Team Fortress
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Team Fortress (also written as TeamFortress and abbreviated as TF or QWTF) is a team/class based online multiplayer computer game mod based on id software's QuakeWorld. QWTF was designed and written by Australians Robin Walker, John Cook, and Ian Caughley in 1996. This article deals with the development and evolution of TeamFortress; see Team Fortress Classic for full details of player classes and gameplay.
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Versions
The original TeamFortress was written as an add-on 'mod' for Quake and released as freeware on 24 August 1996. The first release for QuakeWorld, v2.0, came on 22 December 1996. It was sufficiently successful that Walker, Cook and Caughley formed 'TeamFortress Software' to develop Team Fortress 2 as a commercial mod for Quake II. Instead, TeamFortress Software was bought by Valve, the work they had done on TF2 was polished and released as TeamFortressClassic aka TF1.5 for the Half-Life engine (which is based off a heavily modified Quake1 engine). Work on a more ambitious follow up, the real TeamFortress 2, continued but has never been released.
The final Team Fortress for QuakeWorld was 2.9, released on 20 October 1998. Globally, fans of the mod played it for many years, until id software released the source code to Quakeworld, allowing easy and widespread cheating. The community's confidence was shattered and the mod has all but died. A few servers still operate.
Community
The QWTF community slowly dispersed after the release of the source code. Interestingly, few QWTF fans made the move to TFC, claiming that they preferred fast engine, physics, and netcode of the former. Others disliked the balancing that took place among the classes in the move from QWTF to TFC, including the nerfing of the Sniper class.
Evolution
Team Fortress has evolved into an entire genre as fans of the original modification have created a multitude of slightly different versions for various games.
A mod titled Q3F, for Quake III Fortress, was developed for Quake III Arena, and while it was praised for its accuracy in preserving the QWTF gameplay, it never saw a huge following. This mod was further developed into Enemy Territory Fortress, or ETF, in 2005 for Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory; it had a notable initial following, though it has since receded considerably in popularity.
Another mod, Unreal Fortress (abbreviated as UnF) exists for Unreal Tournament.
Another custom version is Weapons Factory Arena for Quake III which is has several considerable modifications to TF classes which results in different gameplay; resulting in many servers having to put limits on specialists (non-soldier classes). There have also been a few failed attempts: Fortress Evolution for Quake III Arena intended to create a very close replica of the original QWTF and UnF 2003 was supposed to be a version for Unreal Tournament 2003 but seems to have transformed into a work-in-progress called Unreal Fortress: Evolution for Unreal Tournament 2004. Another mod currently under construction is Fortress Forever for Half-Life 2 and Quake 4 Fortress for Quake 4 .
Recently the developers of Team Fortress gave permission to another Australian to continue their work and improve the original Team Fortress. The result of this is OzTF which contains many updates and bugfixes.
There is also a large "Custom TF" community alive at the moment. Custom TF includes the normal classes of TF but includes a "custom" option, where players have a set amount of money with which to buy weapons, armour, skills, etc.
MegaTF was another popular Team Fortress mod which featured new enhancements to each class like proximity mines, lazer drones, and airMirvs. The community slimmed after the popular Biscuit server was shut down for unknown reasons. There is a MegaTF mod currently in development for the Amnesia server called "MegaTF United" being developed by XavioR and other team fortress modders.
The original Team Fortress was one of the first popular online multiplayer games and Team Fortress Classic enjoyed a similar following. None of the other modifications have managed to find a lasting following and with the inception of the Tactical Shooters spearheaded by Counter-Strike, and the advent of 'realistic' FPS titles, the genre has mostly stagnated.