Cheaters, Winners and Busybodies
January 28, 2010 - The Administrator


Firstly, as should come as no surprise to anyone, it is my sad duty to reprimand the various con artists and charlatans in our community who insist on making a mockery of the hard work of others by cheating to win. The following is a list of the top twenty kill counts of the recent Demo/Soldier competition:





Now, I have no actual proof that these men cheated. Lucky for me, then, that I am still in possession of basic common bloody sense. The top Soldier, for example, would have had to kill a Demoman every 2.5 seconds for a week straight, somehow circumventing respawn timers or the need to actually traverse across a map, without once pausing to sleep or go to the bathroom. In other words, he is either cheating, or he is a hallucinating sleep-deprived psychotic with severe constipation and unerringly good aim. In either event, I am confident he is ashamed of himself.

In less disheartening news, the goldbricking simpletons calling themselves the TF2 team around here have apparently paused long enough from picking chiggers out of one another's hair to select a number of Propaganda Contest runners-up from the 11,000-odd entries we received late last year, the results of which will be posted here soon. I must grudgingly admit an astonishing amount of talent on display. I hasten to add, however, that I find it astonishing only because, in observing how you comport yourselves in-game, on the forums, and presumably in your day-to-day lives, one would be forgiven for assuming you bereft of the cognitive skills needed to operate a mailbox. At any rate, congratulations: You are all excellent artists. Perhaps you could draw a picture of me giving a damn, so I'd know what that looked like.

Lastly, I would like to remind those of you writing in with questions concerning a supposed past relationship between myself and one Mister Saxton Hale: A lady never tells, and a gentleman never asks. More pertinently, an Administrator never forgets. Or forgives. Or relents. The Nosy Parkers among you would do well to remember that the next time you decide to paw through my confidential affairs like junkyard dogs.

You have found this instructive,

The Administrator
[Submitted by Lijitsu]

January 27, 2010 - Team Fortress 2 Update Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Team Fortress 2


Added 3 new hats that can be worn by any class

Towering Pillar of Hats"

Noble Amassment of Hats"

Modest Pile of Hat"

Added Propaganda contest winners' hats for First Place, First Runner-up, and Second Runner-up

Added "Edit Loadout" button to the class menu

Changed the main menu background to randomly use the Red, Blue, and Soldier/Demo background images

Fixed Snipers being able to shoot enemies through gates

Fixed Linux servers not properly reconnecting to Steam when they lose their connection

Fixed stickies being destructible before they're stuck to something

Fixed the return progress bar above a dropped flag not animating if the return time on the flag is less than 30 seconds

Fixed the CTF HUD not properly handling flags being disabled/enabled during the round

Fixed player health panels sometimes using the wrong animations for buffed or low health values

Updated the net_showevents convar to be marked as a cheat

Updated the main menu news buttons to direct players to the most recent TF2 update and the TF2 blog

Updated Italian localization strings

Updated the custom TF2 fonts with Polish characters

Updated CP_Gorge

Added more cover outside of the initial BLU spawn area

Added a forward spawn for the BLU team after Cap1 is captured

Added another access point to the upper level from the front of the RED base

Added more cover in the room just before Cap2

Decreased RED team's respawn time while they own Cap1

Fixed a few areas where players would sometimes become stuck


>>>Community requests

Added new options for the Invade CTF game mode flag. Default is 1

0 : No neutral time

1 : Flag goes neutral in 30 seconds (current behavior)

2 : Flag goes neutral in 1/2 the return time

Added scoring choice for the Invade CTF game mode. Default is 0

0 : Increment score (current behavior)

1 : Increment capture count

Added new inputs to item_teamflag

ForceDrop : Force the flag to be dropped if it's being carried by a player

ForceReset : Force the flag to be dropped if it's being carried by a player, then reset the flag to its original location

SetReturnTime : Set the length of time (in seconds) before a dropped flag returns to base

Added new output to item_teamflag

OnTouchSameTeam : Sent when the flag is touched by a player on the same team


[Submitted by Lijitsu]

Better Late Than Never
January 25, 2010 - TF2 Team


In the latest update, we've finally fixed the Double Crouch Jump bug—a longstanding issue involving Scout not being able to double crouch jump without looking like his legs are made of raw bacon strips held up in a wind tunnel:



Throughout Team Fortress 2's years-long release and update cycle, many people have asked us, "Seriously, how could you guys not have fixed that yet?" The majority of these queries are directed to TF2 animator Matthew Russell, who is technically responsible for fixing this kind of thing, and most of them pull no punches. "Is it because Matthew Russell is too stupid to fix it? Why would Valve even hire someone with a horseshoe-shaped divot in their skull?" is an email we see a lot. "Does Matthew Russell have a disease that makes him lazy?" is another popular one. An astonishing number of them are simply a .jpeg of Google Maps with Matt's house ominously circled. The rest could be summed up as a long, unbroken string of expletives and grammatically questionable racial slurs.

What a lot of people don't know is that this "bug" isn't a bug at all, but rather an embarrassing result of the degenerative leg disease our motion capture actor, Del Bluskin, has bravely endured for over a decade now, which has turned the lower half of his skeleton into something that looks like two raw bacon strips held up in a wind tunnel. To be honest, Del's been a part of the Valve family for so long, we just didn't have the heart to fire him simply because his ailment had rendered him grossly incompetent at his own job. To be even more honest, we didn't have the heart to engage in a long verbal sparring match with Valve's legal team, who told us that under no circumstances could we fire Del.

Luckily, things have a funny way of working themselves out for the best. Del was hit by a bus this morning, and our new mocap guy, Phil, is a sharp, enthusiastic go-getter with a functioning skeleton. Jump forward an hour, and here we are with an upgrade that finally addresses the Double Crouch Jump bug that has long plagued the Scout-playing faithful. Enjoy, and in the words of animator Matthew Russell, "Anyone wants me, I'm gonna snag a couple z's in the server room. If Newell asks, one of my kids has chicken pox again."

In non-crazy-legs-related news, our friends at TF2maps.net have just finished up their Swamp Theme expansion. Head on over and download it today.
[Submitted by Lijitsu]

Yo, a little help here?
January 13, 2010 - TF2 Team


Today we're unveiling the TF2 Contribution site. This nifty site will allow anyone who's made a custom piece of TF2 content to submit it to us, with a view to it appearing in-game. Many of you have been building fantastic TF2 work for a while now, and we wanted a way for you to get it in front of all TF2 players, and for everyone to see that you were the one that built it.

Also, we've now added an official feed for harvesting TF2 inventory data for all the folks out there building nifty web pages around items. Technical details are as follows:

>>The TF2 client installation now includes tf\scripts\items\items_game.txt. This is the item dictionary most of you have been working with for a while now.

>>A JSON feed describing the TF2 items in an account can be reached at this URL:
http://steamcommunity.com/id//tfitems?json=1
or
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles//tfitems?json=1

Use the definition indices for item types, attribute types, and quality levels in the JSON feed to index into the items_game.txt dictionary, and you're good to go. Note that it will respect the privacy settings on steam profiles, so it won't report the inventories of players who've marked the profile as private.
[Submitted by Lijitsu]

January 13, 2010 - Team Fortress 2 Update Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

>>>Additions


Various improvements to Spy disguise and feign death

Disguise weapons copying weapons with special animation requirements (Sword, FaN) now look correct

Spies now play the appropriate death cry on feign death based on the corpse that appears

Feigning death can now play custom death animations like a normal death (head loss, sniper shot, backstab, etc)

Feigning death due to explosive damage now has a chance to gib, like a normal death

Corpses from a feign death now use the correct wearable behavior (hats stay on, or fall off as they should)

The weapons dropped by feign death corpses now have appropriate physics and collision for their type

Combat text for damage done to Spies that feign death will now show the un-modified damage amount

Fixed Spies that feign death while disguised as enemy spies dropping fake ragdolls wearing a mask

Fixed a couple of physics issues on ragdolls created by feign death

Added convars to further customize the "play a hit sound whenever you injure an enemy" option

tf_dingaling_volume". Sets the volume of the hit sound

tf_dingaling_pitchmindmg". Sets the desired pitch of the hit sound when a minor damage hit is done

tf_dingaling_pitchmaxdmg". Sets the desired pitch of the hit sound when a major damage hit is done

tf_dingaling_wav_override". Specifies an optional custom wav hit sound. If unspecified, the default ding sound is used

Added Medic Ubersaw kill taunt

Added backstab death animations for Scout, Spy, Medic, Demo, Engineer, and Pyro. All death animations have a 25% chance to play

Updated various localization strings


>>>Changes

Removed the clamps on the "viewmodel_fov" convar

Added "viewmodel_fov_demo", a convar that controls viewmodel fov during demo playback

Force-a-Nature will now correctly knock back players on the ground

Increased minimum damage required for the Force-a-Nature to cause a knockback from 30 to 40

Changed the Direct Hit to only minicrit enemies that have been launched into the air by an explosion

Increased the rate of the Soldier's Rage generation by 40%

Reduced the duration of the Soldier's Buff Banner effect from 14 seconds to 10

Reduced the explosive damage resistance on the Chargin' Targe to 50%


>>>Fixes

Fixed the Scout's legs twisting out of shape during a double jump

Fixed player models popping up and then down when they duck during a jump

Fixed Sniper rifle not penetrating friendlies

Fixed Bonk! Atomic Punch phase effect

Fixed rockets not being removed if they explode in func_nogrenades zones

Fixed the Sandman being able to bat balls through doors

Fixed the Gunboats absorbing damage from the Soldier's grenade kill taunt

Fixed the naming of non-unique quality unique items (Community Kritzkriegs, etc)

Minor fixes to the crafting UI

Changed the item layout in the crafting panel to better fit the backpack panel

Each 1 of the 4 crafting pages now shows half of 1 of the 2 backpack pages

Fixed the crafting panel next/prev page buttons being hard to use while dragging

Fixed the "equipped" label in the item panels stealing the mouse focus from the item panel itself


>>>Updated Novint Falcon settings (no effect on non-Falcon players)

Recoil/Reload force added for the Direct Hit rocket launcher

Recoil/Reload force added for the Scottish Resistance sticky bomb launcher

More defined flesh hit force added for the Equalizer pick axe

More defined flesh hit/world hit force added for the Eyelander sword

Added swing forces for Eyelander sword

Added appropriate trumpet forces for Blu Buff Banner

Added appropriate trumpet forces for Red Buff Banner

Shotgun reload for Heavy & Pyro changed to feel more appropriate now

Changed Huntsman pullback force so that it goes in the right direction (was still pulling as if the Huntsman was on the left hand side of the screen, which was default until a later update)


[Submitted by Lijitsu]