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Games

Valve Is Working On a Major Update For 'Team Fortress 2' (engadget.com) 32

Posted by BeauHD from the 16-years-later dept.
As Kotaku reported late last week, Valve is preparing a major update for Team Fortress 2. The studio published a rare blog post asking the game's community to submit new content to the Steam Workshop ahead of May 1st. "The last few Team Fortress summer events have only been item updates. But this year [Valve's emphasis], we're planning on shipping a full-on update-sized update -- with items, maps, taunts, unusual effects, war paints and who knows what else?!" Valve said. Engadget reports: By our count, the "as as-yet-unnamed, un-themed, but still very exciting summer-situated (but not summer-themed)" update Valve has planned will go down as TF2's first major content release since the company came out with the Jungle Inferno update in 2017 for the game's 10-year anniversary. Valve has released smaller updates since then mostly to address the botting problem that made it impossible to play the game, but new content additions have been few and far between.
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Valve Is Working On a Major Update For 'Team Fortress 2' More

Valve Is Working On a Major Update For 'Team Fortress 2'

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  • Valve's blog post is purposefully vague. It looks like they might do some cosmetics and maps. There's no clear indication that they'll do any needed balance changes to the game's worst weapons or change VAC substantially (to deal with the ongoing bot invasion).

    Omegatronic and friends still dominate Valve official servers. Pretty soon, they'll move in to Valve HQ and take over the company. Good shot mate!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q4Fry ( 1322209 )

      to deal with the ongoing bot invasion

      There's an excellent podcast episode (audio and transcription) [gimletmedia.com] about it.

      • That's a decent snapshot of Valve's trouble with bots and tf2. There are more details and further developments that could be mentioned. Most relevant is that the old 2012 employee handbook may be a bit dated. Recently Valve called an "all hands" to get Half Life: Alyx onto the market (okay semi-recently). Clearly management can move resources when necessary. Games just as old as tf2 like cs:go and dota2 are fully-provisioned with developers and have active community outreach - things TF2 hasn't had con

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jmke ( 776334 )

          TF2 doesn't make much money, and it's no coincidence that Valve pays little attention to it

          now that's some misinformed jabber, TF2 with it's in-game store is still a big revenue generator for Valve.

          https://www.realmicentral.com/... [realmicentral.com]

          TF2 remains in TOP 100 of revenue generators. They have all the money from TF2 to actually assign resources to it to improve it.
          The bots are just horrible, and simply stopped playing it a few years ago. Only local LAN play from time to time with friends.

          • I mean while it's true, I'm not sure game development is actually more than a hobby for valve at this stage. I mean 100% of the 10th highest grossing game is great and all... but I bet that pales in comparison to 20% of the top 9, and 20% of so many more titles below it. Being the store is to valve.. what being a search engine is to google. Making games and products is... like google's non search endevors.

  • Believe it when I see it (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Sitnalta ( 1051230 ) on Monday February 13, 2023 @10:59PM (#63291135)

    I used to LOVE TF2, but Valve did nothing for years while the bots and script kiddies ruined it.

    I need more than an update to go back. I want to see it become a priority at Valve again, I want actual balance and gameplay issues addressed, I want VAC overhauled. It need optimization and graphical updates too.

    • I still play TF2 periodically, and haven't noticed much problem, but I pretty much only play on certain community servers that I've come to know and, well, love is a strong word...

      • The people running community servers probably just have huge ass blocks of IP range bans to put a cap on abuse that Valve can't seem to quite stomp out.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by slacka ( 713188 )

        So is the bot problem fixed? For the past few years every time I fired it up, it wouldn't take long for a cheater to show up and ruin the game. Script kiddies drove me away from Apex and TF. Would be worth the download to revisit some of my favorite maps if the bots are gone.

        • No. There were some manual VAC bans last year but that was about it, at least that anyone officially knows of.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Narcocide ( 102829 )

      Well, maybe you've been away from the game for over a decade, but what it definitely does not need is more optimization. It runs really really smooth now even on hardware from back then. It might need some balance issues addressed, and definitely needs VAC improved to be capable of dealing with the bots and built-in DDOS reflection attack feature, but needing "graphical updates" is entirely subjective. I just hope they don't ruin the framerate if they do it.

      • LOL wat? Plenty of people still have performance problems with TF2. I still can't play the Watergate map - my favorite! - because it crashed on my 16GB video card claiming I've run out of VRAM. And now there's a Pyro exploit where you can lag the server by using the Phlogistinator on certain floors (the problem exists on many maps).

        TF2 is a bit of a mess.

      • The optimization issues aren't as visible because hardware can brute-force most of it client-side now. However server-side running a halloween event with hundreds of particle effects, cosmetics, and AIs bogs like a MF.

  • My playtime has dwindled over the years and I kind of miss late nights banging on my sentry.

    Hopefully this will re-energize my love for TF2. I do love the smell of burnt snipers in the morning.

  • The lengths Valve will go to... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Duds ( 100634 ) <dudley&enterspace,org> on Tuesday February 14, 2023 @07:39AM (#63291595) Homepage Journal

    .... in order to not make a 3rd anything.

  • Valve presents: More Hats! (Score:3)

    by packrat0x ( 798359 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2023 @09:01AM (#63291711)

    New achievements too, that reward you with...hats!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by stinkyj ( 300739 )

      I played for a ridiculous amount of hours, till they started doing the hats. Then came the crafting and I moved on. Loved the vanilla game. Good times.

  • Hopefully part of the major update is to make it work on the Mac again. I haven't played it in years since it is a 32-bit app and the last Mac OS to support it was Mojave (final update was July 2021).

    • Seriously! I just installed Ubuntu on my old Mac Mini figuring I'd be able to fire up TF2 now, but after reading about the bots problem I'm hesitant to dive in. I'll probably still do it once I have a little time, but Valve really did their best to kill this great game for me by not making a 64-bit version on Mac.

  • Well, that's news to me. So far as I've been able to tell; they've been sitting on their laurels doing hardly anything besides collecting those Steam royalties for over a decade now. Half-Life 3? Portal 3? The Half-Life/Portal crossover that was hinted at in the second installment of each? Both franchises have been effectively abandoned for so long that even the jokes, speculation, and hunting for hints and the number 3 in press releases, their website, and the Steam app, have all pretty much died out

    • They released Alchemist and Half Life: Alyx. They still have teams supporting dota2 and cs:go. TF2 has like, a janitor and a potted plant.

  • The updates that have been released since Jungle Inferno have not mostly been to address the bots. There was an update to disable some in-game communication features for new accounts and then three or four other updates with things about the bots (not allowing name changes, changes to the votekick system, etc.). The updates have "mostly" been adding new cosmetic items and temporary themed maps from the workshop. That being said I think there has been a useful bit of info figured out about the bots that the
  • How about Half Life 3? Or Half Life 2 Episode 3. Or Portal 3? Or something new.
    How about making a better game instead of patching one that is hidden and would be permanently remove if it didn't other games out with it.

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