VanillaTV has many stars. The Team Fortress 2 shoutcasting site seems to collect tallent in much the same way Valve Software do. Not only has CUBE been able to find his own place but he’s rapidly reshaping their YouTube to page.

CUBE was with the original TFTV crew but initially decided not to come over to VanillaTF2 when VanillaTV was being formed. Since then he’s joined (arguably) the strongest Highlander team in Europe, SNSD. The team have won everything they’ve entered but in his opinion the competition is catching up.

Under his guidance their YouTube channel has changed from a repository of previous live shows into being a collection of brand new crafted content specifically for drawing in new subscribers; informing and teaching the public the finer points of competitive game-play.

The three new video sets are:

• Insights – digging into an individual protagonist’s experience of a TF2 match
• Analysis – an expert breaks down retrospectively some of the plays in a match
• Frag movie review – frag movie makers critiquing the best frag movies the community has to offer

Intro/outro created for WIP by Cryogenetic.

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Some projects WIP follows measure their progress on a daily basis, others weekly. Gang Garrison 2 feels rushed if they push out more than two major updates a year.

That said I know how they feel. This interview was recorded in December of 2011 and one thing or another has kept me from releasing it till now. The major 2.4 update happened for gg2 in October. The release combined a new play mode with greatly enhanced mod intergration.

Dual King of the Hill, requiring a team to hold their own point while taking the other team’s before the timer starts to go down, is an expansion on the standard KOTH mode associated with Team Fortress 2 the game’s spiritual forefather.

Possibly the most important part of this big update comes in the form of the mod update. Lead gg2 developer, Psychopath takes us through the benefits of the new open format for map makers and modders.

Intro/outro created for WIP by Cryogenetic.

WIP #015: GangGarrison2 – Psycho [ 52:00 ] Play Now
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In the gap between Thanksgiving and Christmas every day is crammed full of everything happening all at the same time. VanillaTV have a habit of making every day feel like that. When WIP last talked to them they were finishing up i43 so we start this show from there.

Comedian opens himself up on reddit to an AMA (ask me anything) though it seems unnecessary; he’s so open and truly excited by everything he’s doing he could easily be living an AMA everyday. In fact when South Africa’s own TF2 community interviewed him they have to pair him off with Salamancer to get any exclusive content.

That’s the thing with streaming live content, it’s addictive. As Comedian puts it, you’ve got to enjoy the spotlight at least a little. Little wonder then that VanillaTV is looking to other forms of media than the live shoutcasting, namely podcasting. With no current competition in the European market this can only be a smart move for them. Another smart move was Byte patching tings up with eSports hero,  ThePledge. Now those two are back on friendly terms vtv has an excellent new caster on their roster and everyone is happy.

One of the more interesting moves for vtv was away from their video streaming partners, TwitchTV. Comedian discusses the thoughts behind the jump to own3d.tv and the benfits it provides in combinations for an increased presence on YouTube.

I personally feel in some way responsible for Comedian meeting Ruskeydoo, the 3D artist behind so many TF2 items (including the KritzKast Lo-Fi Longwave). With that encounter a sketch on a napkin has turned into the living, breathing model of a unicorn strapped to spy’s head. On its mention Comedian almost breaks down with pleasure, I can see why. The hat is ultra dopey looking but caries the charm of random excitement of the whole VanillaTF2 team. While no promises have been made that it will make it into the game yet, it stands a reasonable chance even on its own merits.

Not content with hats, WIP has a second exclusive from this chat. VanillaTV are organizing their very own two-day TF2 cup.  Sometime in the next couple of months we’ll see two tiers of players battling it out to win mousemats designed by Torden. I’ve not seen them yet but I have a suspicion unicorns may be involved

Intro/outro sampled from Daddy_Scrabble's "Monkeys have arrived". Used under CC Licen

WIP #014: VanillaTV – The Unknown Unicorn Hat [ 39:38 ] Play Now
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The experiment Chris started back in the summer of 2011 is over. Lesson learnt; people need stuff to look at. I suppose that’s true of all things, though I’m not expecting you to be staring blankly at this post for the next half hour while you listen to WIP #013.

Keekerdc is in a different place to where he was when we recorded WIP #003, both figuratively and physically. He’s relocated to Seattle on the West Coast. He’s also taking a different approach to reporting on the esport scene. Gone are the heady days of talking his way though a game. He’s moved on to writing for ESFI World and is toying with the idea of doing much more for them in the near future.

ESFI wants Chris to build his own show for the channel. Something that brings together all the interesting stories from every corner of esports. So once again we catch him while he’s on the brink of something new and possibly this time something old. Not entirely giving up on shoutcasting, Chris is working on some code to bring more interesting and polished visuals to casts.

Intro/outro sampled from Daddy_Scrabble's "Monkeys have arrived". Used under CC License

Standard Podcast [ 17:26 ] Play Now
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