Frequently Asked Questions

How do I join an Uncletopia server?

You can see a list of available servers here. If you prefer to join using the in-game Community Browser, you can search for our “uncletopia” tag, and hit refresh to see a list of all Uncletopia servers. Note that tags are unmoderated, and anyone can use the Uncletopia tag. The servers tab will always only be our servers.

The server I want to join is full. Now what?

You can select the option in the bottom left corner of the server connection window to auto-retry. The revolving door of players on Uncletopia is surprisingly quick, you generally will not have to wait more than ten minutes to join using this method. Just make sure you don’t join a Casual Mode game while you wait, otherwise TF2 will try and yank you back in for some reason.

Are there any plans to add more servers?

It depends. On one hand, it’s awesome that people want more servers, more locations, more options. On the other hand, I feel like it would be a waste of resources to add more servers only for them to fill up from time to time. For instance, I would rather have one server consistently full of 24 players than ten servers occasionally full or spreading the existing player base thin. The only time I would consider adding more servers is when there is such a high demand for it that it’s practically guaranteed that the new server would be filled as much as the others.

Are there reserved slots?

Only moderators and “VIPs'' have reserved slots. If you see more than 24 players on a server, that means someone with a reserve slot joined while the server was full. Players with reserved slots do not kick already connected players in order to make room for them in full servers. Uncletopia will never offer reserved slots in exchange for donations, nor will we ever offer reserved slots to regular players.

Why am I getting "Dropped due to slot reservation" then?

This message is due to multiple people trying to join at the same time. All the computers see the empty slot and try to join, but whoever loads first gets the slot, and all the other people get this message. This is due to how our reserved slots work, you will never be kicked from a server to make room for a moderator.

Will you add custom/pro maps?

We run custom and pro maps on our "Community" and "Stopwatch" servers. The maplists for these servers is available here.

Why are there no random crits?

If you’ve watched my video on the subject, you’ll know my general stance on random crits in TF2. I personally believe that they create more harm than good in the bigger picture of TF2’s gameplay, and removing them makes practically every interaction within the game more intense, more fun, and - most importantly - more fair. There will never be a vote to turn on/off random crits on Uncletopia. These reasons also apply to random bullet spread, which is also disabled.

Why are there class limits?

I honestly thought it would be the most controversial change to the vanilla ruleset, but I’ve had a class limit of three each ever since we started, and it’s only brought about positive experiences. Believe me, even I’m shocked that it’s been working out so well. Occasionally, it will cause an issue when people want to “meme” or when someone wants to play a specific class, but can’t due to three other people taking up the slot, but in general there have been very few complaints about it, and I actually have been enjoying matches where class-stacking isn’t possible.

Is all talk enabled?

No. In the spirit of the vanilla-esque vibe of Uncletopia, you will only be able to voice-chat with your team. There are lobbies in this Discord server where people can join and talk to each other regardless of team. There will never be a vote to turn on/off all talk.

Why did I get kicked due to “high latency”? What does that mean?

Latency is the connection speed from your computer to the server. Uncletopia’s servers are hosted in various places, so when you connect to a server, you need to make sure the location of the server is physically near YOUR location in order to not appear jittery and “laggy” to other players. TF2 is a PvP game, and having high latency (aka high ping) ruins not only your experience, but the experience of people who are trying to fight you. If your ping exceeds 150 for more than one minute, you will be automatically kicked from the server. Please refer to the servers tab for a full list of Uncletopia’s server locations and make sure you’re connecting to one that is the closest to you. Otherwise, you may be having issues with your internet connection speed in general, and you will need to troubleshoot that before trying again later.

I was banned from Uncletopia. Can I appeal it?

If you were banned and would like to appeal, feel free to log in and submit an appeal on this website. A moderator will contact you about the appeal process shortly. To avoid getting banned from Uncletopia, please make sure you read the MotD and the rules. Generally, the rules are pretty straight forward, and you probably have to go out of your way to be a toxic asshole to get yourself perma-banned. Just behave like a decent human being, and you will never have to worry about this. Pretty simple!

I was kicked from Uncletopia. How long until I can return?

If you were vote-kicked by your team, you will be able to reconnect after 20 minutes. If you were kicked by an admin, your cooldown was determined by them and can be anywhere from minutes to days to weeks. Again, if you conduct yourself appropriately with common sense, you need not worry about this. Pretty simple!

Can I mic-spam?

Depends on if your teammates are cool with it. Some people just mute and move on. But if your entire team doesn’t want you to do that at all, then they are entirely within their right to kick you off. Just make sure that you make it clear that you’re only providing some kind of “service” and encourage people who do not wish to participate to mute you on their end.

Can I be friendly?

Same as above, it depends on if your teammates are cool with it. Players reserve the right to kick you from the server if you're doing something they don't like, and sometimes being "friendly" is not something people want. Most of the time, however - players on Uncletopia don't care. That being said, there is no rule against vote-kicking "friendlies" on Uncletopia.

I suspect that someone is cheating. What should I do?

You can submit a report on our website. If possible, please provide video evidence if they are not able to be investigated immediately. Make sure you are positive about your suspicions before submitting a report. Many skilled players frequent Uncletopia, and not everyone who is able to hit shots consistently is a cheater. That being said, cheaters often won't be caught and banned without community reports, so make sure you speak up if you see something legitimately suspicious. Obvious cheaters who are not trying to hide it can easily be vote-kicked by players, but please make sure to report their steam profile to a moderator so they can be permanently banned.

Can I donate to Uncletopia?

The servers are owned and maintained financially by me (Uncle Dane), which I pay for using the revenue I make from my YouTube videos. If you want to support the servers, you can do so at no monetary cost to you by watching my videos (while whitelisting me on your adblock or subscribing to YouTube Premium). However, the option to subscribe to the Uncletopia Patreon is a more reliable way to support the servers. You can take a look at our Patreon option (http://patreon.com/uncletopia), or you can also directly donate to me here. Just remember that Uncletopia will always be maintained regardless of donations. We will never provide special server privileges such as reserved slots to donors.

How is Halloween handled on Uncletopia?

Halloween Mode (allowing Halloween cosmetics, soul-collecting, cosmetic and weapon spells, etc) is only enabled on Uncletopia in the same way that it’s enabled on Casual Mode servers: during the Halloween season (usually it’s the entire month of October), during a full moon, or after someone uses an Eternaween item and the player majority votes “yes” to apply Halloween Mode for 2 hours on that server. Halloween maps, on the other hand, are gameplay-altering experiences that we’ve decided wouldn’t mesh well with Uncletopia’s ruleset changes and intended experience. Therefore, we will not be featuring any Halloween maps at any time during the year. We figured it would be more valuable to offer Uncletopia as the “safe haven” from the enormously popular Halloween Maps that practically replace Casual Mode during the month of October.

How is Smissmas handled on Uncletopia?

The only things that change cosmetically about TF2 during Smissmas is the ability to use the Holiday Noisemaker, which will be able to be used on Uncletopia in addition to Casual Mode. Uncletopia will very likely add a few of the official holiday-themed maps to the map pool during this time, but we reserve the right to not include certain maps that we find don’t live up to our quality standards (cough Wutville cough).

I own a server. Can I donate a server to Uncletopia?

As much as we appreciate the gesture, we are not accepting server donations. This is mainly for security reasons. We are able to find reliable hosting services well enough as it is.

Can I make my own Uncletopia server?

Sure! As long as what you mean is to copy-paste whatever ruleset and plugins we have and host a server of your own with said changes WITHOUT using the Uncletopia name or server tags. We actively encourage more server-owners to employ the same philosophy when it comes to running a TF2 server. What we do not encourage is for people to use the Uncletopia brand without permission or endorsement, as we would prefer to keep our servers under the Uncletopia banner. Any server using our name or tags could be mistaken as being associated with us, and in the unfortunate event that someone uses our name while doing something we do not endorse, we would not like to be held responsible for it. So please, by all means, take a look at the Uncletopia public repo (https://github.com/leighmacdonald/uncletopia) and borrow as much of it as you like for your own server. We only ask that you use your own identifiers that do not imply a partnership with or endorsement by Uncletopia.

Can you please add X plugin or fix X bug?

Most likely, the answer is no. Fixing TF2 bugs is something that we consider on a case-by-case basis, but most of the time, we’d rather not delve to deeply into messing with TF2’s ‘bugs’, as a lot of them are considered to be part of TF2’s core gameplay at this point. Examples being the Iron Bomber’s unusually large projectile hitbox, or the Huntsman’s janky way of awarding a headshot. At what point do some bugs become features, and at what point do we start fixing bugs that often contribute to the high skill ceiling, such as ramp-sliding or edge-bugging? It’s a slippery slope that we’re not interested in falling down. Most of the quality-of-life changes on Uncletopia are implemented by vanilla TF2 cvars and if not, the community fixes we do implement are very clearly developer oversights that only benefit players instead of changing the game (such as the Medic Crossbow teammate collision bug).

Can you please disable “spawn wallhacks?”

No, this is a default TF2 feature and will not be disabled. While there is good reason to remove it, I don’t think it’s necessary to give up a player’s ability to quickly locate their team when exiting spawn just to make it easier for Spy to spawn-camp. There are still many ways around this (don’t disguise while outside of the enemy spawn), and on Uncletopia, we’ve already introduced an indirect Spy buff by disabling automatic voice command messages in chat (which reduces clutter, but also makes it slightly more difficult to know when a teammate calls “Spy!” with voice commands).

What is "Stopwatch"?

Stopwatch is a more competitively-focused gamemode in which the team who is first to play on BLU -- "Team A" -- will set a time. This time depends on how many points were capped, and how long it took them to do so. When the sides swap, Team B will attempt to beat Team A's time. The round ends immediately if Team B defeats Team A. There are additional changes to our ruleset on these servers, such as the removal of "spawn wallhacks", as well as having various popular community-created competitive maps in the map pool.