Honestly I think it's a miracle tf2 even still gets updates. The very fact that they are working on anything is pretty awesome, and I don't really mind when it comes out at all 
I just now noticed, no summer update?
- Thread starter [Rx.] Christian Troy
- Start date
Yeah, valve gets hate for not doing anything when really they are. Improving steam, porting their game engine to linux, building a linux distro for gaming, developing the hardware and software for new ways to experience VR, keeping their large mutiplayer games up to date (somewhat) and who knows what-else. Downside of all of this is average joe with a windows7 PC and a standard mouse/monitor setup doesn't see value in any of this.
This assumes though that most people have that time to do something properly within a month, knowing the demographic of this community - that's a super dinky tiny amount of people.
AND
Most people I've seen who do have that amount of free time to commit to a project, still don't do anything correctly, nor properly. Most work ends up looking like it was crunched through in a month.
To be fair we've gotten a major summer update in June or July every year since the game came out besides in 2009 when we got updates in May and August. Combined with the lack of major update at Christmas and the least amount of regular patches TF2 has ever received in a single year I don't think it was super unreasonable to expect the Pyro/Jungle update in June or July.
It's now been more than 400 days since the last non time-limited (Halloween) major update, Meet Your Match.
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Considering the tf team said last year they made a mistake releasing Meet Your Match too early, if it was obvious to me they wouldn't do the same mistake again but everyone forgot they said that and assumed they would make another summer update, but no they are no longer rushing stuff that's all, and thus skip the summer update. I'm expecting it to release in August End - September.
TFTeam made a mistake last year, they don't want to do it again, I was secretly hopping they would release it back in July but I know they wouldn't.
With what they said last year, not doing the same mistake + biggest update in tf2 history it was easy to guess we wouldn't have a summer update, and the release date would be august end at earliest, and if not then September.
TFTeam made a mistake last year, they don't want to do it again, I was secretly hopping they would release it back in July but I know they wouldn't.
With what they said last year, not doing the same mistake + biggest update in tf2 history it was easy to guess we wouldn't have a summer update, and the release date would be august end at earliest, and if not then September.
![[Rx.] Christian Troy](https://sjc1.vultrobjects.com/tf2maps-forum-attachments/data/avatars/m/25/25552.jpg?1485202727){kind=avatar}
- Jan 23, 2017
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Another way I'm looking at it is Valve has made tons of cash off of us over all these years and still do, so yes, they do have the resources to get things done despite what ever else they have going on in other areas. It's only natural at this point to question why things aren't happening while they continue to rake in the cash.
I do agree that we don't want another MyM situation, but you just have wonder what's holding up this update. The lack of Christmas update means they had less bugs to fix than normal this year and we're more than 2 months from the balance change and the finish your jungle content blog posts.
Could you break down for me the cost of running a game studio, and how the management structure of Valve is to justify this claim?
artifact but with tf2 stuff
Jethro
MUSty Complainer
- Nov 2, 2009
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Not just the cost of running a game studio, but the cost of running a game studio, a digital distribution platform, hardware production (Steam Controller, Vive prototypes), servers, databases, etc.
All on an international scale!
I know how high Valve's operating costs must be. Here's the thing though, I don't care. If they can release cosmetic pack updates for which they barely pay the artists, they can afford to farm TF2's development out to a third party studio. And if it's not making money anymore, then just kill the damn thing already. Don't lead us on with these cryptic "oooooh, we got big things in store" blog posts and then fail to deliver fuck's sake
- Jan 23, 2017
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There is this thing called a search engine for the interwebs. They do the most amazing things to help cut down on douche trolling. Considering you seem to need that kind of help I will toss ya a link to the most popular one.... https://www.google.com/ In there (if ya know what you are doing) you can find where Gabe breaks it down in an interview. Good luck, seems you need all you can get.
Staff Edit: User was warned for this post. --Berry
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There is this thing called a search engine for the interwebs. They do the most amazing things to help cut down on douche trolling. Considering you seem to need that kind of help I will toss ya a link to the most popular one.... https://www.google.com/ In there (if ya know what you are doing) you can find where Gabe breaks it down in an interview. Good luck, seems you need all you can get.
Staff Edit: User was warned for this post. --Berry
So, you can't. Got it.
In that case, next time when you decide to type a few sentences that basically are saying "They make a ton of money, why don't we they get things done?" you should use the wonderful search engine google, before you start running your mouth off trying to talk about something you don't have even the first idea about.
And the next time you decide to shoot your mouth off pretending to be someone, that I for your sake hope you're not... don't.
Understood?
- Dec 15, 2013
- 533
- 802
Get off my lawn, damn kids!!
Soooo about the halloween maps, as I have experience with the matter. I started work on gorge_event in 2014 two months before halloween. I had it tested with friends multiple times as well as on the FastCo. server. (Thanks, @leprecan!). When the 2015 halloween event announced that it was taking community maps, I spent every waking moment working on an already-almost-completed map to get it up to polish. I'm talking 8-10 hours of mapping per day for several weeks on top of having an actual job. Its totally possible to get one done in time if you started right now and put the time in.
Just realize what kind of work ethic you'll need. Shits not easy. It was honestly exhausting.
If you have a considerable amount of work done on a jungle map don't abandon it just for halloween. There's going to be tons of shitty low-effort reskins anyway.
Soooo about the halloween maps, as I have experience with the matter. I started work on gorge_event in 2014 two months before halloween. I had it tested with friends multiple times as well as on the FastCo. server. (Thanks, @leprecan!). When the 2015 halloween event announced that it was taking community maps, I spent every waking moment working on an already-almost-completed map to get it up to polish. I'm talking 8-10 hours of mapping per day for several weeks on top of having an actual job. Its totally possible to get one done in time if you started right now and put the time in.
Just realize what kind of work ethic you'll need. Shits not easy. It was honestly exhausting.
If you have a considerable amount of work done on a jungle map don't abandon it just for halloween. There's going to be tons of shitty low-effort reskins anyway.
To be fair I don't think any of us doubt Valve is very profitable despite their costs of running Steam and paying their employees. They can afford things like a week long trip to Hawaii for their employees and their families once a year and free food for their employees (and from what I've heard there's a lot of other amenities for working at Valve as well).
TF2 is also likely very profitable. It's not as profitable as DOTA2 or CSGO but it did well enough to be somewhere between the top 13 and 24th revenue earner on Steam in 2016 (despite a disastrous launch of MyM and the lack of major update at Christmas).
I think the big issue is that Valve's structure where employees can work on what they want doesn't do any favors for a game as a service unless there are a lot of employees really interested in working on the game (which isn't going to be the case with a nearly 10 year old game). We know that the TF2 team usually has around 16 people working on the game and 5-6 programmers but with how bad of shape MyM shipped in, the lack of Valve made Halloween content the last 2 years, the lack of major update last Christmas and the fact that we're now at the latest point for our summer update ever seems to indicate something is wrong. The TF2 team will probably never say why this update is so delayed but the lack of developers on the team does seem like it could be potentially be the issue.
Valve also seems to do a lot of things for only having 350 employees. They work on TF2, CSGO, DOTA2, Artifact, Source 2, 3 VR games, the steam store/client, the Steam network/infrastructure, SteamOS, Steam hardware/VR and steam support. That's a crazy amount of projects for only having 350 people. I do hope they ramp up hiring when they move to their new larger office later this year. Of course if they hire more people it's possible those people may just start up other projects.
I don't know what solution would work best for Valve. It's obvious Valve isn't serving the TF2 community like they should be. Hopefully they do something soon.
Still on duration of making maps, i did Hellstone in 3,5 weeks and despite some may have different opition, i think i did pretty good job with it at the time i had in use. It was clear to me that i would use that map, as i had worked on it for a long time before and it was the most finished one i had at the time. Some people like the map, some dont. I know its 50/50 like/hate for it.
I started the work on it at september 22nd 2015, day after the blog post and submitted it to the workshop on 15th of October, 3 days before the deadline on 18th. I kept improving it up to the 25th day, when i already knew it was going to be in the update.
Within that time, i had to dig in deep, read all kinds of information and learn how to add in the things it has now. How to implement monoculus, how to make purgatory area and loot area, and so on. There was little guidance or information at all out there (there is more now) that i was able to use and lots of compiling to test out which things work and which dont. Trial and error. Most valuable source was the vmf of previous halloween maps, from which i dug out some of data i needed.
Its not a lot of time at all and doesnt matter how hard you try to avoid bugs, there always be those left in that people can either abuse or then just annoying misplaced texture somewhere. That thing you never saw in testing, but when its out there on the workshop, compiled and packed and you load the map once again, its right there immediately in your eyes.
Year after that was a little more easier, as i knew what i was doing and how to do it but i needed to add something different into it and i had time to do that. This year i started even more early, and i think i have something new added again that contributes to the theme itself. No idea if Valve picks maps this year but im gonna do one anyway. Infact its already almost done.
I started the work on it at september 22nd 2015, day after the blog post and submitted it to the workshop on 15th of October, 3 days before the deadline on 18th. I kept improving it up to the 25th day, when i already knew it was going to be in the update.
Within that time, i had to dig in deep, read all kinds of information and learn how to add in the things it has now. How to implement monoculus, how to make purgatory area and loot area, and so on. There was little guidance or information at all out there (there is more now) that i was able to use and lots of compiling to test out which things work and which dont. Trial and error. Most valuable source was the vmf of previous halloween maps, from which i dug out some of data i needed.
Its not a lot of time at all and doesnt matter how hard you try to avoid bugs, there always be those left in that people can either abuse or then just annoying misplaced texture somewhere. That thing you never saw in testing, but when its out there on the workshop, compiled and packed and you load the map once again, its right there immediately in your eyes.
Year after that was a little more easier, as i knew what i was doing and how to do it but i needed to add something different into it and i had time to do that. This year i started even more early, and i think i have something new added again that contributes to the theme itself. No idea if Valve picks maps this year but im gonna do one anyway. Infact its already almost done.