Hi guys,

We’ve implemented key donations for VIP now. We will only accept TF2 keys, aka the type you buy in the Mann Co Store.

The prices are the same as if you were to donate using money;
4 Keys = One month
7 Keys = Two months
10 Keys = Three months

Please contact Mikey (me, and me only) and make sure to check that the player you are trading with is an administrator of this group and a member of the BlackOut Gaming Clangroup.

Link to the main group: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/black_out_gaming
Link to the clangroup: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/blackoutgaming_clan

Here at BlackOut Gaming, we like to reward our loyal regulars with offers from some of our sponsors. Today we have some discounts for UK2.NET for you!

BLACKOUT30 – 30% Off Hosting
BLACKOUTSB – First month free on any SiteBuilder package
BLACKOUTVPN – 50% Off first month
BLACKOUT10 – 10% Off any server on any contract length

Go pay http://www.uk2.net a visit and check them out!

Are you interested in competitive TF2? Check out this game then! It will be casted on BlackOut TV (http://tv.blackoutgaming.org) by Sal & MagicalKillaCow @ 20 CEST tonight!

For further information, click here to go to the match thread on our forums.

We’ve been really busy the past two days with SteamPipe for TF2 being pushed, various other updates also being pushed and issues with the mapcycle on all the servers after the update.

You might have noticed that suddenly our #4 VSH server ran the Trade map, and that #6 and #12 was running Dustbowl, and that #10 was running Surf maps. Well, we’ve fixed these issues now.

In other news, we’ve also added full IPv6 support to all our websites thanks to our sponsor UK2.NET, click their banner in the sidebar to go visit them, we recommend them for all your hosting needs.

We’ve also now completed the swap of #9 to Dodgeball, which we had some real fun playing yesterday evening, so if you want to play something fun and exciting, visit #9 and have some good fun

Oh yeah, we’ve also resolved the crashes on #6 and #12.

Good morning.

Somewhere in the evening Tuesday the 30th of April, Valve will release or enforce a mandatory change from using the old content delivery system to the new one called SteamPipe. This will give us much faster loading times, more control over the files in the filesystem and hopefully less issues when adding models and so on.

What will this mean for me, you might ask? Well, the change we will be doing on our TF2 servers shouldn’t affect you if you have opted in for the SteamPipe beta for the TF2-client, however if you haven’t opted in for it, and you haven’t converted, it will mean that you a) will not be able to see the servers in the server browser, or b) whenever you try and connect to one of the servers it will drop you for having an old client.

When will we perform the change? We will perform the change whenever we see fit in the evening of Tuesday 30th of April, during this time there will be a few hours (or less) with downtime on the TF2 servers only, other servers for other games should not be affected by this maintenance.

The effects of this change server-side will be invisible to you as a player, however there might be a few bugs after the conversion, aka some plugins not loading, models not showing and so on – so be prepared for a few server restarts and whatnot while we work out the bugs.

We don’t have any further details on the time the update, all we know is that it will most likely be tomorrow evening.

BlackOut Gaming now have their very own Twitch channel!

http://twitch.tv/BlackOutGamingTV

Make sure to follow our channel on Twitch to be notified of any upcoming events! We will be using this to stream not only our events, but also to provide coverage for ETF2L’s Highlander Season 4 which we are currently sponsoring!

http://etf2l.org/leagues/highlander-season-4-home/

We are also hoping to cast some UGC Highlander matches in the near future.

Also, if you have any suggestions about what we should cast, or even fancy having a go at streaming or casting yourself then please check out our new sub forum dedicated to BlackOut TV:

http://forums.blackoutgaming.org/forumdisplay.php?47-BlackOut-TV

Hope to see you tuning in!

We’re running a competition where 3 winners will each win a copy of BioShock Infinite on Steam! To enter, all you have to do is simply like our Facebook page, comment on the pinned post with your Steam username and wait! We’ll select the winners on Friday the 8th.

Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/BlackOutGaming.org

Like Highlander? Never played it but not sure where to start? Ever wanted to destroy the BlackOut admins in a brutal 9v9 hatfest? Now’s your chance!
We’re running an event on Saturday 9th March from 19 CET onwards.

Check the following thread to sign up and for more information: clickme

A lot has been happening within BlackOut even though it doesn’t look like anything has changed – we have been recruiting more admins for our awesome servers (which you should check out, btw), switched radio providers on our servers from epic.Radio to FragRadio, handled attacks, switched hosts, Christmas celebration and gift-spam.

Our servers has grown in popularity and we have gained a bunch of awesome regulars and our donation counts are sky-high – all in all it has been a great year.

While all this has been happening, we have had a bunch of internal meetings where we discuss stuff, and we have resolved a bunch of internal conflicts and our management are now much better than before.

It has been an awesome year and we hope to continue this great success into 2013 and beyond aswell.

PS: Donate whatever you can, we still need cash!

Happy new year
- BlackOut management