Welcome to 2014 everyone! Hopefully this one will be much better than the previous one, no matter how good or bad things were for you. This year will bring us new challenges and great things to come. We have already reached some of our goals – a brand new website, new TF2 community services (like TC download centre, download mirrors for map developers, 10.000 slot Mumble that became a TF2 hub for players and teams alike), and most importantly, we have taken our first steps to becoming a professional e-sports organisation. These goals were achieved mostly by staff members, but let us have a look at the first half of 2013 in this post (the 2nd part will follow shortly!), to see which notable events have occurred in the community;

January

The first month of the year showed some visionary work from Spike Himself. Thanks to his work, Team Colonslash launched an STV archive, and an online logs archive (which was shortly thereafter replaced by logs.tf) for our match servers.

A new ETF2L 6v6 season started in the last days of January. In total we fielded four teams, with TC.Reditio achieving the best result so far – winning their division 3D group and gaining the promotion to division 2. Another notable event was a ”battle of titans“ in group 3B, where our own TC.Classic and TC.Vibes clashed. Sentries and Heavies were used, tears were shed and mice were clicked, but after a long battle Classic won the day and took the winning points. That was the day when TurboTabs decided to leave our community – his long-time dream, of beating Spike Himself, was finally fulfilled.

February

From the very beginning, Team Colonslash has always had an open arms approach when it comes to new players in TF2. The first steps are the hardest ones to make, especially in a game that brings team-play and cooperation to a whole new level. The lack of competitive TF2 infrastructure, like Mumble and game servers, was also a major problem for new teams. With that in mind, we wanted to help new teams with those baby steps and thus we launched another “Academy” project, an ambitious combination of TF2 school, private mentoring and server ‘sponsorship’. The members of the team that would become part of our Academy were hand-picked by our staff members. We were not looking for skill or death match capabilities, but rather the right attitude and dedication. Our 2013 Academy project started as TC.Academy, but has since evolved into TC.Punkka – a respectable opponent for any div 4/5 team in ETF2L. Special credit goes to the original Academy roster: Whitepeach, mttokki, Ducky, MrMaelstrom, getting_there and Verdancy.

March

March marked another successful month for our TF2 teams. TC.Crash, our only Highlander team at the time, finished 4th place in UGC Steel, season 9. This is particularly impressive given that there were 60 teams competing. Despite roster changes and difficult games, they managed to finish their first season with their heads held high.

During those same weeks, some of the virtual arena descended on Telford, UK for Multiplay’s Insomnia-48 LAN event. A team comprised of Team Colonslash members and a few “mercs” won third place and took home £ 150, together with a respectable amount of Haribo sweets. The fashion gods were smiling down on us that day due to Drackk’s choice of trousers.

April

As a TF2 community, we have a duty to support new players, teams, ideas and projects. Supporting new map makers is a good way to help the community, as they always need more map testers and feedback, so we decided to host a TF2 6v6 cup with a small prize pool of TF2 items (most cups don’t offer prize pools). Our map of choice was cp_quay, made by ex-TC member and talented map maker of cp_snakewater fame, choije. The infrastructure and admin help was largely provided by ETF2L (thank you guys!) and with the finals being casted by VanillaTV duo Pledge and Skully, we couldn’t be more satisfied with the end result. Above all, choije’s new map got a large amount of feedback and a steady following.
Watch the finals on youtube

May

May started with a back step for Team Colonslash. One of our best teams, TC.Classic, folded for various real-life reasons. They had long been a constant part of Team Colonslash and we are happy to see most of them still sticking around with us, one way or another. TC.Classic were: Dagun, mohawk, TurboTabs, nighter, sidestep and PlayerAvatar. GG WP guys.

Despite the loss of one of our strongest teams Team Colonslash still entered ETF2L’s 6v6 season 15. It was the first time that we had a team as high as division 2. Despite having the strongest competition so far, TC.Reditio managed to finish at an impressive 4th place in their group. However, this season was not marked by “bigger brothers”, but by our own Academy team: after weeks of practice and tactics sessions, our guys managed to finish second in their group, earning direct promotion to a higher division and the right to choose their own name. They became TC.Punkka.

May was also a month that brought TF2 fame for some members of our community, with Oxy, Cup Cake and Hot participating in a UGC All Star match. Although they were separated into two teams, no mercy was shown between community comrades – the united power of Swedish drinking machine and French kitchen proved too strong for a certain British sheep.

Summer holidays

Traditionally the summer months are a quiet period for TF2. Holidays, swimming and, for some, jobs, usually takes most of our times, so there is little virtual action to be had. However, during those same months Multiplay hosted 2013’s biggest offline TF2 tournament at i49, again in Telford, UK. Team Colonslash participated with a token team, as most of our members wanted to relax and just hang out with fellow TF2 players. Our final position was a satisfying 15th place.

 

We used the pause between seasons to bring two new teams into the community: TC.Vintage (led by Swellfoop) and TC.Storm (led by Useless). We are proud to say that, to this day, both teams are still part of Team Colonslash and hopefully will be for quite some time.

End of part one

We don’t want to bore you to death with all these words, so we’ll save the rest of 2013 for a post at a later date!