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Archive for the ‘News’ Category

TF2 Update: 9/25/14

Posted on: September 25th, 2014 by Obey

By the way, have you played the beta maps Asteroid or Cactus Canyon lately? They’re really coming along, and much more fun than when they were first launched.  Today’s patch doesn’t change their terrain at all, but does add a few wrinkles to the play style for Asteroid.

The short version for this patch:

  1. Don’t forget to vote for your favorite TF2 short for the Saxxy Awards! Voting ends 11:59 pm PDT on Monday, Sept. 29th.
  2. You can now buy Limited Late Summer Crate Keys (the usual US$2.49), to unlock #86 crates of the same name.
    • About half of the contents will be Strange, and all of the contents will be Limited (unable to be crafted or bought in the future).
    • Crates cannot be opened after October 13, 2014.
    • See the crate drop list below. There is one cosmetic for each class, and one all-class cosmetic: the Pocket Heavy.
  3. Items you have received now carry a “NEW!” banner in your inventory, until you mouse over them.
  4. In the middle of a match that is attempting to rebalance the server population, you will immediately respawn if you are either auto-balanced, or if you voluntarily change sides.
    • Of course, this doesn’t work in modes like Arena or MvM.
  5. Limited Items (i.e. items that cannot be dropped, crafted, or bought from the Mann Co. Store, but could be uncrated):
    • Now the entire text line is colored bright yellow, as opposed to just the word Limited, in the item’s text line.
      • For example: “Limited Level 53 Hat“.
    • Retired hats are now properly identified as Limited items.
  6. Asteroid has added sounds, adjusted return time for stolen reactor cores, and a 45-second Overtime to allow the enemy to attempt to steal the winning team’s core.

 

Crate Series #86
Drops Yes
Items
Mishap Mercenary[[Mishap Mercenary|Template:Dictionary/items/mishap mercenary]]
11 .00%
Lady Killer[[Lady Killer|Template:Dictionary/items/lady killer]]
11 .00%
Lone Survivor[[Lone Survivor|Template:Dictionary/items/lone survivor]]
11 .00%
Poacher's Safari Jacket[[Poacher's Safari Jacket|Template:Dictionary/items/poacher's safari jacket]]
11 .00%
Thirst Blood[[Thirst Blood|Template:Dictionary/items/thirst blood]]
11 .00%
Mann of the Seven Sees[[Mann of the Seven Sees|Template:Dictionary/items/mann of the seven sees]]
11 .00%
Hillbilly Speed-Bump[[Hillbilly Speed-Bump|Template:Dictionary/items/hillbilly speed-bump]]
11 .00%
Unshaved Bear[[Unshaved Bear|Template:Dictionary/items/unshaved bear]]
11 .00%
Pocket Heavy[[Pocket Heavy|Template:Dictionary/items/pocket heavy]]
11 .00%
or an Exceedingly Rare Special Item!
1 .00%

 

Full Patch Notes: Patch 1

  • Added Limited Late Summer Crate Key to the Mann Co. Store. Available until October 13, 2014.[1]
  • Fixed the Limited label not being displayed for items on the Steam Community Market or in the Steam backpack
  • Fixed colorization of item level description line for Limited items
  • Added tournament medals for BETA LAN 2014
  • Added a NEW! label to new items in your backpack until you mouse over them
  • Fixed a case where cosmetic items would be orphaned in the world
    • R.I.P. Captain Canteen[2]
  • Fixed not being able to open the Taunt menu during the bonus time on an Arena map
  • Fixed a dedicated server crash related to bot Spies
  • Fixed item level not displaying correctly in the Mann vs. Machine lobby
  • Updated the auto-balance code to immediately respawn players that are automatically switched, or that voluntarily switch, during a balancing period
  • Updated the removeid command to support Steam2 and Steam3 ID formats
  • Updated the materials for The Atomic Accolade
  • Updated the equip_region for The Special Eyes
  • Updated rd_asteroid
    • Added a 45 second overtime when a team reaches max points
    • Added placeholder pickup ship and robot worker to indicate a team has reached max points
    • Added a sound to captured and returned points as they fill the progress bar
    • Captured and returned points now fill the progress bar faster
    • Progress bar escrow indicator now stays in place as points are added
    • Touching the reactor core no longer fully resets the return timer. Every second the reactor core is held will add a second to the return timer.
  • Virtual Reality Mode
    • Fixed selecting the wrong refresh rate when running on a display that does not use the desktop refresh rate

     

Undocumented changes

Patch 2

  • Fixed a client crash caused by using custom HUD files

[N] Obey

TF2 Patch Update: 9/17/14

Posted on: September 18th, 2014 by Obey

Hey, new stuff!

  1. Halloween/Full Moon is in effect for the next seven calendar days.
  2. “Limited” is now an item quality, to stand for items that were once craftable or purchasable and no longer can be.
  3. There are five promotional Halloween/Full Moon restricted items that can be earned if you purchase the game Alien: Isolation from the Steam Store before October 7th, 2014. This one-player survival horror game is $49.99, with a $17.99 upgrade to Season Pass.
  4. The following new items and changes to the item drop list are thus:
    • Two new crates, the Director’s Cut Reel and the Limited Late Summer Crate (#86) are added to the drop list.
      • The Limited Late Summer Crate cannot yet be opened, required a yet-unreleased special key.
      • The Director’s Cut Reel is like a combination of the Strongbox and the Audition Reel: It will drop one of four taunts when opened with a standard key, but you can input words to use to “roll” for different items. It drops from the same drop list of taunts as the Audition Reel.
    • The Audition Reel is removed from the drop list.
    • Items from the all-cosmetic Strongbox Pack, released back in February, are now craftable and buyable from the Mann Co. Store.
  5. The rest of the patch notes.
    • The taunt for the Scorch Shot now shoots a projectile.  Apparently that was a bug!
    • New sounds for the Boston Basher.

1. Halloween Mode On for the Next Week

Why? Probably has something to do with the Alien-themed promotional items (see 3.).

2. “Limited” Item Quality

Items that cannot be crafted or bought in the Mann Co. Store (but had once been craftable or purchasable) are now given a new item quality prefix of “Limited” Quantity. This item quality doesn’t change the color of the item text, but the prefix is assumably added to all items to let people know that Valve seem to be making two promises: 1) More copies of a discontinued item will not be available, thus preserving the rarity (and thus the market value) of those items; and 2) Valve are helping the fanbase to easily identify items that are rare, or at least, cannot simply be bought or earned again.  Hopefully Valve remembers to tag all applicable items with the prefix!

Earbuds

3. Alien: Isolation Promo Items for TF2!

Now you can be Amanda Ripley, looking for your mama and trying not to become alien food and/or wear new Alien-themed hats in Team Fortress 2!   There are five items; three for the Scout, and two for the Pyro.  The Scout items dress him up in an Alien costume:

Here’s the nifty part: one of the Pyro’s two items is a reskinned flamethrower! And a Pyro wearing both of his promo items will do more damage to Scouts that are wearing a set of three-Alien-promo items! But I don’t think that the three Scout items count as a set (like the Pyro’s), nor do they have any special effect.  All five items are Halloween/Full Moon restricted.

4. New Crates!

Yay!  But they can’t be opened yet.  Boo!

I’ll post an item list here when we can open them….

 

5. Full Patch Notes

Undocumented changes

[N] Obey

TF2 Update: 9/15/14

Posted on: September 15th, 2014 by Obey

Hark! Yet another minor TF2 update, again adjusting the two beta maps!  But wait–there is some other stuff going on….

  1. Demomen can no longer detonate sticky bombs while taunting.
  2. Strange ranks are no longer displayed on the web.

Also, Terraria now has an updated official website, which has some spoilers for the upcoming Lunar Update!

TF2 Full Patch Notes

  • Fixed a client crash related to the robot destruction HUD
  • Fixed an exploit where players could circumvent successful kick votes
  • Demoman can no longer detonate sticky bombs while taunting
  • Strange Ranks are no longer displayed on the web (Trade, Steam backpack, Market) and only show ‘Strange’ as a prefix
  • Default value for convar sv_vote_issue_scramble_teams_cooldown has been increased to 20 minutes
  • Fixed sound clipping issue for the Demoman’s Spent Well Spirits taunt
  • Added Jarate lightwarp preset to the Steam Workshop importer
  • Updated the model/materials for the Neckwear Headwear to fix a lighting issue
  • Updated pl_cactuscanyon
    • Increased amount of time the middle gates remain open before and after a train passes in stage 2
    • Adjusted spawn times at end of stage 2
  • Updated rd_asteroid
    • Removed env_sun from the skybox
    • Optimized skybox performance
    • Lowered Scout/Sniper damage against robots
    • Fixed doubled-up health kits on the bridge
    • Added area portals to the base interiors to improve performance
    • Continued art-pass process
    • Fixed zebra-style art on static props on systems that used lower texture quality
  • Added experimental cpu_frequency_monitoring convar to detect thermal throttling. If you have TF2 performance problems on Windows, add “+cpu_frequency_monitoring 2” to the TF2 command line to see if CPU thermal throttling is an issue. If the displayed CPU frequency percentage drops below about 80-85% then you may have a problem with your CPU slowing down due to overheating. If it drops below 50-55% then you may have a serious problem. CPU overheating can be caused by overclocking, insufficient cooling, insufficient airflow, failing or dirty fans, or other causes. The CPU frequency results are displayed with cl_showfps or net_graph. For more detail see https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=2715-YIPD-6873

[N] Obey

Server #15 September Stats Contest!

Posted on: September 2nd, 2014 by Obey

As you may have read on the forums here and here, admin |N| Jib is hosting a Stats Contest on server #15, which is a fast respawn 24/7 Hightower payload race server! You can win prizes and honorz for being the top ranked player at the end of the month, having the most dominations, and more!

incorrect_statement

This contest will also help push usage of this all-Hightower-all-the-time server.  The following recent changes were also applied:

  1. Engineer sentries are disabled (destroyed when built) when the active player count is less than six players.
  2. Engineer mini-sentries are disabled when the active player count is less than sixteen players. When trying to repopulate a server, playing against sentries without a team tends to cause people to give up and leave the server.
  3. Server #15 is now its own category on our HLStats page.
  4. “Fast respawn” should mean a five-second respawn.
  5. Stats were reset on August 30th.  The contest runs through the end of September.
  6. Prizes! We’ll be giving away prizes for: Most Points – Most Time Played – Dominations – Deaths – Godlikes (12+ killstreaks)

And hey, if you want to be a TF2Newbs admin, this is an opportunity to get involved!

[N] Obey

TF2 Update: 8/28/14

Posted on: August 29th, 2014 by Obey

Not a whole lot going on with this latest patch:

  1. rd_asteroid was changed, and then repatched to the previous version.
  2. pl_cactuscanyon temporarily removed its second stage.
  3. Snipers can no longer jump immediately after firing a scoped shot.  This will change the dynamics of counter-sniping.
  4. One new promo item: Horace!  It is not yet available.

Horace

Patch 1

  • Added a new promo item[1]
  • Client/server memory improvements
  • Fixed ragdolls not applying the ice/gold effect for cosmetic items
  • Fixed the Australium Scattergun material looking pixelated
  • Fixed some issues with clipped text in the localized versions
  • Fixed the difficulty of the current challenge not displaying correctly in the MvM scoreboard
  • Snipers can no longer jump immediately after firing a scoped shot
  • Updated the materials for The Dalokohs Bar
  • Updated the equip_region for The Dashin’ Hashshashin
  • Updated the Stout Shako to fix a lighting problem
  • Updated the localization files
  • Updated rd_asteroid
    • Added line of sight blocker to the front doors to prevent Snipers on battlements from shooting into the bases
    • Removed reduced spawn time bonus for players that die in the enemy base
    • Moved interior battlements health and ammo further into the base
  • Updated pl_cactuscanyon
    • Stage 2
      • Removed from the sequence so stage 1 links to stage 3
    • Stage 3
      • Added rollback to cart while in the train collision zone
      • Cart is now unavailable to push for a short period at the start
      • Adjust spawn times during the final push-pull
      • Pushed spawn gates forward in the right-side exits of Blu spawn
      • Adjusted cover surrounding the middle exit of Red spawn

Patch 2

Rolled back the previous changes to rd_asteroid

[N] Obey