Team Fortress 2 surprise update brings Engineer upgrades

Brian Ambrozy 11 Dec, 2008 at 8:25pm ET Article published in Gaming

Buildin' a (Level 3) dispenser!

Oh my, that was unexpected. Suddenly the TF2 official blog is updated, and I noticed my Steam update icon working just now, and found an update for TF2 downloading.

I tracked down the update notes and found, to my delight, some very special info. Major updates to Engie and a major nerf to Demoman:

The Engineer’s teleporters can now be upgraded to level three. It will recharge faster the higher level it is
The Engineer’s dispensers can now be upgraded to level three. It will dispense health and metal faster the higher level it is
Spies will be able to recharge their cloaking ability by picking up ammo off of the ground or from health cabinets
Some changes to the second part of the first stage of Goldrush to give the attackers more of an advantage
Any weapons that fire bullets (shotguns, sniper’s machine gun, heavy’s minigun, etc.) can now break apart the Demoman’s stickybombs

The next class to get an update is SCOUT. They are actively soliciting ideas on the TF2 forums.

They also announced that they’ll be bringing some changes from the L4D engine into the TF2 engine, for certain things like better multicore support.

Get you some! Steam should update TF2 automatically. I’ll be rebooting the IC server in a moment so that the latest version is ready.

Comments

11 Dec 2008 ~ 8:29pm BuddyJ I'm game!
11 Dec 2008 ~ 9:55pm QCH So... you will all crawl back to me...

Defensive shield Gun?
11 Dec 2008 ~ 9:57pm QCH Wait.... It's already being released? AWESOME!!!!
11 Dec 2008 ~ 11:07pm rolleggroll YEAH SCREW THEM DEMOMEN!! /endcaps
12 Dec 2008 ~ 12:09am Winfrey Why's the black irish cyclops always gettin' the nerf?
12 Dec 2008 ~ 1:43am TiberiusLazarus

FreeC8675 wrote:

Why's the black irish cyclops always gettin' the nerf?

I hate to say it, but he kinda needed something. Put a demoman into a somewhat capable person's hands and they could change the game. Have an awesome demo on your team and you are leaps and bounds ahead.

That said, I still don't like it too much (though I haven't played with the new updates, so I don't know how it all fits together.)
12 Dec 2008 ~ 2:06pm Koreish The medic and spy updates make me happy. I don't see the need for the soldier smoke trail, however. I've heard that an overhealed spy can be seen while invisible because of the magic fairy dust.
12 Dec 2008 ~ 2:42pm QCH I see that this is NOT a true upgrade like the Heavy, Medic, and Pyro. There are no Engie achievements....
12 Dec 2008 ~ 4:13pm CB

QCH2002 wrote:

I see that this is NOT a true upgrade like the Heavy, Medic, and Pyro. There are no Engie achievements....

spoiled
12 Dec 2008 ~ 5:26pm Winfrey So do the stickies blow up when you shoot them? That makes them a little more balanced and still useful.

And I still think that the black irish cyclops get the shaft in this world.
12 Dec 2008 ~ 5:59pm BlackHawk What'd you expect? He's black.
13 Dec 2008 ~ 12:15am primesuspect Yeah, when you shoot a sticky, it is destroyed.

Weezer, the teles do look different. Level 3 has a crazy hex pattern on the "spinner" and level two has rings of light radiating up from it.
13 Dec 2008 ~ 12:25am QCH I found that two lvl 3 dispensers can make a heavy almost invinsable.... almost. (Darn sniper... )
13 Dec 2008 ~ 12:49pm CB If there were a way to make a heavy invulnerable to a snipper headshot, the game would be broken... :/
13 Dec 2008 ~ 5:29pm QCH On some maps.... Snipers have total power to change the game...
14 Dec 2008 ~ 4:13pm BLuKnight That discount this weekend was too good to pass up. I'm installing (more like downloading) TF2 right now. I'll be the n00b that has no clue what he's doing and causes his team to lose. Hope to be online tonight.
15 Dec 2008 ~ 10:56am UPSWeezer

QCH2002 wrote:

On some maps.... Snipers have total power to change the game...

All the orange_x maps.
16 Dec 2008 ~ 12:18am Winfrey I mean come on. Singularly those groups get screwed over. All of them together leads to these kind of travesties.