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 BEAT UP A DOCTOR IN A FIGHT. 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. Click here, 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 making an ostrich disappear:



Thank you, PVO, for your (relatively) prompt reply. 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,

Saxton Hale

<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>

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 BEAT UP A DOCTOR IN A FIGHT. 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. Click here, 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 making an ostrich disappear:



Thank you, PVO, for your (relatively) prompt reply. 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,

Saxton Hale

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 (DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM)

• Output of status command now includes public IP
  
• Fixed playback for pre-Halloween demo recordings
  

Team Fortress 2

• Output of status command now includes registration status, including any error message causing failure
  
• Update the '_registered' server tag based on whether registration is successful, not whether the registration convars are set
  
• All registration related messages now go to the server log in addition to the console
  
• Fix response from cl_gameserver_reset_identity command to properly format convar config lines
  
• Added a taunt for the Tin Soldier set
  
• Fixed the Soldier’s melee dare response rule
  
• MONOCULUS! HAS GROWN ANGRY
  
• 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:

• Fixed the randommap command not working when used on the command line
  
• Fixed a client crash that could occur while loading the map if MONOCULUS! is killed or stunned
  

Welcome—<strong>IF YOU DARE</strong>—to the Third Annual Scream Fortress Very Scary Halloween Special!

<a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/veryscaryhalloween"><img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/demo_eye.jpg" width="420" height="242" border="0"></a>

Let us be frank with you: <a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/screamfortress/">Last year's special</a> was <i>pretty darn terrifying,</i> even by our impossibly high standard of scary. To cite just one example: Dracula was taken to the hospital after witnessing <i>just the loading screen</i> of last year's update. That's not Terry Dracula your greengrocer, either. This is <i>the</i> Dracula we’re talking about. And if it scared Dracula, who eats ghosts and craps Frankensteins, we shudder to imagine what it must have done to you.

As an apology, we’re debating taking all of the scares out of <a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/veryscaryhalloween">this year's Halloween Special</a>. For instance, one playtester thought the Pyro was a little scary, so we’ll probably remove him as a class. Someone else swore he remembered reading something about somebody getting hurt by a gun once. And that sounded scary. So probably no more guns, either. Then Dracula called from the hospital. "Hey guys," he said, "hats are pretty scary." Well, now, that must have been the morphine talking. So we’re adding more hats just to be safe.

Long story short, we guarantee you that nothing's going to scare you this year. There will be no <strong>ENORMOUS HAUNTED EYEBALL</strong> to terrorize you around an island filled with tons of <strong>SECRET LOOT</strong>, and a <strong>GIANT SKULL!</strong> There will be approximately zero percent chance of you getting your trembling hands on a spooky costume <strong>FOR EVERY CLASS!</strong> And we certainly wouldn't <strong>DRAMATIZE THE BACKSTORY</strong> of this hypothetical scary update with a <strong><a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/bombinomicon">FEAR-CHOKED TERROR-COMIC!</a></strong>

No, dear reader, we wouldn't do any of these things. Why? Because we're <strong>MUMMIES!</strong> Mummies can't make updates, we live in pyramids! What are you, insane? For the answer to that question, keep reading:

<strong>YES! YOU ARE!* TWIST ENDING!</strong>

* You went insane back in the second paragraph! <strong>YOU</strong> actually wrote this blog post! The only thing that isn't a figment of your imagination is <strong>THIS UPDATE! TWIST FOOTNOTE!</strong>

Welcome—IF YOU DARE—to the Third Annual Scream Fortress Very Scary Halloween Special!



Let us be frank with you: Last year's special was pretty darn terrifying, even by our impossibly high standard of scary. To cite just one example: Dracula was taken to the hospital after witnessing just the loading screen of last year's update. That's not Terry Dracula your greengrocer, either. This is the Dracula we’re talking about. And if it scared Dracula, who eats ghosts and craps Frankensteins, we shudder to imagine what it must have done to you.

As an apology, we’re debating taking all of the scares out of this year's Halloween Special. For instance, one playtester thought the Pyro was a little scary, so we’ll probably remove him as a class. Someone else swore he remembered reading something about somebody getting hurt by a gun once. And that sounded scary. So probably no more guns, either. Then Dracula called from the hospital. "Hey guys," he said, "hats are pretty scary." Well, now, that must have been the morphine talking. So we’re adding more hats just to be safe.

Long story short, we guarantee you that nothing's going to scare you this year. There will be no ENORMOUS HAUNTED EYEBALL to terrorize you around an island filled with tons of SECRET LOOT, and a GIANT SKULL! There will be approximately zero percent chance of you getting your trembling hands on a spooky costume FOR EVERY CLASS! And we certainly wouldn't DRAMATIZE THE BACKSTORY of this hypothetical scary update with a FEAR-CHOKED TERROR-COMIC!

No, dear reader, we wouldn't do any of these things. Why? Because we're MUMMIES! Mummies can't make updates, we live in pyramids! What are you, insane? For the answer to that question, keep reading:

YES! YOU ARE!* TWIST ENDING!

* You went insane back in the second paragraph! YOU actually wrote this blog post! The only thing that isn't a figment of your imagination is THIS UPDATE! TWIST FOOTNOTE!

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

• Halloween 2011 Event
  
  • Viaduct has been haunted and is now... Eyeaduct!
    
  • One full multi-piece costume set has been added for each class
    
  • Random gifts containing costume pieces drop in Eyeaduct on registered servers
    
  • 2 new Halloween 2011 achievements
    
  • Any unusual hats uncrated during the event will be Halloween-themed
    
  • New Halloween-themed items are available in the Mann Co. store, but only for a limited time!
    
• Updated effects for The Cow Mangler 5000
  
• Updated in-game abuse reporting tool to include option for reporting abusive game servers
  
• Added mapcycle_halloween containing all Halloween event maps
  
• Fixed team colors and styles not updating properly in store previews
  
• Fixed bug in reputation trend status display for registered servers
  
• Fixed a problem that could cause repeated stutters after joining a server
  
• Fixed the Spine-Chilling Skull not appearing when equipped by soldiers
  
• New Halloween-themed community-created items submitted to the Workshop are now available in the Mann Co. store!
  

There are some questions in the TF universe--questions like "Is Pyro a boy or a girl?" or "Who will be the tenth class?"--that get asked so often that they become, in a sense, unanswerable.

Then there are the questions nobody has thought to ask. Questions like, "Every time you explain something supernatural in TF2 you say the Soldier angered a magician. Who is the magician?" Questions like, "If the TF mercs went out trick or treating, what costumes would they wear?"

<a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/bombinomicon"><img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/monoculus.jpg" width="420" height="197" border="0"></a>

These are the questions we ask, because unlike those other questions, <i>these ones we have an answer to.</i> Answers like, "His name is Merasmus the Magician, and he's in a <a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/bombinomicon">Halloween comic</a>!" Answers like, "The TF mercs would wear awesome costumes that you can pick up by collecting scattered gifts in the Halloween update--which will be live very soon!"

There are some questions in the TF universe--questions like "Is Pyro a boy or a girl?" or "Who will be the tenth class?"--that get asked so often that they become, in a sense, unanswerable.

Then there are the questions nobody has thought to ask. Questions like, "Every time you explain something supernatural in TF2 you say the Soldier angered a magician. Who is the magician?" Questions like, "If the TF mercs went out trick or treating, what costumes would they wear?"



These are the questions we ask, because unlike those other questions, these ones we have an answer to. Answers like, "His name is Merasmus the Magician, and he's in a Halloween comic!" Answers like, "The TF mercs would wear awesome costumes that you can pick up by collecting scattered gifts in the Halloween update--which will be live very soon!"