My favorite TF2 unused content

As the devs of a seven year-old game, the Team Fortress 2 team has had a long time to come up with ideas for our beloved shooter. Obviously not all of them can make the final cut, but a good amount of them have been added in unfinished and relatively inaccessible states. Luckily the community has its ways of discovering this unused content, and here are some I feel a slight pang when I think of because they probably will never see the light of day.

1. “That Dispenser is a Spy!”

Valve is routinely adding new addconds to TF2. For those who don’t know, addcond, or “add condition” is a console command that changes the status of the player. For example, when a Medigun Ubercharges a teammate, the game initiates “addcond 5” which adds Ubercharge textures, negates all damage, and plays the appropriate noses and voice lines. “addcond 11” bestows the player’s weapons with guaranteed crits and the critglow effect, “addcond 32” is how the Disciplinary Action bestows a speed boost and the motion lines in the air, etc. You can get the full list here.
Well, many addconds aren’t tied to any weapons or in-game events, so you can’t use them. But we can see what they do, and there are some gems. To quote the Team Fortress Wiki:

addcond 49: Crouching causes the player to appear to be a Dispenser of the enemy team to enemy players. As a side effect, forces the player’s speed to 450 Hammer Units/second (diagonal movement is at 520 HU/s). Swapping weapons while in this state will cause the player to temporarily stop moving, then return to 450 HU/s.

You heard that last one right. At one point, Valve was toying with a weapon that disguised a spy as an enemy dispenser if he crouched. That has got to be one of the most hilarious, horrifying, and puzzling ideas. Imagine players routinely spychecking your dispenser. Imagine having no engineers on your team, but dispensers are everywhere. The situations are endless, and every one is hilarious. It’s probably for the better Valve didn’t follow up with this one, but I can dream.

2. The Beta Overdose
The Team Fortress 2 Beta was basically a second copy of TF2 that Valve used to test ideas before implementing the in the game proper. It was very popular and interesting in TF2’s early days because Valve tried all sorts of funny things there: weapon stats regularly got tested out before their implementation into TF2, sometimes weird stuff like “every class gets doubled health” was tested gamewide, and in general it was a fun insight into our dev’s minds.
Sadly, it fell into extreme neglect after the Free-To-Play update because Valve wanted new weapons to be a surprise for the growing fanbase, and when TF2 was ported over to SteamPipe it was deleted entirely. But many weapons that never left the beta were awesome.
My absolute favorite was the Beta Overdose:

Applies Mad Milk to target for two seconds
50% slower firing rate
-50% damage done

Can you see how great that would be? Spray some syringes into a fight, and watch your team regenerate their own health. Give your pursuer a further reason to give up the chase when you leech their health with every syringe. It was like the perfect combination between the Crusader’s Crossbow and the Blutsaguer.
And…I have to assume that was the reason they dropped it. It was kinda too good. Insane utility both for combat, noncombat, and it rewarded Medics for not using their Medigun. But I would be sublimely happy if Valve ever dusted the mothballs off of this one and made it a proper weapon.
3. The Upgrade Station Music

Remember when I apologized for how underrepresented Heavy was in our fair blog? Well, Mann Vs. Machine is even worse. With the exception of one amazing picture by Nethero, I think this is the first time we’re even acknowledging its existence. But maybe we’d appreciate it more if this sublime symphony from the amazingly-existent Valve Studio Orchestra was playing every time we visited the Upgrade Station:

I’m not sure why they removed it; perhaps the effect was a bit jarring, and the Upgrade Station did its job fine without it. But it’s probably for the best, because I’d never leave the Upgrade Station during waves if this was playing.
4. Burning Animations
Do you like setting things on fire as a pyro? Do you like watching them burn to death? Well, believe it or not, we victims aren’t as pleased when these events come to pass. But maybe we would be if it gave us a chance to see one of these:

The only reason I can think to not include these animations are….I can’t think of one. They’re awesome. Add it Valve! It’s not the buff afterburn needs, but it’s the buff afterburn deserves!