It's good to reminisce.

[Selby]

Firstly, I thought I would share this with you guys... if it gets nowhere, it doesn’t matter.
It's a mammoth post and you'd think i'm mad or psychologically fragile but who cares.

So, what to say? I’m Marc, aged nearly 27 living in Lancashire. What do I want to get off my chest? I don’t really know. Maybe I just want to share this story with you.
December 2011. It’s very cold and raining currently and I’m sat at my PC just having moved home with my young family. The wife is at work, and it’s my day off to look after our 11 month daughter (who is currently sleeping). The internet has just been activated and everything is active! But I am sat here typing this. ‘This’ perhaps are my thoughts on past glories and present annoyances.
Twelve years ago in the good old days of 1999 is where we’re portalling back to. I was in Year 9 at school wondering how long a website would take to load up and thinking – what is the internet? Shortly later I funny little game appeared in my dads bag when he came home. It was orange in colour and had emblazoned on ‘BEST PC GAME EVER!’ I knew this wasn’t true as I clearly knew that Settlers was untouchable – being a strategy kind of gameplayer. It didn’t take too long however for my world to stop dead for a decade.
This isn’t the time to go into the niceties of Half-Life and what it has done for video games since. For me personally my whole game playing life on a PC was halted to just one game (until Half-Life 2) and the online games that spawned from it. To be blown away aged 14 or 15 by a game isn’t uncommon but by simply walking around a monorail carriage for a few minutes at the start of the game it tells you something that this is quite special.
Then the tactics came in.
My best friend was in the same boat as me. We were into PC’s, he’d build them whereas my dad built and tinkered with ours at home. The internet was new I guess to homes and although it seemed slow yet nice at school we didn’t beg for it to be in our homes. That was until we stumbled across Team Fortress Classic and CounterStrike. The internet was a must from then on. We both bought your esteemed organ and learnt about online gameplay etc... The problem was getting access to it. We first tested it at school on the local LAN. Our form room so happened to be the IT room and as a “charity event” one dinner we decided to install Team Fortress Classic onto the school system and let people pay £1 for an hour’s play. That was theory. As I have said... the school internet was shockingly slow. But we saw enough to get it into our blood. We both came up with a begging tactic mixed with a bluff. I’d tell my parents that my friend had just got the internet and he’d do the same in the hope that they’d feel sorry for us and then hook us up to the WWW shortly afterwards. It worked. In no time we were rocket jumping and crouching behind seats on a 747 airplane trying to kill terrorists. Bliss!
Christmas came some time later and opened our world to the likes of Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 Arena, Operation Flashpoint (lol) etc... but it wasn’t the same online. You’d go on a server and install keep dying whilst one guy with a DSL connection (we had 56k) and a lower ping constantly got the Redeemer in a less laggy time than we could. Perhaps I was crap at Quake armoury or the Unreal sniper gun. Team play was the game for us.
As you do, you’d scan servers with a good enough ping for us to join... mainly 56k modem players. A favourite haunt happened to be a Dutch server called Sweep. It wasn’t much popular but you could get a good enough game after 6pm upto 24-30 players. The guy who ran the server happened to be a computer PhD student from Delft in Holland – Sweep... I still remember his name: Maarten van Schouwen. He used to modify TFC itself and as you logged into his server you automatically downloaded patches for the tweaks he had. It was brilliant! We called it home. A few years past, mainly playing on a map called Mooncheese on my own or the timeless 2fort which always seemed to win map votes. Came and went did news about a Team Fortress Classic 2, rumours came and faded yet still I’d spend my days (non-peak times) playing online jumping between trying to conc-jump out of danger as a medic or camping under a train in de-trains on CounterStrike.
Even with a 56k modem I was good enough to get into a UKTFCL Division 1 clan (woo!) who had people in it cherry picked at will by Premiership clans like [DW] and =BC= etc... I was just happy at the whole league thing and clan matches... being a part of a group and community from people across Europe and beyond. You never forget the ways we had to try and use voice software like Roger Wilco and mIRC just to speak in a game. When “lol” simply meant seeing a soldier grenade himself or killing someone with a flashbang. Typing “wtf” when a Scout grabs your flag 10 seconds into a clan match on Badlands due to the famous Bunnyhopping.
I mainly played soldier... partly due to my Ping (way above 200 for the time) and mainly because I liked playing Defence. I was too slow to be a scout or an attacking person. It was different in CounterStrike as you had one life so crept everywhere and played as a team, unless I decided to dick about and smoke bomb attacks and be a ‘troll’.
That was my life... I lived somewhere where I couldn’t easily access a friends house to hang out so it was just the computer for me. I remember the night before my GCSE French exam in 2001. I had an important clan match at 10pm. Trying to explain that I HAD to play to my mum was impossible. I won in the end, I had my match (we probably lost). Mum said i’d fail my exams and kindly picked up the phone to the notorious screech of an internet connection and the inevitable crashing of any online activity at the time. I reconnected in the end. I ended up getting a grade A in French the next day. All’s well then.
College came, friends went. Things in life changed. Team Fortress Classic 2 wasn’t talked about in circles any more, the internet got faster, technology moved on and slowly I went off the online games perhaps feeling a bit sad that for 3 or 4 years I had at least been a part of the growth of online shoot ‘ems and team play. I occasionally went to a college mates house to play Age of Empires over a network and thought i’d try it online. It knocking on a bit Age of Empires 2 or 3 at the time but still a good game. So dedicated I was that when AoE2 came out, me and my friend went on an 8am bus on a Saturday morning to Wigan to queue outside GAME just to be the first to get the game. We were the only ones there. Anyway, I tried AoE online... I lasted 2 minutes. By the time sent off a forager and someone to collect wood and build a small dock, my enemy had built stone watch towers and half built a wonder. It was pointless.
Time passed. I had a gap year after college working... nothing special. I wasn’t playing anything online apart from online pool, usual rubbish to pass time. University came a year later then, from nowhere one night I saw a link to download a new improved CounterStrike update. I thought, why not eh? Out came the necessary tools and downloads, technology was better in 2003 everything faster, sharper. I latched onto a community server called something like Bingo Bongo. Most players were from the Midlands and in a clan formed around the film Full Metal Jacket [FmJ] but they had a website, full servers and seemed decent chaps like the old clan days. I was quite good, no longer having a 56k dial-up connection and a couple of Ge-Force graphics cards later – my ping was reasonable. I liked the CT team mainly for the MP40 and terrorists seemed to camp alot. I tried TFC again but players and servers were few it just wasn’t happening. It seemed I’d have to settle for CS, although enjoyable due to better updates and gameplay, users own maps and the usual niceties of such a server it just wasn’t Team Fortress. On I played, the usual every night or day maps strolling along on automatic when out came whispers for... Team Fortress 2. A cartoon? What? 2fort! Good. No conc jumping or scout spikes? Years ago TFC2 rumours suggested there’d be a map showing player locations for tactical play. This didn’t have that. It didn’t even have capture the flag but a briefcase? Wtf?
On went the anticipation, the teaser trailers, rumours, screenshots. Weeks went by. I was older and ‘had’ to knuckle down to Uni work. I could get away with not revising GCSEs as I was/am quite clever and they’re not that important anyway but as I’m paying thousands a year I had other priorities... and a girlfriend. I wasn’t ticking down the days but some guys with plenty of time on their hands on the Bingo Bongo server were playing TF2 Beta’s... one or two maps testing out each class depending on the server. I couldn’t wait.
The time came, I remember that day. I used some of my student loan to buy my access to TF2 in Lancaster. The 3 hour daily commute home near Wigan seemed like an eternity. Off went my sister from the PC. My parents had prior warning that an all night booking was made for the computer so all was good. Strangely I didn’t want to rush into the game. I took my time. I’d been waiting years for this and I suppose I didn’t want to miss a detail or graphic. I even read a few instructions! Then came those moments where you’re close you can hear a rocket go off. Will I connect to a server? Will I lag? I joined a random server and remember the map. Gravel Pit. Red or blue? Fair enough thats not new, I chose the red door and a soldier (back to normal). I’m in. Where were the TFC noises, gun turrets in spawn? Who cared? I ventured out and everything was happening. I went forward looking around at everything oblivious to what was going on. Wow, the graphics, the sounds, the cartooness of it all. What was that? *die* Oh yeh, a blue engineer’s sentry gun. Realising I’m in a shooter I got over my sense of awe and started to play typing things like “i’ve waited years for this” and “I’m home” – the usual drabble people say. Having not played many games since Half Life 1 and 2 I guess it was quite a different experience for me.

Usual then happened, the next few weeks learning the game, the maps, wondering why I couldn’t conc jump, fluttering from server to server. Finally I found where I was meant to be, what online gaming for me was about. A few servers with the same players and that seemed popular... which later became Festers Place TF2 server. I had the server a lowish ping, good guys and gals, a community and good maps and games. Nothing spectacular happened for the next few years I was still a soldier or a sniper if I couldn’t be bothered running about. The regulars seemed to be the same class which I suppose adds to an identity online.
There was one night where I suppose it came to an end, perhaps fittingly. It was a map called Avanti. An Italian styled village uphill and you had to get the briefcase to 3 control points. Everyone on that night were the 32 players who were regularly on. Nobody left and everyone knew their role in attack or defence. It was perhaps the best 30 minutes of gameplay I’ve ever had. Perfect almost, to me anyway it seemed like everyone was at their limit... logged into the Matrix. A battle royale. Weird I know, but it seemed like to me that it was simply great! Yes, an online game gave feelings of splendour inside. Cheesy yes. You have the servers best Heavy Weapons Guy with his dedicated medic, delivering the perfect Uber chances, the engineers who knew where to put teleports and SG’s, demomen who knew when exactly to detonate, and such like... Who cared about stats and KPD. I was breathless literally I was knackered. It was great. To me thats what online gaming was, that unique chance to be a part of a team doing a role you enjoy with people feeling exactly the same.
Afterward I posted on the server website forum just to say, perhaps, exactly that. Why? I don’t know. To a neutral or someone in the street who would give a damn?
By now Uni had finished and I moved in with my fiancée (as she was now) into our first home. The Avanti game had been done and a week after I accidentally hoovered up the internet cable. Oops! That was it. Finished. I bought another one and went to play again but the lag was immense. I stopped there and then... and possibly that I had a wedding coming up. That was it.

2011. X-Box, PS3, COD, Battlefield. It’s like swearing to me. I dislike the way in which console have seemingly taken over people like it’s the best thing ever. To me it’s annoying. I’m just saddened that a handful of people I meet have played online on a PC. Why do people settle for mediocrity on a console? The graphics, speed, connection, gameplay, everything is, or seems, inferior. Soup up a PC and it’s untouchable. If only the mass market could have played Avanti that night the world would be different. Where are the PC sections in GAME these days? I started to reminisce. Oh to hear the ‘someone has got your flag’ beep in TFC or the sound of an inevitable death when you hear a Heavy’s machine gun fire up to speed again. People always talk about Call of Duty and I just say TF2, CounterStrike or basically most other PC online games are better. They are. Just nobody knows about them any more. I’m out of their conversations instantly like Half Life or the likes of Deus Ex haven’t even existed.

Why oh why wasn’t there a Half-Life movie?

Back to this cold rainy day in December 2011. The internet has been up a few days, the new house is settled in. I captured the sight of an orange box hidden away in a box. An Orange Box. Why not? A few clicks to check and yes... Steam is on, TF2 is updated and I’m all ready! Talk about timing! I wonder what mad updates there have been. PC Gamer voted it 3rd best ever game. I guess it’s not like TF2 of 2008.

A newbie again. A happy newbie... i’m back on the wagon and I hear there’s going to be a new Counter Strike of some sort. I’ve looked up my old haunt of a server... it’s still going strong... but it’d have to wait, my 11 month old daughter is awake and wanting me... bugger! I don’t care, i’m going around again.

[Selby]

I need a hug.

[Toco]

thats alot of reading when u consider most of us are stoned cunts selby, next time type it in chapters lol

[Califax]

I actually read the entire thing.
Let's just say, welcome back to the world of TF2 Selby!

[Coco]

Wow, that's actually a really well made essay there!

[__fell]

big hugs for you selby

[CAMBO]

Hi Selby,

See the wife or your daughter for a hug.

What does year 9 mean by the way? ( i left school in 1986 )

Toco - at least you didnt criticise his spelling.

Where exactley are you from?
I used to race BMX and Motorcross at Three Sisters and got a lot of my kit from Alans in Hindley.

Remember there are a lot of new games now so TF2 has a lot of competition,
but most of us still play a few rounds several times a week so add a few in Steam Friends to see who is online.

[Eros]

Heya Selby, not too sure if I played with you back in the day but welcome back and that was a good read. Festers place was a great part of my childhood (which is still going on) and I actually played Unreal Tournament for a long time.

I hope I see you around and add me on steam: PedalBin or PedalBinUK.

[Selby]

I was only a regular and called Festers home. I think I stopped July 2009 as had a wedding and other 'important' things as a priority. I think TF2 ramped up the classes and updates to which I see have exploded since.

[DHARMA AGENT]

Welcome back Selby.