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We were really impressed that so many of you resubmitted your items as Gold Star submissions since our last post two days ago. Now, given that this is what we asked you to do, you might wonder why we’re so impressed, and the answer is that nobody’s ever done anything we asked ever, so this is a bit of a novelty for us. We’ve been asking Robin Walker to stop breaking into our houses at 2AM to show us his latest hat designs for two years now, and we still wake up with him hovering inches over us, whispering “No worries” and holding up his sketchpad.
But enough about our night terror! The important part is that, to celebrate, we grabbed some of those Gold Star submissions and shipped them. “How much did you ship them?” you ask, your eyebrow arching suspiciously. We shipped them all the way, guys. No half-measures. We shipped the HELL out of these items.
This isn’t the big update we hinted at in the last post, by the way, or any of the other super-secret update content we've been working on that we haven't even hinted at yet*. This is just a little taste, a tide-me-over, what the French might call an amuse-bouche (“Your mouth pleases me.”) Enjoy! Or as the French say, Bon appétit! ("It is good that you are starving.")
*Except just then.
Over the weekend we hit a new landmark, with over ten million dollars paid out to over 400 contributors and partners. And close to $250,000 of that figure will be paid out to the sixty-plus people who created the Robotic Boogaloo update.
If you just read that last paragraph and are kicking yourself for not making that beard of bees sketch a reality, here's the good news: We've also done a bunch of work improving the item submission tool, so it's never been easier to submit. The tool now automatically tests new creations against a set of standards, meaning anything you create is now significantly more likely to be game-ready.
You can now also see how your items will render on TF2 characters within the tool, making the creation process itself even quicker. Plus, every item submitted through the tool will now be tagged with a gold star, showing everyone that it's been vetted. FYI, our next update is going to ship exclusively with "gold star" items, and there's going to be no limit on how many we'll include. (Check out the Workshop FAQ for more info.)
In short, there's never been an easier, faster or more rewarding time to submit to the Workshop. If you're not making that beard of bees dream a reality, let's face it, at this point it's probably a motivational problem on your end.
Do you like Adult Swim? Do you like The Venture Brothers? Do you like questions? Because we have some bad news: We’re all out of questions. Is there any good news? Questions are back in stock! But that’s not even the best part - we’ve once again teamed up with Adult Swim for three new Venture Brothers-themed items. The terrifying Bacteria Blocker, the whimsical Weather Master, and the also terrifying Breather Bag are now available in the Mann Co. Store. And to celebrate both these excellent new items and the rich history of sales in general, we’re putting our existing Adult Swim items and bundles on sale.
Not sold yet? Well then, we dare you to watch this TF2 commercial that ran during The Venture Brothers premiere last Sunday. Feel free to enjoy every one of its fifteen seconds - the final, desperate fifteen seconds of the crabby old you that refused to be sold.
When we first launched the Workshop back in 2011, we had no idea what the TF2 community was capable of. As the hats, beards, boots and hairdos started rolling in, we realized there was a huge well of creativity out there. But we didn’t appreciate just how deep those waters ran until the community-made updates started appearing. Now we've finally gotten to the point where we're able to shine a well-deserved spotlight on your efforts, starting with the Robotic Boogaloo Update, which includes 57 new items—the most community items we've ever shipped at once. Currently the items are only available in RoboCrates. RoboCrates will become rare drops after June 3rd.
This update is 100% created by the TF2 community. And when we say everything, we mean everything—the in-game content, the update hub website, the animated short, the comic, even the splash images in the Steam store. Even better, everything you created avoided the classic trap of using other companies’ intellectual property. (Those of you working on a Darth Vader Pyro mask, we've got some bad news for you.) Plus, in a first for the Team Fortress economy, all the creators of the Robotic Boogaloo Update have decided to share the revenue earned from the sale of RoboCrate Keys. That means that everyone involved will be profiting from this update, not just the people making hats.
This doesn't mark the end of Valve-produced TF2 updates, by the way. As far as we’re concerned, there's plenty of room for both to happily co-exist. We're in uncharted territory here, and it's exciting to be exploring it with you. Amazing work, everyone!
Hey, folks. The next time you launch TF2, Steam is going to perform a one-time conversion process to upgrade to SteamPipe, a new content delivery system that improves the way content is downloaded, updated and stored. (If you've already upgraded, don't worry, it's done.)
The conversion process will only happen once, and then things are gonna get a lot better. But be patient: The conversion probably will take some time. Even on a machine with a fast hard drive, it could take up to 20-30 minutes, during which time it might look like it's hung. But it's not. Don't interrupt it, just please be patient and let it think.
We're sorry to any of you who are getting subjected to a longer-than-expected conversion time. But ultimately, the benefits will be worth a little inconvenience. You'll get faster uninterrupted downloads, quicker boot times and map loads, and easier distribution, installation and management of mods. Read the FAQ for more info, and thanks again for your patience.
