TF2 Newbs (Team Fortress 2) Blog

Tired of hearing about threats of a US government shutdown? Read up on recent goings-on in Steam below:

1. A minor TF2 patch
2. A major Terraria update is live: patchnotes (and partial spoilers) below!
3. Newbs’ Minecraft server is currently down

1. Recent TF2 Patches

These patch notes are lumped together from the 9/23 patch:

• Strange misc-slot items are now tradable in the Steam Market (e.g. Strange Archimedes).
• Updated: Bearded Bombardier and Bolted Bombardier now allow glasses-type misc items.
• Added the Byzantine Bundle, and each item separately, to the Mann Co. Store; consisting of:
  • Beastly Bonnet
  • Cheet Sheet
  • Centurion
  • Steel Sixpack
  • Tartan Shade
  • Tartanaloons
  • Hardy Laurel
• Added “modelscale” and “setmodelscale” input to Studiomodel so map authors can scale models.

2. Terraria 1.2 Patch LIVE!

It’s here! There are so many changes to the game, it’s almost a completely new game. Stop reading now if you don’t want to be spoiled about all the changes. (I’m not posting every change; there over a thousand new items!)

• Bugfixes (and exploits removed):
  • You can no longer craft items or money by placing items in the trash.
  • You can no longer sell your gold to NPCs.
  • Music box/chest duping no longer works.
  • Bunnies/Goldfish spawned from statues no longer drop money during a blood moon.
  • Equipping items to the social slot in German no longer crashes the game.
  • The game will no longer create a random password during multiplayer world generation.
  • You can now reforge in all languages.
  • Active blocks will no longer become inactive with a chest or them.
  • Fixed a bug that would cause a suitable house to be unsuitable.
  • Fixes a lot of bugs that were not listed.
• Mechanics and Gameplay:
  • Enemies now have a visible health bar when struck.
  • There is now a map/minimap overlay.
    • Toggle through the different views, or turn on/off, in the inventory screen.
    • The tiles are shown the brightest they have ever been (relative to the amount of light nearby when you’ve examined them).
    • Toggle through the map views using Tab or M buttons.
  • “J” is now the default button for Mana Use.
  • There is now an extended crafting menu that will show everything you can craft.
    • Hit this button, and it will reveal everything on the inventory screen.
  • Some items now stack to 999 per stack.
  • Character slots have been increased to 1,000 (from 5).
  • World slots have been increased to 1,000 (from 5).
  • Remodeled:
    • Starting female clothing
    • Several new hairstyles
    • Character creation restyled
  • Chest sizes have been doubled.
  • Your inventory space has been increased by 10 (one row).
  • You no longer need to jump to ascend single blocks (!!) .
  • The hammer is now used only for creating slopes, halftiles, and breaking walls only. It is no longer a weapon!
  • The axe is now used only for chopping down trees and giant mushrooms. It is no longer a weapon!
  • The pickaxe is now used only to remove blocks, placeable objects, and items such as Life Crystals and chests (instead of the hammer). It is no longer a weapon!
  • You can now paint any solid tile or item.
  • Dye slots have been added.
  • You will now start the game with 10 mana after character creation.
  • You can now craft early game magic robes and staves.
  • Bricks, wood, stone, and glass all now blend together.
  • Mana Crystals only require 5 fallen stars to craft, down from 10.
  • If water touches a halftiles, it will create a waterfall.
  • Your world has a chance to get an alternative ore as a replacement for copper, iron, silver and gold (!!).
    • My early assumption is that the alternative ore crafts just as its replacement would.
  • Your world has a chance to get an alternative ore as a replacement for cobalt, mythril, and adamantite.
  • Your world has a chance to have a replacement for the Corruption (!!).
  • Your world has a rare chance to have a pyramid or living tree spawn during world generation.
    • Each contains its own loot drop table (list of possible treasure items).
  • There is a new hardmode jungle temple (!!).
  • There are now several new backgrounds and tree variations your world has a chance to generate.
  • Water will now change color based on the biome you are in and depth underground.
  • Ropes are now found early game and can be used to craft rope coils for traveling the world.
  • Chains can now be placed and used as a rope mechanism (?).
  • Mushroom grass/seeds can now grow and spread above ground.
  • There are now 3 colors for wires.
  • Actuators can be used to make any tile active/inactive.
  • There is one new liquid type that can be found in the jungle….
  • There are several new fountains that will change the color of water when they are place nearby.
  • Pearlstone bricks no longer spread hallow.
  • Rain and blizzards have been added.
  • There is a new snow biome with unique treasures and items for normal and hardmode.
  • Enemies no longer trigger underground pressure plates.
  • There are new pressure plates that can only be triggered by certain things, such as players, enemies, or both.
  • Clowns will no longer blow up tiles with their bombs.
  • There are sever new buff and debuff statuses.
  • There is now a “Capture the Gem” minigame added (think “capture the flag”). You can craft large gems that draw a gem icon above the holder, and if the player is killed, the gem drops next to their corpse.
  • There are two new hardmode events.
  • Werewolf form has been buffed and can now take place every night.
  • Broken armor defuff now reduced to 2 minutes, down from 5.
  • You now use a pickaxe to remove armor from a mannequin.
  • Players no longer take double damage in PvP.
  • Items of the same type will now stack when placed next to each other.
  • When using a gravitation potion, your world will invert rather than your character!
    • Get ready to get dizzy!
  • You can no longer become invincible when touching the fire blocks.
  • Increased speed at which you can buy stacks of things.
  • In total, there are over 1,000 new items.
    • There are 10 new ores (including the replacement ores).
    • There are 4 new wood types (see above).
    • There are 31 new brick types.
    • You can now imbue melee weapons (?).
    • There are several new arrow and bullet types.
    • There are several new crafting stations (such as a cactus crafting table).
    • There are several new wands used for crafting new bricks and brick walls.
    • You can now craft bricks, walls, and furniture out of the new materials, including slime, bone, mushroom, living wood, flesh, silt, and many more!
  • You can now craft Jester Arrows.
  • There are 12 new wing types.
  • There are several new vanity sets.
  • There a lot of new rare drops added to enemies.
  • You can now craft stained glass.
  • There is an item in hardmode that allows you to change biomes.
  • There is an item in hardmode that allows you to increase your max health (past 200, I assume).
  • There are 29 new tinker combinations.
  • Several new items have been added to the game that are used for crafting dyes.
  • Starfury now acts as a melee weapon and has had its damage increased.
  • Aqua Scepter has been redesigned and does slightly more damage for less mana.
  • Water Bolt has been redesigned and does slightly more damage.
  • Vilethorn does more damage and uses less mana.
  • Magic Daggers have been buffed.
  • All of the old classic armors can be found as rare drops and have the same stats as their current counterparts and count towards set bonuses. Wait–what? Old armors? New armors?
  • Chests now have larger loot tables (there is a longer list of possible treasure).
  • You can now make picks instead of drills, and axes instead of chainsaws, in late game tiers.
  • Increased the drop rate of souls.
  • There are over 50 paintings that can be collected randomly throughout the world.
  • Jungle armor no longer requires gems.
  • The amount of meterorite required for crafting has been decreased.
  • Meteorite armor has more defense and does more damage.
  • Silt and slush can be extracted into useful materials, items, and money.
  • Each boss has a rare chance to drop a placeable boss trophy.
  • Hooks can now be crafted out of gems.
  • Depth meter is no longer craftable.
  • Stars can now be crafted with bottles to make a new light source.
  • Floating island chests no longer require a key.
  • Gems and bars can be placed.
  • Items made from hellstone now require less hellstone.
• New NPCs and Bosses:
  • There are 5 new friendly NPCs.
  • There are 4 new bosses.
  • There are over 100 new enemies (!!).
  • Friendly NPCs will sell different items depending on certain conditions such as time of day or biome they live in.
    • So you can access new items by moving your NPCs to different biomes.
  • Hardmode bosses have a chance to spawn on their own to help players progress through the game.
  • Current hardmode bosses now do slightly less damage and have had their health decreased.
  • There is a rare spawn mini-boss that can be found during blizzards in the above-ground ice biome.
  • There are over 15 new pets that can be found in chests and dropped rarely off enemies.
  • Early hardmode enemies now do less damage and have less health/defense.
  • Skeletron can now be summoned and has a small loot table.
• Graphical Changes:
  • The sun is now brighter.
  • Midnight is now darker.
  • The sky now has a smooth gradient.
  • There are several items that have had graphical upgrades such as gems, colored torches, minishark, muramasa, aqua scepter, starfury, etc.
  • There are now stalagmites, icicles, moss, plants, rocks, and other “piles” added to enhance the environment.
  • There are several new mini caves that can be found with unique backgrounds.
  • Each biome will now have chests and pots with unique graphics.
  • The dungeon now has 3 unique textures/colors and furniture.
  • Hell houses and floating islands have been remodeled.
  • Each biome now has unique textures and wood types:
    • Corruption: ebonwood
    • Jungle: rich mahogany
    • Crimson: shadewood
    • Hallow: pearlwood
  • Each brick and brick wall now has its own unique texture. (The bricks are no longer a mere color change in difference.)
  • Torches are now animated and can be placed on walls.
  • Common enemies such as demon eyes, skeletons, and zombies have all been given graphical variations.
  • There are several new tombstones.
  • All objects in the game that sparkle will now sparkle with a corresponding color.
• Music:
  • There are 15 new tracks for the game; 3 are ported from the console version of the game.
  • Day Theme 2 will loop into Day Theme 1 to add variation above ground.
  • Desert, ocean, glowing mushrooms, dungeon, and space all have their own tracks now.
  • Ice biome has an above-ground music track, and a below-ground track.
• Performance/Miscellaneous:
  • The game now only loads assets when needed, reducing the amount of RAM used.
  • Optimized tile data to reduced RAM usage.
  • There game will now ask you if you want to use UPnP (?) to automatically port-forward when hosting multiplayer.

3. Newbs’ Minecraft Server is currently down.

[N]ot Dave wants me to let everyone know that the Newbs’ Official Minecraft Server is down, but hopefully it will be up within a week. He says that “everyone knows it’s my fault”, so send any pies-to-the-face his way. Perhaps he likes pie. But he’ll get it up soon.

[N] Obey

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 1st, 2013 at 7:21 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.