TF2 Newbs (Team Fortress 2) Blog

See the previous blogpost for the Tough Break Update. See the bottom of this post for yesterday’s TF2 patch.

Steam Sale 2015 is LIVE!

No click-the-robots browser game to annoy you this time, Newbs. Instead, this sale has the following feature:

• View your Discovery Queue once each day to earn a free Steam Trading Card.
  • Your Steam Level must be 5 or higher to qualify for this reward.
  • The Queue is a list of ten random games, taking you to the Store Page for each game so you can view trailers, screenshots, reviews, and the deals for each game.
  • The Trading Card reward helps complete the North Pole Noir Sale set. Like all card sets, completing the set earns you items such as emoticons and backgrounds (that can be sold etc.) and helps level up your Steam account.
  • Earn an additional Trading Card for every US$10 spent buying games over the course of the sale (not merely each purchase).

Gems (a currency you can collect by converting unwanted backgrounds, emoticons, and trading cards) currently don’t have an auction function like they did last season, but surely Valve will put them to use in the future.

But what about the SALE?

If you’re not familiar, Steam offers two major sales a year, one over the Winter Holiday, and a Summer Sale typically beginning in July. Each lasts about two weeks and features massive sales (many in the 40% to 66% range!) over that time. There are currently over 10,000 games on sale right now–the only major title that isn’t on sale yet is the just-released Fallout 4.

• Deal: Purchase a Steam Hardware item now (a Controller or Steam Link device) and earn a free copy of both Left 4 Dead 2 and CounterStrike: Global Offensive.

Sales on Games Newbs Play:

Because I like bullet points, that’s why….

• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is 75% off at $4.99
• Lots of Star Wars games (Battlefront II, KOTOR, Jedi Knight I and II) are $2.99 each
• Sid Meier’s Civilization V is 75% off at $4.99
• Wolfenstein: The New Order is 85% off at $8.99
• Tales from the Borderlands is 66% off at $8.49
• Bioshock Infinite is 75% off at $7.49
• Starbound is 33% off at $10.04
• Most Final Fantasy franchise games are 50% off

TF2 Patch Notes: December 22, 2015

• Renamed the Smissmas 2015 Mystery Gift to the Smissmas 2015 Festive Gift. It can now be opened to find a Gun Mettle and Tough Break Festivizer.
• Fixed a couple of sounds for the Taunt: Bucking Bronco not playing properly
• Fixed not being able to sell playerclass upgrades in Mann vs. Machine mode
• Fixed bots sometimes not spawning in Mann vs. Machine mode
• Fixed the Pyro’s invulnerable period while activating the Phlogistinator lasting longer than the activation taunt
• Fixed the crate opening animation not always displaying the image of the item received
• Fixed the Medigun sometimes using the incorrect berCharge rate on maps with multiple stages
• Fixed an issue where the Loose Cannon would sometimes not apply knockback on hit
• Fixed decorated weapons not getting the crit-boost material effect
• Strange Part: Kills While Explosive Jumping can now be applied to Strange Grenade Launchers
• Updated the Mann Co. Store with the Smissmas sale. Deep discounts on nearly everything in the store.
• Updated the equip_regions for the Berlin Brain Bowl, Business Casual, Distinguished Rogue, Cut Throat Concierge, Blood Banker, After Dark, Bountiful Bow, Dead of Night, Au Courant Assassin, Rogue’s Robe, Sky Captain, Lady Killer, Puffy Provocateur, and Lurker’s Leathers
• Updated the model/materials for The Hat With No Name so it can now be equipped by the Soldier, Sniper, Demoman, and Engineer
• Updated the model/materials for the Co-Pilot so it can now be equipped by the Scout, Soldier, and Engineer
• Updated the model/materials for the Medical Monarch and added a new style
• Updated the scoreboard
  • Added Ping column header when viewing ping as text on the scoreboard
  • Added the player count for each team
• Updated ctf_landfall
  • Fixed building teleporters between spawn room doors
  • Fixed an exploit that allowed players to go outside the map
• Updated PASS Time
  • Experimenting with new HUD elements and art
  • Experimenting with new viewmodel animations
  • New testing feature ‘tf_passtime_team_bonuses’ that shares pass, steal, and intercept bonuses with the whole team

[N] Obey

A large TF2 patch with new content is supposed to hit sometime in the next two weeks–stay tuned!

Here’s the new change, quoting Valve’s article:

“…[A]nyone using the Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator to confirm trades is able to continue trading as always. Users who haven’t enabled it, or can’t, can still trade, but they’ll have to wait up to 3 days for the trade to go through. This gives both Steam and users the time to discover their accounts have been hacked and recover it before the hackers can steal their items.”

The Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator is Valve’s newest attempt to help protect you from hackers who would steal and sell your virtual items from your account. This requires your interaction with your Steam account from a second device, ideally from a smartphone. Completing a trade with another user will prompt agreement via the secondary device.

If you do not use this Mobile Authenticator, your trades will now be delayed for 3 days (or 1 day if trading with a user who you friended over a year ago). Steam doesn’t want to prevent you from trading an item for some metal; they are trying to buy enough time to prevent a person’s items from being quickly sold away. Inconvenience? Yes. Most users prefer the Steam Market anyways, but trading is still used for newer users or for swapping items for items. (They did consider removing trading entirely.)

Consider this: Instead of Steam deleting a stolen item, they provide another, duplicate virtual item to hacker victims. In the cases of rare content such as unusual hats, this decreases the rarity of the item, so that traders are mildly harmed by an item’s lost value. (Yes, this is one of Steam’s expressed reasons.)

http://store.steampowered.com/news/19618/

Hit the above link to read the full article, which describes Steam’s reasoning. It is nice that Steam attempts to explain their rationale.

[N] Obey

P.S. — Apologies for the lack of posts from the last two months–I’ve had to work around the loss of multiple computers, and an apparent IP block(?)  from the Official Wiki. Don’t expect many more hyperlinks to that site in the future.

Wow… there’s a lot of new content in TF2 right now! A new Halloween Event with multiple new maps, revival of all of the old Halloween Events, new Halloween contracts, plus the Invasion event that started earlier in the month… Mannpower is now out of beta… Here’s a running timeline of TF2 events:

• The previous six Halloween Events are live from now until November 11th.
  • TF2Newbs Halloween Event FAQ: http://www.tf2newbs.com/newbs_blog/2014/10/22/a-tf2-newbs-guide-to-halloween-event-maps/
• The new Halloween Event, Scream Fortress VII, is also live until November 11th.
  • http://www.teamfortress.com/screamfortress7/
• Invasion ends on November 5th!
  • Blogpost: http://www.tf2newbs.com/newbs_blog/2015/10/08/tf2-invasion-community-update/
• A major TF2 patch is dated for late December, that should coincide with the semi-annual Steam Sale.

PLEASE NOTE: Sorry about the lack of clickable hotlinks. Something’s wonky with WordPress this morning, and the TF2 Wiki is not responding. Check back later, as I’ll be updating this page over the next several days with images, links, and more specific info.

The TF2 Story So Far….

• Scream Fortress VII comic, “Gargoyles and Gravel” (just released
  • http://www.teamfortress.com/gargoyles_and_gravel/
• Invasion Update video (Oct 6, 2015)
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-yQlDnIAR14
• TF2 comic, “Old Wounds” (Aug 31, 2015)
  • http://www.teamfortress.com/tf05_old_wounds/

New Maps!

Gorge Event

A reskinned Gorge attack-defense map

Hellstone

A new, community-made payload map

Moonshine Event

A new, community-made King of the Hill map

Sinshine

A new, community-made control points map

Full Patch Notes: Oct 29, 2015

• Comic and additional information available on the website (http://www.teamfortress.com/screamfortress7)
• Featuring 4 community maps: Gorge Event, Sinshine, Moonshine Event, and Hellstone
• Added the Gargoyle Case which contains 19 community made cosmetics
• Added two new community-made taunts to the Mann Co Store: Soldier’s Requiem and Zoomin’ Broom
• Collect the souls of dead players for your Gargoyle by killing enemies, doing map objectives, or collecting the Soul Gargoyles that spawn in the maps
• Scream Fortress VII runs through November 11th, 2015

During Scream Fortress VII

• All players who launch the game will receive a Gargoyle
  • Gives access to Merasmissions and Halloween item transmutations
  • Tracks Merasmissions completed and souls collected
• Added Merasmissions
  • A new Merasmission will be available daily up to a total of 13
  • Completing a Merasmission will give players a classic Halloween item and a chance of the Gargoyle Case
• Added Halloween Transmuting
  • Transmuting can be accessed by clicking the Gargoyle in your backpack and selecting Halloween Transmute from the context menu
  • Players can transmute 3 qualifying items to receive a non-tradable classic Halloween item. A bonus item will be given for every 10th transmute.
• Mann Co Supply Crates will have a chance for a classic Halloween Unusual effect

General

• Added inspect animations for the Batsaber and the Giger Counter
• Fixed an idle animation bug for the Wrangler
• Lowered the speed penalty for getting stunned by a ghost from 50% to 25%
• Lowered damage of the “bats” spell from 60 to 40
• HHH’s axe has dulled a bit and no longer guarantees death, but is still very lethal
• Fixed an exploit related to picking up The Widowmaker
• Fixed the Batsaber not showing the Killstreak sheen
• Fixed a scoreboard stat reset bug in Mann vs. Machine
• Optimized texture memory usage
• Fix some cases of random hitching experienced by some players
• Fixed overhead icons stacking on top of each other and now appear side-by-side
• Added “Sort by Date” to the backpack. Newest acquired or altered items are sorted to the front.
• Cosmetics that have Rarity and are part of a collection no longer show a cosmetic item level
• Fixed the buildcubemaps command failing to update cubemaps for maps that already have cubemaps
• Fixed a case where running the game with -buildcubemaps would generate all black cubemaps
• Updated cp_powerhouse to fix a couple places where players could stand on top of doorways
• Updated The Infernal Impaler, L’homme Burglerre, The Spooky Shoes, The Spooky Sleeves, Cuban Bristle Crisis, The Grimm Hatt, Medi-Mask, The Bearded Bombardier, The Colonel’s Coat, The Killer’s Kit, The Vascular Vestment, The Physician’s Protector, The Cold Killer, The Courtier’s Collar, The Physician’s Procedure Mask, The War Pig, Respectless Robo-Glove, Insulated Inventor, The Dry Gulch Gulp and The Minsk Beef with the latest changes from the authors
• Updated koth_probed
  • Improved optimization of map (especially on mid)
  • Fixed clipping issues (thanks Muselk!)
  • Fixed Engineer imbalance on mid (thanks Uncle Dane!)
  • Added in missing explosion sound effect on aliens
  • Fixed a few prop/ material issues
  • Reduced prop usage

PASS Time update

• Fixed viewmodel/worldmodel when tf_passtime_ball_model is set
• Added convar: tf_passtime_ball_sphere_collision
• Added entity: tf_logic_on_holiday

Mannpower update

• No longer in Beta
• Added new map: Hellfire
• Three new powerups: King, Plague, Supernova
• Grappling hook changes
  • Reduced max rope distance
  • Reduced grapple dismount jump height
  • 30% hook movement speed penalty for Heavyweapons
• Flag rule changes
  • Flags can no longer be returned by touching them
  • When dropped, flags return after a timeout. This timeout does NOT reset if the flag is picked up again before it returns or is captured
  • 25% hook movement speed penalty for powered up flag carriers (with the exception of Agility)
  • Small health regeneration for non-powered up flag carriers
  • Flags and capture zones are disabled for 30 seconds after a capture
• Powerup rule changes
  • When killed, your powerup will drop as the enemy team color. Deliberately dropped powerups are neutral colored
  • You cannot pick up enemy colored powerups
  • Team colored powerups will attempt to respawn in that team’s base if not picked up in time
• Other changes
  • Overhead powerup icons are now team colored
  • Warlock powerup renamed to Reflect
  • Reduced Knockout max health bonus for demos carrying swords and shields
  • Haste now increases huntsman firing speed
• Bug fixes
  • Reflect damage no longer occurs after death (Pyro afterburn)

[N] Obey

Sorry about the delay–[N] Obey and {N} Wife have moved to new digs, and of course TF2 would patch while I’m living in Box Fortress 2. It doesn’t help that my laptop is having power supply issues… look, I’ll quit bitching and get to the patch.

Short version: It’s another community content-patch.

INVASION EVENT ends November 5th!

I WAS RIGHT! Probed is one of the new maps…! The UFO materials gave it away.

Blogpost and splashpage.

Full Patch Notes: Oct 6, 2015

• Invasion Community Update has arrived!
  • Check out the blog post for more information
• Fixed a problem with the Steam Overlay for Mac clients
• Fixed a regression with weapon hit sounds
  • Hit sounds no longer clip each other
  • Min and max pitch values reverted to what they were prior to the October 1st update
  • Note: the Advanced Options default slider position is 100, which is normal (0) pitch
• Fixed an issue with the Festive Revolver not drawing correctly
• Fixed an exploit in Mann vs. Machine related to infinite credits
• Fixed an exploit related to The Dalokohs Bar
• Throwables (Jarate, Mad Milk, Flying Guillotine) will now pass through friendly targets at close range. This is the same behavior as rockets and grenades.
• The Powerhouse and Concealed Killer Weapons Cases have been added to the weekly drop list for Gun Mettle Campaign Coin owners

Undocumented changes

• Added the previous campaign maps to the normal map cycles.
• Four new maps:
  • 2Fort Invasion
  • Byre
  • Probed
  • Watergate
  • Strange filters and Map stamps for all of the new maps.
• New weapons
  • Batsaber
  • Shooting Star
  • C.A.P.P.E.R
  • Giger Counter
• New taunt, Burstchester
• New cosmetics
  • Cadet Visor
  • A Head Full of Hot Air
  • Jupiter Jetpack
  • Phobos Filter
  • Space Diver
  • Universal Translator
  • Sucker Slug
  • Life Support System
  • Rocket Operator
  • Corona Australis
  • Final Frontiersman
  • Starduster
  • Graylien
  • Captain Space Mann
  • Phononaut
  • Space Hamster Hammy
  • Invasion Community Update Medal
• New unusual effects
  • Abduction
  • Atomic, Subatomic
  • Electric Hat Protector
  • Magnetic Hat Protector
  • Voltaic Hat Protector
  • Galactic Codex
  • Ancient Codex
  • Nebula

Full Patch Notes: Oct 8, 2015

• Fixed generic bomb entities (in the Invasion maps) damaging teammates when shot with an arrow
• Fixed infinite money exploit related to refunding upgrades in Mann vs. Machine mode
• Jarate and Mad Milk will collide with friendly teammates that are on fire at close range
• Updated Batsaber to use the ‘unique‘ base quality
• Updated the Scout‘s pistol animation
• Updated pd_watergate
  • Fixed the reason in the win panel at the end of a round referring to robots
  • Fixed a case where players were able to get outside of the map
  • Fixed a sound cache problem

[N] Obey

The Gun Mettle Season ends today (Sept 30), so your last contracts are in your queue, if you bought into the campaign previously. If you have more than two contracts in your queue, it will only show your two most recent, and the others will not appear until you complete them. I believe you have a week (Oct 7?) to finish them all. (I also assume that the Gun Mettle Trade Up option will still be available for the future.)

Also, UGC’s Fall 2015 Season just started….

Let us know on this forum thread what servers you have been playing TF2 lately.

The Upcoming Non-Update Halloween Update ’15:

In case you missed it, there will not be a major Halloween Update for 2015, which is not what I predicted earlier. According to the Official TF2 Blog, Valve are busy at work with the next major update which should push by the end of 2015, perhaps in time for the annual Holiday Steam Sale (which usually starts roughly December 20th). So unless Valve decides to spring a Halloween Update on us anyway, here is what to expect from the next major patch in a couple of months:

• Mannpower Mode should come out of beta. This mode is simply TF2 capture-the-flag + powerups + grappling hooks.
• A new campaign with contracts and weapon collections (I’ll post more info when I see it).
• New maps and cosmetics, because TF2.

That said, there will be a Halloween Event this year. They will release more Halloween content (cosmetics, maps, and taunts that won’t have the Halloween/Full Moon restriction), and activate all six previous Halloween Mode maps–which you can read all about here on my FAQ. It won’t launch until sometime between October 19th and October 30th, and will probably run for two to three weeks.

And I’ll be updating the FAQ, as well.

TF2 Patch Notes, 9/24/15: Patch 1

• Added LBTF2 Highlander Season 2 and LBTF2 6v6 Season 11 tournament medals
• Added an “Unusual Effect” checkbox for the Steam Workshop import tool
• Fixed a client crash related to the material system
• Fixed seeing [unknown] for player names in item descriptions
• Fixed a lighting bug with static props
• Fixed custom item_teamflag models not drawing properly
• Fixed a case where the Stat Clock model would float in the air while the player was taunting
• Fixed a case where the Sniper zoom could get stuck after picking up a weapon
• Fixed a push bug with The Scorch Shot and giant robots in Mann vs. Machine mode
• Fixed the Spy Sapper not drawing on robots in Mann vs. Machine mode
• Updated the slosh sounds used for footsteps
• Updated the localization files
• Updated the vote system so player can extend the current map using the “Extend Current Map” vote in the Vote Setup menu
  • Server admin can configure this new feature using the convars sv_vote_issue_extendlevel_allowed and sv_vote_issue_extendlevel_quorum
• PASS Time update
  • Rounds will continue after the timer expires until the jack becomes neutral or someone scores
  • The jack will heal its carrier to full health
  • Added tf_passtime_unstable for testing unstable features
  • Unstable features
    • Attack, defense, and support classes have different throwing arcs (tf_passtime_throwspeed, tf_passtime_throwarc)
    • The jack inherits some of the thrower’s velocity (tf_passtime_throwspeed_velocity)
  • Added an alternate version of pass_warehouse: pass_warehouse_goal2
    • Instead of scoring by throwing the jack into the goal, players need to carry the jack into the goal

TF2 Patch Notes, 9/24/15: Patch 2

Fixed a crash related to picking up dropped weapons

[N] Obey