Tuesday, 04 August 2009
Source: Left 4 Dead Blog
First Stop: Comic ConDuring the San Diego Comic Con gamers had an opportunity to visit us in our Left 4 Dead 2 room and try out two L4D2 levels from the "Swamp Fever" campaign. The response was overwhelming, with lines going out the door well before we opened. Throughout the four days that the demo was made available, there was never an empty seat.Thousands of new L4D2 t-shirts were given out to players—some lucky gamers waiting in line even had their zombie portraits drawn by Andrea Wicklund, an artist on the L4D team. We also had an area on the show floor that was visited by NBC's Zachary Levi from Chuck. Zach was well versed in L4D and had no troubles leading his team to safety, even while being attacked by a costumed Smoker.Thanks to everyone who visited during Comic Con. Next stop will be the Penny-Arcade Expo (PAX) on Sept 4th. If you want an early peek at Left 4 Dead 2, make sure to book your trip to PAX today.
Source: Team Fortress 2 BlogRelated: TF2 Maps.net
We've collected some of our best custom content creators and stuck them in a room and forced them to make a new theme just for you. Don't worry though, we gave them a nice ration of one cupcake per item, so there's plenty of new stuff for you to work with. All you need to do is download and install it, and you too can experience the joy of the swamp.Read the rest over at Related: TF2 Maps.net
Source: Pirates, Vikings, & Knights II
Good afternoon my friends! Today we have for you some exciting news and media on 2.3.Let's get started!Shield Combat ChangesMost of you have already played 2.2 and previous versions (If you haven't... What are you waiting for! Download Now!). In 2.2 the shield is mostly useful against ranged weapons and some of the smaller melee weapons. Altogether, it needed some improvement and that's exactly what we've given it in 2.3!For starters, bashing has been improved. We've added the ability to charge the bash for better timing and damage. In addition to the charge, the shield's hit-detection has been changed to an arc-based system like the other weapons. What this means is when the player bashes with the shield, anyone single player within the arc of the bash will be stunned! Bashing can also cause a player to drop a chest they are carrying.A health meter has also been added to shields. Shields now block all damage from both melee and ranged weapons, taking the damage instead of the player. When the health runs out, the shield is disabled until fixed. Any damage done to the shield can be repaired by grabbing an armor pickup.Skirmisher Changes and AdditionsThe Skirmisher is undergoing some changes to make him better in melee situations. The pistol's accuracy has been reduced, while the damage has been increased. This means that the pistol will still be a viable weapon, though it won't be as easy to "kite" enemies around the map.A new ability has also been added to the Skirmisher's arsenal to make him better at dodging. This new ability is the double-jump! When a Skirmisher jumps, he will be able to perform a second jump mid-air. This will not give him much extra height, but is very effective for dodging since he can change direction mid-air!Gestir Progress and InformationThe Gestir is in his final testing stages, most of his abilities have been implemented and his langseax is now in-game. The spear has a cool new feature called "Defensive mode". When defensive mode is activated with alternate attack, the Gestir gains attack damage and push-back, but loses speed. It can be very effective in some situations, though should be used sparingly. Currently, the Gestir's special is a spear charge. Because it's similar to the Huscarl's special, we hope to change the Huscarl's in a future release.Blunderbuss Push-BackThe captain's Blunderbuss is now equipped with a little extra bang. The enemy is pushed back by the blast of the gun, the power of the push depends on their range. This helps the captain in melee situations and can be extremely satisfying when fighting by a cliff. Particle Effects and PickupsA few new particle effects have been added including the flame on the captain's special and an effect on the special bar to help the user know when it is full. In the screen shot you also get a glimpse at the new pickups. Instead of team-specific ammo and armor, all pick-ups are now global like the health.The health pickups now restore a small fraction of health instantly, and the rest regenerates over time.Another cool particle effect added to the game is the weapon glow. Enemy weapons will glow when they are at full-charge, warning you to back-off instead of trying to block. Fully charged weapons can penetrate your block, so it's much better to try to dodge instead. Chest SpecialOne of our favorite new changes is the ability to activate a chest special. When your special meter is full and you're carrying a chest, you can now unleash a burst of speed to get away from enemies faster. This comes in very handy in many situations and adds an additional level of strategy to the booty game-mode. That's all for now, be sure to keep an eye out on our forums for more information! You should also join our Official Game Group for special events and updates! Players in our Official Game Group will also have a cool scoreboard tag when 2.3 comes out to make them that much better than anyone not in the group!
Source: No More Room in Hell
I come bearing the gift of news from the development team. It must be nice having myself cater the news directly to you, so I hope you appreciate our efforts!So first up on the front of code, the legendary code-warrior Andrew "ssba" Orner has busted out a really amazing piece of code that will blow your socks off especially if you know anything about Source modding. This is a first for Source. We now have implemented in to NMRIH proper, real-life style flashlights. That's right. You can now see other players flashlight cones, and what they're illuminating. All the flashlights cast shadows and they will move with idle animations, reloading animations, sprinting... All that fun stuff! This is a major part of No More Room in Hell gameplay where we don't require teamplay, but encourage teamwork. Now you walk down a dark hallway in an abandoned apartment building, it's pitch black. You have your shotgun and your new friend has a machete and a flashlight. He lights the way, spotting out incoming Zeds for you to pick off. This is No More Room in Hell.On the mapping front our guys have been hard at work prettying up their levels. Sotapoika's map has really come together in a very good way. Those of you who follow his devblog will surely agree. nay0r has also been hard at work on his map "Broadway", based on a real section of Broadway in New York City. It looks phenomenal right now, very New York with plenty of low light and creepy fog... 2d-Chris is redesigning areas of Citylife to better comply with our Extraction entity setup. So far, so good ladies and gentlemen!I have also completed a piece of eye candy for you. No more placeholders in hell... I finished and finalized the art for something special:Read the rest over at No More Room in Hell
Source: HalfLife2.netSource: Fakkel BrigadeSource: Community Fortress
Q: Much to the delight of fans and customers, Valve has always believed in ensuring the longevity of their titles. Counter-strike's continued popularity is in large part due to the competitive scene that has developed around it, what are Valve's thoughts on the competitive TF2 scene at large?A: We're excited to see the steady growth of the TF2 competitive scene around the world, and we try to keep track of what we can do to help it. So far, most of that help has taken the form of feature additions to the game, but in the future I think we'd like to get more insight into what else we can do. In particular, I'd like to build some more bridges to organizers within the competitive community, which is something we've tried to do but still continue to have trouble with.As an example of the kind of work we could do for them, several of the competitive organizations have built external tools, server mods, and scripts to help organize & run their tournaments. We'd like to see if we could move some of those systems directly into the game.[...]Read the rest over at Community Fortress
Source: Steam PoweredRelated: Left 4 Dead
Crash Course Campaign Due in SeptemberAugust 4, 2009 - Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress, and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced the next major downloadable content (DLC) update for its co-operative zombie thriller, Left 4 Dead (L4D), the #1 new game title on Xbox 360 and PC in 2008 Entitled "Crash Course," the latest DLC delivers new single-player, multiplayer and co-operative gameplay to both platforms. Targeted for release in September, "Crash Course" bridges the gap between the end of the "No Mercy" campaign and the beginning of "Death Toll" in the original game, expanding the game universe with new locations, new dialogue from the original cast, and an explosive finale While containing both Survival maps and a Co-operative Campaign, the primary goal of "Crash" is to deliver a complete Versus mode experience in just 30 minutes, resulting in a streamlined version of the game's existing Versus campaigns. A recharge timer for infected teammates has also been added, and item spawn behavior has changed for more balanced gameplay. "Since the release of Left 4 Dead last November, the design team has been excited about creating new experiences for this world and allowing players to do the same, by releasing much of our internal toolset, like the Survival Pack and Authoring Tools," said Gabe Newell. "We're working with the fans toward the ongoing entertainment value of the product." Left 4 Dead is an action horror game from Valve that blends the social entertainment experience of multiplayer games such as Counter-Strike and Team Fortress with the dramatic, narrative experience made popular in single player action game classics such as the Half-Life series of games. Released in November of 2008, L4D has earned over 50 industry awards from outlets around the world and sold almost 3 million copies worldwide. Left 4 Dead: Crash Course is targeted for release in September and will be available free of charge on the PC and for 560 Gamer points on Xbox Live. For more information, please visit www.l4d.com
Source: Steam Powered
Beginning at 6:00 pm Pacific time Thursday August 6th, we will be performing software maintenance on some Steam servers. We expect the resulting downtime to last three hours at most, putting the end of the window at 9:00 pm Pacific time. Some Steam services will be offline during this time. Affected services will include the Steam Community, in-game matchmaking or lobbies, downloading games from Steam content servers, and making purchases from the Steam store. Games that do not rely on Steam matchmaking services should remain playable.News updates and any further information will be posted in this space.We will work to make this downtime as short as possible. Thank you for your patience!
Source: Team Fortress 2 Blog
We've been shirking our updating duties here, so we thought it'd be a good time to do some quick housekeeping:
- We recieved a bunch of positive responses to the release of the .vmf source behind our official TF2 maps. As a result, we've decided to go ahead and release the source behind all the player character models, as well as associated animations. We hope this will make it much easier for custom modellers to design new character models, and for machinima makers to have more control over how characters animate in their movies. Look for that SDK update in the next week or so.
- The folks over at tf2maps are running a new competition to make a map using their nifty new Swamp Theme. Go take a look, maybe you'll make a popular map and we'll end up knocking on your door asking to include it in the next TF2 update.
- We've been super impressed by Waar's detailed post on the forums describing how to get into the more competitive side of TF2. If you think you're reaching the point where you're ready for more of a challenge, check it out.
