TF2 Newbs (Team Fortress 2) Blog

*****Currently, Newbs’ servers #09 2fort, #14 goldrush, and #26 are down for repatching. Check back in the next 24 hours.******

Here’s the summary:

1. HEADLINES–see below for article links.
2. Team Fortress 2 had two patches today.
   • Lots of bugfixes, exploits, and some cosmetics’ slot placements.
   • Taunts are now push-to-hold toggles.
   • Updated the Eureka Effect wrench (see below).
   • What’s up with the Bread? (see below)
3. Reminder: Steam Summer Sale usually launches around the last week of July. With that in mind:
   • Craft some Mysterious Cards (see below); they seem to replace coupons as a reward when crafting Steam badges currently.
   • Expect some new Summer-themed Crates and Keys.  Last year we had those nine color-coded Summer Coolers and Summer Claim Checks.

 1. HEADLINES

Click the link in the headline to jump to the pertinent article.  Happy summer reading!

1.  The Dota 2 International for 2014 has raised over US$9 million in prize money, and it still has two months to go. That’s about as much as the prize pool for the annual Masters golf tournament, according to these guys.
2. The most recent Official TF2 Blog post talks about new weapons that Valve have tested and rejected. They are probably getting ready to launch some new weapons in the near future, but expect Valve to be patient, as they have been busy reworking existing, underused items. New items haven’t launched in 18 months or so.
3. The Highlander Open is inviting non-competitive TF2 gamers to put on their best tryhard hat and give the competitive TF2 scene a try. You will still need to form your own group of at least 9 players. Note: Be sure to see their list of Banned Items.
4. Telltale Games is working on a new game that is supposed to explore the origins of Handsome Jack, the mouthy bastard you may or may not have hunted down in Borderlands 2. It will involve some moral-based decisions that will alter the flow of the game to a degree, and will be released as a series of five episodes over a Season (much like BL2′s Season Pass, I’m sure). It will also take place on that ever-present Hyperion moonbase you see in the other games, and is slated for release on October 17, 2014. Here is a 16-minute trailer, courtesy of PC Gamer.
5. ICYMI: Dota 2 had a patch on June 2nd, in case you missed it. Yes, that’s what ICYMI means. You may have learned something useful today. There was another one on May 30th, but the main thing there is that you will score no points if you are playing in an invalid slot (i.e. a Core playing in a Support slot, or vice versa).

2. Team Fortress 2 Patches — June 12, 2014

See below for the full patch notes.

Updated: The Eureka Effect

You can now pick up buildings with the Eureka Effect in your loadout.  Just like before, you can build a teleporter near a point for defense, use your wrench to return to the respawn room and reload, jump back into your teleporter to get back up front quickly, then continue to rebuild your nest. Except now, you can move your buildings later if you need to, just like stock Engineers.

The Eureka Effect now repairs and upgrades buildings at half the normal rate. It’ll take 16 clicks (instead of 8) to upgrade a building, consuming the same amount of metal to upgrade, as it uses only half as much per hit. The initial build should still take the usual time. This replaces the old penalty that denied the ability to move your buildings. And it’s not much of a penalty if you’re Wrangling your level-3 sentry gun!

You can now teleport either to your spawn OR the location of your teleporter exit. You can toggle between the two locations by hitting the reload key (default: R). Consider this the next time you MvM and need to hide before you get ganked, or port over to your sentry gun next to your exit!

Dat Bread

This is probably a temporary thing: when you teleport, one of nine bread models may appear, disappearing in a few seconds.  I wonder if they correspond to the nine TF2 classes… and Archimedes finally gets his pretzel (see top-right corner of the second image)! Maybe we will start defending Rome in MvM or some such.

All I’m saying is, Dustbowl has had rat holes inserted into the buildings of its map for like, a year now.  So what’s that all about?!

Full Patch Notes: Patch 1

• Fixed item descriptions for Strange scores not appearing to update
  • So now when you get killed by the same Strange weapon continually, you should see the weapon increase its increment! Hooray.
• Fixed a bug where damage dealt and healing done Strange scores would stop incrementing
• Fixed an exploit where teleporters could build up a large amount of health
• Fixed a bug where premium accounts would temporarily appear to revert to free status
• Fixed deflected rocket explosion sounds playing repeatedly
• Fixed deflected Black Box rockets not giving health to the Pyro
• Fixed being able to apply the Strange Part: Buildings Destroyed tool to the Flying Guillotine
• Fixed several cosmetic items not cloaking properly for the Spy^[1]
• Added the AsiaFortress Cup Season 7 medals
• Community Request: Added SetCustomUpgradesFile input to the gamerules entity to allow servers to specify a different upgrades file
• Updated the localization files
• Updated the Eureka Effect
  • Can now pickup buildings
  • Repair and upgrade rates have been decreased
  • Can teleport to your spawn room or your Teleporter Exit

Undocumented changes: Patch 1

• Updated the backpack icons for the Director’s Vision, Meet the Medic, Schadenfreude, High Five! and Shred Alert taunts.
• Added a prompt above players in the High Five! taunt pose.
• Taunts that were push-to-hold are now toggles. Pressing the action key once will let the player hold their pose until the action key is pressed again
• Moved the Director’s Vision from the Action slot to the currently unused Taunt slot. fixed in patch 2
• Fixed Spy’s revolvers not using the Spy‘s hand in reload animations.
• Bread now sometimes spawn when using a Teleporter.
• Updated the equip_region of El Muchacho.
• Updated the item type of Brawling Buccaneer and Hornblower.
• Fixed a bug that let players move while taunting.
• Added console commands tf_taunt_move_forward_speed, tf_allow_sliding_taunt and taunt_by_name.
  • I think tf_allow_sliding_taunt allows a function similar to the old frozen-taunt-while-moving.
• Dispensers now cost 70 metal when using the Gunslinger. fixed in patch 2
• Added a white line above the names of the buildings on the Construction PDA menus.

Patch 2

• Fixed a client crash caused by failing to properly parse the item schema
• Fixed not being able to equip The Director’s Vision taunt in the Action slot
• Fixed not being able to taunt with the Spy’s disguise kit
• Fixed the Engineer‘s build menu staying open after changing class^[2]
• Fixed being charged the incorrect amount of metal for a Dispenser when The Gunslinger is equipped
• Updated the description of The High Five! Taunt to better describe the new toggle behavior
• Updated the materials for The Eureka Effect HUD to support mat_picmip

 3. Mysterious Cards

Like I said above, the Steam Summer Sale (in whatever form) will be coming eventually. On June 10th, users who crafted Steam badges began receiving one of a set of ten Mysterious Cards. PC Gamer weighed in with their thoughts, and referred to Reddit for some of their speculative information.

In crafting these cards, I found that I got one random card, numbered 1 thru 10 with a yellow Steam logo, with each badge I crafted. It seemed to replace the usual game coupons I was accustomed to getting–perhaps further evidence of the upcoming sale; do they want to halt the couponing if they’re about to launch a sale?

Lately, they seem to trend for $0.25 to $0.30 on the Steam Market, if you just want to go buy a set.  But you can’t craft a badge with them… YET.

[N] Obey

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