[N] Obey here. This FAQ isn’t 100% complete, but there’s enough useful information here to share now. I’ve put a lot of time into it, so I hope it helps. The intent is to cover as many Halloween Items as possible in a single blogpost. Check back later for more content and info! (Links Coming Later)

Table of Contents:

Items are listed in chronological order. Items in strikethrough can no longer be earned the usual way; some may be marketable and/or giftable, and some are available as a Merasmission reward or via transmuting.

1. Get Halloween Items by Transmuting
2. The Gibus Family of Hats
3. The Mildly Disturbing Halloween Mask
4. The Nine Halloween Class Masks
   • Saxton Hale Mask
5. The Haunted Scrap
   • HHH Headtaker
   • Spine-[Chilling] Skulls
6. MONOCULUS! and the Bombinomicon
7. Voodoo-Cursed Souls
   • Voodoo-Cursed Items
   • Piles of Ash
   • Halloween Spells
8. The Skull Island Topper
   • Fancy Spellbook & Spellbook Pages
9. Halloween Gift Cauldron
10. Necro Smasher
11. Antique Halloween Goodie Cauldron
12. Taunt Unusualifier
13. Halloween Costumes 2011*
14. Halloween Costumes 2012*
15. Halloween Costumes 2013*
16. Halloween Costumes 2014
17. Halloween Costumes 2015
18. Halloween Costumes 2016
19. Haunted Halloween Gift

*Parts of these Halloween Costume sets could drop as rewards for completing the pop-up Merasmissions during the Scream Fortress 2016 event.

1. Get Halloween Items By Transmuting

(Coming Soon)

2. The Ghastly/ier/iest Gibus

The Gibuses are a series of hats awarded to players that earn a domination against a player who is currently wearing a Gibus.

• Unlike most Halloween items, a Gibus can be worn at any time. It is all-class: it can be worn by any character.
• A Gibus can be painted, changing the color of the entire hat.
• A player can only ever earn one Gibus, and they cannot be traded or sold.
• Players that have the Ghastlier Gibus or the Ghastlierest Gibus earned them before the 2011 Halloween event.
  • They cannot be earned anymore.
• Players that earned a Gibus during the 2012 Halloween event received the Ghostly Gibus instead.
  • All Gibuses earned before the 2012 Halloween event have a Ghostlier style that can be chosen.

The Galvanized Gibus isn’t a Gibus in the above sense; it’s a hat available from the Robo Community Crate #58. It also doesn’t have any Halloween restrictions. To earn: Dominate a player wearing a Ghastly Gibus to earn your own. This can be done at anytime, but only once per Steam account. The others cannot be earned, since you had to earn them during specific windows of time.

A Strange Gibus?!

Yeah, these exist. You would need a Strangifier, a tool item (very rarely dropped from the item drop system) that changes an item’s quality to Strange. And yes, they exist for each kind of Gibus in existence, as well as virtually any other cosmetic item, as well as some weapons. Strangifying a Gibus won’t make it marketable on the Steam Market, like most Strange items. The Strangifier tool items themselves are themselves marketable, and certain ones are worth plenty. But a few of the first Gibuses to exist were accidently untradeable; these are the ones available for sale on the Market, after being strangified.

3. The Mildly Disturbing Halloween Mask

Ever wanted to run around with a paper bag on your head? Not out of shame, but a strange sense of pride? Well then, do I have a hat for you! The MDHM has nine different appearances depending on which character class equips it at the time. It is untradeable and unpaintable. To earn: Collect 20 Halloween Pumpkins, which drop from killed players on any Halloween Event map, to unlock this mask. The pumpkins are a temporary powerup that refills ammo and grant a crit boost for 3.4 seconds. (NOTE: On some Halloween maps, you’ll find yourself frequently running out of ammo, such as when you’re trying to kill a boss. So keep an eye on your ammo, and take advantage of the crit boost as soon as you pick these up.) Collecting 20 pumpkins will earn you the “Candy Coroner” Scarechievement as well.

4. The Nine Halloween Class Masks

Not enough paper bags to wear? Collect the nine Halloween Masks, where there’s one for each class. Any class can wear any mask, so you can put a Pyro Mask on a Soldier if you want. They’re tradable, but not paintable, and they can only be worn during Halloween/Full Moon periods. But that’s not all! Collect all nine, and you can go to your Crafting Menu and craft the Saxton Hale Mask! Run around doing Saxton Hale things as any class. The Saxton Hale Mask is unpaintable, but it is tradable and it can be worn at any time. Wearing the Saxton Hale Mask makes you immune to the Headless Horseless Horsemann’s BOO! Taunt, which stuns players. It doesn’t affect the fear effect from touching ghosts or other bosses’ abilities. Previously, you had to join the Mann Manor event during the annual Halloween Event and find the Haunted Halloween Gift, but the Gift no longer spawns. To earn: Now the Masks are rarely found when turning in a Merasmission during the Halloween Event, or transmuting.

5. The Haunted Scrap

The Haunted Metal Scrap is a special tool item that you can only earn once, and can use it to craft one of four items. It is not tradable or marketable, but it is giftable. To earn: At any time of year, go to any map where the Headless Horseless Horsemann spawns, and deal the killing blow to him to earn the “Gored!” Ghostchievement and unlock the Scrap. But then, what will you do with it? Here are your crafting possibilities (you can only choose one):

• Haunted Scrap + Scotsman’s Skullcutter + 2 refined => The HHH’s Headtaker
• Haunted Scrap + 4 refined => one of three Spine-Chilling Skulls*

Like all crafting, your choice is permanent and cannot be reversed, nor can you ever earn another Haunted Scrap. The Horseless Headless Horseman’s Headtaker is an Unusual weapon that is only available by crafting in the above manner. It functions identically to the Eyelander (even though it may appear larger, it’s not), but emits its own sounds. And it is not an Unusual item in the traditional sense… so yes, you could say that it is an unusual Unusual. The Spine-Chilling Skull is actually one of three similar, but different hats. Each hat has since been modified by Valve to have all three styles available to each hat. The hats are Unique, Limited quality, and are tradable and paintable.

6. MONOCULUS! and the Bombinomicon

If you’ve seen some players running around with a big eyeball for a head, they’re wearing the MONOCULUS!, a cosmetic that replaces their entire head for the Demoman’s missing eye. It is an all-class cosmetic that isn’t paintable or tradable, since you unlock it as an achievement. You have to earn it by fighting the eye-boss itself, Monoculus! It angrily shoots damaging eyeballs at you like rockets. The Bombinomicon is an all-class cosmetic item that you wear on your chest. Wearing it overwrites the usual animation caused by your death, so that you violently explode when you die. The Bombinomicon even overrides special death animations of other weapons such as the Spy-cicle or a Golden Wrench, but not for feign deaths from the Dead Ringer. As an achievement item, it is untradeable and unpaintable. To earn both cosmetic items:

1. Go to the Eyeaduct map, at any time, where Monoculus can spawn.
2. Deal damage to Monoculus just before it dies to earn the “Optical Defusion” Eye-chievement and the MONOCULUS! cosmetic.
3. When Monoculus dies, jump into the portal that appears in the air when he dies, to travel to Loot Island.
4. Climb the stairs of Loot Island, and touch the Bombinomicon after its cage lowers.
   • This will teleport you back to the original server, temporarily invulnerable with boosts to your health, speed, and crits.
   • Move quickly, as you will be killed if you take too long.
   • You must also avoid being killed by your enemies and the hazardous terrain. If you die, you will have to return to Loot Island in the future to try again.
5. This unlocks the “Dive Into a Good Book” Eye-chievement and the Bombinomicon cosmetic.

 

7. Voodoo-Cursed Souls

How come some of the players you’re fighting against look like zombies? It’s because they have equipped a Voodoo-Cursed Soul!This accessory does exactly that: it reskins the entire character to look like an animated zombie. Since it reskins the entire body, it allows pairing with most cosmetics, but with some weird effects such as missing hands or clipping materials. The Haunted Halloween Gift no longer drops on Ghost Fort, so these Souls (and the items need to craft them) can no longer be collected. The old process used to be:

1. Go to the Ghost Fort map (koth_lakeside_event) during the annual Halloween Event days.
2. Collect the Haunted Halloween Gift, a yellow giftbox, that spawns every five minutes when there are at least 10 players on the server.
   • Each will have a random Voodoo-Cursed Item inside.
3. Collect seven Voodoo-Cursed Items to create a Pile of Curses tool item.
4. Use the Pile of Curses to “uncrate” one of the nine random Voodoo-Cursed Souls.
   • The Souls have a chance of being Haunted quality, which are also marketable.
   • They currently sell for about US$1 on the Steam Market.
   • At one time, Halloween Spells would sometimes drop from the Piles of Curses also.

To earn: They rarely drop from as a Merasmission reward, or by transmuting item. Or you can buy a Haunted one from the Market, because you can’t earn them anymore. They currently sell for about US$1 on the Steam Market. Piles of Curses, Voodoo-Cursed Items, and Halloween Spells are no longer available.

8. The Skull Island Topper

The Skull Island Topper is an all-class hat you can unlock by playing on Ghost Fort (a haunted cp_lakeside_event map) at any time. It’s the same hat that the wizard Merasmus is wearing while he throws bombs everywhere. It also tracks the highest level of Merasmus you have helped defeat. It is not tradable or paintable.

Unfilled Fancy Spellbook

A spellbook is necessary to be able to use spell powerups that are found on some Halloween Event maps such as Helltower and Hellstone. To earn the Skull Island Topper and the Unfilled Fancy Spellbook:

1. Go to any Ghost Fort server, at any time.
2. When Merasmus dies, jump into the portal that appears in the air when he dies, to travel to Skull Island.
3. Climb the stairs of Skull Island, and touch the caged Skull Island Topper.
   • This will teleport you back to the original server, temporarily invulnerable with boosts to your health, speed, and crits.
   • Move quickly, as you will be killed if you take too long.
   • You must also avoid being killed by your enemies and the hazardous terrain.
4. This unlocks the “A Lovely Vacation Spot” Necromannchievement, your new hat, and an Unfilled Fancy Spellbook!

Spellbook Pages (fix!)

The Unfilled Fancy Spellbook is an action-slot item that doesn’t do anything… yet. You need to collect at least three Spellbook Pages before it becomes fully functional. To earn Spellbook Pages:

• Pick up Haunted Halloween Gifts on the Helltower map (plr_hightower_event).
  • The Gifts also contain a random 2013 Halloween Costume Part or a Costume Transmogrifier.
• Complete four Bereavements to unlock the “Mann-tastic Four” achievement and its unique Spellbook Page.

Once you have at least 3 pages, it becomes a Fancy Spellbook. Now you can use magic spell powerups on Helltower on Carnival of Carnage. Wait… don’t want to go through all of that? Look in your inventory… you should have a Spellbook Magazine as a Stock action-slot item. Equip it, and you can start slinging spells right away! (This was added during the 2014 Halloween Event, so players no longer have to complete the Fancy Spellbook to use spell powerups on newer maps.) If you join a map that has magic spell powerups, and your loadout doesn’t have a spellbook equipped, you will be prompted upon joining the server whether you want to equip the Spellbook Magazine. If you don’t equip it, you won’t be able to use magic spells. NOTE: A third spellbook, the Fireproof Secret Diary, is no longer available.

9. Halloween Gift Cauldron

The Halloween Gift Cauldron was given away to every player who logged in to TF2 during the 2014 Halloween Event. Opening the cauldron will grant you three random cosmetic items from the 2014 Halloween season; one of the items will be Strange and Haunted quality, and the other two will be Unique quality. All three items (and the cauldron itself) are untradeable, unmarketable and uncraftable. To earn: It is still possible to earn a second Halloween Gift Cauldron, if you haven’t already! Complete the “Carnival of Carnage: Bumper to Bumper to Bumper” Merasmachievement by winning each of the three bumper car mini-games at the end of the Carnival of Carnage rounds (bumper car soccer, duck grabbing on a figure eight, and falling floors).

10. Necro Smasher

The Necro Smasher is an all-class-except-Spy melee weapon that functions identically to your class’s default melee weapon, without any change in range or damage. In the hands of an Engineer, it repairs buildings as normal. To earn: Complete the “Step Right Up” Merasmachievement by completing 4 of the other 6 achievements related to the Carnival of Carnage map (sd_doomsday_event). Be patient, as completing these achievements may require you to play that map quite a bit.

11. Antique Halloween Goodie Cauldron

The Antique Halloween Goodie Cauldron, when used in the backpack, will give you a Seal Mask (see below) and one random costume set cosmetic from the 2011 Halloween season. Note that the 2011 Halloween cosmetics are tradable. To earn: You probably have already earned it. Each player that logs in to TF2 during any Halloween Event season will earn this Goodie Cauldron. Only one can ever be earned, and they aren’t tradable or marketable.

Seal Mask

The Seal Mask is an all-class hat: a visor that covers most of the character’s face. It is not tradable or paintable. Like most Halloween cosmetics, the Seal Mask can only be worn during Halloween/Full Moon. Ever notice that when the Demoman wears the Seal Mask, one of the eyes is taped out?

12. Taunt Unusualifier

Valve has released Unusualifiers that are keyed to a specific taunt. It works just like a strangifier: use the tool item to give the taunt a random unusual effect! For example, you may have the taunt “The Director’s Vision“, and an unusualifier for The Director’s Vision. Using the unusualifier on the taunt, your Director’s Vision receives a random Unusual effect: Spectral Swirl! To earn: Rarely appears as a bonus drop when opening a Creepy Crawly Case (Crate #104), perhaps a 1-2% chance. Note that the Creepy Crawly Case and its special keys do not expire. Note also that there is crates currently double their chances of dropping an unusual item… perhaps that includes the chances of Unusualifiers! Like Unusual hats, they are rare and currently worth a lot of money on the Steam Market…. Click here if you’re curious how much a Conga Unusualifier is being sold for.

13. Halloween Costumes 2011

The first year to offer Halloween Costumes, Scream Fortress 2011 had players competing to grab a Haunted Halloween Gift every 5-10 minutes. This caused players to stop playing the objective and start hunting for the gift. Unintentionally distracting from the match, Valve changed the format slightly the next year. Unlike the later costumes, the 27 accessories that make up the 2011 Halloween costumes are all tradable, so it is possible for you to trade other players for them–or you can buy them outright in the Mann Co. Store (but not on the Market unless they’re Haunted). The Tin Soldier specifically has extra voice lines and a special taunt when the entire costume is worn. Halloween Costumes 2011 cosmetic parts can drop from completed Merasmissions, otherwise you’ll have to buy them from the in-game store.

 

Curse-A-Nature / Tin Soldier

 

Infernal Imp / Highland Hound

 

FrankenHeavy / Brundle Bundle

 

Mad Doktor / Camper Van Helsing

Invisible Rogue

 

14. Halloween Costumes 2012

Only one costume set was released in 2012: the Grand Duchess! The set’s parts were formerly available as drops from Eerie Crate #51; now you can only get them by buying them straight from the Mann Co. Store, or buying their Haunted versions from the Market, which would run about US$6 for the entire set.

12. Halloween Costumes 2013

This year introduced a lot of new Halloween Costumes, and had also made them available in the now-retired Spooky Crate #74, as well as by finding the Haunted Halloween Gift. Currently, they can be bought off of the Steam Market in Haunted quality only. They can also be bought directly from the Mann Co. Store, and be found as rewards for completing Merasmissions during the 2016 Scream Fortress event. Depending on the method you receive the item, they may also be tradable.

• Scout
  • Boston Bulldog
• Soldier
  • Terracotta Trooper
• Pyro
  • Burny the Pyrosaur
  • Malice in Pyroland
  • Murky Lurker
• Demoman
  • Count Tavish
  • The Cursed Captain
• Medic
  • Doctor Galactic
  • The Sun King
• Spy
  • The Gravelpit Emperor

 

 

 

13. Halloween Costumes 2014

14. Halloween Costumes 2015

15. Halloween Costumes 2016

16. Haunted Halloween Gift

The Haunted Halloween Gift no longer drops on any Halloween map. During past Scream Fortress events, you could  find the Haunted Halloween Gift on four different maps: Mann Manor, Eyeaduct, Ghost Fort, and Helltower. The Gift used to spawn at one of several predetermined spawn locations, and will last for 3 minutes after informing you that a Gift has spawned for you. If you fail to find it in time, you then have a 5-10 minute cooldown timer before another Gift respawns for you to try to find once more. (Often, when you join a new eligible server, you will receive a Gift spawn notification within a minute of joining, since your old cooldown timer will have expired.) However, the Gift will not spawn if there are not at least ten players (not bots) playing on the server at the same time. Also, the Gift will only spawn during the Annual Halloween Event (from late October to early November each year). When you pick up a Gift, you then had a three-hour cooldown (real time, not playing time) before you become eligible to pick up another Gift on any server.

• Mann Manor Gifts contain one of nine Halloween Masks.
• Eyeaduct Gifts contain one of 27 Halloween Costume Parts from the Halloween 2011 collection.
  • Gifts found in the Underworld are Haunted quality.
• Ghost Fort Gifts are no longer available. They would contain Voodoo-Cursed Items and/or a Halloween Spell, or rarely Halloween constume parts or other items.
• Helltower Gifts contain a Spellbook Page, plus either one of many Halloween 2013 items OR a Costume Transmogrifier.

 

NOTE: The Haunted Halloween Gift no longer spawns, ever. It was removed by Valve and replaced by the Gargoyle transmute and the Merasmus Contract systems.   [N] Obey

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

The following blogpost is a guide about the many Halloween-themed maps, items, and events that have had annual updates since they first began in 2009. Most of the following information is from the Official TF2 Wiki.

 

FYI: I am currently (Oct 25, 2016) working on a comprehensive FAQ of all Halloween Items. There’s a whole lot of them, so check back here in a few days and hopefully I’ll have a link here.

 

NOTE: Links to more about the 2015 Halloween Event, Scream Fortress VII, and the current 2016 Halloween Event. No, they’re not complete yet………..

Table of Contents AKA Timeline of Halloween Updates

1. What is Halloween/Full Moon Mode?
   1. What changes during the annual Halloween Event?
2. Halloween 2009: Harvest Event map, the Ghastly Gibus, and the Mildly Disturbing Halloween Mask
3. Halloween 2010: Mann Manor map, the HHH, the Halloween class Masks, and Haunted Scrap
4. Halloween 2011: Eyeaduct map, the Monoculus, and some Halloween Costumes
5. Halloween 2012: Ghost Fort map, Halloween Spells, Voodoo-Cursed Souls, more Halloween Costumes, and the Skull Island Topper
6. Halloween 2013: Helltower map, Spellbooks, and a mock-Hell Underworld
7. Halloween 2014: Carnival of Carnage map, random global Curses, and a Bumper Car Underworld
8. The Halloween TF2 Story, in comic book form.
9. All Halloween Items, and How to Earn Them

 

1. What is Halloween/Full Moon Mode?

The “Halloween/Full Moon Mode” is a server setting that permits players to wear Halloween/Full Moon-restricted cosmetic items (H/FMs). The mode is defaulted OFF except for three days around the real-life Full Moon, as well as for several weeks around Halloween (late October/early November). On a private or community server, H/FM Mode is defaulted OFF, but can be turned on by a server administrator with certain ConVars.

The “Eternaween” tool item which you can use to call a vote on your current server (public or private), to allow Halloween/Full Moon Mode for the next two hours. You can’t use this item on servers that disable voting, however, and you keep the item if the vote is downvoted or disabled. They can be bought for less than $0.05 on the Steam Market. This tool only enables the use of cosmetics; it doesn’t trigger Halloween Events.

Halloween Event

The Halloween Event is a period of several weeks around Halloween (late October/early November) when the Halloween Event maps (only) have extra features:

• Players on any Halloween Event map drop Halloween Pumpkins when killed.
  • Picking them up refills your ammo/metal and grants a short full-crit boost.
  • Picking up 20 of them (from any map) will unlock the Mildly Disturbing Halloween Mask.
• A Haunted Halloween Gift can appear on Mann Manor, Eyeaduct, Ghost Fort, Helltower, and Carnival of Carnage.
  • Picking it up will earn you different items, depending on the map.

 

2. The Haunted Halloween Special (2009)

The first annual Halloween Event launched the following features:

• Harvest, a KOTH (king of the hill) map.
• Harvest Event, its Halloween Event counterpart, also a KOTH map.
• Scarechievement achievements that can be earned.
  • Completing certain achievements could earn you Halloween-themed cosmetic items.
• Halloween Pumpkins are powerups dropped by players who die on any Halloween map.  It refills ammo/metal and grants a short crit boost. Picking up 20 of them (from any map) will unlock the Mildly Disturbing Halloween Mask.
• Pumpkin Bombs deal up to 140 damage (area-effect) to anyone standing nearby when they take any damage.
• The Ghastly Gibus was earned by the first 11,111 users to find a secret page in the splash pages of the event. Since then, anyone who dominates a player wearing the Ghastly Gibus will earn the “Ghastly Gibus Grab” Scarechivement, as well as that year’s current incarnation of the hat. You can still earn a version of this non-tradable hat by earning the achievement, regardless of what map you’re on when completed.
• The Gentle Mann’s Service Medal was also earned by the first 10,319 users to find a second secret page.  This is item is now Limited (Market page).

Harvest

Harvest (koth_harvest_final) is a relatively simple map, fall-themed with pumpkins and carts, with only one central point inside a building in the center of the map. It is one of the easiest maps to learn.

Harvest Event

 

Harvest Event (koth_harvest_event) is essentially a darker, spookier version of the same map, featuring explosive pumpkin bombs (shoot to detonate), and a ghost haunting the building in the center occasionally. If you haven’t played any Halloween maps before, give Harvest Event a try.

The ghost is Zephaniah Mann. This is his land–he is the original owner of the land, and the father of Redmond and Blutarch. If he touches you, he stuns you for a couple of seconds. Say hello!

During the annual Halloween Event, Halloween Pumpkins also drop from killed players, and Pumpkin Bombs lie in various players on the map.

 

3. The Scream Fortress Update (2010)

The second annual Halloween Event launched the following new features:

• Mountain Lab (cp_mountainlab), a new asymmetric control point map.
• Mann Manor (cp_manor_event), Mountain Lab’s Halloween Event counterpart.
• Retrieving the Haunted Halloween Gift on the Mann Manor map will grant one of nine Halloween Masks, one of each class but can be worn by any class.
• The Horseless Headless Horseman (the “HHH”) haunts Mann Manor. Killing him for the first time can earn you a single Haunted Metal Scrap.

 

Mountain Lab

In Mountain Lab, BLU leaves from a large house and must capture three points in order while the RED team defends a laboratory in the daytime.

Mann Manor

In Mann Manor, RED defends an old haunted house at nighttime. The first “boss monster” of TF2, the Horseless Headless Horsemann, spawns at the current contested capture point about every 8 minutes and goes on a rampage. Say hello to old Silas Mann before he one-hits you!

The HHH will choose a random player as “It”, and he will chase and slay that player, unless you can avoid getting killed long enough, get killed, OR “tag” another player with a melee weapon hit. The HHH can also be killed.

During the annual Halloween Event: Pumpkin Bombs fill the map, Halloween Pumpkins are dropped by killed players, and the Haunted Halloween Gift will spawn at fixed locations around the map.

 

4. The Very Scary Halloween Special (2011)

The third annual Halloween Event offered Eyeaduct, a reskinned Viaduct map, and introduced the following features:

• Eyeaduct, a reskinned KOTH map of Viaduct, with two hidden areas: Underworld and Loot Island.
• A Halloween Goodie Cauldron will be given to any player who logs in to TF2 during any Halloween Event, but only once ever.
• Introduced the Monoculus boss.

Eyeaduct

Eyeaduct (koth_viaduct_event) is the Halloween Event version of the mostly symmetrical King of the Hill map Viaduct. Except now, you have to contend with MONOCULUS!

This angry floating eyeball-boss appears every 3 minutes, and prevents the capture of Eyeaduct’s point while it exists. It teleports around, leaving behind portals that go to the Underworld.

Defeating Monoculus (dealing the killing blow) for the first time will earn you the all-class hat of the same name. But wait! It will return in 3 minutes, stronger than before (unless it escapes)! Each level of Monoculus gives is more health and a faster attack rate.

Underworld

The Underworld is a dangerous place, continually draining your health.

If you manage to escape, you’ll become temporarily buffed, and your attacks will stun Monoculus if you hit it while under its effects.

During the Halloween Event, Halloween Pumpkins are dropped by killed players, and the Haunted Halloween Gift will spawn at fixed locations around the map. Any accessories found in Gifts from the Underworld will be Haunted quality. Also, killing Monoculus and entering its portal will take you to Loot Island instead of the Underworld!

Loot Island

Unlike the Underworld, Loot Island doesn’t damage you over time, and it has a book “portal” for you to jump into to return to the Eyeaduct map.

During the Halloween Event, if you can reach the book in time, you can earn the Bombinomicon all-class accessory! If not in time, you’ll die.

 

5. The Fourth Annual Spectral Halloween Special (2012)

The fourth annual Halloween Event brought a host of new content for Team Fortress 2:

• Ghost Fort, a reskinned Lakeside map.
• Merasmus, a wizardly boss who blasts you with magic, makes you dance at his whim, spins a wheel of random magic effects, and taunts you repeatedly.
• Halloween spells are temporary powerup abilities you can strategically use in battle.
• Wave 666, a reskinned MvM map with waves of difficult zombie bots
• Another collection of Halloween cosmetics.

Ghost Fort

Ghost Fort (koth_lakeside_event) is the Halloween Event version of the desert-themed Lakeside King-of-the-Hill map. (Hard to recognize, isn’t it?) Ghost Fort’s layout is slightly altered from Lakeside, with upper platforms around the central control point, and the enclosed room with the pool of water replaced with a “bottomless” pit. Also, a team must control the central point for 7 minutes, instead of the usual 3 minutes.

Merasmus also haunts, continually harassing players. If you get turned into a bomb, rush the wizard to stun him and gain a buff.  Twice before he dies, Merasmus will disappear and disguise himself as a random furniture prop. If defeated, he opens a portal to Skull Island.

During the Halloween Event: Halloween Pumpkins are dropped by killed players, and the Haunted Halloween Gift will spawn at fixed locations. Also, killing Merasmus opens a portal to

• Halloween Pumpkins are powerups dropped by players who die on any Halloween map.  It refills ammo/metal and grants a short crit boost. Picking up 20 of them (from any map) will unlock the Mildly Disturbing Halloween Mask.
• The Haunted Halloween Gift will spawn on Ghost Fort under the same conditions as Mann Manor (see above). On the Ghost Fort map, however, the Gift grants either a Halloween Spell, a Voodoo-Cursed Item, or (rarely) a Halloween-themed cosmetic item.  See below for the details on these.
• The control point has been enchanted to spin the “Wheel of Fate” each time the central control point is capped. The random result of the spin affects the players of both teams with wacky powers.
• Halloween Spells are tool items used to give various effects to weapons, cosmetic items, or classes.  Remember, these spell effects permanently affect an applied item, but the effects are not visible except during Halloween/Full Moon Mode.

Skull Island

 

Ghost Town and Wave 666

What, Advanced-level MvM matches too easy for you? Then fill your Upgrade Canteen with Ammo Refills and head to Ghost Town (mvm_ghost_town), a reskinned, nighttime Coal Town that WILL DESTROY YOUR FACE with zombie bots.  Six-hundred and sixty-six of them, in fact–and they are Expert level, which is harder than anything MvM can throw at you.  It’s beatable, but you’re probably gonna die to the zombie apocalypse, so you might as well die with an empty clip and a broken sentry.

 

 

6. The Scream Fortress Fifth Annual Helloween Special (2013)

 

The fifth annual Halloween Event offered Helltower, a variation on the Payload Race map Hightower, over a hundred new cosmetic items, and a few new tool items.

 

Helltower

Helltower (plr_hightower_event) is the Halloween-themed version of Hightower, with a Clocktower replacing the building above the chasm. Since it is a Payload Race map, you try to push your cart while preventing your opponents from doing the same. When one side wins, everyone teleports to a mock Hell and try to kill off the other side one last time to win.

• Halloween Pumpkins spawn on all Halloween maps.  If picked up by touching it, it refills ammo/metal and grants 3.2 seconds of crit boost.  Picking up 20 Halloween Pumpkins (from any map) would unlock a hat, the Mildly Disturbing Halloween Mask, a paper bag that has a different face depending on which class wears it at the time. You can still earn this non-tradable hat.
• The Haunted Halloween Gift will grants one or more of the following:
  • One of the many Halloween 2013 cosmetic items; unlike purchased cosmetics, these freebies will be uncraftable and untradable
  • Spellbook Pages, which can be placed into a Spellbook (see below)
  • A Costume Transmogrifier tool item, which will convert one Halloween 2013 costume item into another
• Occasionally, the Clocktower will toll a bell to announce the Witching Hour, during which hostile Skeletons will spew forth from the temporary glowing bridges of the Clocktower. During that time, players can access a Book of Rare Spells at the Clocktower.
• You can pick up and cast Magic Spells!

 

 

Helltower Magic Spells

Magic Spells are temporary powerups granting special abilities, and are not usable until you equip a Spellbook Magazine, Fancy Spellbook, or Fireproof Secret Diary. They are retained when you die, but they are lost after being cast. You must cast the spell you currently have before you can pick up another.

• Regular Magic Spells on Helltower:
  • (EDIT: Restored spell lists to the previous settings.)
  • A two-charge Fireball that shoots a ball of fire that also causes afterburn
  • A three-charge Teleport that shoots a ball that teleports you to the ground it impacts on
  • A two-charge Superjump (with small health boost)
  • A single Healing Aura that grants 1-second invulnerability and 3-second fast healing
  • A two-charge Ball of Bats that explodes into a cloud of bats that cause bleeding
  • A single-charge Pumpkin MIRV that launches a volley of pumpkin bombs that you or your team can shoot to explode
  • A single-charge Invisibility that grants 8-second invisibility, even while attacking, but you cannot push the cart while cloaked
• Rare Magic Spells can only be found at the Clocktower’s Book of Rare Spells during the Witching Hour, defeating a Skeleton King, or found randomly in Hell. They include:
  • A mini-Monoculus is summoned to attack your enemies for 8 seconds
  • Three Skeletons are summoned to attack your enemies
  • A single-charged Ball Lightning that damages and pulls targeted enemies for a short while
  • A Meteor Shower attacks the impact area after an initial fireball
  • Minifies the caster to a tiny body and a big head, granting unlimited jumping and increased movement/attack/reload speeds
  • One of the other standard Spells

 

7. Scream Fortress VI (2014)

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. 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.

Curses

Under construction….

 

Updated 11/5/14:  Merasmus’s curses remove all projectiles and empties sentries of ammo whenever players are teleported to the main point of the map.

Carnival of Carnage Magic Spell List

Magic Spells are temporary powerups granting special abilities, and are not usable until you equip a Spellbook Magazine, Fancy Spellbook, or Fireproof Secret Diary. They are retained when you die, but they are lost after being cast. You must cast the spell you currently have before you can pick up another.

• Regular Magic Spells on Carnival of Carnage:
  • A two-charge Fireball
  • A three-charge Teleport
  • A two-charge Superjump (with small health boost)
  • A single Healing Aura that grants 1-second invulnerability and 3-second fast healing
  • A two-charge Ball of Bats that explodes into a cloud of bats that cause bleeding
  • A single-charge Pumpkin MIRV
  • A single-charge Invisibility that grants 8-second invisibility
  • Fires a Tesla Bolt that damages and pulls targeted enemies for a short while
  • A Meteor Shower attacks the impact area after an initial fireball
  • Minifies the caster to a tiny body and a big head
• Bumper Car Spells can be gained and cast during the Carnival Underworld mini-game, and include:
  • Bombinomicon Head: Deals 50 damage to you if the timer runs out. If you run into an enemy, removes the timer and damages/knocks back the enemy instead.
  • Boxing Rocket: Shoots a giant boxing glove as a rocket.
  • Uber Heal: Removes 50% of your damage taken only
  • Parachute: Launches you into the air then lets you float down slowly

For starters, make sure to read this post by Valve about what’s coming. And then there’s this splash page….

 

Bumper Cars in a Carnival Underworld

Akin to a game of Super Smash Bros., players drive around on bumper cars trying to either ghostify the entire enemy side, or complete the objective in one of three mini-games. Bumper cars are receive greater knockback as they take on further damage, and players who fall off the track turn into ghosts.

If you’re ghosted, hold down your jump button to fly, and if you can touch one of your allies, you will return your bumper car to the game!

The three mini-game modes are:

• “Falling Platforms”: Random platforms just start falling, so try to stay on the last one!
  • Spells are disabled in this minigame only.
  • If there is only one platform remaining, the Horseless Headless Horsemann appears in an attempt to make players fall off.
• “Bumper Car Soccer”: Both teams try to push a beach ball into their opponents’ goal three times to win.
  • After 45 seconds, the Horseless Headless Horsemann is summoned to try to force the end of the minigame.
• “Duck Collectors”: Both teams run around on a figure-eight track trying to collect 200 rubber duckies as a team to win.
  • Hitting opponent cause 2-point golden duckies to fly out of their rammed car.

 

 

8. The Comics For Each Halloween Special

The story may be ridiculous, but knowing the story will make your battles on the Halloween maps make a little more sense.  Maybe? Yes. Probably. If you squint.  That said, here are the comics to catch you up with why you are, in fact, shooting down a giant eyeball of hate and casting spells from a dog-eared periodical:

Halloween 2011: “Bombinomicon”

Halloween 2012: “Doom-Mates”

Halloween 2013: “Grave Matters”

Halloween 2014:  “Blood Money”

9. List of Items…?

This part is under construction.  Fixing it SOON.

The Ghastly Gibus was earned by the first 11,111 users to find a secret page in the splash pages of the event. Since then, anyone who dominates a player wearing the Ghastly Gibus will earn the “Ghastly Gibus Grab” Scarechivement, as well as that year’s current incarnation of the hat. You can still earn a version of this non-tradable hat by earning the achievement, regardless of what map you’re on when completed.

Halloween Pumpkins are powerups dropped by players who die on any Halloween map.  It refills ammo/metal and grants a short crit boost. Picking up 20 of them (from any map) will unlock the Mildly Disturbing Halloween Mask.

 

The Haunted Halloween Gift will randomly spawn, choosing a player on the server. The Gift spawns only at several predetermined locations. Only the chosen player will be able to see the lime-green gift box, and has 3 minutes to retrieve it before it disappears.  If picked up, that player cannot earn another for at least 45 minutes of playing time, while the gift respawns for someone else in 30 seconds. (The Gift will not spawn unless there are at least 10 non-bot players on the server.)

For the Gift to spawn, must be a registered server with at least 10 players on the server.

• Retrieving the Haunted Halloween Gift on the Mann Manor map will grant one of nine Halloween Masks, one of each class but can be worn by any class. Multiple copies of these masks can be collected, and by collecting one of all nine masks, a Saxton Hale Mask can be crafted. Unlike the Halloween Masks, the Saxton Hale Mask does not have a Halloween/Full Moon holiday restriction, so it can be worn at any time.
• The Haunted Halloween Gift will spawn on Eyeaduct under the same conditions as Mann Manor (see above). On the Eyeaduct map, however, the Gift grants one of 27 Halloween Costume 2011 cosmetic items. Any Gifts found in the Underworld will be Haunted quality.
• The Haunted Halloween Gift will spawn on Ghost Fort under the same conditions as Mann Manor (see above). On the Ghost Fort map, however, the Gift grants either a Halloween Spell, a Voodoo-Cursed Item, or (rarely) a Halloween-themed cosmetic item.  See below for the details on these.

Halloween Spells

This update also launched the collection and usage of Halloween Spells.  They are obtained by picking up Halloween Haunted Gifts–the green-yellow gifts that can drop for you about once every forty-five minutes, that only you can see.

NEW!  As of 10/13/14, these tool items are now tradable!

Halloween Spells are tool items used to give various effects to weapons, cosmetic items, or classes.  Remember, these spell effects permanently affect an applied item, but the effects are not visible except during Halloween/Full Moon, Halloween maps, and servers that have Halloween mode turned on.  They can only be found on Ghost Fort. There are four kinds of Halloween Spells:

1. Footprint Effects (hat-slot item): Causes the equipped player to leave behind glowing footprints of a certain color.
2. Paint Effects (any cosmetic item): Causes the equipped cosmetic item to color-change from its original color, to a specific color, then back again.
3. Vocal Effects (a hat equippable by a specific class): Causes the equipped player’s voice to be lowered, similar to the Big Head curse.
   • If applied to an all-class hat, its effect will work for any wearer.
4. Weapon Effects (specific weapons): Causes the equipped weapon to have specific effects, such as pumpkin-shaped projectiles and ghostly particles rising from dead enemies.

Voodoo-Cursed Items are also funky-looking tool items. Their purpose is to collect 7 of one kind, then use them to craft a Pile of Curses.

In turn, a Pile of Curses is a tool item that you can open like a crate, but without needing a key.  When opened, it drops one of 9 Voodoo-Cursed Souls–a cosmetic (Halloween/Full Moon restricted) item that changes the appearance of one of the nine classes into a zombie. There is a chance that the Soul will be Haunted quality. In addition there is a chance that a Halloween Spell may drop as well as the Soul.  (Previously, Eerie Crates were also a possible drop, but they were retired after the Halloween 2012 event; the cosmetics from that crate are still purchasable from the Mann Co. Store).

The Haunted Halloween Gift will spawn on Helltower under the same conditions as Mann Manor (see above). On the Helltower map, however, the Gift grants one or more of the following:

• One of the many Halloween 2013 cosmetic items; unlike purchased cosmetics, these freebies will be uncraftable and untradable
• Spellbook Pages, which can be placed into a Spellbook (see below)
• A Costume Transmogrifier tool item, which will convert a chosen Halloween 2013 costume item into another costume item from the same group that is equippable by the given class (i.e. a Soldier Costume Transmogrifier could convert a Scout’s “Hound’s Hood” into a Soldier’s “Shaolin Sash”).

 

The winning survivors can then march over to Skull Island and unlock the Bereavement achievement “Hat Out of Hell”, gaining an “Unfilled Fancy Spellbook” action slot item.

• Putting at least three Spellbook Pages into it changes it into a Fancy Spellbook action slot item, but otherwise has no (apparent) additional function.

 

Bosses

The Horseless Headless Horseman (the “HHH”), haunts Mann Manor. About every 8 minutes, he spawns at the currently contested control point and goes on a rampage, quickly running up to and killing players on both teams with his gigantic axe. He targets a nearby random player, which declares that player “It”.  That player will be the first to die unless s/he either manages to avoid getting killed for 30 seconds, or hits an enemy player with a melee weapon, “tagging” that player with the “It” status.  Occasionally it will also taunt, stunning all nearby players for a few seconds in fear (unless they’re wearing the Saxton Hale Mask or the Horseless Headless Horsemann’s Head). He is immune to all on-hit effects and all status effects.

The Horseless Headless Horsemann (the “HHH”) has lots of health, which is based on the number of players on the server, and can be harmed by players from both teams. If killed, he will not respawn for another 8 minutes, and kill credit will go to the last three players to damage it.  Getting kill credit on the HHH for the first time will earn you the “Gored!” Ghostchievement, a you-only-get-one-ever Haunted Metal Scrap, which in turn can be used to craft either the Horseless Headless Horsemann’s Headtaker melee weapon for the Demoman, or one of three random styles of all-class, tradable skull-themed hats.

The HHH Headtaker functions just like the Eyelander, gaining strength as you earn heads of slain enemies.

• Like Mann Manor, Eyeaduct has its own unique “boss monster”: the Monoculus! It appears about every 3 minutes from the start of the round or its last appearance. When it spawns, the point resets to neutral ownership and cannot be captured. This giant eye-boss shoots barrages of eyeball crit rockets, and gets temporarily angry when critically hit. It teleports around the map, and when it does so, it leaves behind a portal leading to the Underworld where the player can reach the other side to earn a powerful invulnerability/crit/speed buff. Monoculus must be defeated within 2 minutes, or it escapes without being successfully killed. Regardless of outcome, it will respawn once more in about 3 minutes; each time Monoculus is killed (until the map restarts), Monoculus level increases by one as it becomes stronger!! Naturally, getting your opponents to work together to defeat Monoculus can be difficult.
• If Monoculus is killed, it creates a giant portal to the Underworld.  Players entering the portal must quickly run to Loot Island to reach the Bombinomicon book in time.  Reaching the Bombinomicon unlocks the “Dive Into a Good Book” Eye-chievement and the Bombinomicon cosmetic item.  Being present on a server when Monoculus is killed unlocks the “Optical Defusion” Eye-chievement and the Monoculous head-replacing cosmetic item.
• Merasmus also haunts Ghost Fort is the Soldier’s former roommate and very cantankerous wizard, Merasmus.  He appears every few minutes and continually harasses the players and interrupts play. The wizard prefers to float in midair near the control point, but will teleport randomly, whacking players with his staff, launch volleys of bombs, and cast a spell that both ignites you and launches you into the air.  When Merasmus teleports, several players will have their heads replaced with a bomb, which will certainly explode unless you reach the wizard in time. The bombs then stun the wizard and grant you a short invulnerability/crit/speed buff.  Twice before he dies, Merasmus will disappear and disguise himself as a random furniture prop, similar to the PropHunt game mode or Hide and Seek.
• Merasmus must be killed within one-and-a-half minutes, or he will escape. If defeated, he opens a portal to Skull Island for a few seconds, where players can climb the island to earn the Necromannchievement “Wizards Never Prosper” and the Skull Island Topper all-class hat.  Merasmus will then return in a few minutes, having gained a level and thus stronger.  The Skull Island Topper hat will record the highest-level Merasmus you have witnessed defeated.  If not defeated, Merasmus will reset to level one.  (Hint: Headshotting Merasmus with the Huntsman sniper bow is very effective!)
• All those who succeed in returning from Skull Island in time will gain the invulnerability/crit/speed boost for a short time.

 

HOLY SNAP this has been a lot of work!

[N] Obey

Here’s the scoop:

1. Limited Late Summer Crates (#86) are now retired.
2. New convars and voting options have been added to servers:
   • Class limits can now be set for each class (without requiring third-party mods)
     • Voting to allow/disallow class limits can now be enabled, but defaults to “off”
     • Separate convars exist to permit these in MvM games
   • Convar allowing voting to restart a map now defaults to “off”
3. In case you missed it–servers #13 Harvest and #15 Hightower have merged their stats, and are hosting a (hopefully monthly) contest with keys for prizes!
4. Until this Sunday afternoong, Steam is hosting a ” ‘Free Weekend’ Weekend” with ten games becoming temporarily free-to-play and having sales of at least 50% off.
5. [EDIT: 10/20] You can now enable Halloween spells on your server, manage their drop rate, and create spells-enabled maps with new ConVars.
6. [EDIT: 10/20] Halloween-restricted cosmetic items now always work on the usual Halloween maps, such as koth_viaduct_event.
7. [EDIT: 10/20] The Spellbook Magazine, which enables spellcasting on servers where Halloween spells are enabled, is now a stock action item that all TF2 accounts now possess.
   • This is both to ensure that all players can access spells-enabled servers at all times, even when the item loadout is unavailable or when the server is set to allow only stock weapons.

 

Full Patch Notes, Patch 1: 10/20/14

• Fixed another exploit that allowed clients to have an out-of-date, corrupt, or modified version of items_game.txt
• Fixed clients not downloading *.dx80.vtx, *.dx90.vtx, and *.sw.vtx files from servers running custom content
• Fixed sv_pure defaulting to -2 instead of 0
• Fixed font issues for Mac clients
• Made the Spellbook Magazine a base action slot item for players to equip and use when playing on a server that uses Halloween Spells
• Fixed not being able to wear Halloween-restricted cosmetic items on Halloween maps outside of the regular Halloween and Fullmoon events
• Halloween spells can now be enabled and controlled on servers via ConVars tf_spells_enabled and tf_player_spell_drop_on_death_rate
• Halloween spells can now be enabled by map authors via HolidayEntity by setting the flag HalloweenSetUsingSpells

Patch 2

Fixed a server crash related to gamestats

 

Full Patch Notes: 10/16/14

• Fixed an exploit related to clients uploading files to servers
• Fixed a problem that allowed clients to have an out-of-date, corrupt, or modified version of items_game.txt
  • TF2 will not run if a bad items_game.txt file is found
  • If your items_game.txt file is reported as being corrupt, delete any items_game.txt files you have added and verify your TF2 installation
• Fixed a timing problem with the Rancho Relaxo taunt animation
• Removed the Limited Late Summer Crate from the crate drop list
• Limited Late Summer Crates can no longer be opened
• Removed the Limited Late Summer Crate Key from the Mann Co. Store
• Limited Late Summer Crate Keys have been converted to Mann Co. Supply Crate Keys
• Fixed Linux dedicated servers not showing up in the LAN serverbrowser tab when using sv_lan 1
• Fixed the Duels leaderboard not displaying current counts
• Added the explosion particles to the list of files that we always enforce consistency on
• Added ConVar tf_classlimit
  • When set, limit each class to the specified value
  • Works in any game mode, but overridden in Tournament mode and Highlander mode
• Updated the model/materials for the Runner’s Warm-Up to fix a lighting issue
• Updated the equip_regions for the Couvre Corner and the Pocket Heavy
• Updated rd_asteroid
  • Continued art-pass process

• Updated the vote system
  • Fixed team-specific vote sounds/notifications playing/showing for the ineligible team
  • sv_vote_issue_restart_game_allowed default changed to off
  • Added sv_vote_issue_restart_game_allowed_mvm (on by default)
  • Added “Enable/Disable Class Limits” vote
    • Controlled by sv_vote_issue_classlimits_allowed (off by default)
      • Limit controlled by sv_vote_issue_classlimits_max (default 4)
    • Controlled by sv_vote_issue_classlimits_allowed_mvm in Mann vs. Machine (off by default)
      • Limit controlled by sv_vote_issue_classlimits_max_mvm in Mann vs. Machine (default 2)

Undocumented changes

• Added Florida LAN Medal.
• Updated the description of the Limited Late Summer Crate.
• Kick Messages are now localized for clients.
• Vote issue names are now localized in the vote menu.

[N] Obey

The following is a beginner-level guide describing all of the ways to earn weapons and cosmetic items in TF2. For details on items, gameplay, or anything else Team Fortress related, be sure to bookmark The Official TF2 Wiki.

 

 

 Over 25k lifetime hits!

Updated 11/2/16:

• Simplified information about item qualities
• Compared rocket launcher prices with differing item qualities
• Added links to Halloween-themed items where necessary
• Added more pictures for easier reading
• Hit 25,000 lifetime hits by November 1st

Updated 7/31/16:

• Added links to recent tutorials on class rebalances and matchmaking changes since Pyro vs. Heavy patch

Updated 4/23/16:

• More info about free hats you can earn
• More info about Australium and Graded (contract) Weapons

 

So you’ve just started playing TF2, learned some maps, captured some points, and found a couple of nifty items. But other players are blowing you up with awesome weapons while wearing ridiculous hats.  How can you get more weapons and cosmetic items?  That’s what this guide is for, so read on!

Similar bloglinks useful to you:

• My new TF2Newbs Guide to Halloween Items shows all of the items you can earn, and how to earn them
• A TF2Newbs Guide to MvM Item Hunting, for those looking for Australium and Botkiller weapons, and Killstreak Kits
• A Closer Look at TF2 Class Rebalances for the changes to the game since Pyro vs. Heavy
• This short tutorial on TF2 Matchmaking for the differences in Casual/Comp play and how to create your own game

 

Table of Contents

0. Being Free-to-Play vs. Being Premium

1. Earn Items By Playing TF2

• Achievement Items
• Free Cosmetics You Can Earn
• The TF2 Item Drop System
• Rewards for Playing Mann vs. Machine, the Players-vs.-Bots “Horde Mode”
• Earn TF2 Items While Playing Other Steam Games

2. Crafting Items: What To Do with Metal, Crates, and Robot Parts

3. Buying Items From the Mann Co. Store or the Steam Market

• Explanation of Item Qualities like Stranges and Unusuals
  • Updated: Rocket Launchers as example of price comparison
  • Updated: Typical item prices of each quality
• Decorated Weapons, earned by contracts
• Trading-Up Items

4. Trading Items With Other Players

5. Free Unusuals!

6. What To Do If You Have Too Many Items

7. Helpful Links

0. First: Are you Free-to-Play?

There are two kinds of TF2 accounts: free-to-play accounts and premium accounts.

• Free-to-play (or “F2P”) accounts only get one page of 50 inventory slots, limited crafting options, can only drop some basic items, and most importantly, have limited trading options.
• Premium accounts start with six pages of inventory slots (300 total), have full crafting options, can drop basic and rare items, and have normal trading options.

Why aren’t all accounts Premium? The reason is to reduce the number of spammers and cheaters on Steam by attaching a small monetary cost to each account, so that thousands of accounts cannot be used by a single person for these schemes.

So if you are free-to-play, you will not have full access to all of the kinds of items out there. There are a couple of simple ways to gain a premium account:

• Buy something in the Mann Co. Store, anything at all, no minimum. A single US$0.49 weapon is all you need.
• Buy the Orange Box from the Steam Store for US$19.99, which grants you a Premium TF2 account as well as two other Valve games: Half-Life 2 and Portal.
• Have someone trade or gift you an Upgrade to Premium Gift, which is a tool item that makes your account premium when used.
  • However, your Steam Account must be premium to be able to trade from the Steam Client, which means you’ve made at least $5 worth of purchases. Steam Trading and Steam Chat are two features disabled if you’ve never bought anything on the Steam Account you’re using.

Why would someone give you a Premium Gift? Doing so grants the giver a Professor Speks accessory, or adds to the counter of their existing Professor Speks.

If you make a purchase that upgrades your account to premium, you are asked to refer one person on your friends list as someone who has helped you in the game.  That is how a person is awarded a Professor Speks or ranks up its counter.

 

Now that you know your status, here are all of the ways that you can acquire new items:

 

1. Earn Items By Playing the Game

Earn “Achievement Items”

There are hundreds of achievements to earn in Team Fortress 2. Just play the game, and if you complete a specific task, the achievement will unlock and announce it to everyone on the server. You can check which achievements you have or haven’t learned in your Steam Client.

If you earn enough class-specific achievements, you will earn one of three weapons available for each class. These items significantly change the role or options available for that class, such as a Sandvich healing item for the Heavy, or a Huntsman bow that replaces the Sniper’s rifle!  Here is the full list of 27 achievement weapons in TF2.

Note: These achievement-reward items have the untradable trait, so you can’t trade them away later. And if you use them to craft metal or another item, the resulting item will carry that untradable trait, and the game will warn you that that will occur.  This is to keep players from having dozens of separate Steam accounts just to farm for items. Only achievement-reward items will have the untradable trait.

There are “achievement servers” in the TF2 community, but TF2Newbs doesn’t have one; they’re frowned on by Valve.

 

All-Class Cosmetics You Can Earn

As stated above, earn the Professor Speks all-class cosmetic by gifting someone an Upgrade to Premium Gift. It cannot be painted or traded.

Earn the Ghastly Gibus all-class hat by earning a domination on a player wearing their own Gibus. There are multiple, slightly different versions (the Ghastly, Ghastlier, Ghastlierest, Ghostly, and Galvanized), and dominated any player except for the Galvanized will earn you your own Ghastly Gibus (the other versions were awarded earlier). You can earn this achievement at any time, and it can be worn at all time, unlike many Halloween-themed items. It is paintable, but cannot be traded.

You can also get the Pyrovision Goggles by dominating a player that is wearing them. Pryovision items changes the scenery on most official maps so that you play in a pastel-painted world of balloons and laughter instead of the screams and gibs of your enemies. You can change its vision in your Advanced Options menu.

Earn a Mann Co. Cap all-class hat the first time you buy anything at the Mann Co. Store, regardless of amount spent. (You can only earn one.) It is paintable, but not tradable. You can also buy a real-life version from New Era. There is a second hat, the Mann Co. Online Cap, which you can earn by buying something from the Mann Co. Online store, which sells real-life Valve merchandise like posters, T-shirts, and hats!

Earn the all-class World Traveler’s Hat by buying your first Map Stamp, which is not an item, but a donation that goes directly to the author(s) of the Community-made map you choose. You can level it up by buying more Map Stamps. When you play on a map where you’ve purchased map stamps, you can give your hat unusual effects! This hat is paintable, but not tradable.

Other cosmetics you can earn by playing TF2:

• There are lots of other cosmetics that can be earned during the annual Halloween or Winter Holiday events! See my Halloween Items FAQ to learn how to earn Halloween-themed items. Some can be earned at any time, like the Ghastly Gibus.
• Director’s Vision: Earn this all-class taunt by recording a replay of yourself playing the game, then enter the video editing window. It’s that easy.
• Frontline Field Recorder: Get this hat by uploading a replay video to YouTube from within TF2, and earn 1,000 lifetime views.
• Proof of Purchase: By being gifted the game, or buying TF2 yourself, like in the Orange Box from the Steam Store, earn this hat.
• Party Hat and TF Birthday Noisemaker: Get an all-class hat and an action item by playing the game on August 24th, TF2′s anniversary launch date. The Noisemaker can only be used on August 24th (or any server that has Birthday Mode enabled).
• Spirit of Giving: Earn this accessory playing during the annual Winter Holiday. Rank it up by gifting, such as using a Secret Saxton tool item.
• Horace the Bear Mask: Be an RPS Supporter (for the gaming news website Rock Paper Shotgun).

 

Earn Items by Playing the Game

Team Fortress 2 wants to reward you for playing, and does so by granting you periodic “item drops”. Approximately every hour you play in a week, up to roughly 10 hours a week, you will earn a random item, usually a weapon but rarely (perhaps a 3% chance) a cosmetic item such as a hat. Most, but not all, craftable weapons can drop via this system, and if you don’t play much one week, that extends the playing time where you can earn items in the next week only. “Weeks” for this purpose begin on Wednesdays at 7 PM Eastern Standard Time (which is also Thursdays at midnight Greenwich Standard Time; doesn’t change for Daylight Savings Time).

The list of possible weapons available is roughly the same as the craftable weapon list plus the achievement-reward weapon list (i.e. almost all non-stock weapons). “Stock” weapons are the default weapons and action-slot items of each class, which are also the only weapons that most computer-controller bots use, and they’re the only weapons you can access in those rare, unfortunate times when your server loses connection to the item server :(  Stock weapons never drop, and you can’t lose access to them by crafting or trading.

By a similar but separate system, crates (and rarely, other tool items such as Name Tags instead) can drop for you as well, and they are NOT limited by your weekly playing time.  Of course, you need keys to open crates; they are basically opportunities for Valve to make money by selling you keys. Crates always provide a random item out of a list, and the series number relates to the list of items available to drop; most crates drop Strange-quality weapons (with a 1% chance for a random Unusual item instead!).

Crate drops are rarer than in years past; players got annoyed by having too many crates.  Sometimes, such as during the winter holiday, crate drops will occur more often. You may also get a crate once a week in your account just for logging in. They’re simply “opportunities” to spend money on keys for virtual items.

 

Earn Items by Buying and/or Playing Other Games

Many cosmetics can be earned just by buying certain games. Some were only available during pre-order, but many are still available if you buy the game today. Here is the current list of games that award TF2 items, maintained by the Official TF2 Wiki. Note that many of these items will be Genuine quality.

For example, the $4.99 game Poker Night at the Inventory features five unlockable items (some of which may be difficult to do so), as you play Texas Hold ‘Em against the Heavy, Strongbad and other characters. You need to get good at playing poker, but you can earn:

• Iron Curtain
• Enthusiast’s Timepiece
• Lugermorph
• License to Maim
• Dangeresque, Too?

Its $4.99 sequel, Poker Night 2, features five more unlockable items, as you play Texas Hold ‘Em and Omaha Hold ‘Em with Claptrap, Ash Williams and others! Earn the following:

• Bloodhound
• Dapper Disguise
• Necronomicrown
• Long Fall Loafers
• Samson’s Skewer
• Some Borderlands 2 and platform-specific unlockables can also be earned.

 

See this link to learn how to earn TF2 items by playing these free-to-play Steam games:

• The Spiral Sallet by playing Spiral Knights
• The all-class Bolt Action Blitzer by playing CrimeCraft GangWars
• The Flamingo Kid and the Triclops by playing Super Monday Night Combat
• The all-class Alien Swarm Parasite by playing Alien Swarm
• The Black Rose knife by playing Alliance of Valiant Arms

 

Earn Items by Playing “Mann Up Mode” in MvM

Mann vs. Machine, or “MvM”, is a horde mode where you and five other players form a RED team that defends against an onslaught of class-specific BLU robots.  The free-to-play “Boot Camp” mode does NOT earn you items, but is good for practicing the game. The real rewards can be gained by completing “Mann Up” missions, which require a brown Tour of Duty ticket that costs US$0.99 in the Mann Co. Store (not to be confused with the white Surplus tickets). Tickets are used up and rewards are earned only when you successfully win an entire mission.

• Each completed mission earns you an item drop, in exchange for your Tour of Duty ticket, if you did not previously have credit for that mission on your current Tour.
  • If playing the “Two Cities” Tour, you will instead earn some robot parts, and possibly even a Fabricator, after each mission.
• Each completed Tour of missions will earn you different rewards, on top of your usual mission rewards:
  • “Two Cities” Tours reward Killstreak Kits, and one or two higher-tier Fabricators.
  • Other Tours reward one of several kinds of Strange Botkiller weapons, depending on both random luck and which Tour had been completed.
  • Completing any Advanced or Expert difficulty Tour also has a small chance (~2%) of getting an Australium weapon! (You won’t have any chance to drop them on Intermediate Tours.)

For more information on MvM and the items you can earn by playing in “Mann Up” Mode, please refer to the TF2 Newbs’ Guide to MvM Item Hunting.

2. You Can Craft New Items

You can take undesired items and turn them into metal, which is used to craft other weapons.

two weapons of same class  —> one scrap

 

                                          three scrap  <—> one reclaimed

 

                                                     three reclaimed <—> one refined

 

What Can You Do with Metal?

• Use as a trading currency (see Trading, below)
• Craft cosmetics, such as hats
• Craft weapons

 

Crafting Cosmetic Items

There are two ways to craft cosmetic items such as hats. Here is the first:

three refined  —> one random cosmetic item

The above menu says the output is a “random headgear”, but in reality the output is some kind of cosmetic, such as a hat or an item that equips elsewhere on your person, and are never weapons. For instance, you might get a Football Helmet for a Heavy, or an Itsy-Bitsy Spyer that hangs on the hip of your Sniper, or a Big Mann on Campus sweater for a Scout. These items are always Unique quality; you’ll never get Stranges or the like. Almost every non-Limited cosmetic can be crafted, but of course, what you receive is randomized.

But if you want to ensure that you get an item that a specific character can use, consider the next formula:

four refined + class token  —> random class-specific cosmetic item

With the above formula, you apply some extra metal and a token, but you ensure that you’ll get an item wearable by the token’s class (and possibly other classes also, depending on the item you receive). Use this formula if you really want more cosmetics for your favorite class.

See this page for a list of many other crafting recipes, which are also found in your Crafting menu.

 

Crafting Weapons

There is a list of craftable weapons under the second tab, “Common Items”. Simply follow the recipe to craft a desired weapon. If you lack the items, you can’t make the item, but you may be able to trade someone for the parts you need (or just buy it from the Mann Co. Store instead).

The top recipe reads, “Fabricate Class Weapons” with the following recipe:

scrap + class token + slot token –> random matching weapon

The above formula will generate one random weapon out of the possible craftable weapons that match both the class and weapon slot of the tokens. For example, following this recipe with a Pyro token and a Secondary token can generate a flare gun, detonator, reserve shooter, manmelter, scorch shot, or panic attack. See the “Crafting Weapon Classifications” heading in the the TF2 Wiki Crafting page for the full list.

 

What Are Crates For?

Crates are opened with keys (usually Mann Co. Crate Keys, but special crates require special keys), and they can be purchased from the Mann Co. Store for US$2.49, traded, or bought and sold in the Steam Market. Opening a crate provides you one random item (usually Strange) from its short drop list, but rarely (about a 1% chance) grant you an Unusual hat!

Oh, if you have too many crates, you should probably just delete any duplicates you have. You’re unlikely to sell any on the Market, as you’d only get one cent, and there are thousands of them for sale already. You’ll always have more crates than you’ll ever open–they’re simply opportunites to buy a random Strange item.

What Are Robot Parts For?

If you have robot parts in your possession, you have probably been playing some Mann vs. Machine “Two Cities” missions. These are used for crafting certain Killstreak Kits.  See this MvM Item FAQ for more information.

3. You Can Buy Items

Access the Mann Co. Store within the TF2 game itself. You can’t while you’re playing in a server, however.

 

Items You Can Buy from the Mann Co. Store

You can buy most Unique-quality items in the Mann Co. Store.  Unique is the standard item quality that doesn’t do anything special, and signifies something that is probably not rare. Want a different kind of rocket launcher for your Soldier?  It’s probably US$1 or less. Want a new community-designed hat? Snap one up for US$2 to $10. Just look at the catalog of items in the in-game menu, and purchase with your Steam Wallet funds.

Don’t want to bother with crafting or trading, but you want all the possible options available for your favorite class? You can buy a Starter Pack the gives you one of each Unique weapon for that class! They run between $2 and $7, depending on the class; some classes like the Soldier have more items, so they’re more expensive.

You can also buy (from either the in-game Store, or from the Market) an Unlocked Class Crate, which will drop you one random cosmetic equippable by that class. You could get just about anything. They’re $2.49 in the Mann Co. Store.

You can’t buy everything at the store, such as an Unusual hat… but there’s lots to buy on the Steam Market!

Items You Can Buy on the Steam Market

• You can’t buy most plain Unique-quality weapons in the Market, but you can buy Unique Tools such as crates, keys, robot parts, and killstreak kits.
• Also, almost all Strange, Haunted, Vintage, Collector’s, or Unusual item can be bought and sold on the Steam Market.
• Unique items that are also Limited can also list on the Market. Limited items cannot be crafted, item dropped, or bought from the Mann Co. Store anymore.
• Decorated weapons can also be bought and sold in the Market.

 

A Short Explanation of Item Qualities–and Rocket Launchers!

“Wait a minute. Why do I need an explanation of item qualities?” you ask.

Not all rocket launchers are created alike. (Set aside the Black Box and the Liberty Launcher and all those others; we’re talking just about the stock Rocket Launcher.) The stock Rocket Launchers are all alike, of course.

But there are many kind of reskinned rocket launchers. They’re all functionally the same. How they’re different is that they might be promotional items, have different colors on the weapon itself, or have a counter to track kills or other statistics. (The pictured Rocket Launcher is a Decorated weapon; scroll down to the next section to learn more about Decorated weapons.)

Here’s a comparison for the different rocket launchers out there, and the cheapest price for one on the Steam Market (as of this writing):

• Strange Rocket Launcher: US$0.65
• Killstreak Rocket Launcher: $0.75
• Festive Rocket Launcher: $2.10
• Strange Specialized Killstreak Rocket Launcher: $4.50
• Collector’s Professional Killstreak Original: $38
• Shell Shocker (Battle-Scarred): $2
• Strange Shell Shocker (Minimal Wear): $50
• Strange Australium Rocket Launcher: $115

All of the above rocket launchers behave identically in play. But they’re also a show of status: players may assume that if you’re using the stock rocket launcher, that you haven’t been playing very long. Sure, it’s a silly game, but it stands out all the same.

 

Okay–here’s the different item qualities out there:

• Stock items are items that every TF2 account has access to; they cannot be removed, sold, or traded.
• Unique items are common items, often found via the TF2 item drop system or from certain older crates.
  • They can typically be traded, but not marketed.
  • Achievement items and some Halloween-themed items are untradeable Uniques.
• Limited items are uncommon; they can no longer be purchased or crafted, such as retired hats.
  • They can be traded or marketed.
• Vintage items are simply items that were crafted before March 15, 2011.
  • These are cheap to buy on the Market.
• Strange items track total kills (on weapons) or points scored (on other items) while the item was equipped.
  • Most commonly, Stranges are dropped from a crate; the item is randomly chosen.
  • A few Strange items are rare, such as the Kritzkrieg.
  • A few Strange items have been made so by Strangifier items, which are also sometimes rare.
• Australium weapons have a golden sheen, but are otherwise Strange weapons.
  • They are a rare reward for completing Mann vs, Machine tours, and are valuable.
• Haunted items are usually Halloween-themed cosmetics.
  • In some cases, they can only be worn during Halloween/Full Moon times.
  • They can be purchased cheaply on the Steam Market.
• Genuine items are promotional items, often given away for (pre)purchasing another Steam game.
  • Many of these can be purchased on the Steam Market.
• Collector’s items are rare, requiring a rarely-dropped Chemistry Set plus two hundred identical copies of the item to craft.
  • They can be purchased on the Market, but are usually expensive.
• Killstreak weapons show in the killfeed how many kills the player has earned since their last death.
  • The killstreak property only modifies the weapon, and doesn’t change its quality color. But it does add value to the weapon.
  • Specialized Killstreak kits also add a temporary visual sheen to the weapon after five kills are scored during the same life.
  • Professional Killstreak kits add the visual sheen and an eye effect to your character as well.
  • Killstreak kits and fabricators (used to craft the kits) are Mann vs. Machine rewards.
• Unusual items are rare, with a visual effect centered near the head of the character.
  • They are very rarely (1%) dropped from a crate, and are always valuable.

See my MvM Item FAQ for more information about Australium weapons and Killstreak Kits.

 

Decorated Items

A decorated item is a weapon, cosmetic, or taunt that has been reskinned with different visual effects (and rarely, different sounds). Below is the Warbird, a rare decorated rocket launcher from the Tough Break season:

A ”season” is a period of weeks, directly after a major content patch such as the Tough Break Update, that allows players to complete missions/contracts in order to earn random items with randomly generated paint jobs. A decorated weapon or item includes the following:

• One of six Grades of rarity, which determines the text color of the item. Civilian is very common; Elite is rare.
  1. Civilian:                contracts only
  2. Freelance:            contracts only
  3. Mercenary:          contracts or crates
  4. Commando:        contracts or crates
  5. Assassin:                                    crates only
  6. Elite:                                           crates only
• Each item Collection (of item skins or “paint job” themes) has many weapons in a variety of Grades.
  • For example, items from the Concealed Killer Collection are generally camouflage-themed.
  • Some Collections are only Grades 1-4, and some are only Grades 3-6 (see above).
  • Each skin is tied to its specific grade. For example: The “Warbird” above is always a Grade 6 Elite.
• Each Weapon has one of five random levels of Wear, which changes the look of the weapon skin somewhat. All are equally as common, but the more Wear variations are less popular because the weapon skin is less visible. (The wear patterns are also randomly positioned to give a further uniqueness to each individual item.)
  • Factory New (most popular and valuable)
  • Minimal Wear
  • Field-Tested
  • Well-Worn
  • Battle Scarred (most of the paint job has worn off)
• NOTE: Weapons DO NOT increase their Wear when used. They have a set level of Wear when dropped which does not change. A weapon’s Grade, Skin, and Wear is entirely cosmetic and does not change its gameplay whatsoever.
• Also, these Weapons and Cosmetics are Limited quality. Unboxed Weapons and Cosmetics will have a chance of being Strange (and in a few cases, being Unusual, or both!)
  • Also, items exist that can Strangify these items.
• These weapons will be tradable and marketable. If you wish to trade or sell a weapon, look up its worth on the Market or another site like backpack.tf first, so you don’t get scammed. Unusual items are always valuable and very rare.

How to earn Graded items:

1. Buy-in to the current update Season by purchasing the appropriate pass from the Mann Co. Store. This will grant you a fixed number of contracts to complete over a set period of time (even if you join late in the Season). Completing these contracts (with tasks such as completing objectives on a certain map or getting kills while playing a certain class or weapon) will earn you a graded weapon OR one of several Weapon Cases.
   • NOTE: You can purchase these Weapon Cases from the Steam Market also, as the cases, their corresponding keys, and the items obtainable within are all marketable and tradable.
2. Or, you can simply buy Cases and the appropriate Key for the Case, and use the Key in your TF2 inventory screen.
   • For example, the Creepy Crawly Case drops graded cosmetics from the Halloween 2016 collection, such as the Showstopper spy cosmetic.

 

How to Trade-Up Graded weapons:

Some items can be used in a trade-in, much like crafting, into another item.

• 10 Graded items of the same Grade level, regardless of Collection or Update, can be traded in for 1 random item of the next higher Grade.
  • Example: 10 Freelance items for 1 Mercenary item.
  • You may collect ten decorated items from all of the different collections ouut there, but the formula will only work if they are all of the same Grade.
  • BEWARE: The possible output item is from all available Collections, not necessarily the same Collection.
• 5 qualifying items can be traded into a Civilian Grade Stat Clock, a tool item similar to a Strangifier for Graded items only.
  • Qualifying items include any Freelance Grade or higher item (of any Collection), and any Strange item (Graded or not).
  • ANY item with the “untradeable” trait also qualifies, but the resulting Stat Clock will also be “untradeable”.
    • Yes, this means you can use your untradeable Achievement items to create a Stat Clock!
• During the annual Halloween event, you can trade-in three qualifying items for a random, untradeable Halloween cosmetic.
  • Find this function by right-clicking your Soul Gargoyle tool item.

How can you tell the difference between a Strange Graded Item, and a vanilla Graded Item with a Stat Clock attached? Look at the item name: one will be Strange, and the other will say “Stat Clock”.

 

4. You Can Ask Others to Trade or Give You Items

Yes, there are gifters who play TF2 regularly. Very few players just go around looking for Newbs who need items. But there are plenty of players wiling to give a couple of weapons or an odd hat to someone who has none.  The important thing is to be nice and civil. Spamming chat with demands for free items will annoy anyone who would have been willing, and that behavior can get you banned from the Newbs servers.

If you want people to trade or gift you, show some proper etiquette:

1. Be gracious and don’t make demands.  Don’t spam the text chat or the voice chat.
2. Many players are willing to trade away a spare copy of a weapon (not cosmetics) for a single scrap metal, or its equal value of any two weapons. Likewise, if you happen to have extra copies of an item, you can offer to trade two of them to someone for one weapon you need.
3. If there is an item you want to trade for, or to ask for free, you should ask people in chat if they have specific items you’re looking for.  But don’t spam the chat with constant messages.
4. Look at your friends’ profiles, and click on Inventory to see their TF2 items.  Unless their profiles are private, you can find out what spare items a friend has, which can help you make them a trade or gift offer.
5. When you really want to trade items, go to a trade server, such as Newbs #2 and #18 Trade Servers. You won’t be interrupting anyone’s game with trade offers or chatter, and you’ll meet up with others actively looking to trade.

 

Trading Items for Items

Trades do not involve the exchange of Steam Wallet funds (that’s what the Steam Market is for). So how do you trade items for other items and know one of you isn’t being cheated out of value? Over the years, players have established a de facto economy by using certain common and uncommon items as currencies, specifically metal, keys, and earbuds.

Metal is the crafting ingredient discussed above to create random cosmetics and weapons. Because of these uses, metal also has worth in the economy.

Common item prices are discussed in “ref”, an abbreviation for refined metal. A refined metal is 1.00 ref.

A reclaimed metal is .33 ref, since it takes three reclaimed to make a refined.

A scrap metal is worth .11 ref, since it takes three scrap to make a reclaimed (nine to make a refined).

For example: A hat worth 1.33 ref is worth a refined and three scrap.

If you play TF2 10 hours a week and smelt all of your non-cosmetic drops into metal, you’ll average one refined metal in three weeks.

Keys, or standard Mann Co. Crate Keys, cost US$2.49 in the Mann Co. Store. Since they’re tradable (after a week) and the price doesn’t change, they are good for trading valuable items. Popular, in-demand items that are not very rare are often measured in keys, such as taunts or popular hats.

How much ref a key is worth changes based on the demand in the economy (how bad people want keys, or metal). Refined metal is also useful for making “change”, since a key cannot be broken into smaller values. As of January 2016, a key is worth about 20 ref.

Buds, or Earbuds, are a somewhat rare, Limited cosmetic item. Buds were often used as currency for rare, high-demand items, such as Unusuals. They’re not used for trading much anymore.

 

5. Where Can I Get Free Unusual Hats?

The following is a list of phrases people enter into their search engines:

how to get easy hats in tf2

tf2 free hats

tf2 easy unusuals

tf2 item giveaway

tf2 free keys

free tf2 unusuals

…and so on.  I know this because the blog dashboard shows me certain search engine terms that bring readers to this blog. Lots and lots of TF2 players want free unusual hats, keys and items.  New players beg for free items, and sometimes start raging when they don’t get what they want.

The TF2Newbs community, like many other public gaming communities out there, frown on begging. Repeatedly asking for items disrupts the game and can lead to a permanent ban on Newbs servers.  Would you want your games interrupted by beggars?

My point is, earn or buy items yourself. Trading exists so that you can meet other players and swap items. It’s a metagame–a game within a game–to collect desirable items. Don’t disrupt a good game by begging; go to a trade server if you’re looking for something specific.

TF2Newbs’ Trade Servers (type these into your console to jump right in):

connect s2.tf2newbs.com

connect s18.tf2newbs.com

 

6. Too Many Items?

Well, that’s embarrassing: it is certainly possible to fill your backpack with so many crates, weapons, tools, and cosmetics that you cannot hold more. When this happens, you won’t receive more items from the item drop system; it “stops the clock”, so to speak.  What do?

1. Delete worthless items: crates and untradable duplicate items are the only ones I would advise deleting.  You’re not likely to sell them on the Market or trade them for any value. (The only crates that have a value are crates numbered in the 20s–because each class has one that only carries items for that class–and crates #30, #40, #50 and #60, which are rare and may drop high-demand Strange weapons.)
2. Condense your metal: 18 weapons <-> 9 scrap metal <-> 3 reclaimed metal <-> 1 refined metal.  Refined metal can “carry more value” in a smaller space, and is faster if you want to trade for a valuable item. Condense your space further by trading for keys or more valuable items.
3. Buy a Backpack Expander, or several, from the Mann Co. Store (US$0.99) or the Steam Market. Each one gives you 100 slots (two pages) more, up to a maximum of 2000 slots or forty pages. This is very necessary if you’re collecting robot parts from “Two Cities” MvM Tours, or trying to get one copy of every weapon.
4. Check to see if you own a Summer Adventure Pack, Summer Starter Kit, or a Gift-Stuffed Stocking tool item. A Backpack Expander is inside, among other items.
5. Put items up for sale on the Steam Market. While on the Market, the item is removed from your inventory, so you can fill those slots once more. You can remove the item from the Market if it doesn’t sell, and then you will receive the item once more.
6. Check the Crafting List and see if there are any desirable weapons or cosmetic items you can craft. For example, if you don’t have a B.A.S.E. Jumper parachute for your Soldier, you can craft one at the cost of a Sticky Jumper, a Buff Banner, and a reclaimed metal.

 

7. Other Useful Links You Should Bookmark in Your Browser:

• The Official TF2 Wiki’s Item page can answer almost any question about TF2 items.
• The background story for TF2 is told by a series of comic books.
• Improve your play by reading strategies when playing specific maps, game modes, and characters.
• Sites for trading and pricing:
  • Backpack.TF‘s Price List page
  • Trade.tf
  • TF2 Outpost
  • (Evidently, TF2 Spreadsheet is no longer updated.)

 

I hope this blogpost has helped you learn about the wide variety, and multiple functions, of the items of Team Fortress 2.  The item-acquisition game within the “war-themed hat simulator” keeps players coming back. If I have helped you in your quest for mighty loot, feel free to say so in the comments, or post in the forums.

[N] Obey