Team Fortress 2 To Add Crafting System Soon?

How often have you wanted your fast-paced online shooters to include some aspect from MMOs, such as epic mounts, complicated hotbars for all your skills, or monthly subscription fees? Well, none of those things are coming to Team Fortress 2…yet. Instead, it seems like Valve is testing the waters by adding crafting to the game. Yes, crafting.

In case you think I’m making this up, let me assure you I’m not that imaginative. Here, I’ll let Valve explain it.

Introducing Team Fortress 2’s new Crafting system. Say goodbye to those enjoyable evenings spent complaining on the forums about which item in your inventory was the most useless, spraying anti-Australian racist hate speech all over Robin Walker, his lovely wife, and his beautiful children. EVERYTHING in your inventory now contributes towards something you actually WANT, and can build YOURSELF! If you’re super clever, you’ll even be able to craft new items before others can earn them the old fashioned way.

Bear hide gathering, forlorn LFG’s in the chat text, and gold farming can’t be far behind.

Source

Left 4 Dead 2 Multiplayer Demo On Its Way, Pre-Order Bonus

Doug Lombardi has told Joystiq that a multiplayer demo for Valve’s Left 4 Dead 2 is planned for both the Xbox 360 and PC. According to Valve’s PR guru, users who pre-order the upcoming zombie survival title at "participating retailers or [via] Steam" will gain "advanced access to the demo," which will eventually land on both platforms for all users prior to the game’s November 17 launch.

Speaking with OXM at a recent London preview event, Lombardi discussed the strength of Left 4 Dead’s "word of mouth," which has presumably fueled the need for a demo to the sequel. With groups calling for a boycott of Left 4 Dead 2 due to lack of content support for the original title, a demo may be the best way for Valve to prove why it believes its sequel warrants a full price tag. Although, strong pre-order numbers tell us the game is already on pace to decimate sales charts like a zombie tank.

Source

Valve Won’t Develop For PS3 Because It’s “Too hard”

Homer Simpson once said, “You tried your best and failed miserably. The lesson is: never try.” Valve must take that second part—“never try”—pretty seriously, since it told some dude at E3 that it has no interest in developing for the PS3. Reason being? It’s too hard. Fair enough.

The full quote, straight from a Valve dev on the E3 show floor:

The PC and the 360 are just more straightforward. We can focus on what we want to do, which is make game experiences, instead of sweating bullets over obscure architectural decisions they make with their platform. [...] I didn’t come into this business in the 90s because of some technical fetish. I came in because I wanted to give people experiences that made them have fun.

Sounds reasonable to me. If Valve can sustain itself developing only for the PC and Xbox 360, why should it knock itself out trying to figure out how to develop for the PS3? It quite literally is not worth the effort.

It’s not my business to tell Valve what to do with its resources, said with an eye toward the ongoing “controversy” regarding Left 4 Dead 2.

Source

Valve Updates Team Fortress 2, Community Responds

When Valve introduced the first four class updates to Team Fortress 2, an achievement system was used to help unlock new weapons and items. According to Valve, that system did not work as intended. In the end, instead of playing the game toward fun and rewarding goals, hardcore players would grind achievements to unlock the game’s latest weaponry. At the time, users complained the achievement system was changing the landscape of Team Fortress 2’s online community — mostly because some of the achievements were so difficult to acquire regularly.

In response, Valve has changed the new weapon system with the latest update (Spy & Sniper). In the new system, Team Fortress 2 utilizes Valve’s Steam Cloud, automatically rewarding players new weaponry and items previously only attainable through completing achievement related tasks.

According to Valve, the new system is designed to reward gamers based on how long they play Team Fortress 2. Play more, get more. But according to the game’s forums — and multiple emails to Joystiq — some players are unhappy with the changes.

Source

Valve Sues Activision Over 2002 Royalty Dispute

Source

Left 4 Dead Hits 2.5 Million Units Sold at Retail

Valve’s cooperative zombie shooter Left 4 Dead has now sold over 2.5 million copies since its November debut, project lead Michael Booth revealed today.

That tally includes both the PC and Xbox 360 releases, but does not include sales from Valve’s digital distribution platform Steam. The company has a long-standing policy of not revealing Steam sales figures, though a recent discount saw sales jump 3000%.

Source

Left 4 Dead sales increased by 3000% During Steam Sale

Left 4 Dead saw a 3000% increase in sales during its Steam sale last weekend. Valve’s Gabe Newell revealed the stunning figure during his DICE keynote, in which he also announced the digital distribution service saw its customer base increase 1600% that same weekend. G4 noted that the Valve overlord believes those figures broke the game’s launch sales.

Steam has certainly been experimenting with numerous sales lately. Valve has even hired an experimental psychologist to maximize buzz and marketing around the online retail sales. Wait, now Valve doesn’t just want our wallets, they want our braaaaaaains too? Taking the whole zombie thing a little seriously, perhaps?

Source

Team Fortress 2 - Meet The Sniper Video

All of these videos from the team that brought you Team Fortress 2 are hilarious. I love how they put a unique personality into each one of the characters. Here’s the latest video in the series entitled ‘Meet The Sniper’