanely fast shooter. Valve recognized this and wanted to capitalize on it. I don't blame them, if they had made TF2 exactly like Fortress Forever/TFC, I don't think they would have created near as much hype, except from the TFC community of course.