I am no longer surprised by anything that gets added into Team Fortress 2.
Valve celebrated All Hallows Eve in an update for Team Fortress 2 last year, and it's doing so again in 2010 with the release of a new map called the Mann's Manor. The new map--which is out now and available within a free update--contains exploding pumpkins, a surely chilling atmosphere, a random gift box drop, and a first for the series: a certain headless NPC that can kill you. That's right--the Headless Horseman has been added to TF2.
Valve describes the Horseman as a "randomly spawning boss monster" that is exclusive to Mann's Manor. And speaking of exclusive, the Mann Co. Store now has 10 new Halloween-themed items (hats and the like) that will only be available for purchase during the season, according to a Team Fortress 2 blog post, but will be wearable year round. Get to purchasing, I suppose.
One more map has been added to the game in this latest update, too. It's a level called Mountain Lab and it was created by Valentin "3Dnj" Levillain for the Art Pass Contest, which the author won, alongside Tim "YM" Johnson and Alex Kreeger's Mann's Manor.
Valve celebrated All Hallows Eve in an update for Team Fortress 2 last year, and it's doing so again in 2010 with the release of a new map called the Mann's Manor. The new map--which is out now and available within a free update--contains exploding pumpkins, a surely chilling atmosphere, a random gift box drop, and a first for the series: a certain headless NPC that can kill you. That's right--the Headless Horseman has been added to TF2.
Valve describes the Horseman as a "randomly spawning boss monster" that is exclusive to Mann's Manor. And speaking of exclusive, the Mann Co. Store now has 10 new Halloween-themed items (hats and the like) that will only be available for purchase during the season, according to a Team Fortress 2 blog post, but will be wearable year round. Get to purchasing, I suppose.
One more map has been added to the game in this latest update, too. It's a level called Mountain Lab and it was created by Valentin "3Dnj" Levillain for the Art Pass Contest, which the author won, alongside Tim "YM" Johnson and Alex Kreeger's Mann's Manor.
man, i've owned the game since the orange box's release but never played much of it...all this cool shit's happening and i won't even know what's new or not.
" man, i've owned the game since the orange box's release but never played much of it...all this cool shit's happening and i won't even know what's new or not. "
Everyone talks about TF2 as if it's some incomprehensible, unscalable MMO that is impossible to get into now. The game is incredibly well balanced, so that beginners won't get slaughtered. It's an incredibly flexible game and easy to learn, so I suggest you get in noiw; you won't regret it.
" Don't tell me. The horseman drops items right? need moar Grind Fortress 2 "
Only a pumpkin hat and a purple piece of metal that you only seem to get by melee killing him or something. ANyway you can craft his axe for the demo with that, two refined, and a demo axe. Nothing with gameplay ramifications.
Headless Horseman isn't even on a horse, yeesh, he may as well be Mad King Thorn. that reminds me, i have to hop on to Guild Wars for the Halloween event sometime and remind myself why I quit that game... just like how I hopped onto TF2 and remembered why I hate that game.
" Headless Horseman isn't even on a horse, yeesh, he may as well be Mad King Thorn. that reminds me, i have to hop on to Guild Wars for the Halloween event sometime and remind myself why I quit that game... just like how I hopped onto TF2 and remembered why I hate that game. "
He's not the Headless Horseman.
He's the Horseless Headless Horsemann, and you can find the Horseless Headless Horsemann's Head as a hat.
Giant Bomb's half-hearted coverage of TF2 continues to depress me. There are not ten but four new hats which can be purchased from the store. Two can only be purchased before the 8th of November (the length of the TF2 Halloween event), whereas the other two can be purchased at any time.
The 'ten' figure is probably from the ten masks. Nine of these depict each class, and are from the gift boxes which occasionally appear in the Mann Manor map, giving a random mask to whoever finds it first. The tenth, the Saxton Hale mask, can then be crafted from the other nine once a player has gathered them all. This tenth mask can be worn year-round, whereas the other nine are restricted to being worn just for Halloween.
There's no real need to cover TF2 on a site like this if it's going to be both inaccurate and frankly rather late. Especially when you get the name of the Horseless Headless Horsemann wrong.
Actually, he's not the Headless Horseman. Brad, if you PAY ATTENTION to Valve's info (I love you, but seriously, pay more attention, duder) he's the Horseless Headless Horsemann. (And yes, two Ns on the end. As in "Mann Co.")
This update broke my game. All the colors are fucked up and the models won't render right. The game just ends up crashing after a while. Unless Valve fixes this, I'll never be able to play this again on my current machine. *sigh*
Also, two days old isn't really all that old, guys. I mean, it sounded old to me too, but it's really not that old. It's just that the Internet has conditioned us to be accustomed to getting all our news instantly.
I do have to agree, though, that Giant Bomb's coverage of Team Fortress 2 is pretty abysmal. Most of the staff doesn't seem to really care about the game. Jeff's one of my favorite people in the industry, but he and I couldn't be more different gaming-wise. He has no love for either TF2 or Earthworm Jim, two of my favorite franchises. I don't get it. It's fine if they're not into it, and I know GB has never been a news-focused site. I just wish that one of PC gaming's most popular games was handled with a bit more respect and knowledge here. I don't think that's a lot to ask.
I'm glad they aren't doing much to cover TF2 if Valve is going to insist on suddenly turning the game into micro-transaction hell.
I guess I should point out that I don't own TF2. I'm just not a big FPS person. Even so, I had considered getting it when it went on sale again, but adding all of this cash shop shit just makes me not want to touch the game with a ten foot pole, even if it doesn't impact the gameplay.
I miss the days where you bought a game and everything was unlockable by playing the game, and that was that. I'm getting kind of fed up with the charge-for-trivial-content syndrome that has crept its way into gaming in the past few years. If it's done in "free to play" games, it's to be expected, but putting this stuff in games that actually cost money is getting ridiculous.
@Forum_User: As far as I can tell (owning the game), everything that can be bought in the store can be gained by simply playing the game/crafting it. Besides the dueling minigame thing, which requires a key that must be bought to open a box, or some such nonsense.
I love TF2 And to the people who are bitching about the microtransaction thing, obviously you haven't played the actual game Most of the things that are in the store you can get through crafting, not that big of a deal Only thing that I know off the top of my head that you can't find ingame is the key to Mann Co. Crates
@Magesx: actually the dueling minigame can be found in a random drop. the only thing that isn't dropped are the keys to the crates, and for that if you dont have a key alot of people will trade most everything for the crate.
" man, i've owned the game since the orange box's release but never played much of it...all this cool shit's happening and i won't even know what's new or not. "
Everyone talks about TF2 as if it's some incomprehensible, unscalable MMO that is impossible to get into now. The game is incredibly well balanced, so that beginners won't get slaughtered. It's an incredibly flexible game and easy to learn, so I suggest you get in noiw; you won't regret it. "
Depends on what servers you are playing I guess. I used to be a regular on a certain server (a couple of them actually belonging to the same community), not only was it a newbie slaughterfest, the regulars typically play together, which creates an incredible imbalance and steamroll begins. Go figure.
Really fun when everyone from the two teams go after the Horseman. I hadn't played TF2 for a long time, but now I couldn't resist to get that pumpkin head!
jesus people get off brads back....hes a guy doing his best if you have an issue with it present it in a mature matter thats what this site is about....not being a dick
@Forum_User: But would you pay for a subscription to an MMO you paid for already? All that would guarantees is that you'll be able to play the MMO.
There is a minute amount of shit they are really expecting people to buy; paint, keys, name tags, rare hats, duel mini-games, and gifts for people server. People were complaining that this was all due in part to VALVe not raising the item drops per week. Not that they didn't want to, but because t hey didn't want to reward idlers from getting 50+ random items a week because they never turn off their game.
The only people who were really affected by that are those with steady jobs or school that don't have time to play every night and get many new weapons and hats or other things they've added. They could be waiting months for a gun they really want to use, or a hat they think looks cool. They could essentially buy it and enjoy the game they want to for a longer period of time.
What most people fail to realize is that when Valve added the Mann Co. Store, they also included the ability to trade just about any item for any item. Think about that logically. You can buy the item, or make a trade for it; saving yourself money and time. Once more, there is a sub-thread on the official Team Fortress 2 Message boards specifically designed for and completely driven by trading items. They've given us this option as well as purchasing it out right.
tl;dr: Think about it like this: Trading cost time to setup while buying cost money, but is instant. Time==money so w/e lol
With an MMORPG, you know up front what the cost is going to be, and it is also to be expected for the genre. What Valve has demonstrated with this move is that they are willing to suddenly change the game and add things that cost money when there were no such things in the game before. It is established that MMOs have a subscription fee. I'm not going to accept the monetization (beyond initial purchase price) of every kind of online game.
I notice that you say there is the ability to trade "just about" any item, meaning not all of them. I was also pretty sure that I read somewhere recently that crafting some of the items requires a material that will only drop once per player, meaning that any additional ones must be purchased by someone.
Anyway, there is another problem which you kind of alluded to that the item drops themselves have caused, cash shop or not, and that is that now some people are focused on getting drops more than actually trying to win. I don't blame the players for this. This is a game design flaw. If a game is designed in such a way that it reward player actions that are not conducive to winning, players will of course engage in those actions.
" man, i've owned the game since the orange box's release but never played much of it...all this cool shit's happening and i won't even know what's new or not. "
Everyone talks about TF2 as if it's some incomprehensible, unscalable MMO that is impossible to get into now. The game is incredibly well balanced, so that beginners won't get slaughtered. It's an incredibly flexible game and easy to learn, so I suggest you get in noiw; you won't regret it. "
Actually, TF2 has a pretty steep learning curve, unless you play as a soldier or pyro (probably the most accessible classes for newbies). I have hundreds of hours logged on TF2 and I still get slaughtered playing on veteran-heavy servers. The scout and the sniper are two classes that you can play for YEARS and still have trouble with. They both take such precision to play well with. The spy is also a class that has a steep learning curve.
That's my only gripe with TF2, really. Besides that, they just need to make the medic more fun to play (get rid of the medigun mechanic, yuck) and add unlockable weapons or skills ala Call of Duty, and TF3 will be the best multiplayer shooter ever.
Oh, and this event was really fun. They need to add more AI bosses like the headless horseman. They should have added more achievements though :-( I'm not complaining, got my haunted metal from killing the horseman with melee :-)
@Forum_User: The thing with Valve is that they've already released a plethora of FREE content for TF2. The primary reason it hasn't been so for xbox and has for PC is because microsoft wants a hand in the profits, and none would exist. The content would probably equal out to $150+ for all the PC patches if made available on xbox 360.
Though I said just about, you're completely taking it out of context. Valve has limited people that buy items to not be able to trade those items, thus ripping off players for exclusive items. Those are really the only limitations outside of Special Event Items that everyone can easily acquire. The once per player drop is the metal from this Scream Fortress event, and it can't be purchased. You can use it to make 1 of 4 hats, or the one weapon included in this patch. The hats can be purchased, but only during this event. The weapon can't be purchased at all.
The only thing I can address in regards to playing to certain design flaws is that it's not exsistant in TF2s drop system. There is no one thing you can do in a game that will greater influence an item drop. You get items when YOU die, not when you kill other people and it's limited to 7 or 8 per week. You're not at all rewarded for anything. So far, only achievement milestones and during the Scream Fortress event has there been any type of rewarding of the players for completing certain actions. With achievements, once you get so many for one class, you get their weapons. This is a one time thing and can't be exploited. With the Scream Fortress event there is only one map this stuff happen on, and it's designed for the event and nothing more. It's not affecting any of the people playing on more serious maps.
So there is really nothing you can do except idle your game on a server. Most servers kick anyone afk for more than 1 miunte, so it's not really affecting the people that are actually playing the game. It's not even worth it now as they'll be getting 7 to 8 items a week regardless of length of time played. I would say the achievement systems has been more of a hindrance on the game than the drop system has been in regards to game flow. Which is a shame, considering achievements have been out since the games release.
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