The above letter’s been posted on the TF2 blog. It’s an order form for an “Item Retrieving, Cannon-Appended Canine Unit”. Discuss.
Related Stories:
Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Team Fortress 2: H.E. Rounds Of Love
Posted by Kieron Gillen on September 22nd, 2009 at 11:55 am.
Share:« Flowfase’s Particle (It’s A Demo) | Thoughts On: Heroes Over Europe »
Read our finest words
Respond to our gibber
- Vinraith : “It really is completely brilliant, despite its numerous flaws. If there's ever been another survival horror RPG/strategy game I'm certainly not aware of it. It's ...” on The RPS Bargain Bucket: Bundles Of Fun
- Matzerath : “Nothing too exciting. More money for beer and Fort Zombie. No really, you guys, there's more to that game than meets the eye!!! It needs ...” on The RPS Bargain Bucket: Bundles Of Fun
- Jacob Hansen : “Massively is a bit like politics, you know they've done wrong before... very wrong, enough to make you remove their page from your bookmars... but ...” on Inevitable Call of Duty MMO Rumour
- Phinor : “Frontlines was an instant buy for 2.49€. I had already forgotten about the game but I'll definitely check it out during the Christmas holiday. Also ...” on The RPS Bargain Bucket: Bundles Of Fun
- UK_John : “Why does the UK miss out on so much?! First the plastic box, no map Dragon Age Collector's Edition in the UK now great software ...” on The RPS Bargain Bucket: Bundles Of Fun
Play indie, mods, demos
Browse the archive
Dogs in the next update? Seems more of an engineer thing than a soldier thing.
I don’t think so. “Cannon appended” surely suggests an alternate fire for the rocket launcher? I’m guessing it lets you collect health/ammo at range? If so, that seems a strange unlockable to me, but there you go.
I had assumed that the cannon were appended on the canine unit, rather than vice versa. Although a gun that shoots dogs (or rather that fires dogs, I guess all guns can shoot dogs) would be… interesting.
If you click the images, you end up here:
http://guarddog.50webs.com/
Obviously some fan made the guard dog page and Valve saw it.
Awesome.
Great spot mickiscoole. That does explain it a bit better, so clearly my initial assumptions were wrong. Perhaps this a red herring then, and is just included for laughs :)
I’m pretty sure it is just for the lols. The forums had been going bonkers about this Guard Dog thing for a few days before this blog post.
Regarding the fake update that this blog is referring to (http://guarddog.50webs.com/) I’m amazed by the quality of the artwork. The English is a little flaky but I presume it was not the author’s first language.
You see, this is why I love Valve. They have a unique relationship with the community and a crazy sense of humor. I LUV U GUYS VALVE! <3<3
I would fully agree with you if I was reading this like a month ago… but.. yea..
Halos
Must I say more?
Yes, you must.
Saxton Hale is the man. And Australian, too!
C’mon guys, when’s the Engineer updates, humph.
P.
Valve made it clear on their Twitter it’s just a joke/repost of a community thing, there’s even a link on the page to the forum thread where the guy originally posted it.
Obviously, all the Engineers are now going “no wait, this is a totally awesome idea because I can swap the shotgun for a dog whistle which lets me change his mode between ‘Patrol’ for sniffing out spies and ‘Fetch’ for going and grabbing me metal”
Brilliant work… this is one community idea that I hope Valve consider.
Actually, I believe I mentioned both the post and the non-valve URL in the Left 4 Teletubbies thread at 11:22am.
Why does no one listen to me?
It’s ok, we all realize how cool you are. Shame on us for not noticing your amazing radiance. You just gush superiority.
Also note the full size images' alt text (viewable on http://www.teamfortress.com/1308.htm )…
‘THIS JUST GOT ALT-TEXTED BY SAXTON HALE’
Not just alt-text, but title, too, so people who aren’t using IE can see it,
It’s perfectly possible to determine alt-text in Firefox. Just right-click and go to Properties.
Man. I would play the dog. :(
I want one of those stamps. With my own name, obviously.
That’s so cool. Do it! Do it!
Saw this yesterday, gotta love high quality fan-thingies!
Very nicely done, although it’s just missed the TF2 art style.
And really, you should be able to extinguish burning team mates by urinating on them :P
Or at least just extinguish their legs…
I’m coming for you, you son of a bitch.
Your application is pending, you son-of-a-bitch.
Counting down to the massive flamewars and boycotts over this.
Some people are upset that L4D’s support and updates are not as good as TF2’s. Those people are missing the more important thing to rant about: How awful the support and updates are for TF2, and all the broken promises. This guard dog nonsense is just the latest in a long line of disappointments with the evil corporate goons at Valve. In a dream I had, Gabe Newell said that he would provide us with an entire cast of new characters for TF2, for free. Nothing but lies from that jerk. That was the worst $10 I ever spent! Never again!
Wonderful spoof, I bet the guy’s so chuffed that Valve recognised it – but he deserved it, the fake update page is brilliant.
☐ SINCERELY / ☑ UP yours,
Vanderdecken
I wuv you Valve.
Well, I’m not losing hope that there won’t be a dog update… Valve do have a habit of taking community ideas.
I’ve long argued for a Velociraptor to be the 10th class in TF2, but no one seems to have ever taken it seriously.
It would never happen if they actually put a guard dog in though; there’s only room for one vicious animal.
And
velociutahraptors are about the right size, too!/voice fake dev
Implementing a PET is a huge change for a game. Since it expose any hidden bug on the pathfinding, and may need changes on the prediction code.
There are OPEN features and CLOSED features.
OPEN is bad. A feature like a PET will be never “closed” there will be always more changes, tweaking and fixing.
CLOSED is god. Is something like a command to show your ping on the screen. Once you done it, is stay “working” more or less forever. A perfectly closed feature will work forever and no one will ask for enhancements.
A dog is a horrrible OPEN idea.
/voice off
It isn’t a pet tei it would be a class you could play first person and have nothing to do with pathfinding.
( hahahaha, I edited a comment, proof of concept!)
Good stuff, that.
It’s just that every time I see comments like “THIS is why I love [company A]“, I’m slightly unnerved by the feeling that I’m witnessing, or worse, participating in a massive circle-jerk. Maybe it’s just me.
I wouldn’t put it past Valve to triple-bluff the community by making some subset of this real at some point.
But, yeah, an AI-controlled dog would require map pathing, which may not even be there (there are no bots in TF2, right?). A new class would be a balance nightmare, especially for something fast with a small hitbox—too much overlap with the scout.
All this talk about AI-controlled dogs is coming out of no where. The spoof was for a new class for players. (there are several faked First person shots from the dogs point of view) It would be freaking cool of they did add this class to the game, I don't think balancing would be all that big of a problem the dog would be a support character. (personally I think if they did add it, it should be unable to actually capture the flag with its gabber.)
As long as it can be blowd up I’m ok with it, unless it one hit kills you by latching onto your balls or something.
Oh.. player controled dogs!.. thats a nice idea. Add wallwalking, and we have a Aliens mod :-)
@ValveNews is actually not Valve. @Valvesoftware is but @Valvesoftware never updates and @ValveNews does. Just something to keep in mind when interpreting those tweets.
Awesome. I’d definitely play as a dog if I could. Valve are made of win (as well as the guy who came up with this).
I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet, but I don't want dogs added to TF2 or any other game since I find it disagreeable to shoot them. I cringe a bit when playing World at War because of this. And if Valve actually added doggies I bet they would be kinda' cute, and that makes it even worse. Most people are focusing on playing as the dogs, but what about killing them?? Bleh.
But shooting people is fine?
Some of the achievements on the spoof page are hilarious.
Here’s my favorite:
-Loch Ness Monster: Kill 25 demomans while underwater.
Indeed an amazing quality of fan work went into that spoof update. I’m sure the guys in the Valve offices were equal parts astounded and loved it, which is why they then brought it to more people’s attention.
I’m in ur waterz, killin ur demoz
If this were to be real, I Think it would a total conversion for the Engi – it’s way too powerful to replace the turret, and it would require AI code to make it run around.
However, if the engi could *be* the dog, instead of a human, that would work out pretty well. You get the turrets, the dispenser, the tp (the hunting bit). You’re set!
Given the communities track record, when it comes to predicting how powerful unlocks are going to be, I don’t put much weight in “X will be OP” statements anymore.
I have this great feeling it’s about an Engi Update: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=951785
you’re joking right?
Hey, did you guys even go to the 2nd day on this thing?
http://guarddog.50webs.com/update_02.html
Not only does it show some more fan art, but there’s even a letter at the bottom from the author of the images.
Actually, think about it. The dog could replace a weapon for the engi, say… the shotgun. Get rid of all it’s little extra weapons and make it just a spy detector. Once you build a sentry/dispenser/tele, stick the dog next to it and the dog will go into a barking frenzy any time a spy comes in the perimeter. You can give it a little hp so it can be blown up by enemies.
Even better, it’s a robot dog and it goes on the build menu of an engi.