Built by Engineers, for Engineers

With Everything that has been going on, I believe it is about time that I update everyone on what has been going on behind the scenes at Engineer.tf over the past couple of years. I know I haven't been very public or informative at all about the work we are doing, nor the direction the community is headed; this is something I am going to be working on in the future. I appreciate everyone’s continued support as we continue to change throughout the years.

The Original Goal:

When I was first starting to learn and play engineer there was no singular place for guides or instructions on how to play. The engineer bible was already a few years old at that point and any other resources were random youtube channels, POV videos and steam guides. Getting better at engineer required you to learn on your own and grab ideas from the players you interacted with. I originally created Engineer.tf with the goal of fixing this issue. I wanted to create a singular place for engineer mains to learn and improve, with up to date information and guides which was never done before. My original plan for this was to simply have a website with that information on pages typed out, however this changed after Exa_ and Wax became involved and instead became a community with map guides, tricks, and a community at its core. Engineer.tf became the place to go to for up-to-date guides.

Three Years of Change:

Over three years later and much has changed. The last map guide we did was almost 2 years ago, we began a patreon t-shirt program to raise money, and replaced that patreon program with a Teespring storefront. I have also seen much change in the face of the competitive community, with the emergence of RGL HL almost 2 years ago, the retiring and re-emergence of many engineer players, and the continued lack of valve’s action within the TF2 community as a whole. Engineer.tf’s main goal has always been to help aspiring engineer mains be the best they can be. However in the past few years the way we have been attempting to achieve this has changed. One of things many of you have noticed over time is the sustainability and continued existence of competitive TF2 has never been fully secured. There are always people claiming that competitive TF2 is dead or just a hobby, that competitive TF2 will never be a viable e-sport. However Exa_ has proven through the growth of the NA HL scene and his leadership of the RGL HL div and current RGL league as a whole, that competitive TF2 is not dead, and that if anything, all we need to do is put in some effort to realize the dream that is TF2 becoming a real e-sport.

Engineer.tf and Community Support:

Since the last map guide we released back in July of 2018, Engineer.tf for me has changed. Map guides and videos are still important, however I believe that the best way we can help aspiring engineer mains is by enriching the competitive tf2 community as a whole to ensure that there will be a community that they can join, and a better one than I had when I was starting out. To achieve this goal of community support we at Engineer.tf have been supporting various projects and communities with our servers and production abilities. Here is a list of different projects or communities we have or will be supporting.


The RGL HL Forums

The RGL HL Forums were created back in november 18th, 2018 from request of Exa_ after some users requested a place similar to the UGC forums of old. Since then we have hosted and maintained the RGL HL Forums, since converted into the main RGL forums along with RGL devs and other community members such as Aad and Derpysage. The forums currently have over 18,000 posts by 1,300 members, with an average post count of 35 a day.

RGL Cast Server

RGL often casts high level matches on the main RGL Twitch channel. While playing competitive TF2 is important, one of the best things about competitive TF2 is the ability to watch high level players play each other on casted matches. Watching those epic spy plays and medic drops are an important face of what competitive TF2 can be as an e-sport and it is important that this type of content will continue at the highest quality. Engineer.tf previously provided the casting server that was used for the RGL HL season 2 casts, and currently provides one for RGL as a whole to use.

Koth_Proside Development

Koth_Proside was a developmental map by gobitoe created to fix the issues with the original version of lakeside and create a more updated and viable version for the competitive scene. The project was sadly abandoned but I am still happy to have supported the map development by providing a server to host the map for users to view changes, updates, and to test the map.

Testco.tf

Testco.tf is a map testing group that allows mappers to test their maps in a competitive environment. Some of the maps they have tested are koth_clearcut and cp_villa. While Testco.tf is mainly for testing 6’s maps, there are not many mappers in the competitive TF2 community and I believe mappers are an integral part of the continued growth of competitive TF2 as a whole. As such, Engineer.tf has provided Testco.tf with servers for them to be able to test maps and provide mappers with valuable feedback.

RGL Pugs

RGL pugs are prolander and no-restriction 6’s pugs that are hosted in the RGL discord. These pugs are open to players of all skill levels and hosted several nights a week. Pugs are an important aspect of the competitive TF2 community and is the main way users practice and learn how to play competitive TF2. Everyone has played in a pug and the community would not be the same without them. For many of us, we got introduced to competitive TF2 through playing in pugs. Since the relaunch of the RGL pugs a few weeks ago, Engineer.tf has provided 2 servers for them to use and continue the growth of the competitive TF2 community.

Mastercomfig

Mastercomfig is a modern TF2 performance and customization config. Mastercoms has created a graphics config that goes above and beyond any graphics config before. Mastercomfig makes TF2 a lot smoother, eliminates stuttering, reduces load-times, and increases FPS. This is because the config is heavily tuned and the commands are based on TF2’s source code rather than just experiments, guesswork and trying to understand the vague/non-existent documentation. Not only that, but the config is constantly being updated with tweaks, new features and documentation improvements. We all know that TF2 is a horribly unoptimized game and many of us rely on graphics configs to get the fps we need. This means that new users to the realm of competitive TF2 are going to need to learn how to install and manage graphics configs and practically learn basic coding skills. To help with this, Engineer.tf is in the process of producing two videos helping users to know why they should use Mastercomfig and how they can install it.

Into the Future:

The future holds many uncertainties and it is impossible for any of us to say what it holds for us. Currently many of us are learning how to adjust to a world under lockdown with the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite the uncertainties, Engineer.tf will continue its goal of helping aspiring engineer mains. I know I have failed on being able to push out timely content, as the lost RGL HL Season 4 frag video has shown. This is something I hope to work on with the addition of more people assisting with video production, content creation, and community management. If you would like to help out here at Engineer.tf, please feel free to message me and we can discuss how you can help. I honestly could not have done any of this without your continued support of Engineer.tf and I highly appreciate all you have done.