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TF2 came out on October 9th (at least according to wikipedia) the first newpost on etf2l dates back to the November 11th 2007 and if I remember correctly the website was registered 3 days before that. I don't know when ESEA picked up TF2 though. I just know that a lot of people at the time in the EU scene had a Team Fortress Classic background, playing that competitively, so they just picked up TF2 as the successor of TF:C and started a competitive league for it I guess.

There are plenty of people who could talk to you about the beginnings of competitive, though many have moved on. Keith comes to mind, as he played comp pre-ESEA, TheFragile also did a presentation on the history of comp TF2 during the Masters of Classes thing a while back. Wonder if his presentation is still available.

back when this event happened thefragile did an awesome hour long presentation that went over pretty much the entirety of tf2's competitive history, as far as formats, reigning teams, rule changes, and other notable events happening. unfortunately it looks like the links are down so there is no way to watch the presentation

There's always been a comp scene because people migrated from comp tfc, quake, ns, etc. Lots of players anticipated comp tf2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLRhmad9Jq4

By the way, how people came up with the 6v6 format? I understand 9x9 and 8x8 were tried before, but why not 5v5?

there was a 2 week beta before TF2 was officially released for anyone that preordered. CEVO announced a $1,000 open tourney so teams from quake/cs/tfc etc were already formed and scrimming by then. The Doctors (wombat/robwiz etc) SIT (paladin/punisher/quake dudes) experiment (me/reptile) etc etc

if im not mistaken cyzer is the only player still playing who played season 1 of ESEA, he might be able to provide some info

i may be wrong again but im pretty sure every number from 4 to 9 has been tried and 6 is by far the best

season 1 of esea was years after release, i dont think cyzer started playing on release

it was a high profile pc shooter. it wouldve been more impressive if it didnt manage to develop a competitive scene early on.

earliest thing i know of is i32, from november 2007, a month after release.

i wanna throw out another question. howd the ruleset really develop? ive seen people mention that comp tf2 had tried 8v8, 7v7, different class limits, etc. I cant find much on that tbh.

old forums and videos it seems like the 1 medic limit was established extremely quickly (like beta even). 6v6 and 8v8 seems like they were both the most likely team sizes and it settled on 6s pretty fast. fragile also mentioned 5s and 7s tho so idk. demo limit was made really early in NA but took a few months in EU. its hard to really find details on how much the early stuff was tested and decided on though.

I think the 6s thing was decided while ETF2L was forming. After that disabling crits. Then medic and later friendly fire

These are our first polls

http://i.imgur.com/euUAhoG.png

Wireplay did 7v7 up until... 2010?

This was the trailer for season... 2? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ9vblki5rk

Man that i32 video looks like something you could put on History Channel...

Competitive team fortress can be traced all the way back to 2003. Its primordial beginnings came in the form of a mod for quake and evolved from there. I know there are a few websites that still exist that have recordings of old quake fortress clan battles. Here is a video, apparently Digital Jedi used to be one of the better clans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeVgBntt6C8

Hope this helps.

Looks like spy mains were a meme 8 years ago too

http://i.imgur.com/f8QGaLV.png

I remember watching some frag vids made by NA players (that later ended up playing on 6v6 ESEA Invite) and they all featured clips from 7v7 or 8v8, i even saw 2 medics, and they played some weird custom maps along with maps as cp_well, yukon etc (those last two have been played till 2010-11 i think)

And as other users explained, competitive team fortress was a thing before tf2 (with tfc and qwtf) so it was bound to happen with this one aswell

is that the same robwiz that plays ow/csgo/cod ?

I thought some dude named animeman had to do with the formation of 6s.

Yea, I remember watching a cevo match and the commentators talked about him and tf2. Unrelated but I remember he was sketchy as fuck.

wait, the cod4 EG rob and wombat?

*

Yep same team. They played Tf2 for a very short time then bailed for COD4.

every number from 2 to 9.

also NTF for Q3A

we need trailers like this every season, this will save tf2

nice trailer. funny. i liked the soldier rocketing a scout in mid-air.

This happened in the first tournament

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzv8r4UTF9A

I have a friend who played for Clan [M]egadeath back in 1999, here are some of the vods from Quake World Team Fortress http://qwtf.digitaljedi.com/ This is about as "What started Team Fortress" as it gets.

ancient tf2 videos are the best thing ever