ozfortress - team fortress 2 in australia

Originally Posted by NightShift

Before we begin, can you give a quick introduction to team NightShift?

nS.Iris.cs: Hi I'm Iris captain of NightShift. nS are an NZ clan striving to be competitive in the Australian scene, quite a rare thing with only 3 (I think) NZ teams in OWL 7. Hopefully we can represent our country well. The clan Nightshift has been around quite a while now and have participated in previous OWLs but our team this year is a whole new mix of players. In the team we have Freak, Swifty, PopaHemp, Loop, Sum and myself. Freak is a counter strike player that has recently converted to TF2 and has been playing with nS and learning as he goes ever since. Swifty has been around in NZ TF2 for a while playing for a few notable NZ teams before joining nS. PopaHemp is an old timer who is a respected recruiter and mentor for NZ TF2 and we are taking advantage of the medic skills he's picked up along the way. loop has played for previous incarnations of NightShift and is returning after a break from competitive TF2, we were quick to snatch him up. Sum has also played in NightShift before and was a crucial pick up to finish our roster in time for OWL. Myself, I've been playing for around a year now I believe, I was in a few small non-competitive NZ teams before joining nS and then taking over as captain.

How has NightShift prepared for OWL7?

nS.Iris.cs: Due to issues with finding players and getting our roster fixed in time for OWL we haven't had much of a chance for preparation. We are working hard at the moment to cram in as many games and practices as possible before we start hitting some of the crucial matches. Unfortunately we are seriously limited by the availability of our players for games vs australian teams due to the time difference.

How do you see your team performing throughout the season?

nS.Iris.cs: I think since we have only recently formed up with our new roster we can only improve from the games to come and hopefully get stronger throughout the season. I'm hoping that the draw will be kind and we will play the stronger teams later but I think we definitely have a good shot at it. Based on recent games div 3 seems to be on a fairly even level and so I'm hopeful the improvements we make throughout the season will be enough to push us to the top.

Any teams that stand out as threats?

nS.Iris.cs: I think the most worrying teams at the moment are the unknown quantities. Being rather inexperienced in the aus TF2 scene I know very little about defcon and buzzing hornets and so we will be tentative coming into those matches. We played a game vs vF recently which was a complete shock to the system as the game was played on a perth server, needless to say we weren't used to the pings at all and it didn't go very well for us. And of course there are solid teams like wu and we few so we will need to keep on our toes.

What's your thoughts on the future of NightShift - both during this OWL and after?

nS.Iris.cs: For the near future I'm definitely hoping for some success this OWL. And then obviously to move up a division for the next OWL would be great! Also hoping to gain a bit of recognition and respect as one of the few NZ teams breaking into the aus scene.

Originally Posted by Instability

OK so first of all, could you give an introduction to the instability team, its history and players?

Midas: Well the team has a lot of players from z1. We've got lock, lepper, jambi, beeblebrox and myself from that team. I wouldn't say they enjoy playing with me but they can tolerate it which is good enough (a miracle). Somn, hawks, telex and sti are the new guys to our little group.The team hasn’t been around too long but we have some players who have been around for ages. Hawks has been on ozfortress for 10 years, with 10500 posts!!! Lepper, jambi and telex played in 8s, so we have some real fossils on the team.
Sti is an admin so that’s pretty cool. After z1 disbanded, lock and lepper went to positive force and I was in beta. After a season apart we decided it might be more fun to play together again. I convinced beeblebrox to come out of retirement, telex was tired of being on the bench, and somn also said yes for whatever reason. We needed some backups so I asked hawks and jambi, and sti joined like a week ago to round off our team.

Is instability a rebirth of the z1 team of old, with a similar playstyle and team dynamic? Or does this new iteration of the team bring a fresh start to the table?

Midas: Originally z1 was a casual team with lock, t0astie and some other guys from school. We eventually developed into a more serious team, the owl5 squad which featured the yellow dart and raiin. I like to think Instability is a return to the more casual team but as I tend to make things needlessly competitive I’m not sure if that will hold up.
Almost half of the team are new faces so there have obviously been differences in our playstyle and team dynamic. With z1 we all played around dart; while with our new lineup our demomen have trouble rolling out so there was a big change straight away. We also have very poor consistency in the teams we can field so we end up with a different team every night.The team feels fresh because we have so many new faces, but we also know each other pretty well. It’s a mix of old and new. I still do most of the calling, beeblebrox carries and lepper complains a lot while somn drops ubers and everyone calls me dickbutt. There was a hidden room underneath a level in Sanctum with a dickbutt easter egg which lock, lepper and lemdog found and from then on “Midas is a dickbutt” became our official motto.

What has the team been doing to prepare for the upcoming season?

Midas: We’ve been teaching hawks how to rollout. But seriously, we’ve been trying to play as much as we can and have fun while doing so. It’s difficult to build cohesion and important stuff like that when you can’t get the same 6 consistently playing so I think we’ve been better off trying to increase our individual skills. Personally I’ve been taking anger management classes. Lepper recently upgraded his robo claw so our preparations are coming along nicely.

How do you think your season will pan out? Will OWL7 see instability taking the cup?

Midas: We should have been in div4 so I think if we make semi-finals that would be a great result for us. I think we’ll have the best chances to win maps earlier on in the season, as I feel the other teams in the division play more and have greater potential to improve. If we come out of the gates firing, and build up some good momentum I think we could achieve our goal, but that’s the best case scenario.I feel a lot of teams end up losing steam towards the end of the season, as motivation flags or contrastingly they get fired up and finish strongly. I think our team is different in that we’re probably going to be moderate and consistent throughout the season, with not too many highs and lows just because of how we’re set up and how much games we play.Since the only map I can play is granary, I think the diversity of maps will slowly kill us.

Any teams you are watching out for more so than others?

Midas: Winterfall schooled us last night so I’m watching out for them. I thought they were going to be in the running for the wooden spoon but I guess that’s us instead.
Wu have a lot of dedicated players on their team so they should do well, especially later on in the season and I think they’ll make finals. Defcon have 3 div1 players on their roster and we’re in the same div as that, so they are interesting just for that fact. I think nS beat wu in atf2l so we’re watching them as well.

Does the team feel stable enough to stick around post-OWL? What long term goals are you looking at?

Midas: The team staying together is contingent on four things: If my blood pressure is low enough, if Tasmania doesn’t run out of scotch, if hawks learns to rocket jump, and if telex hits rollouts better than 1/5 times.

Beeble is my wildcard player of the season, but I couldn’t tell you anything about him other than he pops up from time to time to rape everything around him – what’s his history?

Midas: Beeblebrox played in SAF and the shit qMx with Rhys “RaZoR” Manning a long time ago. He took a long break from being in a team where he played as many pugs as Cirok. Those were the dark ages. When z1 first started, I managed to convince him to carry us. He eventually got fed up and left, starting the greatest and longest recruiting campaign in history, which finally ended in success with Instability.
Also a decent Quake dueler.

Originally Posted by Winterfall

Could you give a quick intro to Winterfall's history, and how its current lineup was formed?

ººº proto: Winterfall was formed in May 2011 between myself and a real life friend (Arokasi) that I forced into learning comp tf2. I asked various mates from previous clans I was in (lpg etc) to join as well until we had the numbers to form a full team.
When these guys joined, they didn’t know much about comp tf2 and were new to it, I gave them a few comp tf2 tips, but over the time they improved far greater than I expected.
We competed in OWL6 div 4 and reached the grand final, but unfortunately lost in a close game to We Few and ended in 2nd place.

Coming from a disappointing loss in the OWL6 grand final, what has your team been doing between now and then to prepare for OWL7?

ººº proto: After OWL6 we focused on playing teams that we see as a bit better than us (GTSOM etc), along with scrimming newly formed teams from around our level (instability, wu etc). Based on our experience playing the current OWL7 div 3 teams we are up for a more challenging time than last season.

How do you see OWL7 panning out for Winterfall? Are you expecting to see another We Few v Winterfall final?

ººº proto: I think it's really hard to predict how we're gonna do, but I think it's likely we will make it into the top 4. I don't know about a we few/wfall final but since all the teams are around the same level, the grand final should definitely be another epic match.

Any shoutouts?

ººº proto: Shoutouts to tom sawyer for being our league admin, ozfort admins for hosting another owl season and my team for getting us this far.

Originally Posted by Venomous fuzzies

Could you give a bit of background to your team?

natapon: venomous fuzzies is an asian mix team made up of various players that have the free time just before dinner to play owl for fun. as a mix team, we don't have much history, but the name venomous fuzzies is benny's (summer) idea from an old and now defunct asian team. we don't really have a fixed core besides kikapoo medicing, colbalt and pinkiepie soldiering. if arcadia is around, he'll play demo, else summer or i can fill that slot as needed. we fill in the scout slots with whoever will be available on the day. scout slots are usually filled by summer and i. The guys are in it for the fun of it and so far it has been very fun and organized (props to the admins!). we're not too familiar with the teams in our division and as we are in it for fun really, worrying should be the last thing in our minds. the only "teams" we will be worried about are 200~400ms servers which takes the fun away really.

Given your team's background in the asiafortress.com leagues, how would you rate your transition to OzFortress?

natapon: i'd say we are doing fine in ozfortress at the moment. some of these players will really relish the chance at division 2 and hopefully division 1 in the future. As a mix team, our play style is pretty random. But as we progress through the season, I think we'll become more rthymic and less random, eventually settling down on a middle ground of the different styles our players bring. Playing in OzFortress will expose some of the guys here to different play styles than they are used to in Asia. Either way, it is a win for us: We have fun and learn .

Any shoutouts?

natapon: Shoutouts to AsiaFortress staff, r3, lalj, kikapoo, cleric, summer, hcaz, lex, seeker, onions, wm, moe, gamersunited for their amazing support, ozfortress for what i expect to be an amazing owl 7, cassis, xvo, bubuchacha, yuki, dohash and the rest of lsd and taiwan, the japanese players peanut, ozr, vaac, horihori, the koreans life, xeta, onkeon, and i can go on forever but i'll leave the loving to benny

Originally Posted by World Underground

World Underground is a relatively new team, could you give us a rundown of the team's formation and history?

Render:wu: wu formed after owl 6 when DS disbanded. Cindy and Zombi and I, with the help of revskank, started to make a new team for owl 7. We picked up phake since I was making the change to soldier, and then picked up maco around 6 weeks ago as our med, after knowing him from his backup/slut hybrid position in DS. When revskank couldn't play as much, we moved him to backup and grabbed dogtime as our secondary.
our team consists of me as the pocket; I moved from scout to soldier since we had an abundance of scouts in our team and needed some soldiers badly. Zombi is our scout/utility and has a mean sniper offclass. Phake is our other scout who has strong and consistent dm, and dogtime is our roamer. He was a very good catch for the team due to his vast, comprehensive, inexhaustible repository of incredible TF2 knowledge.
Cindy is on demo, he's fast on rollouts and fashionable to boot. maco is on med, and just generally excels at life, loves surfing away on rockets, and enjoys long walks on the beach with his wife and dog Judy.
we also have revskank as our backup, with his characteristic "grud wobbles".

How has wu been preparing for the upcoming OWL7 season?

Render:wu: For owl 7 we've been practicing against div 2 and 3 teams and just trying to understand and refine the basics of tf2, improving our rollouts, positioning, understanding advantages and disadvantages etc.

How do you think the season will go for wu?

Render:wu: well we feel we have a good chance of making top 4, we don't want to get to ahead of ourselves but after vsing most of the teams we feel very confident in our teamwork and our ability to understand the game.
We haven't vsed vF or Defcon yet so we don't know how well we will do against them but out of the teams we have vsed we are mainly worried about winterfall because they are also a strong team

Any shoutouts?

Render:wu: big shoutouts to strerror, joanne and the admins, and for bulk and spitty for all the help in getting us where we are.

Originally Posted by #We few

Tell us a bit about We Few.

=B'oh= Lexi #we few: Originally the team was formed out of the boh community with some of its players and admins, but as 6's requires a lot of time and effort, not everyone hung around. We had a lot of changes in our lineup, many many changes in fact, that eventually led us to the team we currently have.
-Lexi our scout is esentially the last true boh member, one of the admins of the community and has been here since the start, always trying his heart out.
-Vinty our medic another player that has been here since the start, better known to us as the team slut and has a habit of pulling out his crossbow at only the best times.
-Lion our roamer, better known as lily, hasn't been around quite as long as some of the others, but still loved in the team, we always enjoy hearing him go on about vinty's sisters.
-Fullon our demo has been with us nearly since the start, has always been an aggressive player both in game and mumble but we love having him around.
-roflCat is our other scout and the newest pickup for us and so far has been an awesome player and good to have in our mumble shenanigans.
-and myself, i pocket and nobody really knows me so i like to keep it that way

How d you see your season panning out in OWL7?

=B'oh= Lexi #we few: We're obviously aiming high, hoping to make some sort of impression on the other div 3 teams. Finals and another trophy would be nice but we'll just go one week at a time and hope we can make it all the way like last season.

Are there any teams you are worried about more so than others?

=B'oh= Lexi #we few: We're not really worried about any teams in particular, because we know all the game will be a challenge, we've had a lot of scrims against the other teams in div 3 and we know we're all around the same level so i think it will be an interesting season.

You guys won a nailbiter in the OWL6 div 4 grand final, what has your team been doing between now and then to prepare for OWL7?

=B'oh= Lexi #we few: after last season we took a little break, some time off, but we came back looking to get an organised team happening. owl6 was shocking for us player wise with constantly changing lineups, i know myself i played all 4 core classes throughout the season, so our main focus was to build a solid team and get some cohesion.

What long term goals do you guys have for the team?

=B'oh= Lexi #we few: We'd like to move up through the ozfortress divisons and become a really strong team ideally, just get to the best we can possibly be would be awesome. In the meantime though we'll work on div3 and being a threat in that.

Any shoutouts?

=B'oh= Lexi #we few: our backups, TG, vendetta, blasta and especially of course to the ozfortress admins, i have no idea how much work you guys must have to do to make all this possible.
And definitely good luck to the rest of div 3 and all the other divisions this season.

Originally Posted by Buzzing Hornets

First of all, could you give us a brief intro to the Buzzing Hornets team?

Bear: Buzzing Hornets is combination of 2 teams in preparation for owl 7. We've also recruited a few other players along the way and are hoping to grow and improve as the season continues.

How have you been preparing for OWL7?

Bear: We've been playing matches against a wide variety of opponents to prepare us for a wide range of situations. I have faith in my team to do what's needed, we just need to deliver what's required and play united.

How do you think your season will turn out?

Bear: We are the team with the least amount of cohesion but hope we can put in solid showings and make the finals. From then on, it's only 2 wins.

Any teams that you think will give Hornets a hard time?

Bear: All teams bring something to the table. We respect all teams as a threat even if there are clear favourites for the trophy. It's too early in the season to ponder who will win the grand final and there are too many unknowns. We hope that our flexibility will gain us some edge over other teams.

What do you see in the future for Buzzing Hornets?

Bear: The team was born out of an idea for fun and improving. We are keen for this to continue and believe we have a strong group of players who share this mindset.

Originally Posted by Prototype

first comment gg

Originally Posted by Joanne

render and wu fighting!

also this div is impossible to tip ;(
halp pls

Originally Posted by lem

founding member of dickbutts.inc