Do you miss the days of yore when TF2 would load a map as the background?
Well you can still do it.
If you don't mind waiting a little longer on the inital load, so that you wait less on your first server connection, you can make a map your background like so:
Just do this:
Open the "My Games" list
Right click on TF2
Hit "Properties"
Hit "Launch Options"
Type in "+map_background your_favoritemap"
Ta-da
You can make a blurred screenshot and set it as your background if you want by making a .vtf and putting it in
"C:\program files\Steam\SteamApps\your@email\team fortress 2\tf\materials\console"
call it "background01.vtf" or "background01_widescreen.vtf". The width x height needs to be a power of 2, such as 512x512, 1024x1024, 2048x2048 etc. It will look stretched when you make it, but it will look fine in game.
There is a
plugin for photoshop that will make VTFs. When you save it, choose "Compressed Texture" from the "Template" box.
I've attached the non-widescreen badlands texture to this post. It looks like this
