Team Fortress 2 Has a Bigot Problem

For those who aren't aware: the phenomenal, industry-changing shooter Team Fortress 2 is still alive and well as a free-to-play game. Unfortunately, the community in Quick Play matchmaking can be horrendously toxic. This is, in large part, a side effect of the game being free and wholly unmoderated. Valve both does not moderate the game in any meaningful way and refuses to implement even basic automated moderation on Steam profiles. Emboldened by this, bigots get weird with it in their newfound confidence they can rock an antisemetic username, transphobic profile picture, and straight up chant slurs in text chat with impunity. To (slightly) counter this, I have started a trans-haven Team Fortress 2 server. It's based out of Chicago, so all my Midwest queers will have decent connection and the coastal elite gays will be fine.

This whole venture was inspired by the YouTuber Uncle Dane, who through a little passion and disposable income created a network of high-quality servers. Shoutout to Dane for creating a corner of TF2 that doesn't let hatred slide. The gameplay ethos might be a bit sweaty for my casual tastes, but I respect the hell out of the moderation and commitment. Queertopia is in no way officially associated with Uncletopia, but the name is fitting, I argue. An oasis of queer love and fun in a desert of 13 year olds spouting right-wing conspiracy theories they half-remember their father ranting about. If you're ever in the community browser in TF2 and want to give the server a bookmark, the IP is 91.242.214.78:19001 The end-goal for this server is to build a community strong enough to necessitate more servers in more locations. I've spent the last few months fostering a Discord community of LGBTQ+ TF2 players and if there's one thing I can be sure of: it's that the TF2 community is full of queers. Hopefully Queertopia can become a fun hangout spot where people can play, have fun, and rest easy knowing if someone tries to spout grim statistics or debate womanhood, they won't last long enough to hear the drum roll of the vote-kick being called.

I played TF2 a lot from 2013-2017 and I've since returned but my god Uncletopia players are on a completely different level. It's worth to play on the servers to be completely bot-free but man has it ever been a consistently humbling experience.

Did you know if you're banned from one Uncletopia server on TF2 for " reason given: being gay and trans and furry", that you're automatically banned from all other servers?

And the mod teams keep it that way

i hate how uncletopia has just become another face.it for tf2 it's just nothing but sweat until you can't do it anymore. - no one ever wants to scramble, especially if they're on the team that's rolling. - whenever people DO try to scramble, they're ridiculed intensely for it. - it's the same comp slop maps over and over: badwater, pier, sunshine, dustbowl. rinse and repeat.

god i wish valve would just get off their ass and fix casual. i'd give almost anything to have it back.

i love going on tf2 servers with names like this

Every trans girl will immediately adds me to their friends list. every transphobe will immediately say a slur and get a free ban.

tragedy: these tf2 players cannot high five each other

BING SOY ADDED ME?

any good tf2 server in/around illinois that’s not like, constantly completely full? i’ll go with anything, i love all the things tf2 has to offer, be it casual, serious, or just outright silly. i just want to be on a server that’s actually active and not loaded with hackers/bots.

I love Uncletopia so so much but it’s CONSTANTLY full and the people there are just WAY too good at the game, it’s kinda unfun to play against them with only 500 hours under my belt.

I would love to play a more casual server, but Casual.TF is absolutely empty at all times and it’s sad (this is a cry for help PLS join Casual.TF)

I love Class Wars but I would love it more if every server that ran it wasn’t just stuck on Dustbowl, the worst map.

i wouldn’t mind something silly like the Slender maps/gamemodes but i would definitely prefer it if there were other people there to play with me

I tried a new thing while playing TF2 today; I switched off Medic because someone yelled at me. The person didn't even like say anything particularly mean, they just snapped at me to use the beam because I'd missed them with a crossbow. I had the crossbow out because I was healing like 2 other people with it at the time so I wasn't just firing at them (I don't know if they realized that but I've had people before that didn't seem to realize that). I did miss my shot on that person though and had done so before in the game so them being frustrated is probably valid. However, I died very shortly after they snapped at me and had like, 'wow, that made me feel bad, I'm gonna switch off Medic because fuck that guy.' We lost in part because we didn't have a Medic anymore after that but like, you're gonna be mad and yell at your team's only healer, you risk ruining it for everyone else too.

It felt good though, honestly. Like I was putting my foot down. I think I'm gonna do that more in the future. Like if I'm playing bad enough to get yelled at, I'm probably already not feeling super stoked so like, I ain't gonna put up with that.

Met another trans person while streaming TF2 thanks to my trans/lesbian pride pin cosmetics and they were asking how to get them too, I love these wholesome interactions

back to the old me (playing team fortress 2)

Are there any good community servers you can recommend (its me newbie anon from before I finally found the time to pick up the game again but everyone's saying that most casual games are ass rn because of bots)

OH ABSOLUTELY. i think uncletopia servers are some of the best right now...the only problem is that theyre usually kinda full and there are really experienced players on there (i come across b4nny aka famous tf2 comp player sometimes whenever i go on an LA server and i get my ass BEAT he is GOOD) but dont let that discourage you at all. if you think it may be a bit too intense or anything I know that skial has casual servers now but i havent gone on them at all to say if theyre good or not...dont be afraid to experiment on different servers though. there are a ton to work with and im sure people will gladly welcome you:) its also really fun to play with friends so i suggest getting together with some for even more fun ^__^ hope community servers treat you well Lmk if you need anything else

awh man I was about to go play tf2 till i remembered that yesterday all the servers were full of bots

I gotta say I do love tf2 but playing it at all is a catch 22 so to speak. Like I'm either on pubs and I risk getting the game shut down by a sniper (bot) who can just kill you as soon as you peak around a corner or I play on uncletopia and risk getting the game shut down by a sniper (player) who can kill you as soon as you peak around a corner.

ok real question does anyone else have a horrible time trying to connect to tf2 servers (meaning they take forever at best or they take forever and end with being timed out) or do i have something fucked up going on. please help i have to wait close to 10 minutes to connect to anything sometimes

please help i just want to play tf2 but it's kind of frustrating to have this happen every single time including when the map changes on the same server lol

The announcer : Overtime!

Me : No. End this. It's over. Get me the FUCK out of this lobby you bitch!