VanillaTF2

Beta — I am sure you all know your alphabet by now but for those who don’t we are here to help!

In an aid to help have some steady content on VanillaTV and to help the community arrange games, we are pleased to introduce ABC Tuesday Cast.

So what is an ABC cast?  Well, this will be a regular weekly cast featuring AcidReniX & Beta with Comedian providing the streaming.  For the Tuesday…well if you haven’t guessed already, this feature will be every Tuesday.

So how does this help the community?  We continually experience issues with games arranged late and VTV being unable to provide a cast or stream.  By scheduling your games on a Tuesday and informing VTV, we will be able to provide high level commentary and streaming to the masses.

Same old stuff?  In an effort to bring the games to the masses, we will be willing to cast and stream a wide range of division games, across multiple competitions in an aid to help kill your boredom.

So what are you waiting for?  Get scheduling now and help us help you! We are not psychics, please make sure you schedule early and inform a member of the VTV staff.

Faint — Ladies and Gents, tonight is the invite final of the Excello ZOWIE TF2 Challenge II!

With Team Dignitas coming out on top in last nights 3 map (almost 3 golden cap) thriller against Epsilon eSports, they get to face up against Relic who beat  Crack Clan in the other semi-final last night, all in aid of winning the coveted 6x ZOWIE P-TF Mousemats on offer.

Both teams had convincing wins in their quarter-final games vs. CKRAS Gaming and                Team Yoyotech, and look set to try and show that they are back in form and can be known as the #1 team in europe, a ‘title’ that Epsilon seem to have hung onto for the last couple of months.

The action kicks off at 21:15 CET and VanillaTV will be covering the match with AcidRenix and Beta casting, and Comedian on the stream.

Also covering the action tonight is n2otv, and finally TF2World.Ru TV who will have Salamancer casting.

And for you highlander fans out there, TF2World.Ru TV will be covering the ETF2L Highlander Season 1 Week 3 game, between Colony and SNSD which starts at 19:00 CET.

Update: Apparently the fixed broken demos from before the hatless update. Thanks to Honeymustard for the heads up.

The Replay System that was earlier implemented in the Team Fortress 2 Beta has seen the public release. For the aspiring movie makers, the replay system makes things heaps easier as you can easily record and upload footage of your epic gameplay and share it with others. The system allows for multiple-POV and camera angles, so you too can make “Meet the…” esque videos now!

Never again will you have to resort to grunts and potentially lewd hand gestures. Replay-enabled servers record every round of the action, allowing you to make movies of your awesome performance (and the embarrassing performances of others) in the Replay Editor, using different camera angles, sexy motion blur and antialiasing.

To commemorate this occasion, Valve has announced the “The Saxxy Awards” which allows you to submit your moment of glory (Shout to eXtine!) to Valve and earn some online prestigious. There are 20 categories in total, ranging from Most Epic Kill to Best Pwnage. Check out the micro-website for the event here for more details. Detail regarding entry is given below;

Please keep entries to under a minute, and at a resolution of at least 720p. Only entries created between 12:00:00 AM GMT, Thursday, May 5th, 2011 and 11:59:59 PM GMT, Thursday, May 19th, 2011, and submitted by 11:59:59 PM GMT, Thursday, May 19th, 2011, will be considered.

The update also adds new Hats and Achievements. So don’t wait, fire up Team Fortress 2 and get going! Check the full update log here and the FAQs and full details for the contest here.

- a.

The ongoing Team Fortress 2 BETA has gotten a significant update. The update gives both the Pyro and Medic, new weapons as well as tweaking/nerfing a bucket full of things. Check the details below and install the beta (4.5GB) if you feel like giving the changes, a whirl.

General -

• Added an option to display healing done over heal targets (hud_combattext_healing)
• Display a value whenever the player does something that earns them a bonus point
• Starting position of values is now affected by range to target, making it easier to see numbers when next to targets
• Medic overheal effect is now more noticeable

Medic -

• Added the ability to see enemy health (When Vitasaw is equipped)
  
• New Medigun -
• The Quick-Fix:
• Heal rate increased 50%
• Uber charge rate increased 50%
• Not able to overheal
• Match the speed of any faster heal target

Pyro -

• Backburner – Removed the restriction on airblast
• Ammo cost increased 150% (4 blasts at full ammo)
• Damage bonus reduced to 10% (from 15%)
• New Flaregun -
• The Detonator:
• Alt-fire detonates flare in flight
• Does a small explosion that catches players on fire

Full read-me here.

Thanks to Flame for the heads up.

- a.

So I’m actually on my way to bed but something caught my attention and I just had to make a post about it ASAP!

Valve have opened the public beta and there’s already some changes in there that needs testing and I got to say that it’s looking exciting, for my narrow-minded competitive mind at least! :P

What’s in the initial release?

Three Natascha variants:

• -40% damage
• -25% damage, -25% health
• Spin-up/down time increased, slowdown-on-hit effect falls off over distance.

Map changes:

• cp_granary: new entrance added into the RED and BLU mid ramp room.
• cp_5gorge: 5 CP version of cp_gorge.

Misc balance changes:

• Players being healed by a medic are immune to movement-impairing effects generated by hit-scan weapons.

“The beta is available to anyone that owns a copy of TF2. To install, launch Steam, open the Library and install “Team Fortress 2 Beta” from your games list.”

So there you have it.  I can’t wait till I get home tomorrow and get to check out the new granary, if you happen to test it then leave a post with your initial opinion on it.

Official post: link | Official forum for the beta: link

- YoungBlood

Following the exclusive, competitive players only BETA that occurred a long time back, Valve is rolling out a public Team Fortress 2 BETA a la Counter Strike: Source. This tidbit was mentioned on the Kritzkast podcast, and you can hear at the relevant banter about the beta at 23:50. There’s also a page about it on the official Team Fortress 2 Wiki.

The TF2 Open Beta is a beta version of the game open to all TF2 owners, expected to be announced in the near future, likely during the week commencing September 6th. The Open Beta would be used to test various changes to the game and observe their effects on gameplay, before integrating certain changes into the game.

Robin Walker has mentioned that the main goal of the beta would be to test how systems in the game affect each other and are affected, and that experiments would be “wide scale”.

- Abhorrence