Homfry's Guide to Pugging

[Homfry]

Alright so after a weekend of exploring the pug scene, I have decided to enlighten everyone with all information I have gain from my arduous journey.

So if you go to Gamesurge there are two channels
#tf2.pug.na
#tf2.pug

So for the lesson learnt DO NOT GO TO #tf2.pug.na :)
I originally had no idea about #tf2.pug only #tf2.pug.na

tf2.pug.na works on a captain system where medics are captains. So you are left with two choices :

1. don't be medic and try to be something else but you wont get picked because you aren't a big name in the tf2 pug scene, unless there is basically noone else.

2. be medic and then get rolled because you don't know everyone who is a big name in the tf2 pug scene and therefore you pick shitty teams.

I pretty much wanted to just learn the ropes and get used to the pug scene so I choose medic. My teams always got mad stomped because if you don't pick the major names then your team is in deep trouble. Also I was always picking munk as scout :). You end up going against the best snipers etc. of competitive tf2 scene

Eventually I got a lecture that I shouldn't be picking no name scrubs like munk :) and I should only pick the proest of people. Since you cannot play without either being the proest of people and everyone knowing it or knowing all the propeople tf2.pug.na is a relatively closed society which is impossible to start in.

During my time I discovered another channel called tf2.pug This channel works on a first come first serve/ random basis. It uses the same mumble and the same servers of tf2.pug.na, but since the teams are assigned on a random basis you have a chance to play and you don't need to worry about knowing everyone. Many people play in both tf2.pug.na and tf2.pug. So the idea is that you play in tf2.pug and you can begin to make a name for yourself and begin to know the other players. After while I guess you could transition from the tf2.pug to tf2.pug.na.

#additional experience I learnt from darklight
Be careful when switching the team name. Apparently if you switch the team name after your team is either ready or the game starts (not sure which) then the config gets all busted up and everyone ends up chewing you out and leaving.

Just for an idea my record from both were.
#tf2.pug.na won 0 out of 4 games (weren't even close)
#tf2.pug won 3 out of 4 games (Last one stalemate)

So for commands the would need to know in tf2.pug

!ip - gives you the ip and pass of the server that the current game will be on

!players - who are the current players signed up to play

!add [class] - (ex !add medic, !add scout, !add demo, !add soldier) this will put you in the groups of players that will be selected for the team. In tf2.pug you can only add to one position.

!mumble - gives you the mumble information

!man - the help manual

!ready - if you sign up and the it took a while for the game to pick people then it will say that you may be afk and must respond to be included. for that you should type this and it will take care of it.

!scramble - after the teams are picked you can call a scramble in IRC if they teams seemed stack. However you are not going to know if it is. Other people will take care of that until you start to know names

In game command

!sub [TEAM COLOR] [CLASS] - (ex !sub red scout) this is used in game while you are playing if a player doesn't show up of is like hey dudes my mom is grounding me for playing too much tf2 I gtg. then you say !sub [your team] [class that dude was] and then in irc it will call for a sub. That guy will soon join the mumble and your game for you too play. (*I do not know how the jumping in as a sub works because I have never done it. If I try it out I will fill out this a bit more)

They were pretty fun all 6v6 btw if you weren't sure.

There is no official difference between tf2.pug.na and tf2.pug but there is a REAL difference.

I'll update it if I get any learn any new information.

Enjoy

ps. I look forward to seeing some friendly faces in there

[Homfry]

Tf2 Lobby information.

As of early January there is now the site www.tf2lobby.com

This is meant to be a easier more streamlined way to pug.

The first thing you must do is go onto the site and create an account. There are 2 important things you need to know.

1. Where is say steam ID just copy paste the whole thing. It should look like (STEAM_0:0:1339745). Where can I get my steam id? well you can google it or just go to hlstatsx and search your name it will be there.

2. You must copy and paste the tf2lobby:somenumber somewhere in your community profile. I put it in the summary section. Your profile must also be public. This is tf2lobby's way of verifying that you are in control of that steam account.

Now that you have created an account you can just login. You should see several game lobbies that are partially full. You can either join one of those or create your own lobby. Right now they have 6v6 and highlander available. *Highlander DOES work now we've tried it

Games by default are hosted on valve servers so you do not need to have a server to play a pug. just join or create a lobby and a server will be provided.

Note if you use *best available server option you will probably get a server either in europe or seatle. I know that personally I'm in the east coast and every pug I did on *best available server end up giving me and everyone else at least 100 ping.

You can host the game a your own server. So you can keep an eye out for games of personal servers which will probably have better ping.

Once you join a lobby just pick your team and pick a class. Don't forget to ready up when your ready. It is actually very simple and easy to use.

Also to keep people from leaving the lobby you can try to chat them up a bit. People will be less likely to bail if people are talking about how "roger's dad can beat up my dad and I'm not invited to his birthday party" :)

When the game starts it will try to automatically load up tf2 and bring you into the server. If tf2 is already up it will try to make you join the server. I usually copy the ip and remember the pass just in-case.

There is no special mumble or anything like tf2.pug. You just use ingame chat. However unlike a pub it will most likely have gravetalk enabled so you can talk to your teammates when you are dead just like in mumble or vent.

Skill seems to vary a lot in the few games I played. You might find people who are less skilled then tf2.pug and therefore tf2.pug.na aswell, but you also could get rolled by some really good people. They have a little bit of work to do in getting the match ups right but it can be a lot of fun!

If you're in mumble every now and again a bunch of us Ex members take a field trip and do a couple pugs.

[darklight]

Good Guide.

About the name changing thing: My team was set to ready and I changed our team name a split second after the other team set to ready. This fucked up the config somehow and everyone shat on my face. gg. Just don't mess with team names in the tf2.pug / tf2.pug.na games.

[Snix]

lol @ dark!

Good job Homfry with the post, I'm sure it will be used :)