Vincenator stays upbeat. The hard work has been done and his code is now in the hands of the public. It remains to be seen if anyone else will pick it up. For his part he is embarking on a career in coding. I hope he stays in the gaming space and comes back with a new project for us to follow.

In this first interview I talk to Marty about the ideas they have for TF2center, how they hope to bring about change in just a few short months and what ground work they’ve laid down so far. He talks about the desire for player ranking and the need for a web designer with user interface skills. If you’d like to get involved with this project Marty can be contacted on his gmail, or you can drop a him a message in reddit.

Intro/outro created for WIP by Cryogenetic.

When I first started chatting to Chris Shetter he was trailing off his career in eSports casting. For years he’d struggled to see the results from all his efforts in shoutcasting and was looking for ‘another way’ to make it fun again. Before this most recent chat we’d seen him pretty much give it all up. He’d moved with his wife to Seattle so even the “dc” moniker no longer held true.

Talking to him now it is as if he’d never left the scene though in reality he hadn’t. Choosing to blog sporadically about events in eSports that he found to be particularly irksome he’d kept a hand in. Now he’s drawing some old friends back together and exercising coding muscles to bring about a completely new eSports web service mm1.fm. Sticking to an audio only output he’s creating a web service that’ll run 24/7 gaming audio using a collection of current shows. Interrupting every so often with news updates from all aspects of gaming. The concept he likens to sports radio and is a far departure from the visual feasts of his tgbf.tv days.

Intro/outro created for WIP by Cryogenetic.

i46 may have contributed to the requirement for a slipstreamed method of editing, encoding and uploading video on demands (VODs) for VanillaTV. Comedian takes us through the current solution they have in place. It appears that Skyride has invested a great deal of time creating software to do the task of many men hours. Not to let his new found skills go to waste he’s now turning his attentions to Open Broadcast Software (OBS). This open source solution for live streaming stands as a new, cleaner and faster streaming solution with a small footprint allowing the casts play at a much higher quality level. Needless to say VanillaTV are looking to it rather than the paid-for alternative, XSplit, as the future of eSports casting. Skyride himself is working on plug-ins and has produced a rather nifty how-to for other casters.

Sadly it’s not all sweetness and light in the land of eSports casting. VanillaTV’s North American counterpart eXtelevision has undergone some dramatic upheavals this week. With  some of the 6v6 casters looking to move out from the shadow of the main man Jeff eXtine. Comedian explains the position he was placed in and why he’s chosen to offer VanillaTV as a new home for these leavers.  In doing so the American market opens up to him but at what cost to his friendship?

Lastly Comedian takes us through their hopes and plans for European conquest. Both Dreamhack in Sweden and Assembly in Finland are possibilities for 6v6 TF2 events though it’s impossible to ignore the problems that lay ahead in realising those dreams.

CUBE was with the original TFTV crew but initially decided not to come over to VanillaTF2 when VanillaTV was being formed. Since then he’s joined (arguably) the strongest Highlander team in Europe, SNSD. The team have won everything they’ve entered but in his opinion the competition is catching up.

Under his guidance their YouTube channel has changed from a repository of previous live shows into being a collection of brand new crafted content specifically for drawing in new subscribers; informing and teaching the public the finer points of competitive game-play.

The three new video sets are:

• Insights – digging into an individual protagonist’s experience of a TF2 match
• Analysis – an expert breaks down retrospectively some of the plays in a match
• Frag movie review – frag movie makers critiquing the best frag movies the community has to offer

Intro/outro created for WIP by Cryogenetic.

That said I know how they feel. This interview was recorded in December of 2011 and one thing or another has kept me from releasing it till now. The major 2.4 update happened for gg2 in October. The release combined a new play mode with greatly enhanced mod intergration.

Dual King of the Hill, requiring a team to hold their own point while taking the other team’s before the timer starts to go down, is an expansion on the standard KOTH mode associated with Team Fortress 2 the game’s spiritual forefather.

Possibly the most important part of this big update comes in the form of the mod update. Lead gg2 developer, Psychopath takes us through the benefits of the new open format for map makers and modders.

Intro/outro created for WIP by Cryogenetic.

Comedian opens himself up on reddit to an AMA (ask me anything) though it seems unnecessary; he’s so open and truly excited by everything he’s doing he could easily be living an AMA everyday. In fact when South Africa’s own TF2 community interviewed him they have to pair him off with Salamancer to get any exclusive content.

That’s the thing with streaming live content, it’s addictive. As Comedian puts it, you’ve got to enjoy the spotlight at least a little. Little wonder then that VanillaTV is looking to other forms of media than the live shoutcasting, namely podcasting. With no current competition in the European market this can only be a smart move for them. Another smart move was Byte patching tings up with eSports hero,  ThePledge. Now those two are back on friendly terms vtv has an excellent new caster on their roster and everyone is happy.

One of the more interesting moves for vtv was away from their video streaming partners, TwitchTV. Comedian discusses the thoughts behind the jump to own3d.tv and the benfits it provides in combinations for an increased presence on YouTube.

I personally feel in some way responsible for Comedian meeting Ruskeydoo, the 3D artist behind so many TF2 items (including the KritzKast Lo-Fi Longwave). With that encounter a sketch on a napkin has turned into the living, breathing model of a unicorn strapped to spy’s head. On its mention Comedian almost breaks down with pleasure, I can see why. The hat is ultra dopey looking but caries the charm of random excitement of the whole VanillaTF2 team. While no promises have been made that it will make it into the game yet, it stands a reasonable chance even on its own merits.

Not content with hats, WIP has a second exclusive from this chat. VanillaTV are organizing their very own two-day TF2 cup.  Sometime in the next couple of months we’ll see two tiers of players battling it out to win mousemats designed by Torden. I’ve not seen them yet but I have a suspicion unicorns may be involved

Intro/outro sampled from Daddy_Scrabble's "Monkeys have arrived". Used under CC Licen

Keekerdc is in a different place to where he was when we recorded WIP #003, both figuratively and physically. He’s relocated to Seattle on the West Coast. He’s also taking a different approach to reporting on the esport scene. Gone are the heady days of talking his way though a game. He’s moved on to writing for ESFI World and is toying with the idea of doing much more for them in the near future.

ESFI wants Chris to build his own show for the channel. Something that brings together all the interesting stories from every corner of esports. So once again we catch him while he’s on the brink of something new and possibly this time something old. Not entirely giving up on shoutcasting, Chris is working on some code to bring more interesting and polished visuals to casts.

Intro/outro sampled from Daddy_Scrabble's "Monkeys have arrived". Used under CC License

Shaylyn engages in heavy research rather than making thousands of sketches. She is currently at the point of needing to create a base mesh. For this she wishes to move away from the toolset she knows from her work as an environment artist for Gearbox Software and towards ZBrush.  This means learning a completely new and different interface. A daunting task we wish her the best of luck with.

Intro/outro sampled from Daddy_Scrabble's "Monkeys have arrived". Used under CC License

It’s little surprising that EA have granted EOR the Trusted Server Provider status. For many this would be cause enough for celebration. Indeed glancing at their website you’ll see plenty of Battlefield 3 promotional banners. For Robby and his team though, getting everything ready for one event isn’t enough of a challenge. Hence their rather bold move into the European market. Within the next 24hrs EOReality is set to go live in London, England.

Intro/outro sampled from Daddy_Scrabble's "Monkeys have arrived". Used under CC License