The TF2 classless update: Day 2

[Jack Riguel]

First hidden link;
http://www.teamfortress.com/classless/hidden/geographic_lumps/

Beat me to it, was just about to edit my last post.

 

[MungoKing]

Interesting how the blog announcement had "and some classic community maps" in it before, but it's been removed.

was wondering if anyone else noticed that. I don't really have any idea what they could be, can't wait for tomorrow!

 

[Micnax]

I hate valve so much right now

I bet you do

All that work on Snowdrift...

 

[evanonline]

There's community maps in the update, but I seriously doubt Aerospace.

I just have a weird hunch about it. Aerospace B5 was "almost done" back when the Scout update was coming out, I recall there were tons of rumors about it being the final map of the update (which ended up being Egypt) and he showed off screens to quell everyone complaining about Egypt. My memory could be a little fuzzy but it seems weird that a new version wouldn't be released by now if he had been working on one. I recall Valve just lapped up Steel's final version while it was being worked on. I don't mean to say "AEROSPACE IS THE NEW COMMUNITY MAP, 100% CONFIRMED!!!!!" but it's a hunch. :U

Either way I'm curious and excited as to what the new community maps could be, and if Valve themselves have any more levels up their sleeves. It'll be hard to top the Sniper vs. Spy update, either way, but this update is pretty promising to me.

 

[Micnax]

this awesome community map was created by magnar "insta" jenssen, whose dedication and commitment to tf2 map-making has convinced us to make him the tenth class.*

*we are lying.

Agghhhh!

 

[evanonline]

Also, something I noticed in the Viaduct screens: The cliff rocks from alpine are out in the open! Does this mean they have collision models now?! Oh my goodness this is the most mundane thing I've ever been happy about in a Team Fortress update!

 

[Mexican Apple Thief]

Are you serious? Just compare, say, cp_glacier's screenshots with Viaduct's. Valve's snow theme looks like the alpine theme with everything green made white, really.

This may also be because they posted three screenshots of the spawn, though :/

Well, that's what it is. I wouldn't consider snowing a new theme, just like sawmill wasn't. Sawmill brought rain to alpine, and Viaduct is bringing snow to alpine.

Glacier is different, however, because it goes beyond snow, it's an arctic setting with ice.

Valve isn't trying to make new themes, just new possibilities for themes.

Snowy desert anyone?

 

[Jack Riguel]

I just have a weird hunch about it. Aerospace B5 was "almost done" back when the Scout update was coming out, I recall there were tons of rumors about it being the final map of the update (which ended up being Egypt) and he showed off screens to quell everyone complaining about Egypt. My memory could be a little fuzzy but it seems weird that a new version wouldn't be released by now if he had been working on one. I recall Valve just lapped up Steel's final version while it was being worked on. I don't mean to say "AEROSPACE IS THE NEW COMMUNITY MAP, 100% CONFIRMED!!!!!" but it's a hunch. :U

I seriously, seriously hope it's not made official. The recent version I've played still has a lot of issues, not to mention it still suffers from the major flaw of being way to detailed. I still get headaches from playing that map...

I'm hoping for cashworks, but I think I read somewhere that eerieone remarked that It's not going to be in the update... just a rumor though. Either that or he's being deceitful, that crafty spy.

 

[Hawk]

I think the snowy themed screenshots look rather nice. It's very exciting to me to see the amount of Team Fortress 2 geographic themes expand. I hope the Swamp becomes standardized and maybe we even see a few more themes come our way. I'd love to see an urban theme, which wouldn't be a far stretch given some of the industrial stuff we have already.

But part of me hopes that Valve reaches a point where they're done changing the classes and the way the game is played, and they just focus on making additional maps.

 

[Pyrit]

Have some more news, mate!

http://www.teamfortress.com/classless/hidden/war/

 

[Phobos]

Interesting how the blog announcement had "and some classic community maps" in it before, but it's been removed.

I'm calling Aerospace as one of 'em.

New blog text:
The Classless Update continues to class up the joint with some previews, including a brand new game mode and some retooled classic maps.

Looks like they mixed up community with classic. And by classic they probably mean Nucleus and Sawmill.

 

[Ninjilla]

The symbol with the kangaroos has some latin, I think roughly translated is "Everything written is not what you see". Interesting?

 

[evanonline]

I seriously, seriously hope it's not made official. The recent version I've played still has a lot of issues, not to mention it still suffers from the major flaw of being way to detailed. I still get headaches from playing that map...

I'm hoping for cashworks, but I think I read somewhere that eerieone remarked that It's not going to be in the update... just a rumor though. Either that or he's being deceitful, that crafty spy.

I'm not a big fan of Aerospace myself. And actually, come to think of it a lot of sawmill materials sort of make a lot of his custom stuff obsolete. It's a gorgeous map and I think it's fun, but I don't think it's near "official" quality right now. Like I said, I was just guessing.

I do hope Valve picks out some relatively "unknown" maps here and there too. Big-name maps like Frontier and Cashworks are wonderful and worthy of being official, sure, but they're on a ton of servers to begin with.

...Though, thinking about it now, Steel was the only map made official so far that was really popular on the same level Frontier and Cashworks are. Turbine, Offblast and Watchtower were all "known" and regarded pretty well by most people who played them, but Steel was the only one that was popular enough to be found on just about any server running customs. In fact, I knew of a few servers that DIDN'T run customs that ran Steel anyway because it was pretty highly regarded before going official.

 

[Freyja]

These half-torn newspapers seem to be a bit cryptic...Hills? Does this mean king of the hill...or something more?

I think it's rather bold that they did a new update. Sure, there is some custom KoTH maps, but Valve did it properly, actually changing the code. I think thats a bit bold....

 

[Jack Riguel]

I'm not a big fan of Aerospace myself. And actually, come to think of it a lot of sawmill materials sort of make a lot of his custom stuff obsolete. It's a gorgeous map and I think it's fun, but I don't think it's near "official" quality right now. Like I said, I was just guessing.

I do hope Valve picks out some relatively "unknown" maps here and there too. Big-name maps like Frontier and Cashworks are wonderful and worthy of being official, sure, but they're on a ton of servers to begin with.

...Though, thinking about it now, Steel was the only map made official so far that was really popular on the same level Frontier and Cashworks are. Turbine, Offblast and Watchtower were all "known" and regarded pretty well by most people who played them, but Steel was the only one that was popular enough to be found on just about any server running customs. In fact, I knew of a few servers that DIDN'T run customs that ran Steel anyway because it was pretty highly regarded before going official.

Very true, however remember this. What's well known in the custom community is partially known in the regular community. I think one of Valve's long term goals in TF2 is to pull the kids who play nothing but 2fort_sunrise 24/7 off their servers and into the realm of real, decent custom maps. You'll be surprised at the amount of people who've never even heard of frontier or cashworks.

I started writing a big essay here on reasons why I don't think aerospace is anywhere near official quality, but I remembered that this is an update thread and not a map discussion thread, so I'll just say this: I personally feel that aerospace is too immature of a map (layout-wise) to be included as an official community map; but then again maps like watchtower and Egypt (in the state it was first released) were made official..

EDIT: Also:
http://www.teamfortress.com/classless/hidden/coward_mound/

What a King! It only took him two days!

EDIT #2: http://www.teamfortress.com/classless/hidden/populace/

...wait what?

 

[Inqwel]

How exactly do you gents go about finding such Easter Eggs?

 

[Icarus]

secret randomly appearing buttons on the site.

 

[Jack Riguel]

How exactly do you gents go about finding such Easter Eggs?

So far I've only found one, which was the the first "Hills Discovered" one. A link appeared in place of the "1895" that is right below the big "THE" on the original page. The rest of these a few friends have been Steam'ing me as they see them. Apparently the links appear and disappear, so you have to keep refreshing your browser until they show up.

 

[Mexican Apple Thief]

EDIT #2: http://www.teamfortress.com/classless/hidden/populace/

...wait what?

Maybe they're adding AI to the bots.

 

[Shoomonger]

Lol the most popular australlian name is robin! We all know who thought up that.