Spy | Team Fortress Junkie

News: Q&A 2 – the Engineer, resupplies, and some AvD lovin’.

Here’s this week’s Q&A, brought to you remarkably late on account of every dev is too damn busy to talk to me. As always, remember to hop over to the FF Q&A thread and ask more questions: http://www.fortress-forever.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16481

Question 1 (Rutabeggar):
What would you say are the most stark contrasts between 2.1 and the mods previous patches as in are there any new game breaking/making things being added such as the heavy becoming important again?

Answer 1 (Circuitous):

For starters, the HW is much more useful now. We are still working on some of the finer points of the class but overall it is better than the 2.0 HW. The Engineers will be able to resupply a bit easier. (This is expanded upon in Question 2.) The Pyros are slightly less spammy, and the flamethrower’s push has been notched up a bit. Snipers are more efficient than their 2.0 predecessors.

Question 2 (Agent Buckshot Moose):
What’s going on with the Engineer in 2.1?

Answer 2 (Circuitous):

This is an interesting list.

- Dispensers now start with ammo and armor, regenerate twice as much per tick, dispense twice as much per tick, and dispense faster than before.
- Carrying your Railgun regenerate rails.
- Railgun Charging is quite different,
— each charge level only takes 1 second and 1 rail,
— after fully charging, you can continue to hold it for up to 3 seconds,
— after 3 seconds, the Railgun overcharges. This costs an additional rail, but gives you 40 Cells. Great for SG spots that don’t have handy resupplies.
— overcharging in this way does not hurt you anymore.
- lastly, and this may not make it to patch time, we want dispensers to “pick up” any bags dropped nearby.

Question 3 (Gwarsbane):

Will there be more no build stuff put into all the official maps to stop people from building stuff in the spawn rooms and in doors? Will all the spawn areas in official maps that don’t have them get the no grenade code? Well and Aardvark come to mind as they seem to be the ones spammed the most.

Answer 3 (Circuitous)

They absolutely should, but it’s a matter of what we have access to now. All of the new maps, and any maps that are actively being worked on or reconstructed, have nobuilds and noannoyances where needed. We’ll see what we can do.

Question 4 (Gwarsbane)

Will spawn bags ever heal broken legs, medic infections, tracer tags, put out flames and stuff like that? That would help in most cases against people spamming the spawn room with spy gas, or a medic running in, or a scout concing the spawn room.

Answer 4 (Circuitous)

Will they ever? I think they should. Do they now? Not yet.

The good news is this should just be a Lua change – it’d be quite easy to do. Assuming no one finds a reason not to, this should be in the next patch.

Question 5 (Tsukasa)

Whats the status on all the AvD maps?

Answer 5 (Circuitous, squeek., Nezumi)

Dustbowl has been re-optimized, and now includes HDR and a slew of bugfixes.

squeek. is working on the updated version of cornfield. There are some minor changes to the map that should make gameplay a little more interesting: the cap triggers are now 1 unit above the cap point, and the defender’s spawn points are moved forward.

The AvD crowd will be glad to hear that they will be getting a brand new map in 2.1. Nezumi has an awesome new AvD map called anticitizen. It’s currently being playtested to death and it’s a lot of fun.

Tags: engineer, fortress-forever.com, heavy, maps, medic, mods, pyro, scout, sniper, spy

July 28th, 2008Team Fortress News Read More >No Comments

TF2 Trading Cards – Part 3

For this week’s update, we’ve got another set of trading card images to take a look at. The focus of our most recent achievement update, the Pyro is a character that players may have seeing a lot of lately – making life a nightmare inferno for both the Spy and Medic.

Tags: medic, pyro, spy, teamfortress.com

July 24th, 2008Team Fortress News Read More >No Comments

Dev. Journal: Elmo-

Heyy, I just gotta say…

2.1 is so much fun! Played it for 6/7 hours last night during beta testing, and I would’ve carried on but my bed was calling to me. I’m starting to get ill from the lack of sleep! Waterpolo was some of the best fun I’ve had in ages along with hunted and cz2; something I’d have never expected! I’m a CTF freak through and through… normally!

Everything felt great. The increased bunnyhop (which feels strangely smooth) combined with the skim cap is is awesome, the dynamic lights on the rockets are really nice, the fixed jumppads are alot better, the SGs rock and can actually be killed, the dispensers are much more useful, the changes to the spy cloak are very fun indeed…. and thats just a FEW of the things that come to mind.

All of us on last night had an awesome time. 2.1 isnt a step in the right direction, its a leap…

I’m so happy with monkey, it looks absolutely sexual (If I may say so myself), playing with full server spam at 150 fps rather than 80. The only thing we realised is that I forgot to put the locations back in, duh! Other than that, its done!

Working on ff_bases at the moment, it’s a really nice looking map which I’m trying to get optimised for redux. Definatly helped gain a few FPS around the place but not as much as I’d have hoped; though it was running pretty well to begin with.

I feel really good about 2.1, and I’m sure alot of you will too

Tags: fortress-forever.com, spy

July 21st, 2008Team Fortress News Read More >No Comments

TF2 Blog Updated!

A little late, we know…
The Team Fortress 2 Blog has been updated again!

Valve talks briefly about Community Creations and presents a very convincing (but fake) Spy update poster made by someone else.
See this post here and discuss it on our forums!

Tags: deadworkers.com, spy, team fortress, team fortress 2, teamfortress.com

July 18th, 2008Team Fortress News Read More >No Comments

Short update report- Medics rejoice!

Valve released a small update today modifying the medic updates so that they can be unlocked with the same number of achievements required as the Pyro’s new weapons to be unlocked. The other fixes were just small bug fixes. Full update text after the break.

Team Fortress 2

Reduced Medic’s unlockable requirements to match that of the Pyro’s. Medic players now meeting the requirements will receive their unlockables shortly after joining a server
Fixed Spy sapper viewmodel animation popping
Fixed another issue with the Hot on your Heels achievement
Incorporated the new Russian fonts into the base Team Fortress 2 fonts. Fixes the missing fonts problem when running in Russian with English VO

Tags: deadworkers.com, medic, pyro, spy, team fortress, team fortress 2

June 24th, 2008Team Fortress News Read More >No Comments

June 18th Tournament Coverage: CP-N vs ASJS on gravel pit!

Starting this match N was having severe problems fielding a team due to the late time of the night and the recent rash of phishing based steam account thefts. They ended up starting the match with a team of 7 ninjas and F-Panda and Thervold rounding out their

allotted 2 replacement slots. Still leaving them running a team of nine next to ASJS’ standard 10 squad members.

First half of the first round Ninja’s start off on the attack. ASJS sets up at B with a sentry on the front ramp of the point of B, facing the spawn tunnel. They send minor harassment to stall N at A but stay mostly on B. The Ninja’s cap A quickly at 54 seconds.

ASJS mops up some pushes from CP-N from various directions but has trouble keeping their sentry up with any reliability, eventually N sends an uber through the back door of point B and manages to slog out a capture at the five minute mark.

ASJS quickly puts up a defense on C. Using one sentry on the point and one sentry on the tip of the ramp in the middle of their spawn and the closest outlet to A (this position will be referred to as B sentry for brevity from this point on). N meanwhile focuses on building ubers in the tunnels from A to C. one is wasted by ASJS pushing an uber in to force an early pop, the other N uber tries to uber to the point but is cut short by the defense. N keeps moving through A to avoid the B sentry but is harassed constantly inside the tunnels, eventually falling all the way back to A area itself to charge ubers. N then sends an uber soldier to try and kill the sentry on the point but the soldier just cant deal enough damage to get it down. On a second try a bit later the point sentry is taken down and N tries to send an uber through B but it’s stalled too much by B sentry to be of any use. N ends up not taking C with the final tally being N captures 2 points in five minutes.
–
second half of the first round. ASJS on attack.

N focuses on A section, setting up one sentry just behind A point near where the metal spawns. ASJS takes b with little to no resistance and pushes through C, ubering a demo in to take out the metal sentry and roll over the defense, easily holding them at bay for a cap with about half the time needed. ASJS wins first round.

–

Round 2 half 1 N on attack once again.

ASJS sets up the same ramp sentry as before. Once again their focus is on defending B. They send a pyro and a heavy to stall on A. The Ninjas push primarily on B first, killing the sentry and slipping in with a heavy and medic. Also pushing A with a decently sized force, managing to contest both points at the same time and win the fight on B during the confusion to cap it at 1:55, pushing over into A to mop that up at a little under three minutes with some continued fighting.

As N pushes toward C one of N’s soldiers manages to kill the B sentry that ASJS utilised so well last round while it is still level 1, giving N plenty of time to swarm the point with people, but ASJS manages to beat back all comers and soon has the B sentry and the sentry on the point up and well and begins their harassment of the N team at the A-C tunnels once again. Eventually after a struggle N puts a push together, killing the sentry on the point with demo fire as the B sentry goes down similarly, the push loses steam for a bit and ASJS rebuilds however. After a pause in the action then the ninjas jog an ubered heavy up to the point and finally establish a hold on the point, killing the sentry and eventually capping the third and final point at 10:01

–

Round 2 second half. ASJS on attack to attempt to take all three points in under ten minutes and a second.

The ninjas set up the Rock sentry (sentry on the top of the rock between the two outlets from the attackers spawn room leading to A) to supplement their strategy of the sentry on the metal behind the point of A and completely ignore B. B is taken quickly but as ASJS tries to move through C to A they are met hard at the C to A tunnels and nearly wiped out.

The two of them that survive are easily cut down by the defenses at A. After a failed attempt to take out the metal sentry by a ASJS spy the attacking team sends out two ubers at once and takes out the rock sentry, but the push flounders in the distance between their victory over the rock sentry and the point and they are wiped out by defenders without reaching the point. Some good harassment by ASJS’ pyro keeps the rock sentry from going back up a push through the side at the C tunnel and the B to A tunnel manages to get only a single demoman through to the point but he buys time as the teams fight outside the point and eventually a spy and scout make it through to the point as well. After that a medic and soldier make it to the point and that seals the deal ASJS captures A with 3 minutes left to capture C before they lose. ASJS pushes forward, it’s pyro keeping the ninja’s from putting up the B sentry at C and the engie doesn’t find another comperable place for it but the Ninjas put up a tenacious on point defense to run out the clock, blocking a medic heavy uber as well as a healthy rush of enemies to defend at C giving CP-N the round.

–
third round first half. Ninjas on offense.

The ninjas get a stroke of luck and dogmeat manages to come in to round out their team in the final round. ASJS sets up the ramp sentry at B like previous times while keeping a pyro and heavy on A to stall that cap. The Ninja’s push B first, managing to take out the sentry with an ubered demo, meanwhile ASJS’ small defense at A eats a scout for lunch. Soon the ninja’s respond by sending a sizable force to A, rolling into it and capping at 2:05 on the way to B through c the Ninjas take some time to harass ASJS’s spawn and then moves through the back to B. The first uber attempt by the ninjas is beaten back but the second pushes through to kill the sentry and in short order B goes down for a time of 4:03, the Ninja’s don’t rest on their laurels however, pushing through to C and capping it before ASJS can put up any useful defense. In the end of the half N caps at 4:42. Leaving ASJS with quite a time to beat to stay in the match.

–

Third round second half. ASJS on offense.

The ninja’s go with what they know. Using the rock sentry and metal sentry on A again as they ignore B. ASJS comes in serious and takes B quickly, managing to uber through to kill the metal sentry and pushing through the front to kill the rock sentry as well in short order. The defense manages to get the metal sentry back up however, and defends it from a heavy uber with an uber heavy of their own blocking the way. The second uber heavy coming from the other direction manages to do in N’s defense however and ASJS sweeps through the point to take it without much further resistance. The one minute they have left on the clock proves far too little time to even put a dent in capturing C however and The Ninja’s defense holds without a struggle on point C for the minimal time left. The Ninjas win.

Final tally is one round to ASJS two rounds won by the Ninjas and CP-N’s patchwork team takes home the win.

After that the sheer lateness of the night emptied the server but quick. I got to rest myself *yawn*

CP-N wins on Gravel pit. This is your sometimes reporter sometimes in the spectator box

Meyeselph signing out.

We hope you enjoyed Control point’s coverage of the June 18th match of it’s squad tourny in team fortress 2, the sport where late hits are critical.

Tags: deadworkers.com, demoman, heavy, medic, pyro, scout, soldier, spy, team fortress, team fortress 2

June 18th, 2008Team Fortress News Read More >No Comments

TEAM FORTRESS 2 PYRO UPDATE WEEK

Free Weekend Begins Friday on Steam

June 16, 2008 – Valve, creators of award-winning games and leading technologies, today announced a set of new releases for Team Fortress 2, the title named Multiplayer Game of the Year by PC Gamer and Gamespy.com.
The main event of the week is the Pyro Update, which will be made available this Thursday and contains three unlockable new weapons for the Pyro plus 35 new achievements. In addition, two user-created maps are included to highlight the great work being done in the community and distribute those works to all TF2 players..
Meanwhile as folks wait for the Pyro Update to be released, the latest in the “Meet the Team” video shorts, “Meet the Sniper,” will be made available tomorrow (Tuesday, June 17) at 11 am PDT along with a web site dedicated to the Pyro update.
Finally, to give everyone a chance to try the new weapons and community maps, Valve will hold another Team Fortress 2 Free Weekend via Steam, a leading online platform for the delivery and management of PC games. The Free Weekend is scheduled to begin this Friday at 11 am PDT.
For more information, please visit www.steamgames.com

Tags: deadworkers.com, maps, pyro, sniper, spy, team fortress, team fortress 2

June 16th, 2008Team Fortress News Read More >No Comments

You Are The Reason Why We Can’t Have Nice Things – A CP Tourney Update

It should be noted to my superior beings that I am NOT going to produce a massive long speech about how each match went and about at what frequency each player spoke. Partly because tv_relayvoice was set to 0, partly because GameServers.com suck and partly because I hate beating around the bush when it comes to reporting news. I care if 2000 people were killed in <Insert Remote City Where Nobody Visits Here> but I don’t care if Trevor McDonald comes along and talks for 5 minutes about ‘We are dreaded to report this…..’. I JUST WANT THE NEWS MAN!!!!!! Anyway, I want to salvage my real life and virtual world reporter integrity by telling you guys about our epic matchups from outside ‘America,The Beautiful’.

Things got slingshotted into the expected highly sort after matchups and epic gameplay on Friday night where myself amongst about 12 people in our wonderful Steam chat (as Vent wasn’t working properly and Skype sucked) sat back and watched the first part of our European leg of the tournament come to pass on US3 (?). This was the all Europe match (and a couple of our Yank friends for Lambda). I am talking of course about Lambda and Phoenix. I want to get the praise for both teams out of the way first. They were a joy to watch in GameServers.com Brand Lag-O-Vision, they kept the match exciting, unpredictable, gripping and I am purely honest when I say this: This is the reason why I enjoy playing Team Fortress 2. Two great teams, one great matchup, one great game. Also, teamwork was impeccable. Right. Now we have that out of the way, let’s talk about the match

Phoenix can be praised for putting up such a great fight and in the early sections of the game, both teams were completely matched. However, thanks to some VERY sneaky caps, Lambda won both matches. One thing I don’t recommend you do in future is corner these guys around point B. This is where the whole match was so worthwhile. Phoenix and Lambda defences were second to none. Both teams showed great teamwork with the engies doing great jobs in keeping their sentries up. Man of the match was possibly was Phoenix’s Mikey.

What? You expected an in-depth analysis? I don’t want to be responsible for clogging up the entire page talking about how shiny an engineer’s wrench is or how bloody the butterfly knife of ‘that’ spy was. I want to do a SUMMARY.

sum·ma·ry
Pronunciation Key -[suhm-uh-ree] Pronunciation Key – Pronunciation noun, plural -ries,

adjective – brief and
comprehensive; concise.

If you don’t like what I’m doing, watch the demos

Speaking of which:

http://drop.io/phoenixlambdagravelpit

I am good. Aren’t I?

Oh, and Lambda played against Total Lack of No Nonsense on Saturday. As I was joined by their greatnessnessnesses in the Vent server (I pulled out my ingenuity), Brent Copeland and Eric Fullerton, I decided to do something special. I decided to activate a free-roam in Source TV. Disaster. Our good friends over at GameServers.com (Frag, Not Lag? Seriously) decided that as there is a Monday in the month, they wanted to break our server a little more. As a result, my commentary turned into a silent movie on Vent and Steam for a couple of minutes each round. Brent, I am begging you, quality and not quanity. Get another hosting company or do something to stop it breaking everytime someone with more than a ping of 5 joins US3. These guys cannot do high capacity servers.

Sorry. I’m wandering off course slightly.

Lambda vs Total Lack of No Nonsense

Other than having a problematic name and having to void a match as noone but me understood the tournament rules correctly, TLNN really put up a fight against the co-leaders of the tournament. Their defence on B was even more epic than the night before and they totally steamrolled Lambda in the first round. The second round and SourceTV decided to break……

When we got back online, we saw a pure move of desperation and a little trickery thrown in. As Lambda captured their second control point, a scout snuck onto point C without TLNN even having a clue about what was going on. Whilst the battle was still being fought far away from C, the game went to our first European tie breaker game. Guess what? TLNN completely destroyed Lambda, capturing A and B with 4 minutes left on the clock. As Lambda only captured A and B, using a lot of overtime at that, TLNN captured A and B a lot faster. This threw a lot of people, but I’ll tell you one thing, I can’t wait for a rematch next month

Missed it? Tough. I have a stupid 2.2Mbps Internet connection and I can’t upload over 200mb worth of demo files with a 30kbps upload limit.

I should also tell you about the map rotation for the tourney

June – Gravelpit

July – Well

August – 2Fort

In the unlikely event that there is a tie at the top of the table, there will be a match played by the winning teams at Badlands

Just to give you the headsup

Join me soon in Vent ONLY. Check the forums or ask me for the Vent IP, port and Password

Toodles

Jazz

This was brought to you by OoberServers.com, Where Real Gamers Play

And the Control Point Summer Tournament Ustream Channel, Now with added lag

Tags: deadworkers.com, engineer, scout, spy, team fortress, team fortress 2

June 11th, 2008Team Fortress News Read More >No Comments

Results for the CP Tournament match (6/9/2008)

Well the match is in the bag, here’s the short version. UA Vs CP-N on gravel pit. UA attacks first.

The first half’s first round UA was on the attack and went heavy twoard B where resistance was pretty much nonexistent and capped in 51 seconds. CP-N made the choice to devote it’s resources to A, Setting up a sentry on top of the rocks in between the two exits of the A area’s attacking spawn tunnels. With the the team spread out over A rather well and covering that sentry they locked down the A side of the spawn pretty well. UA was meanwhile pushing through B and doing a decent job but was fielding rather constant harassment, mostly from scouts putting a dent in their medics whenever possible.

With around 3 min left UA managed to get off an uber from the tunnels between C and A and move around the sentry on the rocks’ blind spot to the right past the shack. A sentry was set up behind the shack for just such a push but was taken out handily by the push through with the uber. Afterward a large battle with the teams clashing left most of the engie equipment in ruins but the Ninjas managed to keep enough of a force on A to keep UA from a cap. After that UA seemed to lose steam and was pushed back to the spawn tunnels coming out of B as well as being held at the A spawn tunnels. Leaving them with nowhere to go and blunted their pushes to a near standstill. CP N holds UA at one cap that was completed in 51 seconds.

For the second round of the first half CP-N has to outperform one cap at 51 seconds. UA chose to set up heavy on B. The ninjas sent all of their force to b except for 2 scouts and a spy that went to A. The scouts and spy turn out to be the difference makers and manage to secure the first cap on A about ten seconds faster then UA’s push in the first round, sealing the cap and ending the round.

Second half first round, UA is on the attack again. The ninjas choose the same strategy as before. They set up heavy on A using the same rocktop sentry and leave B with minimal coverage. UA pushes through B and caps it in 48 seconds, comparable to the previous half’s

first round, unfortunately this round ends up similar to the first half in more ways then that.

Moving through C once again the Ubered alliance throws everything it has at N’s defense, pushing an uber through the C-A tunnel and trying to send a demoman through the A spawn tunnel to try and take out the rock sentry but the Ninja’s coverage of damage dealing and counter ubers in a wide radius around that sentry holds back those attempts. The UA manages to get an uber pyro in the rock sentry’s blind spot and crush the sentry that is covering that route easily but they end up unable to capitalize and the destroyed sentry is replaced by one behind the shack to the right of the C-A tunnel exit. An uber demo manages to take out that sentry and afterward a spy slips in to harass the engie’s attempts to rebuild in that area, killing him and all of his equipment on the spawn before being slaughtered for

trying to get time on the point. This doesn’t help much however, as the advance of the UA is slowed significantly by being funneled through B and C since their exit at A and the bypass from B to A are both locked down by the rock sentry and admirable coverage of that sentry from all angles.

Soon the Ubered alliance is harassed at their B spawn tunnel as well and desperately attempt to push ubers through their spawn at A but both an uber pyro and an uber heavy are crushed without much incident after their protection wears off. CP N holds again at first cap 48 seconds, no second cap.

UA takes a last ditch defensive effort in serious fashion, heavily locking down B with the usual full load but leaving A covered by a demoman (cleverly hidden above the point in the rafters of the A point.) who stickies the point completely. The advance party of two scouts sent to fast cap A takes the bait, showing the usual FPS player problem with looking up as they test the edges of the point while the demoman patiently waits, then they commit and are blown sky high, then a nearby pyro mops up the stragglers handily when the ninjas try to keep pushing, holding A from a fast cap to give the team a chance at a second cap defense. Unfortunately UA’s first cap defense is rolled over, while not quite in time to beat UA on first point cap time and lock things up completely, and B is taken. This leaves UA with a dire need to rush and defend A or lose the match completely. A is pushed by the ninjas first by a group of two scouts and a demo coming from A side spawn and then the hasty UA troops trying to make it to A to put up a last ditch Defense are pinched between the ninja forces attacking from A and the group coming from B.

The end result is a CP-N victory after a quick cap of A.

After the match Sigma, the leader of UA, cited problems with Kenles’ connection as being a major downfall for them. His connection dropped early in the match leaving them a man down and with no second engie for their defensive bids. Sigma said, however, that he didn’t wish to delay the match (already previously delayed from a previous date) any further. The other deciding factor he cited was CP-N’s very effective scout harassment. Saying that the two scouts were killing medics successfully enough to drop as many as three ubers out of play. Sigma praises Breather’s scout work in killing him in particular. Most of the people I talked to after the match also agreed that crits seemed to play a rather big part in keeping UA’s medics down, even going so far as expressions of sympathy for unfortunate crit deaths Sigma incurred. They must have been rather harsh but this able bodied reporter managed to miss most of the impressive scout harassment in his mad rush to try and see everything at once in spectator mode while writing on a notepad at the same time. Brain craaamp.

Cursor, happy with the clear victory of the Ninja squad under his leadership, is meanwhile unhappy with his night, as his cat is annoyingly agitating due to being in heat.

And with that I bid you all fun playing and bid both teams good luck in future matches in both playing effectiveness and connection reliability.

This is the Control Point Tourney Report for June 9th 2008. CP N handily defeats Ubered Alliance in a match I found entertaining and educational. BEWARE THE ROCK SENTRY!

This coverage is brought to you by Soylent international. Soylent international: our business is people.

Tags: deadworkers.com, demoman, heavy, medic, pyro, scout, spy

June 11th, 2008Team Fortress News Read More >No Comments

Episode 28 – Snofort

Don’t you wish it were the Holiday season all year round? Well, look no further than Snofort. We invite you to take a listen as we guide you through this wintery wonderland.

Here’s just a few more tidbits you can expect: