TF2 Newbs (Team Fortress 2) Blog

Here’s what’s going on:

1. {N} Nuunsa, roleplaying as The Administrator, is starting a big honking fight–and you’re invited
2. {N} Wolf wants your Halloween-themed submissions
3. Borderlands 2 has new Halloween-themed DLC
4. [N] Obey got his sh*t together and finally wrote up the TF2 patch update from October 10th

1. What’s this about a fight?

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Dustbowl. Good thing, because admin Nuunsa has challenged all of the [N] regulars to duke it out with the {N} and |N| admins! Post here to sign-up; it’ll be on Saturday, November 9th, starting at 8pm EST.

Nuunsa and fellow admin Wolf will be doing the commentary. I figure it’ll be not unlike Statler and Waldorf witnessing a streetfight.

2. TF2Newbs’ 6th Annual “All Hallows Eve” Contest

Admin Wolf wants you to submit something to him in order to win prizes. Quality of prizes is based on the number of submissions; there’s always the possibility that an unusual could be taken from the glorious, secret vault of hats in Octo’s underwater sunken pirate ship complex. Soooo…. submit a drawing! A pumpkin carving! A song! Your costume! An interpretative dance! A new mixed drink recipe you’ve invented for the occasion! Just submit already, so my vastly superior, pink, origami Sexual Tyrannosaurus can win a prize.

Prizes awarded each Monday through November 11th. So keep submitting, Newbs. Instructions are here.

3. New Borderlands DLC and then some

First of all, the first of what surely will be many Halloween-themed DLC has been released–and it’s only $2.99! Named “Headhunter 1: Bloody Harvest”, T. K. Baha emerges from the dead and your Borderlands 1 memories to grant you more areas to plunder and quests to accomplish.

That’s not all! If you have a SHiFT account, you can jump into Gearbox Studios’ “$100,000 Loot Hunt”, where you go kill the assigned baddie for the day, or certain targets drop a special item for a limited time (called “bounties”).

That’s still not all! Every day, some weapon or class/make of weapons gets a permanent change or improvement–such as today, where all Hyperion pistols now have increased magazine size and accuracy recovery! Expect this to continue for the next few weeks.

And that’s still not all! More DLC are on their way, and you know that level cap is going to increase again sooner or later.

Okay, that might be all for now. Maybe….

4. There was this TF2 Patch Update….

Actually two. Here are the combined patch notes from the 10/2/13 and 10/10/13 patches for TF2:

• Added the Fall 2013 Acorns Crate #72 (no expiration date).
• Requires a Fall 2013 Acorns Crate Key ($2.49 in the Mann Co. Store, also no expiration date).
• All of the following items are newly-added, Gold Star cosmetics:

• • Crate Series #72
    Drops		Yes
    Items
    Viking Braider		7 .60%
    Flapjack		7 .60%
    Gold Digger		7 .60%
    Pop-Eyes		7 .60%
    Weight Room Warmer		7 .60%
    Special Eyes		7 .60%
    Chronomancer		7 .60%
    Pirate Bandana		7 .60%
    Brim-Full of Bullets		7 .60%
    Li’l Snaggletooth		7 .60%
    Escapist		7 .60%
    L’homme Burglerre		7 .60%
    Ward		7 .60%
    or an Exceedingly Rare Special Item!		1 .00%

• Added the Fall 2013 Gourd Crate #73 (no expiration date).
• Requires a Fall 2013 Gourd Crate Key ($2.49 in the Mann Co. Store, also no expiration date).
• All of the following items are newly-added, Gold Star cosmetics:

  • Crate Series #73
    Drops		Yes
    Items
    Beep Boy		8 .25%
    Cuban Bristle Crisis		8 .25%
    A Brush With Death		8 .25%
    Trickster’s Turnout Gear		8 .25%
    Hong Kong Cone		8 .25%
    Hurt Locher		8 .25%
    Bone Dome		8 .25%
    Air Raider		8 .25%
    Medical Mystery		8 .25%
    Cotton Head		8 .25%
    Slick Cut		8 .25%
    Frenchman’s Formals		8 .25%
    or an Exceedingly Rare Special Item!		1 .00%

• Updated cp_granary:
  • Added nobuild areas and clipping of environmental features to prevent exploits above forward spawns
  • Adjusted player shadows to reduce shadows clipping through walls
  • Skybox rendering fixes
• Revealed Mysterious Promo 10 as the Team Fortress Chess Promo: a genuine-quality Grandmaster
  • Added the Grandmaster: a team-colored all-class hat of a chessboard with rotating RED/BLU hologram
  • This hat is currently only available via this promotion. However, I believe the promo is not yet obtainable.
• Strange Part: Taunt Kills can now be added to strange Knives and Fists
• Strange Part: Kills While Explosive Jumping and Strange Part: Posthumous Kills can be added to the Loose Cannon
• Bugfixes:
  • Fixed inconsistent behavior when switching between loadouts or modifying them
    • Unfortunately, a new bug has appeared that requires some players to change classes for loadouts to take effect, or requiring players to reassign some items to their loadouts since the patch
  • Fixed a bug where modifying an item (i.e. painting or renaming it) would cause it to drop from a loadout
  • Fixed the Demoman charge sound being clipped by the weapon crit sound
  • Updated the Hardy Laurel to properly show on the heads of Engineers and Soldiers
  • Updated the Summer Shades and Professor Speks so that they don’t float in the air during Sniper taunts
  • Fixed Nessie’s Nine Iron’s missing gameplay description (its shared abilities with the Highlander)
  • Fixed Blue spies showing blue health particles when disguised as the Red team
    • Should have been fixed previously, and still unsure if 100% now.
  • Fixed a bug causing some players to be unable to change their active item preset

And that’s not all… you know that Valve always releases some new Halloween-themed level, with comics and other craziness. Remember the temporary-use Spells from last year? Remember being forced to dance in front of your enemies? Remember having to get everyone to STOP KILLING EACH OTHER AND FOCUS THE WIZARD?!?!?  Well, let’s see what kind of evil they can conjure to top that….

Yes. That is all.

[N] Obey | One Tired Puppy

P.S. Dear St. Louis Cardinals, please attempt to catch the ball when it is hit into the air. Having it plop in front of you without trying to catch it, even after calling for a fair catch, has me shouting at the television for spychecker. And the others at the bar don’t know what I’m talking about. Well, I am not the spy! We cannot let that dastardly fish win again. Love, Obey | Not A Spy

Tired of hearing about threats of a US government shutdown? Read up on recent goings-on in Steam below:

1. A minor TF2 patch
2. A major Terraria update is live: patchnotes (and partial spoilers) below!
3. Newbs’ Minecraft server is currently down

1. Recent TF2 Patches

These patch notes are lumped together from the 9/23 patch:

• Strange misc-slot items are now tradable in the Steam Market (e.g. Strange Archimedes).
• Updated: Bearded Bombardier and Bolted Bombardier now allow glasses-type misc items.
• Added the Byzantine Bundle, and each item separately, to the Mann Co. Store; consisting of:
  • Beastly Bonnet
  • Cheet Sheet
  • Centurion
  • Steel Sixpack
  • Tartan Shade
  • Tartanaloons
  • Hardy Laurel
• Added “modelscale” and “setmodelscale” input to Studiomodel so map authors can scale models.

2. Terraria 1.2 Patch LIVE!

It’s here! There are so many changes to the game, it’s almost a completely new game. Stop reading now if you don’t want to be spoiled about all the changes. (I’m not posting every change; there over a thousand new items!)

• Bugfixes (and exploits removed):
  • You can no longer craft items or money by placing items in the trash.
  • You can no longer sell your gold to NPCs.
  • Music box/chest duping no longer works.
  • Bunnies/Goldfish spawned from statues no longer drop money during a blood moon.
  • Equipping items to the social slot in German no longer crashes the game.
  • The game will no longer create a random password during multiplayer world generation.
  • You can now reforge in all languages.
  • Active blocks will no longer become inactive with a chest or them.
  • Fixed a bug that would cause a suitable house to be unsuitable.
  • Fixes a lot of bugs that were not listed.
• Mechanics and Gameplay:
  • Enemies now have a visible health bar when struck.
  • There is now a map/minimap overlay.
    • Toggle through the different views, or turn on/off, in the inventory screen.
    • The tiles are shown the brightest they have ever been (relative to the amount of light nearby when you’ve examined them).
    • Toggle through the map views using Tab or M buttons.
  • “J” is now the default button for Mana Use.
  • There is now an extended crafting menu that will show everything you can craft.
    • Hit this button, and it will reveal everything on the inventory screen.
  • Some items now stack to 999 per stack.
  • Character slots have been increased to 1,000 (from 5).
  • World slots have been increased to 1,000 (from 5).
  • Remodeled:
    • Starting female clothing
    • Several new hairstyles
    • Character creation restyled
  • Chest sizes have been doubled.
  • Your inventory space has been increased by 10 (one row).
  • You no longer need to jump to ascend single blocks (!!) .
  • The hammer is now used only for creating slopes, halftiles, and breaking walls only. It is no longer a weapon!
  • The axe is now used only for chopping down trees and giant mushrooms. It is no longer a weapon!
  • The pickaxe is now used only to remove blocks, placeable objects, and items such as Life Crystals and chests (instead of the hammer). It is no longer a weapon!
  • You can now paint any solid tile or item.
  • Dye slots have been added.
  • You will now start the game with 10 mana after character creation.
  • You can now craft early game magic robes and staves.
  • Bricks, wood, stone, and glass all now blend together.
  • Mana Crystals only require 5 fallen stars to craft, down from 10.
  • If water touches a halftiles, it will create a waterfall.
  • Your world has a chance to get an alternative ore as a replacement for copper, iron, silver and gold (!!).
    • My early assumption is that the alternative ore crafts just as its replacement would.
  • Your world has a chance to get an alternative ore as a replacement for cobalt, mythril, and adamantite.
  • Your world has a chance to have a replacement for the Corruption (!!).
  • Your world has a rare chance to have a pyramid or living tree spawn during world generation.
    • Each contains its own loot drop table (list of possible treasure items).
  • There is a new hardmode jungle temple (!!).
  • There are now several new backgrounds and tree variations your world has a chance to generate.
  • Water will now change color based on the biome you are in and depth underground.
  • Ropes are now found early game and can be used to craft rope coils for traveling the world.
  • Chains can now be placed and used as a rope mechanism (?).
  • Mushroom grass/seeds can now grow and spread above ground.
  • There are now 3 colors for wires.
  • Actuators can be used to make any tile active/inactive.
  • There is one new liquid type that can be found in the jungle….
  • There are several new fountains that will change the color of water when they are place nearby.
  • Pearlstone bricks no longer spread hallow.
  • Rain and blizzards have been added.
  • There is a new snow biome with unique treasures and items for normal and hardmode.
  • Enemies no longer trigger underground pressure plates.
  • There are new pressure plates that can only be triggered by certain things, such as players, enemies, or both.
  • Clowns will no longer blow up tiles with their bombs.
  • There are sever new buff and debuff statuses.
  • There is now a “Capture the Gem” minigame added (think “capture the flag”). You can craft large gems that draw a gem icon above the holder, and if the player is killed, the gem drops next to their corpse.
  • There are two new hardmode events.
  • Werewolf form has been buffed and can now take place every night.
  • Broken armor defuff now reduced to 2 minutes, down from 5.
  • You now use a pickaxe to remove armor from a mannequin.
  • Players no longer take double damage in PvP.
  • Items of the same type will now stack when placed next to each other.
  • When using a gravitation potion, your world will invert rather than your character!
    • Get ready to get dizzy!
  • You can no longer become invincible when touching the fire blocks.
  • Increased speed at which you can buy stacks of things.
  • In total, there are over 1,000 new items.
    • There are 10 new ores (including the replacement ores).
    • There are 4 new wood types (see above).
    • There are 31 new brick types.
    • You can now imbue melee weapons (?).
    • There are several new arrow and bullet types.
    • There are several new crafting stations (such as a cactus crafting table).
    • There are several new wands used for crafting new bricks and brick walls.
    • You can now craft bricks, walls, and furniture out of the new materials, including slime, bone, mushroom, living wood, flesh, silt, and many more!
  • You can now craft Jester Arrows.
  • There are 12 new wing types.
  • There are several new vanity sets.
  • There a lot of new rare drops added to enemies.
  • You can now craft stained glass.
  • There is an item in hardmode that allows you to change biomes.
  • There is an item in hardmode that allows you to increase your max health (past 200, I assume).
  • There are 29 new tinker combinations.
  • Several new items have been added to the game that are used for crafting dyes.
  • Starfury now acts as a melee weapon and has had its damage increased.
  • Aqua Scepter has been redesigned and does slightly more damage for less mana.
  • Water Bolt has been redesigned and does slightly more damage.
  • Vilethorn does more damage and uses less mana.
  • Magic Daggers have been buffed.
  • All of the old classic armors can be found as rare drops and have the same stats as their current counterparts and count towards set bonuses. Wait–what? Old armors? New armors?
  • Chests now have larger loot tables (there is a longer list of possible treasure).
  • You can now make picks instead of drills, and axes instead of chainsaws, in late game tiers.
  • Increased the drop rate of souls.
  • There are over 50 paintings that can be collected randomly throughout the world.
  • Jungle armor no longer requires gems.
  • The amount of meterorite required for crafting has been decreased.
  • Meteorite armor has more defense and does more damage.
  • Silt and slush can be extracted into useful materials, items, and money.
  • Each boss has a rare chance to drop a placeable boss trophy.
  • Hooks can now be crafted out of gems.
  • Depth meter is no longer craftable.
  • Stars can now be crafted with bottles to make a new light source.
  • Floating island chests no longer require a key.
  • Gems and bars can be placed.
  • Items made from hellstone now require less hellstone.
• New NPCs and Bosses:
  • There are 5 new friendly NPCs.
  • There are 4 new bosses.
  • There are over 100 new enemies (!!).
  • Friendly NPCs will sell different items depending on certain conditions such as time of day or biome they live in.
    • So you can access new items by moving your NPCs to different biomes.
  • Hardmode bosses have a chance to spawn on their own to help players progress through the game.
  • Current hardmode bosses now do slightly less damage and have had their health decreased.
  • There is a rare spawn mini-boss that can be found during blizzards in the above-ground ice biome.
  • There are over 15 new pets that can be found in chests and dropped rarely off enemies.
  • Early hardmode enemies now do less damage and have less health/defense.
  • Skeletron can now be summoned and has a small loot table.
• Graphical Changes:
  • The sun is now brighter.
  • Midnight is now darker.
  • The sky now has a smooth gradient.
  • There are several items that have had graphical upgrades such as gems, colored torches, minishark, muramasa, aqua scepter, starfury, etc.
  • There are now stalagmites, icicles, moss, plants, rocks, and other “piles” added to enhance the environment.
  • There are several new mini caves that can be found with unique backgrounds.
  • Each biome will now have chests and pots with unique graphics.
  • The dungeon now has 3 unique textures/colors and furniture.
  • Hell houses and floating islands have been remodeled.
  • Each biome now has unique textures and wood types:
    • Corruption: ebonwood
    • Jungle: rich mahogany
    • Crimson: shadewood
    • Hallow: pearlwood
  • Each brick and brick wall now has its own unique texture. (The bricks are no longer a mere color change in difference.)
  • Torches are now animated and can be placed on walls.
  • Common enemies such as demon eyes, skeletons, and zombies have all been given graphical variations.
  • There are several new tombstones.
  • All objects in the game that sparkle will now sparkle with a corresponding color.
• Music:
  • There are 15 new tracks for the game; 3 are ported from the console version of the game.
  • Day Theme 2 will loop into Day Theme 1 to add variation above ground.
  • Desert, ocean, glowing mushrooms, dungeon, and space all have their own tracks now.
  • Ice biome has an above-ground music track, and a below-ground track.
• Performance/Miscellaneous:
  • The game now only loads assets when needed, reducing the amount of RAM used.
  • Optimized tile data to reduced RAM usage.
  • There game will now ask you if you want to use UPnP (?) to automatically port-forward when hosting multiplayer.

3. Newbs’ Minecraft Server is currently down.

[N]ot Dave wants me to let everyone know that the Newbs’ Official Minecraft Server is down, but hopefully it will be up within a week. He says that “everyone knows it’s my fault”, so send any pies-to-the-face his way. Perhaps he likes pie. But he’ll get it up soon.

[N] Obey

More is going on than just Team Fortress updates in theTF2Newbs community. Though it may not be useful to you, here’s what might, just possibly be useful to you:

Newsworthy Bullets:

1. Summary of recent TF2 updates
2. Some Borderlands 2 news
3. Terraria 1.2 patch live on October 1, 2013
4. A final note about using slurs on our servers.

1. TF2 Updates (from 8/28 thru 9/18)

• In MvM Mode, exploding Sentry Busters now damage nearby enemy robots when they explode
• Fixed: Crusader’s Crossbow now no longer heals teammates that have the Equalizer or the Escape Plan deployed
• Fixed: Three sets now list the hats that were originally intended for their sets
  • The set is no longer considered “complete” unless the hat is also worn
  • Medieval Medic set now includes the Berliner’s Bucket Helm
  • Hibernating Bear set now includes the Big Chief
  • Expert’s Ordnance set now includes the Scotch Bonnet
• Fixed: The El Jefe scout hat is now droppable at the usual rate of hats
• Added: Double-clicking an item in your backpack can now add it to a Chemistry Set formula you’re currently working on
• Windows clients now use SDL 2.0 for controller support; this should enable hot-plugging and configuring controllers for use in Big Picture
• Bugfixes:
  • Fixed: Now you should always receive a warning that non-tradable items used to make a Strangifier will result in a non-tradable Strangifier (and will always yield a non-tradable Strangifier)
  • Fixed the Gunslinger’s taunt kill not counting kills on its Strange variant
  • Fixed the Professor’s Pineapple and The Filamental not drawing correctly in DirectX 8
  • Fixed the Rump-o’-Lantern not being equippable by the Medic, and being drawn incorrectly
  • Fixed TF2 client being unable to run in Windows XP or older versions of Linux (!!)
  • Fixed seeing stretched polygons in the HUD 3D Character
  • Fixed an exploit allowing Strange counters to count to the negatively
  • Fixed a noclip exploit related to dueling and coaching
• New tag “Halloween 2013″ for Steam Workshop and applicable submitted works
• New equip region “belt_misc”; probably to allow belt-area cosmetic items to be designed and submitted

2. Borderlands 2 News

Gearbox Studios, makers of Borderlands 2, are hinting at more DLC in the works to be released in the near future. However, according to PC Gamer, these will be smaller packs of content–at cheaper costs to purchase–than those such as Tiny Tina’s extended arc of tabletop RPG-themed missions. So maybe it won’t be new classes or entire new areas of Pandora to explore. Maybe more like skins, level caps and the like. Maybe. Definitely something to put on the ol’ holiday wishlist. Besides, Gearbox is hard at work on their next game, which will be on consoles (and likely the PC as well).

Gee, what could that be?

3. Terraria 1.2 patch goes live on October 1st, 2013

As I’ve already alluded to previously, the next Terraria patch–the first major update to the game in nearly two years!–should hit on the start of next month.

For those of you who were around the last time that Terraria had a major patch, you may recall a slight problem with your save files: they didn’t work at all!  We’ve been assured that this should not repeat itself.  That said, it is always a good idea to backup your save files; you never know if your nigh unkillable character and your Indestructible Fortress of Much Twinking becomes suddenly very killable. How? The default location for your Terraria save files (and your Borderlands 2 files, also) are in the Saved Games folder of your My Documents. The pathing is as follows (unless you’ve changed the default save location):

[DRIVE]:/Users/[USERNAME]/My Documents/My Games/Terraria

“Gee, then I could simply reload a character if s/he dies or my Indestructible Fortress gets proved wrong and is destroyed?” you ask.

Yes.

“So… there’s also nothing stopping me from reloading the same character repeatedly, and putting the same items into a chest repeatedly, effectively duping the items?”

Yes. Just note that each character always occupies the same slot of one of five character slots. No two characters of the same slot (i.e. two “player1.plr” files) can coexist in the same Players folder at the same time, and changing the name can make the file unreadable.

“So… I can do the same thing with the World, duping everything in the world by transferring items to characters?”

Yes. Worlds follow their own five-maximum rule.

“So… I can conceivably also do this in Borderlands 2?”

Yes. But Claptrap gives you a shared stash, so you’ll have less incentive to bother. Perhaps.

4. A Note About Using Slurs on TF2Newbs’ Servers

Don’t!

Seriously. Not even if:

• Someone else is doing it.
• You’re “just trolling” (also a bannable offense)
• You’re just trolling the troll.
• You’re quoting someone else in chat.
• You’re in spectate.
• It’s Hump Day.
• It’s not Hump Day.
• It’s the full moon.
• You’re a regular.
• You’re an admin.
• You’re a donator.
• You happen to resemble the subject of the slur.

It doesn’t matter at all the reasoning of the behavior. The behavior itself is not allowed, without exception.

I’m just a blogger, and I have no authority. But I have been witness to countless bans due to players–even longtime regulars and [N] tag wearers–getting quickly and permanently removed from the community for this douchebaggery.  For one, you can be “Console” autobanned just by frequent (possibly even just once) using a slur in typed chat; it will search your recent chatlogs periodically looking for this behavior.  Regardless of typed chatter or voice chat, virtually all admins can and will ban on the first (or second, or third) usage, usually after a warning. Global admin {N} Crap has no tolerance for this, nor should he. As a Newbs member, you agree to a slur-free community environment, including our forums and chatrooms.

Now, if you get banned or autobanned, you can appeal the ban–follow the forum rules to the letter if you choose to do so–but the use of slurs against any people type, especially but not limited to sexual orientation, gender, or race, is strictly prohibited by Newbs admins. Do not engage or encourage those that behave in this manner, or you can draw a ban as well. {N} Crap has been very explicit about what kinds of behavior are not allowed.

[N] Obey

A lot of Newbs play Borderlands 2, so I figured it would be worth posting a Patch Update. But there’s a lot here. Here’s the most important changes:

Gameplay Changes

• Added new items to the Black Market
  • One additional ammo upgrade for each of the six ammo types, at 100 Eridium each.
  • Two more backpack storage space upgrades, at 150 and 200 Eridium respectively.
  • Two more bank storage space upgrades, at 150 and 200 Eridium respectively.
• Equipment changes:
  • Added zoom amount to weapon card
  • Fixed an issue causing item cards to sometimes show incorrect critical hit modifiers for weapons.
  • Fixed an issue causing alignment of sights on certain pistols to be incorrect when zoomed in.
  • Fixed a bug sometimes causing SHiFT items (from golden key chests) to be incorrectly capped at level 50.
  • Fixed an issue so that the relics Blood of Terramorphous and Blood of the Seraphs are no longer capped at level 50
  • Now the “Breath of the Seraphs” relic scales above level 50.
• Disabled the daily lockout for raid bosses (!)
• Added safeguards to protect players against hacked items and weapons.
  • Now, all invalid items will be automatically removed from a player’s inventory
• Player’s vehicle skin choice is now saved, so it doesn’t have to be re-chosen each play session.
• Added a third vault symbol to the Dwarven Mines (Tiny Tina DLC) for players to discover.
• Level 61+ Changes:
  • Loot has greater chances of higher rarities for enemies level 61+.
  • Enemy health regeneration in UVHM increased for enemies level 61+.
  • Voracidous’s shield has been increased to intended levels in UVHM.
  • Increased the Eridium cost required to enter Terramorphous’s den.
  • Fixed a bug causing players to get stuck in TVHM and unable to complete any missions.
• Mission-based Changes:
  • Addressed issues that could prevent players from being unable to complete the missions: My First Gun, Clan War: Wakey Wakey, No Vacancy, Shielded Favors, Breaking the Bank, Toil and Trouble, A Train to Catch.
  • Addressed issues that could prevent players from being unable to complete the Tiny Tina DLC missions: A Role-Playing Game, The Magic of Childhood, Denial-Anger-Initiative, Dwarven Allies, Winter is a Bloody Business.
  • Addressed an issue causing mission indicators to appear above rabid skags when players had not accepted any Animal Rescue missions in TVHM.
• Challenged-based Changes:
  • The “Surprise!” challenge is now visible for everyone, instead of unlocking after completing another challenge.
  • Removed some challenges Psycho players cannot complete due to Krieg’s heft.

Assorted Bugfixes

• Fixed: Flynt sometimes not dropping unique loot in TVHM and UVHM.
• Fixed: Flynt sometimes not jumping down to engage the player(s).
• Fixed: Loot not able to be picked up/invisible to all players from Terramorphous.
• Fixed: Splint-screen games preventing the “Thresher Thrashed” achievement.
• Fixed: The location of the Death Mark symbol on the Sheriff of Lynchwood.
• Fixed: An issue causing players not to load inside the Natural Selection Annex if they saved and quit there before completing the Wildlife Preservation mission.
• Fixed: BNK-3R sometimes getting stuck or not completing his death animation properly.
• Fixed: The Warrior is now shoved into the abyss when he dies.
  • This is to allow players to grab loot that his corpse may prevent.
• Fixed: An incorrect waypoint for the mission “Hidden Journals”.
• Fixed: An issue where players lose control of their characters when using certain telescopes simultaneously in a multiplayer game.
• Fixed: Mission-rewarded E-Tech weapons having the wrong rarity.
• Fixed: Players sometimes getting two sets of rewards for one mission.
• Fixed: Incorrect counts of earned/total customizations, and incorrect Skill Tree totals for the Psycho while respeccing.
• Fixed: Issue where Seraph and Torgue vending machines were unresponsive to mouse input.
• Fixed: SHiFT account screen sometimes not responding to players using a gamepad not in Big Picture mode.
• Exploit-related:
  • Fixed: Prevented duping of items in a trade duel. (!)
  • Fixed: Prevented exploit allowing players to win a duel by killing themselves with environmental damage.
  • Fixed: Prevented exploit allowing players to increase skill points beyond normal ceilings.
  • Fixed: An exploit causing Mechromancer’s Discord skill to stay active after respeccing.
• Skill-related:
  • Fixed: An issue causing Zer0′s Kunai skill stacking to higher damage amounts than intended under certain conditions.
  • Fixed: An issue causing the Gunzzerker to have two weapons in his right hand when his action skill was deactivated in a certain way.
  • Fixed: An issue causing a Psycho’s Raving Retribution skill to be chattier than intended.
  • Fixed: An issue where Psycho would sometimes not be put into the down state when applying the “Redeem the Soul” skill.
  • Fixed: An issue causing Psycho’s Buzz Axe Bombardier skill to block stacks of Taste of Blood from accruing.
  • Fixed: An issue that could cause the Psycho’s Hellfire Halitosis’s visual effects to persist indefinitely.
• Equipment related:
  • Fixed: Pot’O'Gold shield now drops items correctly when the player is damaged while wearing it.
  • Fixed: Audio from Booster and Adaptive shields in co-op games.
  • Fixed: Certain projectiles passing through objects instead of detonating on them.
  • Fixed: An issue causing some assault rifle barrels to give lower damage bonuses than intended.
• DLC related:
  • (Captain Scarlett DLC) Addressed an issue allowing the treasure room to be re-entered after defeating the Leviathan.
  • (Captain Scarlett) Addressed an issue causing players to be stuck under the world when traveling in the destroyed hovercraft.
  • (Sir Hammerlock DLC) Addressed an issue where players could get permaslowed for the duration of a game session if they left an area after being slowed by a witch doctor.
  • (Tiny Tina DLC) Necromancers cast their skeleton-summoning spell more reliably.
  • (Tiny Tina) Addressed issues causing “A Single Deadly Bite” or “Keep Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’” challenges to not unlock.
  • (Tiny Tina) Addressed an issue causing the player to be unable to progress if taking an alternate route to Flamerock Refuge.
  • (Tiny Tina) Addressed an issue causing class mods with the “Good” prefix to have negative reloading speeds.
  • (Tiny Tina) Assorted audio and visual/light effects.

Oh, and there’s a new prologue video for Tiny Tina’s DLC! It’s called “+5 to Punching: A Bunkers & Badasses Prologue”! Hey, that’s a prologue inside of a prologue, inside of a rather overt roleplaying game reference. What do they call those?

[N] Obey

Oh, it turns out that the TF2 Chemistry Set does not have preset recipes! Each set has a semi-randomized set of requirements (common weapons, hats, stranges, and/or botkiller weapons). So one Chemistry Set may be relatively cheaper to obtain a Strangifier than another. Well, that just changes everything! Except there are still only Chemistry Sets for those 13 items. At the moment. That we know of….

Y’know, Halloween is coming….

Boo!

Added 9/1/13:

As it turns out, Chemistry Sets do not have preset formulae. Instead, they are pseudo-random in their requirements.

Added 8/28/13:

A Steam update today fixed a host of bugs, including one that caused the Steam client to become stuck in Offline Mode or Online Mode. So those of you who have ever tried to use Steam during or after loss of internet access, you *shouldn’t* be locked out from using Steam.  This fix has been a long time in coming.

Also, a lot of fixes have been added to the Big Picture functionality, including:

• Added new multi-user login and create account UIs
• Added Go Offline/Go Online to the Quit UI
• Changed Web Browser behavior to behave more like a normal browser when using a keyboard/mouse
• Now shows Linux support icons

Patch Update

Here’s the rundown:

1. (Aug 28) Fixed the Linux dedicated server failing to run on older Linux versions, and some Linux HUD bugs/crashes. This is why most of TF2Newbs’ servers have been down. Thank you for your patience.
2. (Aug 20) Wearing the Hardy Laurel triggers “Romevision” in MvM mode, which changes the appearance of the bots.
3. Anyone in the same server with someone wearing the Hardy Laurel can opt-in to “Romevision” (can be disabled in Advanced Options).
4. The in-game player status panel now shows an animated image of your character with its current loadout (can be disabled in Advanced Options).
5. Bots can now reflect energy-based projectiles, and have improved pathing behavior around ramps.
6. The hats Foppish Physician and Distinguished Rogue are now team-colored by default, and are now paintable.
7. New Items and New Crates:
   1. Crate #56 and Salvaged Crate #50 no longer drop.
   2. Crate #71 and Select Reserve Crate #60 now drop.
      • The current Crate Drop List is now 57, 58 (Robo), 59, 60, 71. Also, Summer Claim Checks are a rare drop, granting one crate from #61-69.
   3. Crate #71 contents:
      • 20% — Strange Battalion’s Backup (new item)
      • 20% — Strange Hitman’s Heatmaker (new item)
      • 20% — Strange Bonk! Atomic Punch (new item)
      • 10% — Strange Part: Gib Kills
      • 10% — Strange Part: Kills During Victory Time (new item)
      • 10% — Strange Part: Robot Spies Destroyed (new item)
      • 5% — Buccaneer’s Bicorne
      • 5% — Soviet Gentleman
      • 1% — a random Unusual hat
   4. Select Reserve Crate #60 contents:
      • Evidently, a name change from Salvaged Crates. Rare drops similar to a salvaged crate.
      • 20% — Strange Disciplinary Action (new item)
      • 20% — Strange Loose Cannon (new item)
      • 20% — Fan O’ War (new item)
      • 20% — Pomson 6000 Strangifier (new item)
        • Instead of a Chemistry Set, this is a ready-to-use Strangifier that can be immediately applied, like Bacon Grease to a Frying Pan.
      • 20% — Strange Part: Kills with a Taunt Attack
      • 1% — a random Unusual hat
   5. New Item: Chemistry Set (available by drop or trade)
      • Chemistry Set is a one-use tool item that, when combined with a series of items, creating a Strangifier tool.
      • The Strangifier tool (also a one-use tool) upgrades a specific cosmetic item to Strange quality, much like the Strange Bacon Grease item. (Yes, Strange quality is new for hats/cosmetics.)
      • The list of items that trigger the creation of a Strangifier tool varies, being somewhat random. It appears that every Chemistry Set recipe will consume a several Unique (yellow) weapons, and perhaps hats, stranges, and/or Botkiller weapons.
        • I believe that there are “templates” that randomly determine the items that make up the recipe. For instance, one formula will require multiple pairs of hats. Another will require some weapons and a strange. Another will require some weapons and a specific type of Botkiller weapon.
      • The Strangifier tools themselves can be named, traded, and gifted.
      • Strange Bacon Grease’s item type has now changed to Strangifier.
      • See below for specifics.
8. Bugfixes:
   • Fixed bug causing Jarate and Mad Milk from applying to all targets in range (!).
   • Fixed bug causing Marked For Death icon to stay in world after the affected player died.
   • Fixed bug allowing Spies to explot Kunai’s higher overheal limit.
   • Fixed bug preventing the Medigun’s “Share Power Ups” upgrade from working correctly in MvM.
   • Fixed backpack images for the Valley Forge and the Founding Father.
   • Fixed an incorrect path for downloaded custom player sounds.
   • Fixed duplicated support/mission icons in MvM HUD.
   • Players without admin access can no longer use entity-creating commands using the script “point_servercommand”
9. Map changes:
   • cp_egypt_final
     • Prevents Blu from building inside of first spawn
   • cp_manor_event
     • Prevents players building in rafters
   • cp_mountainlab
     • Fixed clip brush exploit above hallway leading toward final cap
     • Fixed exploit where players could be trapped in small space near final cap using teleporters
   • plr_hightower
     •  Prevents building on cliff bottom

So, what’s with this Chemistry Set?

As of this launch, there are 13 Chemistry Sets. Each provides a recipe of items required in order to create a Strangifier earmarked for a specific item. Then, you use the Strangifier on that specific item to add the Strange quality to that item. By the way… all of these recipes will require either an existing Strange item, Botkiller Stranger weapon, hats, or both.

If the target item is Unusual, it will become Strange Unusual and retain the purple text and other effects of that unusual, including name tag, etc. I believe the same also occurs with other quality items (e.g. Vintage).

Finally, these Strange cosmetic items have a point counter–global admin Crap has informed me that they count scoreboard points you’ve tallied. Yes, that’ll go over 9000 pretty quickly while pushing the cart.

There are the 13 available Chemistry Sets, only obtainable by drop or trade:

• Merc’s Pride Scarf Strangifier
• Robro 3000 Strangifier
• Summer Shades Strangifier
• Bonk Boy Strangifier
• Fancy Dress Uniform Strangifier
• Sight For Sore Eyes Strangifier
• Bird-Man Of Aberdeen Strangifier
• Toss-Proof Towel Strangifier
• Teddy Roosebelt Strangifier
• Archimedes Strangifier
• Villain’s Veil Strangifier
• Camera Beard Strangifier
• All-Father Strangifier

Note: “Select Reserve” Crate #60 can drop a Pomson 6000 Strangifier. So the Pomson can be upgraded to Strange without a formula–you just have to get one from a #60!!

[N] Obey | Mr. Duck

For what it’s worth, there is also a new TF2 comic series here. For once, it’s not tied to a specific update (yet.)