Tag Archives: team fortress 2

Valve streams Saxxy Awards live tomorrow

The First Annual Saxxy Awards Show If you’ve been waiting with anticipation for the winners of Valve’s Team Fortress 2 Saxxy wards, the wait is all but over.

Over on the Team Fortress 2 blog comes word that the winners will be announced live on Wednesday, June 8th at 3:00PM PDT; with a new category winner announced every five minutes.

We’ll be revealing a new category winner every five minutes! That’s one hundred frantic, furious minutes of award-bestowing! As far as we know, nobody has ever attempted to hand out this many awards in so short a time.

Valve rolls out massive TF2 update, starts directorial competition

The Replay Update Valve have added the ability to record yourself in Team Fortress 2 via the new ‘Replay Update‘.

When you connect to a server that supports replays (you will see a camera icon next to any server that does), all you need to do is press F6 before you leave the spawn and your gameplay will be recorded until you die; you’ll then get a notification at the top left corner of your screen letting you know when the download is complete. Then if you want to edit it simply click on ‘Replays’ from the main menu.

1,000 YouTube views will net you this epic hat Meanwhile Valve have also started a new competition, the ‘First Annual Saxxy Awards.’ After recording and editing your masterpiece you can enter your videos in specific Oscar-like categories.; like Best Original Soundtrack, Most Pwnage, Most Inventive Kill and many others. You can upload the clips to YouTube from within the game and if you get enough hits, win a hat. Other achievements will unlock special taunts.

You need to keep the video under 1 minute in length and at 720p; Valve are taking submissions up to May 19th.

It’s all very straight forward, head on over to Valve’s FAQ for further instructions to hone your film-making skills.

Valve patches buggy TF2 ‘Hatless Update’

Valve fixes crashes from 'Hatless Update'. After the pain of the so-called ‘Hatless Update‘ from Valve 5 days ago, a patch has finally been released to quench the anti-Valve sentiment from disgruntled players of the popular online shooter.

The hefty update from April 14th brought a few new features to the game; including a revamped voting system, improvements to bots and voice chat and some in-game training.

The problem with the update however, is that it was pre-maturely applied to the stable version of the game and clearly wasn’t ready for wide-spread consumption. After the update users found themselves treated to 5 days of random and constant crashes to the desktop, and also an inability to access their weapon loadout (among other issues).

The good news is that Valve have finally got around to ironing out the bugs; so breath easy my fellow TF2 addicts.

Team Fortress 2

Fixed a server crash that could occur if TFBots were used across map changes

Fixed a client crash caused by weapons with attached models

Fixed a material system crash

Fixed a client crash with dynamic model loading

Fixed a few backpack images not drawing correctly

Fixed listen servers sometimes not authenticating with Steam (not being able to use Offline Practice)

Fixed the “itemtest” command

Fixed players not being able to access their backpack loadout

Updated the localization files

Valve bags nearly half a million for Japan

Help Japan and look cool at the same time

Nearly 2 weeks ago the figure was $300,000 but Valve shared the good news that a total of $430,543.65 has now been raised as part of their Japanese disaster relief fund.

People the world over bought Team Fortress 2 hats to support the relief efforts in Japan after the recent earthquake. Valve thanked everyone who took part in a short post over on the official TF2 website.

Nice work, everyone! We’re excited to share that, thanks to the generosity of the TF community, in two short weeks we managed to collect $430,543.65 for the Japanese disaster relief fund. It’s been inspiring to watch gamers around the world come together for such a worthy cause.

Team Fortress 2 raises 300k for Japan

TF2 Japan Relief Aid On the 23rd of March, TF2 was patched with a set of Japan Charity Bundle Items which players could buy and the proceeds of which would go to the American Red Cross’s Japanese disaster relief fund.

Now in an update on the offical Team Fortress 2 blog, it’s been announced a massive $300,000 has been raised for the charity. The items are available until April the 6th so the final total raised for the charity will be even more:

Take a BOW, TF2 community — because that is an incredible, frankly astounding, amount of money from a dedicated number of gamers, to one heck of a lot of people in some real need right now. Anytime someone gives you guff about something negative in gaming, you go ahead and point them to this post, because here’s some late-breaking damn news: they are wrong and gamers are generous and awesome.

TF2 Official Blog: Hats For Help – Via Bluesnews

Valve going full Steam ahead with earthquake relief

Help Japan and look cool at the same time

If you have cash to spare and enjoy playing Team Fortress 2, you might consider buying some of the new community-made hats to support the relief efforts in Japan.

All proceeds will go to the Japanese disaster relief fund that the American Red Cross has set up. Valve are making available a few limited edition hats and noise makers, crafted by the legendary TF2 community.

The “Humanitarian’s Hachimaki” ($7.99), the “Benefactor’s Kanmuri” ($19.99) and the most prestigious “Magnanimous Monarch” ($99.99) will be available from now through April 6.

After April 6th none of the hats will be available again, so you better get in there if you’re a collector.

New TF2 flavoured movie trailer hits YouTube

A YouTube user and apparent graphics designer going by the name of TrueOneMoreUser has been treating Team Fortress 2 fans with re-imagined film trailers that include TF2 characters edited in.

The first was Law Abiding Engineer based on a trailer for 2009′s Law Abiding Citizen.

But his more recent effort thrills us with a TF2-tinged trailer for The Dark Knight, entitled The Demo Knight.

Valve, WETA and a genuine bona-fide level 1 sentry gun

The folks over at WETA Workshop have assembled together a real-life to-scale sentry gun from Team Fortress 2. This is a level-1 sentry, as built by the Texas Engineer in Valve’s classic online multiplayer platform. WETA are the crew responsible for the special effects in Lord of the Rings, District 9 and Avatar and have made Valve a boni-fide sentry to keep in their lobby.

Although the sentry gun doesn’t fire out real bullets, it does detect movement and backtracks making authentic Team Fortress 2 sounds.

Valve’s run for the gun, 40% off Poker Night at the Inventory

Be the envy of other Heavies with the Iron Curtain

Right now and for the next 48 hours you can snag Telltale Games’ Poker Night at the Inventory for $2.99 on Steam. Valve have knocked 40% off the standard price. Personally I can’t even play poker, but it’s looking like this is the only way to get the Iron Curtain mini-gun for the Heavy.

The Iron Curtain is a promotional mini-gun in Team Fortress 2. It’s identical to the standard mini-gun, but it is made in part from mahogany wood. It’s like a cross between Bender from the Futurama episode where he downgrades himself, and the default Heavy gun.

It is awarded to players of Poker Night at the Inventory for defeating the Heavy during a round in which he has bought in with the item instead of cash.

Anyway you’ll have to excuse me, I’m off to bone up on my poker lessons. The things I do for a new Team Fortress 2 weapon. *shakes fist at Valve*

Update: It only took me two hours of not knowing how to play poker, but somehow I defeated the Heavy and got my Iron Curtain. All kneel before wooden Sasha!

Valve announce Team Foretress 2 Beta

Heavy

Valve have released a new beta version of Team Fortress 2. In the same way they offer a beta version of Counter Strike Source, this gives players a chance to try out some of the new features, maps etc that will eventually make it to the finished version.

Basically this beta gives Valve more freedom to experiment with new features/tweaks “..without the risk of breaking the game.”

You don’t have to download the beta if you don’t want to but it’s available in your library if you should so chose.

Here are some of the initial changes:

Three Natascha variants:

-40% damage

-25% damage, -25% health

Spin-up/down time increased, slowdown-on-hit effect falls off over distance.

Map changes:

cp_granary: new entrance added into the RED and BLU mid ramp room.

cp_5gorge: 5 CP version of cp_gorge.

Misc balance changes:

Players being healed by a medic are immune to movement-impairing effects generated by hit-scan weapons.

More info and discussion over on the Steam forums.

Dance Fortress 2, hilarious fan-made video of TF2

James Benson is a game designer looking to get a fresh start with Valve, so instead of mailing his C.V. or some boring stuff like that, he has compiled a dance video with the characters of Team Fortress 2, using the source engine. This guy is the Bee’s Knees so get on over there, vote him up and give him your support.

Team Fortress 2 is greatest thing since the concept of a greatest thing was conceived. It’s like everything that’s good about Unreal Tournament, Counter Strike Source and Day of Defeat Source, all wrapped up in a sesame-seed bun of sci-fi related humour.

My Liege! Monty Python Team Fortress 2 Vid

The ‘Camelot’ jig from Monty Python’s The Holy Grail has been recreated in TF2 in a Youtube video.

Bonus TF2/Python tidbit: Anyone who buys Worms Reloaded on Steam before 2 Sept will get two in-game Holy Hand Grenades and a new soldier helmet.

Link via RipTen

Heavy Is Demon! TF2 Community-Made Avatars

Heavy Is Demon! TF2 Community-Made Avatars Over on the Team Fortress website fans have been submitting their own avatars for other TF2 players to use. Users can log into Steam Community, browse the gallery and choose any of the community-made art for his or her Steam profile.

You can even post your very own hat design and it will be reviewed for submission into the actual game. If you’re a dab hand at Photoshop and wish to immortalize yourself in the annals of Team Fortress history, why not head on over to their submission page and check out the t&c.

“Wait,” you might be thinking, “won’t this ruin the balance of the game with tons of overpowered weapon designs?” Nope. The contribute feature is exclusively for model design. The TF2 team will take your submitted content and incorporate it into the gameplay in a way that makes the most sense for TF2. (You can submit gameplay ideas for new items, just like you’ve always been able to, by emailing us or posting them on the TF2 forums.) Whatever the end use turns out to be, rest assured we’ll give credit where it’s due to the item’s creators, and give you a unique version to show off in-game.

Team Fortress players wrench on heart strings

Team Fortress players wrench on heart strings A few months back Valve introduced a limited number of unlockable Golden Wrenches for the Engineer in Team Fortress 2. These wrenches did very little outside of rendering a victim golden. But, the shear small number of these sought after wrenches quickly elevated their status to the most sought after item in the popular multi-player game.

One Team fortress player had the foresight to hatch an idea to make money for a children’s charity. The idea was that the lucky few who got the wrenches would destroy them in the game for donations to Child’s Play Charity.

Over the last month Jon “WiNGSPANTT” Tran has spent his personal time and energy promoting and collecting donations for the Child’s Play charity. The more donations received, the more Golden Wrenches to be destroyed on August 31st. As each Golden Wrench is destroyed a global message will be sent to everyone playing Team Fortress 2 announcing the sacrifice. Everyone who donates will receive a place on a special steam group to mark their generosity.

So far the event has managed to raise over $5,000 in donations. Further contributions may very well secure the destruction even more Golden Wrenches.

If you were one of the fortunate few to unlock the Golden Wrench, then why not take part in this mass extirpation of engineering paraphernalia. Or if you think you can contribute in some other way check out their website.

Team Fortress 2: Engy needs his Wrangy

Team Fortress 2 Engineer Wrangler

If you’ve been living under a rock these past few weeks and not heard of the new Engineer update for Team Fortress 2, head on over to PC Gamer where they have figured out a quick and easy way to craft the Wrangler.

The Wrangler is an Engineer update that allows you to take control of your sentry gun in game via a small Atari-like joystick. When using the Wrangler you also have a shield around your sentry that absorbs a lot of the damage from incoming fire. It’s handy for manually taking care of those nasty Demo-Men when your sentry gun doesn’t see ‘em.

Official Website: Here
The Quickest way to get the Wrangler in TF2