<a href="http://artpass.tf2maps.net/"><img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/map_comic.jpg" width="420" height="210" border="0"></a>

Just a quick, but excited note: <a href="http://www.tf2maps.net/">TF2maps.net</a> has opened their doors on their new <a href="http://artpass.tf2maps.net/">Art Pass Contest</a>.

It's a fantastic opportunity for everyone involved: you get a chance to show us how much better at detailing maps than we are, and our (ex) art team gets a chance to find new jobs at companies that still need their kind!

Just a quick, but excited note: TF2maps.net has opened their doors on their new Art Pass Contest.

It's a fantastic opportunity for everyone involved: you get a chance to show us how much better at detailing maps than we are, and our (ex) art team gets a chance to find new jobs at companies that still need their kind!

Updates to Counter-Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2 and Day of Defeat: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Engine

• Tuned thread initialization to improve performance on CPUs with more than four cores
  

Counter-Strike: Source

• Fixed leftover shadows when ragdoll physics are disabled
  
• Added stats gathering to track client and server performance
  
• Added instrumentation to help debug network issues
  
• Disabled some unsupported threading convars
  

<a href="http://www.polycount.com/2010/07/14/the-team-fortress-2-polycount-pack-winners"><img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/polycount_winners.jpg" width="420" height="286" border="0"></a>

After our usual delay, we're proud to announce we've finished the utterly impossible task of selecting the <a href="http://www.polycount.com/2010/07/14/the-team-fortress-2-polycount-pack-winners">winners</a> of the <a href="http://www.polycount.com/team-fortress-2-polycount-pack/">Polycount Contest</a>. These five lucky individuals will soon receive the unbridled adoration of the TF2 community when we release their packs in an update. Unluckily for them, we're also going to attach gameplay attributes (probably of a game destroying nature) to these items, sullying their perfect work with our clumsy attempts at game design. Anyway, enough mucking about, head over and <a href="http://www.polycount.com/2010/07/14/the-team-fortress-2-polycount-pack-winners">see who won!</a>

<a href="http://www.cevo.com/?page=forum&func=viewthread&id=10572&forumID=2"><img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/CEVO.jpg" width="420" height="127" border="0"></a>

In other good news, the chaps over at CEVO dropped us a line to say that registration for the <a href="http://www.cevo.com/?page=forum&func=viewthread&id=10572&forumID=2">CEVO TF2 Season 6</a> tournament has just opened up. With three skill divisions, it's a great place to play some competitive TF2 matches, even for relative beginners. They're trying to convince those of us in the Valve TF2 team to play in the Amateur division as well, which would be possible if we ever figured out how to curb our usual desire to <a href="http://www.aboxcafe.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14371">cheat spectacularly</a>.

After our usual delay, we're proud to announce we've finished the utterly impossible task of selecting the winners of the Polycount Contest. These five lucky individuals will soon receive the unbridled adoration of the TF2 community when we release their packs in an update. Unluckily for them, we're also going to attach gameplay attributes (probably of a game destroying nature) to these items, sullying their perfect work with our clumsy attempts at game design. Anyway, enough mucking about, head over and see who won!



In other good news, the chaps over at CEVO dropped us a line to say that registration for the CEVO TF2 Season 6 tournament has just opened up. With three skill divisions, it's a great place to play some competitive TF2 matches, even for relative beginners. They're trying to convince those of us in the Valve TF2 team to play in the Amateur division as well, which would be possible if we ever figured out how to curb our usual desire to cheat spectacularly.

Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source and Day of Defeat: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Engine

• Increased the resilience of client/server data table mismatches when playing back demos. This will make most old demo files playable again, but with potential visual side effects
  

Team Fortress 2

• Updated CP_Coldfront
  
  • Added map to the default mapcycle and motd files.
    
  • Fixed a server crash issue related to increased maxplayer servers.
    
  • Fixed a couple Engineer building exploits.
    
• Updated the localization files.
  
• Improved the performance of the critboost particle effect.
  
• Fixed a server crash related to carrying buildings at round start.
  
• Fixed players picking up buildings before a round has started.
  
• Fixed an exploit where Engineers could create level 3 mini-sentries.
  

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 an exploit that allowed Engineers to build level 2/3 mini sentries.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed sapped buildings to be picked up by the Engineer
  
• Fixed a bug where Wrangled level 3 sentryguns would still fire rockets when they were out of ammo.
  
• Fixed a bug where players would go into reference poses when switching classes while carrying a building.
  
• Fixed seeing the changeclass label in the spectator HUD when using cl_hud_minmode.
  
• The amount of revenge crits a player can have at one time is now capped at 35.
  
• The Wrangler no longer shows the shotgun's ammo count.
  
• Engineers can no longer pick up buildings while stunned or in loser state.
  
• Fixed Engineer shotgun and piston not using team skins for the Engineer's arms.
  
• Fixed an issue where Wrangled sentrygun effects wouldn't be attached to the sentrygun.
  
• The Gunslinger 3 hit combo now only increments the combo count when hitting enemy players.
  
• Fixed a crash in the control point progress bar.
  
• Fixed a server crash in the player death code, related to building carrying.
  
• Fixing performance spikes that occur at round start, and after each point capture, when TFBots are present in the server.
  
• Achievement fixes:
  
  • The "Rio Grind" achievement limit is now correctly set to 50.
    
  • Fixed a typo in Six-String Stinger achievement name.
    
  • Fixed a bug in the "Death Metal" achievement that caused it to rapidly complete itself.
    
  • Fixed getting the Six-String Stinger achievement without playing the guitar.
    
  • Fixed sentrygun detection code in "Best Little Slaughterhouse in Texas" and "Deputized".
    
• Missed notes from yesterday's release:
  
  • New response rules and sounds added for some classes
    

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 missing class descriptions on the class menu blackboard.
  
• Fixed a server crash related to carrying buildings.
  
• Fixed a HUD element issue in DX8.
  

Say you have two things: a perfectly good hand, and a brilliant inventor for a grandfather. One day you stumble across a blueprint for an amazing-as-hell robot hand meant to replace an arm-stump. Wait, you have three things: the hand, the grandfather, and a saw.

<a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/engineerupdate"><img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/gunslinger.jpg" width="420" height="337" border="0"></a><br />

<a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/engineerupdate/">The final day of the Engineer Update</a> unveils the Gunslinger, a mechanical stump-mounted monstrosity; "Thunder Mountain", the most awesomely named of our Valve-created Payload Maps.

Stop reading. Go play!

Say you have two things: a perfectly good hand, and a brilliant inventor for a grandfather. One day you stumble across a blueprint for an amazing-as-hell robot hand meant to replace an arm-stump. Wait, you have three things: the hand, the grandfather, and a saw.




The final day of the Engineer Update unveils the Gunslinger, a mechanical stump-mounted monstrosity; "Thunder Mountain", the most awesomely named of our Valve-created Payload Maps.

Stop reading. Go play!