Hello everyone,

The server will be down for (hopefully) only a day or so. The reason is that the way the server downloads models/materials has become so janky that it has now broke. Some materials won't download, leading to a spiral effect where one wrong path will make the whole thing collapse. I am very frustrated as I have spent the past 3 hours trying to figure this out, but there is hopefully a solution to this soon. I am very sorry, but thanks for playing on the server everyone and sorry for the inconvenience.

Alone on valentines day? Your friends never reach out to you? Need to talk to internet strangers? Say no more! The solution to all of your problems is Silly Saturdays!

Starting today, every Saturday at 8 PM EST we'll be playing some more silly and absurd maps than usual. If you thought wacky races was already a lot, you might just not make it through this session alive. We've set up the map rotation already and there are some good ones in there. We'll remove any bad maps and are open to suggestions for next week.

Again, thanks for playing on the server everyone, and hope you enjoy the maps today!

Hey all,

This week the server moved to TF2C and it has been a massive success for us! We are now at a point where the server fills up daily and can stay active for hours. Initially the move to TF2C was just going to be temporary, however after seeing the recent activity there are no plans to switch back to live TF2 at this time. We've gotten a good group of regulars, played some custom maps, MADE some custom maps, and overall have a good community going here. I'm pretty happy with how the server is doing, and today I've tweaked the rules a little bit.

Previously rules weren't listed because frankly there wasn't a need to. We've had very little trouble with bad actors (only in the early days of Gold Rush and 2 sets of people in TF2C), but rules are now listed because we are attempting to get the server verified. Getting our server verified just means that it'll appear as verified on the browser so people go "Oh this server is safe to join!", and that will hopefully grow our community even further. We also had to remove our beloved Mario Kart map because of this, but honestly it was killing sessions anyway so it's probably for the best.

Finally, there are some people in the group here who aren't in the Steam group chat, and we would appreciate if those people joined. We do pings there for filling up the server and would like to have more members in it to speed up that process.

Thanks for playing on the server everyone and thank you for taking the time to read this!

Hey all,

Thanks for the replies on the previous announcement. I have moved the server from Gold Rush to Live TF2. All of the maps from the previous rotation have been moved over, along with some new ones that are present in Live TF2. I'm going to add some weapon reverts later on, but the server is in a "complete" state for now.

I saw some suggestions (hi woj) to disable cosmetics, use older map versions, and to switch to TF2C when that releases on Steam, so I'd like to go over these points.

I don't think all cosmetics should be disabled, but I do actually think some of the more gaudy ones should be actually (ones that don't necessarily fit the theme/art style, ones that cause team recognition issues, and just ugly ones in general).

Using old map versions does sound interesting, but the only one I can think of that actually changes a lot is cp_steel.

And for TF2C, it seems like something that will last a week or 2 and then die out for the most part. I'll probably spin up a server for that week where its active, but that's about it.

Merry Christmas and happy (almost) new year everyone!

Hey all.

I've been thinking about if the server should switch to live TF2 instead of Gold Rush. Gold Rush has been steadily losing players and is now only in the double digits for its player count at peak hours. I think the player count will continue to fall as there doesn't seem to be any new interest in it, and a lot of people also don't like the mod since it removes a lot of features/content that is generally liked.

I myself don't prefer this mod over the live game content-wise. While the original art style and theme is more cohesive in this mod, the removal of many weapons, cosmetics, maps, and even features (there is no good reason for removing auto-reload) doesn't make it appealing to me. This isn't to say that the live game's content is amazing either. I'm not happy that the original theming has been lost just so people can wear absurd cosmetics, play on more outlandish maps, and use weapons that can look tacky at times, but I do generally think that most of the Valve made content is still serviceable. It's also important to note that since this is a community server, we can remove any content we don't like as well. We control the map pool, what cosmetics can be worn, and even weapons if we wanted to (I don't think I would whitelist any weapons, maybe there could be reverts though).

This is all to say that I think the server would maybe be better off in live TF2 than Gold Rush. While its not as easy to fill up servers in live TF2, I don't think Gold Rush's player count will make up for that at some point. If you agree or disagree with me then please leave a comment on this announcement. By the end of the year I want to come to a consensus on what should be done with the server.

On a more positive note, thank you all for playing on the server. While I personally don't play TF2 as much anymore, its nice to be able to come on and have a good time talking to everyone. I'm glad the server brings joy to people, knowing that there are 24 people all connected with each other because of me brings me some weird since of accomplishment. I hope the server stays afloat so we can keep having the most fun you can have online.