The latest update to Team Fortress 2, which is now available for download, added a bunch of fan-made hats, weapons, and items -- hell, I think I even saw a chocolate bar. All of these ideas were submitted to Valve via the "Contribute!" Web site, in case you were wondering.
Over on the official TF2 blog, the ever-vigilant team at Valve had this to say: "Starting from our core belief that entertainment products should be services, we've tried to increase the set of ways our community can impact our games, and the ways in which we can reward you for it."
"This update represents the next step in that process. The line between developers and players is getting very blurry, and we think that's a great thing."
A great thing, indeed. Especially when there's a filter to prevent our unsuspecting eyes from seeing, well, normal (creepy) Internet stuff. For the curious, user internet112 on the Team Fortress 2 forums has a nice summary of the newest in-game additions. Alternatively, you could just boot up the game.
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Contest:
2:40 PM on 03.19.2010
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I already miss TF2.
<3 TF2
Alas I will never be able to see these cool tf2 updates unless I purchase it on steam. Sucks.
Its not so much a lie as it is the fact that there simply is no room (memory wise) to put the mass of stuff they have released. But still, its a bummer =/
Last I checked, Gabe only said that it would be impossible to actually update TF2 on the Xbox with the frequency and urgency as the PC version, not that it was totally impossible to update at all.
@ZRB's point as well, that information is old news unless they have updated since the one post they made in 2009 saying it was a memory challenge but not impossible.
They never lied, though the way they have gone about keeping 360 players in the loop is pretty bad. As far as anyone can tell, the plan is still to release one megapack with all of the updates after the final class update, as one huge package with a set price. It's not how Valve likes doing things, but when big daddy Microsoft is controlling their every move for the 360 version you can't blame them for trying to reach a compromise. Even if it has taken them 3 years.
- What new weapons were added?
- Are the new items tied to the retarded drop system? (I've had enough "random lewts" in WoW. I don't want to grind for what is essentially the FPS equivalent of a fighting game's costumes. I like customization for the sake of personalization and expression, not for some misplaced sense of "superiority" that requires unhealthy investments of playtime.)
- What's the deal with Camera Beards I keep hearing about? (Never could get one to drop for me, so I suppose it doesn't affect me...)
@Little Mac
Balance? What are you talking about? Ever since around the Scout and Spy/Sniper Updates, the balance has been way out of whack... (Actually, could be argued to have started with the Heavy Update...)
The lack of a focus on balance, an emphasis on trivial cosmetic items that are "rewarded" for ungodly playtimes (reminds me of battleground titles in Vanilla WoW...), the ridiculous Halo fiasco, and any recent attempts at balance being headed by the "competitive" community (AKA "Homogenized-6v6-Fest") have turned me off of TF2 for the better part of the past year. (Can't resist jumping in on the updates for a couple weeks or so when they drop...)
I'll probably be flamed by the Valve fanboys, but I was a Valve fanboy myself for a long time -- I consider Half-Life 2 (and, by extension, The Orange Box) to be one of the greatest games of the decade, and I ate up L4D2 without a second thought (normally considered typical fanboy behavior...). The direction TF2 has been heading in, though, has made me rather depressed. I don't care if the updates are free, I'd rather pay for DLC if it meant going back to playing the game for fun, with an emphasis on depth and balance.
Still looking forward to Portal 2 more than anyone could imagine...
You claim that balance sucks in Team Fortress 2, and as evidence, you point out that they added cosmetic items.
Many of us look on the added items as adding more depth and strategic options, I'd like to know what items you consider to be such a horrible imposition on your vision of what TF2 should be. Because your expectation seems to be a static little sandbox that slowly stagnates and is superceded by other games (see Counterstrike).
Oh, I wasn't suggesting the cosmetic items caused imbalance. If anything, it would be that they've distracted Valve's efforts from balance, but they don't directly cause imbalance.
Kritkrieg added depth. The ideal unlock.
Flare Gun and Axtinguisher were pretty brilliant.
Sandvich (as much as I personally love it) and Natascha are mostly gimmicky.
All of the Scout's items were ridiculous. (Seriously? A stun weapon?)
Razorback? Are you kidding me? (Jarate was good, though. Huntsman was alright.)
Spy items were... decent.
Haven't had much experience with the Solly/Demo items.
You may think Valve is "adding depth and strategic options", but it's like watching Sakurai add Final Smashes and tripping to Brawl. A lot of it is "stupid fun", but nothing actually "adds" anything to the game. It's fine for the players that just play the instant-spawn 32-man servers, it's fine for people that don't care about the design or depth, but they often don't actually enrich the game or make it better.
But anyway, I like how you make assumptions about what types of additions I like added to the game. I don't want it to stagnate -- quite the contrary, actually. That's why I don't like the new items -- they sound like they were designed by amateur forum posters. They don't have purpose or direction, just little bonuses with negatives slapped on to "make it balanced" (when really, the negatives have nothing to do with the bonus being applied -- see Sandman, for example).
And when it's not Valve doing the balancing, it's the "competitive" community providing input, the community that wants to maintain their 6v6 metagame. In other words, you won't see anything added to enrich classes or expand the metagame -- if anything, the classes will become even more homogenized under their supervision. They have their idea of how TF2 should play, and anything that would rock that boat would be out of the question.
So, no, I don't want to see the game stagnate. I want to see new items, new mechanics, new depth (see: Kritkrieg), new gametypes, viability for all of the classes, and friendliness, equality, and cooperation between all of the players. You, on the other hand, support cosmetic and shallow fun, a drop system more ridiculous than an MMO (and the resulting animosity and false sense of "superiority" it's cause among players), and support from a community that thrives on keeping the game the same (i.e. stagnation).
(And don't bring up the "free" argument, I'd gladly pay $10-$15 per major update if they were well-done.)
/defensive post