Awww, Team Fortress is truly a home from home for a MMO player. In LoTRO, WoW, Everquest and so on, how many hours have we all spent debating hardcore vs casual, raider vs non-raider, solo player vs grouper in forums and within our guilds? Happy, happy times. Well in Team Fortress 2 we have the pub player vs the comp player or pub vs comp instead. Easiest way of looking at it; comp player = hardcore raider.

There is this idea that the competitive player (one who plays in a team in competitions and is competitively ranked) is humourless, elitist and treats the game like work. Who wants that eh? The pub player (one who plays on public servers that anyone can join), however, lacks discipline and commitment and basically can’t play very well. What a noob. It’s all so familiar.

Of course this ignores the fact that comp players (the pros earn money) were all pub players once and many happily play on pub servers. I know this. I’ve seen them. It also forgets that many pub players also dip in and out of competitive play and are part of more casual competitive clan teams that at the same time practice and are pretty dedicated to the game. The clan community server I’ve landed on is run by a clan like this; oh yes to be clear, clan = guild = kinship, more-or-less. You join a clan and get to wear their Tag.

It doesn’t help, that by and large, competitive play is 6v6; the main classes being scout, demoman, medic and soldier, with class limits, 1 medic, 1 demoman – this is held as being the most effective and flexible make-up. The other classes only make appearances as needed. So, the charge is that comp players can’t play the other classes and therefore don’t play TF2 as it is meant to be played, with all 9 classes present. Well, I’ve never seen a rule book saying how TF2 is meant to be played. But it is a flaw that 5 classes are generally not included so if someone loves playing pyro, say, it means that they need to change  if they want to go comp.

In response, the Highlander format has been introduced. This is 9v9 with every class represented, once; yes, Highlander – there can be only One.  Since I tend to play pyro and engineer, I like this.

So, comp vs pro vs pub….as usual in these matters, pretty blurred divisions. Or at least that’s how I see it, coming new to the game. Basically play how you want to play and enjoy it.

The video shows a Clan team from my pub server competing at i42 (big LAN held this Easter) against INFUSED.Tt, a comp team who later went on to win the whole competition. And on their way to briefly capture the middle capture point. So claiming a moral victory overall.

The last sentence in the video isn’t actually true.

(courtesy of TommytheCat)