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

[QUOTE=Fluury;51658423]It's great that your emails are getting cute private answers but that's still not *public* communication. $niper_Min3craft from reddit will know nothing about this, and thus nothing will stop him from uploading his weekly "Bring back tf2 beta" post getting 300 updoots. There is still an extreme lack of anything coming from Valve - we don't know anything. Hell, who knows, maybe there isnt a Major Update that was delayed, Valve considers the Smissmas 2016 Update Major, and we are only going to get a snarky "see ya in summer" .[/QUOTE] This is how Valve has been communicating for years - a lot less due to less people working on TF2 like back in the days but the channels are still the same. Email, mailing lists, private emails, blogposts. If you pay attention, you find the sources. Big fans of the game and valve do. They just arent' so frequent and i would prefer more active posts but if there is nothing to say, why post to a blog with false hopes and expectations? As for smissmass 2016, i'm among the people who expected that there is not going to be pyro update - and i think it wasnt' even planned to be there. I'm also thinking it will release mid jan-feb '17, instead of summer. I'm hoping they are changing TF2 major update release cycle, since it would fit better for the yearly stuff. jan-feb pyro june-jul jungle late oct halloween late dec smismass So instead of 2 major, we get 4 either new valve content or/and community items, effects, maps. We'll see what happens.

It's been pretty obvious they haven't been able to afford to pump out updates as they could back in like 2008-2011 era. You can't really count on them being able to deliver everything as they could before. It's especially bad with the expectations they set up back in the day. One-two summer updates, a halloween update, a winter update and some updates inbetween, like promos and shit - they could do that back in the day no problem, these days not so much, but fans are still expecting it because hey, we used to do get these things before, why stop now. Then all the disappintment when those things aren't delivered as they should be is multiplied by how passionate people get about the game - however lackluster the updates may be, the core game is still something you can really get into, and when it's not getting the adequate level of attention from Valve's part as well... There's this palpable dissonance between how much the community invests in it versus how much Valve invests in it. Even if the few active TF2 devs are very passionate about their job, they are too few to be at odds with the expectations, and it must be doing a number on their psyche as well. That's my take at least.

Well Valve is moving to a much larger office this May (about double the size of their current office), so hopefully they'll be hiring more people (both developers and customer service) and TF2/CSGO/DOTA2 all get more devs working on them by the end of the year. I still think it's crazy they haven't grabbed some of the Iron Gauntlet maps/missions and cosmetics, made a few new Australiums and put out a new MVM update. It would probably take minimal effort from Valve and make MVM fans happy while bringing back some lapsed players who are fans of MVM.

[QUOTE=chandlerj333;51655221]Just realized dell conagher confirmed for two real hands.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=HASL;51657331]But he doesn't? Like he has this scar on right hand in entire comics.[/QUOTE] two hours beforehand [QUOTE=chandlerj333;51656861] I would like to also rescind my statement on conager's hands. Closer inspection reveals that in most panels in which his right hand is visible, the arm appears to have a faint line drawn across it, possibly indicating that he is using a life-like prosthetic arm.[/QUOTE]

Man, looking back, it's been two and a half years since Asteroid was first released, and over two years since its been updated. It's a real damn shame, out of all the attempts at re-making CTF into a good gamemode over all these years, Asteroid was the only one that really got it right. That might be my biggest single disappointment with TF2 over these last few years. Of the slew of throwaway beta maps they made, the only one that was mechanically really solid, that had an extremely original artpass that was one of the best in the game (yeah I see you hiding there hellfire, you're still the worst artpass in the game, don't think you're getting off scott-free) , that they dedicated so much time and energy to balancing, making original artpass models, working with the community on... ...just to see it all stop one day, stop getting updates, no longer playable on Valve servers (which means no populated servers). It's just really disappointing. [t]https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/news/12828/moonbase_big.jpg[/t]

[QUOTE=Mort Stroodle;51658631]Man, looking back, it's been two and a half years since Asteroid was first released, and over two years since its been updated. It's a real damn shame, out of all the attempts at re-making CTF into a good gamemode over all these years, Asteroid was the only one that really got it right. That might be my biggest single disappointment with TF2 over these last few years. Of the slew of throwaway beta maps they made, the only one that was mechanically really solid, that had an extremely original artpass that was one of the best in the game (yeah I see you hiding there hellfire, you're still the worst artpass in the game, don't think you're getting off scott-free) , that they dedicated so much time and energy to balancing, making original artpass models, working with the community on... ...just to see it all stop one day, stop getting updates, no longer playable on Valve servers (which means no populated servers). It's just really disappointing. [t]https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/news/12828/moonbase_big.jpg[/t][/QUOTE] I'm remaining optimistic that it's finished and we're just waiting for the update to come that includes it. Probably comic related.

[QUOTE=Mort Stroodle;51658631]Man, looking back, it's been two and a half years since Asteroid was first released, and over two years since its been updated. It's a real damn shame, out of all the attempts at re-making CTF into a good gamemode over all these years, Asteroid was the only one that really got it right. That might be my biggest single disappointment with TF2 over these last few years. Of the slew of throwaway beta maps they made, the only one that was mechanically really solid, that had an extremely original artpass that was one of the best in the game (yeah I see you hiding there hellfire, you're still the worst artpass in the game, don't think you're getting off scott-free) , that they dedicated so much time and energy to balancing, making original artpass models, working with the community on... ...just to see it all stop one day, stop getting updates, no longer playable on Valve servers (which means no populated servers). It's just really disappointing. [t]https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/news/12828/moonbase_big.jpg[/t][/QUOTE] :cry: because there's no sad rating

[QUOTE=IntenseBarney;51658657]I'm remaining optimistic that it's finished and we're just waiting for the update to come that includes it. Probably comic related.[/QUOTE] [URL="https://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/45xfzx/a_reminder_that_cactus_canyon_hasnt_been_updated/d018if6/?context=3"]It sounds like that's pretty much what Froz3nr (one of the guys who made Snowplow) was told by Valve when he visited them over a year ago: [/URL] [QUOTE]I know this will potentially get buried, but when I was at Valve in November, I asked about CC and Asteroid. From what I was told, and as I understand it, both maps aren't dead. It seemed like they were just waiting for the right time to release. This could have changed in the past 3-4 months, obviously, but as I remember it, this is what I was told (in person, by a member of the TFTeam)... so take that as you wish. [/QUOTE] The comic seems to be hinting that they may go into space and there's been a bunch of updates (and 2 finished maps made by Valve, and several Passtime maps that they probably helped work on) that's released so waiting for the last comic tie in seems like about the only logical thing if they're still planning on shipping them.

[QUOTE=Der dasMann;51655945]"We're Team Fortress" and then there is little blu engi sitting somewhere alone with the [I]sometimes, sometimes not dead[/I] admin[/QUOTE] [img]http://i.imgur.com/LyZKMY8.jpg[/img]

In reply to an older post [media]https://twitter.com/MrMuselk/status/819020573879640064[/media] though seriously, can we stop giving shit to all TF2 youtubers who play other games? now I'm not directing this to anyone specific, this is especially the case for muselk, not everyone only play 1 game and that's all, it's not anything unfamiliar for a gaming youtuber to upload videos for all kinds of games. but really, as far as I remember, his channel was sitting around 300k subs by the end of 2014, and slowly grew to 500k by 2016, it's clear that TF2 wasn't getting him that much attention, and in 2016 when he started making content from other games, Overwatch comes to mind, his channel blew up in popularity, he's now around 1.5M subs, he lives in his own place now, he got sponsored by many different well known companies, and he probably gets enough income from youtube now. Do you really want him to give up all that just because he "belongs" to your game?, probably anyone in his position would've quit TF2 long ago, and the fact that he still plays the game shows how much dedication and love he has for it. and about all that views talk, his TF2 videos do just as well and many times better than his Overwatch videos, that's really irrelevant.

Muselk did post in a video a month or two ago that he was getting burnt out on TF2 and he would still occasionally still make videos. I don't know how long he's been playing but when you have a 9 year old game it's going to happen and I can't blame anyone that happens to. Besides there are some dedent smaller TF2 youtubers that now have more of a chance to grow that Ster, Jerma and Muselk don't make videos anymore.

as a general rule, if you're a game youtube person, tying your entire identity and brand to one game is a death sentence. if you end up known for one particular kind of videos and achieve success based on those videos, now you're in a position where eventually you'll burn out on those videos and want to make something new, but your viewers will go ballistic and constantly demand the old content they like. muselk's kinda dug his own grave at this point, like star_ before him. jerma only got away with it by constantly making other stuff alongside his TF2 videos.

Star_'s quality also dropped significantly with his jump to Overwatch content. And I'm not just saying that because of a bias, Star really seems a lot angrier about things now.

i just want more videos about Sweet Genius tbh

[QUOTE=TWKUK;51659613]as a general rule, if you're a game youtube person, tying your entire identity and brand to one game is a death sentence. if you end up known for one particular kind of videos and achieve success based on those videos, now you're in a position where eventually you'll burn out on those videos and want to make something new, but your viewers will go ballistic and constantly demand the old content they like. muselk's kinda dug his own grave at this point, like star_ before him. jerma only got away with it by constantly making other stuff alongside his TF2 videos.[/QUOTE] I'm sure Mr Paladin also got harassed when he stopped doing TF2 videos for a month or two but he stared doing them again (but I would guess he started again because his other videos got way less views then the TF2 videos and that means less ad revenue).

I believe MoonBase will still release. All of the issues referenced the moon a couple of times so probably the last issue will come with the map release.

[QUOTE=Oizen;51659627]Star_'s quality also dropped significantly with his jump to Overwatch content. And I'm not just saying that because of a bias, Star really seems a lot angrier about things now.[/QUOTE] He's always been a bit of a prick at times but OW seems to have really brought out the worst in him. Jerma may not be as good at video games as he is but at least he's an affable guy. [sp]He also makes content other than just streaming for hours on end[/sp] Ok no more talk about tf2 celeb has-beens.

Has there been any more news about the Jungle community content and Valve map they teased a while back?

[QUOTE=Dreamscape;51660124]Has there been any more news about the Jungle community content and Valve map they teased a while back?[/QUOTE] Nope. Predictions are, that if you wanna be realistic we can expect a jungle themed update in summer.

Chances of Pyro happening later today? Comics in the past didn't have any relation to the times of release of big updates right?

the thing that confuses me about jungle is how they said they've made their own assets for mappers to work with, so where are those? mappers are just kinda left in limbo on that one. hopefully we see a more serious jungle announcement update with an actual update page that gives out assets, better details on the jungle update plan and a timeline.

[QUOTE=Koi_Pond;51660151]Chances of Pyro happening later today? Comics in the past didn't have any relation to the times of release of big updates right?[/QUOTE] very very slim

[QUOTE=DatHarry;51660162]the thing that confuses me about jungle is how they said they've made their own assets for mappers to work with, so where are those? mappers are just kinda left in limbo on that one. hopefully we see a more serious jungle announcement update with an actual update page that gives out assets, better details on the jungle update plan and a timeline.[/QUOTE] Someone asked them and they said assets are still under development so there's not much to share but they will also give people time to use them before jungle goes live.

[QUOTE=Koi_Pond;51660151]Chances of Pyro happening later today? Comics in the past didn't have any relation to the times of release of big updates right?[/QUOTE] We can only hope

By the way, that reminds me. With Valve all but saying that they're just gonna be rolling with Mayann, what do you figure the odds are that they're going to be using community updates to fill the space between more official updates? At the very least, I'll be surprised if Iron Gauntlet doesn't eventually get rolled into a new MvM campaign, and I would fuckin' love to see anything from Frontline.

[QUOTE=TWKUK;51660304]By the way, that reminds me. With Valve all but saying that they're just gonna be rolling with Mayann, what do you figure the odds are that they're going to be using community updates to fill the space between more official updates?[/QUOTE]It'd probably be kinda slim, after the Invasion fiasco and all.

honestly I completely forgot Invasion even existed

[QUOTE=TWKUK;51660356]honestly I completely forgot Invasion even existed[/QUOTE] so did valve in a way. [editline]12th January 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=TWKUK;51660304] At the very least, I'll be surprised if Iron Gauntlet doesn't eventually get rolled into a new MvM campaign, and I would fuckin' love to see anything from Frontline.[/QUOTE] rev up your bag of surprise.

[QUOTE=Oizen;51659627]Star_'s quality also dropped significantly with his jump to Overwatch content. And I'm not just saying that because of a bias, Star really seems a lot angrier about things now.[/QUOTE] Perhaps because Overwatch is a game for masochists.

im always revved up bb