TF2 Newbs (Team Fortress 2) Blog

See the previous blogpost for the Tough Break Update. See the bottom of this post for yesterday’s TF2 patch.

Steam Sale 2015 is LIVE!

No click-the-robots browser game to annoy you this time, Newbs. Instead, this sale has the following feature:

• View your Discovery Queue once each day to earn a free Steam Trading Card.
  • Your Steam Level must be 5 or higher to qualify for this reward.
  • The Queue is a list of ten random games, taking you to the Store Page for each game so you can view trailers, screenshots, reviews, and the deals for each game.
  • The Trading Card reward helps complete the North Pole Noir Sale set. Like all card sets, completing the set earns you items such as emoticons and backgrounds (that can be sold etc.) and helps level up your Steam account.
  • Earn an additional Trading Card for every US$10 spent buying games over the course of the sale (not merely each purchase).

Gems (a currency you can collect by converting unwanted backgrounds, emoticons, and trading cards) currently don’t have an auction function like they did last season, but surely Valve will put them to use in the future.

But what about the SALE?

If you’re not familiar, Steam offers two major sales a year, one over the Winter Holiday, and a Summer Sale typically beginning in July. Each lasts about two weeks and features massive sales (many in the 40% to 66% range!) over that time. There are currently over 10,000 games on sale right now–the only major title that isn’t on sale yet is the just-released Fallout 4.

• Deal: Purchase a Steam Hardware item now (a Controller or Steam Link device) and earn a free copy of both Left 4 Dead 2 and CounterStrike: Global Offensive.

 

Sales on Games Newbs Play:

Because I like bullet points, that’s why….

• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is 75% off at $4.99
• Lots of Star Wars games (Battlefront II, KOTOR, Jedi Knight I and II) are $2.99 each
• Sid Meier’s Civilization V is 75% off at $4.99
• Wolfenstein: The New Order is 85% off at $8.99
• Tales from the Borderlands is 66% off at $8.49
• Bioshock Infinite is 75% off at $7.49
• Starbound is 33% off at $10.04
• Most Final Fantasy franchise games are 50% off

 

TF2 Patch Notes: December 22, 2015

• Renamed the Smissmas 2015 Mystery Gift to the Smissmas 2015 Festive Gift. It can now be opened to find a Gun Mettle and Tough Break Festivizer.
• Fixed a couple of sounds for the Taunt: Bucking Bronco not playing properly
• Fixed not being able to sell playerclass upgrades in Mann vs. Machine mode
• Fixed bots sometimes not spawning in Mann vs. Machine mode
• Fixed the Pyro’s invulnerable period while activating the Phlogistinator lasting longer than the activation taunt
• Fixed the crate opening animation not always displaying the image of the item received
• Fixed the Medigun sometimes using the incorrect berCharge rate on maps with multiple stages
• Fixed an issue where the Loose Cannon would sometimes not apply knockback on hit
• Fixed decorated weapons not getting the crit-boost material effect
• Strange Part: Kills While Explosive Jumping can now be applied to Strange Grenade Launchers
• Updated the Mann Co. Store with the Smissmas sale. Deep discounts on nearly everything in the store.
• Updated the equip_regions for the Berlin Brain Bowl, Business Casual, Distinguished Rogue, Cut Throat Concierge, Blood Banker, After Dark, Bountiful Bow, Dead of Night, Au Courant Assassin, Rogue’s Robe, Sky Captain, Lady Killer, Puffy Provocateur, and Lurker’s Leathers
• Updated the model/materials for The Hat With No Name so it can now be equipped by the Soldier, Sniper, Demoman, and Engineer
• Updated the model/materials for the Co-Pilot so it can now be equipped by the Scout, Soldier, and Engineer
• Updated the model/materials for the Medical Monarch and added a new style
• Updated the scoreboard
  • Added Ping column header when viewing ping as text on the scoreboard
  • Added the player count for each team
• Updated ctf_landfall
  • Fixed building teleporters between spawn room doors
  • Fixed an exploit that allowed players to go outside the map
• Updated PASS Time
  • Experimenting with new HUD elements and art
  • Experimenting with new viewmodel animations
  • New testing feature ‘tf_passtime_team_bonuses’ that shares pass, steal, and intercept bonuses with the whole team

[N] Obey

Been up all night getting duckies? Catch up with the Newbs News below!  As usual, the summary is at the top, and the full patch notes are at the bottom.

1. You can turn unwanted items in your Steam inventory into Gems, a currency used to bid for new games during Steam Auction periods.
   • You can recycle items into Gems. Gems are marketable in stacks of 1,000.
   • You can buy booster cardpacks with Gems.
   • You can bid for Steam games with Gems.
2. Server provider Packhead is no longer streaming 24/7 Christmas music through 12/25.
3. Participate in the monthly Server #15 Stats Contest and win keys!
4. Wanna sign up for some TF2 Newbs Secret Santa give-and-take?
5. Post-EotL TF2 Patches
   • Redesigned the Backpack Panel: Click on an item for a drop-down menu of actions to choose from.
   • Added the Cold Snap Coat to the EotL Community Crate #87.
   • Fixed Halloween footsteps being displayed for disguised Spies… heheheh.
   • Check the previous blogpost for info on the “End of the Line” Update!
6. [Added 12/15/14] TF2 Newbs’ Server Rules have been modified/clarified in regards to dodging autobalance.
   • TL;DR: Don’t dodge autobalance, as you can be banned for it, especially if your behavior causes the server to empty. Please refer to the specific text in the link above.

 

1. Steam Auctions: Turn Unwanted Items into New Games

Splash page here, scroll down for rules. Comic here.

This promotion focuses on three new features offered by Steam:

1. You can now “recycle” or turn unwanted Steam inventory items into Gems, a permanent Steam currency
2. The ability to purchase Steam card packs with Gems
3. The ability to bid for new Steam games with Gems on a rotation Auction schedule

“Recycle” Your Unwanted Steam Items

 

Here’s the deal: Most of us Steam gamers have inventories of items that we will never use: backgrounds, emoticons, cards,  etc.  Steam now lets you turn those into Gems, a currency that you use to spend on packs of cards of a Steam game of your choice, or to place bids in the Holiday Auction.  Simply click on an item, and scroll down to see how much the item is worth in Gems (just above the Steam Market’s lowest going-for price). With one click, you can turn it into Gems!

 

Gems exist in your Steam inventory as an item. Gems are tradable, but not marketable as-is. A “Sack of Gems”, in increments of 1,000, can be marketed! As of this post, they are selling for about US$0.66 to US$0.72 in Steam Wallet Funds.

Gift copies of games, in-game items, and coupons are not recyclable for gems. Cards are worth very few Gems (usually less than 30). The popularity of the game and/or the lowest Market Price of the item affects how many Gems the item returns when recycled, so rarer items are worth more Gems. For example, one medikit emoticon from TF2 recycles into 100 Gems.

If you intend to participate in a Steam Auction, you will want to have Gems in the tens of thousands. (If you are NOT going to participate in the Steam Auction, and want some more Steam Wallet Funds, I suggest that you sell all of the items you wish and quicksell the Gems while the demand is high.)  Gems are a permanent currency and will remain after the Holiday Auction promotion.

Buy Steam Card Booster Packs with Gems

Click on your Gems, or this link, to find the button to the screen where you buy Booster Packs. A Booster Pack has three random cards of the game’s set, and collecting them will increase your level badge for the game (which earns you more Steam Items which you may keep, recycle, or Market), as well as earn you EXP towards leveling up your Steam Profile. NOTE: You can only purchase one Booster Pack with Gems per game, per day.

Each Steam game that features Steam Trading Cards will now show its price, in Gems, to buy a Booster Pack. For example, the screenshot above shows TF2 Booster Packs can be bought for 667 Gems each.

This feature will remain permanent, even after the Steam Holiday Auction ends. Perhaps you can buy more things with Gems at a later date?

 

Bid on Steam Games in the Auction

First, go to the Auction and place a “maximum bid” of Gems on a game of your choice, which may or may not be higher than the current Highest Bid. Bids that you place remove that many Gems from your inventory. Then you wait.

The first copy of the game will sell to the Highest Bidder on December 15th at 7:45 AM PST. After that, one more copy of the game will sell to the newest Highest Bidder every 45 minutes, 24 hours a day, until 100 games are sold and the Auction ends on Thursday, December 18th at 10:00 AM PST. After that, all the remaining bids will be deleted and your Gems returned to your inventory.

Don’t forget that a Sack of 1,000 Gems market for roughly US$0.70 (as of this post), so I doubt that you would want to bid more than $20 worth of Gems (28,600 ish) for a $20 game.  It’s not a fundraising event, but you might score a new game that hopefully someone hasn’t bought you for Christmas already!

 

2. Packhead Still Christmasing It Up In Here

While you consider that unusual conjugation of the word “Christmas”, you can listen to over 300 modern and classic Christmas songs thanks to Packhead, who provides some of our servers.  Just click on the M3U button to choose a program to stream through your internet connection.

 

3. December Stats Content for Server #15!

Hey, there’s still plenty of December left to muscle in and take a title! The following five contests are taking place on this 24/7 Hightower server!

connect s15.tf2newbs.com

• Most Points (the player points earned as displayed in your HUD)
• Most Backstabs
• Time Played (because idling also helps keep servers full)
• Most Airblasts
• Most Kill Assists as a Medic

Click here to pull up a list of Server #15 stats, then choose the stat to pull up the list of who is winning.  The top performer of each stat will win a prize (limit one contest win per month).

 

4. Secret Santa Stuff

If you would like to participate in Secret Santa, click here to sign up!

 

5. Post-EotL TF2 Patches

New Cosmetic: the Cold Snap Coat

The Cold Snap Coat is a tradable, giftable, paintable, and craftable Soldier cosmetic that was added to the EotL Crate #87 on December 12th. Like all items from that crate, there is a chance of it having the Strange quality when uncrated. It is not yet available for purchase. Paint affects the brown jacket collar around the Soldier’s neck only.

Full Patch Notes: 12/12/14

• Added the Cold Snap Coat to the End of the Line Community Crate
• Fixed a client crash related to ragdolls
• Fixed a client crash related to the material system
• Fixed the backpack panel not highlighting the currently selected page number
• Fixed Halloween footstep spells being displayed for disguised Spies
• Fixed The Swagman’s Swatter not being held by the Sniper for lower LOD settings during the melee taunt
• Updated the materials for The Peacenik’s Ponytail and added a new style
• Updated The Li’l Dutchman to fix a jiggle bone issue
• Updated The Ghost of Spies Checked Past to fix a jiggle bone issue
• Updated Mann Co. Store prices for foreign currencies to current USD equivalents
• Updated the localization files

Full Patch Notes: 12/10/14

• Fixed a client crash related to the main menu
• Fixed the Engineer PDA being stored as the last weapon used
• Fixed the Objective leaderboard not updating for Objective ducks
• Updated the equip_region and bodygroup settings for some of the new cosmetic items^[1][2]

Undocumented Changes

• Updated the item type of a number of new cosmetic items ^[3]
• Made the Duck Journal nameable
• Updated BLU Hunter Heavy texture.

 

Full Patch Notes: 12/9/14

• Fixed a client crash related to the material system
• Fixed the Restore command not working properly in the backpack panel’s context menu
• Fixed a crash in the item import tool
• Fixed updating Duck Journal stats from ducks created on servers using sv_cheats
• Fixed the Taunt: Pool Party item to fix a problem with the pool not scaling smoothly
• Updated the materials for the Hunter Heavy and the North Polar Fleece

Notes missed from the previous update:

• End of the Line Key, Duck Journal, and Duck Token sales support the End of the Line team
• Redesigned the backpack panel
  • Clicking on an item creates a context menu that lists the valid actions for that item
  • The context menu replaces the buttons that were used for interacting with items

 

[N] Obey

*****Currently, Newbs’ servers #09 2fort, #14 goldrush, and #26 are down for repatching. Check back in the next 24 hours.******

Here’s the summary:

1. HEADLINES–see below for article links.
2. Team Fortress 2 had two patches today.
   • Lots of bugfixes, exploits, and some cosmetics’ slot placements.
   • Taunts are now push-to-hold toggles.
   • Updated the Eureka Effect wrench (see below).
   • What’s up with the Bread? (see below)
3. Reminder: Steam Summer Sale usually launches around the last week of July. With that in mind:
   • Craft some Mysterious Cards (see below); they seem to replace coupons as a reward when crafting Steam badges currently.
   • Expect some new Summer-themed Crates and Keys.  Last year we had those nine color-coded Summer Coolers and Summer Claim Checks.

 1. HEADLINES

Click the link in the headline to jump to the pertinent article.  Happy summer reading!

1.  The Dota 2 International for 2014 has raised over US$9 million in prize money, and it still has two months to go. That’s about as much as the prize pool for the annual Masters golf tournament, according to these guys.
2. The most recent Official TF2 Blog post talks about new weapons that Valve have tested and rejected. They are probably getting ready to launch some new weapons in the near future, but expect Valve to be patient, as they have been busy reworking existing, underused items. New items haven’t launched in 18 months or so.
3. The Highlander Open is inviting non-competitive TF2 gamers to put on their best tryhard hat and give the competitive TF2 scene a try. You will still need to form your own group of at least 9 players. Note: Be sure to see their list of Banned Items.
4. Telltale Games is working on a new game that is supposed to explore the origins of Handsome Jack, the mouthy bastard you may or may not have hunted down in Borderlands 2. It will involve some moral-based decisions that will alter the flow of the game to a degree, and will be released as a series of five episodes over a Season (much like BL2′s Season Pass, I’m sure). It will also take place on that ever-present Hyperion moonbase you see in the other games, and is slated for release on October 17, 2014. Here is a 16-minute trailer, courtesy of PC Gamer.
5. ICYMI: Dota 2 had a patch on June 2nd, in case you missed it. Yes, that’s what ICYMI means. You may have learned something useful today. There was another one on May 30th, but the main thing there is that you will score no points if you are playing in an invalid slot (i.e. a Core playing in a Support slot, or vice versa).

 

2. Team Fortress 2 Patches — June 12, 2014

See below for the full patch notes.

Updated: The Eureka Effect

You can now pick up buildings with the Eureka Effect in your loadout.  Just like before, you can build a teleporter near a point for defense, use your wrench to return to the respawn room and reload, jump back into your teleporter to get back up front quickly, then continue to rebuild your nest. Except now, you can move your buildings later if you need to, just like stock Engineers.

The Eureka Effect now repairs and upgrades buildings at half the normal rate. It’ll take 16 clicks (instead of 8) to upgrade a building, consuming the same amount of metal to upgrade, as it uses only half as much per hit. The initial build should still take the usual time. This replaces the old penalty that denied the ability to move your buildings. And it’s not much of a penalty if you’re Wrangling your level-3 sentry gun!

You can now teleport either to your spawn OR the location of your teleporter exit. You can toggle between the two locations by hitting the reload key (default: R). Consider this the next time you MvM and need to hide before you get ganked, or port over to your sentry gun next to your exit!

Dat Bread

This is probably a temporary thing: when you teleport, one of nine bread models may appear, disappearing in a few seconds.  I wonder if they correspond to the nine TF2 classes… and Archimedes finally gets his pretzel (see top-right corner of the second image)! Maybe we will start defending Rome in MvM or some such.

All I’m saying is, Dustbowl has had rat holes inserted into the buildings of its map for like, a year now.  So what’s that all about?!

Full Patch Notes: Patch 1

• Fixed item descriptions for Strange scores not appearing to update
  • So now when you get killed by the same Strange weapon continually, you should see the weapon increase its increment! Hooray.
• Fixed a bug where damage dealt and healing done Strange scores would stop incrementing
• Fixed an exploit where teleporters could build up a large amount of health
• Fixed a bug where premium accounts would temporarily appear to revert to free status
• Fixed deflected rocket explosion sounds playing repeatedly
• Fixed deflected Black Box rockets not giving health to the Pyro
• Fixed being able to apply the Strange Part: Buildings Destroyed tool to the Flying Guillotine
• Fixed several cosmetic items not cloaking properly for the Spy^[1]
• Added the AsiaFortress Cup Season 7 medals
• Community Request: Added SetCustomUpgradesFile input to the gamerules entity to allow servers to specify a different upgrades file
• Updated the localization files
• Updated the Eureka Effect
  • Can now pickup buildings
  • Repair and upgrade rates have been decreased
  • Can teleport to your spawn room or your Teleporter Exit

Undocumented changes: Patch 1

• Updated the backpack icons for the Director’s Vision, Meet the Medic, Schadenfreude, High Five! and Shred Alert taunts.
• Added a prompt above players in the High Five! taunt pose.
• Taunts that were push-to-hold are now toggles. Pressing the action key once will let the player hold their pose until the action key is pressed again
• Moved the Director’s Vision from the Action slot to the currently unused Taunt slot. fixed in patch 2
• Fixed Spy’s revolvers not using the Spy‘s hand in reload animations.
• Bread now sometimes spawn when using a Teleporter.
• Updated the equip_region of El Muchacho.
• Updated the item type of Brawling Buccaneer and Hornblower.
• Fixed a bug that let players move while taunting.
• Added console commands tf_taunt_move_forward_speed, tf_allow_sliding_taunt and taunt_by_name.
  • I think tf_allow_sliding_taunt allows a function similar to the old frozen-taunt-while-moving.
• Dispensers now cost 70 metal when using the Gunslinger. fixed in patch 2
• Added a white line above the names of the buildings on the Construction PDA menus.

Patch 2

• Fixed a client crash caused by failing to properly parse the item schema
• Fixed not being able to equip The Director’s Vision taunt in the Action slot
• Fixed not being able to taunt with the Spy’s disguise kit
• Fixed the Engineer‘s build menu staying open after changing class^[2]
• Fixed being charged the incorrect amount of metal for a Dispenser when The Gunslinger is equipped
• Updated the description of The High Five! Taunt to better describe the new toggle behavior
• Updated the materials for The Eureka Effect HUD to support mat_picmip

 3. Mysterious Cards

Like I said above, the Steam Summer Sale (in whatever form) will be coming eventually. On June 10th, users who crafted Steam badges began receiving one of a set of ten Mysterious Cards. PC Gamer weighed in with their thoughts, and referred to Reddit for some of their speculative information.

In crafting these cards, I found that I got one random card, numbered 1 thru 10 with a yellow Steam logo, with each badge I crafted. It seemed to replace the usual game coupons I was accustomed to getting–perhaps further evidence of the upcoming sale; do they want to halt the couponing if they’re about to launch a sale?

Lately, they seem to trend for $0.25 to $0.30 on the Steam Market, if you just want to go buy a set.  But you can’t craft a badge with them… YET.

 

[N] Obey