TF2: 2nd Halloween update

In Short:

• 50% off the game

Always nice

• Boss

Ai controled, it's the guy in the pic. chases you around with a giant axe at scout speed and 1 shots anyone.

• New achivements

Pretty much like last year, some of them earn you the new items.

• New lvl4 metal

Dropped by boss, used to craft all the new items, but limited to 1

• New hats

The boss head and the paper bag masks are event based. The others are available in the store and you can craft one of 2 of them, but it's random so u don't get to pick which one.

• New weapon

You can use the metal to make the Boss' axe for the demoman. Stat and effect wise, it's the Eyelander, just looks different.

Refer to the TF2 Wiki for the recipes.

Couple of things

As I hinted before, I was working on a TF2 hat, yesterday i finished it

I've submitted it to Valve as "The Buffoon's Bells", Although if it does get picked, they might change the name.

I'm looking for ideas for another hat to make, if anyone has good ones let me know.

If anyone's intrested in seeing how that hat looks ingame, i made a gibus replacement version of it and i can upload it on my next post if someone's interested.

On a sidenote, Skype sent me this email about their new version today, which i fixed.

The video feature on Skype always uses the latest Direct X version, in the case of Skype 5, it uses Direct X 11.

In fact if you're using XP, you're losing features with this new version, it's a direct downgrade.

I can understand games using the latest direct X, but a chat app? It's not like it does anything amazing or unheard of either.

Soul Reaving Samurai

I don't think I'll ever get tired of how easily Gary can pass himself off as a reference to some other character due to his generic design.

My secret project

Shhh... It's a secret.

Oekaki is down indefinitely

Cable guy came by to upgrade my connection and he replaced the modem. It's a fancy ass wireless modem that acts like a router too, and i don't know how to get around it to host stuff.

As an apology for the Oekaki being down, have a funny video:

Pumpy loves naked girls

...but he's not very smart nor tactical about it.

Finally done collecting the new crap

It took a long time, but I'm finally done getting all the new items with the obvious exception of the set hats.

Said hats are a big issue on the steam forums right now.

If you don't know, with the last TF2 update, Valve fucked up, again, and created the concept of sets. In a FPS, giving players a stat boost for using a specific loadout seems unnecessary unless you want to openly admit these new weapons suck, which I'm assuming they don't.

The "no limit to buildings" bug briefly came back yesterday

And to me, the entire problem is the concept of set bonuses.

But to others, the problem is the fact that those sets include a hat to b complete, a hat that, by itself has no stats, but with the other items magically provides some. So in a way, the hats provide stats, and thus, affect gaming, and thus, should b made available easily.

Since this makes perfect sense, Valve thought otherwise.

I've made a topic on the steam forums explaining how insane the cost of the new items was and how crafting any of the new items is totally unrealistic: here.

In short, it should take 52 weeks, 1 year, to save items to craft all of the new hats. hats which affect gameplay.

Another guy made a similar topic here addressing that issue along with some other ones.

I love freezecams like this.

Valve has done some incredibly poor choices when it comes to TF2 (DROP SYSTEM!), but this might have been the last straw seeing as it involves money. They can't easily go back on the set bonuses without having people who bought it in the shop being horribly pissed.

But honestly, these people are a minority, and they obviously have the money to spend so i don't feel sorry for the at all, some of them even brag on having tons of money.

It'd b nice to b able to enjoy an update without valve implementing an annoying MMORPG element into the game to make it less and less enjoyable.

On a side note: Useful link if you're thinking about painting a hat.

Pollyanna

This is a song about optimists, and how stupid you are for being one.

Booty Juggler

http://www.gamesbutler.com/game/2586/Booty_Juggler/

What's up people. Between the little breaks when the kids are playing outside, I am usually playing a little flash game of some sort if I am not doodling in my pad. This one is one of my current favorites because it is so simple, has some excellent art, and music that just sticks in your head. Have a go at it!

This Just In: Spider-Man in Cahoots With Hookers and Midgets!

I always get conflicted about mature filters whenever I post a picture involving Felicia, what with her being completely naked 99% of the time...

These three are no strangers to being in front of a camera. You'd almost think there was some sort of theme behind this group, other than me liking all of them.

...But there is not. Also. That background. I totally cheated and grabbed a screenshot off Google. And the lighting...well, cameras DO flash, you know. Just sayin'.

A small note

First of all, it's been brought to my attention that some people visit the blog but do not comment on it because they don't want to make a "blogger" account. There's no such thing as a blogger account, it's a Google account (if you have gmail you have one), also u can use a Wordpress/Livejournal/Typepad/AIM/OpenID account to post comments here.

Anyway.

Yesterday i was playing Dead Rising 2 when i suddenly got a blue screen of death, mostly my bad, was forcing the game to run windowed with an app that confused my nvidia drivers (note to self, might want to update those...).

I now have 3 dead drives, i wonder if i could make one of these...

However, when i restarted, my 2nd hard drive started making a loud scary noise, the "I'm-gonna-stop-working-soon-and-u're-gonna-lose-all-ur-crap!" kind of noise.

I'm gonna get myself a 1 Tb external drive and backup all my shit, and then run some tests on the drive.

With that, i got a question.

Does anyone know of software that would auto copy/update stuff from my computer to the external drive, like, once a day? I've had 2 hard drive failures in the past that made me lose way too much of my work, i still remember the deep state of shock and disbelief. If it happened to you before, u know exactly what i mean.

There's a slight chance however that later today my computer will b down, and since the Oekaki has been getting some use, and since it is hosted on my computer, I thought i'd let ya guys know that today isn't the best day to doodle on it.

Should b fine by the 11th though (which also happens to b Bliss' anniversary).

With that said, anyone know where i can get hosting for an Oekaki and Wiki with no ads or content restrictions? Reinstalling my computer is always an issue, but the hardest part to reinstall is the local server to host the Oekaki. And the current Wiki is plagued with ads that are just shitty.

TF2: A trading tip

Gentlemen, here's the deal.

As with all things, new things have more value than older ones, this is especially true in tf2 where no matter how bad or ridiculous a hat is, if it's new, it's extremely valuable.

However, there is another variable: Crates.

Currently, the new hats are more valuable. However, all the "polycount" hats, with the exception of the ones for sets, are common drops in crates, VERY common.

Early Mann-conomy update, this was weird...

The pyro's new hats went from trading for 3 hats to not even being worth 1 in 2 days.

Is it because they're ugly? not really, other classes have way uglier hats and those are retaining value for now. It's mostly because of those people who have way too much money and are opening tons of crates.

There are many of these rich spoiled asshats, and they quickly and drastically lower the value of hats obtainable via crates.

The hats in crate series #2 (Sober Stuntman, Pugilist's Protector, Chieftain's Challenge) are already starting to drop in value.

Be smart guys, if u get a polycount hat and you're not planning to keep it, TRADE IT AS FAST AS YOU CAN.

SOME. PEOPLE. HAVE. NO. TASTE.

In time, the economy is gonna reverse itself and older hats will actually b the valuable ones.

On a last note, and sane person will tell you all the "unusual hats" look retarded, and make it extra hard to play.

Seriously i was on a server with a pyro that had the brigade helm with some flame/glow effect. He barely did anything cause he's an AMBUSH CLASS and everyone saw him coming a mile away at all times.

These are just giant "SHOOT ME IN THE FACE HARD!" beacons.

Edit: Stat page for TF2 hats, I've been checking this page and been trading shitloads over the past week (in normal maps, trading servers, TF2store, TF2items and steam's TF2 trade forum). that's where I'm drawing my conclusions from.

Misc Valve news

Still trading on TF2, it's been... an annoying experience but it got me a few hats and items i wanted.



The big news is L4D though, the new DLC "The sacrifice" came out. and the DLC itself is disappointing as usual, the community makes way better.

Game is FINALLY worth the price they're asking for, if u didn't have it til now, grab it!

The new DLC is 2 new maps plus a recycled one, the concept of having a guy sacrifice himself for the team is ok i guess.

What's fun is the "Tank" mutation where every special infect is a tank, the game then becomes a "running of the bulls" type of event, it's actually really fun. This however has nothing to do with the DLC.

This DLC was a huge pain before we even got it:

Who the hell makes a 11.5 gb update? it's like they practically replaced the entire game! oh wait, THEY DID!

Their servers were DYING every 10 mins too, and i had to delete shit on my drive for this crap to fit!

Surprisingly, the feedback on the steam forums seemed to favor L4D1's version of "the sacrifice" over L4D2's. and in fact, if u remove the very annoying special infected L4D2 has, and the "too bright" settings, sounds and music, it's a much nicer game. Also somehow seems to have less bugs...

On L4D2, on both "No Mercy" and "The Sacrifice" Zoey is randomly invisible (Zach can confirmed that it's happened to him too).

This new DLC only reminds me how little i think of Valve's L4D team. Also am i the only one to get randomly weird ass square smoke in L4D2?



Anyway, there's also good new for TF2 players:

And u can get L4D1 + L4d2 for less than 10 bucks. Personally, I've spent more on worse. Seeing as TF2 is a hat driven game, it's a decent deal.

As a side note, I like this Whitaker guy:

While I do not understand the machinations of this skillet and hat scheme, I do know that if you purchase the said game Left 4 Dead 2, it will reward you with a free hat from my friend Ellis and a handy skillet to fry yours or more importantly your enemy’s bacon. These items all manifest themselves in some infernal game called TeamFortress2 which I have no understandin’ of but my good friends what I do know is these items know no class, color, weight or gender. They work for all peoples.

You can read his entire rant here. I find him pretty amusing.

"Djinn De Ventus" Colored

Colored it during the 2 weeks after it was posted here, Bitten helped a lot with tips.

I don't like to announce my character anniversaries, people think I'm doing it to get fanart from people who visit the blog (which, rest assured, i never have so far), so i even skipped a few this year. But my friends (namely Jimmy) wanna know when those occur to try to at least doodle something for the occasion.

So yea, on October 11th it's my character Bliss' anniversary, shortly after it's my character Dandie's anniversary on the 16th.

Joe Stuff

Here's some more overused memes and people standing around doing nothing to continue to prove how untalented and unoriginal I am. FUCK THA KNICKS

TF2: Mann-conomy update consequences

So the community is raging about this update, as usual.

Some are pissed as hell at the fact rich kids just bought the new sets and are having fun using them while other will just have to possibly wait months before even completing a set.

Some are just awe struck at the prices of shit in the shop and how fucking random it seems. I'll even note that u could buy some of this hard in REAL LIFE for less than they ask for in the shop.

But really, if people wanna b lame and buy an unfair advantage and brag about being rich that's their business. (srly, when did braggin about havin money become cool? That's the most backwards retarded shit I've ever heard)

There is one issue right now though:

Wearing a set gives a special attribute, and seeing as there's hats as part of the set, and there's no quick way to craft or get one without buying, this DOES give an unfair advantage to people using the shop seeing as it could take YEARS to get the damn hats now.

However

What i do truly find annoying is trading.

Yes, i was waiting for trading since forever, but i never dreamed they'd implement it ingame and in the middle of fucking battle!

It's now common to see people from both teams randomly stopping for 2-5 mins at a time while they go to codec dimension land to trade their pokemons with each other. 90% of the chatting now done ingame is the TF2 equivalent of the WoW trade channel, this shit is fucking unbearable.

For 5 times now I've been interrupted by random asshats to trade shit without prior warning, they then proceed to propose ludicrous deals in codec dimension and when I'm back to the actual game, I've died 4 times and my dog's being sapped.

The trade forum on the steam forum is useless as pages fly by instantly. I made a topic there and in 25 secs it was in page 4, no one even saw it.

All the annoyances of a MMORPG are being added to this game bit by bit...

TF2: Mann-conomy update

I never saw it coming, i haven't played TF2 seriously for a good 10 days, and BAM! out of nowhere, update!

Well that's not exactly true, a source did mention that Robin Walker said trading would b implemented in the next patch and that said patch would b ingame on the first week of September i think. which in valve time is the last week i guess.

As i heard at the time, This update would also include the polycount contest winners. but oh boy... first things first.

• New ingame "Mann-conomy" shop added.

Where player can buy items/hats/misc with real money. Although note that supposedly any item that can b bought can b crafted or obtained with a drop.

With that said, I don't like it too much but i'm all for it. the only thing that annoys me are the crates, but i'll get to that.

• Valve added 65 new items (hats, weapons, tools, minigames, gifts, crates).

confused? good, me too. i dunno how the minigames work but i do know they have to b purchased but maybe u can get them as drops too.

Tools include paints (certain hats and weaps can b painted), crates (contains one of the rare items not directly available in shop) and keys (which HAVE to b bought).

Guess who already has 2 crates and can't open them. pfff...

• Item Catalog

It's a list of all the items existing in TF2 complete with description, it's pretty handy for looking up stuff or check out what exists in the game.

• Added Trading

I already gave away my soldier stash cause I'm a nice guy and this is how i roll. I also promised Zach a pyro hat but only if he gets his internet fixed.

Also a note, All items obtained up to this update are now classified "vintage", which means they were obtained "ye ol fashioned way", for god knows what reason, that makes them more valuable for trading on the TF2 trade forum. Go figure...

• Noteworthy undocumented changes

* Removed the cooldown timer from the Sandvich and the Dalokohs Bar.
* A green number shows up by your health bar when you pick up health now.
* A little plus sign particle appears in the spot you picked up health.
* Fixed taunt glitch involving switching weapons quickly.
* Added new "Hifive" taunts for Demoman, Heavy, Medic, Pyro, Scout, Sniper, Soldier and Spy.

So yea, this is one damn overwhelming update. Also, anyone interested in 2 crates?