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

Source Engine Changes (TF2, DoD:S, HL2:DM)

• Dramatically improved the dynamic model loading system's memory usage, performance, and stability
  
• Reduced memory usage on systems running Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7
  
• Improved alt-tab handling under Windows Vista and Windows 7
  

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

• Added new promo items
  
• Fixed some visual conflicts with the Dr. Whoa bowtie and other items
  
• Updated the Cold War Luchador, the Mark of the Saint, and the Apoco-Fists so they can be crafted and traded
  
• Updated the localization files
  

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

• Added the Dr. Whoa bowtie
  
• Added a new taunt for the Heavy when he's wearing the FrankenHeavy set
  
• WebAPI changes:
  • Fixed contained_item not always displaying in the web api results
    
  • Added a new API (IEconAssets_440/GetAssetPrices/v0001) for getting item prices
• Fixed set bonuses activating outside of the proper holiday for holiday restricted items
  
• Fixed the Loch-n-Load death notice icon not being displayed correctly
  

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

• Added new promo items
  
• Fixed a bug preventing some server-side quickplay filtering from working, causing clients to ping too many servers
  
• Fixed a bug where an item with an empty craft_class (e.g. the Apoco-Fists) could be obtained via crafting
  
• Fixed an exploit that allowed untradable items to be traded with Steam trading
  
• Web API changes:
  • Added flag_cannot_craft to GetPlayerItems web API output
    
  • Added description_string and description_format for some hidden attributes in the GetSchema output
• Updated Pl_Upward
  • Fixed a teleporter griefing position near control point B
• Updated Pl_Barnblitz
  • Fixed a bug that allowed players to get into the opposing team's respawn room
• Updated the localization files
  

<a href="http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/"><img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/holiday_items_2.jpg" height="170" width="420 border="0"></a>

It's that special time of mid-November, where nothing is special yet, but you can feel the tingle of impending specialness right around the corner. All the signs are there. When you kill a man, you can actually see his last breath hanging in the chill mid-November pre-specialness air. Turkeys have retreated to their bunkers in a vain attempt to weather the upcoming onslaught of holidays devoted to gleeful turkey slaughter. And, are those sleighbells we hear? Because our legal department assures us they aren't. That's right, TFers. It's beginning to look a lot like an upcoming holiday our legal department won't let us mention, but that rhymes with "Smissmas".

Everywhere, that is, except in our item submission queue, where there doesn't seem to be any Smissmas joy at all. No Smissmas trees. No smazzletoe. Not even a smamukkah bush, which is a different holiday we can't mention but would also have been acceptable.

So it's up to you, item crafters! You've got until December 1st to have your hearts grow three sizes, be visited by spirits in the night, and get in the Smissmas spirit by submitting holiday-themed items to the <a href="http://steamcommunity.com/workshop">Steam Workshop</a>. What holiday? <i>Your guess is as good as ours!</i>

Merry Bazzlebarp, everybody!

It's that special time of mid-November, where nothing is special yet, but you can feel the tingle of impending specialness right around the corner. All the signs are there. When you kill a man, you can actually see his last breath hanging in the chill mid-November pre-specialness air. Turkeys have retreated to their bunkers in a vain attempt to weather the upcoming onslaught of holidays devoted to gleeful turkey slaughter. And, are those sleighbells we hear? Because our legal department assures us they aren't. That's right, TFers. It's beginning to look a lot like an upcoming holiday our legal department won't let us mention, but that rhymes with "Smissmas".

Everywhere, that is, except in our item submission queue, where there doesn't seem to be any Smissmas joy at all. No Smissmas trees. No smazzletoe. Not even a smamukkah bush, which is a different holiday we can't mention but would also have been acceptable.

So it's up to you, item crafters! You've got until December 1st to have your hearts grow three sizes, be visited by spirits in the night, and get in the Smissmas spirit by submitting holiday-themed items to the Steam Workshop. What holiday? Your guess is as good as ours!

Merry Bazzlebarp, everybody!

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

• Fixed a problem with precaching pumpkin_bomb entities
  

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

Source Engine Changes (TF2, DoD:S, HL2:DM)

• Added rate limiting for connections and added the following ConVars to support that:
  • sv_max_connects_sec
    
  • sv_max_connects_window
    
  • sv_max_connects_sec_global

Team Fortress 2

• Added a full moon background for the main menu
  
• Added new promo items
  
• Fixed a Linux dedicated server crash when using +randommap on the command line
  
• Fixed some bugs with the way items appear in the Steam Community and Steam Trading
  
• Optimized several materials to improve performance
  
• Updated the localization files
  

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

• Ended the Halloween sale/event
  
• Fixed a client crash in the replay editor
  
• Fixed a client crash in the fullscreen store preview
  
• Updated the localization files
  

<img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/saxtonheader.jpg" width="420" height="316" border="0">

First order of business: Some DAMNED WEBSITE is asking any no-nothing mope with a keyboard and an opinion the preposterously self-evident question of whether I can <a href="http://www.darkhorse.com/Blog/686/dark-horse-vs-dr-mcninja-vs-saxton-hale" target="blank">BEAT UP A DOCTOR IN A FIGHT</a>. Let's put aside that unlike with Mann Co., when a customer isn't wholly satisfied with a doctor's services, the doctor won't even CHALLENGE THAT CUSTOMER TO A FIGHT. In fact, he CAN'T challenge that customer to a fight, since doctors take a cringing oath of cowardice to "do no harm". Let's also put aside the fact that this contest doesn't even specify what SORT of fight this doctor and I would would be engaged in. (Let me answer that: A VERY SHORT ONE.)

Let's ignore all that and stick to the facts: I have PERSONALLY MANSLAUGHTERED 1,593 physicians in various forms of unarmed and/or unwilling combat, and let me tell you, that statistic carries a lot of weight at the doctor's office. Let's just say a "Beaten to Death in the Head by Fists" can turn into a "Natural Causes" on a coroner's report PRETTY FAST when you're cracking the right knuckles at the right people.

Still, if some online poll insists on propagating lies that I can be bested in fisticuffs by any Scottish-Japanese doctor who wants to throw on a ski mask, then I must turn to YOU, the fine customers of Mann Co.'s top-notch line of occasionally combustible products, to PUT THAT LIE TO REST. <a href="http://www.darkhorse.com/Blog/686/dark-horse-vs-dr-mcninja-vs-saxton-hale" target="blank">Click here</a>, and RIGHT an INTERNET WRONG with your FINGER-FIST.

In other news, one of you FINALLY REMEMBERED that the U.S. postal service is a THING THAT EXISTS and answered the conundrum I posed during the Manniversary update about <a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/manniversary/newhats.html">making an ostrich disappear</a>:

<a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/SaxtonFanletter.jpg"><img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/SaxtonFanletter_thumb.jpg" width="420" height="188" border="0"></a>

Thank you, PVO, for your (relatively) <a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/SaxtonFanletter.jpg">prompt reply</a>. Far too late to be useful, of course, as the police knocked in the door to my office weeks ago and I was forced to think on the spot (I ate the ostrich). But you get a hearty Mann Co. RELAXED-FIST CLAPPING SOUND for your inventive solution to my problem.

I have manslaughtered 1,593 physicians,

<b>Saxton Hale</b>