But fear not! I don’t intend to ever shut the site down, but it’s only fair to let y’all know why it’s a little quiet. That said, I am considering packing my bags and handing over administratorship to someone else, so if you think you’ve got the ability and motivation to take this site into the future, then let me know and I’ll certainly consider it (don’t be offended if I say “no” though I’m still very attached to ol’ TF2S).

While I don’t really expect to hand it over, I HAVE however changed my primary email address from pie21@tf2strategy.com (yeah, eat it up now, spambots) to admin [at] this site. Quite simply, I’m sick to death of raking in hundreds of spam emails a day, the sorry result of leaving the previous address in text form in various parts of the site. I’ll update the contact form, but if you want to contact me, the surest way is via a forum PM, since I get an alert at my personal Hotmail account, which I should see within the day.

So that’s my story. I’ll still be hanging around the forums, but as sorry as I am, I can’t see myself throwing any new guides up onto the site, unless I’m feeling extra productive one weekend (and full-time work makes that unlikely ). By all means let me know if you’ve got something to show off, however, and I’ll see what I can do.

Cheers for all the support to date!

- Pie21

Don’t let the title deceive you however – veterans and beginners have to join servers the exact same way (more or less). As a guy who doesn’t really think about which server he jumps on (I’m lucky to have a solid though homogeneous list of favourites), I’ve been insulated from the need to know how to choose the right server, and as such this article is of particular interest, even after two and a half year of playing. Check it out!

Thanks again, chip!

First up, we FINALLY saw a fix for the Scout’s crazy-legs bug, where double crouch jumping would make it look like “his legs are made of raw bacon strips held up in a wind tunnel”. Of course there was an entirely reasonable and believable justification for the delay. RIP, Del.

More recently, The Administrator has deemed it important to reprimand those choosing to manipulate the outcome of the Soldier vs. Demoman WAR! by committing acts of unspeakable genocide. There was also some congratulations due for the (as yet unnamed) runners up in the WAR! propaganda contest, so we can all look forward to some more bad ass TF2 artwork soon.

There was also a sizeable update, with a smaller update fixing what that one broke. The update itself added three new aspirational, class-neutral hats to be found (or not):
the Modest Pile of Hat, Noble Amassment of Hats, and the classiest of them all, the Towering Pillar of Hats. Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t want to wear those. CP_Gorge received a bit of a shake-up too to speed up the action.

All in all a good sheaf of updates, all the better that my lateness doesn’t affect them.

Robin’s guarded answers aren’t dropping any bombshells, but it’s a good read nonetheless. You can also be sure that the Engineer will be receiving a full class update (as if there was still any doubt), and look forward to a tweaking of the item drop system to be more rewarding. Always ravenous for feedback, there’s plenty of call for fans to let Valve know what they want, so if you’ve got something to say, say it!

So check it out, and excuse the lack of images for the time being (that’s my bad). And please note of course that the Eyelander and Targe are not being considered, as per the other Versus articles as well as per the Demoman’s true role.

The Spy’s death feigning (via the Dead Ringer) has had 9 issues patched over for more convincing death handling, and 6 of the classes have received new backstab animations (on top of those who already had them). The Soldier’s Direct Hit now only minicrits on those exploded into midair, and the Bugle now charges 40% faster while lasting only 10 seconds instead of 14.

On top of that, the Force-A-Nature was nerfed a little, increasing the minimum damage to knockback from 30 to 40, while the Chargin’ Targe’s explosive damage resistance was cut to 50% (thank God). Snipers can now shoot through friendlies, and friggen’ Scouts can’t hit balls through doors any more. There’s plenty of other fixes in there as well, and a few fun-sounding additions for users of the Novint Falcon. All in all, well worth a good read.

Oh! And the ubersaw received a kill taunt, perfect for those Medics who didn’t think just running around with a saw wasn’t hurting their team enough

This, of course, is one big step up from simply taking suggestions from the Steam forums – there are so many talented individuals out there that would kill to be recognised with an official, personalised item of their own creation, and giving them such an open point of submission should do wonders for the amount of official content Valve releases in the future.

My prediction? Next it will be maps, then updates, and eventually Valve will just be stamping approvals on every community modification while the money flows in. Could this just be the first step of outsourcing game development to the gamers themselves? Maybe this is what Gabe was really talking about when he was suggesting gamers could fund development…

Along with the WAR! update, all this means a lot of required site updating is stacking up. And you know what that means.

In the meantime however let me wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy 2010. It’s been a huge year for TF2 and (more/less importantly) I’m sure for many of you as well. Hopefully you all get some time off for some quality family/TF2 time, and that you have a wonderful time sharing your love/exploding the enemy into bloody chunks.

Now raise your glasses as we give thanks to His Majesty Robin Walker.

Of course all of this exposition loses a lot of excitement when told in the past tense. The WAR involved a live tally of the number of Soldiers killed by Demomen and the number of Demomen killed by Soldiers. The class with more kills would receive an extra item, and that was ultimately the Soldier (6,406,065 vs 6,372,979).

So just what did this update contain?

4 new items for the Soldier:
The Direct Hit – a rocket launcher alternative that fires quicker, more powerful rockets at the expense of blast radius.
The Equalizer – a shovel alternative that increases damage and speed in inverse proportion to amount of health remaining.
The Buff Banner – a secondary slot item that, when charged (by dealing damage), can be activated to grant 100% minicrits to nearby teammates for 14 seconds.
The Gunboats – Secondary slot boots that greatly reduce the damage taken from rocket jumping (reward for winning the WAR).

3 new items for the Demoman:
The Eyelander – a ridiculous Scottish claymore that initially reduces max health, but then increases max health and speed incrementally for your first 4 kills.
The Chargin’ Targe – a replacement for the sticky bomb launcher, this shield gives great protection against fire and explosions, and grants a charge ability that will damage targets and grants mini/full crits to melee attacks (depending on charge range).
The Scottish Resistance – a fancy sticky bomb launcher alternative, the SR is customised for defence, allowing the planting of twice as many sticky bombs and selective detonation (at the expense of a slower priming rate).

2 new maps:
(CP) Gorge - a wide, 2CP attack/defence map built for “fast, frantic play”.
(CTF) Doublecross - a fast CTF map with fighting focused on a pair of precarious bridges in the centre.

35 new Soldier achievements.
35 new Demoman achievements.

A new item crafting system. Smelting certain recipes yields scrap metal which can be refined with other scrap metal, and eventually crafted into hats and weapons. TF2Wiki has some good information for the scientists out there.

Furthermore, TF2 is having yet another free weekend to commemorate this release, and is selling at half price, just $10. A perfect time to snap it up as a Christmas present. There are also a bunch of other changes and fixes in the WAR update, as well as a more recent update with a bunch more fixes.

As always, this information will be incrementally integrated into the meaty core of TF2S as time permits. That is, eventually. It’s more important however that you go off and get some quality TF2 time so even more people can have hats that I don’t!