At long, long, long last we are days away from the release of the final Meet the Team machinima. As is tradition, it is accompanied by a game update to Team Fortress 2 which will be described incrementally, day by day, over the next 50 hours. The first briefcase full of intelligence reveals to us a new game type, a new level in that type and the names of eleven new achievements. Plus, there is a page of period faux-vertising! Yes, it’s a word.
Have you ever wondered what Skyrim would look like with a hint of Team Fortress 2? Well wonder no more, Redditer ArmoredCavalry has managed to perfect the Team Fortress 2 in Skyrim effect. Hit the jump for some more images from his collection. …
It’s been a whole year since Team Fortress 2 opened up the Mann Co. store, dividing the player base into those that felt Valve were were placing too much emphasis on superfluous gubbins that had no impact on the game whatsoever and those that look awesome in a bowlerhatandohmygodIMUSTHAVEIT. Whatever you think of the store, it’s been an incredibly successful experiment, for both Valve and the model makers whose items now adorn the majority of games. To celebrate the one year ‘Manniversary’, Valve have launched the Steam Workshop, making it easier for more people to get in on the hat making action – and perhaps earn themselves some real money to buy themselves a fez. Because fezzes are cool.
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Take a look at that lovely image, created by Matt De Lanoy it is the Red Team from Team Fortress 2 in what is called ‘miniland-scale’ Lego. Beautiful, if lacking in hats. Click on the image to see the full version.
I once entertained the idea that in the grand scheme of geekery, my abstinence from comic books and action figures meant that I still retained some shred of credibility. It inevitably turned out the world merely hadn’t manufactured colourful pieces of paper and plastic on subjects I’d fork over money for. See, games companies have only just realised that we all have more money than sense. …
Valve have lifted the lid on the process of making their hilarious Meet the Medic video in a blog post on the Team Fortress 2 website. In it, they describe the different concepts they went for before finally deciding on the finished product, including ideas of the Medic on a train, how they almost made the video Meet the Medigun and exactly where the Blu Spy head in the fridge came from, including some work-in-progress footage of the short.
It’s fascinating stuff for anyone interested into the thought processes of these shorts, and you can read it all on the official Team Fortress blog.
There have been lots of rumours and tidbits of details about Valve goings on over the past few days, it all started with the apparent revelation that Valve will be attending GamesCom later this year in Germany. Rumours ran wild that Valve would be revealing DOTA2 or, say it quietly, maybe even details on the future of the Half-Life franchise. …
I’ve been debating what to talk about in my latest blog, I thought I might just talk about some of the games I have been playing, but something else came to mind. The generosity of Valve.
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Valve have began teasing their latest update. Strangely enough, it’s so far Classless. Whether it will remain that way remains to be seen – remember the previous update was only revealed to be both a Spy AND a Sniper update halfway through the reveal process – but for now day one’s tease of the new content for Team Fortress 2 is the inclusion of not one, not two but eighteen new hats, along with a new Arena map called Offblast. Details can be found as ever on the Team Fortress website and of course, stick with us all week for the rest of the update – we’ll be updating this post with more information as it’s revealed.
As for the release of the update, no firm date has been confirmed yet, but if it’s anything like the last update we can expect to see it some time next week.
EDIT: Already, some very clever people have unearthed some hidden stuff around the latest update – here are the links if you think you can decipher what they mean:
The history of hats.
The Zenith Mann & Son’s Co Quarterly Concern
Is Your Child Six Years of Age? (NB: this link can be adblocked by overzealous plugins. If this is the case for you: Click Here.
A Gentle Mann of Lesiure
DAY TWO
Day two has brought news of a new game mode – King of the Hill. With only one capture point, teams have to hold it for a total of three minutes to win the map. And it’s cumulative, so that means if the opponents capture it back after say 1 minute, when the original team recaptures it they only have to hold it for a further two minutes. Also revealed are the first three maps for the game mode, an entirely new one named Viaduct which takes place during a snowfall, and the two Arena maps from the Spy/Sniper update redesigned for the new game mode- Sawmill and Nucleus.
Check out the information here.
EDIT: And again, Valve are continuing to hide little extras to those willing to seek. Today:
Hills Discovered!
War, Mate!
King Conquers Hill!
Mann Co Invents ‘Ro-Bot’
and finally for Day Two, The Administrator would like you all to know that Valve take accusations of Plagiarism very seriously indeed.
DAY THREE
Well, it looks like Valve have wasted no more time and have released the new classless update to the slavering hordes. The final two reveals, other than the full patch notes (including some interesting reading) are two new maps – a CTF version of Sawmill, and a new Capture Point map entitled Yukon. And as promised, here are the full patchnotes:
New Content:
* Added King Of The Hill game mode.
* Added custom animations played by the losing team during the post-win state. They are moved into third person camera to enjoy them.
* Added lots of new hats.
* Added koth_Viaduct.
* Added ctf_Sawmill
* Added community map Arena_Offblast
* Added community map Cp_YukonAdditions / Changes:
* Added “Auto Reload” option to the multiplayer advanced options.
* Clip-based weapons that reload a full clip at a time can now have their reloads aborted by firing.
* Pistol now fires at a fixed rate, not based on the speed at which you press the firing button.
* Added a color blind option to add a Jarate icon above enemies who are busy accepting a terrifying existence where they have no dignity.
* Significantly reduced the amount of network traffic being sent.
* Capturing the flag in a CTF game mode gives the entire capturing team 10 seconds of critboost.
* Sappers attached to a teleporter automatically place another Sapper on the other end of the teleporter, if it exists.
* Engineers wrenching a teleporter will repair the other end as well, and remove Sappers from both if they exist.
* Disguised Spies no longer trigger On-Hit effects (like the Blutsauger’s heal).
* Removed self-inflicted minicrits. Fixes Jarate’d Soldiers/Demomen having ineffective rocket/grenade jumps.
* Added an item panel to the spectator cam that shows non-standard items being carried by the player you’re spectating.
* Added an “Inspect” key that allows you to look at items being carried by your team mates.
* Backpack improvements:
– Added drag & drop to move items around. Item positions are maintained on the backend.
– Added multi-select, allowing you to delete multiple items at once.
– Added a new key to the key binding page that opens your inventory directly to your backpack.
– Fixed mouseover panel being incorrectly position when the backpack first appears.
* Cloaked Spies standing in valid backstab positions no longer raise their knife.
* Added current map name and gametype to the bottom right of scoreboard.
* Added class icons to tips on the loadout and loading screens.
* Improved visuals around flags when they’re being carried by a player.
* Improved critboosted visuals, making it much clearer when an enemy has critboost.
* Updated the loading panel to show the game type under the map name during level transition.
* In-game chat dialog now supports full Unicode characters.
* Added BLU main menu background.
* Added response caching for some server queries to help reduce the CPU load from DOS attacks.
* Teammates no longer block friendly radius damage. Prevents nearby teammates causing rocket/grenade jumps to fail.Map Changes:
* Update PLR_Pipeline
– Increased the starting advantage in the third round if a team has won the first two rounds.
– Fixed carts not continuing to the second round if they’re capped at the same time in the first round.
– Fixed being able to shoot pipebombs over the starting gates in the first round.
– Fixed being able to open the doors in the first round before the setup time was finished.
– Fixed players getting stuck in some doors.
– Fixed players being able to get onto rooftops and out of the map boundaries.
– Fixed other minor bugs and exploits.
* Update Arena_Sawmill
– Fixed DirectX8 bug where some models would not be visible.
– Fixed exploit with building teleporters outside of the map.
* Updated CP_Granary
– Made a few changes to improve balance based on competitive community feedback.Item Reworks:
* The Force of Nature
– The enemy knockback now only `works in close range and behaves more like the Pyro’s air blast.
– Enemies cannot be juggled by the FaN’s effect.
– The self-knockback has also changed to respect the firer’s view angle. Looking up while shooting will no longer propel the enemy upwards.
– Knockback is now scaled by damage done.
* The Sandman
– A Scout will receive 1 point for stunning an enemy and 2 points for a long range stun.
– Stunned players now take 75% of all incoming damage instead of 50%.
– Übercharged players can no longer be stunned.
– Heavies spinning their mini-guns will continue to spin when stunned (whether the left or right mouse button is pressed).
– The minimum distance to stun a target has been reduced.
– The negative attribute has changed from “no double jump” to “-30 max health”.Fixes:
* Fixed various issues around layout & presentation of items inside the Backpack and “X is carrying” item dialogs.
* Fixed an exploit that allowed players to work around sv_pure.
* Particle files are now protected by sv_pure.
* Fixed critboost effect getting stuck on when you die while critboosted.
* Fixed Timer HUD element backgrounds not being the correct color if you change teams during waiting for players.
* Fixed a couple of issues with the way critboosts affected The Huntsman and the Spy’s knife.
* Fixed an exploit where you could reload The Huntsman faster than intended.
* Fixed Heavy “civilian” exploit.
* Fixed a set of exploits using the DXSupport config files.
* Fixed r_screenfademinsize and r_screenfademaxsize exploits.
* Fixed sentries firing at a fully cloaked Spy if they’re still the closest target.Community requests:
* Added a HUD element for hybrid CTF & CP maps.
– Supports 1 or 2 flags, and any number of CPs.
– Mapmakers need to place a “tf_logic_hybrid_ctf_cp” entity in their map to enable it.
* Added custom kill server log text “train” and “saw” for deaths caused by these environmental hazards.
Format: “%s<%i><%s><%s>” committed suicide with “world” (customkill “%s”) (attacker_position “%d %d %d”)
* Added new “medic_death” event for server logs
Format: “%s<%i><%s><%s>” triggered “medic_death” against “%s<%i><%s><%s>” (healing “%d”) (ubercharge “%s”)
– healing is the amount the Medic healed in that life
– ubercharge (1/0) is whether they died with a full charge
* Added “func_respawnflag” trigger entity. It will remove & return the flag if a flag carrier touches it, or if the flag falls into it.
And as a final reward to those whom had been seeking out the hidden treasure on the updates this week, Valve provided a special reward for the first 11, 111 people to discover this link on one of the hidden pages with an in game medal. Unfortunately:
The Spy/Sniper update hit on Thursday night and there was one major complaint, the change to the unlock system. Valve have admitted that there are some problems, but it looks like they will be fixing them soon. Hit the jump for more regarding the update and the unlock system.
