Info from Uncle Dane's visit to the TF2 team

Dec 28, 2014
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After the rewind LAN Uncle Dane was able to visit and speak with the TF2 team. He talked about his visit on his Twitch Stream.

If you don't want to watch the whole thing Flurry on Facepunch provided a nice summary





- Valve has only a *single* foosball table.

- In the merch guy room, described as "A room which could be owned by a dude living in his mom's basement collecting merch",you could find several unreleased(?) Figures, such as..



- Yes, they play their own game, he literally ran into them playing it. They were 16, however most of them are artists, actual programmers you have around 4-5. Promptly after being asked about "Why they cant have more", they were told that these decisions are made by the higher ups, they cant just grab some kid from the streets and put him to work for tf2.

- The Jungle Map is being tested. They were testing it when he ran into them.

- Eric is a filthy Cheater and owns all unusual taunts. Probably scammed some kids for them, told them he was a dev or something.

- Jill introduced himself as "everything is my fault" - post mym reddit PTSD?

- Jill is, as we already probably know, a lurker on "pretty much everything" - especially mentioned facepunch and reddit - and to quote "He reads every single thing in the Major Update Speculation thread and has to restrain himself from commenting" (I'm actually scared that Dane will mention it in the reddit and MUS will be flooded with redditors.)

- Dane also wanted to mention that while Jill might not be a girl, he is pretty hot.

- They have a large TV in the office in which they watch popular TF2 Streams at fridays or thursdays.

- Development on Powerhouse actually began in 2007, however the Developer working on it left it unfinished. Around the Gun Mettle Update, he came back rolling in with his desk, told the boys that hell get the powerhouse map done and got it actually done. Perhaps the developers of Asteroid and the like were snatched away aswell?

- Dane described Eric as "giving off a dad vibe like Jill was his son"

- They plan on extending the Level Cap of Casual mode alongside the next Campaign, even though Jill casually said "by 150".

-TF2 on Source 2: "Would by nice but would require a massive amount of work, and given the amount of time + programmers would require them to lay off every single other project

- On the Removal of Crits: "We'll look into it" -> It's a thing thats being considered alright but dont expect anything happening.

- Metal Sink to save the Economy: An incredibly difficult topic due to several changes being easily abuse able since the game is free, specifically mentioned that he had to ban 200.000 Bots, think Idling-Problems.

- There is great interest in bridging the gap between Comp and Casual, and its also a large priority, they are having trouble with it though.

- Stopwatch was mentioned by Jill but Dane forgot about the rest, sorry stopwatch lovers.

- They don't want to hurt any communities, specifically mentioning the large amount of people that like being friendly. Even Jill is confused about Friendlies.

- The holding multiple weapons at once bug is fixed internally! He just had to remove 30 lines of code and add a single one. However it isnt known if that screwed some other stuff up.

- The Queue system is being tested with a shit ton of Python Scripts and them queuing up. (Disclaimer: Not accurate)

- Average Feedback for tf2 matches after Casual is above neutral.

- The launch is Casual is being regretted as something that was done "too early when it wasnt ready"

- They are currently working on the matchmaking/party UI that allows you to do other shit during it - go in different menus, even different servers!

- Placement Matches are "probably" coming in the next Major Competitive Update - Jill is also experimenting of implementing existing CS:GO Matchmaking to TF2.

- MvM wasn't mentioned, however Dane, while not being sure about it, thought to have seen a screen where someone modeled a Tank that looked like one of the MvM ones, could be a prop, could be something completely else.

- Valve might aswell be a hotel with all the shit they have in it alongside a workout room




Nothing too major, but some interesting information in there. In retrospect Powerhouse being a map that they started working on in 2007 makes sense seeing as how it uses a lot of Hydro assets that we haven't really seen used much since 2007.
 

Asd417

Sample Text
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Mar 20, 2016
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Nice to hear that dev team plays the game (unlike some claims made by redditors) but they should really join quick play sometime instead of playing by themselves. They need to experience more playstyles than 16 playstyles by the team.
I dont think 'mvmish tank' is nothing major.
Glad to know tf2 source 2 is considered nice by the dev. At least there's a slight, slight chance now.
Metal sink? No? sad....
I like the sound of placement match considering the current quick play scene.
 

BigfootBeto

Party Time 2.0!
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Jun 8, 2016
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huh. That's very interesting what happened to Powerhouse indeed. Except idk if it's a good thing or a bad thing that the guy "finished" the map, but left it unfinished as a 3 cp instead of 5 cp. Relevant Post regarding Powerhouse's unfinished areas.
 
Dec 28, 2014
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huh. That's very interesting what happened to Powerhouse indeed. Except idk if it's a good thing or a bad thing that the guy "finished" the map, but left it unfinished as a 3 cp instead of 5 cp. Relevant Post regarding Powerhouse's unfinished areas.

It makes you wonder how many other unfinished Valve made TF2 maps there are besides Asteroid and Cactus Canyon.
 

theatreTECHIE

Yet another Techie for the net...
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Jun 19, 2015
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- Eric is a filthy Cheater and owns all unusual taunts. Probably scammed some kids for them, told them he was a dev or something.

Why would he bother scamming a kid for an item when he can just make one out of thin air? That seems like a lot of hassle for just a weapon.
Surely he has a function "void giveWeapon(account, weapon)" or something that he can use...
 
Dec 28, 2014
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Why would he bother scamming a kid for an item when he can just make one out of thin air? That seems like a lot of hassle for just a weapon.
Surely he has a function "void giveWeapon(account, weapon)" or something that he can use...

It's just a joke, Valve employees can make items for their games and they have a special Valve quality for Valve made items.
 
Dec 28, 2014
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That's all I really wanted to know tbh

It's actually pretty easy to find a picture of Jill online if you do a little Googling.

I was looking for information on the TF2 team recently (not in a creepy stalker way I swear, just in an interested in knowing more about the people who work on TF2 kinda way) and Jill is probably the easiest to find information on. He's only worked at Valve for a couple of years and before that he worked for Mozilla.
 

Fantaboi

Gone and one day forgotten
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Mar 11, 2013
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They don't want to hurt any communities, specifically mentioning the large amount of people that like being friendly.

The community of VBot and I are going to be hurt if we don't get open source hammer and free unusuals, moreso each day that passes. (pls valve)
 

EArkham

Necromancer
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Aug 14, 2009
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- Yes, they play their own game, he literally ran into them playing it. They were 16, however most of them are artists, actual programmers you have around 4-5. Promptly after being asked about "Why they cant have more", they were told that these decisions are made by the higher ups, they cant just grab some kid from the streets and put him to work for tf2.

Is there more explanation on this? I thought that Valve employees did that whole roll-the-desk thing to work on whatever they wanted, and that most of them simply chose to work on other projects.

Or does this statement just mean hiring is a decision made by higher ups?
 

Fruity Snacks

Creator of blackholes & memes. Destroyer of forums
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Sep 5, 2010
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Is there more explanation on this? I thought that Valve employees did that whole roll-the-desk thing to work on whatever they wanted, and that most of them simply chose to work on other projects.

Or does this statement just mean hiring is a decision made by higher ups?

Higher up probably means HR.