Yeah, finally getting back around to the blog again. Here we go with news about games that many Newbs play:
- Terraria update
- TF2 Smissmas 2013 updates
- Five new crates
- Everybody gets a free stocking
- Important! Weapon Tweaks
Please refer to the bottom of this post to see the full patch notes.
1. Terraria update 1.2.2 (PC only) — **limited spoilers** ———————
Christmas Mode/Halloween Mode
The Christmas Mode has been available in Terraria since 2011, but in order to enable it, the system time of your computer must be changed to a date between December 15th to December 31st. During Christmas Mode, most monsters have a ~7% chance of dropping presents, and the NPC Santa Claus can join your town! Santa, who can sell you a bunch of cosmetics, can only join your world once the Frost Legion has been defeated, and he will die on the next morning if/when your Terraria’s game exists on a computer outside that Dec. 15-31 window. Oh, and the presents now drop lots of festive items, including weapons, eatables, costume parts, and of course, candy cane blocks. “What’s this?! A chakram… made of fruitcake?!?”
In similar fashion, you can enable Halloween Mode by setting your computer’s system time to a date within October 25th to November 10th, which allows Halloween content, including the ~1% chance to drop Goodie Bags.
In multiplayer, only the system date of the game/server host should matter. (Haven’t tested myself, but that’s my assumption.)
Frost Moon
This hardest-event-yet runs in waves similar to the Pumpkin Moon event released this past Halloween, and can only be started in Hardmode by using a (craftable) Naughty Present. With Christmas-themed enemies and new, Christmas-themed loot like the butt-kicking Christmas Tree Sword, this is one event you’re gonna need some badass friends for help.
Full patch notes (as ripped from the Terraia wiki):
Mechanics and Gameplay:
- The content of presents have been altered and now contain more goodies. They are also now placeable and stack in your inventory.
- Santa Claus now has a larger variety of Holiday related items that he will sell to you.
- Frost Moon is a new event that can be triggered in hardmode. It has 15 standard waves as well as 5 extra bonus waves.
- There are several new pets as well as 1 new mount that will drop off one of the Frostmoon bosses.
- Holiday themed wallpaper can now be purchased from the Painter.
- Maximum player buff slots has been increased to 22.
New Music:
- There is now an alternate to the underground theme.
- There is a new track that will play during the Frostmoon.
- The Music Box will now record music instantly upon being equipped.
Bug fixes:
- The Honey Balloon can now be crafted.
- Recording Pumpkin song no longer creates an Ankh Charm.
- NPCs now go to shelter during eclipses.
- World gen no longer saves broken chest slots.
- Increased the damage bonus of stealthing in Shroomite armor.
- Items which regenerate health per hit now have a cap of 2 hearts per second.
- Flame Traps will no longer trigger healing from Spectre Armor.
- Spear Traps are no longer able to fire spear heads upward like projectiles.
2. TF2 Smissmas 2013—————————————————-
The following includes info from the December 6th patch to the December 20 patch.
New Crates #75, #76 , #77, #78 (Naughty), #79 (Nice)
Crate #75:
Crate #76:
Crate #77:
Naughty Crate #78: unboxed items have a chance of also being Strange (as well as Festive)
Nice Crate #79: These newly-launched cosmetic items were created by Steam Workshop users. They will eventually be available for purchase from the Mann Co. Store. There are 32 in all, with an equal ~3% chance of getting a specific desired item.
You Get a Stocking, I Get a Stocking, Errybuddy Gets a Stocking!
Really! Really: Log in to TF2 during this winter season, and you get one Gift-Stuffed Stocking, an action item. When you use it, you will gain the following items:
- A Giftapult (see below)
- A Backpack Expander; if used, it gives you 100 more slots/two more pages of item capacity, up to a limit 0f 2000 items/40 pages
- A Name Tag
- A Description Tag
- A Tour of Duty Ticket: good for one (successful) Mann vs. Machine “Mann Up” mission
- Three random weapons (rarely, one or more could be a random cosmetic item, such as a hat)
- Note: All of the items except for the 3 random weapons/cosmetics are untradable and show that they have been gifted.
A Giftapult is a tool item that can give another unwanted item that you choose to a random online player. Select the Giftapult, then select an unwanted item. The Giftapult will change to a Loaded Giftapult. When the Loaded Giftapult is used, it will disappear from your inventory, and some random lucky Steam person will be gifted your item. (I’m not sure if they have to be playing TF2 at the time to be eligible, or even have the TF2 game installed, but only Steam accounts that are currently online when the Loaded Giftapult is used are eligible.) You can also buy Giftapults from the Mann Co. Store for only 10 cents US!
…And a Secret Saxton!
Also by logging in, if you’re a premium (not free-to-play) TF2 player, you will also get one free Secret Saxton. If you use it while playing on a TF2 server, one random player on that server (not you) will get one random item drop–most likely a weapon, but with the usual chances of a hat/cosmetic instead. The dropped item will also show that it was gifted from you! Everyone on the server will get a notification that you had sent out a gift. Secret Saxtons cost US$0.99 at the Mann Co. Store.
Weapon Tweaks
The Battalion’s Backup just got a passive +20 health increase. This is the first item to passively increase the max health of a soldier past his usual 200. The Backup is already a defensive item, with its buff granting 35% damage resistance (50% vs. sentries) for 10 seconds; now you’ll be more likely to live long enough to deploy the buff, and can continue to survive while under its effects.
Meanwhile, the Concheror is about to see a lot more play. It now grants the equipping Soldier a 2 health-regeneration-per-second effect! This is fabulous for soldiers who rocket jump to rooftops in order to gain surprise on foes, as they can now heal by standing still, and not have to spend more health rocket-jumping around looking for health kits. The Concheror’s buff grants a speed boost and 35% healing of any damage buffed attackers deal. Roaming Sollies are going to love this; the passive largely reduces the Pyro’s afterburn from his fire attacks. You can also see this as stacking with the Liberty Launcher’s lessened self-damage and/or the Black Box’s heal-on-hit for even more survival power. You even continue to heal with the Escape Plan/Equalizer deployed!
The Crit-a-Cola has a reduced penalty also. Since the Scout is already pretty fragile, he now only suffers a 10% increase in damage while the Cola is in use, while still enjoying increased speed and mini-crits. Be careful if you’re equipping any items that will further increase your vulnerabilities to damage.
The Diamondback will likely see more play now as well. It still has a 15% damage penalty from the standard Revolver, and stores a critical hit each time a building is destroyed while the Spy’s sapper-slot item is deployed on it. But now, it also stores critical hits for each backstab kill you earn! You can easily earn five stored crits if you manage to take out an Engie and his sentry, dispenser, and two teleporters. Of course, you lose the stored crits when you die, and your crits aren’t quite as effective as a Revolver’s. But the Diamondback’s critical hits still score 104 damage per hit; two hits will kill most non-buffed units, or one hit will suffice if they’re wounded. You may wish to practice shooting your Diamondback while fleeing the enemy after a successful sap or backstab if you’re followed by just one other enemy unit. The maximum criticals that can be stored is 35.
The Short Circuit is now more effective than ever for Engineers to remove enemy projectiles. Each shot now only costs 5 metal (down from 35!), and the weapon fires much faster now (0.05 seconds, or twenty times a second!). Spam it to erase any stickies, arrows, rockets, bolts, flares, guillotines, balls or ornaments on the ground or streaking at you and your trusty buildings. You can build a sentry and still have enough metal to take out a handful of projectiles, unlike only two before. It only targets players in front of you in range now, but at the cost of 100 metal, you can spam 80-120 damage to an enemy over one second (4-6 per hit) without having to reload or even aim! (Gee, what would happen if you bought improvements for it in an MvM match…?)
Soda Popper has been reworked. It’s hypermode no longer grants mini-crits, and it no longer automatically deploys when full. Instead, trigger it with your Alt Attack and you can jump up to five times without hitting a horizontal surface! What was an offensive weapon is now more of a defensive and mobility weapon; use hypermode to clear wide chasms and really jump from building to building. The Atomizer will not grant a sixth jump in hypermode, but you can get even more mileage out of your Winger’s +25% jump height passive. It is still a faster-fire Scattergun, so you can still score some quick kills. But with your extra mobility, you may be able to surprise enemies more than ever before.
December 6th Patch Notes (from the Official TF2 Wiki):
- Added Crate #75, Crate #76, and Crate #77 to the drop list
- Removed Crate #57, Crate #59 and Crate #71 from the drop list
- Added new Strange parts that can be applied to Strange cosmetic items
- Fixed a client crash related to the Mann vs. Machine mission victory panel
- Fixed players being able to level-up some Strange items when playing on servers with only bots
- Fixed some cases where Halloween spell effects on items would not appear when they were supposed to
- Fixed robot Engineer head not looking correct for the Botkiller Sniper Rifle Mk.II
- Fixed killstreak notices being stuck on the screen when the map is changing levels
- Fixed Team Shine killstreak sheen effect not displaying properly for the Blue team
- Updated several backpack images to fix issues caused by
mat_picmip
- Updated Killstreak Kits to work on Festive and Botkiller variants of target weapons
- Updated
pl_upward
- Fixed players getting stuck in the initial Red spawn room after control point 2 is capped
- Improved bot navigation
- Updated
cp_gorge
- Updated Mann vs. Machine
- Fixed players who join in the middle of a mission not receiving the Upgrade Refund credit if it has been earned by the team
- Fixed Romevision hats conflicting with gatebot hats in Mannhattan
- Fixed an exploit that allowed purchasing upgrades for weapons other than what they were intended for
- Updated
mvm_rottenburg
- Fixed a bug where the bomb could get stuck out of reach in the corner near the cap
- Fixed a bug where bots could be instantly killed by being pushed into the tank tunnel once opened
- Fixed a bug where money could get stuck in the tank barricade when it was rebuilt, preventing collection
- Updated
mvm_mannhattan
- Rebalanced Empire Escalation
- Fixed credits not always being collected when they fall into the grinder
- Fixed a bug that allowed the gates to be captured out of order
- Fixed a lighting bug related to lower graphics settings that cause the map to be too dark
Undocumented changes
- Added the Naughty Winter Crate 2013 and the Nice Winter Crate 2013 to the drop list.
- Updated the descriptions of Killstreak Kits.
- Mann vs. Machine
- Giant Bonk Scout: Reduced bonk regen bonus from +65% to +45%
- Colonel Barrage: Removed -90% rage attribute
- Colonel Barrage (gatebot variant): Removed -90% rage attribute until after all gates are captured
- Major Crits (boss gatebot variant): Increased projectile speed penalty from -60% to -65%, and reduced rage penalty from -90% to -80% after all gates are captured
- Major Crits (non-boss gatebot variant): Decreased reload rate bonus from +78% to +60%, increased projectile speed penalty from -60% to -65%, and removed -90% rage attribute
- Giant Heal-On-Kill Heavy (boss gatebot variant): Increased rage giving penalty from -10% to -40%
December 18th Patch Notes:
December 20th Patch Notes:
Happy Smissmas 2013!
- All Players who play TF2 during the event will receive a Gift-Stuffed Stocking! Stockings contain goodies for good little Mercenaries.
- Added community-contributed winter event items[1]
- Added the Giftapult, which can be used to launch gift items to randomly-chosen online players
- Added Naughty and Nice winter keys to the Mann Co. Store
- Premium Players will receive a Secret Saxton to give to another player
- Item grants from previous events (including the Spirit of Giving and the Winter Holiday noise maker) have been re-enabled for all players, including those who deleted their earlier grants
Weapons
- Concheror: Added +2 health per second passive for the wearer
- Crit-a-Cola: Reduced consumption penalty from +25% extra damage to +10%
-
- Attack sped up greatly
- Ammunition cost has been lowered to 5 metal per attack
- Players and Buildings are only targeted if in range and in front of attacking player
- Improved visual effects
-
- Hype no longer grants mini-crits
- Added Hypemode which grants up to 5 extra air jumps when active
- Hypemode is triggered by Alt-Attack when hype is full
Cosmetics
- “Head” and “Misc” slots for player loadouts have been converted to Cosmetic slots. All items that were previously Head- or Misc-slot-specific can now be equipped in any Cosmetic slot.
- Unusual effect positioning can now be adjusted for all Cosmetic-slot items
- Unusual Circling Effects have been given a new origin
- Unusual effects for all Cosmetic-slot items are now visible in the loadout panel and character HUD
- Fixed the Wiki Cap clipping with the Demoman‘s head
- Fixed being able to inspect Blue-team bots
- Fixed the mission victory screen not always showing the correct information for each player
- Fixed some clipping issues with the stats in the scoreboard
General
- Fixed an exploit where players could move around while using a taunt to attack enemies
- Fixed an exploit related to the Rocket Jumper and the Soldier’s grenade taunt
- Fixed killstreaks attained via healing not being considered for round-end win panel
- Fixed the killstreak hud indicator position in minmode
- Fixed Taunt Kills strange scores not incrementing properly for the Strange Scorch Shot
- Fixed strange scores on cosmetic items sometimes failing to increment
- Fixed gift-wrapped items not showing their interior item to the wrapping player in some conditions
- Fixed Steam Sale items granted from Snow Globe crafting not being listable on the Steam Community Market
- Improved bot navigation in
cp_gorge
- Improved bot navigation in
pl_upward
- Updated several materials to fix issues caused by
mat_picmip
- Updated the backpack to filter to automatically filter for valid items when using a tool
Undocumented changes
- Set the global holiday mode to winter, causing the usual effects such as ropes getting lights and enabling the winter noisemaker.
- Touching a resupply cabinet will remove any clipping items
- Content added to bulletin boards in all maps[2], and several maps have had new posters added.
- Corrected the name of the Smissmas Caribou from Smissmass Caribou.
I hope these blog posts are appreciated. Even though I’m no longer rewriting them all anymore, they’re still a lot of work. Let me know in the comments!
[N] Obey
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Crit-a-Cola
Solemn Vow
Sydney Sleeper
Strange Part: Unusual-Wearing Player Kills
Strange Part: Spies Killed
Strange Part: Burning Enemy Kills
Defiant Spartan
Apparatchik’s Apparel
Concheror
Revolver
Eviction Notice
Strange Part: Killstreaks Ended
Strange Part: Freezecam Taunt Appearances
Strange Part: Damage Dealt
Front Runner
Cold Killer
Rescue Ranger
Grenade Launcher
Scorch Shot
Strange Part: Fires Survived
Strange Part: Allied Healing Done
Strange Part: Point-Blank Kills
Builder’s Blueprints
Blighted Beak
Festive Force-A-Nature
Festive Sapper
Festive Crusader’s Crossbow
Festive Flare Gun
Festive Eyelander
Festive Jarate
Festive Gloves of Running Urgently
Festive Black Box
Festive Wrangler
