TF2 Newbs (Team Fortress 2) Blog

Hey, it’s finally here–and some players thinks it’s the best Halloween update to boot!  The event runs through November 12, 2014. Better strap in, because you’re gonna love the bumper cars!

1. Launch of new Halloween 2014 Map: Carnival of Carnage.
   • Magic spells and end-of-round zany bumper car fun included.
2. 50 new Halloween-themed cosmetic items.
   • Everyone gets one free Halloween Gift Cauldron and can unlock another.
3. New melee weapon reskin: The Necro Smasher
   • Earn by unlocking enough Halloween 2014 achievements.
4. Full patch notes
   • Unusual items uncrated until November 12, 2014 will have Halloween-themed Unusual effects, instead of the typical effects granted by its Unusual Series.
   • For a limited time, you can buy previous Halloween-themed cosmetic items from the Mann Co. Store.
   • Halloween Crates can be bought from the Mann Co. Store.

Read the new TF2 comic: “Blood Money”!

0. Servers Currently Set to Halloween Maps:

Carnival of Carnage (2014 Event): #07, #09

Helltower (2013 Event): #12, #15

Harvest Event (2009 Event): #13

1. Carnival of Carnage

Merasmus’s Carnival of Carnage [sd_doomsday_event] is a Halloween Event map, and a reskin of Doomsday, Valve’s only official-to-date Special Delivery map. Instead of launching the monkeynaut Poopy Joe briefly into outer space to win, now you compete to be the team to raise a suitcase full of tickets to the top of the Strongmann Machine, while Merasmus launches snarky comments and global curses at everyone.

When the suitcase reaches the top, both teams enter one of three possible bumper car mini-games!! Oh, and there are Magic Spell powerups for you to cast at the other team, like the Helltower map. And yes, you can cast spells while driving a bumper car!

For more information on how to play this map, consult my TF2Newbs’ Guide to Halloween Event Maps.

2. Gift Cauldrons and New Cosmetics

Alert!  You have new items!

Yes, you do! Every player’s TF2 account automatically receives one Antique Halloween Gift Cauldron, and you’ll be alerted the first time you load the game.  This Limited action item can be used once to drop 3 random Scream Fortress VI cosmetic items.  The items dropped from the Cauldron will either be Unique, Haunted, or Strange Haunted qualities–and at least one will be Strange Haunted. The Gift Cauldron is Limited so it is not marketable, giftable or tradable, nor sold in the Mann Co. Store, but I assume the items it drops are giftable and tradable…?

Any Strange Haunted items will have two Strange Parts automatically attached to the cosmetic item: the “Carnival Games Won” Strange Part and the “Carnival Underworld Kills” Strange Part (which measures players knocked off the track.

It is possible to get a second Halloween Gift Cauldron by earning the Merasmachievement “Bumper to Bumper to Bumper”, by being on the winning team for all three bumper car mini-games at the end of rounds of the Carnival of Carnage map.

Meanwhile, it is possible to buy any of the 50 new Halloween-themed cosmetic items in the Mann Co. Store.

3. Unlock the Necro Smasher

Complete the “Step Right Up” Merasmachievement, by completing 4 other Merasmachievements, to earn your very own Necro Smasher! It is an all-classes-but-spy wooden mallet you can use to melee bludgeon your foes, just like your stock melee weapon. If you’re an Engineer, it’ll also repair your stuff. It’s tradable.

Full Patch Notes

• Scream Fortress VI has arrived!
  • Help Merasmus with his carnival!
  • Comic and additional information available on the website (http://www.teamfortress.com/screamfortress6)
  • Scream Fortress VI runs until November 12, 2014
  • Added new Halloween map Carnival of Carnage
    • Merasmus will spread misfortune with server wide curses
    • Added a Strongmann Test-Your-Strength machine which is in no way an eldritch portal to Bumper Car Madness!
  • Added bumper car minigames. Win by completely ghostifying the other team or by completing the objective
  • Alt-fire to speed boost your bumper car
  • Cast magic spells while driving
  • The collision force a bumper car receives increases as the car takes damage
  • Force is displayed in the bumper car HUD as a percentage
    • Ghosts can come back to life by touching a friendly bumper car
  • 50 new Halloween-themed community cosmetics^[1]
  • 6 new achievements

• During Scream Fortress VI:
  • A Halloween Gift Cauldron is granted to all players who play during the event
  • Added Halloween crates to the Mann Co. Store. These crates do not require a key to open
  • All Unusual hats and taunts that are unboxed during the event will receive Halloween-themed Unusual effects
  • Previous Scream Fortress content is available in the Mann Co. Store

• General :
  • Reduced the number of Fireball spells granted to 2^[2]
  • Updated the tf_spells_enabled ConVar
    • Removed the Teleport spell from the general spell list when spells are enabled outside of Helltower
    • Added rare spells to the general spell list, except Skeletons and Monoculus
  • Turning a player into a ghost now grants the attacker a kill credit
  • Players can now fly around as a ghost by holding the jump key
  • TargetID system
    • Now creates a floating health indicator over the target
    • Reduced size of nameplate
    • Added tf_hud_target_id_alpha ConVar to control the transparency
  • Fixed player voice transmissions not transmitting the last second of recording
  • Fixed a dedicated server crash when the autoexec.cfg contains a bind command
    • Fixed Unicode font performance and rendering issues for Mac clients
    • Fixed an exploit that allowed players to remove the ghost condition

• Hammer :
  • Added a field to the Tools->Options->3DView tab that multiplies the length of the rendered light_spot cone preview

Undocumented Changes

• Added a new startup music track for Scream Fortress VI.
• Removed old Scream Fortress startup music track from the game.
• Added Necro Smasher, Kritz or Treat Canteen, Deadliest Catch.
• Corrected the description of FR-0.

Oh, By the Way…

There’s this: someone reported a serious flaw in TF2 so Valve could fix it. To thank him, they let him have a hat of his choice: a one-of-a-kind Strange Cheater’s Lament with Sunbeams! (Courtesy of Nuunsa and Reddit)

[N] Obey

I’m sure everyone reading this is fully aware of the drama that has surrounded Valves release of the Halo aka the Cheaters Lament. Well to add a little bit of fun to the mix Daimao has released a skin/model replacement which turns it into some devil horns. This model combined with our hat plugin means that anyone with access to !hatme can now wear fun happy horns (If you want to check it out yourself I recommend that in the morning you help start a server, when the client count hits 6 everyone gets hatme access for the session). Unfortunately TF2′s system for downloading particles is lame, so if you want to fully experience them you will need to download Devil Horn Particles and place the particles directory in C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\YOURuserNAME\team fortress 2\tf\ otherwise you’ll not see the little red circle glowing particle effect.

A couple bad screenshots I took of myself can be seen below..

In other news, I’ve made a more stylish looking image to show the real time stats on how many players were idlers / not idlers that hav ecame to my server since the afternoon of September 3rd 2009.

If you’d like to use this somehow, feel free to hotlink to the image so that it continues to update where ever you put it. The link is:
<img src="http://tf2newbs.com/haloVSnohalo4.png" border="0">

According to the official tf2 blog post yesterday around 4.5% of the user base of TF2 would be effected by the removal of items for manipulating the item system (using the idler). I just couldn’t believe it, because most of my friends list was idling every day, so 4.5% seems awful low. I started logging players that had the halo in their backpack vs players without the halo (people I assume were idlers since they didn’t have a halo). Right now its sitting at 35.61% of my users having ‘no halo’ :) If you’re interested in tracking my servers ratios, check out http://tf2newbs.com/haloVSnohalo.png or if you want a text version http://tf2newbs.com/haloVSnohalo.php

Meanwhile Daimao (famous hat modeler) has suggested an alternative system to valve – he proposes That the ‘cheaters’ should be forced to wear devils horns / have a health penalty for a period of time as punishment. I think it’d be great if the devil horns did come out (officially or unofficially) but I’m not sure valve would want to be seen as penalizing the already super angry faced crowd of idlers who think that its just not fair that they lost their ill gotten gains already.

I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about players being banned / players refusing to medic for players with / without halos. I’d like to make clear that the Newbs Community is not going to be a place where this is takes place. If I see people trying to give other players a hard time (in game) for wearing a halo or for not wearing one I will see that they are removed from the servers. There is a lot of belly aching and qq regarding this decission by valve to bitch slap everyone who used the idler, keep that argument on the steam forums please. All hats are allowed on our servers. If you did not get the halo and wish to wear one, be one of the first 6 players on a server and you will reserve access to our hatme plugin which includes the halo. Thank you. And now back to your regularly scheduled programming….

Today it was announced that all items/drops that were earned by players while using an idler will soon be removed, and that all players that didn’t ever idle will soon be rewarded with a new hat. Since most the people I knew idled, I thought I’d go ahead and post some shots of what the halo looks like:

Be sure to check out the TF2 Newbs servers, all server starters (first six players on any server) are rewarded with the ability to wear any in game hat (including the halo!)

Update: The halo’s proper name is ‘Aura of Incorruptibility’