Mann vs Machine has arrived! The MvM page was updated with new info at around 4:45am Pacific Standard Time, and the update dropped an hour and fifteen minutes later. Day three brought a listing of the thirty five MvM achievements, a glimpse at the third map, all the metal hats one could want, and Archimedes! The update brought us hours of waiting.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Like most achievement sets in TF2, there are easy ones that you will get just by playing and hard ones that you may have to specifically try for. There are also those that will come with time—lots of time. Two of the included achievements are to earn 1,000,000 credits and to kill one million robots. Better get to killing!
THAT MAP IS A SPY!
Hilarious. That Saxton Hale—always with the ace up his sleeve. The robots want to destroy Mann Co. bases? He’ll build them bases. Decoy, the third map to be revealed, is not a Mann Co. base at all, but a patched-together shill designed to lure the enemy in for slaughter. With hand painted signs and slapped-together buildings, the visuals in this map make for a fun time by themselves. Then the robots show up and spoil the fun. Then the fun returns by killing them.
MANN THE FRONT UP
Admit One
Hold your ground on official Valve hosted servers with a Tour of Duty Ticket, your access pass to Mann Up Mode. We first saw a hint of the carnival-style tickets with one paperclipped to a crafting recipe as part of the Mann vs Machine ARG. Yes, they cost money, but can also be traded for. Once you have a ticket you can enter Mann Up mode and play for loot. You can, as always, play for free on non Valve hosted servers, but you will not receive the spoils of victory for your efforts. When you do play Mann Up Mode and your team holds their ground, you will be rewarded with a random MvM souvenir. You can also throw a Squad Surplus Voucher in on the match and grant you and each of your team mates an extra item upon victory. If you and each of your teammates puts up a voucher, everyone will be rewarded six items to celebrate. Note that if you do not succeed, neither your ticket or any vouchers are consumed and can be used for your next go at it. Let’s take a look at what you may get.
- Tour of Duty Badge – An all-class badge that tracks your progress in Mann Up Mode.
- U-clank-a – Hat for the Heavy. A metal version of a Ushanka.
- Stealth Steeler – Spy Fedora made out of hammered steel.
- Pyrobotics Pack – The barrel of a robot flamethrower for strapping to a Pyro’s back.
- Medic Mech-bag – Medic backpack made of robot parts.
- Tin Pot – Another military helmet for the Soldier. This one looks like stitched together metal plates.
- Battery Bandolier – Replaces Demoman’s grenades with batteries.
- Robot Running Man – Scout hat and headset made of bolts and metal.
- Bolted Bushman – Metal version of the Sniper’s default hat.
- Tin-1000 – Bolted-together metal Engineer hardhat and goggles with red eye lenses.
Robot Hats
CRY SOME MORE
All of the new items are strictly cosmetic, so no one needs to complain about having to pay for Mann Up Mode. Alas, those who are going to hate will hate henceforth, and there has already been everything from begging and whining to calls for boycotting the Tour of Duty Tickets. Surprisingly the trade market was rather fair on this one. Open offers of tickets for only two refined metal were aplenty. That is about equal to the cost of the metal on the TF2 Black Market. Because there will be an unlimited supply of the tickets coming out of the Mann Co. Store, the price will only go down and should be interesting to see where they stabilize.
WHAT IS THAT SANDVICH? KILL ALL THE ROBOTS?
Many player hurried to grab the update as soon as it was released but had a hard time connecting for hours after it first hit. Everything from long download times to Steam stating that TF2 was not available, and then once in game the matchmaking not working properly. But do not fret oh metal hunter. By the time you read this article, the craziness will have died down and you should be able to hop on TF2 and use the in-game matchmaker to find a Mann vs Machine game to jump into. Or better yet, use the new lobby feature to group up your friends to lay some metal hat together. Who doesn’t enjoy playing Lobby?
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