Premier Gaming Community Since 1997
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TSF is one of the longest-lived teams in all of online gaming. Learn about our community and what sets us apart.

TSF

About TSF, the online gaming community

Mission

To be the premier gaming community: a home for the player who seeks action, friendship, and excellence in every way.

Ethos

  • We expect that our members will be a step above the general internet population. Mature and professional people who expect more from gaming.
  • Teamwork, trust, and communication are essential for the group to achieve more. We must continually improve in these traits.
  • We do not follow the "clan" model. The team is not a one-man operation and must be future-oriented and expansive, not a closed-in group.
  • Being "the best" in game is more than just statistics. Honorable conduct, a positive culture, and rejection of toxic influences must come first.
  • That we should welcome new players and help them integrate into the gaming scene and the community, so that the whole may benefit.
  • Cheating, hacking, and other disgraceful behavior are a plague on the gaming world and we must be firm in our opposition to them.
  • Our team will not be for everyone, but we will welcome all respectful people who want to take our narrow and more fulfilling path.
  • We do not mandate participation in competition activities, but for those who wish, we will provide a platform for them to achieve excellence.
  • Members are not charged any fees, and the team must be cautious in selecting commercial partners to avoid a money-first mindset.
  • Above all, we must preserve our guiding principles, even in the face of difficult challenges, to carry forward our community into the future.

Our Team

Experienced and Stable

Founded in 1997, we are one of the longest-lived teams in all of online gaming. Read our History

Solid Community

We have hundreds of members, but we try to maintain the small group atmosphere and positive culture.

Principled Standards

We keep the ruffians out and strive to be consistent in our rules, to promote a low-drama atmosphere.

TSF (previously known as Team Special Forces) is an online gaming community that plays in various multiplayer games — see the home page for a current list. Founded in 1997 in the game of Tanarus (as Special Forces), we are one of the longest-lived teams in all of online gaming. Our members generally use the TSF tag, but some older units still use the SF tag.

The team has standing units, called formations, of various sizes and in various stages of development. There are two forms of team membership: Club Members register on our team website and apply to join the team in a full capacity, while Basic Members exist only on our Discord server and have a very simple sign-up process there. Certain benefits, such as the option to join competition units and take on a staff role, are available only to Club Members.

The bedrock of our team organization is our community. By screening new members, maintaining and enforcing basic standards of conduct, and following up on reports of misbehavior, we work to cultivate a positive and inviting atmosphere. Our members make their own contributions, large and small, everyday to build up our community and welcome new people. We typically have very little e-drama or any of the usual "clan politics" as a result.

Active and Engaged

We work to keep our rosters lean so they accurately reflect available players. We developed automated tracking of activity to help.

Reliable Voice Comms

Redundant, premium-quality voice servers mean our members are never in the dark. Events and more organized on our server.

Organized to Perform

Our formations can focus on gaming, relying on the combined resources that the team organization provides for everything else.

Over the years, we have developed extensive resources to help our volunteer formation leaders get started and go deep in organizing groups in games. We hold that our population of active players is very important for this effort, to ensure that members have teammates to play with regularly and to allow events and larger initiatives to be organized. As such, we focus on maintaining active rosters, rather than just large ones.

Our voice server is the main center of activity of the team. Members are expected to participate regularly and our server is frequently populated at all hours. We have developed systems to manage our server and monitor activity, which is reported back to our roster system. At any time, formation leaders can see how active their players are in our voice server and in game, informing their decisions.

The goal of all this is to set our formations up for long-lasting success by allowing them to focus on what they do best, while offloading responsibility for many "back-of-house" functions to the larger team organization. This lowers the barrier of entry for new leaders, allowing our members with ambitions of steering our next formation to greatness the confidence they need to take the first step. We are proud of how many leaders we have developed internally over the years, which stands as a testament to our efforts in this regard.

We, the members of TSF, welcome you and look forward to seeing you on our Discord server for some games!

If you want to learn more about becoming a TSF member, please see the Join Us page.

Thank you for visiting and for your interest in TSF!