Scream Fortress 6 is here!

Yep, Scream Fortress is here! And it’s really bloody insane. There’s spells! And curses! And Carnival stuff! And BUMPER CARTS! Yeah, seriously. Alright, first things first, the basics. Merasmus forgot to build his evil carnival on top of an ancient burial ground and is now hiring you to do that for him. Said carnival is actually a variant of SD_Doomsday. You get the tickets (not the Australium) to the giant lift and then you get sent to a bumper carts minigame. That’s pretty much it. Actually, it’s not, but we’ve got a ton of articles coming up about all this!

So, the patch notes!

Scream Fortress VI has arrived!

• Help Merasmus with his carnival!
• Comic and additional information available on the website (http://www.teamfortress.com/screamfortress6)
• Scream Fortress VI runs until November 12, 2014
• Added new Halloween map Carnival of Carnage
  • Merasmus will spread misfortune with server wide curses
  • Added a Strongmann Test-Your-Strength machine which is in no way an eldritch portal to Bumper Car Madness!
• Added bumper car minigames. Win by completely ghostifying the other team or by completing the objective
• Alt-fire to speed boost your bumper car
• Cast spells while driving
• The collision force a bumper car receives increases as the car takes damage
• Force is displayed in the bumper car HUD as a percentage
• Ghosts can come back to life by touching a friendly bumper car
• 50 new Halloween-themed community cosmetics
• 6 new achievements

During Scream Fortress VI

• A Halloween Gift Cauldron is granted to all players who play during the event
• Added Halloween crates to the Mann Co. Store. These crates do not require a key to open
• All Unusual hats and taunts that are unboxed during the event will receive Halloween-themed Unusual effects
• Previous Scream Fortress content is available in the Mann Co. Store

General

• Reduced the number of Fireball spells granted to 2
• Updated the tf_spells_enabled ConVar
  • Removed the Teleport spell from the general spell list when spells are enabled outside of Helltower
  • Added rare spells to the general spell list, except Skeletons and Monoculus
• Turning a player into a ghost now grants the attacker a kill credit
• Players can now fly around as a ghost by holding the jump key
• TargetID system
  • Now creates a floating health indicator over the target
  • Reduced size of nameplate
  • Added tf_hud_target_id_alpha ConVar to control the transparency
• Fixed player voice transmissions not transmitting the last second of recording
• Fixed a dedicated server crash when the autoexec.cfg contains a bind command
  • Fixed Unicode font performance and rendering issues for Mac clients
  • Fixed an exploit that allowed players to remove the ghost condition

Hammer

• Added a field to the Tools->Options->3DView tab that multiplies the length of the rendered light_spot cone preview

Alright! Your normal Halloween update notes! One thing to note here is the change to the HUD, which is smaller and translucent now, but also glitchy enough to not work on disguised Spies. Oops. But apart from that and the being able to get out of your cart by switching teams bug and a couple of smaller bugs, this update isn’t too bad. What’s really riled people up though is the limit of free gifts.

Remember how Valve said everyone will get more than 5 free gifts this year? That “more than 5” turned out to be a flat 7. Which is rather pathetic. Apart from the 7 items (which are all untradable), you have to trade or buy the rest. On the plus side, there are now Gibus strangifiers.

Apart from all the stuff mentioned here, there was one hidden patch note: Grenades and rockets now do flat damage regardless of damage spread. Small problem, the numbers are too high. You can now one-shot every 125 class with ALL your Loch N Load grenades. Oh dear.

There’s also a comic, but it’s just Merasmus and Soldier. Worth reading anyway though, they’re always funny.

Anyway, that’s it for me. We’ll be having more awesome Halloween articles coming soon! Don’t forget to check out the new achievement all-class weapon, and may your cauldrons bring pleasant gifts! BUMPER CARS!