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Team Fortress Classic

Team Fortress Classic (TFC) is a popular multiplayer modification for the first-person shooter computer game Half-Life that allows teams of players to compete on the Internet in lethal games of capture the flag, escorting a VIP, territory control, and other missions. It was ported to Half-Life by the developers of the Team Fortress mod for Quake.

Classes

One interesting aspect of TFC is the interdependence it breeds amongst teammates. After picking a team (i.e., the red team or the blue team), players pick a "class". After dying (which happens often), players can pick a new class. Each class, listed below, has its own advantages and shortcomings.

• Scout
  fastest class, weakly armed and armored, can strip spy of its disguise
• Sniper
  sniper rifle (with zoom)
• Soldier
  RPG launcher, heavily armored
• Demoman
  can lay pipebombs and detpacks (large, timed bombs)
• Medic
  can heal teammates and infect enemies
• HWGuy (Heavy Weapons Guy)
  heavy armor, powerful Gatling gun, slowest class
• Pyro
  has flamethrower and napalm missiles
• Spy
  can disguise as a member of another team and remove enemies' disguises; can kill in one stab with knife
• Engineer
  can build automatic sentry guns, teleporters, ammunition dispensers, can repair teammates' armor, has EMP grenades
• Civilian (only in VIP games and other special modes)
  weak character who must be protected by his teammates in order to win, armed with just an umbrella

For example, the scout is the fastest class in the game, but can easily be fragged (killed) by an HWGuy. But an engineer can lay waste to an HWGuy with his EMP grenades, which won't really affect medics. But snipers can kill a medic before he gets close, but is vulnerable to getting stabbed in the back by a spy. But the spy's identity can be revealed by a scout, and the interdependence goes in loops like this again and again.

Although this works in theory, reality is nothing like it. Games where professional players fight it out (clan matches and public servers where clan members play seriously) are dominated by Soldiers and Medics. This list will try to objectively describe the flaws of each class:

• Scout
  This class is the fastest and most mobile class, his normal running speed can take him anywhere. Coupled with his ability to concjump it makes it very hard to defeat a skilled Scout unless you have a sentry gun or something to block him with. The problem with this class is that he cannot fight back, no chance at all against an Engineer + Soldier combo. There is often one on each team in clangames.
• Sniper
  Not used in clan matches, often limited, said to slow games down. The sniper is powerful, having both a one-hit kill weapon and a very good auto rifle he can stand a chance at the longer ranges. At close range however, he is easily defeated by most any class. His only defense in close combat is his grenades which will often kill both players thanks to their large radius. Almost never played in clangames thanks to the limitations.
• Soldier
  The best overall class, lots of armor and health, great weapons, acceptable speed, many grenades, very mobile thanks to rocketjumping. Very common in games, almost never limited. The majority of the team in clangames.
• Demoman
  The Demoman can break through defenses with his powerful explosives, he can also defend with them. His weakness is close combat though, in most cases he will lose against a Soldier. One exception if is the Demoman has mastered the grenade launcher which is very powerful when mastered. Each team in a clangame might have one, offense or defense.
• Medic
  Has great weapons, great speed and great mobility. Almost as fast as the Scout. Can stand a chance against the Soldier, especially when relying on grenades. The offense in clangames.
• HWGuy
  Very powerful and hard to kill, a master will kill any class at close range. Most classes at medium range and many at long range. Often limited in games thanks to that. Not intended for offense, but still quite effective at it. In clangames each team will have one at defense, possibly more if allowed.
• Pyro
  Not best at anything, and not better than the Soldier overall. An inferior Soldier. Rarely played in clangames, works at defense and offense.
• Spy
  The single use of the Spy is getting past/destroying sentry guns. In clangames this class is often used on the offense, rules often forbid defending with the Spy.
• Engineer
  The backbone of any defense, most teams have at least one. Clangames are no exception.

Patches have been released to try to fix these issues by increasing the Pyro's firepower and decreasing the HWGuy's firepower. This hasn't really helped though.

Competition

Several online gaming leagues exist, where players compete each week for dominance with their team, or clan. Since TFC is naturally a team game, it lends itself well to this aspect.

But you don't have to be in a formal team to play TFC right now. All you need is a copy of Half-Life and join any public server. It is likely populated with players like you—if not, pick another—and start shooting away. For beginners, a class like soldier or HWGuy is recommended.

Game types

The multitude of ways entities can interact in Team Fortess and Team Fortess Classic allow for an almost limitless amount of different game modes. This is one of the reasons the mods were such successes. This is a list of some of the major game modes, complete with examples of maps (somewhat popular).

Capture the flag

A simple mode where you have to get the flag from the enemies' base to your own base to score. Several game modes based on this exists, including ones where you instead have to get your flag to the enemies' base and modes with multiple flags.

• 2fort
• flagrun
• push

Territory control

These maps consists of several command points that a player can capture by either standing on it or bringing a flag there (depending on map). When a team controls all command points that team scores.

• cz2
• warpath

Invade/defend

One team defends a base and another team tries to capture that base by bringing a flag to a capture point situated deep inside the base.

• dustbowl
• avanti
• asti

Hunted-style

One player gets to play the Civilian class, he is supposed to get to an escape zone without being killed by the assassin team. A third team is supposed to guard the civilian.

• hunted
• betrayed

Shutdown-style

A variation of capture the flag, you have to disable a laser by pressing a button to get access to the flag.

• shutdown2
• openfire_l

Skill maps

Skill maps/practise maps, for perfecting certain skills - concjumping, rocketjumping, strafejumping, etc. These maps consist of increasingly hard jumps that players have to complete to reach the end of the map. Most maps have some kind of reward in the end.

• concmap_r
• concmap_speed
• quad_rocket

Contemporary issues

Since its release in 1999, the developers of the game, Valve Software, have introduced various changes into the game. Perhaps the most momentous was TFC 1.5, which, amongst other things, "rebalanced" the game in an effort to make certain classes less dominant or more competitive.

Serious groups of players, clans, have seen the rise of playing for money in tournaments like the CPL. However, TFC's popularity has probably seen its peak, and CPL prizes have not seen the heights of $100,000 for the Counter-Strike champion.

TFC can no longer be played on the WON network as Valve Software has shut it down. In order to play TFC, users must now use the Steam platform to download the game.

See Also

• List of Half-Life Mods