<a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/119"><img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/119.jpg" width="420" height="234" border="0"></a>

Today marks the 119th (or so) update to Team Fortress 2.

We think that calls for a <a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/119" class="standardLink">celebration</a>.

To coincide with today's update, we are pleased to announce that our friends at The IP Factory will be releasing a limited edition collector's statue of the Heavy, which is the first in their 12 inch Team Fortress 2 line of collectible statues. The Heavy will come in both BLU and RED team versions and numbers are strictly limited.

The IP Factory will begin accepting Heavy statue pre-orders on Monday 3rd May 9.00am.

To grab a sneak peak of the Heavy statue in all of his glory visit their website at <a href="http://www.gamingheads.com" class="standardLink">www.gamingheads.com</a>.

Today marks the 119th (or so) update to Team Fortress 2.

We think that calls for a celebration.

To coincide with today's update, we are pleased to announce that our friends at The IP Factory will be releasing a limited edition collector's statue of the Heavy, which is the first in their 12 inch Team Fortress 2 line of collectible statues. The Heavy will come in both BLU and RED team versions and numbers are strictly limited.

The IP Factory will begin accepting Heavy statue pre-orders on Monday 3rd May 9.00am.

To grab a sneak peak of the Heavy statue in all of his glory visit their website at www.gamingheads.com.

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Team Fortress 2

• Fixed several issues with the Source SDK
  
• Added new items to commemorate our 119th (or so) update
  
• Scout's "Retire the Runner" achievement updated to be
  
  • "Kill a Scout while they are under the effect of Crit-a-Cola."
    
• Added a 20% damage bonus to The Backburner.
  
• Fixed the Flare Gun's afterburn duration being lowered by the Flamethrower's duration reduction.
  
• Fixed the teleporter exit using the wrong particle effect.
  
• Fixed HUD damage indicators not appearing.
  
• Fixed Teleporters not reverting to level 1 when their other side is destroyed.
  
• Fixed receiving damage not causing view-kicks on players.
  
• Fixed Engineers & Spies being able to circumvent build restrictions.
  
• Fixed Server Browser not saving filter settings properly.
  
• Fixed a client crash in the targetID on clients running custom HUDs
  

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Team Fortress 2

• Added new community map cp_freight
  
• Added missing physics models for several items
  
• Added jiggle bones to the Sam & Max items, and The Buff Banner
  
• Added Crit-a-Cola
  

Dedicated Server

• Linux optimizations.
  
• Fixed Linux servers not relisting correctly after a master server restart
  
• Fixed a case where servers could have "ghost" players consuming player slots
  

Engine

• Marked the "snd_show" convar as a cheat
  

Gameplay Changes

• Pyro changes
  
  • Flamethrower direct damage reduced 20%.
    
  • Burn duration reduced (10 -> 6 seconds).
    
  • Airblast re-fire delay reduced by 25%.
    
  • Airblast ammo usage reduced by 20%.
    
  • All reflected rockets/grenades/arrows now mini-crit.
    
  • Airblasting enemies into environmental deaths now awards the death credit to the Pyro.
    
• Heavy changes
  
  • Minigun spin-up/down time reduced by 25%
    
  • Minigun firing movement speed increased to just under half-normal (from 80 to 110).
    
  • Throwing a sandvich to a teammate now earns a full bonus point (was half a point).
    
• Bonk! changes
  
  • Post-use movement penalty removed.
    
  • Now has a re-use cooldown time, like The Sandman.
    
• The Chargin' Target changes
  
  • Direct charge hit now does 50 damage + 10 per head (up to 5 heads).
    
  • Capped the turn rate from +left and +right while charging.
    
• The Huntsman changes
  
  • Removed restriction that arrows need to be aimed before they can be lit by a Pyro.
    
  • Bow can now be lowered without losing the lit arrow.
    
  • Changed bow so you can start charging it while you're jumping, but you can't fire until you're on the ground.
    
  • Fixed bug where flame effect would get stuck on if you change weapons with a lit arrow.
    
• Backpack changes
  
  • Moved Crafting button out to the root class/backpack selection panel.
    
  • Dragging and dropping items in your backpack now makes appropriate sounds.
    
• Bot changes
  
  • Bots don't retreat to gather health as readily if they are in combat.
    
  • Bots no longer retreat when moving to block a point capture.
    
  • Bots should now equip an appropriate combat weapon and fight while moving to collect health.
    
  • Bots who are roaming the map and hunting now chase down their victims, following them around corners.
    
  • Bots That fire projectiles (ie: rockets/grenades/etc) don't hold down their fire button for a minimum time. This was causing Soldier bots to fire rockets into nearby walls as they strafed, killing themselves.
    
  • Soldiers bots now switch to their shotgun after firing all four rockets when engaging an enemy.
    
  • Added a few more bot names from community suggestions.
    
  • Fixed a behavior loop with Engineer metal gathering.
    
• The Sandman change
  
  • Added a slight speed reduction to stunned players.
    
• Community requests
  
  • Added ConVars log_verbose_enable and log_verbose_interval to report player positions in the server log at regular intervals
    
    • log_verbose_enable default: 0
      
    • log_verbose_interval default: 3 secs
      
  • "Last-weapon" initialization on respawn now sets itself to be the melee weapon if you don’t have a selectable secondary weapon (like The Razorback).
    

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an case where The Gunboats didn’t apply their damage reduction properly.
  
• The amount count in the HUD now flashes red when you’re low on ammo.
  
• Extinguishing a burning teammate now earns a full bonus point (was half a point).
  
• Fixed a permanent overheal exploit involving dispensers.
  
• Fixed a bug in spectator mode where the user aborted out of freezecam, setup a spec mode (like IN_EYE), and would then have the setting stomped after the freezecam timer expired.
  
• Fixed bug with disguised spy sometimes seeing his own name in the disguise status HUD.
  
• Fixed a client crash that could result from players with arrows embedded in them.
  
• Fixed items that can be worn by any class having the wrong model when worn by a disguised Spy.
  
• Added missing map prefixes to server browser game types.
  
• Killing yourself with your own sentry no longer increments the sentry's kill counter.
  
• Fixed dropped hats sometimes having the wrong team color.
  
• Fixed crit-boosted players not getting critical hits if their weapon has custom no-crit behavior.
  
• Fixed the achievement dialog taking a long time to pop up, and completed achievements now sort to the bottom of the list.
  
• Fixed Spies disguised as Medics hearing the autocaller sound.
  

<img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/loadout.png" width="420" height="204" border="0">

Today we're shipping some significant changes to the item drop system.

<ul>
<li>Previously, we rolled randomly at intervals to see if you got an item drop. Now we roll to determine when your next item drop will occur. So you're guaranteed to find items at fairly regular intervals. The bulk of drop complaints we've received in the past have been from players having unlucky streaks, where they didn't find any items for weeks. That won't be possible now.</li>
<li>We've significantly increased the rate at which item drops occur, compared to the previous average interval.</li>
<li>There's now a maximum amount of playtime per week in which you get item drops. Playing beyond that amount won't find any more items. The amount varies, but if you play an hour or so a day you're good. Some of your unused time will rollover to the following week, so if you're an intermittent player you'll also be fine.</li>
</ul>
What are the net effects of these changes? Here's the quick summary:
<ul>
<li>If you're an idler, you're going to find fewer items than you were prior to this change. Sorry. On the bright side, there's less reason to idle, because it won't earn more than players who are playing regularly.</li>
<li>Everyone else will find items more frequently, and with greater regularity.</li>
</ul>
We're still thinking about how to allow you to influence your drops. When we see discussions on the forums, people often ask why we don't tie it to some in-game performance (like your scoreboard position, or number of kills, etc). Many players understand that if we did this, idle servers would simply change into servers running plugins that generate those in-game events frequently (as we saw in the Soldier & Demoman WAR!).

There's another side of it that we care about just as much, which is the message it would send to all the players who don't want to idle. Any in-game performance metric we chose would result in there being specific maps, classes, tactics, and so on that resulted in more drops. We really don't want that to happen. When it's simply playtime, you're free to play the game however you like. If you love Payload, you can play Payload maps without worrying about whether you're earning less drops than the guys playing Arena maps. Community mapmakers don't have to worry about whether their maps earn item drops fast enough. Similarly, server operators can configure their servers however they like, without worrying about reducing the rate at which their players are earning drops. In short, while it's far from perfect, not tying to in-game performance is a lot less poisonous to your minute-to-minute game experience.

Today we're shipping some significant changes to the item drop system.

• Previously, we rolled randomly at intervals to see if you got an item drop. Now we roll to determine when your next item drop will occur. So you're guaranteed to find items at fairly regular intervals. The bulk of drop complaints we've received in the past have been from players having unlucky streaks, where they didn't find any items for weeks. That won't be possible now.
  
• We've significantly increased the rate at which item drops occur, compared to the previous average interval.
  
• There's now a maximum amount of playtime per week in which you get item drops. Playing beyond that amount won't find any more items. The amount varies, but if you play an hour or so a day you're good. Some of your unused time will rollover to the following week, so if you're an intermittent player you'll also be fine.
  

What are the net effects of these changes? Here's the quick summary:

• If you're an idler, you're going to find fewer items than you were prior to this change. Sorry. On the bright side, there's less reason to idle, because it won't earn more than players who are playing regularly.
  
• Everyone else will find items more frequently, and with greater regularity.
  

We're still thinking about how to allow you to influence your drops. When we see discussions on the forums, people often ask why we don't tie it to some in-game performance (like your scoreboard position, or number of kills, etc). Many players understand that if we did this, idle servers would simply change into servers running plugins that generate those in-game events frequently (as we saw in the Soldier & Demoman WAR!).

There's another side of it that we care about just as much, which is the message it would send to all the players who don't want to idle. Any in-game performance metric we chose would result in there being specific maps, classes, tactics, and so on that resulted in more drops. We really don't want that to happen. When it's simply playtime, you're free to play the game however you like. If you love Payload, you can play Payload maps without worrying about whether you're earning less drops than the guys playing Arena maps. Community mapmakers don't have to worry about whether their maps earn item drops fast enough. Similarly, server operators can configure their servers however they like, without worrying about reducing the rate at which their players are earning drops. In short, while it's far from perfect, not tying to in-game performance is a lot less poisonous to your minute-to-minute game experience.

<a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/901399/"><img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/max_ears.jpg" width="420" height="255" border="0"></a>

At Valve, we like to play games made by other people, mainly because a) we don't have to make them, and b) they're generally more fun than ours anyway. In particular, games made by other people don't have Pyros named Eric Smith, who makes our collective lives miserable on a daily basis in playtests. (If you ever wonder why features like "Pyro now gets assists for airblasting enemies into environmental hazards" keep getting added to the game, thank Eric. Not content with killing us by just holding down W+M1, he persists in finding bold new ways to get points by any means necessary.)

It turns out that not only do we play other games--other game developers play ours. Last year <a href="http://www.telltalegames.com/" class="standardLink">Telltale Games</a>' TF2 Team went head to head with us in the TF2 Studio Rumble tournament, in the process dominating our own Adrian Finol so hard that he made up an excuse about "picking up my kids somewhere" and went and sat in his car for an hour. After the match, we all agreed that one of these days we should do something cool together, because they're big fans of TF2, and we're big fans of getting advance copies of Sam & Max episodes.

Fast forward to now, and doodly-doodly-doot: We're doing something cool together. To celebrate the release of The Penal Zone, the first episode in Sam & Max's new adventure, <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/901399/" class="standardLink">The Devil's Playhouse</a>, the Telltale team has provided us with some awesome TF2 items. We're going to give them out to everyone who buys The Penal Zone in the next week.

That's right: one week only. It's like the Soldier medal all over again, except this time you have no excuse about being too asleep in bed to download it in time. The items:

<strong>Max's Severed Head</strong>
<ul><li>It's not often you're given the gift of a beloved character's decapitated head by the very studio responsible for that character. Still, we're not complaining. It's soft, it wicks away moisture in the heat of battle, it highlights our eyes. It's got us thinking about all the other game characters we could be wearing around as clothes.</li></ul>

<strong>Max's Pistol</strong>
<ul><li>Who wouldn't want to squeeze off a couple rounds with the murder weapon of choice of a sociopathic cartoon rabbit? Probably quite a lot of people, when you get right down to it. Luckily, those people are all well-adjusted contributors to society with no police records, spotless credit ratings and few unresolvable moral failings. They also probably have no interest in playing TF2, so that means more murder-rabbit gun shooting for the rest of us.</li></ul>

<strong>Sam's Revolver</strong>
<ul><li>This might look like an ordinary revolver, until you realize that it helps a talking dog solve crimes. How many crimes has YOUR dog solved lately? And let's face it, his revolver kind of sucks too. Man, we want to talk about this gun more, but we can't get over how much your dog sucks.</li></ul>

So there's the loot, folks. Get over to <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/901399/" class="standardLink">Steam</a> and take a look at The Penal Zone. (And to answer your question, no. We asked. It doesn't mean what we thought it meant.)

At Valve, we like to play games made by other people, mainly because a) we don't have to make them, and b) they're generally more fun than ours anyway. In particular, games made by other people don't have Pyros named Eric Smith, who makes our collective lives miserable on a daily basis in playtests. (If you ever wonder why features like "Pyro now gets assists for airblasting enemies into environmental hazards" keep getting added to the game, thank Eric. Not content with killing us by just holding down W+M1, he persists in finding bold new ways to get points by any means necessary.)

It turns out that not only do we play other games--other game developers play ours. Last year Telltale Games' TF2 Team went head to head with us in the TF2 Studio Rumble tournament, in the process dominating our own Adrian Finol so hard that he made up an excuse about "picking up my kids somewhere" and went and sat in his car for an hour. After the match, we all agreed that one of these days we should do something cool together, because they're big fans of TF2, and we're big fans of getting advance copies of Sam & Max episodes.

Fast forward to now, and doodly-doodly-doot: We're doing something cool together. To celebrate the release of The Penal Zone, the first episode in Sam & Max's new adventure, The Devil's Playhouse, the Telltale team has provided us with some awesome TF2 items. We're going to give them out to everyone who buys The Penal Zone in the next week.

That's right: one week only. It's like the Soldier medal all over again, except this time you have no excuse about being too asleep in bed to download it in time. The items:

Max's Severed Head

• It's not often you're given the gift of a beloved character's decapitated head by the very studio responsible for that character. Still, we're not complaining. It's soft, it wicks away moisture in the heat of battle, it highlights our eyes. It's got us thinking about all the other game characters we could be wearing around as clothes.

Max's Pistol

• Who wouldn't want to squeeze off a couple rounds with the murder weapon of choice of a sociopathic cartoon rabbit? Probably quite a lot of people, when you get right down to it. Luckily, those people are all well-adjusted contributors to society with no police records, spotless credit ratings and few unresolvable moral failings. They also probably have no interest in playing TF2, so that means more murder-rabbit gun shooting for the rest of us.

Sam's Revolver

• This might look like an ordinary revolver, until you realize that it helps a talking dog solve crimes. How many crimes has YOUR dog solved lately? And let's face it, his revolver kind of sucks too. Man, we want to talk about this gun more, but we can't get over how much your dog sucks.

So there's the loot, folks. Get over to Steam and take a look at The Penal Zone. (And to answer your question, no. We asked. It doesn't mean what we thought it meant.)

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Team Fortress 2

• Added Sam & Max items
  
• Fixed the Demoman's Fro not cloaking properly when being used by a disguised Spy
  
• Reduced the damage bonus the Equalizer receives as the player loses health
  
  • The speed boost was not changed
    
• Community Request
  
  • Added a flag to info_particle_system to mark particle systems as "weather" effects
    

<img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/law_abiding_engineer.jpg" width="420" height="184" border="0">

Just a quick update to point out some of the fantastic community activity out there that gets emailed to us every so often. Hopefully you're aware of some of it already. If not, you're in for a treat.

<a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=3683&p=1">Check it out at the TF2 blog</a>