Major Update Speculation V35 - A Distinctive Lack of Communication - Games

In terms of cosmetic, I did just email the Tf Team with an idea of implementing monthly cosmetic crates, considering they had done something [I]similar[/I] with the mayflower crate. It shouldn't be too hard to implement either, the Winter update was almost mostly devoid of problems, but i think the ones that were included were due to changes to matchmaking and casual God knows if they'll listen to one person though.

[QUOTE=Oizen;51599334]Porting TF2 to source 2 is probably more work than its worth for valve.[/QUOTE] Out of curiosity, what are the benefits of source 2 what we have? I believe I read somewhere it allows more to be on screen then before, load times are less and stuff like that. But is there anything else? [QUOTE=Sheer Visor;51599734]Honestly surprised valve hasn't implemented adding money to the trade window for TF2 (and thus other steamworks games...) considering how much they love the smell of $$$. Would be kinda nice to just buy something immediately with cash in the safety of the steam ecosystem than to do risky paypal trades or to buy keys then wait 20 years till they're tradeable.[/QUOTE] More so if they can get a cut of the money in the process.

[QUOTE=Kitt Stargaze;51600269]Out of curiosity, what are the benefits of source 2 what we have? I believe I read somewhere it allows more to be on screen then before, load times are less and stuff like that. But is there anything else? [/QUOTE] [URL="http://www.dota2.com/reborn/part3"]The DOTA2 Source 2 page has a list of some of the benefits of Source 2[/URL]. As much as I would love to see TF2 ported to Source 2 it would probably be a ton of work and I imagine that CSGO would get ported first if it's going to happen. I suppose it is possible both CSGO and TF2 will eventually get ported, I could see Valve wanting to get all of their active, in development games on the same engine so people can more easily move between projects but you never know.

Close to 100 page's (I'm sorry if this off-topic just wanted to warn :v:)

They better be porting TF2 to Source 2 given all the god damn nothing we've been given this year MyM: shit Halloween: 90% community Smissmas: 90% community If there really is a sizable (lol) team of more than 15 (lol) people, then there is really no excuse for the actual year of little content [i]unless[/i]: 1. they were doing something like porting TF2 to Source 2 2. giant update to despaghettify the code and optimize the game (see 1) 3. it really took that fucking long to fix the Pyro But unless one or more of those reasons are true, what I imagine is actually happening is: 1. 90% of the team is doing VR, CS:GO, or DOTA2 at any given time 2. they're too busy fixing bugs in their dead, broken matchmaking system and broken game in general to give us decent content 3. they're crying in a corner when people like me, Exor, and others tell them they need to up their game 4. thumb twiddling Because they haven't really indicated otherwise. They say they're working on a big Pyro pack, new update with a campaign, and improvements to comp mode. Recently they've also said they're working on a jungle update with *gasp* a NEW VALVE-MADE MAP ($10 says it will be played for a week and be abandoned because it isn't great)! [B]But those things were spoken of months ago. What state are those things in now? COMMUNICATE![/B] A new update implies rebalances, skins with the new campaign, a few community maps, and some cosmetics, with some bug fixes and optimization (maybe) on the side. Previously none of those things have taken longer than 6 months to do from conception. Pyro's new weapons shouldn't be difficult to code, since code from the flamethrowers can be copy-pasted and attributes theoretically should be easy to tack on. Rebalances are the same way, just moving some numbers around and hoping they don't suck ass. Skins might take some work since you need artists for them, as well as whatever maps Valve is making. The new campaign shouldn't be difficult to code since, like the rebalances, code should theoretically be able to be copy-pasted from previous campaigns. Bug fixes and optimization probably take the most work, since the team has to actually dive in to the awful sea of code that is TF2 and fix issues that inevitable occur. So why is the update not out yet? See previous listings on my own speculation. But here's one last shred of optimism from me, one tiny reason why we don't have real content this year: * They're saving the update for [B]New Year's Day[/B]. * edit: 1/1/2017 is a sunday, all hope is lost

[QUOTE=Blackavar;51600528]1. 90% of the team is doing VR, CS:GO, or DOTA2 at any given time 2. they're too busy fixing bugs in their dead, broken matchmaking system and broken game in general to give us decent content 3. they're crying in a corner when people like me, Exor, and others tell them they need to up their game 4. thumb twiddling[/QUOTE] Or possibly they've lost nearly all motivation to do anything with the game since the community has done nothing but berate them for the last year and a half.

[QUOTE=Serge Ivanov;51600530]Or possibly they've lost nearly all motivation to do anything with the game since the community has done nothing but berate them for the last year and a half.[/QUOTE] And as rational human beings you don't think they'd be capable of realizing that they deserve it?

[QUOTE=Serge Ivanov;51600530]Or possibly they've lost nearly all motivation to do anything with the game since the community has done nothing but berate them for the last year and a half.[/QUOTE] They did that to themselves. Not much other way to put it. They tried, but they didn't seem to care enough about what we thought of their updates to change things. Still not sure why they don't do balance updates at least once a month based on feedback from both the comp and casual subsets of the TF2 community.

[QUOTE=Lord Exor;51600536]And as rational human beings you don't think they'd be capable of realizing that they deserve it?[/QUOTE] to be fair, as a rational human being I think my first step would be to automatically discredit an overwhelming majority of the internet outrage directed at me in the event I was to receive some

I kinda wish valve would put a pool up to keep or remove the matchmaking system. I feel people would vote it away TBH so people would have servers with lower ping rather then the sporadic clusters of valve ones, and actually have populated servers to use mods on. Kinda tiring to go in to a game and see my FaN is invisible and be like "oh yeah i forgot"

[QUOTE=Sheer Visor;51600558]I kinda wish valve would put a pool up to keep or remove the matchmaking system. I feel people would vote it away TBH so people would have servers with lower ping rather then the sporadic clusters of valve ones, and actually have populated servers to use mods on. Kinda tiring to go in to a game and see my FaN is invisible and be like "oh yeah i forgot"[/QUOTE] I guess I don't really understand this post, the matchmaking servers are the same ones that Valve had for quickplay so even if matchmaking went away and it went to the old quick play servers most people would still play on the same sporadic clusters of Valve servers.

Honestly them delaying the Pyro Update after Smissmas should make people more optimistic if anything, surely that means that shit aint ready and they learned from their past mistakes of releasing an Update and then leaving it broken. I'm sure it'll come out by the end of January and blow our socks off. ...if it's summer though then delete the game

The Pyro update should not have taken more than 6 months. It's most likely going to be a set of rebalances, which we usually get bi-annually anyways, some hats and ~3 weapons. Pyro has not gotten a new weapon to himself in 4 years, I find it hard to believe that they couldn't have had any weapon ideas between now and then and saved them for this purpose, or just focused on 3 weapons in 6 months. Since Halloween was cancelled, the only other thing they've been working on is trivial matchmaking changes. If they promised Pyro and Heavy updates without any basic ideas if what to put in them, they are fools.

Seeing how much comitment valve has for VR,it makes me wonder what their end goal on that project is or if we even know much in general apart from some portal vr games and the secret shop.

[QUOTE=Big Snake Bos;51601272]Seeing how much comitment valve has for VR,it makes me wonder what their end goal on that project is or if we even know much in general apart from some portal vr games and the secret shop.[/QUOTE] We know they have been or are working on a Half Life VR game. Whether it's anywhere near completion is another thing, but there have been leaks and references to HLVR, "grabbity gloves" (gravity gloves) and headcrab animations in one of their free VR things, Destinations. Other than that, I don't think they have a "end goal" other than to make VR actually work and be a viable platform. AFAIK they're still iterating on the Vive design, recently showing off new controller designs at Steam Dev Days. [editline]30th December 2016[/editline] [t]http://img.wennermedia.com/article-leads-horizontal/vive-controller-1401x788-9f7e493e-7cc9-46ad-ace8-e670fc5b267d.png[/t] A picture of said controller, if anyone is actually interested. They've also been inviting some indie devs to come work at their offices. Such as the Onward developer, and Tom Francis, creator of Gunpoint and Heat Signature (and credited with coming up with the Equalizer before Valve did)

[QUOTE=Lord Exor;51600536]And as rational human beings you don't think they'd be capable of realizing that they deserve it?[/QUOTE] not picking on you specifically but to the people saying their demotivated to work on things is flatout untrue as any company, team, or heck even salesperson knows for a damn fact you cannot let critique get to you or hinder you whatsoever (unless it's genuine like this thing doesnt work etc) people who are soft and work in any sort of sales or product-producing companies get fired pretty quick or quickly learn to toughen tf up because not everyone is gonna enjoy your product, that and the people who do enjoy it tend to be the ones that never talk about it so yuh irrelevant

[QUOTE=Power Glove;51601516]not picking on you specifically but to the people saying their demotivated to work on things is flatout untrue as any company, team, or heck even salesperson knows for a damn fact you cannot let critique get to you or hinder you whatsoever (unless it's genuine like this thing doesnt work etc) people who are soft and work in any sort of sales or product-producing companies get fired pretty quick or quickly learn to toughen tf up because not everyone is gonna enjoy your product, that and the people who do enjoy it tend to be the ones that never talk about it so yuh irrelevant[/QUOTE] I never said they were. I said they deserve criticism.

This year was pathetic for TF2.

I'd say the mot likely scenario is that the TF2 team isn't working on TF2 at all. I'd assume that there really isn't even a TF2 team, just some employeees who touch it every other month for an hour or two.

[QUOTE=Oizen;51601803]I'd say the mot likely scenario is that the TF2 team isn't working on TF2 at all. I'd assume that there really isn't even a TF2 team, just some employeees who touch it every other month for an hour or two.[/QUOTE] I like to think that when high people in the community pay valve a visit, about 15 of the 360 employees draw straws and have to go stand in the "tf2 section" and talk about the "big plans they have" but it's supper muddled considering that no one goes over there unless absolutely forced.

[QUOTE=Oizen;51601803]I'd say the mot likely scenario is that the TF2 team isn't working on TF2 at all. I'd assume that there really isn't even a TF2 team, just some employeees who touch it every other month for an hour or two.[/QUOTE] Considering the fact that the TF2 comic artists/writers were pulled away to work on other projects, I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing is happening to the TF2 developers.

I just don't understand why Valve thinks balance changes warrant being saved for a major update once a year; these adjustments should be numerous and rote. Anyway, if what Geel says is true about the three or four employees dedicating their jobs to TF2, I have to say I'm grateful for their persistent support. I should at least grant them that much--the dearth of content doesn't appear to be entirely their fault, but rather once more an issue with Valve's corporate structure.

[QUOTE=Lord Exor;51602146]I just don't understand why Valve thinks balance changes warrant being saved for a major update once a year; these adjustments should be [B]numerous and rote[/B].[/QUOTE] Or 'regular', as most English speakers would say.

Let's not be particular about vernacular. At this point, if Festivizer prices are anything to go by, demand is outstripping supply, which leads me to believe that this seasonal crate isn't doing so hot sales-wise. This alone is not the most accurate metric, but at some point things are going to have to come to a head to say, 'this isn't working any more.' I'm hoping lower revenue might send a hint it's time to shape up, but we'll see.

honestly I have no idea what they can even do with pyro to "fix" or "rework" him. he runs forward, sprays fire, reflects people/projectiles, and has some combo weapons with secondaries and melees. Unless they give him like, a dash/roll or some sort of movement ability to his kit I really can't see a update ever fundamentally changing how he plays other than fixing bugs.

[QUOTE=ambaxtoxin;51602270]Or 'regular', as most English speakers would say.[/QUOTE] "big words hurt my pudding brains"

[QUOTE=spd12;51602281]Let's not be particular about vernacular. At this point, if Festivizer prices are anything to go by, demand is outstripping supply, which leads me to believe that this seasonal crate isn't doing so hot sales-wise. This alone is not the most accurate metric, but at some point things are going to have to come to a head to say, 'this isn't working any more.' I'm hoping lower revenue might send a hint it's time to shape up, but we'll see.[/QUOTE] I'd agree if a Festivizer dropped with every case, but it seems one drops every four to five cases. In addition, Festivizers are more useful now as they can be applied to [i]certain non-skinned[/i] as well. [del]Lotta stock stranges out there that people have been racking up kills with.[/del] Edit: I stand corrected, I thought you could apply to all stocks, which isn't the case.

[QUOTE=Blade Rx69;51602407]I'd agree if a Festivizer dropped with every case, but it seems one drops every four to five cases. In addition, Festivizers are more useful now as they can be applied to [i]certain non-skinned[/i] as well. [del]Lotta stock stranges out there that people have been racking up kills with.[/del] Edit: I stand corrected, I thought you could apply to all stocks, which isn't the case.[/QUOTE] Thanks for that data point. That does make the near-key price reasonable, then, in wake of how many new festives are possible this year.

[QUOTE=Johnny Joe;51602364]"big words hurt my pudding brains"[/QUOTE] Dude he's Czech.

[QUOTE=Drury;51602515]Dude he's Czech.[/QUOTE] Dude, I'm totally not. [QUOTE=Johnny Joe;51602364]"big words hurt my pudding brains"[/QUOTE] Uh... sure. 'rote' is a [I]really[/I] big word, and clearly I'm the one misunderstanding its meaning and failing to use it properly.