TF2 General Chat and Speculation Station: Whiteboard Blues - Games

[QUOTE=prizepool;52739885]Would like to mention the last tf2 update was on AUGUST 3RD. They better be really close to finishing this update. I'm getting tired of unbalanced casual matches.[/QUOTE] no it was the mysterious September 14th update

[QUOTE=Fluury;52739842]Also VNN, what happened to your proud Source 2 announcement? This isn't supposed to be taken as a taunt, but I'm legit curious.[/QUOTE] I see it as one of the only justification for the amount of time we have now seen go by. If they wanted to streamline the production pipeline for future updates, then Source 2 is the way to go. As an engine, it falls behind most others, however the major feature teased as far back as the 2014 and as recently as my trip in February is the ease of asset production and tools brought out of the stone ages. I am aware of the immense amount of work that the porting process would be, but it's now been the longest gab in TF2's history and the history of any active Valve Multiplayer game. (Also, Jill talking crap on Source 1's code recently, along with 17 total updates for an "active" game in 2017 seem odd to me) One point Doug Lombardi wanted to hammer home multiple times throughout my few hours at Valve was how Source 2 was in the future of every Valve product. Obviously Mr. Lombardi isn't a game developer, he is a musician, he came from CNET, then Serra's Marketing Department and has a Journalism degree. If he was spouting this claim a few times throughout the day, he was either primed beforehand or was just lying. A short time after the round tables, CS:GO announced future Source 2 support, and when asked in my recent E-Mails with the TF team, one of the questions they didn't answer was regarding Source 2. Obviously it doesn't confirm anything, however if it wasn't the case, why would it have been so hard just to say; "No, TF2 is very old and the porting process would be an unnecessary undertaking given the amount of time the game has left." Last point I want to make, and I'm sorry for rambling, is that DOTA 2 and CS:GO are slowly losing player numbers, and PUBG is taking a lot of specifically CS players at the current time. For those who pay attention to CS:GO like we do with TF2 here, then you know that the CS team is making a "Survival" game mode that seems to take major ques from PUBG. While all of this is happening, the ten year old TF2 has remained on the top 10 its entire life, and recently has been getting bumps in player numbers. TF2, more so then any other Valve product, has already proven it's longevity and ability to make money no matter what the circumstance. Obviously not Q1 2016 DOTA 2 money, but just ask Geel, the consumers are still there. Dave Riller and Eric Smith have, as far as I know, been with the team since before release, and from what I've heard from Mr. Riller, and from what Uncle Dane has heard from Mr. Smith, they obviously love this game. I mean hell, they watch the communities livestreams every week for fuck sake. So they might see a future ahead for the game, even if it is a quieter and subtle one. If they do, then future proofing the game may be the best thing to do, no matter how long it takes. We've already waited over a year, and we are all still here. We get angry, we get incredibly frustrated, however we never won't play the game, at least once in a while, and I think they know that. So yea, I've been thinking about it since I first made the claim, and the optimistic side of me stands by it. If it's not true, then I can't think of a reason to justify this amount of time, and we are likely in the final years, and it's been an incredible honor being a part of this amazing community.

That's a good point there about futureproofing there Tyler, that's something valve would actually do, hopefully for us. Anyway, [URL="https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1577839&p=52728746#post52728746"]Don't forget about my raffle [/URL](which ends basically on Friday the 13th, quite spooky) But in all seriousness, let's actually speculate major updates here. The evidence so far: -It's been enough time for the community content to be picked/updated, -The voice actor strike is over(?) Or at least that's what was rumored, -The scout said his work was done months ago -The balance change have at least been considered and gotten feedback on, -Plenty of time before... (?) -The saxxy winners got to playtest... Something... Ages ago -More community medals have been accepted for a patch before the update. -Valve has moved, and is likely in the end stages of the process Based on everything here, it's reasonable to assume the week of October 19th, should be primed for anything update related or an announcement. Yes, I don't think we'll get anything on the anniversary, maybe a shoutout blog post, but that's how valve is, and can't be assed to have a deadline for anything. It's just thier corporate culture.

Can we all take a moment to realize how great TF2's halloween modes (at least in the past) have been? Fall is my favorite season, and TF2's halloween mode gives me even more enthusiasm for this season. Hell, I even got my friend into TF2 during Halloween 2015 (basically, TF halloween means a lot to me). The whole vibe the maps and items set is PERFECT, which is why I really don't want them to skip out on Halloween, especially since there are so many amazing Workshop contributions this time around. Also, it wouldn't be surprising if the TF Team just waited the next eight days out for the 10th to roll around, and then either make the announcement, or simply drop the update.

[QUOTE=valvenews;52740092] One point Doug Lombardi wanted to hammer home multiple times throughout my few hours at Valve was how Source 2 was in the future of every Valve product. Obviously Mr. Lombardi isn't a game developer, he is a musician, he came from CNET, then Serra's Marketing Department and has a Journalism degree. If he was spouting this claim a few times throughout the day, he was either primed beforehand or was just lying. .[/QUOTE] Gabe Newell also said on [URL="https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Gaben/comments/5olhj4/hi_im_gabe_newell_ama/dck7yd7/"]Reddit[/URL] that they want to eventually have everyone at Valve using on Source 2. I do think that having everyone at Valve on a single engine makes a lot of sense for Valve, they clearly want employees to be able to freely move between projects and if they hire any newer people they might not be familiar with source 1 which would be an issue if they wanted to work on TF2 or CSGO. Those people would either have to spend extra time learning the differences between the engines or may just decide to just not work on those games. I'm not sure they would just surprise us and drop Source 2 on us though, unless they make it a public beta (either a separate app or as a beta on the existing app).

while they might be working on Source 2, I don't think we're getting it in this update they already announced a lot of content to be added, if we ever get Source 2, it will be shipped all by itself in a public beta, which will stay in beta for a long time if were getting it, it will ship full of bugs which is unavoidable, all those bugs will take a lot of time to be fixed, it wouldn't make sense to ship it directly to the game, it would be unplayable, the other option, would be shipping the update normally, in addition to Source 2 beta, which means they had to make everything they announced for the current build, and remake it for Source 2, which definitely doesn't make sense, lots of wasted effort. don't get your hopes up, the chances for anything Source 2 related in the next update are very low for me, in the future? maybe

I had allot ideas in mind to make tf2 better and I made 3 lists! Sry my english suck :/ [t]https://i.imgur.com/TyG2l1Z.jpg[/t] [t]https://i.imgur.com/VuLQesW.jpg[/t] [t]https://i.imgur.com/7lw9NCa.jpg[/t] Crafting and reduce weapon drop is key to fix tf2 economy!

[QUOTE=ChrisFiore321;52740144]Can we all take a moment to realize how great TF2's halloween modes (at least in the past) have been? Fall is my favorite season, and TF2's halloween mode gives me even more enthusiasm for this season. Hell, I even got my friend into TF2 during Halloween 2015 (basically, TF halloween means a lot to me). The whole vibe the maps and items set is PERFECT, which is why I really don't want them to skip out on Halloween, especially since there are so many amazing Workshop contributions this time around. Also, it wouldn't be surprising if the TF Team just waited the next eight days out for the 10th to roll around, and then either make the announcement, or simply drop the update.[/QUOTE] honestly all they need to do is add slasher and a small assortment of other community hween maps and maybe some hween weapon reskins and I'll be happy [editline]2nd October 2017[/editline] I think TF2 source 2 is inevitable I don't think the undertaking is as massive as it's made out to be they probably have automated processes in-house for converting code and assets to source 2 which they can use for most of the heavy lifting, leaving clean-up and bugfixing to be the job for actual valve employees

Don't know if this has been mentioned yet and don't wanna rain on the Source 2 parade, but when Uncle Dane visited Valve earlier in the year, Pazer asked Jill about porting to the new engine. According to Dane, Jill said that transitioning to Source 2 "would be nice, but the amount of work that would take would require much more manpower than the TF team currently possesses, by far." Then again, this was 8 months ago and plans may have changed, I'm just saying the TF team [I]has[/I] spoken about the unlikelihood of porting to Source 2. [url]https://youtu.be/0P8Ubkn_a6Y?t=7m3s[/url]

[QUOTE=Saint Lombax;52740262]I had allot ideas in mind to make tf2 better and I made 3 lists! Sry my english suck :/ [t]https://i.imgur.com/TyG2l1Z.jpg[/t] [t]https://i.imgur.com/VuLQesW.jpg[/t] [t]https://i.imgur.com/7lw9NCa.jpg[/t] Crafting and reduce weapon drop is key to fix tf2 economy![/QUOTE] So, in order to save the economy, we'd have to sacrifice Community servers?

[QUOTE=Saint Lombax;52740262]Crafting and reduce weapon drop is key to fix tf2 economy![/QUOTE] Its certainly not.

[QUOTE=ikes;52740265]honestly all they need to do is add slasher and a small assortment of other community hween maps and maybe some hween weapon reskins and I'll be happy [editline]2nd October 2017[/editline] I think TF2 source 2 is inevitable I don't think the undertaking is as massive as it's made out to be they probably have automated processes in-house for converting code and assets to source 2 which they can use for most of the heavy lifting, leaving clean-up and bugfixing to be the job for actual valve employees[/QUOTE] Valve has internal tools that allow for quick porting to Source 2, I've heard that is the whole point. The undertaking is the fact that the automated process will still output the spaghetti code. The team would have to organize and optimize what the game currently has, and hopefully build it in a modular way to allow for more efficient play and future devolpement. Obviously 10 years ago Valve didn't think this would be still going on, so there is an excuse for the code. So it's up to them. The assets are the easy part though.

[QUOTE=socks_;52740514]So, in order to save the economy, we'd have to sacrifice Community servers?[/QUOTE] If that were true, the TF2 economy would be more healthy than a 20 year old Ach-nuld after 3 protein shakes.

[QUOTE=Ultravod;52740647]If that were true, the TF2 economy would be more healthy than a 20 year old Ach-nuld after 3 protein shakes.[/QUOTE] I'm responding to this guys idea. His idea was: -No item drops on Non-Valve servers -No Halloween Present drops on Non-Valve servers If you were to add these aspects, every Community server would die. Those two reasons are the only thing sustaining crappy community servers. They may be crappy, but they're keeping one of the oldest concepts in TF2 alive.

[QUOTE=socks_;52740658]I'm responding to this guys idea. His idea was: -No item drops on Non-Valve servers -No Halloween Present drops on Non-Valve servers If you were to add these aspects, every Community server would die. Those two reasons are the only thing sustaining crappy community servers. They may be crappy, but they're keeping one of the oldest concepts in TF2 alive.[/QUOTE] Yes, this would kill community servers. It's a sign the value of community servers needs to change altogether.

Strange factory new top shelf revolver popped back up, $694, I've given up on getting it. Pretty sure it's the only one in existence so no price drop. God dammit

I'm honestly not even sure if a Strange Unusual Factory New Elite-Grade weapon has been unboxed yet after all this time, because if one did I am sure it would be *kinda* big news in the trading community and I haven't heard squat.

For most things I don't GAF about Factory New. I actually kind of like the beat up skins. They fit the TF2 art style better (as much as rekins do at all.) I also really like the blood stains. I have a beat to fuck Brick House Minigun with the Hot effect that has a ginormous bloodstain on the ammo tank. It amuses me greatly. There are some skins that really do need to be Factory new. The (already expensive) Sand Cannon is a notable example. I turned down not one but two Minimal Wear iterations, both of which has good pro kits and strange parts on them. The scratches just ruin that gorgeous skin. I cannot be arsed to pay for a Strange Factory New Sand Cannon, so I make due with my plain old strange rocket launcher, which has a pro kit parts, and (most importantly) spells. Cannot give up my precious Pumpkin Bombs.

[QUOTE=socks_;52740658]I'm responding to this guys idea. His idea was: -No item drops on Non-Valve servers -No Halloween Present drops on Non-Valve servers If you were to add these aspects, every Community server would die. Those two reasons are the only thing sustaining crappy community servers. They may be crappy, but they're keeping one of the oldest concepts in TF2 alive.[/QUOTE] Valve already disabled drops alltogether on community servers at CSGO and pretty much took away any smart people who ran servers. No drops, no players, no fun. We used to have full servers when CSGO launched, but Valve took every bit of that away little by little. This happened with TF2 too, though things in it arent that bad as CSGO, as there are still drops but still, no players unless server gets filled with an event or similar. As for the suggestion of 1 gift that spawns on a server, this was TF2 at halloween for 2 years. Gift started appearing more and more visible and players rushed at it, tried to be at the most middle and the one who was, got it. I got over 60 gifts in one halloween, collected the set, sold the rest of the items against 1 any other gun. It was fun camping the gift positions, once you knew them in mann manor gift positions that they appeared each time. There was little time to go around to look for it, if you were positioned correctly. Most times you got lucky. But this was removed, because some players never got anything. It's the curse of playing the game good and a lot, apparently you shouldnt do that.

[QUOTE=ics;52741107] As for the suggestion of 1 gift that spawns on a server, this was TF2 at halloween for 2 years. Gift started appearing more and more visible and players rushed at it, tried to be at the most middle and the one who was, got it. I got over 60 gifts in one halloween, collected the set, sold the rest of the items against 1 any other gun. It was fun camping the gift positions, once you knew them in mann manor gift positions that they appeared each time. There was little time to go around to look for it, if you were positioned correctly. Most times you got lucky. But this was removed, because some players never got anything. It's the curse of playing the game good and a lot, apparently you shouldnt do that.[/QUOTE] it was removed because of idlers, filling a server with bots and running a plugin that would teleport them to the gift location whenever it spawns we can have 1 of 2 things free cool stuff you can get occasionally but only on official servers or fully support community servers but anything you get will be worthless because of idlers maybe if they ever finish that trust system for community servers, but honestly I don't think it's happening neither be functional, there will be a way around it, just like what they tried to kill CSGO servers which ran plugins that allowed you to use any skin/knife, it didn't end up well.

[QUOTE=Nebrassy;52741115]it was removed because of idlers, filling a server with bots and running a plugin that would teleport them to the gift location whenever it spawns we can have 1 of 2 things free cool stuff you can get occasionally but only on official servers or fully support community servers but anything you get will be worthless because of idlers maybe if they ever finish that trust system for community servers, but honestly I don't think it's happening neither be functional, there will be a way around it, just like what they tried to kill CSGO servers which ran plugins that allowed you to use any skin/knife, it didn't end up well.[/QUOTE] Nah, that wasnt the only reason and affected only the people who were playing in those servers where plugins was used. It wasnt like that for everyone. However people did suffer from not getting the gifts. I can see that point of view, but i didnt support it. It took basically away the part of the fun from halloweens from me. Fight out for the gift? No, have it somewhere in the map and go find it. More frustrating than fun, because in some maps the current gargoyles are in areas where you cannot go get it without taking a spy. The trust system you talk about will never come, if there even was one in the plans. Team talked about "receiving benefits" which basically was that you needed to register and log in with a server to have good reputation and receive players. Now when that is gone, there are no benefits. Just dropping down reputation from million points to whatever it is now.

:toxx: If the major update does not come out next week. No escape clause. I joined this forum over 5 years ago to contribute to the TF2 modding scene; sadly those days are long gone. Anyway, goodbye.

-SNIP-

[QUOTE=Snowshoe;52741166]:toxx: If the major update does not come out next week. No escape clause. I joined this forum over 5 years ago to contribute to the TF2 modding scene; sadly those days are long gone. Anyway, goodbye.[/QUOTE] We'll miss you Snowshoe.

[QUOTE=C. Blades;52740109]That's a good point there about futureproofing there Tyler, that's something valve would actually do, hopefully for us. Anyway, [URL="https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1577839&p=52728746#post52728746"]Don't forget about my raffle [/URL](which ends basically on Friday the 13th, quite spooky) But in all seriousness, let's actually speculate major updates here. The evidence so far: -It's been enough time for the community content to be picked/updated, -The voice actor strike is over(?) Or at least that's what was rumored, -The scout said his work was done months ago -The balance change have at least been considered and gotten feedback on, -Plenty of time before... (?) -The saxxy winners got to playtest... Something... Ages ago -More community medals have been accepted for a patch before the update. -Valve has moved, and is likely in the end stages of the process Based on everything here, it's reasonable to assume the week of October 19th, should be primed for anything update related or an announcement. Yes, I don't think we'll get anything on the anniversary, maybe a shoutout blog post, but that's how valve is, and can't be assed to have a deadline for anything. It's just thier corporate culture.[/QUOTE] How does this point to the week of 19th? Most of this "proof" is weeks old. Could be this week or next.

Weren't the saxxy winners lying about their playtest?

[QUOTE=ics;52741107] As for the suggestion of 1 gift that spawns on a server, this was TF2 at halloween for 2 years. Gift started appearing more and more visible and players rushed at it, tried to be at the most middle and the one who was, got it. I got over 60 gifts in one halloween, collected the set, sold the rest of the items against 1 any other gun. It was fun camping the gift positions, once you knew them in mann manor gift positions that they appeared each time. There was little time to go around to look for it, if you were positioned correctly. Most times you got lucky. But this was removed, because some players never got anything. It's the curse of playing the game good and a lot, apparently you shouldnt do that.[/QUOTE] Server-synced Halloween gifts were complete horseshit and I cannot possibly comprehend how you can possibly interpret their removal as punishment for being good at the game.

[QUOTE=notpingas;52741362]Weren't the saxxy winners lying about their playtest?[/QUOTE] It's still kinda floaty, but I think most decided it was a jape and they just played thundermountain.

There were community servers back in 2015 which would teleport players around every gift spawn position quickly, it was purely just full of farmers that wanted the potions and tradeable cosmetics to sell. I dunno the reason for removal of Halloween gifts but that could potentially be one of them.

[QUOTE=socks_;52740514]So, in order to save the economy, we'd have to sacrifice Community servers?[/QUOTE] Remember when valve added contract? Only one way to do them was play on VALVE server because when you joined on community server contract was turned off.