Seven Days of Strategic Mayhem for Veterans and Newbies Alike
November 30-December 6, 1997

FortressFest 97 Wrapup:

It started with a dream: A dream of worldwide TeamFortress carnage. I knew that with the backing of GameSpy and PlanetQuake, it could be huge. But I also knew I had to make it happen before Quake II, which was certainly going to monopolize a lot of attention in the weeks before (and after) Christmas. A mad rush to get everything organized followed... and while a couple details were overlooked, overall the event's success exceeded my expectations. FortressFest 97 introduced the game to hundreds upon hundreds of new players. We'll probably see the legacy of FortressFest for a long time to come. And TF veterans will remember FortressFest 97 as a last blast before Quake II... and the first glimpse of what TF will offer in the year to come.

I learned a lot from running this event, but I'm still milling things over in my head and wouldn't want to waste your time with unorganized thoughts. Suffice it to say that I think I know enough to outdo myself with FortressFest 98, but at present, it's a long way off.

In the meantime, though, I would like to express my warm gratitude to all the people who have helped make this event a success. To the crew of TeamFortress Software, especially, for their participation. (Thanks Jojie for answering questions in chat, Ian for putting together the map pack, and Robin for helping me work out server difficulties.) Jim "Sgt. Thundercok" Kaufman deserves a big hand for his support on TF Editing Night, as well as a hearty congratulations for creating SpazBall, which is simply fantastic. ;) A big thanks to Clan Oski for their support and dedication of time, resources, and people to make things work. In particular, KingParD for helping with the organization, Dock for running the IRC channel, and DrSmooth for setting up the master and for putting together the default configuration scripts. It couldn't have happened without you guys. Big thanks to Gibkeeg and the crew of his page (Eloh and BetaStorm -- big smooches back at ya, Beta) for the major pimpage that they offered on keeg.com. Also, the people who volunteered to run events were particularly valuable to the festivities; IceHawk for his 4f4, Someone for his wacked Civilian fortress, KingNothing for his improvised random-clandomizer event, and anyone else who used FortressFest as an excuse to throw together a quick pick-up game during the week. Thanks to Peter "Dragon" Porai-Koshits for putting together the Russian battle between two cities, and to Roman "Krom" Kosenko for his Russian mirror of the FortressFest site. A giant thanks goes out to everyone who ran FortressFest servers, because without you it woulda been a whole bunch of nothing. Then there's the countless souls who volunteered to sit in chat and help new players get acclimated, or all the people who were patient on Newbie servers when questions were asked--Thanks! Hopefully I didn't forget anyone. As you can see, an event of this scale requires a lot of people. Everyone on this list loved the game enough to make it happen. TF forever!

Questions or comments about FortressFest? Email Dave@GameSpy.com.