Rezzed, The PC and Indie Games Show. Brighton, 6th-7th July 2012

Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Team Fortress 2: H.E. Rounds Of Love

By Kieron Gillen on September 22nd, 2009 at 11:55 am.

The above letter’s been posted on the TF2 blog. It’s an order form for an “Item Retrieving, Cannon-Appended Canine Unit”. Discuss.

__________________

« | »

, .

55 Comments »

  1. 22/09/2009 at 11:57 James G says:

    Dogs in the next update? Seems more of an engineer thing than a soldier thing.

  2. 22/09/2009 at 12:11 Mr Pink says:

    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 :)

    • 22/09/2009 at 12:29 FunkyB says:

      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.

  3. 22/09/2009 at 12:13 IdleThreatsandBadPoetry says:

    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

  4. 22/09/2009 at 12:13 Rinox says:

    Saxton Hale is the man. And Australian, too!

  5. 22/09/2009 at 12:15 Paul Moloney says:

    C’mon guys, when’s the Engineer updates, humph.

    P.

  6. 22/09/2009 at 12:18 Lu-Tze says:

    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”

  7. 22/09/2009 at 12:23 Optimaximal says:

    Brilliant work… this is one community idea that I hope Valve consider.

  8. 22/09/2009 at 12:26 itsallcrap says:

    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?

  9. 22/09/2009 at 12:31 Seniath says:

    Also note the full size images' alt text (viewable on http://www.teamfortress.com/1308.htm )…

  10. 22/09/2009 at 12:42 Mike says:

    Man. I would play the dog. :(

  11. 22/09/2009 at 13:22 Richeh says:

    I want one of those stamps. With my own name, obviously.

  12. 22/09/2009 at 13:23 Biggles says:

    That’s so cool. Do it! Do it!

  13. 22/09/2009 at 13:33 sexyresults says:

    Saw this yesterday, gotta love high quality fan-thingies!

  14. 22/09/2009 at 13:45 Farfarer says:

    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

  15. 22/09/2009 at 14:00 cyrenic says:

    I’m coming for you, you son of a bitch.

  16. 22/09/2009 at 14:05 TotalBiscuit says:

    Counting down to the massive flamewars and boycotts over this.

    • 22/09/2009 at 14:42 Clovis says:

      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!

  17. 22/09/2009 at 15:56 Vanderdecken says:

    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

  18. 22/09/2009 at 16:08 phuzz says:

    I wuv you Valve.

  19. 22/09/2009 at 16:53 TheBlackBandit says:

    Well, I’m not losing hope that there won’t be a dog update… Valve do have a habit of taking community ideas.

  20. 22/09/2009 at 17:14 Gorgeras says:

    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.

  21. 22/09/2009 at 17:35 PleasingFungus says:

    And velociutahraptors are about the right size, too!

  22. 22/09/2009 at 18:10 Tei says:

    /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

  23. 22/09/2009 at 18:30 Railick says:

    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!)

  24. 22/09/2009 at 18:35 IvanHoeHo says:

    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.

  25. 22/09/2009 at 18:42 LionsPhil says:

    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.

  26. 22/09/2009 at 19:13 Railick says:

    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.)

  27. 22/09/2009 at 19:30 Poet says:

    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.

  28. 22/09/2009 at 19:39 Tei says:

    Oh.. player controled dogs!.. thats a nice idea. Add wallwalking, and we have a Aliens mod :-)

  29. 22/09/2009 at 19:51 gryffinp says:

    @ValveNews is actually not Valve. @Valvesoftware is but @Valvesoftware never updates and @ValveNews does. Just something to keep in mind when interpreting those tweets.

  30. 22/09/2009 at 20:15 Rei Onryou says:

    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).

  31. 22/09/2009 at 20:32 Clovis says:

    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.

  32. 22/09/2009 at 22:09 Carra says:

    Some of the achievements on the spoof page are hilarious.

    Here’s my favorite:
    -Loch Ness Monster: Kill 25 demomans while underwater.

  33. 22/09/2009 at 23:46 RagingLion says:

    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.

  34. 23/09/2009 at 02:28 4Chan says:

    I’m in ur waterz, killin ur demoz

  35. 23/09/2009 at 03:03 Derek K. says:

    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!

    • 23/09/2009 at 04:31 Psychopomp says:

      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.

  36. 23/09/2009 at 04:22 CHIP9 says:

    I have this great feeling it’s about an Engi Update: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=951785

  37. 23/09/2009 at 09:23 george says:

    you’re joking right?

  38. 23/09/2009 at 19:44 Doc says:

    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.

  39. 26/09/2009 at 21:42 Uncle Frank Nipple Butter says:

    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.

Comment on this story

XHTML: Allowed code: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Search

Read our finest words

Respond to our gibber

Play indie, mods, demos

Browse the archive