Do you hear that? That ominous, otherworldly silence? That's what we in the game biz call the calm before a storm. And keep listening... do you hear that distant rumble? We call that thunder. It happens during a storm whenever it's not quiet.

All of these portents can only mean one thing: Something big is happening. The fact that everybody else on the team keeps telling me that it's only weather, and that weather can't talk to you, tells me they're all in on it. (And possibly not human? More on this later.)

Perhaps it's the upcoming Polycount Pack update making the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and the Australia-shaped hair on my back matte itself back down, since it means we'll be shipping the best of the amazing <a href="http://www.polycount.com/2010/06/28/tf2-polycount-pack-week-5-check-in/" class="standardLink">Polycount Contest entries</a>. Be glad you're not one of us, forced to order that list of magnificent items into some kind of hierarchy. Maybe we'll just announce they've all won first place.

<a href="http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Main_Page"><img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/tf2_wiki.jpg" width="420" height="209" border="0"></a>

Or maybe it's the release of the <a href="http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Main_Page" class="standardLink">Official TF2 Wiki</a> that's made weather choose me as its emissary on Earth. Developed by the administrators of the unofficial TF2 wiki, it's a perfect place to find out everything you ever wanted to know about TF2, but were too afraid to type into Google. Head over there and see if you can help them out. If you're a useful enough contributor, the weather might talk to you too. It might even point out which of the people on your team aren't real humans. Then we could compare notes.

Or maybe, just maybe, it's something else entirely.

Do you hear that? That ominous, otherworldly silence? That's what we in the game biz call the calm before a storm. And keep listening... do you hear that distant rumble? We call that thunder. It happens during a storm whenever it's not quiet.

All of these portents can only mean one thing: Something big is happening. The fact that everybody else on the team keeps telling me that it's only weather, and that weather can't talk to you, tells me they're all in on it. (And possibly not human? More on this later.)

Perhaps it's the upcoming Polycount Pack update making the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and the Australia-shaped hair on my back matte itself back down, since it means we'll be shipping the best of the amazing Polycount Contest entries. Be glad you're not one of us, forced to order that list of magnificent items into some kind of hierarchy. Maybe we'll just announce they've all won first place.



Or maybe it's the release of the Official TF2 Wiki that's made weather choose me as its emissary on Earth. Developed by the administrators of the unofficial TF2 wiki, it's a perfect place to find out everything you ever wanted to know about TF2, but were too afraid to type into Google. Head over there and see if you can help them out. If you're a useful enough contributor, the weather might talk to you too. It might even point out which of the people on your team aren't real humans. Then we could compare notes.

Or maybe, just maybe, it's something else entirely.

<a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/battleofbothworldsfinalPoster"><img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/battleofbothworldsthumb.jpg" width="420" height="505" border="0"></a>

So you've been taking advantage of Training Mode and Offline Practice Mode all week, and you think you're pretty hot stuff. What better way to find out how wrong you are than to watch some pros in action at the Steam Powered User Forums' <a href="http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1302587" class="standardLink">"Battle of Both Worlds"</a> match this week? Also known as the "Pros vs Pubbers" event, the match features a team of competitive players versus a team of highly skilled public-server players. It's a perfect opportunity to see a whole bunch of truly great TF2 players have some truly great fun. <a href="http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1302587" class="standardLink">Check it out</a>.

So you've been taking advantage of Training Mode and Offline Practice Mode all week, and you think you're pretty hot stuff. What better way to find out how wrong you are than to watch some pros in action at the Steam Powered User Forums' "Battle of Both Worlds" match this week? Also known as the "Pros vs Pubbers" event, the match features a team of competitive players versus a team of highly skilled public-server players. It's a perfect opportunity to see a whole bunch of truly great TF2 players have some truly great fun. Check it out.

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

Engine

• Fixed crash in SourceTV relay
  

Team Fortress 2

• Fixed blood splashes not appearing on bullet hits
  
• Fixed Achievement dialog text being cut off for certain resolutions
  
• TFBot Changes
  
  • Medics now respond when nearby humans call for Medic
    
  • If a Medic Bot is healing you and has an ÜberCharge ready, use the voice commands "Go go go!" or "Activate Charge!" to force the Bot to activate the ÜberCharge
    

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 client crash when rendering model panels
  
• Fixed client crash when rendering text strings
  
• Fixed client crash in the main menu
  
• Fixed server crash related to bots and health kits
  

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

Engine

• Fixed a crash related to model caches.
  
• Fixed a crash related to empty proxy files.
  
• Fixed a rare crash involving corrupted voice-comm playback.
  

Team Fortress 2

• Fixed some issues with the community submitted tips.
  
• Fixed a case where servers could get stuck in an infinite loop while spawning bots.
  
• Made the training HUD code more robust, so it doesn’t crash if the client has modified HUD resource files.
  
• Fixed a potential crash in the HUD during startup.
  
• Fixed a level change crash related to Bot navigation meshes.
  
• Disabled quickswitch UI in training to reduce confusion.
  
• The Demoman's battleaxe now sounds like a sword.
  

Missed a note from yesterday:

• The Eyelander now collects the heads inside Eyelanders of Demomen it decapitates.
  

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 training servers showing up in the server browser for other users
  
• Fixed a crash related to level changes while playing a game with bots
  
• Fixed a potential crash on startup
  
• Remove debug "crash" command on dedicated servers
  

<a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/macupdate"><img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/its_here.jpg" width="420" height="236" border="0"></a>

We'd originally planned to tease out today's update over the course of 19 deviously brain-twisting blog posts, each containing a mercurially complex riddle hinting at the nature of the update. Unfortunately, everybody seems to have cracked the subtle rhyming codex embedded in our first blog post, which was actually supposed to be the most unsolvable of the 19.

So anyway. <a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/macupdate" class="standardLink">Team Fortress 2's available on the Mac now</a>.

Or is it?

No, it is. Sorry, that was Riddle #17. It seemed a shame to let it go to waste.

As part of the celebration, <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/440/#weekend" class="standardLink">TF2 will be FREE to play all weekend</a>, and 50% off to purchase. We've also got a <a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/macupdate/earbuds" class="standardLink">little treat</a> for anybody logging into the game from a Mac.

We'd originally planned to tease out today's update over the course of 19 deviously brain-twisting blog posts, each containing a mercurially complex riddle hinting at the nature of the update. Unfortunately, everybody seems to have cracked the subtle rhyming codex embedded in our first blog post, which was actually supposed to be the most unsolvable of the 19.

So anyway. Team Fortress 2's available on the Mac now.

Or is it?

No, it is. Sorry, that was Riddle #17. It seemed a shame to let it go to waste.

As part of the celebration, TF2 will be FREE to play all weekend, and 50% off to purchase. We've also got a little treat for anybody logging into the game from a Mac.