The weapons that have been in the game since it came out in 2007. The oldest things in your backpack. Every player in the game has used them. Could there really be something you don’t know about them at this point? Maybe. Here are some things I didn’t know about several greytext weapons for a surprisingly long time. 1-Sticky Launcher nuances: Holding down right-click lets you charge up a sticky and shoot it really far. You already knew that? Shucks. How about that destroyed (not detonated) stickies leave 1 ammo you can pick up (or extinguish yourself, in the case… [Continue Reading]
You read that correctly, this one isn’t an article about TF2, but about the official forum meant for its discussion. No, not the Steam Community User Discussions, I’m referring to SPUF. Or as some may call it, the Steam Powered User Forums, despite the lack of an actual “powered” noun anywhere in the title for the Steam Forums. More specifically, by SPUF, I mean the TF2 section of the Steam Forums, and that distinction is something I’m going to be touching upon in this article. To put it simply, it’s sort of odd that we as a community frequently refer to… [Continue Reading]
This was a huge week in Team Fortress 2 history! We’ve got things from every year back to 2008! 2008 saw Valve finally fix a glitch that was funny maybe the first time you witnessed it; Engineers could upgrade the dispensers in payload carts so they healed more than they should. This kind of broke payload, and was a welcome removal. On December 11th they also added some features that are now huge parts of the metagame: Teleporters and dispensers were given a Level 3 (previously only Sentries had a Level 3), spies could now recharge cloak by picking up… [Continue Reading]
Aabicus: When I first started playing TF2, I didn’t have the patience for regular Pyro, and I was well aware that I sucked at the airblast. So when the Pyro Grordbort set came out, I had my first experience trying to craft with tokens, as they didn’t have proper blueprints and I thought they never would. Several refined metals worth of drops later, and I had enough flare guns and backburners to equip an angry mob. I finally got my Phlogistinator and Manmelter once the normal blueprint came out, and rocked it with my Homewrecker, because I never got melee… [Continue Reading]
2010 and 2011 were the big years this week. In 2010, Valve took efforts to fix some problems with players bypassing restrictions on building construction and destruction using the console. Until now, Engineers could immediately destruct sapped buildings and spies could destroy their sappers, as encapsulated in this great video: Fun fact: This happens because the game considers the sapper a building. This is why it’s immune to critical hits (a crit wrench does not remove it in one hit) and why the Homewrecker deals double damage to sappers (and does remove it in one hit) In 2011 Valve added… [Continue Reading]
As we all know, TF2 is a perfect game with absolutely no flaws. As a matter of fact, not only is it completely flawless now, but it’s actually remained a perfect game since the day it came out, with a grand total of zero glitches for the past seven years. That’s pretty impressive.
But every so often Valve feels the need to remove legitimate gameplay strategies such as “Taunt with Amputator, disconnect from server, your team regnerates health indefinitely until the server crashes or changes maps.” Here are the ones I miss the most.
1. The Level 2 Mini-Sentry
Is a regular sentry gun cute? Maybe a little, but not really. Is the mini-sentry cute? It would be if it wasn’t one of the most annoying things in the game currently. But this gun? It’s adorable. I want a plush.
Who’s a cute derpy sentry gun? You are! Picture by AWSmith11.
This was a busy week in Team Fortress history! Back in 2007, Valve fixed a very annoying bug with the demo system where it would get all jittery when you played it back. In 2011, they fixed a problem with allclass hats where they wouldn’t appear until you touched a resupply cabinet. November 30th, 2012 saw the release of the Track Terrorizer, War Pig, Pyrotechnic Tote, Bearded Bombardier, Soviet Gentleman, Pocket Purrer, Medi-Mask, Koala Compact and Hat of Cards, the latter of which is one of my favorite Spy hats. 2012 was also the conclusion of the Saxxy Awards, meaning… [Continue Reading]
If you’ve been keeping in touch with more exotic TF2 news recently (or e-sports news in general), you might have heard of the recent settlement of a case brought by the New Jersey attorney general against E-Sports Entertainment Association, or ESEA for short, a gaming league with major divisions in Counter-Strike: Global Offense and Team Fortress 2.
Obviously, if you’re involved in competitive, you’re probably monitoring the situation and seeing what comes of it. If you aren’t, and are wondering why this is such a huge story, consider this analogy: say the owner of a very well-known price guide for TF2 itemswas accused of price manipulation and then agreed to give up hundreds of buds without admitting whether they did it or not? That event would certainly lead to a major switch to another pricing guide which the community would place its trust in and primarily use. In both cases, the community is at a critical juncture, where a major decision affecting the entire future of the community lies in the balance. In the trading case, the community successfully rallied behind the new community-based alternative, although not without some regrets being voiced with its current state today.
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!”
Picture by Gen. DeGroot
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.
The Team Fortress 2 that preceded Team Fortress 2 is finally available on Steam via Greenlight! Fortress Forever is one of the largest fan-made Team Fortress games out there, designed to appeal both to fans of Team Fortress Classic and Team Fortress 2. It’s fast-paced, frantic shooting and (best of all in my opinon) everybody talks like they’re a pirate! Definitely go give it a shot!
