Valve Is Working On a Major Update For 'Team Fortress 2' (engadget.com) 32
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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Stuck in 2006?
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The original Team Fortress for Quake was definitely a classic.
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Although my true passion was Weapons Factory. RIP.
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This. TF2 cartoonified TFC, which is fine but just isn't the same so after a week or two I gave up as the magic was gone. I guess it's great for kids.
Just for kids? You can play as a PYRO!!! Totally cathartic.
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It's rated M so. No.
Don't buy the hype (Score:2)
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!
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to deal with the ongoing bot invasion
There's an excellent podcast episode (audio and transcription) [gimletmedia.com] about it.
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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
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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.
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Believe it when I see it (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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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...
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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.
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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.
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No. There were some manual VAC bans last year but that was about it, at least that anyone officially knows of.
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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.
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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.
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Sounds like a driver issue.
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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.
About Time (Score:2)
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)
.... in order to not make a 3rd anything.
Valve presents: More Hats! (Score:3)
New achievements too, that reward you with...hats!
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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.
macOS 64-bit (Score:2)
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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.
Valve actually still has developers? (Score:2)
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
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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.
Word choice: "mostly" (Score:1)
Don't care (Score:2)
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.