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This morning Robin Walker threw a birthday party and nobody came. Before you start feeling sorry for him, though, keep in mind he didn't actually invite anybody. He just keeps emailing the TF team pictures of himself in his backyard - jumping around in an inflatable jungle gym he rented, forcing a hired clown to make him balloon animals, and unwrapping gifts he bought himself.
Robin's increasingly sad collection of birthday pictures reminded us that Team Fortress turns fifteen today. To celebrate, we've decided to throw a party ourselves. And unlike Robin, we're inviting everybody. For the next 24 hours, anybody who plays TF2 is going to get:
You'll also see the return of the best stuff from previous TF birthday celebrations, including:
We've got the balloons, we've got the presents, we've got the birthday cake. All we're missing is you. (And Robin. Judging from these pictures he's not coming back to work any time soon. The last one had him watching a magic show while riding a donkey wearing a little sombrero. No idea who's taking all these pictures. Possibly the clown.)
Younger TF2 fans might not understand the significance of the upcoming game Deus Ex: Human Revolution. For those of you who weren't around during gaming's golden age, it's the long-awaited sequel to the cult classic dystopian shooter Revolution X, starring and programmed by Aerosmith. You'll once again play as Brad "The Deuce" Whitford. Part human Aerosmith bass player. Part robot. ALL trouble.
"Wow! Can you let me play it now?" you ask. Dream On, Aerosmith fan. The game's not due for a week. (Joe Perry's still coding some shaders.)
"Well, is there anything I can get now?" Yes. As of right now, you can Walk This Way if you Don't Wanna Miss a Thing, because Janie (i.e. you) Has Got (i.e. can obtain) a Gun (i.e. eight new Deus Ex-themed TF2 items, FREE, by pre-ordering the Aerosmith game). The items are also available separately in the Mann Co. Store and through items drops and crafting.
Head to Deus Ex: Human Revolution's Steam page and pre-order now. Then, as long as you’re Living on the Edge, flash your parents the Devil sign and rock over to Aerosmith's official Facebook page. Don't let the cops catch you! It's dangerous!
As we all know, Jonas Salk invented money in 1955 so he would have a way to earn a living from his polio vaccine. Before that, people just traded things they found for things that other people had found. So you might "sell" somebody a scrap of carpet, say, in exchange for an old bottle. It was a perfect system with only one drawback: people spent their lives bartering for piles of garbage before dying of polio.
But wait. What if we told you that you could barter for things that weren't garbage, AND not die of polio? Steam Trading Beta lets you securely trade your in-game items for other in-game items from participating games. You can also trade Steam gifts (games on Steam that you've purchased but not yet added to your Games Library).
Want to try it out? In Steam, go to Steam > Settings, and opt into Steam Trading Beta. That's it! Now your Steam Community profile will have an item inventory, and you'll be able to view the item inventories of every public profile in the Steam community.
Now that you've opted into the Trading Beta, you can invite people to trade through Group Chat, and trade with anybody in your Friends List who's also opted in. Just right-click on their name and select "Invite to Trade" from the dropdown menu. Once your friend accepts your offer to trade, a trade window will open up. The first time you open the trade window, a step-by-step walkthrough will guide you through your first trade.
That's it! Opt in and get trading, or surf over to the Trading Beta FAQ for the nuts and bolts. And remember: Trading is still in beta, so don't forget to give us your feedback here on the Forums.
It was way back on August 24th, 1996 that the first version of Team Fortress took its first feeble baby steps out into the world. At the time it only had five playable classes, no maps, and--believe it or not--no hats. There wasn't even a concept of teams yet. That's right, we didn't actually get teams into a game called Team Fortress until a couple of releases after the initial launch. (The next time someone says their game isn't ready to release yet because they're missing a core feature, you can helpfully point this out to them.)
What the initial version of TF did have, though, was a Soldier class wielding the original Quake's iconic weapon, the rocket launcher. Now, fifteen years later, thanks to Bethesda and id software you too can wield that same rocket launcher in TF2, original sound effects and all.
It ended up being surprisingly difficult to integrate the Quake rocket launcher into TF2, mainly because any time we started working on it, we'd get sidetracked by hours of reminiscing: about that first Quake game, about its impact on us all personally, and on Valve overall. When Quake celebrated its 15th birthday this past June 22nd, we realized just how damn many of us at Valve are here because of id software. Some of us were inspired by their games' technical prowess, and others by getting their first taste of game development thanks to Doom and Quake's revolutionary approach to user-generated content.
So, thanks id, for... well, everything.
As long as we're here, we might as well tell you how to actually get your hands on that rocket launcher we've been getting all misty-eyed over. If you've been living under a rock, you may not be aware that QuakeCon started today. We're celebrating with a QuakeCon Steam Sale, where each day we'll have a new Bethesda title on sale. We've built TF2 items for pre-ordering Rage and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and whipped up an awesome Brink mask for those of you who own Brink (which also just released some free DLC). Quake IV landed on Steam today as well, and buying that will net you The Original Quake rocket launcher. We're also big Fallout fans, so we politely sent a few thousand emails to Bethesda until they let us build a replica Pip-Boy for the Engineer, which you'll get if you own Fallout: New Vegas. Note that all of this only runs the length of QuakeCon, so keep an eye on the QuakeCon Sale.
When WETA Workshop first approached us with the idea of partnering some of their IP with ours, we couldn't believe our luck. These were the guys who made In The Name of the King, after all, and since that movie stars Burt Reynolds, there was a pretty good chance they'd introduce us to him. Eager to raise that chance to 100%, we sent them over a contract demanding they produce Burt Reynolds at any partnership meetings.
Their lawyers told us they'd actually made some different movies about kings: Return of the King and King Kong, neither of which feature Burt Reynolds in even a minor role. We got less excited, then briefly more excited again when we remembered that King Kong stars Tony Danza, then into a tailspin of depression when we realized we were thinking of Going Ape.
Luckily Greg Broadmore, WETA Workshop's mastermind behind Dr. Grordbort's Infallible Aether Oscillators, sent us over a bunch of concept art for cool-looking space guns, which cheered us up immediately. We asked if he could redraw the art so Burt Reynolds and Tony Danza were having a gunfight in space over who would be our best friend. He said sure. Then he never did.
But just because Greg Broadmore is a liar, that doesn't mean he didn't invent some nifty-looking guns. Find out more about them here, and read a comic we wrote about the items here. Or you can skip all that and go watch Smokey and the Bandit II here.
