Team Fortress Classic

Team Fortress Classic (TFC) is a popular multiplayer modification for the first-person shooter computer game Half-Life that allows teams of players to compete on the Internet in action packed games of capture the flag, escorting a VIP, territory control, and many other missions. It was ported to Half-Life by the developers of the Team Fortress mod for Quake in collaboration with Valve Software.

Classes


One interesting aspect of TFC is the interdependence it breeds amongst teammates. After picking a team (i.e., the red team or the blue team), players pick a "class". After dying (which happens often), players can pick a new class. Each class, listed below, has its own advantages and shortcomings.

Fastest class, weakly armed and armored, can strip spy of its disguise. Deadly sniper rifle with zoom; notice lack of any other abilities. RPG launcher, heavily armored. Can lay pipebombs and detpacks (large, timed bombs). Can heal teammates and infect enemies. Heavy armor, powerful Gatling gun, slowest class. Has flamethrower and napalm missiles. Can disguise as a member of another team and remove enemies' disguises; can kill in one stab with knife. Can build automatic sentry guns, teleporters, ammunition dispensers, can repair teammates' armor, has EMP grenades. Weak character who must be protected by his teammates in order to win, armed with just an umbrella.
 * Scout
 * Sniper
 * Soldier
 * Demoman
 * Medic
 * HWGuy (Heavy Weapons Guy)
 * Pyro
 * Spy
 * Engineer
 * Civilian (only in VIP games and other special modes)

For example, the scout is the fastest class in the game, but can easily be fragged (killed) by an HWGuy. But an engineer can lay waste to an HWGuy with his EMP grenades, which won't really affect medics. But snipers can kill a medic before he gets close, but is vulnerable to getting stabbed in the back by a spy. But the spy's identity can be revealed by a scout, and the interdependence goes in loops like this again and again.

Although this works in theory, reality is nothing like it. Games where professional players fight it out (clan matches and public servers where clan members play seriously) are dominated by Soldiers and Medics. This list will try to objectively describe the flaws of each class:

This class is the fastest and most mobile class, his normal running speed can take him anywhere. Coupled with his ability to concjump it makes it very hard to defeat a skilled Scout unless you have a sentry gun or something to block him with. The problem with this class is that he cannot fight back, no chance at all against an Engineer + Soldier combo. There is often one on each team in clangames, generally employed for flag-capturing and little else. Not used in clan matches, often limited, said to slow games down. The sniper is powerful, having both a one-hit kill weapon and a very good auto rifle he can stand a chance at the longer ranges. At close range however, he is easily defeated by most any class. His only defense in close combat is his grenades which will often kill both players thanks to their large radius. Almost never played in clangames thanks to the limitations. In casual / non-clan games, the Sniper is very popular due to his insta-gib weapon; the best defense against him, however, is another Sniper, and they will often become too involved in shooting each other to take on their intended targets: everybody else. Some servers limit the number of Snipers for this reason. The best overall class, lots of armor and health, great weapons, acceptable speed, many grenades, very mobile thanks to rocketjumping. Very common in games, almost never limited. The majority of the team in clangames. The Demoman can break through defenses with his powerful explosives, he can also defend with them. His weakness is close combat though, in most cases he will lose against a Soldier. One exception if is the Demoman has mastered the grenade launcher which is very powerful when mastered. Each team in a clangame might have one, offense or defense. Has great weapons, great speed and great mobility. Almost as fast as the Scout. Can stand a chance against the Soldier, especially when relying on grenades. Despite his profession and the bright red cross on his chest, he is the offense in clangames. His ability to poison enemies can also be an enormous distraction, but only in games where Medics do not see (much) use. Very powerful and hard to kill, a master will kill any class at close range, most classes at medium range and some at long range. Often limited in games thanks to that. Not intended for offense, but still quite effective at it. In clangames each team will have one at defense, possibly more if allowed. Not best at anything, and not better than the Soldier overall. Has flaming grenades which temporarily deny the territory to opponents, and his flamethrower will cover an enemy player's display with large pixelated flames, but these can be gotten around with a little determination. An inferior Soldier. Rarely played in clangames, works at defense and offense. The single use of the Spy is getting past/destroying sentry guns. In clangames this class is often used on the offense, rules often forbid defending with the Spy. The backbone of any defense, as his Sentry Guns are practically infallible defenders; most teams have at least one. Clangames are no exception. His EMP grenades, which detonate any explosives within their radius, are practically instant death to bomb-happy classes like Demomen and HWGuys--probably why those classes seem to prefer defense, as the Engineer (unlike the Medic) has few offensive applications and is rarely found in the enemy base.
 * Scout
 * Sniper
 * Soldier
 * Demoman
 * Medic
 * HWGuy
 * Pyro
 * Spy
 * Engineer

Patches have been released to try to fix these issues by increasing the Pyro's firepower and decreasing the HWGuy's firepower. This hasn't really helped though.

Competition
Several online gaming leagues exist, where players compete each week for dominance with their team, or clan. Since TFC is naturally a team game, it lends itself well to this aspect.

But you don't have to be in a formal team to play TFC right now. All you need is a copy of Half-Life and join any public server. It is likely populated with players like you&mdash;if not, pick another&mdash;and start shooting away. For beginners, a class like soldier or HWGuy is recommended.

Game types
The multitude of ways entities can interact in Team Fortess and Team Fortess Classic allow for an almost limitless amount of different game modes. This is one of the reasons the mods were such successes. This is a list of some of the major game modes, complete with examples of maps (somewhat popular).

Capture the flag
A simple mode where you have to get the flag from the enemies' base to your own base to score. Several game modes based on this exists, including ones where you instead have to get your flag to the enemies' base and modes with multiple flags.
 * 2fort
 * flagrun
 * push

Territory control
These maps consists of several command points that a player can capture by either standing on it or bringing a flag there (depending on map). When a team controls all command points that team scores.
 * cz2
 * warpath

Invade/defend
One team defends a base and another team tries to capture that base by bringing a flag to a capture point situated deep inside the base.
 * dustbowl
 * avanti
 * asti

Hunted-style
One player gets to play the Civilian class, he is supposed to get to an escape zone without being killed by the assassin team. A third team is supposed to guard the civilian.
 * hunted
 * betrayed

Shutdown-style
A variation of capture the flag, you have to disable a laser by pressing a button to get access to the flag.
 * shutdown2
 * openfire_l

Skill maps
Skill maps/practice maps, for perfecting certain skills - concjumping, rocketjumping, strafejumping, etc. These maps consist of increasingly hard jumps that players have to complete to reach the end of the map. Most maps have some kind of reward in the end.
 * concmap_r
 * concmap_speed
 * quad_rocket

Contemporary issues
Since its release in 1999, the developers of the game, Valve Software, have introduced various changes into the game. Perhaps the most momentous was TFC 1.5, which, amongst other things, "rebalanced" the game in an effort to make certain classes less dominant or more competitive.

Serious groups of players, clans, have seen the rise of playing for money in tournaments like the CPL. However, TFC's popularity has probably seen its peak, and CPL prizes have not seen the heights of $100,000 for the Counter-Strike champion.

TFC can no longer be played on the WON network (unless you know the IP of the server you want to play on) as Valve Software has shut it down. In order to play TFC, users must now use the Steam platform to download the game.