It seems that most of Valve's PR work is handled by one of the creators of the TF mod, Robin Walker, who is incidentally busy working on the stand-alone TF2 product. You can imagine how active the guy is, having to implement all those lines of code, and on top of that, having to calmly answer all the questions of the nosy media, and demanding fans. Since then, apart from a few movie clips I had very little hands-on contact with the game, and what's worst, I've heard precious little about it. Apart from reading paper publications, it's obvious that the online community is lacking some fleshy info on the game. Even as I write this article, we're trying to get in touch with Robin to see if he can answer some of our questions.
Spies are everywhere.
Before the sequel, there was the original. About 5 years ago, two Australian coders, Robin Walker, and John Cook created the original TF mod for Quake. The sucker took off like a pack of free condoms on a gay parade, capturing the hearts and minds of online shooter fans across the globe. A community by its nature is not dependant on the number of its members, but rather on the level of interactivity it provides for them. Team Fortress managed to create a micro community of people depending on each other, and in that way, it introduced the highest level of interaction between its members.