Team Fortress 2 Classless Update: That Was Fast

The newest Team Fortress 2 patch is LIVE. Hats, King of the Hill, new maps, revamped old maps, and other Team Fortress 2 goodness can be found here:

New Content:

* Added King Of The Hill game mode.
* Added custom animations played by the losing team during the post-win state. They are moved into third person camera to enjoy them.
* Added lots of new hats.
* Added koth_Viaduct.
* Added ctf_Sawmill
* Added community map Arena_Offblast
* Added community map Cp_Yukon

Additions / Changes:

* Added "Auto Reload" option to the multiplayer advanced options.
* Clip-based weapons that reload a full clip at a time can now have their reloads aborted by firing.
* Pistol now fires at a fixed rate, not based on the speed at which you press the firing button.
* Added a color blind option to add a Jarate icon above enemies who are busy accepting a terrifying existence where they have no dignity.
* Significantly reduced the amount of network traffic being sent.
* Capturing the flag in a CTF game mode gives the entire capturing team 10 seconds of critboost.
* Sappers attached to a teleporter automatically place another Sapper on the other end of the teleporter, if it exists.
* Engineers wrenching a teleporter will repair the other end as well, and remove Sappers from both if they exist.
* Disguised Spies no longer trigger On-Hit effects (like the Blutsauger's heal).
* Removed self-inflicted minicrits. Fixes Jarate'd Soldiers/Demomen having ineffective rocket/grenade jumps.
* Added an item panel to the spectator cam that shows non-standard items being carried by the player you're spectating.
* Added an "Inspect" key that allows you to look at items being carried by your team mates.
* Backpack improvements:
- Added drag & drop to move items around. Item positions are maintained on the backend.
- Added multi-select, allowing you to delete multiple items at once.
- Added a new key to the key binding page that opens your inventory directly to your backpack.
- Fixed mouseover panel being incorrectly position when the backpack first appears.
* Cloaked Spies standing in valid backstab positions no longer raise their knife.
* Added current map name and gametype to the bottom right of scoreboard.
* Added class icons to tips on the loadout and loading screens.
* Improved visuals around flags when they're being carried by a player.
* Improved critboosted visuals, making it much clearer when an enemy has critboost.
* Updated the loading panel to show the game type under the map name during level transition.
* In-game chat dialog now supports full Unicode characters.
* Added BLU main menu background.
* Added response caching for some server queries to help reduce the CPU load from DOS attacks.
* Teammates no longer block friendly radius damage. Prevents nearby teammates causing rocket/grenade jumps to fail.

Map Changes:

* Update PLR_Pipeline
- Increased the starting advantage in the third round if a team has won the first two rounds.
- Fixed carts not continuing to the second round if they're capped at the same time in the first round.
- Fixed being able to shoot pipebombs over the starting gates in the first round.
- Fixed being able to open the doors in the first round before the setup time was finished.
- Fixed players getting stuck in some doors.
- Fixed players being able to get onto rooftops and out of the map boundaries.
- Fixed other minor bugs and exploits.
* Update Arena_Sawmill
- Fixed DirectX8 bug where some models would not be visible.
- Fixed exploit with building teleporters outside of the map.
* Updated CP_Granary
- Made a few changes to improve balance based on competitive community feedback.

Item Reworks:

* The Force of Nature
- The enemy knockback now only `works in close range and behaves more like the Pyro's air blast.
- Enemies cannot be juggled by the FaN's effect.
- The self-knockback has also changed to respect the firer's view angle. Looking up while shooting will no longer propel the enemy upwards.
- Knockback is now scaled by damage done.
* The Sandman
- A Scout will receive 1 point for stunning an enemy and 2 points for a long range stun.
- Stunned players now take 75% of all incoming damage instead of 50%.
- Übercharged players can no longer be stunned.
- Heavies spinning their mini-guns will continue to spin when stunned (whether the left or right mouse button is pressed).
- The minimum distance to stun a target has been reduced.
- The negative attribute has changed from "no double jump" to "-30 max health".

Fixes:

* Fixed various issues around layout & presentation of items inside the Backpack and "X is carrying" item dialogs.
* Fixed an exploit that allowed players to work around sv_pure.
* Particle files are now protected by sv_pure.
* Fixed critboost effect getting stuck on when you die while critboosted.
* Fixed Timer HUD element backgrounds not being the correct color if you change teams during waiting for players.
* Fixed a couple of issues with the way critboosts affected The Huntsman and the Spy's knife.
* Fixed an exploit where you could reload The Huntsman faster than intended.
* Fixed Heavy "civilian" exploit.
* Fixed a set of exploits using the DXSupport config files.
* Fixed r_screenfademinsize and r_screenfademaxsize exploits.
* Fixed sentries firing at a fully cloaked Spy if they're still the closest target.

Community requests:

* Added a HUD element for hybrid CTF & CP maps.
- Supports 1 or 2 flags, and any number of CPs.
- Mapmakers need to place a "tf_logic_hybrid_ctf_cp" entity in their map to enable it.
* Added custom kill server log text "train" and "saw" for deaths caused by these environmental hazards.
Format: "%s<%i><%s><%s>" committed suicide with "world" (customkill "%s") (attacker_position "%d %d %d")
* Added new "medic_death" event for server logs
Format: "%s<%i><%s><%s>" triggered "medic_death" against "%s<%i><%s><%s>" (healing "%d") (ubercharge "%s")
- healing is the amount the Medic healed in that life
- ubercharge (1/0) is whether they died with a full charge
* Added "func_respawnflag" trigger entity. It will remove & return the flag if a flag carrier touches it, or if the flag falls into it.

Way cool.

Mythos : Something is coming...

All it took was one massive tweet via Redbana's MYTHOSGAME Twitter feed:

Something is coming...

What that is, no one knows. However, Mythos.com is pointed out as the place to go find out.

***WARNING, SLOW LOADING FLASH AHEAD***

My guess is that we'll finally get to see a re-branded Mythos. Hopefully free-to-play, and hopefully minus the Overworld.

Team Fortress 2: FLUFF

A new Team Fortress 2 update has been thrown down the proverbial bowling alley that is the Valve development pipeline:

A surprise new TF2 update has arrived, and it has absolutely no class. In fact, it’s about as daft an update as you could hope for, with Day 1’s offerings giving you eighteen new hats, and a new Arena map. “After setting a new standard for Lack of Class in an FPS with the addition of Jarate (the jar-based Karate),” explains the TF2 blog, “we’ve raised the bar on lowering the tone even further with the first ever Classless Update!”

Hats? Fluff, absolute fluff! Who would have ever guessed that we would be discussing FLUFF for a first person shooter? More importantly, who would've guessed we'd actually like the FLUFF!

*grumbles*

Maple Story iTCG

I am a sucker for trading card games (TCGs). As I've gotten older and more responsibility has cropped up in my life, I've found little to no time to head out to my FLGS (friendly local game store) to play with "real" cards. So, I've been relegated to online versions. I played Free Realms' card game for a bit, but quickly realized it was a massive money sink. I played Magic the Gathering: Online for all of its beta, but scoffed at the idea of paying the same price for virtual cards as I was for real cards. However, every time I hear about a new online TCG, I get interested and click on over to check it out. So, when I caught this story on WarCry about a Maple Story iTCG, I had to investigate.

Nexon America opened a new Web site for its upcoming game, MapleStory iTCG Online, at http://itcg.nexon.net. iTCG Online is an online flash-based, in-browser trading card game using the characters and monsters that occupy the world of MapleStory.

The biggest part that caught my attention was "online flash-based, in-browser". This means players open the web page, log in, and then start playing. An almost "pure" browser game (flash is still a plug-in, albeit a web standard of sorts).

Now, this is where I would insert information on how the iTCG plays, but the servers have been down all morning and I can't give the game a whirl. If the servers come up before the mood passes, I will check it out and maybe report back here on my findings.

NOTE: I understand this iTCG will probably be a money sink, but that's why I am trying to get in on the beta (which I'm hoping unlocks a lot for free)!

Goblin's Playable In Next World of Warcraft Expansion?

WoW.com has the unofficial lowdown on the new races for the fabled Cataclysm expansion for World of Warcraft.

Our sources have told us that the new races of Cataclysm will be:

* Worgen – Alliance
* Goblin – Horde

Personally, I don't believe it. Goblin's are a neutral race within the Warcraft lore. It would cause a ton of lore-based conflicts within the game world. Not to mention how out of place some places of the game world would feel. Goblins joining the Horde would break too many parts of World of Warcraft.

This doesn't mean Blizzard can't make it work. Blizzard could update the entire world and switch all the Goblin content over to Horde content. This would be out of character though, as Blizzard has shown that they'd much rather create new content rather than update or fix old content.

In the rare case that this does prove out to be true, Blizzard will probably just spin off some sort of new Golbin tribe (or whatever Goblin groups are called) and attach it to the Horde. Thus, they have nothing to do with the current Golbins in game. Blizzard is more than free to invent whatever they want. I just don't think it will feel right for WoW.

Worgen? Who the fuck cares about the Alliance.