I ran a TF2 community server for one year and here's what happened 

I just wanna say: thank you for all of the nice comments and feedback about Uncletopia! The new servers all filled up within an hour of posting this video, which is a pretty mind-blowing response for sure! I would like to wait a few weeks before making any decisions to continue adding a lot more servers, just to make sure we will maintain the current player base. *However, since we've been getting a lot of requests to host servers in South East Asia, we've now added two new servers in Singapore! Check back on **uncletopia.com** for updates in the future!* We will continue to roll out a few more locations as we decide that demand in those areas would be feasible. Thanks again so much for all your guys' support, and if anyone feels like contributing directly, check out the Uncletopia Patreon: patreon.com/uncletopia

Eventually Uncle Dane will run out of content to cover on Engineer... And then, all that will be left, is for him to get an engineering degree and become an engineer in real life, and build a fully working dispenser to recreate his intro 1 for 1 irl

Providing a safe haven to play and learn seems like a fitting roll for everyone’s favorite uncle

Yesterday I was on Dustbowl with 4 spies. I said "guys, we have too many spies, we won't be able to leave the spawn", and someone said "Welcome to France". Sometimes something good comes from the casual chaos. Still gonna try Uncletopia though.

The reason Uncletopia does so well despite it being a "selfish endeavor" is because Dane just wants the tf2 experience a lot of other people want

Thanks for Aussie servers! Just played for 4 hours, very epic waste of a day

uncletopia cp_orange_x3 100% crits rtd when???

In terms of class limits: from my time I’ve seen no complaints on the servers. Whenever I join a server and see a class is full, most that comes out is a little sigh but that quickly disperses after choosing another class. I legitimately think the limits are benefit as it forces at least a medic, heavy or soldier to make pubstomps a little easier.

I'm very glad that there's now UncleTopia servers in Brazil/South America, I've been personally waiting for these to come for a while now, and I can finally tell my friends to come play with barely any more lag than casual! Thank you very much from South America!

Damn he really did what FaceIt and all the other “new casual” servers wanted to do: make tf2 playable again. All it took was not being a money-hungry corporation. Who could have seen this coming?

“Uncletopia has remained class limit three” line had two takes left in I think. Oops.

Haven't played TF2 in years due to the bot crisis. Wanted to play some lately, but the casual experience is completely horrendous. Went onto a community server browser site tonight and saw uncletopia servers. I had heard of you before through my brother, but had never seen any of your videos myself. Saw they were all pretty well populated, and clicked join on one pretty blindly. I was immediately thrown into a round that was starting in 5 seconds, and it was a blast. Truly captured an experience that feels so vanilla and so clean! Played a few full games, was a great night. And yes, we did have some goofy TF2 moments. Removing sprays and random crits doesn't remove the wackiness of TF2, it just incentivizes players to use other means to have fun moments. But when it really came down to it, everybody stopped dancing in the spawn room when the round started, because everybody there really just wants to have fun playing the game!

I really appreciate what you have done for the tf2 community mr Dane. Hope you still enjoy the game as much as your community does.

Thank you UncleDane & Co. for creating Uncletopia! They are hands down the best pub servers in the game right now. I am incredibly impressed and inspired by what you guys have accomplished and I hope to be able to give back to the scene in my own way someday soon (not a competing casual server, of course - I could offer nothing of improvement over Uncletopia!). Keep up the good work!

I would have liked to play on Uncletopia, but the servers are always full.

I HADN'T EVEN NOTICED THE TEAM PLAYER COLLISION AND IT'S HONESTLY SUCH A BLESSING

Honestly, Making Uncletopia was probably one of the best decisions you could've made when it comes to TF2, its a great alternative to casual, for when you really can't be bothered dealing with the bullshit of casual mode. and unlike faceit and creators.tf, has actually stayed pretty popular.

The first time i saw the class limit i reacted negatively, thinking that it would basically make it so that some classes were never available. After playing for a couple of months i can verify that its not a big deal and you can see more variety in the classes, wild medics have repopulated and are no longer an endangered species.

I absolutely love uncletopia, everything that happens there feels earned, or deserved. I can recognize my highs and lows and how to improve, while having a balanced map pool that isn’t 2fort or harvest. Best semi-competitive server ever

Dane is playing the long game. The more stable TF2 players, the more to watch his content.

17:19 That Scout distracting the sentry's aggro is such a sight to watch. Thank you Uncle Dane for opening the servers in Singapore, now I can actually play TF2!

as someone who really recently started playing, ive had a great time playing on the uncletopia servers. i get to start learning the mercenaries in tf2 in a way that is just w+m1. and it feels great. so thanks for creating these servers. and thanks to the people who help run it. cant wait to play more on them in the future either.

Such a legend hosting servers so that others may have fun

I'm watching the video tomorrow, but I just wanna say: I love the uncletopia servers, especially in the early morning, when casual is filled with bots. The only possible gripe I have is that the skill level of all players are remarkably higher, which can sometimes be frustrating, especially when you're simply not as good as the enemy players (or the team has a sniper who descended from the heavens to unleash his holy mad skillz upon all those not wearing the same color shirt as him). But, hey, in most cases, it's very fun, and actually coordinating with your team is amazing.

When the wait to get into the servers is still astronomical. This man needs a solid 10 east coast servers at this rate

One change I would like to see: map change based on time limits rather than round limits. It can be frustrating to finally vote in your favorite map only to have the objective rushed and the map switch again a couple minutes later, or to get stuck in a stalemated 5cp game for an hour.

Also a neat thing would be all talk on setup or match end, would take me back to the 2012 TF2 days.

I just got back into tf2, ironically after watching your videos again, not knowing abt uncletopia. I played like 2 days of casuals and had like 2v2s and 4v4s, and games where I couldn't play spy bc we had 4 of em or whatever. I wanted a stock+ experience, with a large map pool. So i opened browser, searched by nodmgspread and your server popped up. Joined, had a wonderful time, got off open yt and this is the first vid in my feed. I had no idea but thanks for the amazing community

Getting into an Uncletopia server is like trying to buy a PS5.

The pro maps are often also benificial for your fps, snow is known to drain fps, that's why maps like product and warmtic use a summer aesthetic.

In short, these servers are the reason I came back to the game. Thank you so much for creating/maintain these servers

I feel like I need to repeat this whenever the discussion of high ping comes up: Distance between your computer and router can make a bigger difference than you'd think. If your house has 2 floors and your computer and router are on separate ones, your ping's gonna be doubled. If they ARE really far away like that, consider getting an ethernet cable, I got a 50ft one for fairly cheap and can now manage pings as low as 60 on some servers! As far as I understand it, no matter how long your ethernet cable is, it will in most cases be faster than wi-fi period.

Literally my only complaint about Uncletopia is that the servers are either empty or full. It's hard to find a server with room to join other people playing. But that is out of your control, and I tip my hat to you for hosting so many wonderfully fun servers.

Uncletopia captured that perfect "Pre-MYM" server feel, that's why I love it so much

I've played this game for.. well, almost 8 thousand hours. I havent enjoyed myself for.. probably.. half of those, but I kept playing due to the nostalga and the one amazing game in every 20 terrible ones. The community, players and physical game are all amazing, but not in its current state. I finally tried out an uncletopia servers after being reccomended them by everyone and I can honestly say, It felt like the good old days, WITHOUT being sarcastic. I only wish there were more then there are, because i dont have the patience (nor do a lot of people i'd imagine) to wait.. upwards of 20 minutes to get into a game. By god is it worth it, but its just not appealing enough for the quick-paced gaming most of us are used to. If I were to ever win money, I would do EXACTLY what you've done dane, whether that be run the server costs for you or whatever, because Uncletopia is the tf2 everyone should love and remember. Also, the financial burden they put you under, even though you may be able to handle it, is incredibly generous of you, but i dont think anyone would complain if you had a donation system (without perks) or ad's on the servers to help with that added revenue, even if you decide to put it back into the community and make even more servers. Thankyou for creating that little piece of history that I, and many, can hold dear to our hearts.

Honestly I've been playing TF2 for about 7 years now like I had a lot of my developmental years playing this game. When I came back to it a couple months ago I was really upset with how unplayable casual seemed to be. When I first tried out an uncletopia server I had no clue it was an uncle dane thing but I loved it. It felt like the game I fell in love with but better, balanced and actually somehow more fun than I remember. Honestly I want to whole heartedly thank you for breathing some much needed life back into the game. I am forever grateful to my hard hatted uncle for that

The class limit of 3 is so fucking genius, that I'm going to be entirely honest: I didn't even KNOW the Uncletopia servers HAD class limits to begin with. It's THAT seamlessly integrated.

I actually played TF2 for the first time a few months ago and playing on your servers was great! Also, yeah, my biggest complaint would be that the servers are always full. I don't wanna play on some random community server with terrible rules. I want Uncletopia! Edit: Player collision?! I'm so happy that you turned that off!

Class limit is amazing, I main scout, but scout was full, so I played heavy and had more fun than I remember having. class limit makes strict mains have to break there shell

Dude. This sounds amazing. It's been a while since I've played TF2 but now that I know there's a place to play on that has more than 2 brain cells worth of consideration put in to it, i might check it out. Thanks for fostering such a good community Uncle Dane!

Seeing that uncle topia is going to brazil made me smile so much!! Finally i can play in the servers of one of my favorite youtuber/uncle Greetings from chile!!!

I recently started playing TF2 again, and the only reason I’ve been able to enjoy my favorite game of all time is the existence of your servers. Thank you so much Dane for providing this “no bs” space for the community, most of my fondest memories in this game has been in tight knit and well managed community servers like yours (shoutout to the former glory of 2fort2furious). People like you and mastercom donating your time, money, and effort to keeping this game going are much appreciated by us long time players who just wanna frag once in a while with other wholesome people ❤️

The script loop at 6:28 was a little weird. This is a great video, it was cool seeing everything that went into setting up your server and how players participated in it ~

When you quacked at that Widowmaker on the ground I laughed pretty hard. 21:28 I always wear a Duck Journal and am all too familiar with the "bad aim quack".

Finally tried Uncletopia servers and holy shit my guy. I think I'll be consistently playing on these from now on: They're so nice, casual, chill, no bullshit, fair gameplay, absolutely love every feature and change you've added to this!

3:25 That fixed spread water splash is so goddamn satisfying for some reason

Thank you Ankle Dan the engie man now I can finally play tf2 in SEA and actually enjoy the game

Thank you so much for keeping this going. Your servers have been an absolute blessing especially when the bot situation was really bad. No random spread and crits is also amazing. And it feels really nice joining a server knowing that there isn't a million 3rd party scripts and plug-ins running, making the server performance jank and spamming a bunch of ads and messages. You deserve every dono you get.

We need popular passtime servers. It's impossible to queue for this amazing game mode, and the few community servers that run it are always dead.

"If your ping is too high you can't join." Damn. Oh well.

my man is editing for idubbs now?

This is just perfect, thank you for that. The only thing missing would be Uncletopia MvM-Servers. I'd love to play other missions than Two Cities without having clueless teammates or having to pay for Mann-Up. But this is just an idea, for now i'm completly happy with the casual servers.

Your contribution to TF2 is unmatched, thank you for being the person that keeps so many people interested in this game

Honestly Uncletopia is the opposite of what I look for in TF2 (I'm the sort of heathen who likes random crits and I enjoy trying new custom maps) but like you said it's just one of many options out there. I appreciate how community servers have had a bit of a comeback (even if it's due to unfortunate circumstances), and I think it's partially thanks to Uncletopia. Creators was the start of this movement I suppose but Uncletopia was the first one to offer a relatively unmodified experience. And so nowadays we have things like Casual.tf which is very much my sort of thing. So, thanks Dane. I don't agree with you when it comes to this game sometimes, but I think you really inspired some people to take action and help improve the experience for everyone. 'Preciate it, pardner.

Trying to have fun in a uncletopia server as a fat scout challenge (impossible)

I'm at the class limit portion of the video, and I gotta say, my unpopular opinion is actually that I find class stacking more annoying than random crits. I agree with Uncle Dane 100%, on it being a meme I've seen hundreds of times, and one whose novelty value wore off pretty much the first time I ever saw it happen.

i love uncletopia servers, i just wish it wasnt payload 90% of the time. hopefully the new batch of servers leads to more gamemode variety :)

The class limit is something I particularly like! Makes the teams more balanced, and it's more likely someone will actually play Medic

3:13 I did not know this room on pier exists, lol. Thanks for the servers! No random crits!

7:15 Uncle Dane: *Takes no damage from a spraying Heavy at point blank range* Heavy: *Confusion Noises*

6:29 - 6:51 that moment when you don't know which take is better so you just use both

This video describes exactly what I felt playing this servers, just the game, no bullshit. Uncletopia became the standard game for me.

Dude really sounds like the translator at the Nintendo directs

Thanks for hosting these wonderful servers. A server in Warsaw would be very welcome :-)

I saw the experimentation with having more that one server per region, and I would love to have more uncletopia servers in my acceptable ping range

As an uncletopia denizen, I thank you for facilitating a lovely community and giving me hours and hours of fun

Very interesting to know your perspective on hosting servers :D thank you so much for all the support you've given this community, I'm sure you are aware by now how important your servers have become and I hope more people support you directly so you can keep them up indefinitely. By the way, thanks for opening servers in South America, that rocks!

thanks so much for keeping these servers going. i only play tf2 for like a couple weeks straight when i get an itch to play again every few months or so, and i play on your servers almost exclusively. ive even waited up to half an hour to join so i could play, and not minding one bit since i know im guaranteed to have a great experience playing.

Honestly, thank you for providing these servers. From your words, it seems you've brought to life something I also wanted for a long time, which is just plain old TF2 without any unnecessary stuff. Big thanks to the team!

Haven’t played tf2 in years, I know this is a year old at this point but the passion of creators like Uncle Dane and the dedication he has to make an enjoyable experience for players looking to just have a good tf2 casual experience makes me want to pick it up again

personally these servers aren’t my thing, but it seems really neat that they have come so far. I can live with fighting bots, but I understand that others don’t enjoy that. Good on you for making such a good server network.

as far as i’m concerned, uncletopia IS the way to play tf2, thank you for everything uncle dane 🖤

6:29 You left 2 takes in side by side, and I thought I had stroked out for a second lmao. I think I liked the second one better, had better flow to it :P Still great video and servers when I can get in them.

Thank you so much for increasing the number of servers this much; I really like them as my go-to option to play this game nowadays not only because of the absence of cheaters but due to the class limits and removal of random crits making the game feel like a less frustrating experience at times.

The fact these are ALWAYS full to the point I rarely get to join is a testament to it's success.

I've played a lot on your Singapore and Tokyo servers recently and despite the recent problems with it not showing up on the server browser it's been a blast playing on it with my friends. It's the best place for me to play with my friends who are new to the game because I could teach and play with them without bots ruining our fun and Random Crits teaching them bad habits (that I myself have to unlearn). Thank you for putting up those servers Ankle Dan, it's greatly appreciated.

I have been inspired by this video to re-install TF2, thanks for adding Australian servers.

Shit is wack, people get banned for the most stupid stuff

thank you so much for the aussie servers been wanting servers like these for years keep up the quality content :) only thing I'll recommend is having Halloween mode enabled always so spell are active

"Valve doesn't allow sprays on their own servers" If that's true, that has to be almost as poorly enforced as the anti-bot measures.

I had an ff2 server that I never got to run properly when I was in middle school and it became my lifes biggest regret . You give me the inspiration to do it again my man

Tldr largest sweatfest in history since casual

The servers are fantastic, honestly would not complain about seeing an ad when joining if it means that the servers have more sustainability

Honestly, I found myself more willing to play other classes with the class limit, and I can't forget the all-important TF2 ~mods~ that I can run on uncletopia.

This video pisses me of so much. This dude and other popular youtubers advocated for matchmaking since forever even for some time after the meet your match update.And now we know that it doesnt work, they either fcked off to their own pubs or dropped the game. Comp players who did the same are also gone, playing in their comfortable tf2center lobbies, none of them ever touching tf2 comp mode. Its us the average pub player that has to deal with bots, bad team balance, no team scamble, no lasting lobbies, getting thrown into the games that are ending in 5 seconds 1000 times a day, bad weapon balance, random crits, no class restrictions, limited map pool, dysfunctional autobalance i can go on. Gee i wonder why people complain about your servers being full lmao.

6:20 the way you repeated yourself, made me feel like I was trippin.

So I've played on Uncletopka for a while and I primarily main spy: It's a strange sense of semi-frustration and semi-epic experience of teamwork when I die and my kill cam immediately cuts to another spy on my team getting some epic sabotages in while I took the heat for it

9:05 fun fact, underage people is the people that have NSFW sprays lmao

I'm glad tf2 is still running strong to this day, I hope it never dies its so much fun

I was pretty skeptical of the class limits myself when i first joined a server, but after an hour i loved it! It forced teams to be at least a little balanced and made my usual job of "Switch from whatever class I am to what the team needs" alot easier

what a brilliant advertisement; casual TF2 without the bullshit. i played on your australian server and it was more fun than i thought. as it turned out, i had no idea that there were no random crits, but now that i think about it, i'm glad there weren't!

So, I'm brazilian, and as I was watching the video, when he talked about the ping limit I thought: "Wait, there are probably only USA Servers, I should check, just in case." and I'm glad that there are Brazilian servers.

Great video and all but just one question, 0:01 WHERE ARE THE STAIRS!

i am anti class-limits and pro random-crits for valve casual, but im in favor of changes on a community server to create a different experience and atmosphere

Thank you Uncle Daniel. I now play on Uncletopia pretty much exclusively. If there was one thing I could request it would be a 24/7 dedicated hightower server for each continent. I think the community would love that but I understand that it might not line up with your personal tf2 philosophy.

"My Servers would always provide an experience that I personally enjoy about TF2" Which is to say, games that are always stacked, and dominated by high-tier snipers.

I cannot wait for the Australia servers to boot up because I know a few of my friends who do have trouble finding good servers to play on and I myself have wanted to play with the community and just be that one guy who is just a goofball and brings a little laugh to people I'm playing with while also playing normally and Uncletopia is a place where I would love to bring some of that to as well. Yeah I'm not the best player and I just want to get better at the game outside of Casual because that will put me with people I'm not ready to play against so I think this is going to be a change that will be amazing for many people like me or who just want to play a game without random crits, bullet spread and sprays that end up just being plain old rude.

Uncletopia coming to South Africa 🇿🇦? We cant join any community server due to the insane ping(500 instead of your 120) and we would love to join this community of nieces and nephews 🎉

For real, I appreciate the hell out of these servers. I refuse to play elsewhere. And, to be honest, Uncletopia convinced me for the "Remove Random Crits" mentality (however, I now hate Guaranteed Crits more). I'd rather get my ass kicked a thousand times over in Uncletopia than ever touch Casual again.

I think the bot crisis has got dane quitting uploading and making content