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Valve Discusses Team Fortress 2's Future

Posted by Soulskill on Wed Jan 21, 2009 06:27 AM
from the improving-and-evolving dept.
Entertainment Games
The Escapist chatted with Valve's Robin Walker about how the Team Fortress 2 team has been listening to feedback and continually updating the game to fix problems and add to the gameplay experience. Walker mentions that ideas for new classes are "floating around," and that a new mode of play will be introduced soon. "'Players have driven our entire approach to designing achievements, the way we tie unlockables to those achievements and the design of those new weapons themselves. The choices we made within the Medic and Heavy updates were very much the result of the ways that players have used that combination of classes within the game. The addition of the payload game mode came from players requesting an old Team Fortress Classic map called Hunted, and describing what they did and didn't like in that map.' ... The Scout is the next class slated for the special treatment, and Walker expects the update will be available early this year. Additionally, the team is juggling a number of side projects at the moment, including finally bringing a year's worth of the downloadable content and upgrades to the Xbox 360 version of the game. A new Payload map is in the works, more community maps are on the way and the team will soon unveil a very different new game mode."
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  • Valve Time (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 21 2009, @06:43AM (#26544281)

    http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Time

  • Hunted? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Nursie (632944) on Wednesday January 21 2009, @06:48AM (#26544311) Homepage

    You mean the old "Hunted President" map?

    Hell yes, that was great. I haven't played a lot of TF2, but back in the days of old I was a big player of TF (over quakeworld, not over HL, the original TF!). Is the old "Rock" map available too?

  • I really liked Quake and Team Fortress but I still haven't played TF 2, mostly because I have a mac.

    Anyway though wifi play on the DS suck I think it would had been a nice title on the DS. The graphics probably makes it somewhat easier to render with the very limited amount of polygons usable on the DS, the controls would probably work somewhat and the graphics would be good enough for old school enjoyment.

    Too bad it will never happen =P, 360? Couldn't care less, I'd prefer it on PC any day.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Actually, the number of engine features and intense shader-reliance make the game very CPU intensive, even compared to other Source games, though IANAGD(game developer). This would make a Nintendo DS port difficult, to say the least.

      The graphics themselves aren't so bad; maxed out, I rarely lose any noticeable number of frames without the map design being abhorrent, on a years-old mid-range GPU. The CPU and memory load, on the other hand, is quite large, even with a dual core running at 4ghz and enough RAM

      • I know, never got it if all "team fortress 2 orange box" is the whole box or just TF2 though, because there is a couple of those and a couple of just "orange box" when I search for prices, and I don't know if I want to waste storage on Windows, though I should.

      • Well, the DS has a Quake2 port to, though I think it requires a memory expansion (with Opera or EzFlash V 3in1 or similar.)

  • A game mechanic I hope to see return: collect multiple flags for the win.
      • The keyword here is multiple. It should be an interesting variation on the theme to collect multiple flags (briefcases, floppy disks, whatever...).

        • As I understand it from reading the various map-developers' forums, there can be only one enemy intelligence object at a time. However, it is possible to create a series of captures by setting up the action that occurs when the enemy intelligence is secured to respawn the intelligence at the 'next' flag point, with the game objective for captures being set to require a capture from each intel spawn in turn.

          • Yes, we mappers have tried many different things to get multiple flags working but none of them have worked. Moving the flag spawn isn't too much of a problem. I did see someone trying to create a sort of "center flag" game but I never saw what came of it. He was working on placing one flag in the middle to be capped by either team.

  • Sorry if I'm not impressed... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Xest (935314) on Wednesday January 21 2009, @08:24AM (#26544897)

    I used to love the original QWTF, I thought it was fantastic, perhaps the game I spent more time on than any other, despite having to pay dialup costs per minute back then.

    I followed TF ever since it came out, and when TF2 was originally announce as a mod for Quake II I was excited, I was equally excited when it was slated as a massive combat game with commanders and people dropping down out of helicopters as the screenshots showed for Half-Life and then it's own game. After around 5 years I got bored of waiting then something like 9 years on it finally arrived.

    Yet, when it arrived, everything new had been dropped and it turned out to be some copy of the original TV, minus some pretty damn important features like grenades and coupled in with some horrible graphical style. Now they talk of some of the classic maps and game modes, perhaps they'll even bring grenades back.

    But my point is this, whilst TF2 is great, people obviously want more. It's taken them 9 or 10 years to end up back where they started, mimicking QWTF and even then not quite (again no grenades, lack of old favourite maps). Surely the lesson to be learned by now is that if they want to immitate the success of the original then all they needed to do all along is simply immitate the original albeit with updated graphics (minus the cartoony theme change).

    Yes, I very much miss the QWTF days, but it does really seem Valve is only just in recent years beginning to realise what the old QWTF fans said all along- just stay true to the original. They've had a decade to figure this out.

    • Grenades?? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jgtg32a (1173373) on Wednesday January 21 2009, @08:35AM (#26544973)
      The absence of grenades is one of the best parts of TF2
      • Exactly, they dropped it because of nade spam. Not too long ago I played COD4 (where you had to train your guns...) which had tons of nade spam, people would spam all the spawns. It was so pointless and luck based about your death. Maybe it was just a bunch of small maps, but still someone from both teams died regardless. Hell I went to servers where people complained about nades and threatened to ban people for it, that's how out of control"nades for all" became in games.

        Sure there's SLOW moving rockets

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by LoRdTAW (99712)

        Yea instead of giving everyone grenades they just made a class dedicated to spamming the shit out the map (Demo Man). KA-BOOM!

        I cant wait for the updates. I definitely want to see them bring back the "hunted" play mode and also give us more than one hunted map. I used to play hunted allot but the map was boring after a while and community made escort maps were terribly un-balanced or plain sucked. I also want to see the new game mode they are coming out with, I really like the addition of the payload maps l

    • Re:Sorry if I'm not impressed... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Orleron (835910) on Wednesday January 21 2009, @09:13AM (#26545309) Homepage
      Dude, I'm sorry. I couldn't disagree more. Yes, they did drop all of the original plans for that TF2 you mentioned, but the one that they made was still decent. If you wanted some highly advanced combat game, then I see your point. TF is not that, and never was. You should play Call of Duty or CS. TF2, first off, is SUPER balanced. They did a huge job at class balancing everything, and that meant eliminating grenades, correct. Eliminating grenades DOES make it less realistic, sure... but it also makes it more fun. In TF2 you can actually try to get down and dirty and spar with people by using whatever special tricks your class has. It won't be screwed up by some 12-year-old who can spam 3 grenades down a football field and just kill you (unless you play a Demoman in TF2 of course.) The point of TF2 is cartoon-like combat and fun. You have to suspend disbelief somewhat. If you insist on something realistic, then I can totally see why you say it sucks.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Xest (935314)

        I'm not looking for realism and can only assume by your comments you never played the original TF but instead only played TFC.

        The original TF was well balanced and sparring was still perfectly possible, but grenades were an added tool in that on top. Grenades also added a whole new level of tactics through grenade jumps that are clearly missing from TF2 without them.

        I didn't say it sucks either, I said it's simply not what it could have been if they'd stayed true to the original. QWTF had everything TF2 has

        • Even if the game was perfectly balanced by all the divine powers in the universe, people still would complain something was unbalanced. People are dumb like that. It's a great game and I think you are looking at the past with rose colored glasses. It's the most fun I have had in an FPS since I did it competitively in college.

      • If you insist on something realistic, then I can totally see why you say it sucks.

        Exactly. Those who want realism can play the BF2 mod called Project Reality. One shot one kill, super slow, etc just like real warfare. I doubt most CS or TF2 players would think it was fun.

      • Re:Sorry if I'm not impressed... (Score:4, Informative)

        by Still an AC (1390693) on Wednesday January 21 2009, @11:42AM (#26547487)
        TF2 used to be balanced. Then they started rolling out updates for classes on at a time. And if you don't have the new unlocks you are at a disadvantage. Even worse they tied to unlocks to lame ass achievements, alot of which require you do stuff that is counter to the whole team concept. Of course that just leads to achievement servers where you don't actually play you just do what you need to to unlock the weapons.
        • How so? I think snipers are perfectly balanced. Sure, a good sniper can be obnoxious but that's as it should be. If snipers are hassling you too much it's because the spies and snipers (and sometimes pyros!) on your team aren't doing their job.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shihar (153932)

      I personally was kind of disheartened by TF2. I know I got more millage out of TF than any other game. There were just so many delightful things about it... so many wonderful strategies. Do you recall the joys of the emp grenade? God, I loved that thing.

      TF2 has its virtues. It is certainly better balanced than the original in terms of classes, but it achieved that balance by dumbing the game down immensely. The levels are a lot more linear and narrow, and in general they have just stripped out a lot o

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Xest (935314)

        You do realise that if you think that's what I mean by grenades then you don't know what I'm referring to?

        In QWTF, on top of standard weapons every class had normal hand grenades which could be cooked and a special grenade type- engineer had EMP grenade, scout had concussion, soldier had nail grenade etc.

  • I should prelude this with a bit of info on my PC, to give some perspective. It's a Dell Inspiron laptop, so, in all fairness, it's not really a 'gaming PC'. It has a Core2Duo 2.0Ghz processor (I think the model number was T-7200), nVidia GForce Go 7200 video chipset, 1 Gig of RAM, and a 7200RPM hard drive (I payed extra for the faster HDD instead of going with the stock 5400RPM disk).

    I think my system sits somewhere in the middle of PC's, performance-wise. I know there are systems that are much faster than

    • I realized after submitting, I had put the model for the GPU wrong. It's a GForce Go 7900, not 7200.

    • Laptops are going to be behind the curve for gaming right out of the box. Yours is a few years old. It might be mid-range for a general purpose PC perspective, but for gaming it is on the low end. It is too bad it doesn't scale better for you. It really is an enjoyable game.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ADRA (37398)

      I don't know what other games you're playing on your -laptop-, but generally a laptop's Video processor is a heaping pile of bullocks unless you're paying for the super duper premium chips; in which case, they double as base board heaters.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by JSBiff (87824)

        Yes, it was about 2 years ago, I guess. I have, actually, been thinking about upgrading the RAM. The thing is, most games play OK for me, even on that system. Like I said, I know it's not top of the line, but games need to run on systems that are not top of the line, too. Historically, Valve games have run pretty well on reasonably older hardware. Half-Life 2, the Episodes, and Portal seemed to all do OK on my laptop (after I turned down the graphics some), just not TF2.

        As for the nVidia, the GPU claims to

        • You gotta realize that running a game on a 2 year old laptop is like running it on a 4 year old desktop. Unless you dropped an insane amount of money on your laptop, chances are it was equivalent to a lower mid-range PC when you bought it. Valve updated the Source Engine for all of the Orange Box games. They take advantage of it to varying degrees but my understanding is that TF2 has the most new effects. They've even added more over time. EP2 probably does all right because it's single player and it's not

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by JSBiff (87824)

        I think I might be about ready to give up on PC gaming completely, lol. When I bought the computer, 2 years ago, 1 Gig of ram was quite a lot (though there were some systems selling with 2G, that was about the top).

        PC Gaming is the only consumer market that thinks it's reasonable that something you buy today, will be almost completely unable to use content produced only 1 year after you buy the device, without constant upgrading. That'd be like an iPhone that couldn't play some of the songs on iTMS after a

    • Re:Why TF2 is a joke (Score:5, Insightful)

      by KasperMeerts (1305097) on Wednesday January 21 2009, @08:39AM (#26545003)

      Not inventive? You've got to be kidding me. I love it that there's 9 classes each with it's own weaknesses and strengths. That's different from most FPS'es I know.

      And the graphics are fantastic. The cartoonesque atmosphere is a lot more fun than a realistic one would be.

      The grenades were removed because of very valid reasons, like the stupid spamming at the beginning of every map. Too bad they had to include critical hits which ruins the game for me in a completely other way

      Really, I don't understand what you want. You want innovation but at the same time you're mad at Valve because they didn't copy stuff from the old Team Fortress? That's pretty contradictory. And don't forget that a bad economy is not good for innovation, companies are more likely to stay with the old tried and true methods, because it's those which bring in the big bucks.

      • Re:Why TF2 is a joke (Score:5, Insightful)

        by JCSoRocks (1142053) on Wednesday January 21 2009, @11:59AM (#26547757)
        Don't mind the obvious troll OP. He obviously hasn't read any of Valve's developer commentary that explains everything he's complaining about.

        For example - Of course the characters look cartoonish. They're rocket and sticky jumping around, they're being healed by a giant blue raygun and they're fighting over bases they've built 100 feet from each other.

        Parent - just play on a no-crit server.

        • Sometimes I do play one one, but it was more to somewhat prove that I'm no TF2 fan boy and dare to admit that I don't approve of every decision Valve had made. You just responded to my subtle psychology.
      • Toss a cooldown timer on the grenades and limit standard grenades to 2. Problem solved.

      • The grenades were removed because of very valid reasons, like the stupid spamming at the beginning of every map.

        I agree. The grenades in TF1 were really unbalanced to where they were more important than the other weapons. In principle the different classes having different grenades was very interesting and could have furthered the different class concept, but in practice it made every class equally good at offense.

        Medics in TF1 for example could be played on offense. The medpacks poisoned the other team and that seemed to be the primary use, and of course there were the grenades (I think, it's been a while). I can

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Cornflake917 (515940)

      Dear AC:

      Please play TF2 on a PC: The platform that TF2 (or any fps for that matter) was meant to be played on.

      Thanks

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by JCSoRocks (1142053)
        I love that console users *expect* updates now. Even last-gen consoles never got updates.

        Buying for the console is silly anyway. You pay $10-$20 more than you do for the PC version so that you can play the game using a terrible controller. Consoles are good for playing my BluRay, watching my NetFlix and playing Rock Band!

        Disclaimer: I grew up on consoles so don't read that the wrong way.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Chabo (880571)
          You can now buy a PC perfectly capable of playing TF2 on high settings for around $400-500, not including the OS or monitor.

          http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=3486&p=3 [anandtech.com]
          Take that machine, and spend $100 on a video card, and you have a gaming PC. Now, if you spend a bit more for the "budget" system they have listed, then you'll have a complete, balanced computer. But spending "thousands of dollars" is no longer necessary for gaming; it's frivolous spending.
    • This is because Gabe Newell doesn't want to have his company to create a permanent set of programmers to program for the PS3, which if you want the game to be done well, you almost have to do. Either that or take much longer to write any updates or games. While sad, since Valve specializes in FPSs, and FPSs are best played on the PC(Although the two Resistances were good) this does not bother me overmuch.

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