Valve is one of the most influential game companies on the market today. Much of this success can be attributed to the highly popular Half-Life series which they created. However, Half-Life isn’t the only game franchise they’ve created as they are also responsible for other hard hitters including Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead, Portal and Team Fortress.
Team Fortress in particular is currently on its second iterations appropriately dubbed Team Fortress 2. Powered by the source engine Team Fortress 2 has been giving gamers a unique experience since 2007. However, perhaps you’ve been straying awawy from Team Fortress 2 due to the fact that you have to, well, pay for it.
Well then it seems that today is your lucky day as Valve has completely abolished the price tag associated with Team Fortress 2 and made it free to play. But, those who already purchased the game aren’t completely out of luck as they now have Premium Account. These accounts allow you to do things like accure more items, mechanic blueprints and much more.
Valve has released what seems an infinite amount of Team Fortress 2 updates over the past years, with most of the recent ones being centered around their hat fetish. Now, for once, we get a hat-less update, which doesn’t include any hats or items or maps, but a few other interesting things.
For one, the new update fixed a number of bugs and addresses several gameplay issues, and on top of that, adds several new features. Dedicated servers can now be associated with a Steam ID, in order to make it easier to track favorite servers. A new vote system has been added, that makes it easier to vote for the next map, vote to kick a player, among other things.
In addition, the new update adds new training levels for the Demoman, Engineer and Spy. There’s also a new system for coaching players, where players are given a few tips on how to attack the various enemies etc. The new update is live now and will update automatically over Steam.
At ease, Solders! It is our duty to inform you that the recent hat sale on Team Fortress 2 has raised over $300,000 to charity supporting the relief in Japan, after the recent earthquake and tsunami. Said game offered three new hats, retailing at $7.99, $19.99 or $99.99, of which all proceeds went to the relief in Japan. In one week, $300,000 was raised. The hats in question — The Humanitarian’s Hachimaki, Benefactor’s Kanmuri and Magnanimous Monarch, as seen above — will be available for purchase until April 4. So get off your behind, play some Team Fortress 2, buy some hats and help the folks in Japan. And do some pushups. End of message.
As expected, Valve has delivered another TF2 update for the holidays, this time, it includes a new game mode called Medieval Mode, which is a melee only mode, alongside a few maps, including DeGroot Keep, a capture map well suited for Medieval Mode.
In addition, the update brings lots of new hats (surprise, surprise) and new weapons, including: The Claidheamohmor, The Back Scratcher, The Boston Basher, The Fists of Steel, The Amputator, The Crusaders Crossbow, The Loch-n-Load, The Brass Beast, The Warriors Spirit, The Candy Cane, The Jag, and a few more. Check out the full update here.
Team Fortress 2 is one of the most popular games online, and one with certainly the best identity. Now Valve has received a nice present from the guys at Weta Workshop, who do props for films and pretty much everything else. As you can see, it’s a real life sentry, and not some paper mache stuff — a real one in metal, with sounds and even a motion sensor.
Valve is one of the most iconic game developers in the game. Not only have franchise like Half-Life and Counter-Strike become synonomous with the first person shooter genre, they are continuing to push our and support new titles like Counter-Strike: Source and Team Fortress 2. While both of these titles have been out for quite some time Valve is continuing to develop and release new features for them.
If you’re a Steam user you probabably noticed some time ago that a Counter-Strike: Source beta had been added but what about Team Fortress 2? Well, it was announced today that a Team Fortress 2 beta is now available to all TF2 owners and will give gamers a sneak peak at what’s to come.
According to Valve, TF2 beta testers will be able to check out the following things:
Testing and tuning various class, item, and weapon changes
Testing map changes and variants
Running higher level, game-wide experiments (like doubling player health)
Testing new technologies without the risk of breaking the game
When Valve announced that they’ll be selling items on TF2, they also revealed that some of those items would be user created, and that they would split the revenue with the users who created those items. Now Valve has revealed that the creators of the best selling items have already made between $39,000 to $47,000 after just two weeks of sales. However, it’s not that easy to get your items into TF2, they first have to be approved by Valve and the community, and the creators of those best selling items have already won competitions that entered their items into the marketplace.
Team Fortress 2 has had updates to all classes besides the Engineer, and according to Valve’s Robin Walker, TF2 fans can rest assure that there will be updates after the Engie update, which should happen this Spring. He also said that they plan one update before the Engine update and at least one after. Which means TF2 players will have enough content for at least until the Summer.
I remember the first time I ever remember encountering bots that were actually fun to play with was in Perfect Dark for the N64. Technology has progressed a lot since then and lets hope Valve has successfully implemented with their AI-controlled bots they are planning to incorporate into Team Fortress 2.
Thankfully, they have given those brave enough to try them out the ability to test them on their own servers. All you need to do is follow the below instructions:
- To add bots to your game, use the console command tf_bot_add. This will drop a random bot onto a random team (assuming there is a free player slot). The tf_bot_add command can also take up to three optional arguments: , , and , in any order. For example, tf_bot_add 10 will add 10 random bots to the game with auto-assigned teams. Typing tf_bot_add pyro blue will add a Pyro to the blue team. Entering tf_bot_add red 5 will add 5 random bots to the red team. The command tf_bot_add red 3 heavyweapons will add three heavies to the red team.
- In order to put specific bots on specific teams (for a bots-vs-humans game, for example), you may want to disable automatic team balancing. To do this, enter mp_autoteambalance 0 followed by mp_teams_unbalance_limit 0.
- To remove a bot, use the console command kick . To remove all of the bots in the game, use the command tf_bot_kick all.
And that’s it. Let us know what you think of these bots in the comments.
