official Team Fortress 2

[Denis W. Veteran]

That's ace. :laugh:

But to the bigger issue. It's Wednesday. The update goes live tomorrow night (or in Valve time, 11:59 PM PST :p) - what are they planning to do, dump everything in one go 24 hours from now?

[Nagisan]

Oh boy, propaganda contest winner. Now how bout they post something i actually give half a **** to see about. Such as more of the update.

Patience.....they have updated later than this time on previous days (its actually almost become the norm now).

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Those propaganda posters are awesome, especially the first one. It's pure genius! :laugh:

As for the update, I certainly hope it's delivered on time.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Last one was made in Garry's Mod, the models have HL2 blood applied to them.

I absolutely love the first and second though, it'd be great if Valve whacked them in the store, although they're probably not the right resolution to print on a poster.

[Denis W. Veteran]

Last one was made in Garry's Mod, the models have HL2 blood applied to them.

I absolutely love the first and second though, it'd be great if Valve whacked them in the store, although they're probably not the right resolution to print on a poster.

Sounds like a job for Rasterbator. Sure, it might look a little tacky, but not from a distance. :p

[Nagisan]

Today's update will be live...

December 16, 2009 - TF2 Team

...in about an hour. Thanks for your patience.

Was getting ready to go to bed, think I might go watch TV tonight and stay up for the update.

I bet they didn't expect the number of contest entries they received, so that ended up sucking up more time than they thought it would causing them to run even later tonight than ever.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Sounds like a job for Rasterbator. Sure, it might look a little tacky, but not from a distance. :p

It only looks tacky if it isn't done properly (i.e. use a good printer on good stock and remove the margins)

[Blackhearted]

About an hour eh? I wonder if that's an hour in normal time, or valve time.

[spy beef]

OMG will there be suprise engy update? Guess we will see in 1 hour!

Valve time converter: http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Time

According to the site, 1 valve time hour = 5 real time hours.

[Denis W. Veteran]

Hang on, already? Wow.

[Minifig]

Its up. And no engy update.

Achievement for the demo:

Shorn Connery

Decapitate a cloaked Spy.

DECAPITATE?!!!!! :huh:

[Nagisan]

Achievement for the demo:

Shorn Connery

Decapitate a cloaked Spy.

DECAPITATE?!!!!! :huh:

Yes, its a feature of the new demo melee wep. It decapitates on killing blows.

I love the soldier melee unlock, it seems like a pure upgrade IMO, but I rarely use my shovel as a soldier and when I do I am typically out of ammo and its a last ditch effort. Also, seeing as it increases movement speed AND melee damage as you health drops, does it only increase damage with your melee drawn or do you only need it equipped for that effect? Either way, soldiers can rocket jump towards the front lines, then run there at lower health, and have a medic heal them up before they get offensive. Love it.

Bugle is kind of lame IMO, it replaces the shotgun (a super useful soldier tool) with a weapon that can only be used after you do enough damage, then you have to play the bugle (probably like a taunt) leaving you wide open for spies and snipers (and other classes). Then you have to switch back to your primary to take advantage of the minicrits. I am assuming you can attack on your own during those 14 seconds but still, no shotgun leaves you nearly helpless in close range.

As for the demo unlock, holy crap man....its like the Batman: Arkham Asylum explosive gel once you get the radio frequency unlock (or whatever it is). You can lay 16 stickies, and set groups off by pointing to them to detonate them. That is just crazy IMO. I am not saying it will be OP cause it will make it much harder for a demo to defend himself against a good player but still.....a single demo can watch nearly all the chokepoints on some of the smaller maps with 4 or so stickies on each.

And soldiers taunt kill involves his grenades (that he wears around his chest).

[Denis W. Veteran]

The soldiers win by a thin margin.

New weapons are very interesting. A smaller and meaner rocket launcher, a bugle that appears to be a kritzkrieg for a group (and lacking healing power), and a melee weapon that's inversely proportional to your health. Then we have an 'intelligent' but slightly slower sticky bomb launcher, a huge sword, and a shield.

[Nagisan]

The soldiers win by a thin margin.

New weapons are very interesting. A smaller and meaner rocket launcher, a bugle that appears to be a kritzkrieg for a group (and lacking healing power), and a melee weapon that's inversely proportional to your health. Then we have an 'intelligent' but slightly slower sticky bomb launcher, a huge sword, and a shield.

Soldier doesn't win yet, the war ends tomorrow not today. So he may still lose, especially if this trend continues.

As for the weapons, I agree, except the bugle is more like a Jarate effect not Kritzkrieg, its minicrits for your teammates, the equivalent of throwing Jarate on a group of enemies that your team can shoot at.

EDIT: Also, no milestones, we are limited to the crafting system and the RNG for the new weapons. Hope someone figures out the Pickaxe and DH quickly through the crafting system.

Betcha the pickaxe is going to be something like the Sandman + Scrap Metal + something else, since it has a wooden handle.

EDIT2: I still think Valve is padding the numbers though: http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/3159/deltakills.jpg

Thats basically the differences in kills between the classes. Notice how all of a sudden the difference dramatically changed in the demo's favor? That change happened the day the demo's unlocks were revealed which means the kill count changed in the demo's favor before Valve revealed the demo unlocks.

Now, the difference in kills went from 219k in favor of the soldier, up to 235k in favor of the soldier. The next update they gave us (kill counter update, not content update) that 235k lead dropped down to around 220k. So in 12 hours, the demo started catching up, brining the difference down about 15k. Ok, thats believable. But then, 24 hours later, the difference suddenly dropped by around 100k down to a lead of only 120k? I am sorry but I do not buy that Valve, there is no way the change was that quick. And now, the soldier is only ahead by ~15k kills, the propaganda contest awarded the soldier 35k points ( 50,000 + 10,000 - 25,000 awarded to the demo). So in one 24 hour period, the demo closed the gap by only 100k, then in another 24 hour period, he closed the gap by 140k? What the hell? In one 24h period the gap drops by 100k, then it drops by 40% more in the following period? These rates are dropping far too fast for it to be believable.

To add to that, on the second kill tally they did, the total number of kills they reported did not match the demos killed + soldiers killed, it was a few thousand off. Chances are they made up the numbers and added them wrong or something, other than reading them from a stat tracker that shows Dead Demo: _____ Dead Soldiers _____ Total _____

Edited December 17, 2009 by mwpeck

[Blackhearted]

Bugle is a waste of a slot, but then again i expected that with valves recent history of secondary unlocks being near useless use items. Pickaxe seems decent though. Demo unlock sounds like it has high potention to be op. Go figure.

Also, I hope you can still get the unlocks by achievement counts. Otherwise there will be no point in even trying if you have to rely on their broken drop system. And even if it's crafted you're still at the mercy of that pos drop system if you don't have 1 of the prerequisite items to spare.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

I think the bugle is a good idea, in that it's a team orientated weapon.

Same as Jarate, you can really deal a lot of damage to the other team if your entire team plays along (like on Payload Race, cover the people on the cart in jarate and set a few pyro's on them)

[Blackhearted]

I think the bugle is a good idea, in that it's a team orientated weapon.

Same as Jarate, you can really deal a lot of damage to the other team if your entire team plays along (like on Payload Race, cover the people on the cart in jarate and set a few pyro's on them)

Well enough coordinated teams to make use of the jarate doesn't happen too often in pubs full of randoms though. At which point the SMG far outweighs the jarate.

[mail]

...

... It's a game ...

[Nagisan]

Wow, apparently:

We found that the weapon didn't need a drawback. Having low health was drawback enough. Trying to kill someone when you've only got 5 health isn't easy and it was rewarding to pull it off. We also found that giving the Soldier a movement speed increase that scaled along with the damage increase made the weapon more reliable and exciting. Seeing a Soldier rush at you with the Equalizer is a fearful thing indeed.

The Equalizer

Level 10 Pickaxe

Damage and move speed increase as the user becomes injured.

<lots of interesting but unrequired stuff snipped>

Brandon "GreenMarine" Reinhart

Valve Software

So the Equalizer does the same base damage as the shovel, its damage only increases from there while it also increases the soldiers movement speed. Though it is a pure upgrade to the shovel it is something the soldier needs. Being the 2nd slowest class in the game makes him horrible for melee fights (only behind the heavy, who has the upgrade known as KGB). The Equalizer will apparently equalize him in melee fights against other classes.

Source

Basically the person who put forth an idea that manifested into The Equalizer was emailed by a close friend of his at Valves. Valve made note of the person in the blog, so I doubt he would post this if it was fake.

And the soldiers kill taunt is with The Equalizer. He throws it to the ground, grabs a nade off his chest, and blows himself plus any close enemies sky high. :p

mail, I do not care if its a game or not, I honestly do not care if the soldier loses and doesn't get the update, he got a pure upgrade melee and a very good RL upgrade, the demo was the one who got shafted and deserves an extra unlock. What I care about is being lied to by Valve about the kill counters.

EDIT: Ah, nevermind:

The Equalizer's base damage when the Soldier has full health is exactly half the shovel's base damage. So the Equalizer is far from an upgrade when meleeing at full health. However it scales to being significantly better as you take damage. I should have clarified this in my note to Jibberish, but it slipped my mind. Whether or not it is an upgrade will depend on the situations you find yourself in and how you play.

source

Either way, the only time I ever melee is when I am out of RL and shotgun ammo with no time to reload, which is very rarely and typically only when I am low on health.

Edited December 17, 2009 by mwpeck

[Chasethebase Veteran]

Well, the gap reduced a heck of a lot since yesterday. This is due to the Propaganda contest results and the points given out by Gabe (Thus leaning in Demo's favour).

I did notice that more kill counts were being submitted from Demos killing Soldiers than the other way round yesterday. I've scooped just around 75 Soldiers dead :)

[Mathachew Veteran]

Hrmf. Inflated war numbers, had a feeling that would happen (wasn't aware of the points for the propaganda contest). Still, after the first day the Soldier was up by 100K and Demo currently leads by just under 15K. I don't see the current lead lasting unless they fudge the numbers up more.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Hey, John Freeman's reading this topic!

On another forum, the general consensus is that the numbers are fake and were always going to equalise, resulting in both the soldier and the demo getting the 4th weapon.

[Nagisan]

Well, the gap reduced a heck of a lot since yesterday. This is due to the Propaganda contest results and the points given out by Gabe (Thus leaning in Demo's favour).

There is no proof of that, but it is the perfect excuse for Valve "Oh, Gabe liked a lot of the demo entries, so a lot of the points he awarded went to the Demo's.".

I still think Valve is going to either equal out the numbers in the end, or there going to give both sides the 4th unlock for having such a close fight. I mean, would the war really end (hypothetically) if only one side got the weapon? Chances are the other side would want to kill them even more for getting a new weapon that they will not get.

[PixilEyes]

Is TF2 for the xbox any good?

I might trade COD6 in for it.

I have it for the PC but would prefer it for the xbox.

[John Freeman]

Hey, John Freeman's reading this topic!

On another forum, the general consensus is that the numbers are fake and were always going to equalise, resulting in both the soldier and the demo getting the 4th weapon.

Oh hai there! Kinda wary not to get beaten to death about how my sub got that high amongst other genuine artworks. Well, but at least - enjoy the extra points for soldier (thou they probably did nothing as mentioned before). Also condolences to all the demos.

And to probably answer the next question, no - i haven't yet got the exclusive thingy (whatever that will be). Guess its still in the making.