SourceSTUFF December Issue is out now

by

SourceSTUFF, the lovely magazine going through the ins and outs of Source Film Maker, Dota 2, Team Fortress 2 and a few other bits and pieces, is back with its fourth issue, promising all sorts of December-y winter goodness. The theme is clearly Christmas-y this month! As always, this issue contains the lowdown on the best SFM pictures around. On top of that, SourceSTUFF have done a little round robin catch up of the events of Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2, noting all the major updates that have happened this year. As well as this, there’s a lowdown on… [Continue Reading]

Steam Caching Hell

by

Edit: Everything is apparently fixed now. What actually happened is still a confusing mess of caching. Something is very wrong with Steam today. After Steam went down from too much traffic, people started realising that they were no longer logged in as themselves. This was most obvious when clicking on one’s Account Details, you’d see the information of, well, not you, the most revealing of which is payment information, Steam Guard details, your shopping cart, your purchase history and your email address. Don’t panic just yet. What is coursing the issue is said to be a caching problem, according to… [Continue Reading]

The 25th

by

Hello, this is the Daily SPUF I hope you’re getting all enough of super duper Christmas presents, but that is not all Christmas’ essence. Because it’s that time of the year, where we gift those that we hold dear. And cause we keep that meaning true, we wrote this nice poem for you. For that you have a merry Christmas, and leave some milk and plenty biscuits, for aaby to eat and eat and cheer, so that he must lose weight next year! -InstantMuffin Not really got much to say. I know this is mostly a Christian thing, with other… [Continue Reading]

TF2 and Competition

by

The title’s a double entendre; I plan to discuss two different aspects of Competition in TF2. The first is competition as a league. We had a very interesting conversation on SPUF recently where we discussed the definition of an e-sport and whether TF2 even qualifies. Fundamental aspects like random crits need to be turned off, classes and maps and weapons need to be restricted, even certain cosmetics and sprays need to be blocked in order to balance the playing field. Can TF2 really count as a competitive game when it needs to be so heavily adjusted that it’s almost a different game?… [Continue Reading]

Pyro has been reduced to a W+M1 machine

by

When news of Tough Break broke (mind the pun) I expressed how excited I was. That was mostly due to the plethora of balance changes, some of which many of us have been whining about for years and years (Half-Zatoichi crits, for one.) On first glance it really did seem like a nearly perfect update. In practice, though, you’ll find pubs flooded with Phlog Pyros. That’s because this update destroyed Pyro as we know it. All-Class – Base weapon switch speed changed from 0.67 seconds to 0.5 seconds … Pyro – Pyros like to collect rainbows! Extinguishing a teammate will… [Continue Reading]

Medic buffs – Good or Bad?

by

The Medic is the big game changer of TF2. It’s rare that a pure support class has that position in any video game, but that’s one of TF2’s strong points. Of course, being a game changing person means that making tweaks, changes, buffs, nerfs, anything, can be a huge problem for not just the individual but the entire game. So I was rather surprised when I saw rather unusual changes for Medics in the Tough Break update. But are they good or are they bad? Honestly? Medic didn’t really need anything at all. All of the class’s problems lay within… [Continue Reading]

Tough Break and its Signs of Things to Come

by

The Tough Break update rolled out an extremely healthy list of balance changes to Team Fortress 2. Spanning the entirety of its class roster and with a general trend of making each class’ stock role more defined, it provides some very clear insights regarding the direction Valve is hoping to take TF2 in the coming months. SPUF is ablaze right now with questions attempting to make sense of some of the more extreme alterations, and since I’m stuck on a five-hour plane ride without internet I thought I’d take the time to comment on some things I’ve noticed and make… [Continue Reading]

A Very Festive SPUF Event 2

by

Well, the Very Festive SPUF event, the sequel at least, has been and gone. It involved a bunch of maps, a bunch of changes, me not playing MvM like I wanted and a bunch of other bits and pieces. A random bunch of maps were played, including none of the maps we originally picked out. Apart from Coldfront and Viaduct. I originally wanted to do a Highlander match like the last Festive SPUF event, but I knew we simply didn’t have the numbers. I considered doing MvM but people didn’t like that idea. So we all kinda ended up just… [Continue Reading]

Persian Persuader’s Not Looking too Peachy…

by

The Tough Break update was amazing. I love almost all of the balance changes, especially because pretty much every class was buffed in cool ways. Especially my Medic! Holy crap! Ubercharge on Crossbow and Amputator? I’m so excited, except that part of me that fears a complimentary nerf now that those wholly-unneeded buffs were added. Thank god for the alt-fire addition to the Amputator, by the way, now I don’t have to juggle stupidly around with the taunt menus to use my AoE heals. But this article isn’t about Medic. As great as the majority of changes were, the only… [Continue Reading]

The Tough Break Smissmas Update

by

Editor’s note: Yes, I know we published an article on this yesterday, but Night’s article is better than mine. And more factually correct. This Smissmas is looking damn good. I can’t remember the last time I was really excited about an update. Gun Mettle was fun, I liked the contracts. koth_probed was fun on Invasion. Other than those two I haven’t paid attention to any major TF2 updates since mid-2014. The Tough Break Update, however, has my attention. This update brings the Tough Break Campaign Pass, available for US$5.99. The campaign will be spread over three months, just like Gun… [Continue Reading]