Valve Discusses Team Fortress 2's Future

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."

Grenades??

[jgtg32a]

The absence of grenades is one of the best parts of TF2

Re:Why TF2 is a joke

[KasperMeerts]

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:Sorry if I'm not impressed...

[Orleron]

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.

Valve, Please Kick EA In The Pants

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Valve:

Please kick EA in the ass so that the PS3 people can get some updates and enhancements. Though the press claims that PS3 is the console of the year/future, PS3 TF2 players are still sucking hind tit. It's been a year and a half since TF2 came to PS3 and we've had NOTHING since.

Re:Valve Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Every one of their games that I've ever played had top-notch QC and gameplay, and only very rarely have I encountered show-stopper bugs (usually fixed in less than a couple of days.)

Must be nice. I haven't been able to play any of their games since they went to the whole valve/steam online setup.

According to their customer support, I have distributed my half life product key to over 1,000 people during the 3 weeks BEFORE I purchased the copy from a local Best Buy.

I'd call THAT a show-stopping bug they still haven't fixed. Oh, and they basically told me to just go spend another $50 for a new key.

Re:Why TF2 is a joke

[JCSoRocks]

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.

Re:Valve, Please Kick EA In The Pants

[JCSoRocks]

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:Valve, Please Kick EA In The Pants

[Chabo]

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.

Re:Grenades??

[LoRdTAW]

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 like goldrush.

I really wish they would introduce an automatic team balancer to prevent team stacking. One thing that annoys me is when you join one of your favorite servers and find you can only join a team full of newbies and bad players. Meanwhile the other team has three to five top players that have scores triple of your top players. It discourages people and they leave. It might be bad for clans who want to play together so make it a option. Real professional clans should know better then to team stack because it discourages the other team and players leave ruining the game. But there are plenty of clans who think they are all hot shit and don't give a damn. Plenty of times I have kindly asked clans to split up and help my team and wind up getting cursed out.