By Kieron Gillen on October 29th, 2009 at 7:40 pm.
I’m dragged out of the joy of having a pet which I’ve trained to summon other pets in Torchlight by the B who informs me there’s been a stealth Halloween Team Fortress 2 update. Which is a fairly urgent thing to post anyway, made more so by news of a two-hour sale of TF2 for 2.49 (either dollars, euros or pounds). I stress, for two hours, which ends at 2pm PST. So imagine Valve returning from lunch to press a big red bargain-destroying button. Really, while I suspect most RPSites will have it already, at that price you may consider buying ‘em for friends for Christmas or something. Oh – the Halloween patch. Includes seasonal achievements, a new map and explosive pumpkins. No, really.
Oh yes. If you’re really in the mood for rushing, the first 10,319 people to go here get a free hat. Rush.
Hats have already gone.
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Hats already gone :(
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Well, that was fast. Valve really has to allow more people to reap the rewards from these. I missed the last one, too.
Ben
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You can still get the hat if you’re really desperate for it. You just need to dominate someone else that’s wearing theirs.
Teach those smug hat wearers.
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the site told me I just got one :)
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I’m really tempted to just buy twenty of them and be done with half my friends for XMas.
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And of course, I bought this last night…
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unlucky :P
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Yay, got a hat.
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Don’t believe the message saying they’re already out. I’ve had it say they have more to give and that they’re out. I have yet to have it give me a confirmation after clicking the “get my hat” button, though. Looks like the server is getting hit so hard it doesn’t know which way is up :).
Finally got a “success” message just as I wrote this. Keep trying till you get a “success” message.
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Yeah, got a success eventually. Weird.
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You’d better watch your back. I’m going to dominate you so hard!
…Wow, that didn’t come out right.
…Wait, nor did that!
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I was able to get one just fine. Thanks for the tip, that’s my first TF2 hat!
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But you already have the halo for not being a cheater, right?
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Oh wow. I really messed that up. Double posted, and I didn’t quote like I wanted to.
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I don’t, actually. I started playing a week or so after those were given out :(
(Please tell me I got this complicated replying stuff correct this time)
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Anyway, beyond the hat discussion, this is pretty cool. Look foward to playing a bit of TF2 this weekend (although anticipate more Borderlands)
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Next time, I’ll tell Kieron about this stuff after I’ve got mine…
*Ahem*
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So, are micro deals the future? Nothing inspires panic like a time limit.
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I’m tempted to buy it again! How much time do I have left?
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Just under an hour Phill
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One of the new (temporary?) achievements involves unlocking that hat by dominating someone who’s wearing it. :)
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50 minutes left on the sale, and I’m having trouble trying to figure out who gets the el cheapo copy. That’s my thing with these super-duper-deals: buy it cheap, and give to a friend.
If anyone wants it, lemme know by soon.
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Hello friend I would like it please. lol
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I clicked the “Get Hat Now” thingy. It took me back to the “Claim Hat” page. I clicked again and it told me “Sorry, we’re all out of headswear!” Then I pressed F5, and it said “Success! You’ll have your lovely accoutrement soon!”
What?
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It’s nice to see Valve still actively supporting this title, even if their particular choices in the way of updates have pretty much turned me off to the game. As to the sale, that’s a marvelous deal, but I honestly don’t know anyone who 1) doesn’t already own it and 2) isn’t already burnt out on it.
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Aw, I’m not *entirely* burnt off from it. And I’ll certainly play tonight. But I guess I don’t play it all the time. Events like these always pull me back to the game, though, and that’s really cool.
Ben
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The sniper/spy update pretty well assassinated my last vestiges of interest. Fitting, really.
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I still play TF2 every night
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Good for you. :)
I honestly can’t imagine remaining interested in an FPS that long, it’s just not my genre.
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Too bad for you. :)
I don’t get much chance to play it anymore but I’m still finding it fun when I do.
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This isn’t just any old FPS, friend.
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No, it’s not just any old FPS, it was good for about a hundred hours of real enjoyment and was easily the best forced-multiplayer FPS I’ve ever played. Towards the end, though, the achievement-unlock system was all that was really still keeping me playing, so when that was totally undermined by the random drops thing it kind of killed off the last vestiges of interest. I’ve tried to go back a couple of times, but I’m just tired of it. That’s not a criticism of the game, it’s just evidence that I burn out on even the best FPS after a comparatively short period of time (relative to when I burn out on strategy and RPG titles, specifically).
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@Neut
Nah, it works out fine for me, I’ve got way too much stuff to play as it is, and can’t seem to tear myself away from playing Sword of the Stars for hours a night. I’m glad you’re still enjoying it, though, and hope you’re able to find more time to indulge. :)
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curse you firewall! Yet another reason to quit my job and become a full time internet wanderer. I would have loved to have bought this for my brother (his birthday tomorrow) *sigh*
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Just a FYI guys, there is an achievement in which you dominate a player wearing the Gibus to get a Gibus yourself.
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forgot the link: http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn181/psycrowtik/tf2hallo.png
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Crap, in the past 2 hours I played I dominated 5 different people, but none of them had a Gibus. In the same period I got dominated by 3 other players and guess what they were all wearing…
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I bought TF2 faster than I’ve ever bought any game before.
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I’ve just bought two copies for mates but am now waiting for damnable paypal to auth the sodding transaction. this feels like one of those moments when i will discover i have bought it six times
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Damn, why did I have to be doing some scripting in ArmA II.
Also, I totally beat The_B to the punch with my forum post about this, I demand recognition. Unless I didn’t, but both his twitter and my post say one hour ago. Still, shut up. Okay, I’ll be quiet.
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RPS needs more threads about getting hats and the difficulties of getting hats. I was inspired by the stories of perseverance paying off in the form of a hat.
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Thanks for the tip, just got the game, really great offer!
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Well, whaddayaknow; the game seems to be unavailable at this time!
Now I can’t explode people with pumpkins :(
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Sometimes that just means that you have to click on it again.
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My Steam won’t even log me in anymore. No idea whats going on, might be my connection or it might be the servers taking a huge battering.
I really just want to play Borderlands tonight. :( I can play TF2 tomorrow once all the servers are up to date and running the spooky stuff.
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My TF2 doesn’t seem to have updated. :( I need to dominate people…
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The update’s going to happen later on today, you’ve got Steam Time to factor in there after all. To make it pass quicker you could always have a read of the Last Will and Testament of Zeheniah Mann.
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What would a TF2 update be without hidden pages?
http://www.teamfortress.com/pumpkinpatch/the_last_will_and_testament_of_Zepheniah_Mann/
http://www.teamfortress.com/pumpkinpatch/family_portrait/
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We’ve seen that woman by the bed somewhere before.
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I am very bad at finding secret things.
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If you click the gravestone on the update page you get what appears to be the TF2 backstory…for those who think TF2 needs a backstory.
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Dammit!
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And of course I learn of this at 2:02… fuck!
I was going to buy this for everyone I know who doesn’t have it, haha.
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Bah, I learned of this at 8.55, but couldn’t log into Steam until 9.03. I bin robbed guvner.
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So what, you don’t get these achievements during the next few days, you can’t get the hats at all?
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http://www.teamfortress.com/pumpkinpatch/family_portrait/
So, we have Hale, Announcer, Blutarch and Redmond, a dog and a the mysterious other person.
How I love Valve updates…
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That is definitely the dog from the Guard Dog fake update/patent thing. I love Valve!!
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strangely reminds me of the family portrait from Clive Barker’s Undying, you know the one.
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The hat is viral – awesome.
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I missed the super sale due to playing TF2.
Damn!
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willl get craking on those achievements tomorrow..hope to see this map on RPS community server! :)
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Is the RPS TF2 server still about? It’s been worryingly missing from my server favourites for about a week now.
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I have a four digit steam ID but I’ll never manage to get any of these give away items.
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Speaking of Steam (we are all speaking of Steam, right?) Anyone else notice Russian indie darling Hammerfight go live today? Bought it immediately but I’ve gone over quota this month so downloading it is painfully slow :(
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Any significance to the numbers 249 or 10319?
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Is it just me, or does the family portrait look like the Covenants from Clive Barker’s Undying?
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Never mind, 10319, Halloween.
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Silly American date format – it should have been the first 311009 users (or 31109 if you’re missing the 0 from 09 as they did).
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I’d expect technical people to use the 20091031 format. Or 91031
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I actually don’t. I started playing a week or so after those were given out :(
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I don’t, actually. I started playing a week or so after those were given out :(
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Ah, I wondered why every server I went on was full of idiots whining about hats and complaining whenever I shot at them. I really wish people would name their fooling around servers. Hmph.
Love the ‘ghost chasing everyone’ image, though.
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So basically TF2 has an awesome backstory now, and it’s Valve’s reverse fanfic.
The announcer is the lady in the portrait (based on fan art), and the dog is the one from the community-made “10th class update.” The two brothers, given partnership over the land per the will, are the forebears of the RED and BLU teams. And now we know the origins of the legendary Saxon Hale.
But who is the mysterious person left out of the will? And who is that person hidden in the family portrait?
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Thanks for summing it up for me; I’m too lazy to read that will :\
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I wish they would put a similar amount of love and effort into L4D :/
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Did any grab any extra copy while it was on sale? I tried to buy it but their servers crapped out and wouldn’t process my order and when they came back up the price was back to normal :(
I emailed support and they said they had over 17,000 purchases in less than 1 hour.
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Has anyone been playing the new festival map? I absolutely love it. One of the extremely rare night time maps that the game has, and it’s made better with awesome lighting effects… The lights flicker on and off, and when the ghost moves along hallways it becomes dark. The exploding pumpkins, the crit boosting pumpkins, the candy for health packs… Lovely touches by Valve.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time running around as the Heavy on server trying to punch people with my KGBs. I’m trying to help people get their domination achievements so that they can get the hats too. It would be nice if the RPS server could run this map for the duration of the event (uptil Nov 2nd) so that we could have some fun with it.
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Yes, it is most excellent. It adds a whole new layer to sniper tactics when you can aim for those exploding pumpkins, and it’s just hilarious when you charge the enemy, and then – oops – a ghost appears around the corner and makes you run like a little girl :)
On a related note, does anyone know if the halloween-specific stuff is all time-limited, i.e. gone real soon? Because I’m kind of wondering if I need to play the hell out of the new map now before it turns into a vanilla version without all the funs. And what about the hats and achievements?
In any case this bodes well for a similar christmas event :D
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The Mildly Disturbing Mask, although a “permanent” unlock has a caveat in its description that it can only be used during Halloween. Hopefully that means it’ll be available next year to everyone who has unlocked it already, but at the minute it’s too early to tell.
The Gibus would apprear to be a permanent unlock, there’s no caveat in its description. Once again it’s too early to be sure though.
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Yea I would imagine that the paper bag hat is temporary while the Gibus is permanent. I actually like the paper bag, especially the Scout and Pyro versions of it. At first, I was hoping that they would let us keep them permanently, but after thinking about it, I have to say that it would somewhat ruin the artistic decor of TF2 if people were running around with paper bags on their heads for all time to come. Enjoy them while it lasts I say :)
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I don't really see how Valve can remove all these goodies. Things like the hats possibly, as I guess the items and backpacks are handled by their Steam servers, but the map will surely be around for people to make servers with it running on.
I think the exploding pumpkins are such a great little feature and I can imagine them being added to other maps too (though an art redesign to make them more appropriate may be necessary.) The ghost is a great touch too, but feel that may be more likely to grate.
Played for about two hours last night and very nearly got all the achievements. Just the kill a spy disguised as the same class as you left. Anyone know if you get anything for getting them all, or is it just the domination and pumpkin candy stashes that reward you with unlocks?
Haven't played the regular variation of the new map, but it seems really good. Good mix of close range and distances. Only played it with about 20 players, but I could imagine more players may make it a bit cramped, but I still found it to be very enjoyable.
I look forward to their Christmas event.
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Valve controls the game version of every single player in the world. If they pushed out an update that disabled the map or somehow removed it, then you would either have to live with it or never update TF2 again. That’s how they can remove stuff from the game.
You get nothing for all the 5 achievements… the 2 hats tied to the 2 achievements are the only unlockable items.
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You mean, if I made a copy of the map and changed the name they would still be able to delete it? Doubt that very much. They won't be able to stop people from playing the map after the event, as well as them having no reason to stop it.
Played for a little longer this evening and got the last achievement. Pity it doesn't unlock anything extra. My only problem with the update is that there appears to be a huge hit on frame rate when the map is reloaded or a new server playing the same map is joined. Had this happen yesterday and today, as well as seeing a thread on the Steam forums complaining about it. Sure there will be a fix on Monday for this though, even if the event is about to end.
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Anybody else having trouble with the achievements registering? This morning I got 3 of the Halloween achievements but didn’t get the hats associated with them. Later when I rebooted the game the achievements were gone, but the ones I got yesterday were still in my list.
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