Author: John Irwin

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Running with our theme of promoting people who do charity events, we have Kevinispwn on the show this week. He is planning on doing a 25 hour stream of TF2. Because 24 hours, just isn’t enough. It will be happening on June 22nd on the Kritzkast servers and stream. Just head over to kritzkast.com/live to watch it unfold.

As much as we’d love to, we can’t make the show all about Kevin, especially when this weeks update dealt with so much. we got more ETF2L Medals in game, Valve put an end to the dreaded Interp exploit and we find out what are the final items in those Mysterious Promo boxes.

We also give our reactions to the TV spot for TF2 that aired with the premier of the new series of Venture Bros. Along with that advert came TF2 items straight from venture Bros. Listen in and you’ll hear our opinions of both the items and the first TF2 TV advert

Alas, it can’t all be good news. This week saw the offical end to the TF2 Beta. Yeah, that right, one of the first exclusives we got, has now come to a close. We look back at how it was used and discuss if this truly was the right time to turn it off.

The big news this week comes from the competitive side of TF2, or rather the future of it. Sal and eXtine visited valve HQ last Monday, to talk about the future of competitive TF2. They bring back with them news that Valve are thinking of putting a Highlander lobby in the game. We talk about the merits and flaws of both HL and 6v6.

Then, to round it all off there’s a not-in-anyway-expensive GamingHeads sniper figure. We must admit, they do look perdy, but none of us can warrant the second mortgage required to actually buy one.

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Yes this week has lots of things happened. However this isn’t the show for this week. Nope. This is the very late episode for last week and strangely enough, seemed like an empty week. That is until we tell you about the i49 qualifier games. A game where non-premiership teams can compete for free tickets to i49. If youre team wants to give it a ago, all the details can be found here

Oh look, what is this. The next set of NECA Toys. Its the soldier and heavy. Its happening in july. Its almost like the cast of kritzkast have been given our favirote classes first. Thanks NECA. We also talk about the TV spot valve put out…..Actually we don’t really talk about it as when the episode was being recorded, it hadn’t aired yet. However you can listen to us guessing wildly and getting it completely incorrect.

Over at TF2maps.net, they are doing another of their themed updates. For those who have not seen them before, its a project where people help make maps and mapping resources themed in a singular theme. This time the theme is Islands. hmmmmm. Get your thinking caps on and your butts over to TT2maps.net.

Ever heard of IGL? Thats because they are event organizers that have just come onto the scene. Don’t worry, the way they are going about things, we think they will be very big very soon. So get you and your team on their Highlander Ladder as soon as you can.

Our last item isn’t really TF2 Related. But it has the chance of being implemented in TF2. Overwatch. if your into CS:GO, check it out.

We would also like to dedicate this episode to Andrew Scott Reisse, one of the lead developers on the Oculus Rift project, who lost his life last week aged 33.

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Following on from our interview with Valve’s Andrew Wilson and the Robotic Boogaloo team we have two RBers join us for this week’s show: Heartsman (previously known as c**tsman) and NeoDement, co-auther of the brilliant guide of guides for making hats (and other items too, I guess). We shed a tear for the loss of such unusual effects as Emone and Electric Boogaloop but golf clap the sheer brilliance of the first wholly community made TF2 update. At last count there were 39 Hats, 18 Misc and 5 Extras added to the game, not to mention a comic, a website and a new SFM video.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJeQhW3qnqo?rel=0]

Valve haven’t been sat on their hands while their community has been working. Not only have they created a new import tool that will allow them to publish content faster, they’ve also come up with Steam Trading Cards too. Technically it’s still in beta but the benefits of getting on there are many-fold. Collecting the full set of cards give you XP that count towards your levels. Every level you go up gives you 5 more friend slots and every 10 levels opens up a showcase for your profile.

Now on to NECA where a tour goer snapped some pictures of the upcoming 6″ Spy and Engineer models (complete with a toolbox and wrench).

Former Valve employees have been continuing to work on hardware they started while at Valve. Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson have been given Gabe’s personal green light to take their 3D glasses / Virtual Reality / Augmented Reality prototype and make something of it on their own. They were part of the group that were let go from Valve a few months back but continued to work passionately on the project.

In a slightly less dog-in-tree story, Geel9, one of the creators of the Scrap.tf (along with Jessecar) is someone we’re due to interview very shortly. He has admitted to using a script to craft Tuxxy #1 as well as other prized items. He feels so bad about breaking Valve’s Terms of Service he’s raffled off this prize, free of charge.

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It seems as though something big is on the horizon as we didn’t have an update this week. However we still had a tone of stuff to talk about Ranging from community actives to how much sweat valve need to make a good game. Trust me, if you listen to the episode it all makes. Plus now you can cool off with a nice glass of bonk. If they were still available in the store that is.

Do you remember “Hatgate”? Yep, that the name of the Skullgirls incident. Now it seems like their promised hats may actually be added to the game. If we the TF2 Community like them. They have been added to the workshop for people to view and if they get enough attention they might just make it in the game. We give our opinions on them, but if you wish to see for yourself, have a look here.

In the rest of the TF2 Community we have the Game changing realization that SNSD are not the best HL team in ETF2L. In our backyard, we host a raffle, giving away far over 27 hats. The guys at Teamfortress.tv help with the i49 Fundraiser by putting on 2 showmatch’s of hypertheical Lan Finals. Plus, we find out what its like to make a bot that gathers you over $10,000 worth of TF2 loot, only to have it deleted from your account.

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Steampipe has finally dropped and in case you haven’t noticed everyone survived. Wahoo. That’s not to say there wasn’t a need to immediately apply a  patch since sv_pure had gone mad and people weren’t allowed to spray their tags everywhere. Despite lots of things not breaking, P-REC, the auto-recording utility for comp players didn’t survive. There’s been a patch/download for it already though.

While we’re still on the comp side of TF2 there’s a few stories for you. Cbear and Mr Slin have the livestream up for Comp vs Pros 5. We’ll not spoil it for you by telling you who won. Our server providers, Hypernia are partnering with ETF2L. The 8bit 2D fan made version of TF2, Gang Garrison 2 is running their own 3v3 single elimination tournament. Redditor, renalucario captures blow by blow the nightmare that was ESEA incorporating a bitcoin farming botnet into their anti-cheat client.

Geel9 (co-creator of scrap.tf along with Jessecar) has agreed to being interviewed by KritzKast. We’re asking for your help coming up with questions for him. Even if you can’t think of a good question there’s still a chance to win hats by voting on other peoples’.

Lastly we’d like to share with you this beautiful video explaining what happens between teleporters.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF7YiEa3TRM]

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ttp://www.kritzkast.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/360fx360f.png”>There’s something new, interesting and unexplained in your Team Fortress 2. We’re not just talking about our lead audio editor, DougRattmAnnThEpyRo making his début performance as a host. The RoboCrate has trundled into our lives and we can’t say for certain what this means. Never has this stopped us from random speculation in the past, nor shall it now. It has no key and no expiry date, neither does Doug.

Speaking of unholy abominations, MisterMulluc has combined Futurama and SFM to bring you the GentleBot Hell video.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLPkKZS6q9k]

In other crate related news the Refreshing Summer Cooler and the Festive Winter Crates have both had their descriptions updated. There’s a new filter for client downloads to “Only allow map files” rather than all those other pesky media files that many servers use to set themselves apart.

A quick reminder to set your alarms on StarWars day so you don’t miss the Comp vs Pros match. And a shout out of joy to the Ducks for their 2nd place win in the UGC EU Platinum League.

Trading news and there’s a new tool for checking the highs and lows of items over time courtesy of Trade.tf

Lastly, what do you get if you combine an Oculus Rift with an the Virtuix Omni? Well, other than a fully immersive game on an omnidirectional treadmill? Game porn. And like the real thing you don’t want anyone watching you while you’re playing because you may be having fun but you look like a right dick.

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This week we are joined by the very joyful Ace from Wolfsgorawr. He fits in perfectly with our crazy ensemble  He’s a great person to talk about the new cvar “cl_first_person_uses_world_model” That allows you to view your world model in first person. Officially made for the Oculas Rift, this option has been given to us to at least pretend that we have that sweet piece of hardware. We also talk about how certain plugins my become obsolete due to valve restricting how you connect to secure servers with the use of “-insecure”. Makes no sense? listen in for it all to be revealed.

This week also revealed how people can get their hands on one of the reddit hats. Actually, your chance to get one has already passed. You needed to participate in the reddit April fools event. But if you did you can now redeem it by going to This Link. Their methods have caused a bit of confusion and to a certain degree, anger. But we were guilty of that when we released the Lo-Fi right?

A Public Service Announcement comes next in the form of a date for Steampipe’s release. April 30th is the day it will be unleashed on the world. Make sure you have the space on your computer and if your a server admin, make sure you mark that date in your calendar to update all of your servers.

After that we talk about the ESEA season 13 finals between High Rollers Gaming and Classic Mixup. As always, it was an intense match with crazy moves being played all over the place. Check out the VOD and see for yourself. Or maybe you’d like to enter a 1v1 soldier Ladder. No? What if i told you the prize was a Fully working Arcade Machine? Suddenly its more appealing. Check out MWEB’s Page for all the details.

Lastly we have our player of the week. RedXM. He created a Fantastic Add on That changed your Healing beam’s floating plus’ with Kritzkast Logos. We Love it. If you check it out, we’re sure you’ll love it too.

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Some people were wondering why there was no update this week. We here at kritzkast don’t wonder such things. For we know that Valve are currently on their Hawaii Holiday. So no need to worry about the lack of bug fixes. However, that doesn’t mean there is nothing to talk about. Last Sunday was the Finals of the Ready Steady Pan tournament II. Agro and Ruskey were lucky enough to cast the finals and use far more pan based puns as humanly possible. If you want to watch the PANdemonium that was the finals, click on this link and you can relive it as if you were there. Going on at the same time was the Tip of the Hats event. Trying to raise money for one step camp, the event featured 2 days of 12 hour TF2 live streaming with various different events and personalities from TF2. The list is too long to mention here, but you can recap on everything that happened here.

We couldn’t have a show this week with out talking about all the toys. Yes thats right, more of the NECA series of action figures have started to pop-up for pre-order. However NECA have made no announcement about these figures…or the July release date that seems to be attached to them all. If you can’t wait til July, Then why not head over to the TF2 and get yourself a Plushie Balloonicorn. This beckons the question…isn’t it actually a plushicorn?

If that isn’t enough, The fans have also been hard at work making toys for us. If you head over to Psychobob Arts Shapeways shop, you’ll see he has created a fully upgradeable Sentry gun. As awesome as it looks, is it legal? Over in the prop world, we have been treated to a collection of great looking TF2 replica weapons by HVD Props. They are planning on creating at least 1 weapon for each class. To follow their progress head over to their facebook page

Though it’s too late to vote, you can still see someone from Valve’s staff in a kilt.