Team Fortress 2 Strategy

Medic Achievements a la mode*

Pie21 — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:12:15 +0000

I could just let it slip by, but in this flurry of updates, I decided against letting anything slip by. To accompany the new forums in celebration of all things TF2, I’ve just filled up the Medic Achievements page with some pretty pictures. It has finally become a word for word list of all the new updates in the Medic Pack, including a laughably unofficial difficulty rating. Strap yourself in and check it out.

Also check out the Admin Blog while you’re at it. I just remembered about it after half a month, and tried to make up with it by boring you to tears almost 300% more than usual.

* Icecream not included

New forums

Pie21 — Thu, 01 May 2008 01:39:05 +0000

In celebration of the aforementioned TF2 update (Gold Rush rules - at least it will just as soon as less than half my team are medics), I’ve upgraded the TF2S forums from phpBB2 to phpBB3. The most obvious difference is the look of the things, which will change further when I start fiddling with the vast style options.

Tell me what you think in the new forums thread. For the moment the old forums are still up, but since the upgrade seems to have gone smoothly, I’ll be wiping them away in due course. The new path is tf2strategy.com/forums, rather than /community, so check it out and see if you can break it

TF2 Goldrush Update Live!

Pie21 — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:16:36 +0000

I won’t waste your time with words - the update is OUT! Everyone who owns Team Fortress 2 now has access to a new map, Goldrush, with a new gameplay style, Payload, and the first set of class-specific achievement / unlockable weapon packs for the Medic. Plus there’s going to be a TF2 free weekend this weekend, so get to work on any of your friends who haven’t had the TF2 experience!

Here it is from the horse’s mouth:

Team Fortress 2: Gold Rush Update Available Now
April 29, 2008, 5:59 pm - Alden Kroll

The Team Fortress 2: Gold Rush Update is now available, free to owners of Team Fortress 2 via Steam. The Gold Rush Update introduces the new Gold Rush map and Payload gameplay style, the first set of unlockable weapons, and a new set of achievements for the Medic.

In other TF2 news, a worldwide Team Fortress 2 Free Weekend will begin Friday at noon PDT, and will include access to the new content released today in the TF2: Gold Rush Update. Using the functionality made available through Steam and Steamworks, all of the files needed to join the Free Weekend are available for pre-loading now.

The Free Weekend is open to players around the world, and there is no obligation to purchase to participate; all that is needed is a Steam account to join.

To start pre-loading everything you need to play on Friday and learn more about Team Fortress 2, please visit www.steamgames.com/goldrush

TF2 Update Confirmed - Tuesday 29th!

Pie21 — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 02:17:36 +0000

That’s tomorrow! No, really! Neowin has claimed that after a visit to the Valve offices that

The update will be released this Tuesday, April 29th.

Surely Valve wouldn’t twist the screws by delaying it again… right? It’s not an official announcement though, so I’m only 95% holding my breath. Of course that’s only slightly more than I hold it when there hasn’t been any word of a release, so take it as you will.

In other, more disturbing news, there’s a rumour out there than Valve has scaled back the difficulty of some of the more onerous medic achievements - most notably Chief Of Staff being scaled back to only 1 million total healing, but a few others too. Check out an apparent list of achievements over at flickr - Page 1, Page 2, Page 3 and Page 4. It’s either a ‘correction’ by Valve or a damn good Photoshop job… time will tell.

UPDATE: Clearly the update isn’t live yet, but I have word that it is expected within the hour. Stay tuned!

Meet The Scout

Pie21 — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 05:59:02 +0000

It can’t be long now! Valve’s brand new Meet The Scout video has hit the tubes, and surely the update is just around the corner. So head on over to the Scout Videos page and Meet him (3rd video down). Or if you’re the picky sort that needs HD, type the URL steam://run/5032/ into your browser and Steam should get to downloading it for you. “WOOHOO!”

And speaking of the update, a few images of the weapon customisation system have surfaced over at PRiSON.ro, and as such the little linky pictures in the Medic Overview have also had a bit of a touchup. Better quality to come post-update, of course.

TF2 Update update

Pie21 — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:19:54 +0000

An article over at Shacknews today summarised some of the happenings at a Valve party in San Francisco, most importantly details about the 3 upcoming unlockable medic weapons - the Blutsaugher, Crtizcrieg and Ubersaw. For more information hit the link.

As such I have updated the Medic Overview page, and will update it further as soon as the update hits the tubes. Hopefully the new weapons have some distinctive artwork! Also a new page has gone up following The Medic, Versus, entitled Medic Achievements. This page will contain full details all 36 of the new medic achievements, as well as tips for how to go about getting them. Stay tuned.

In other news I CAN’T WAIT!

UPDATE: In further update update news, the medic achievements are now listed! It seems Valve has answered our prayers and rolled out 36 not only challenging but awesomely named achievements for us to salivate over. Epic <3

Perhaps the coolest:

Play Doctor: In a team with no medics, be first to switch to medic after a teammate calls “Medic!” and then heal 500 health.

Badlands guide + New videos

Pie21 — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 10:33:52 +0000

It took freakin’ forever, I know. Goldrush will be much quicker. It really only took 2 days… what? Oh. I speak of course of the new Badlands map guide that has just gone up. You’ll eventually notice there’s nothing in the Vantage Points section, becaue I’m still considering the future of that bit. With the proposed sentry placement guide, vantage points would be a bit redundant. I’ll keep thinking.

Also in lesser news a few new videos are up at the ends of the Class Guides. Every class has got at least something now, which is a start. Anyone who knows of any good demoman strategy videos, let me know, because my search turned up nothing.

12 days and counting folks! Oh, and check out the shiny new links on the left (<--) - a contact button because I realised there wasn't really one yet, RSS feed (on the off chance I post an update), and the TF2S Steam group. It’s free to join, and you get a cool pyro pic in your profile. What more could you ask for, in all seriousness?

Vide-omganupdate!

Pie21 — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:19:54 +0000

I know, it’s painful. All you dedicated TF2sians out there want nothing more in the entire world than a TF2S update and every day I don’t have one, it kills you inside, just that little bit more.

Truthiness aside, I finally got around to putting pages up for videos for every class (and I guess I’ll transfer that over to maps if I get some decent vids for them). So far only 4 of those pages are populated, thanks to the world-famous EvilDaedalus, known for his work on the “How To Play The [Class]” videos. He’s gladly got on board, and you can check out his Scout, Pyro and Spy videos, as well as the brand new(!) Engineer video. I can assure you, they’re brilliant.

The idea is that these pages will grow as I find more and more quality videos that fit the bill, so check back often! I’ll leave notes on any additions in the Admin Blog, if for no other reason than to make me go there moar. But for now, enjoy!

Btw, if you know of any other quality videos, leave a note in the forums (any thread, I’ll see it :P).

Jumping Jumping!

Pie21 — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 09:54:56 +0000

Although I may not be so much with the updates, jumping is all the go in the new Jumping Guide, proudly published with permission from Dartagnan who put up the original over at TF2 Fort. With a bit of cutting down and some image croppery, the Jumping Guide will hopefully enlighten you to some jumping opportunities you’d never of noticed otherwise - I know it did for me! Check it out!

In other news, not a lot. The new theme has been tamed and most of the problems ironed out, and there’s a bit of a post-mortem in the admin blog. Speaking of new themes, I’m getting around to upgrading the forums to phpBB3, so look out for that soon enough.

Fresh new site design!

Pie21 — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 03:36:17 +0000

Hopefully you don’t need this post to tell you the site looks different. I was driven by a few factors you can read more about in the Admin Blog if you really want, but mainly I wanted more orange and a fluid (site width fits resolution) layout. I picked the Tulip Time theme and am still working away at it to get it looking the way I want it. Any comment/suggestions (I’m very, very open to them) can be directed to the relevant thread… which you can hopefully find to the right of your screen, though problems have been reported in that regard.

Anyway, the new site design gives me a lot of opportunities to go back and fix things up. A prime example of this is the Gallery which I’ve consolidated into 7 single pages, which are not only simpler from a coding perspective (much easier to add new pics), but also (hopefully) properly liquid, since the extra width allows more thumbnails per line for those with larger resolutions. Enjoy!

Finally sorry for these long gaps between updates, but after a busy Christmas break University has begun for real, so my attention is more and more diverted to more academic matters. However this in now way suggests I’m going to give up on the site - on the contrary one of my subjects is all about coding, including some HTML (mostly Python though - look out for some funky scripts when I get a handle on it :D) - but the creation of new guides and content may slow down a notch or two. As we speak however there is discussion in the forums about some more community-contributed offerrings, which if they come about, I will be eternally grateful for. Feel free to lend a hand, even just by throwing your $0.02 in.

The new design is still a WIP, so I’ll be back soon with more updates. Have fun exploring what’s here for the time being!