February 16th-22nd

Pretty tame week here, but there were some highlights.

In February 19th, 2008 Valve added the gimmick that dropped weapons restored half of your weapon’s reserve ammo. To be honest, I was unaware this hadn’t been in the game from start.

February 16th, 2009 saw one of the largest Stickybomb nerfs that wasn’t the arm time one; reduced damage rampup at close range turned demoman from a generalist into a generalist with a close-range weakness, which really made a big difference. The weapon was also renamed “Stickybomb Launcher” instead of “Sticky bomb Launcher”, as far as I know the only instance of a stock weapon being renamed.

February 22nd, 2011 saw the removal of the Crusader’s Crossbow and Amputator being able to heal teammates holding the Equalizer. This bug would resurface on the Escape Plan after that weapon became a thing during Pyromania.

February 16th, 2012 saw, among other things, Valve fix some clipping issues with the Warrior’s Spirit. Why is this a big deal? Because it was one of the first Workshop-submitted fixes incorporated into TF2 by Valve. Sadly they haven’t really been following up on that front, but they got off on the right foot.

We all know 2013 was the Year of the Promo, and all three updates from that era follow suit. The 18th brought us the Brutal Bouffant and kick-ass Shred Alert taunt, the 22nd brought us the Bioshock Infinite promos (Was that really over a year ago?) and February 19th, 2014 brought us Thief promos, including the Fortified Compound which is the first weapon (and reskin) of 2014. Only time will tell if 2014 restricts new weapons to being reskins the same way 2013 did…