By John Walker on May 15th, 2009 at 9:56 pm.
So it was all true. The Sniper update for TF2 has indeed been infiltrated by the Spy, Valve’s URL for the new content now changed to “/spyupdate”, the “/sniperupdate” address now gone. What on Earth does it all mean?
Well, first of all the first three pages of Sniper update info are still there, so it’s safe to assume he’ll still be seeing his new bits and pieces come Tuesday. But it seems the Spy is now joining him, with his first two updates revealed today.
First there’s the Dead Ringer Spy Watch, a brand new golden pocket watch. As many speculated last night, this is a device designed to create a ‘feign death’ move. Activated once the Spy has received a non-critical hit, he cloaks for up to eight seconds, while a fake corpse collapses to the ground.
Then there’s the Cloak And Dagger Spy Watch, a regenerating cloak device. Stand still and it will refill your power gauge, only draining when you move.
These are the two items selected from the Spy’s Dapper Rogue Catalogue, “Catalogue for the Gentleman Rogue”. Others featured include a suit made of macrofilm and a ski mask grappling hook. Of all those mentioned, perhaps the only other realistic option might be the flamethrower lighter.
So yes, everyone who saw the Spy’s incredibly occasional appearances behind the Sniper on yesterday’s update, and then made the intuitive leap to believe this some sort of elaborate Spy-based stunt revealing a secret Spy update… good grief, your paranoid lunacy was right for once. Surely endorsement like this cannot be productive. But did the Spy write the postcard? Are there lies within the lies? Are the secrets to the truth behind the Mayan codes in the source of the update site? Only more feverish speculation can decide.
Update: Kudos to DF7 for his grabbing this from the TF2 front page earlier, with the slip (?) reference to the Pyro being a girl.
Zut alors!
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I never did believe it was the Sniper update, anyway.
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So there’s no Sniperupdate at all? I figured they could do both at the same time, but with there being no sign of an actual sniper update in the last one, it’s probably just the spy.
Interesting stuff, though. I’m a fairly good spy, though its far from my best (or most played) class.
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Gentlefops
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No, the Sniper is still getting that gear.
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And did you catch the reference to the pyro as a she? Myth: CONFIRMED
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Surely they’re not fucking off the Sniper update after giving so muh info on his replacement weapons? That would be really stupid.
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I think the Baccarat detector may be OP >_>
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The ‘she’ll’ reference has now changed, didn’t see it myself so can’t even guarantee it was ever there.
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And this, for only $0.47:
:D
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“Myth: CONFIRMED”
Or they said that because of all the stupid hubbub over it.
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I don’t get it. Am I dumb?
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The Sniper update still exists. I’m so glad that they’re gearing the Spy too. :)
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DF7: They changed the front page to remove the reference to the Pyro being a She. My guess is that we are going to get a meet the Pyro video.
Personally I hope the Pyro is an automaton.
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I loled its a dual update folks to stop teams of only snipers or only spies form ruining games, valve said ages ago they were doing a dual update as it was unfair of achievement whores ruining the game for everyone.
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If they did meet the pyro and pyro is a girl my LIFE is COMPLETE
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Forums esplode’:
http://yfrog.com/5dposterityp
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Top shelf, but Spy already has the crab walking kit. Perhaps the flame thrower cigarette lighter’s the now standard taunt kill.
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I saw it with my own eyes. And with a screen grabber! linky
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I have a screencap of them referring to the pyro as “she”:
http://xs139.xs.to/xs139/09205/she_pyro105.png
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I hope they make the pyro ambiguous thats the whole point about the character bit like the joker in batman.
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Hang on – BOTH of those unlocks are watches. Does that mean no knife unlock?
Also, “she’ll” has been preserved on Google Reader.
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If you look on the page source it says “Spy sappin’ mah update” I loled again.
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They’re probably not done yet, Theory
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Question is which weapon does the dead ringer replace? My guess is the sapper.
Any idea how many “days” of updates left?
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Hahah, that pyro joke is awesome. Good stuff.
I’m a bit unsure if I like it that Valve is changing my favorite class. Two weapons left to be disclosed, one for both the sniper and spy. Plus hopefully some good video.
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It wasn’t all that paranoid, when you think about it. Valve freaking said they weren’t updating sniper on his own and a lot of people have enough memory to remember that.
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I just love them for having such good humor, plain funny those people at Valve. We are indeed amused.
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Makes sense to put the spy and sniper updates in together, it’ll disperse the “zomg everyone jump on class x” fever that happens with an update into two classes instead of one. And since they are counters to eachother anyway…
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Intriguing. My FPS rate is atrocious on TF2, so I long ago altered my config files to stop ragdolls (corpses of any kind, in fact) from rendering. I wonder how Valve intend to resolve this. I dare say not well from my poor old GPU’s perspective.
The Pyro reference was obviously bait. Let’s not get carried away here folks.
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@ Malibu Stacey
It could be 2 updates for one slot.
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I feel it’s possible they’re both non-weapon replacements; alternate versions of the cloak that allow a disguise centered playstyle or a …standing still based playstyle.
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I’m going to jump on the butthurt wagon along with others who have been posting this past week…
Time to find a new shooter.
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I love it.
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The pyro reference was a she, it went out on an RSS feed that automatically gets posted the Circle X Forums. So they changed it after the fact.
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Its probably a joke anyway as last night someone did photoshop the spy behind the sniper.
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I have to say that my brain hurts due to the epicness of this update.
(I was one of the few who actually kept on denying that this would be a Spy update, but the guys on the forums have been nattering on about it for so long, so it only made sense for Valve to deliver)
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It’ll be a great time to finally pick up the Scout achievements, as they’re the hardest to Snipe, and too fast to backstab.
Can’t wait for all this though.
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Dr. Lulz:
Epicness, yes. Epic fail.
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Top shelf!
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I like that Valve have attended the Popcap school of punning weaponry – this makes my day more pleasant.
Dead ringer indeed.
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More brilliant work from Valve. The only downside in my opinion is that I may not get to see an all-sniper team, or all-spy team go head to head. One of the things I look forward to is the hilarity of single-class teams. 12vs12 Scout teams were a riot!
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@BooleanBob
How is that even possible? My PC is 5+ years old and was a budget gamer rig then. TF2 runs perfectly. You might try verifying your cache/defrag/update vid drivers/lower vid driver settings, etc.
On topic: As some have said, updating two classes, especially counter classes, at the same time is a much better route.
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YES! THE PYRO IS A SHE! I WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG! HULK HOGAN’S HULKSENSE WAS TINGLING, BROTHER!
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Also note the date has changed on the blog front page, too. It’s coming Thursday, not Tuesday, so there’s still a lot more to unveil.
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Although they’ve changed the main post, all the sites and functions that take a direct RSS of the site (such as the facebook fansite http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/TeamFortress2?ref=ts) still has the original post where the pyro is (hinted) at being a she. However, you have to take everything into context of the whole paragraph.
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I’m pretty sure there’s going to be two more unlocks for the spy. I don’t think the fact that there’s two watches precludes the fact that the one or even any of them are replacing a weapon.
Remember the completely unused backpack they just added? Yeah…
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There is nothing in this update that does not fill me with joy.
(Very, very curious detail: the Baccarat-detecting engine (!), which claims an effective range of 200 miles, has on its readout ’469.237 KM’. Which is nearly 300 miles.
Clearly, this out-of-place number is the KEY TO ALL MYSTERIES. Use it in your favourite conspiracy theory! Decrypt it as a cypher! It’s only appropriate, after all. It’s the Spy update!)
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I hope they don’t let the community choose which watch is the alternative watch.
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FYI, I am excited.
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I just hope these updates are all part of one giant troll. Sadly, it is not April 1st.
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The update is a spy! My tacky joke came true!
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@Hulk Hogan
There are so many things wrong with… that. Hilarious, but just plain wrong.
Regardless, if the Pyro is a female, this means once again my favorite character is a female, just like Samus.
Also, is the “Cloak and Dagger” sales pitch written by John Hodgman? It’s certainly oddball enough to be, with the note about George Washington’s greatest regret not being invisible.
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with regards to the pyro thing, I think thats valve making a joke because of the rumours that circulated in the forums. Reading too much into things I think.
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@Ben that’s what I meant when I said ‘take it in context’.
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This is Valve, it probably wasn’t a slip with the Pyro’s gender at all. Of course, we’ll probably never know anyway. :P
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OK I don’t actually play the game anymore (utterly crippling lag was included as a feature in the Pyro update) but I have to admit that the reveal was a pretty good joke.
Hey David Brynes advertising the Macrofilm suit.
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I don’t even really like TF2, but I love reading the TF2 blog and these character updates are always really entertaining. Kudos to valve, it actually makes me want to play a game that I know I don’t really enjoy. They are marketing geniuses.
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That’s it, I’m going to have to dig TF2 out again. The spy class just became interesting again!
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How can you tell what the pyro is? I’m sure if they did do a video it would be the pyro talking and you can’t understand it and it keeps showing all these streange photos and scenes that would make sense if you could understand the pyro but since you can’t, you don’t understand WTF is going on ever.
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Hahahahhaha. This is amazing.
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Gentlemen. And Pyro. GOD DAMN IT. IT DOESN’T WORK ANYMORE.
@Serondal, I think Valve confirmed that the Pyro is indeed female.
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xt0rt: You seem like the only one who hates this update. So, I’m sad to say buddy, you’re alone on that.
It was and it is still epic. The question remains though will the Sniper Updates count, or won’t they? Because if they don’t, I’ll be very upset. It was nice not having the typical update (e.g. new Sniper rifle and a new SMG gun… -_-)
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Awesome, I love you VALVE.
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Slip reference? Obviously the pyro “she” is another trolling attempt. There was no reason otherwise to include the pyro statement there, it was deliberate.
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Would.
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I think they may be replacing the basic watch with the “Cloak and Dagger” version, but I may be wrong. They’re both certainly replacements for the invisibility watch – so don’t even try to claim they’re replacements for knife/revolver/disguisekit.
Also, I DO have that exact quote in my Google Reader history (about the pyro being female). I think the team could just be messing with us, but I’m not sure.
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I love how Valve entertains the community with these little things. Fun!
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No other game developer can amuse and delight with just a news update on their website like Valve can.
I’m still grinning and chuckling to myself, and I don’t know whether it’s the surprise Spy update or the pyro “slip” that has me more amused.
Thanks, Valve, for salvaging what was otherwise a pretty foul day.
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Valve has always been masterful with their relationship with the community. There are always people out there that are going to complain , they’ve proven that as well. People complain when there is no after release support, they now complain when there is to much after release support O.o People are going to complain no matter what they do but they don’t let that get them down. Boot to the angry internet man’s face.
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Valve are awesome.
I cant wait to hide in a map for the entire match and nobody will find me or even know I’m there.
Also I wonder if you can stick arrows to cloaked spies and are able to spot the arrow bobbing about.
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I am speechless…
/clap /clap /clap
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First one is nice as it brings a little more point to cloaking as a different class of your own team.
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“I wonder how Valve intend to resolve this. I dare say not well from my poor old GPU’s perspective.”
If you never see bodies anyway, it won’t matter. But to other people it will – you’ll still think they’re ‘dead.’
I love how Valve just collectively foot-to-ball’d everyone making fun of people for thinking it was a Spy update as well.
Awesome work Valve, I love you.
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The Sniper is most certainly not the counter to the Spy. I really hope that was mistyped.
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@people who don’t like unlocks.
You are aware that there are servers that have *unlocks turned off,* right?
Fuck, do your research before getting on the BAWagon.
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@Eriam It may matter if the feign death body is handled diffrent than the normal dead body, which is doubtful. But if it was handled diffrently and didn’t just disappear when the Spy feigned death he’d be abel to tell it was fake. Though i’m sure everyone is just going to assume from now on that spys are never really dead ;P
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Zut Alors!
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Holy ****! You guys were right. Congratz, internets!
(It’s friday night, ok?)
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So does this mean the Razorback doesn’t actually work then?
¬_¬
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Question: Does a death message appear and do you get a point for a feign death kill? If there is no death message it’ll be pretty bloody easy to spot.
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Haha, I like their style. Assuming it’s not a hoax, the reference to the pyro as a female is the icing on the cake. Especially since they seem to have done it in the same way as yesterday’s spy — here one minute, gone the next.
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Its a joint spy/sniper update folks http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/58658
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It can be a double update, we might see snipers new melee weapon sticking out of spys cheast next day in “Meet the sniper” fashion. That would be super awesome since Spy and Sniper are the most annoying classes and a special hatred towards each other.
-Post pointlessified.
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@ Calabi: And I can’t wait to set you and a thousand other spys on fire. I’m warming up my left middle and right index fingers ‘cos I think I’m going to be going pyro for a few days.
:)
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i hope the camera beard returns as cosmetic headgear. Mmmm.
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The Sniper is most certainly not the counter to the Spy.
Not at short range, no. Spies tend to be pretty obvious near their home base, when they’re confident they have teammates and cover. A scoped rifle comes in pretty handy to spot a suspicious red coming out of the blue base, or preventing a backstab in the middle of a pitched battle.
ETA: I love that the baccarat detector is pointed up, presumably away from the curvature of the earth, and has detected baccarat at 450,000 kilometres away.
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All I can say, as a spy player, is this:
Yes please.
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I love how they mess with all TF2 fans’ heads. First uncloaking spy for 10 minutes, now hint about Pyro gender. I’m thrilled to see what’s next.
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Seeing the Spy and Duke pictures next to each other on the front page is a very odd experience.
But not quite as odd as being metaphorically backstabbed by Valve. Go Valve!
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I think the Pyro’s gender has been “revealed” only to spawn a heated discussion. We will NEVER know the true gender of the Pyro and it should stay that way.
As to the two watches – I think the old one might be replaced by them, so we won’t have to choose. Remember how Valve said that the Spy became quite ineffective and they wanted to alter his gameplay altogether? This might be their move.
Anyways – big upz to Valve! They kept their promise of NOT filling servers with Snipers. :-D
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Brilliant! I honestly thought I was going to have to stop playing for awhile until the Sniper rush calmed down, but with a spy rush to balance it out this should be an entertaining time to be playing TF2.
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Wow, so the spy can feign now? Wasn’t there another popular game released 10 years ago, that still has an active community today, where the spy can do that? Hmmm. It’s on the tip of my tounge. Team Frogtress Classic? No, no, that’s not right. Teams Fortress Clandestine? No, no, it’s right there. I wonder what it could possibly be…oh yes, Team Fortress Classic. And the game has grenades.
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the handwriting on the sniper’s postcard and the spy’s order form are different, so at least we know the postcard is really from the sniper….. or is it?
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The pyro = female thing has been “confirmed” by Valve once before. See this RPS story from June 2008.
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Well played, Valve.
New meet the team video nao please
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@J.Edgar Hoover: Unsuccessful troll is unsuccessful. :-P
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It intercepts the low-frequency baccarat signals that bounce off the ionosphere!
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“Wasn’t there another popular game released 10 years ago, that still has active bots today, where the spy can do that, but can’t cloak, and it has no practical use in game? ”
“the game has grenade spam, and terrible terrible balancing issues.”
Fixed.
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It intercepts the low-frequency baccarat signals that bounce off the ionosphere!
Presumably low-flying aliens leeching from unsecured WiFi and playing baccarat over Facebook.
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God bless you Valve!
It’s a shame that the Spy’s new options are so cloak-centric. I wish they’d buff disguises. Being stabbed by the guy you’ve been healing for the last minute generates much merriment for all involved, whereas being suddenly stabbed in the back by The Predator as you’re plodding back to the frontline is no fun at all.
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Wow.
I haven’t felt THIS out of the loop since…well, the last time. What IS this game that it’s practically developed a sub-culture all its own???
You multiplayer gamers are CRAZY. *taps side of head repeatedly*
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Speaking as a lifelong cardholding pyro, (and no, I’m not going into the whole gender issue thing here – that’s between us and our GPs), I can’t see how feigning death is going to be particularly beneficial for spies against us.
All we have to do is continue spewing an arc of flame around the area where the spy has died and we’ll catch any devious little miscreants using that watch instantly – unless Valve are planning on making them invulnerable for a few seconds as well…
And yes, how they handle the whole death message thing should be very interesting. Either we’ll get points for not killing someone or it will be blatantly obvious that our target is pulling a fast one.
And will this be any use to spies against sentries? If they get caught in the line of heavy artillery fire, there’s no way they’d be able to escape using that watch, surely? Unless, again, they are given a few seconds of invulnerabilty.
Not that I’d put it past them. They are dirty, sneaky, rotten little buggers after all. Burn ‘em. Burn ‘em all.
Looking forward to seeing how this all pans out next week…
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Wonder if we might see a similar dual update for the engineer and the demoman if this double helping of unlocks works well.
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Huh, and there was me thinking they were just teasing “Meet the Spy”.
Love the little touches they’re putting into this update and, like unique_identifier, am hoping the Camera Beard™ becomes the Spy’s new headgear.
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Both at once, or was the Sniper Update nothing moar than a clever ruse?
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Baccarat 450,000km away? That’d be the MOON wouldn’t?
Moonbase maps please! :)
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Must play TF2 again. Valve sirs, wear your money hats with pride.
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Take a look at the source code of the webpage of the spy update.
“!– Spy sappin’ mah update //–”
Excellent.
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Deadringer a possible replacement for the sapper? I think it would make sense. It would remove his ability to destroy the engineers “toys” and increase his ability to avoid being attacked by other players. Cloak + Dagger just looks like a watch replacement.
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Whoa, this is awesome. I love Valve. <3
I suppose this answers one of the questions about the Razorback – it doesn’t necessarily have to replace anything. It could be an optional extra (which I might not go for, at those rare times I play sniper I like to have mobility).
xtort: we get it, you don’t like it.
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The sniper is a spy!
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One of the best things about this update is the new art direction for the maps… finally, valve decided to try something new.
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You know what? Later today there will be screen grabs of a mysterious figure behind the spy. He strokes his improbably thing moustache, and strikes the spy in the back in the neck with his umbrella cane…
;-P
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Female pyro? I dude by the name of superaldo’s way ahead of you :P
http://www.superaldo.com/files/pyro/pyro_girl_ingame.jpg
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=847163
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I’m surprised that RPS didn’t mention this a few weeks ago http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/04/30/it039s-ugly-valve-sues-activision-activision-threatens-sue-valve Valves back in court.
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Did anyone else notice that all the products on the Spy’s page are made by Saxton Hale, whose job title is “CEO, Australian”? Maybe its just a coincidence (after all, it is “MANN CO.” and that stereotyped Australian manliness works perfectly for the joke), but perhaps the sniper and the person selling the spy his gear are in some way related (like, perhaps, Saxton Hale is the Sniper’s dad). I have no idea what that would mean, but I thought it was interesting.
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Saxton Hale sells gentlemen items to gentlemen. TF2 really is a Gentlemen’s club, after all. Hence the MAN in MANN CO.
I don’t think Saxton Hale is related to the Sniper. Him and his company are just fuelling the war between corporations, ‘s all.
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I just noticed this on the TF main page:
All those conspiracy theorists on the TF forum couldn’t have been right all along, could they? Pyro’s going to be inconsolable now.
So Pyro is not only a she, but has a thing going on with Sniper??
EDIT: Arg, main post stealth updated!
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The key difference here is that the spy is not feigning death: he’s getting an instant replica corpse while he cloaks and moves away.
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Wow, Valve is seriously into brainfucking the community, they uploaded “Meet The Spy” video on Youtube and then removed it after a couple of views.
I’m so thrilled, despite all the serious business talk they still have ametuerish, immature nature of ye’oldé game designers.
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The dead ringer sounds awesome, I can get away most of the time with just the normal cloak, and they know I’m escaping. If they even have a seconds hesitation, believing me to be dead, I’ll be able to make an escape. Sounds like it will be quite useful if you friendly disguise, and then get shot by somebody, they will never expect it.
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Meet the spy videos up folks, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTj6tauY1JU&fmt=18
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Tf2 porn? So this is why the updates take so long…
Is the Scout’s mom the Pyro?
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Beautiful, absolutely beautiful.
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Fugging awesome. Just… awesome.
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Valve has done it again..
I love their sense of humour..
Absolutely pure epic..
I love valve and TF2 team.. Actually i got to go and buy a valve&tf2 t-shirt :)
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It’s not a slip mention of the Pyro being a girl, Valve has been doing this for a while now, randomly referring to the Pyro as he or she. Sort of like they did with Ed from Cowboy Bebop.
Valve has a terrific sense of humor and a real nack for running jokes.
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but on the tf2 trading cards the pyro is called a he….
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Some folks claimed that there wont be a “sniper update” and this is all a joke..
Lol, it looks like there is..
I hope it is not a joke :)
Anything may happen in valve…
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I hope the Pyro is a Man because then when i play as him they will start making jokes saying the pyro is a women class are YOU a women? Dammit if he was a robot that’d be AWESOME!
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OH SH!T i figured it out! Sorta, The Pyro is the snipers mother.
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what the hell are you doing posting on this old dead article?
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