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FotM #4: QWTF’s new generation, bill and big coins

The first ever lineage of the Team Fortress saga, QuakeWorld Team Fortress, has two top players who are younger than Team Fortress 2 (2007): bill (formerly “Big Bill”) and big coins. (The word “Big” is not a shared clan tag– it is pure coincidence.) Their involvement goes way beyond participating in the public sessions of the QWTF.RU community. They play in the competitive pickup game (PuG) system of QWTF Live (formerly “FortressOne“, a modern fork of QWTF, released 2019), along with and against the veterans of the game who have been doing this for 30 years.

In this article we first investigate how young players meet the Team Fortress series for the first time, when it has been almost 20 years after its last commercial release. Then we move on to them finding out about and showing interest to the current forks of QWTF, maintaining that interest, and potentially expanding it to other young players.

This half an hour long TF2 montage was one of the first encounters of bill with anything Team Fortress.

Güven:
Q1. How old are you, as the youngest players of QWTF Live/FO, or perhaps any QWTF?

What popular games people of your generation started gaming with?

bill:
I’m 19 years old.
I started out playing console games, in my area there were plenty of Xbox 360s and PS3s plugged into the living room TV. Most of us played Minecraft, Forza, CoD or me that played Nintendo games a bunch. Later on when we got computers it was a lot of Roblox and such, I found TF2 which became one of my favorite games ever and really got me into PC gaming.

big coins:
I’m 17, about to be 18 in 2 months. [Interview carried out towards the end of summer.]
I started playing PvZ [Plants vs. Zombies] on our family PC. I’d also borrow my parent’s phones just to play Minecraft, Fnaf, Mobile Legends and other mobile games whenever I got the chance. My uncle also gave me his PS1, and I played a bunch of PS1 games on it. Later on, I discovered TF through YouTube, mostly watching TF2 content. That eventually led me to TFC [Team Fortress Classic], and I instantly fell in love with its fast paced CTF [capture the flag] gameplay. When I got my first laptop, I played TF2 and mostly old Valve games and other games.

#TFC4EVA, an OzFortress TFC community fragmovie. big coins says this is what got him into old-school Team Fortress. The movie’s creator, fermented, would probably be glad to hear that their video a decade later gets young people into old TF.

G:
Q2. Could you tell more about your journeys in TF2, in bill’s case, and in TFC regarding big coins’ experience, before landing on QWTF? What communities or competitive platforms you played in, at what frequency?

big coins:
I started by watching TF2 content on YouTube and got curious about whether there was an older TF game. That led me to TFC and eventually QWTF. I first played TF2 casually when I got my first laptop, and when I tried TFC, I mostly played casually with bots. I wasn’t involved in any competitive communities or leagues at the time. I only got into competitive QWTF after I got my second laptop, which allowed me to play it more seriously and get involved with the community.

bill:
Well, I found TF2 on YouTube and got it for myself a while later, this around early 2017. I spent a few years playing TF2 casually on my first computer which could barely handle the game at all. I consumed a lot more internet content about the game than I spent playing it at the start. Later on I got into looking at TF2’s history and that’s when I found TFC and stumbled on Tickenest’s (an old American QWTF player) YouTube channel that had a lot of recorded QWTF matches. That lived in the back of my head for a few years on. I never dabbled in competitive TF2 at the start and didn’t really develop any skills in that time either, which I attribute to me not playing a lot due to bad PC performance.

G: So, bill, you found out about QWTF through old match records on YouTube. And coins, you just tracked TF2’s lineage back through time.

Q3. What about finding out about the active communities where you can play QWTF in the modern era? Where did you come across them, and were they difficult to find?

You have to get a token from the Discord server for accessing QWTF Live/FO servers and it’s only pugs, except some OFC sessions. For TF2003, you need to catch the QWTF.RU community on their Tuesday and Thursday evening sessions, if you are aware of them.

bill:
My memory is sort of fuzzy in that regard. I remember finding a project called Classic Fortress which I downloaded, it looked like a FortressOne precursor (I later learned that FortressOne more or less started where Classic Fortress ended its development). I think I looked around on YouTube and Google and found the FortressOne Discord [now re-branded and moved to “QWTF Live“], this was back in late 2020 if I remember correctly. At the time the Euro community was basically non-existent and I had no clue about the .RU community. Later on I left and rejoined the FortressOne Discord at one point and didn’t really play until a few years later.

big coins:
I came across fortressone when it suddenly popped up on my youtube feed. I checked out fortressone.org and joined the discord on November 7^th, 2021. At first, I was really scared to join a pug because I had never played competitively before. I eventually worked up the courage to join one on November 16^th, 2021, and that was the only time I got to play because my laptop broke shortly after. A couple of years later, I got my second laptop and came back to see what was happening. I found out that some people had moved to a different server, which turned out to be QWTF. I joined the QWTF [Live] Discord on January 25^th, 2025, then hopped on and started playing.

“QWTF Frag Montage” by big coins. For more recent clips of him, check out this video instead.

G: So, both of you started playing QWTF frequently about two years ago and as far as I know, it has become your main TF game since then.

Q4. What makes QWTF your favorite TF game, when you compare it to other games or other TF games?

Coins, I know you even had to wake up at 5 AM to play it because of the time zone differences. It must be really good.

big coins:
I really like fast-paced and movement-focused games, and i also really like old-school style games with that low-poly look. QWTF matches the fast-paced movement-focused game I’ve been looking for. What really makes QWTF stand out to me is the intense CTF format. Compared to TFC, where offense usually consists of Medic and Scout, QWTF’s highlander format allows the other classes to shine and gives everyone a role to play. I really enjoy how fast and intense the matches can get, and that’s a big reason why QWTF became my favorite tf game.

bill:
Well, if I compare QWTF to it’s younger brother (and direct recreation) TFC there are quite a few things. Both TFC and FF [Fortress Forever] have limited bhop with speed restrictions which is something that the competitive QWTF community never did. And compared to TF2 it’s a game where CTF is played competitively (and is the only played game mode nowadays). The speed and intensity of some matches is unmatched by any TF game in my opinion, especially with the classes and team composition in mind.

Good QWTF plays by bill.

G: You’re a community of around 30 devoted players across the world in QWTF Live. That allows for 4v4 or 2v2 pickup games any time of the day. But no tournaments are organized.

Q5. Would you wish for something more in the future of QWTF? And what would that be, if the possibilities were endless?

bill:
I think my biggest wish would just be the influx of new players. In my ideal world there’d be plenty of people coming into the community with varying skill levels and hopefully the old heads lurking around in discord servers today would also come back to play. In that case there could probably be proper leagues and tournaments hosted with multiple divisions, more players to create content for the game (things online, maps to play etc.) as well as a more varied competitive space compared to what we have today. We had a draft last year which I didn’t participate in sadly and a spontaneous league during the summer created by Arc that went on for a month or two at most. The last big league was in 2024 between top regional teams but the amount of teams were way less than the one held in 2023.

big coins:
I’d like to see QWTF have more active players and more new players joining the community. I’d also like to see another league or tournament being held. I didn’t get to participate in the last league because I wasn’t part of the QWTF community back then, so I’d really like the chance to participate in the next one. Another thing I’d really like to see is more maps being played in competitive PuGs, rather than mostly openfire, rs_zzr, and FF maps. I’d love to see some newer or less-played maps get more opportunities in the competitive map pool and see how they play in actual pugs.

Sandrift, a new map made by big coins.

G:
Q6. Do you think there’s hope for QWTF to attract and activate so many players again?

big coins:
There is. To be honest, I think the biggest problem is that it’s hard for new players to get into pugs that accept them. EURO and OCE pugs sometimes happen, but they’re pretty rare. NA can also be difficult for new players because the skill gap can be pretty big, and from what I’ve seen, NA players generally don’t like playing with ATA [All-Time Attack– the role given to newbie players]. I wish there was a dedicated channel or PuG for new players where they could learn the game, get comfortable playing with others, and slowly work their way into regular PuGs. I also think that if the community could be less problematic and there were less raging during games, some old players might come back. I’d like to see the community come together more and make it a welcoming place for both new and returning players.

bill:
I do think that there’s a possibility to attract new players, regarding older players that’s more difficult I think. There are old players that lurk in Discord servers and play once in a blue moon, and there are old players who feel like they did their time with TF and its pre-TF2 cousins and either don’t have an interest or time to play nowadays. The ever present issue with new players nowadays is the skill gap and a format that is mostly unknown if new players havent touched any other pre TF2 competitive scene (FF/TFC for example). There has been attempts in the past to host PuGs and stuff for new players that are under advisory of experienced players but these have often fallen through due to different reasons. Either there hasn’t been enough players to give a coherent feel for the flow of QWTF or there hasn’t been willingness to do so. Due to the nature of the community and its size, new players have to be patient in a way they dont have to be with other competitive games with matchmaking and so on. As I stated earlier it’s a wish of mine for new players to come in and be able to play regularly but with the current situation it’s difficult.

G:
Q7. Any final remarks, shout-outs?

bill:
I’d like to shout out everyone keeping QWTF alive and especially the guys using their own free time to continue developing the mod and supporting the community. Keep on playing, let’s keep this alive for a bit longer!

big coins:
I’d like to give a shoutout to everyone who keeps QWTF alive. Even though there are sometimes fights and disagreements, everyone is still helping keep the game going. I’d also like to give a shoutout to Wolve for helping me out and giving me tips and tricks. It really helps me a lot, and he’s the best coach in OCE. And finally, shoutout to newby for developing the mod and continuing to update it. I really appreciate the work you put into keeping QWTF going. ♡ FO FAM!

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