VanillaTF2

Everyone’s favorite game has received the long-awaited holiday update. And boy, Christmas has come early this time! This massive update adds some juicy and long awaited features – including a Natascha nerf, inclusion of Medieval Mode and the ability to now donate to your favorite map makers using the Mann-co Store. check out the dedicated Australian Update page on the official website. Important excerpts from update read-me below;

• Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM)
• Improved sv_pure:
• Materials / Models / Sounds / Animations are more comprehensively protected.
• Switched from CRC to MD5 hashes for stronger per-file validation.
• Added Medieval Mode, a game mode where players are restricted to using olde weapons.
• ‘Natascha’ changes:
• Spin-up time increased.
• Slowdown-on-hit effect is reduced over distance.
• Added ‘The Medi-eval Medic’, ‘The Hibernating Bear’, and ‘The Expert’s Ordnance’ item sets.
• Added new weapons: ‘The Claidheamohmor’, ‘The Back Scratcher’, ‘The Boston Basher’, ‘The Fists of Steel’, ‘The Amputator’, ‘The Crusader’s Crossbow’, ‘The Ullapool Caber’, ‘The Loch-n-Load’, ‘The Buffalo Steak Sandvich’, ‘The Brass Beast’, ‘The Warrior’s Spirit’, ‘The Candy Cane’, and ‘The Jag’.
• Added 20 new hats.
• Added a prototype item testing map, and associated functionality, for contributors to test their work. Further details in an upcoming blog post.

Full read me here.

- a.

In case you don’t visit TeamFortress.com and have chosen to ignore the conveniently placed RSS link at the right, hold onto your privates as Valve have planned a minor downtime for Team Fortress 2. On November 9th, 2010, beginning 1pm PST (10pm CET) — Backpack, Loadouts, Crafting, Mann-co Store and Trading will be unavailable. The downtime will wrap up by 2:30pm PST (11:30pm CET)

The game itself will continue to work. All players will have their default appearance and weapons.

This downtime will be one of many in the upcoming days as Valve has created an official downtime thread for Team Fortress 2. You can access it here, subscribe to it to receive updates regarding planned maintenance.

- Abhorrence

You can crib over the Mann-Co Update, paid DLC and game changes but there’s no doubt that the inclusion of paid content has made Valve an incredible amount of money. How much money? Well, Valve has revealed the community developers involved were paid a lofty sum ranging from $39,000 to $47,000 for each developer for royalties. The best part is, these cheques are only from the sales that occurred in the past two weeks!

Five Steam community members participated in the initial round of content creation. Rob Laro, Shawn Spetch, Steven Skidmore, Spencer Kern, and Shaylyn Hamm created items for Team Fortress 2 which were then made available to other community members for purchase from the in-game Mann Co. Store. Today they received checks for the first two weeks of sales, with royalties ranging from $39,000 to $47,000 per person.

Hopefully this will inspire many to venture into the developer territory. Who knows, maybe your next creation will be included in the next Team Fortress 2 update.

Full press release can be read here on eXtv. Credit goes to eXtine!

- Abhorrence

A heads-up up to everybody, the latest Team Fortress 2 update has finally fixed the age-old annoying Sniper scope bug. Furthermore, the update adds additional compatibility for demo playback and fixes the crashing. Here are the juicy bits from the changelog -

• Fixed an issue that caused some old demos to crash.
• The server browser now sorts by ping by default.
• The Sydney Sleeper no longer penetrates targets.
• Fixed spectator bug where spectating a Sniper looking through scope didn’t zoom fov
• Added Remove Name and Remove Paint features.

Read the full update-log here.

- Abhorrence