** Update **

Just wanted to update everyone on the situation here.
If you need help dealing with denial of service attacks, please contact me directly via Twitch.TV message to misterslin. Alternatively you can contact me at twitter.com/misterslin. Do not contact me on Steam.

I have a lot of information about our attackers. Yes, there are multiple people involved. For now, I will keep their names private. What you do need to know is that they are amateurs. They have purchased software online that allows them to do this. Most of the attacks come from a single IP address, and it is a very unsophisticated attack. If you have any sort of IP flood detection or ability to redirect incoming packets, it may help to activate it. The option for it may be located in your router/modem or firewall settings and may look something like this:

http://puu.sh/2g0jy

These attackers require your IP address in order to attack you. They can easily get it through IRC, which publicly reveals your IP whenever you join a channel. The other method is via Steam, where they commonly collect your IP by Steam calling you. If you are able to successfully change your IP, do not accept Steam calls.

I would like to remind our would-be attackers that denial of service attacks are a federal offense. Given enough time and evidence, you will be pursued. The authorities will take action. Think twice before you act.

As I mentioned before, I am willing to help any member of the TF2 community as best I can.
Best of luck to you all.

Recently I and a bunch of other people in the TF2 community have been getting DDoSed while playing TF2 Pick Up Games or PUGs. Pugs are held on public IRC channels, servers, and mumble channels. All of this information is publicly available and your IP address is accessible.

A DoS attack is a denial of service attack. A DDoS attack is a Distributed Denial of Service attack. In either scenario the person sends a ton of information at you to disrupt your connection. A sophisticated attack cannot be stopped. If the person is an amateur or uses a unsophisticated service (likely purchased online through some company), you may be able to filter, redirect, or otherwise avoid the attack.

The easiest way to protect yourself is to never release your IP address.
However, because we all use public servers, this can be a problem.

There is nothing that can do to fully protect yourself from a denial of service attack. Even if you were personally able to to find a way to protect yourself with 100% certainty from the attacker, he can simply DDoS someone else and drop them from the Pug, effectively ruining it.

There is, however, something that you can do to protect yourself a little bit. The most important thing to do is to keep suspected DDoSers off of your Steam friends list. They can obtain your game info among other things, which will give them access to you. There is also a method of obtaining your IP that involves calling you via Steam. Do not accept any Steam calls. Skype is another way that they can easily access your IP address, which is why many people who stream other games have trouble with denial of service attacks. If possible, avoid using Skype. Lastly, if you use any IRC client, you can reveal your IP by joining channels. The one that I use that can help you to protect your IP address is mIRC. Using mIRC, you can mask your IP so that when you channels you will not automatically reveal your IP. The steps are listed below.

Step 1. Connect to Gamesurge/Qnet. Do not autojoin IRC channels. They reveal your IP.
Step 2. Change default IRC name to something random like asdfiounaewoisdfjaom
Step 3. After connecting and authorizing, you type in //mode $me +x which will mask your IP.
Step 4. Then type /nick misterslin or whatever your IGN is.
Step 5. Join the channels that you wanted to join.

Hopefully if enough people protect their IPs then we can make it a bit harder to get attacked.

I haven't read it yet but this will be my bible in the coming weeks. Congrats on putting together this incredible novel.

break a leg zeb!

It's a tip I got from a caster in another game. Basically it means always try to say things that are correct. If you say something that is incorrect you either have to spend air time correcting yourself or you don't (purposely or because you didn't realize it) and people call you out on it later.

You're trying to be a reliable source of information.

Couple other notes for the casters because I ran out of space:

1. Never be wrong.
2. Never start talking only to realize that you had nothing to say.
3. Think about what you're going to say while the other guy is talking.
4. Listen to your co-caster! Work off of what he is saying if possible.
5. Don't be afraid of silence.
6. Don't hog the spotlight.
7. Tell a story.
8. Work as a team.
9. Thank your cameraman.
10. Have fun! It's weird but people can hear when you're smiling.

Props to all of you guys for putting yourselves out there and I hope that more people follow your lead.

K nobody else has posted so I'll start. I really enjoyed the cast and hope that you guys continue in the future. Casting, just like anything else, is something that requires practice and the more you do it the better you'll get.

For Casters:

Decide your casting style. What is the role of the casters? For some casts you have casters that tell people what is happening that the camera cannot see. For other casts the casters explain less of "who is killing who" and instead analyze the situation for the viewers. If you watch it back you'll realize that what you're doing is kind of mixed and confusing.

Casting is less about trying to find things to say and more about telling a story. You guys don't tell much of a story at all, and what you end up doing instead is seeing one thing or another and just saying it out loud. Because that sort of thing needs to be timely, the end result is you two just talking over each other. What also happens is the length of each of your talking points is about 2-3 seconds and you trade back and forth constantly. Try going for 10 seconds and trading after talking for longer.

It's OK to have two play-by-play casters but if one guy starts it, but let him finish before the next guy starts talking. Chances are that you're both watching the same thing anyways. Part of building chemistry is learning when the other guy is going to finish talking. When casters talk over each other it sounds awful.

Part of the reason that happens is because you don't fully trust each other to talk about all the action just yet. In an ideal situation one caster can actually cover all of the action. The reason you have two is because you can watch different things and fill in the gaps for each other. The reason you don't have three casters is because then you just have too many people talking or wanting to talk.

Overall, nice job. At the beginning it was mostly MustardOverlord saying things of value and Nja agreeing with it and maybe adding a small point here or there. Near the end of the cast you really found your stride -- you guys calmed down, found your talking points, and really created something of value. I know that you're both skilled players so find your style and go with it. Consider watching other casts together and talking to each other about what you like and don't like. Not just TF2 casts but other competitive games as well. Try doing a solo cast on your own just to see what it is like, and then when you join forces you'll realize why you have the second person.

For Cameraman:

Couple quick notes to get out of the way and then I'll address the bulk of the situation.

1. Turn on viewmodels. It will look weird to people who don't normally watch TF2.
2. Consider using a different UI. It's not bad, but it is a bit hard to read and it is visually hard to understand. It also takes up a weird space on the bottom of the screen.
3. Turn off steam community in-game.
4. Try to find a way to stream 16:9 as the letterbox format (black bars on the side) look bad.
5. Take off the cl_showfps in the top right.
6. End of round scoreboard covers everything and is super ugly.

Being a cameraman is tough. You have to handle the production side and then also capture all the best moments of the game. You did a decent job of doing it, but as you saw it is hard to move through the POVs with just left and right click. You did a nice job of it though. Sound balance was great too.

It might just be me but when I was watching your camera work it looked like you'd just go through the POVs looking for some action. That is OK but it's better if you can use your gamesense to predict what will happen next. Blue is winning 6v4? They'll probably push. Look to the pocket or a scout for some action there. Even ubers and teams are just holding? Etc. See what is happening on the flank. Just try to think a few steps ahead. Great cast overall.

Can you provide some background info for yourself? What class do you play and what league/division? Where are you from?

Thanks

Could you add the ability to have bullet points in posts? Ones that have proper indentation for each bullet.

<3 ty enigma

You are already listed. You've already been invited to the group before.

Go to twitch.tv > Settings > Teams to accept the invite.

he's so handsome

class/division? you're added but i just want to add a description

moved to requests forum

bad internet, great player
baller jumper/surfer

Remove from sidebar but not from "show all threads"

+1 for me

It used to be but then players/teams started trolling the casters (this is like waaaaay back in the day -- like leogeo days). We've recently had problems with random players hopping into the casting mumble so we're on lockdown for now.

I think historically the reason we haven't had mumble casts is because we're trying to increase the viewership of the channel. I'm not sure what will happen in the future but I would expect that stance to hold for the time being.