ALTHOUGH I would like to add that the mercenaries are still quite active in many high-quality SFM videos on Youtube these days.

>>13724
You've grown up and have more responsibility?

You're supposed to be 18 or older to be here.

I think that's a kinda weak argument.

>>13727
To be fair, the majority of Redditors are also below the age of 15.

>>13727
Agreed. One never stops growing up.

I wish there was more game talk beyond memes and comp play. Most memes period have gotten stale to me, and I don't watch comp matches unless it's a "celebrity" charity match.

I did hear from Makani's blog that we're getting a huge ~40 page comic coming up. So possible big update. We also have the release of the "Key Party" (Poker Night 2) items. Nobody from TF2 as an opponent this time, but potential's still out for a cameo.

>>13727

>reddit

Reddit is pig.

I did hear from Makani's blog that we're getting a huge ~40 page comic coming up. So possible big update.

Wait, did she mean actual pages? Or did she mean that thing the TF2 comics have been doing where comics are interactive, so just changing a single panel or adding a single word balloon counts as a new page (which would make a 40 page comic actually read like a 15 page comic)?

Interactive comics are awesomely creative, but I'd be pretty disappointed if I were eagerly waiting for a 40 page comic and then the actual story content turned out to be much smaller.

>>13729
>Poker Night 2
Claptrap instead of Handsome Jack? God sake Gearbox, you disappoint me greatly.

>>13732

Yeah, I was wondering about this, because I think (have no actual idea if) I heard her say that it would be about the same size as a previous update? I mean, that's still good, though, because we got a pretty cool comic last time, and a pretty big update, with the mecha engies and all (though no one gave a shit because so many people in the fandom don't play the game you're goddamn right I'm mad).

It might even be a continuation of the Shadow Boxers comic, though continuation is rare.

>>13732
>>13734
I'll ask her in case. I'll also ask her if one of Kritzkast's speculations was true about the virtual comics changing format so they could port the comics to iPad/Kindle.


Poker Night 2 trailer's up, by the way.

>>13732
If you haven't seen it yet (or anyone else hasn't), here's the post on Makani's personal tumblr: http://anoia.tumblr.com/post/46605620267/tf2-fandom
It at least sounds like there's to be a large number of individual pages. In any case, it would be nice to have some more information.

As for the chan activity... When I have time over the summer I'll be doing my best to leave more concrit and general feedback on fics, at least.
However, trying to help encourage written fanworks aside (I don't have any particular ability in giving feedback on art, so I won't be doing that), I'd say I'm not that interested in getting involved with TF2chan any further.

If it makes anyone feel better, I am pretty new (not to TF2 mind you). Perhaps a "rebirth" isn't too farfetched.

On a side note there sure is a large ammount of gay pornography here.

>>13992
Most of the canon cast is male, and there arguably shippy lines between a lot of characters. (And then there's characters that people ship without any subtext, but that's a different story.) We could always use more genderbend/OC het and femslash, though. I guess I was toying with doing so for awhile myself, to be honest, but between a resounding "meh" in response to my artwork, and a sudden complete lack of interest in anything porn-related, it may not be for awhile.

I wish Workshop was still a separate board, I was wondering if we could turn it into a general art help/feedback board, for posting all of our art. Not just TF2 stuff.

>>13996
We could always use more genderbend/OC het and femslash, though.

Speak for yourself, jeez.

>>13997
What's wrong with that?

I've gotten into the habit of calling the femclasses OC's and not "genderbends", because someone I knew who was transgender got kind of annoyed with the term "genderbending". Besides, I've almost entirely seen femclasses who are their own separate character, not the original male character going through a sex change process.

>>13996
The issue we had with Workshop was that it was pretty much the deadest tf2-related board on the site. While it sounds great in theory to have a board solely for learning and hard critique, it failed in practice because noone ever went there to teach and crit.

>>13997
There's a /tits/ board for a reason, don't be snippy just because someone likes what you don't like.

>>13998
I'd tell them to quit being so offended at the term. It's not a term that is inherently directed at Trans people, and the portrayed female characters usually aren't trans themselves, so there's no reason to shy away from it.

I stopped playing TF2 after around 500 hours (plus probably another 100-200 more that Steam didn't record), around the time of the Manconomy update IIRC. Having different weapons and stuff is nice, but it started getting to the point where there was just too much stuff compared to the perfect balance of vanilla or the early content releases, which still had a semblance of balance to them. But with more and more stuff being added to a originally balanced game, everything just started falling apart for me and it didn't have the same spirit to it.

Should probably note that I was mainly into TF2 for the balanced gameplay, I was here to talk about the game. I've never really cared for fanfiction or stuff like that.

Me, I bought a PS3 and started playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2 a lot since my PC was crap at the time and BC2 was one of the best-balanced shooters on the market. Now I'm mainly playing BF3 and World of Tanks, with a bit of Natural Selection 2 and Chivalry on the side.

>>14000
Why not play on a vanilla server then?

I think part of the fun, whenever new weapons are added, is getting better at playing with those weapons in the game too.
I see it as an opportunity at improving, instead of complaining I guess.

I think, that right now TF2Chans main-problem is that it have a really bad reputation, and that keeps new people from sowing up.

The fandom itself certainly hasn't died down, like everyone says it has.
But again, even the TF2 fandom itself seems to have kind of a bad reputation.

Anyways, I know lots of people that would love a place like this chan.
They simply don't want to come to this one, because it has such a reputation of drama, and being all about gay. (and I mean "all about gay" as in the adultfanfic/art section gets the most attention, and a lot of people seems to come here more because of that and lees because of the game itself).
Also, no offence, but the admins of this site, have a reputation of being dicks too.

>>14009

>TF2Chans main-problem is that it have a really bad reputation

>the admins of this site, have a reputation of being dicks too

>>14009
>I think, that right now TF2Chans main-problem is that it have a really bad reputation
Which is wholly undeserved nowadays, and it still pisses me off immensely that people can't let grudges from the previous moderation, WHICH WAS COMPLETELY REMOVED AND REPLACED TWO AND A HALF YEARS AGO(Save for myself and Cat, who were the only two mods AGAINST the flashy seizure bullshit and the bullying of users that the others pushed out without our approval.) die out, instead spreading what now equates to lies and unwarranted slander all over sites like tumbler and DA.

This new moderation has been trying to run the show entirely differently, and with far more care than previously, and yet there's still people who claim we're exactly the same as we always were, banning users left right and center, and bullying people we don't like out of the chan. To those who still think this way, I can only say: Let go of the past already, because we have nothing to do with it.

I think there are some people who have just moved on entirely. Wasn't anything the fandom did, they just had a fascination with one particular character, that fascination died, or they tried playing the game and weren't willing to deal with the learning curve that arguably exists in every game.

Or their anxiety problems made them worry they'd come across the stereotypical 14-year-old bullying homophobe that exists on XBOX Live, and they didn't want to play a game online period as a result.

I broke it off with some once-good friends who also refused to even consider anyone in TF2 could be gay. Not being into gay porn, okay. Different strokes for different folks. But when they said "If anyone in the game is ever outed, I'm uninstalling TF2," that was where I drew the line.

>>14011
>>14012
When I speak of this sites "bad reputation", then I'm not talking about DA or T-umblr, as those are not really sites I use at all.

The problem is, now that all the users are scared off, you really have no way to prove peoples assumptions right or wrong.

>>14009
Well, I thought it was to share a common interest and have fun, but I guess I was wrong.

No, but actually I think you misunderstand, the problem isn't that there is a lot of gay on this site, the problem is that people think you can ONLY be here, if you're into gay.

Which is a darn shame, because most of the years I've been here, I have never even been in the Adult sections, and I still have had a lot of fun.

>>14011
I'm sorry, but I feel it's rather ironic you feel that way, when Cat Bounty so often still stirs drama about TF2chan on LOOK AT THIS FUCKING HIPSTR.

If you mods want to kill the drama and make other people believe the chan is a better, more drama-less place now, then maybe you should also be the first to keep chan related stuff on the chan, instead of spreading it to other places.

When a chan is dead, it's already too late. What this place used to be it will never be again, now it belongs to the ages.

>>14012
Agreed.

I like the fact that most of the namefags have left to go to hipstr/left the fandom entirely. And the only reason the Chan has a 'bad reputation' is because people are two-faced bitches who come here, get pissed off because people aren't jerking them off like they do on hipstr, then go run back crying to all their loyal followers about how terrible and unreasonable it is. Their followers then think 'oh golly, that place must be awful because this person I follow is flawless and would never overreact or take things out of proportion.'

That's why TF2Chan is 'dead.' I personally don't think it's dead completely, but I'm just an anon asshole. What do I know?

You know what else? The whole namefagging thing is stupid. If we were all anons, the amount of drama would drop drastically.

And if you want the goddamn evidence about the hipstr thing, then look at the robotic boogaloo thread.

>>14019
I still think the other website is being unfairly blamed, or it's being seen as something it's not.

Some people just like blogs better, either because of the format, or because they can decide what it's about, or they don't have to deal with people they don't want to. On a public space, they might have to. It's no different than a forum. There's easily hundreds of people in the fandom. I don't like thinking they all have the same reasons, or the same personality, or preferences, or anything.

>>14019

I am new to the chan as of last year, and fairly new to the fandom, and while I feel regretful that I wasn't here during its heyday which was I guess some time before 2012, I personally don't mind the lack of activity due to bad reputation or off-site drama or whatever you think is killing the board. It seems like a lot of people just left the fandom, or are maybe just playing the game and not contributing anything else. Because even on Hipstr there isn't as much activity as before, or if there is, it's not where I've seen. And you gotta admit, TF2 is fairly old for a videogame, it's amazing it still gets even a little bit of fanart or fanvids or fics.

I guess people who are used to something more from the chan will miss it and complain about the lack of activity and that's not entirely unreasonable, but I'm just saying, there is at least one person here who doesn't know nor care what it used to be like and who is totally okay with just having a place to anonymously post really gross fics, activity or no.

>>14019
The only reason? No.
This place has a bad reputation for a lot of reasons.

I can name a few of those I've heard, from the places I go to.

1) The mods have a "shoot first, ask later" policy, and are just generally very mean.
2) If you don't immediately know "chan culture", then people are going to loose their shit on you.
2b) Bad behaviour is often excused with "it's chan culture" don't like it? Get out.
3) If you're not intro gay porn, then you're not welcome
4) The site frowns upon foreigners, even if you admit you're bad at the English language.
5) How much shit you get away with, depends on how popular you are/You don't need to follow the rules, if you are a popular artist/writer

And yes, I do hear complaints about how mean spirited people here are, but not in the way you explain it.
What I hear, it's about going after the player, instead of the ball.

Like, post something the community doesn't like, and instead of just going "we don't want that here", then people ridicule you and talk shit about you.

Not sure if I really explained that clear enough, but my point is, it's not just people being butthurt because this place isn't sugar, rainbows and lollipops.

>>1235

> 1) The mods have a "shoot first, ask later" policy, and are just generally very mean.

Welcome to the OLD moderation, how can I help you? I realize that the way of the old mods was basically to be big mean assholes who ruled the roost, but the times, people, and myself have changed since then, and quite a lot. The new moderation that we've been running with has almost always taken to reviewing situations with the other mods online at the time, via Steam. When something gets done, it's because an consensus was reached that something needed to be done. As to the mods being mean, no shit people are going to think we're mean and cry about it, when they get cautioned or banned. It's clearly never their fault for not reading the rules, or not respecting what other users and the mods are saying. How could they ever be wrong? Even if we did shoot first in such an instance, there are no bans longer than three days, and we tend to only give one days, unless you've done something so completely against the rules or mean-spirited that it warrants something more and every moderator online or involved agrees. The dreaded permaban is only used in the most extreme of extreme cases these days, not counting the spambots.

> 2) If you don't immediately know "chan culture", then people are going to loose their shit on you.
> 2b) Bad behaviour is often excused with "it's chan culture" don't like it? Get out.

This is entirely bullshit spouting by whoever told you that, and I for one still don't understand what they mean by "chan culture". It's basically a buzzword that they're flinging around as though it means something worse than "if you're being obnoxious, we won't stand for it," which is what we're about when it comes to moderation.


> 3) If you're not intro gay porn, then you're not welcome

How did I get to be a mod then? I'm not into gay porn, I originally came to tf2chan just because it was a fun community and I enjoyed the game, all those years back. I think everyone on the site would love there to be more activity on boards that aren't the gay porn boards.

> 4) The site frowns upon foreigners, even if you admit you're bad at the English language.

I really hate to ask, but where in the hell does this come from? We've had plenty of foreigners on the site and in chat who have had an enjoyable time, and have even contributed to different aspects of our community. Unless you're saying "foreigners" as "those spanish and russian spambots we get every now and then", I fail to see any justification for this reputation.

> 5) How much shit you get away with, depends on how popular you are/You don't need to follow the rules, if you are a popular artist/writer

I'm gonna be frank here on this one, because I don't actually follow most of what goes on with the artists/writers here, but this kind of thing happens in EVERY COMMUNITY EVER. There is a big difference in mindset between losing a valued member of your community over a rule infraction, or losing someone most don't even really know or care about. Still, that doesn't give anyone immunity to the rules, that just gives them a freebie before they actually get kicked out if they keep their shit up. And the chan HAS banned popular artists for not abiding the rules, such as Kilomonster, who was even a moderator at one point. So yes, while there is some leniency, it's not anywhere even close to immunity.


>What I hear, it's about going after the player, instead of the ball.
>Like, post something the community doesn't like, and instead of just going "we don't want that here", then people ridicule you and talk shit about you.

This however, I will admit is entirely our doing. When the moderation changed over, and after the shitshow that was us interfering whenever we saw a problem, we changed and adopted the new stance of letting the userbase sort their own problems out in any situation that doesn't break the rules or warrant special attention from the mods. We figured that letting people run more wild and institute their own definitions of what is acceptable and what isn't would work better than having the mods define it and crack down like a police state. Clearly, there's no winning this battle because people will complain no matter where on that spectrum we decide to stand, so we're going to leave things as they are. If the users decide to hate someone, who are we to stop them and say "NO, EVERYONE ACCEPT THIS PERSON OR YOU GET BANNED"? We won't do that. We value your right to say what you want about someone or their work more than your "right" to not be offended by what other people say.

Instead of focussing on what this place reputation is/why it is that way, shouldn't we focus on how to change it?

I mean, we could probably throw accusations back and forth from here to eternity, but it's not going to change anything.

Here have some sexy hoovy, he'll calm your nerves.

>>1236
Shit man, calm down. Don't shoot the messenger.

I didn't say any of it is necessarily legit, it's just the stuff I hear people saying about this place.

But seriously, pull that stick out of your ass, and stop acting like this is a case you have to defend in high court.
There is no use in even discussing it further, it you keep up that offensive defensive attitude.

>>1239
Let me just add, I'm not trying to be an ass, or in any way personal.

It's just really upsetting, you getting all defensive at me, like I'm the one starting rumours and giving this place a bad name.

>>1238
>>1239
>>1240
>stop acting like this is a case you have to defend in high court.

I may as well be defending it in high court, considering how utterly impossible it is to change other peoples' opinions, it seems. If you think this single response is upsetting to YOU, imagine how I and the other current moderation feel, having been trying to change this place and give it a better repuation for literally years since the previous moderation left it with this shitty one, and noone giving the slightest bit of care about any of our efforts to make TF2chan a better place for everyone, instead going on believing that we're exactly the same as we always were and preaching it blindly to anyone who will listen. It's not a fun situation to be in, and it's definitely upsetting, considering that other people will go out of their way to make paragraphs upon paragraphs of outdated and unnecessary hate just because of things that happened years ago.

>But seriously, pull that stick out of your ass
Rude.

>like I'm the one starting rumours and giving this place a bad name.
No, but you clearly have some contact with people like that or at least know who they are, as you've said this is what you've heard from them. I would hope that since we're presumably on the same side here, of wanting to change the chan's image for the better, that you'd be able to give more information on the bits I did direct at you personally, or pass on the bits that I directed at the points themselves to those who need to hear it, if they're still showing off the same song and dance. I'm sorry if I come off as abrasive on this topic, but it's been two and a half fucking years with seemingly nothing to show for it. Give me a break and let me be a little irritated once in a while. It's not like I'm using the mod tag for this, since I know the other mods may have completely differing things to say, if they choose to wade into this minefield as I have.

If you have a suggestion for how we can change this seemingly unshakable bad rep that we haven't tried already, I'm all ears.

This is honestly my first time hearing that certain people don't like other people. I'm usually just in the middle, completely confused as to what's going on.

>>1241
I'm the anon that made the Heavy post, Why am I mixed into this now?

(And if it's because of the IP stuff again, then let me just repeat myself from that other thread, this is a community computer)

>>1244

Well, now you know. Here's a good advice from one user to another: Lurk and keep out of fray, otherwise you may get caught up in it for speaking your opinion and someone taking offence, and that usually don't end pretty. Speaking from personal experience here. Got banned for something I thought rather trivial some 2 years back. Ain't gonna name names or point fingers; that's below me, so I'll leave it at that.

>>1188

The game started to suck hardcore and old players stopped playing en masse.

I'm only here for the straight porn

>>1248
I just don't want to see people fight. It kinda breaks my heart. Even if it's just two artists I like, neither of whom I'm close to.

I can't really say I left the place, as I'm still here occasionally.
I am, however, no longer an active user because I feel like this place is less and less about Team Fortress 2, and more about being an art critique/improvement central.

is it still the official opinion of the admin that the n-word isn't offensive anywhere in the world except america or did mog leave

>>1252
Mog has been gone for quite a while (I think they left even before the big moderation changeover in fact), so I'm pretty sure that's not a problem anymore.

I think another problem is that some people are only interested in responding to replies to their own work

if it doesn't involve them they don't give a shit

which is something I think people need to change their attitudes about

but it's not really indicative of the state of the fandom at all

>>1199
This goes a long way!
Places like 7Chan were slow at one point (or at least not so slow anymore).
I also think having a positive attitude and just talk about tf2 shit like normal will help the site kick back into gear. I just see people getting so down in the dumps about this, but if anything a low point now means a high point down the road!
Just keep a positive attitude and keep posting is what I'm trying to say I guess. Just like a bad attitude can bring everybody down a good attitude picks everybody up!

Also, in terms of chans in general, can we get the IP of whichever shitheads are posting child pornography/spam porn site ads and ban them for life?

>>1263
>Implying you can't easily get around an IP-ban

>>1263
Pretty much what >>1264 said. They're using multiple different proxies and changing up their IP range as a result, so the best I've been able to do is ban their general ranges and add their links to the spamfilter. If they change proxy again as well as the link they're posting in the message field, it gets through and I have to clean it up again.

>>1264
>>1265
I honestly didn't know that, I'm sorry.

I miss the times when the site was more active because the format of the fanfic archive makes it a thousand times easier to find fic than it is when you're on LOOK AT THIS FUCKING HIPSTR and have to wade through personal posts and memes. The quality standards for what fic gets posted here makes it easy to find something you can enjoy reading, but I think it also scares people off from posting. Most fanfic writers aren't super serious about improving and are intimidated by criticism. (I know I would have trouble dealing with unsolicited crit on a fanfic no matter how nicely you worded it, which is why I'm a lurker.)

On the other hand, now that the site is dead, people who _do_ want critique are going to go someplace more active in search of feedback. It's a vicious cycle.

And uh, the wordfilters don't exactly make the place welcoming to newbies (or people who haven't been here in a while).

>>1275
Just describing the reasoning I've seen.