Author: John Irwin

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Another week another update. Only there hasn’t been one, again. Anyone else getting a little concerned? Lets busy ourselves with what’s good in TF2. eXtv’s i46 documentary is finally out. Shot on site at Multiplay’s insomnia event last year this has taken a year to edit and release. Was it worth the wait? We’ll let you decide that. It can be watched for free on youtube or downloaded at a faster fps and a little bit of cash at VHX. Ruskeydoo has also made up a promo pin that Valve may decide to include in the game, assuming you all vote it up on the steam workshop.

The Valve mini-studio in San Francisco where secret world domination plans had been drawing up, has closed down. So that’s not exactly TF2 news but hey, it’s Valve (or at least it was).

Ch3wKaiju over on reddit has noticed something that no-one else seemed to have reported on. There are a bunch of new TF2 busts with interchangeable hats in a cabinet. No news on who the cabinet belongs too or how the hats work so speculation ensues.

TF2maps.net is one of our favourite websites. They are constantly looking to challenge the map makers with interesting requirements. This time though they’ve shifted the focus again away from game play to beauty in the Detailing Mini-Contest 2013. They say the devil is in the details so that’s what these guys are looking for this time. I can’t wait to see what comes out of this, not just the shiny things but what people will do with the resources afterwards.

STAR_ has just released another video. This time he’s playing through the Smash Bros game mode. While the mode isn’t new it’s certainly cool and our editor Doug seems to have found himself in another of STAR_’s videos. It was his birthday (Doug’s not STAR_’s) at the time of recording, so hp dude.

Lastly we bounce back to /r/TF2 for news of an Android App called the Itemizer. It’s still in open beta at the moment so they are giving it away to those who sign up early. We’re not too sure what to make of it but rest assured we’ll install that app so you don’t have to, unless you want to.

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This week we were joined by Wiethoofd, also known as the creator of the recently released whitelist.tf. Its a simple site that let you customize and use a whitelist for your server. Put simply, This is the easiest way to restrict item usage on a server. Perfect if your hosting a competitive environment, or just to stop the constant spam of that 1 weapon on your server. Any server admins, take a look at it for yourself.

For those of you wanting to get into competitive, or have always been overwhelmed by the skill level involved, Have we got a cup for you. The guys over at comp.tf (The recently formed Competitive wiki) are running a “Newbie cup”. This cup is open to anybody with no experience playing in a competitive environment. A great place for first timers, or those a bit overwhelmed by some of the pros

We also bring you news of Phantom Servers, using the names, profile pictures, and even ping of players who were previously on the server and strapping them onto bots. Why would any server admin permit this? Because the servers usually have pinion Ads, making money off the people who get tricked into playing on those severs. Keep an eye out people. We also talk briefly about the update to live logs beta2. Its making leaps and bounds as usual, the trouble is all the data has been reset, so we’ll have to wait for it to gather back up again.

Lastly we bring let you know what we’ll be talking about next week. The I46 Documentary. Chronicling the stuggle between the US and EU TF2 teams at lan, for the first time. The final trailer popped up online this week with a release date for the documentary. August 9th on VHX digital download and August 10th on youtube. Your homework this week is to watch it ready for next weeks show.

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Apparently, summer is over. Or rather both steam and the Mann Co summer sales are over. Strangely thought the summer checks are still floating about, even though they are now Rare Drops. However, in this weeks update, the quickfix now lets the user travel with the Pyro, no matter where he/she goes, even if that includes flare jumping. Will this shake up game-play much? That’s for you to find out and us to debate about.

Do you remember that Comic preview we showed you last week? We weren’t too sure if it was real or not, But now we do. Darkhorse Comics tweeted this week to confirm that they are publishing the web based TF2 comic. Its scheduled for “Fall” of this year. So now all we need to do is play the waiting game.

While your waiting, why don’t you make a TF2 video. Why?, because there are prizes to be won. The guys over at TF2connexion and ROCCAT have put together a contest where you can win some Thermal Take Goodies. It doesn’t need to be a frag video, but they are not looking for SFM work. So save that for the saxxies. All the details are here, so go check ti out if videos are your favorite flavor of TF2.

To round things up we have an image which makes it much easier to understand the damage output of the scout. It breaks down the amount of shots required to take down each class at each range, Suddenly you know how much you can commit before you jump into the heart of the battle. Plus we have a flurry of images from last weekends PAX Australia. There is always a lot of Cosplay that goes on at those events, But how many of them have a heavy fairy running around?

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There’s been a big update this week. Sometimes when we say that we’re talking about a new map added or a few dozen new items. This time “big” doesn’t seem to cover all that’s happened. Valve actually seem to have fixed pretty much everything all at once. Although we’d not go so far as to say that we have the perfect game now, we’re just a lot closer to it. We’re not going to list all the bug fixes either, not when the official blog has done such a good job of it. Oh, and the two maps we talked about last week are in now and have been thoroughly played, a bit, so we get to talk about cp_process and cp_standin with some hint of authority.

Along with the Summery theme of unwanted bugs there’s now a bunch of new crates; Summer coolers to be exact. These open to reveal one of 60 new workshop submitted items. It’s a good job we have Heartsman and Ruskeydoo on the show to help sort out the really good ones. Before we leave the workshop behind there’s now a mail list for budding builders to ask all things of the seasoned pros and report bugs that they find too.

Lastly we can’t help but mention the Pipeline. For some working for Valve is a lifetimes hard work realised. For other lucky sods it’s work placement. You lucky, lucky, b**tards. It’s still unclear if anything impressive is going to come out of this website but for now it stands as a great big “ner ne ne ner ner” to us all. Well done everyone.

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When we make these episodes, we record them on a Sunday and try and get them edited as soon as possible. However sometimes we talk about future events, only for them, to be released in the time it takes us to get the episode ready for public consumption. This is one of those weeks. Sorry to say we won’t be talking about the huge update that just dropped….however we will be theory crafting about the update.

We will however be talking about the Special Effect Charity Set. A group of Item creators have been asked to create some items for the charity Special Effect. The result is a very nice set currently on the workshop. But with your votes, they can not only make it into the game, but all profits from them will go directly to charity. Can’t say fairer than that.

In other steam news, You can now Link your Steam account with your twitch.tv account, if you have one. The main people who benefit from this are DOTA 2 players who get advantages from linking them together. However, we can foresee multiple cool features popping up with this move. Unlike the move ESEA made a month back, Which has now directly landed them with a lawsuit. To find out if this effects you, or just to find out more, follow this link. Actually, While your at it, Follow this link too. Its the latest episode of Work In Progress with Agro chatting to Tim from Ozfortress, Gamers United, TF2mixup and all manors of TF2 Events.

Lastly are 2 very important announcements. The first is that the limited edition blu figures are available in the valve store. the other one is that TF2 is the best PC shooter of all time……who knew.

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Out with the old style (crate #55) and in with the new (crate #59), I’ve got an answering machine that will talk to you. It says, “Hey, how you doing? I’m sorry you can’t get through. Why don’t you leave your name and your number and I’ll give you 7 new unusual effects”. Okay, that’s (probably) the last time I try and squeeze lyrics from a De La Soul song into the show notes. The effects are: Kill-a-Watt, Terror-Watt, Cloud 9, Aces High, Dead Presidents, Miami Nights and Disco Beat Down.

TF2 has inserted itself into another game, this time it’s Surgeon Simulator 2013. The Heavy plays the role of the poor sap on the table and Medic plays the surgeon. Frankly, I think they missed a trick, the scout should have been the anaesthetist, BONK!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXzi7_m7g70?rel=0]

There’s news that we may soon be getting a way to share our games on Steam. All we have are snippets of code for proof with no-one stepping forward from Valve to confirm or deny the story. I for one am looking forward to the chance to give my copy of “3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures Deluxe” to someone in hope they never actually return it.

Ruskeydoo was a bit out of it this week having survived a couple of solid days of drinking. I too was on the back of a hard day’s night following TF2-25, KevinIsPwn’s marathon TF2 event in benefit of St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. We raised over $1000 but it’s not too late to donate what you can.

The Highlander Nations Cup is starting up again. If you want to get involved, to represent your country now is the time to step up since applications end 8th July. There’s been several updates to the Trading Cards beta with booster packs, colour changes, XP for number of games purchased and an achievement showcase to name but a few.

Lastly our cat in the tree story is a sleepy tale. Two TF2 livecasters from different continents raced against each other in the mighty sport of sleeping. ThePledge and Mr Slin going hell for leather in a match that Sezco saw fit to commentate on. This put meta in the meta.