In the latest update, we've <i>finally</i> fixed the Double Crouch Jump bug—a longstanding issue involving Scout not being able to double crouch jump without looking like his legs are made of raw bacon strips held up in a wind tunnel:

<a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/crazylegs.jpg"><img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/crazylegs_small.jpg" height="266" width="420" border="0"></a>

Throughout <i>Team Fortress 2's</i> years-long release and update cycle, many people have asked us, "Seriously, how could you guys not have fixed that yet?" The majority of these queries are directed to <i>TF2</i> animator Matthew Russell, who is technically responsible for fixing this kind of thing, and most of them pull no punches. "Is it because Matthew Russell is too stupid to fix it? Why would Valve even hire someone with a horseshoe-shaped divot in their skull?" is an email we see a lot. "Does Matthew Russell have a disease that makes him lazy?" is another popular one. An astonishing number of them are simply a .jpeg of Google Maps with Matt's house ominously circled. The rest could be summed up as a long, unbroken string of expletives and grammatically questionable racial slurs.

What a lot of people don't know is that this "bug" isn't a bug at all, but rather an embarrassing result of the degenerative leg disease our motion capture actor, Del Bluskin, has bravely endured for over a decade now, which has turned the lower half of his skeleton into something that looks like two raw bacon strips held up in a wind tunnel. To be honest, Del's been a part of the Valve family for so long, we just didn't have the heart to fire him simply because his ailment had rendered him grossly incompetent at his own job. To be even more honest, we didn't have the heart to engage in a long verbal sparring match with Valve's legal team, who told us that under no circumstances could we fire Del.

Luckily, things have a funny way of working themselves out for the best. Del was hit by a bus this morning, and our new mocap guy, Phil, is a sharp, enthusiastic go-getter with a functioning skeleton. Jump forward an hour, and here we are with an upgrade that finally addresses the Double Crouch Jump bug that has long plagued the Scout-playing faithful. Enjoy, and in the words of animator Matthew Russell, "Anyone wants me, I'm gonna snag a couple z's in the server room. If Newell asks, one of my kids has chicken pox again."

In non-crazy-legs-related news, our friends at TF2maps.net have just finished up their <a href="http://swamp.tf2maps.net/" class="standardLink">Swamp Theme expansion</a>. Head on over and download it today.

In the latest update, we've finally fixed the Double Crouch Jump bug—a longstanding issue involving Scout not being able to double crouch jump without looking like his legs are made of raw bacon strips held up in a wind tunnel:



Throughout Team Fortress 2's years-long release and update cycle, many people have asked us, "Seriously, how could you guys not have fixed that yet?" The majority of these queries are directed to TF2 animator Matthew Russell, who is technically responsible for fixing this kind of thing, and most of them pull no punches. "Is it because Matthew Russell is too stupid to fix it? Why would Valve even hire someone with a horseshoe-shaped divot in their skull?" is an email we see a lot. "Does Matthew Russell have a disease that makes him lazy?" is another popular one. An astonishing number of them are simply a .jpeg of Google Maps with Matt's house ominously circled. The rest could be summed up as a long, unbroken string of expletives and grammatically questionable racial slurs.

What a lot of people don't know is that this "bug" isn't a bug at all, but rather an embarrassing result of the degenerative leg disease our motion capture actor, Del Bluskin, has bravely endured for over a decade now, which has turned the lower half of his skeleton into something that looks like two raw bacon strips held up in a wind tunnel. To be honest, Del's been a part of the Valve family for so long, we just didn't have the heart to fire him simply because his ailment had rendered him grossly incompetent at his own job. To be even more honest, we didn't have the heart to engage in a long verbal sparring match with Valve's legal team, who told us that under no circumstances could we fire Del.

Luckily, things have a funny way of working themselves out for the best. Del was hit by a bus this morning, and our new mocap guy, Phil, is a sharp, enthusiastic go-getter with a functioning skeleton. Jump forward an hour, and here we are with an upgrade that finally addresses the Double Crouch Jump bug that has long plagued the Scout-playing faithful. Enjoy, and in the words of animator Matthew Russell, "Anyone wants me, I'm gonna snag a couple z's in the server room. If Newell asks, one of my kids has chicken pox again."

In non-crazy-legs-related news, our friends at TF2maps.net have just finished up their Swamp Theme expansion. Head on over and download it today.

<a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/contribute/"><img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/contribute.jpg" width="420" height="324" border="0"></a>

Today we're unveiling the TF2 <a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/contribute/" class="standardLink">Contribution site</a>. This nifty site will allow anyone who's made a custom piece of TF2 content to submit it to us, with a view to it appearing in-game. Many of you have been building fantastic TF2 work for a while now, and we wanted a way for you to get it in front of all TF2 players, and for everyone to see that you were the one that built it.

Also, we've now added an official feed for harvesting TF2 inventory data for all the folks out there building nifty web pages around items. Technical details are as follows:

<ul>
<li>The TF2 client installation now includes <strong>tf\scripts\items\items_game.txt</strong>. This is the item dictionary most of you have been working with for a while now.</li>
<li>A JSON feed describing the TF2 items in an account can be reached at this URL: <strong>http://steamcommunity.com/id/<steamID or vanity URL>/tfitems?json=1</strong></li>
</ul>
Use the definition indices for item types, attribute types, and quality levels in the JSON feed to index into the <strong>items_game.txt</strong> dictionary, and you're good to go. Note that it will respect the privacy settings on steam profiles, so it won't report the inventories of players who've marked the profile as private.

Today we're unveiling the TF2 Contribution site. This nifty site will allow anyone who's made a custom piece of TF2 content to submit it to us, with a view to it appearing in-game. Many of you have been building fantastic TF2 work for a while now, and we wanted a way for you to get it in front of all TF2 players, and for everyone to see that you were the one that built it.

Also, we've now added an official feed for harvesting TF2 inventory data for all the folks out there building nifty web pages around items. Technical details are as follows:

• The TF2 client installation now includes tf\scripts\items\items_game.txt. This is the item dictionary most of you have been working with for a while now.
  
• A JSON feed describing the TF2 items in an account can be reached at this URL: http://steamcommunity.com/id/<steamID or vanity URL>/tfitems?json=1
  

Use the definition indices for item types, attribute types, and quality levels in the JSON feed to index into the items_game.txt dictionary, and you're good to go. Note that it will respect the privacy settings on steam profiles, so it won't report the inventories of players who've marked the profile as private.

...the Soldier!

<a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/war/part7/index.htm"><img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/war_final.jpg" width="420" height="350" border="0"></a>


Sorry, Demomen. You fought the good fight and kept it far closer than anybody could have predicted. But in the end, at the noon Thursday deadline, the Soldiers kept their razor-thin lead, with 6,406,065 killed Demomen to the Demo's score of 6,372,979 killed Sollys.

What a week it's been. We're really big fans of both the police and the fire department, so it's been a real treat for us, as they've been here pretty much non-stop since last Thursday. There were the arguments between Demo and Soldier-supporting staffers; that unexplained knifing in the elevator; Drew Wolf; and a host of other calamities that resulted from the creation of this massive update. At one point we even saw a police officer and a fireman in a fist fight over who was more mad at us.

Anyway, it was all worth it to give you this <a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/war/part7/index.htm" class="standardLink">update</a>. Which is now live. Enjoy.

...the Soldier!




Sorry, Demomen. You fought the good fight and kept it far closer than anybody could have predicted. But in the end, at the noon Thursday deadline, the Soldiers kept their razor-thin lead, with 6,406,065 killed Demomen to the Demo's score of 6,372,979 killed Sollys.

What a week it's been. We're really big fans of both the police and the fire department, so it's been a real treat for us, as they've been here pretty much non-stop since last Thursday. There were the arguments between Demo and Soldier-supporting staffers; that unexplained knifing in the elevator; Drew Wolf; and a host of other calamities that resulted from the creation of this massive update. At one point we even saw a police officer and a fireman in a fist fight over who was more mad at us.

Anyway, it was all worth it to give you this update. Which is now live. Enjoy.

<img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/viday.jpg" width="430" height="546" border="0">

Victory on the Internet Day has been declared! The war is over! Who won? We don't know! Yet!

Luckily, I, Robin Walker, was up all night building a kill-calculating machine for just such an eventuality. We turned it on, the building filled with smoke, and right now a fireman is yelling at me to leave the building with everyone else. I'll leave when they pry this tiny netbook out of my cold dead hands. Or when an angry fireman fireman-carries me out of the office, which is what is happening <strong>right now</strong>. Anyway, once all the firemen calm down, we'll announce the War results with today's huge update. To pass the time, go get yourself a fresh mouse and start reloading this page as fast as you possibly can.


<strong>Please note:</strong> Beginning now, we're going to start transitioning the new inventory system into the game. Until the update goes live later today, you will not have access to your inventory.

Victory on the Internet Day has been declared! The war is over! Who won? We don't know! Yet!

Luckily, I, Robin Walker, was up all night building a kill-calculating machine for just such an eventuality. We turned it on, the building filled with smoke, and right now a fireman is yelling at me to leave the building with everyone else. I'll leave when they pry this tiny netbook out of my cold dead hands. Or when an angry fireman fireman-carries me out of the office, which is what is happening right now. Anyway, once all the firemen calm down, we'll announce the War results with today's huge update. To pass the time, go get yourself a fresh mouse and start reloading this page as fast as you possibly can.


Please note: Beginning now, we're going to start transitioning the new inventory system into the game. Until the update goes live later today, you will not have access to your inventory.

You heard right As of noon PST today, the Demoman/Soldier WAR! is over. The score is, as of this writing:

<a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/soldierupdate/" class="standardLink" style="font-size:18px;">Demoman Killed: 6,323,921</a>

<a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/demomanupdate/" class="standardLink" style="font-size:18px;">Dead Soldiers: 6,298,465</a>


It all comes down to this. I'd give you a motivational speech right now, but the time you wasted reading it would be less time you spent making a difference on the battlefield. Go ahead and break the bad news to your grandfather: <strong>YOU</strong> are officially now the greatest generation.

You heard right As of noon PST today, the Demoman/Soldier WAR! is over. The score is, as of this writing:

Demoman Killed: 6,323,921

Dead Soldiers: 6,298,465


It all comes down to this. I'd give you a motivational speech right now, but the time you wasted reading it would be less time you spent making a difference on the battlefield. Go ahead and break the bad news to your grandfather: YOU are officially now the greatest generation.