Major Update Speculation XXVI: Much Ado About Nothing - Games

We're not talking about 6 months of no major updates, we're talking about 6 months of no actual ingame content. You'd expect at the very least new hats or something to be added at this point.

[QUOTE=NoobSauce;47994930]We're not talking about 6 months of no major updates, we're talking about 6 months of no actual ingame content. You'd expect at the very least new hats or something to be added at this point.[/QUOTE] It's obvious these days hats are tied to major updates and things like summer/fall/winter crates. Face it, TF2 doesn't get much content for the first half of the year. Everyone should know this by now. Yes, Valve did weekly hats in 2012. Do I like that and think they should do it more? Of course. But it's not a trend and not anything to expect. It was a one-time thing. The only time we had hats early in the year (recently) was 2012 and the 2014 strongbox pack. It's nowhere near close being "expected". [editline]17th June 2015[/editline] If you want in-game content I would cite Mannpower, but I think it's universally agreed no one likes it.

2010 added hats and weapons during March. 2011 had [b]a lot[/b] of content early in the year. Weapons, maps, hats, etc. 2012 had hats early in the year. 2013 had the same deal. Lots of hats and content early of the year. 2014 added loads of hats in February. [url=https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Item_timeline]Yes. Content IS expected early in the year considering it's been happening for [u][b]4 years straight[/b][/u][/url]

And what has TF2 got all this year so far? 3 Promo items, 3 taunts and shitton of medals.

All 2013 got until boogaloo/summer was promos. 2011 was literally the year of promos. Every year is a shitton of medals too. So I don't get what you're saying. A major update will likely happen next week or the week after. You can get your hat fix then. You're bitching about the past at this point since it's already time for a summer update.

You literally say that past years rarely had content early through the year. I show you specific evidence that it has. Now I'm labeled as someone bitching for hats at a time where an update should roll out when I'm just simply stating updates were never this scarce in TF2. Great.

I'm worried we'll hit another year where they release a major summer update and proceed to die once again until october. God forbid they throw in a mini update of interesting stuff, it seems like all they can muster these days are summer-halloween-community update-christmas and repeat.

[QUOTE=Punchy;47995194]mini update[/QUOTE] That's all we need

[QUOTE=NoobSauce;47995155]You literally say that past years rarely had content early through the year. I show you specific evidence that it has. Now I'm labeled as someone bitching for hats at a time where an update should roll out when I'm just simply stating updates were never this scarce in TF2. Great.[/QUOTE] I've read the item timeline and the list of major/content updates. It just confirms what I'm saying. The beginning of the year is full of nothing until around may/june/july. You're acting like scarce updates is a new thing for TF2, which it isn't. This is typical MUS update drought and it doesn't matter if a previous year had one more update than this year. It's a common trend with TF2 to not get many content updates until summer through smissmas.

[QUOTE=Snowshoe;47995141] A major update will likely happen next week or the week after. You can get your hat fix then. You're bitching about the past at this point since it's already time for a summer update.[/QUOTE] Next week is a possibility I suppose but the 2 weeks after that fall on the 4th of July holiday and even though it's on a Saturday this year Valve will probably give their employees some time off around the Holiday, so I wouldn't count on the week before and after the 4th getting anything big.

[QUOTE=Snowshoe;47994952]If you want in-game content I would cite Mannpower, but I think it's universally agreed no one likes it.[/QUOTE] I like it...

...I feel like everyone is forgetting the maps workshop. I'd rather have the maps workshop than more promo items, honestly.

The maps workshop really, really isn't a a big deal, considering it's already been available for most other source multiplayer games, hell, pretty much every other game that supports custom maps for ages.

[QUOTE=Jetamo;47996361]...I feel like everyone is forgetting the maps workshop. I'd rather have the maps workshop than more promo items, honestly.[/QUOTE] It's just that with the current system of Quickplay in place, the declining/dying state of community rotation pubs (the ones that actually host serious custom maps from time to time and not just cp_orange, trade_, minecraft_ and the like) and/or with no system of Valve-sponsored servers designed to promote custom maps from the Workshop (like CS:GO) it's really difficult to experience these maps in an actually populated server vs. real players and not bots. For example, of the 2 Train Yard servers set up to play a rotation of Workshop maps only the US one seems to get traffic, and only for so many hours a day as far as I've been paying attention. The EU one is a ghost town (which confirms my belief that European players are even more staunchly conservative and set in their ways when it comes to map tastes). There's a server called Dirsec that was set up to promote custom maps months ago and for a time it was pretty active (thanks to extreme amounts of advertising, almost too much, on r/tf2 by the server owner), now it's barely seeing traffic. And that's pretty much it, all the other servers running custom maps are either dead or only play a select few seldomly, and even then they risk emptying out rather quickly since it's already hard to fill up a non-Valve rotation server these days. Of course there's the tf2maps.net server, which is event- and playtest-based and thus only active sporadically. I know custom maps aren't everyone's cup of tea and yes, there's only so many of them that are really good enough to stand up to or surpass already official ones, but even if they could potentially appeal only to a minority of the playerbase you'd think there'd be a bit more interest that literally 1 or 2 semi-active servers running them on a [I]global[/I] scale. Plus a handful of barely-alive community servers that risk running a custom map among official ones in their rotation from time to time. Sure, the current Map Workshop is better than nothing and a change for the better nonetheless. Yes, it's temporarily raised awareness of custom maps and community/custom servers among the majority of the playerbase that never set foot outside Valve or 24/7 instaspawn servers. [B]But currently, it's really not this super-convenient, just-click-and-play method of easily connecting to populated custom map servers and experiencing all those maps with other players - a false impression that a lot of these players seem to have gotten.[/B] In the past years, QP has changed the general playerbase's tastes and habits when searching for servers and which maps to play on so much that expecting a reneissance of community servers and maps (at least as far as pubs go) without major changes and help from Valve is unrealistic. So atm, the Map Workshop is nothing more than a repository of maps that makes it a bit more convenient (sorta, we know how many bugs and issues it's had since launch) for server operators to DL and host custom maps without needing the webspace for it. And a sort of exposition gallery for Valve to [I]perhaps[/I] notice the most well regarded custom maps and make them official sometime in the future. But if custom maps aren't seeing play outside comp, there's less and less incentive for mappers to bother with them further, therefore there'll be less and less of quality ones being made for Valve to even consider officially adopting. I guess that's better than nothing, but I predict that, when the Map Workshop hype dies down, we'll never really see a big revival of 'serious' custom maps or community/custom-map public servers and it's just gonna be a gallery of pretty maps used only in comp and a ton of joke map used in 24/7 silly servers. And then you're gonna have smartalecs saying something cynical along the line of ''well, you whined and Valve gave you what you wanted, but the community failed to step up and host/populate the servers, guess there's no interest for custom maps after all, let's all go back to Valve servers''. Without even acknowledging that Valve are years late with this and have transformed the server scene/situation so much that custom maps (at least the non-joke ones) really have little chance of seeing active play on pubs. The Valve-only default effect is dominant. [B]Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but the last few weeks have clearly shown that, without major Valve help/reworking of QP, whoever believes the Map Workshop will open this brand new world of constantly-active, populated non-Valve servers running dozens of custom maps and thus providing fresh 'content' that substitutes for a summer update, is sadly mistaken.[/B]

tf2 is gonna get a endgame sooner or later and its gonna happen soon and you people have to realize that

[QUOTE=Rageguy;47996830]tf2 is gonna get a endgame sooner or later and its gonna happen soon and you people have to realize that[/QUOTE] Valve make FAR too much money from TF2 to pull the plug without a sequel, they just don't make enough to well... care as much about it as DOTA 2 or CS:GO.

[QUOTE=Rageguy;47996830]tf2 is gonna get a endgame sooner or later and its gonna happen soon and you people have to realize that[/QUOTE] I see it ending with a rather grand scale update, then it will trinkle off for a year, then a community update, then it will trinkle for another few years before someone at valve decides to ship an update as a gift before leaving again. I don't see them ever making a "final" update. They'll just slowly lower update rate to a point it's only updated if someone at valve feels like it (which is already the case)

You're all better dropoing the idea that tf2 needs to be fueled with major content updates every x months to be aluve/to keep you interested. If tf2 as it is isnt enough for you to keep playing, why stay? Why complain? Why not simply play something else to occupy your time? At this point bugfixes is what we need, no more maps or weapons that no one ever plays/use for the sake of cattering to the tears of a bunch of crybabies.

Like Daimao stated in his interview, Valve needs to get a ton of people together from both the company and from the community and go all out on a massive content update. Some big gameplay additions and/or new class play-styles, game-modes etc. Similar to MvM in scale. After that point, they need to be honest with us about its future, whether that be handing over to the community (Hopefully with added support for what the community can do.) Or just doing smaller content patches.

[QUOTE=Metaru;47996965]You're all better dropoing the idea that tf2 needs to be fueled with major content updates every x months to be aluve/to keep you interested. If tf2 as it is isnt enough for you to keep playing, why stay? Why complain? Why not simply play something else to occupy your time? At this point bugfixes is what we need, no more maps or weapons that no one ever plays/use for the sake of cattering to the tears of a bunch of crybabies.[/QUOTE] My problem with TF2 isn't the lack of content as such, but the content that there is being awkward. There isn't any sort of way they work with the community, and community servers are dying off by the week because no new players even know they exist. If they really want to not update the game and move on, fine, but say so and have the infrastructure in place that the community can keep the game going themselves. That's not the case right now.

[QUOTE=NoobSauce;47994985]2010 added hats and weapons during March. 2011 had [b]a lot[/b] of content early in the year. Weapons, maps, hats, etc. 2012 had hats early in the year. 2013 had the same deal. Lots of hats and content early of the year. 2014 added loads of hats in February. [url=https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Item_timeline]Yes. Content IS expected early in the year considering it's been happening for [u][b]4 years straight[/b][/u][/url][/QUOTE] In fairness, I think a cosmetic only update now would generate more bad pr than good, so it's possible that they are just waiting to have more to show.

[QUOTE=Killbane;47996891]Valve make FAR too much money from TF2 to pull the plug without a sequel, they just don't make enough to well... care as much about it as DOTA 2 or CS:GO.[/QUOTE] The same could be said about Half-Life 2.

[QUOTE=Doom64hunter;47997694]The same could be said about Half-Life 2.[/QUOTE] Completely different circumstances. Pulling the plug on a singleplayer franchise just means not making games for that franchise. That's not reducing the amount of money you make from Half-Life, though, because that product still exists as it always did. With a multiplayer game with microtransations, ending support means giving up on a consistent influx of cash. If Valve came out and said they weren't ever making another Half-life game, it's not like they would lose out on a huge market of people still buying a game from 2004. With TF2 though, if they stopped supporting the game, they'd lose out on a huge market of people buying TF2 items.

[QUOTE=Rufia;47997468]In fairness, I think a cosmetic only update now would generate more bad pr than good, so it's possible that they are just waiting to have more to show.[/QUOTE] That's better than the comp medal update we recently received tbh. I wouldn't mind it if the team was like "You know that hat for so-and-so that doesn't have anything good to match it up with? Yeah, it is so out of place. Let's add this matching cosmetic during a small bugfix" [editline]a[/editline] Or even adding in the Cuban Bristle Crisis fix to a minor bugfix, what a surprise that would be.

[QUOTE=Mort Stroodle;47997745]Completely different circumstances. Pulling the plug on a singleplayer franchise just means not making games for that franchise. That's not reducing the amount of money you make from Half-Life, though, because that product still exists as it always did. With a multiplayer game with microtransations, ending support means giving up on a consistent influx of cash. If Valve came out and said they weren't ever making another Half-life game, it's not like they would lose out on a huge market of people still buying a game from 2004. With TF2 though, if they stopped supporting the game, they'd lose out on a huge market of people buying TF2 items.[/QUOTE] To be fair, though, when/if HL3 comes out the internet will explode and they will get a shit ton of money no matter what, so not making it would sort of make them miss out

[QUOTE=Blackavar;47998203]To be fair, though, when/if HL3 comes out the internet will explode and they will get a shit ton of money no matter what, so not making it would sort of make them miss out[/QUOTE] Imagine if it was a flop. If it brought nothing new to the table, if it was as much of a disappointment as Duke Nukem Forever.

[QUOTE=Blackavar;47998203]To be fair, though, when/if HL3 comes out the internet will explode and they will get a shit ton of money no matter what, so not making it would sort of make them miss out[/QUOTE] Making a game that would live up to eight years of waiting would require an enormous effort, and have huge pr backlash if it didn't live up to people's expectations. The fact of the matter is that launching sequels for a franchise of singleplayer games is far more resource-intensive and risky than keeping support up for a single multiplayer game, especially in the case of half-life.

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/DqPGO.gif[/IMG] ^this thread when the word "update" is mentioned

I genuinely don't care if I see another hat added for a long time, the wiki says as of now "There are currently a total of 1119 cosmetic items.", more than enough to satiate even the most fashionable minded mercenary for quite a while. As for weapons, I'd be far more content for a rebalancing of the dozen or so useless ones and even further rebalancing of the annoying/overpowered/"too good" ones as opposed to a new variable to plop into the ever expanding equation of "what weapons will fuck me over today for no good reason?". Maps at this point seem useless until the system for their implementation gets MUCH easier to access and community servers are given incentive to play them. And dear God in Heaven, all the unholy bugs. Fix them, fix them all before they add more to exacerbate the already [I]War and Peace[/I] length list of ever present visual and otherwise bugs. All I want for summer is for stuff to be fixed, polished, and rebalanced so that when they decide to do something outrageous in the future, it won't break [I]AS[/I] hard.

It also annoys me when all i see in this thread is RATE X IF YOU THINK TODAY RATE Y IF YOU THINK NEXT WEEK I mean, we get it you want to kill time and keep the thread active but after the 20th guessing raffle maybe just let the thread sit for a bit