By Kieron Gillen on January 14th, 2010 at 2:20 pm.
For many years, I have had a fantasy. My fantasy involves the Team Fortress 2 Spy, with a deformed parrot perched on his shoulder. Who could resist such a thing? A mustachioed bigamist, that’s who, and they should be shunned. But I’ve tried to forget about it, knowing it could never be. Except now, news reaches me – via blues via the TF2 blog – that Valve are now accepting submissions for in-game items and avatars from human beings who are not Valve software. Perhaps those high from the success of Rock Paper Shotgunity will join me? Perhaps, but I don’t care. I am making a parrot. I will make the parrot.
Mechanical parrot? DO IT.
report
I’ve been wondering how the trading/crafting system would ever be useful with only a very limited number of items left available… Hopefully the influx from this will be enough to make the above worthwhile. (the quality of said new items is as always a concern but I guess TF2 is Valves baby; they’re going to be careful with what they stuff into it.)
On a completely unrelated note I just though of a pun, so I’m going to post it here otherwise I’ll forget
Avatar was a film of Titanic length.
report
Ouch.
report
oh yes! make it! make it now!
one question, what will it do? other than look really cool?
: )
report
In my mind I like seeing TF2 as the king of VALVe’s hill, always getting new shiny toys. This is great. I am Excited.
report
Awesome idea, really. Make that parrot!
report
Worrying idea. Does this mean some day people might have to pre-cache 16384 custom hat/weapon models when loading a map? After all you wouldn’t like to freeze for a second in the middle of a game to load custom models used by a player who just joined..
report
It seems these submitted and vetted items are being added to the game, so everyone will have the content downloaded as part of tf2 itself. I wonder how many they’ll accept on a weekly/monthly basis.
report
aaaahhhh curse, i misread your post. If only I knew anything about how tf2/source loads content.
report
I expect TF2 will start to precache hats and weapons through the same process as player sprays.
report
If you don’t own any expensive modelling software, Blender can export to Source.
report
It’s even easier than that. They’re accepting any of the following formats: .QL, .OBJ, .DMX, .SMD or .MT
Since OBJ is in the list, you should be able to export from pretty much any modeling software, Blender included.
report
This should be boycotted, VALVe has basically said “we don’t need to do our jobs anymore now you guys do it for free for us”.
Pathetic, Robin Walker should be ashamed of himself and Mr. Newell should apologize to all of us for this atrocious and unprofessional behavior. And to think I thought Left 4 Dead 2 was bad, but that pales in comparison to this latest VALVe atrocity.
Makes me sad to think this is what the industry has become.
report
This is a joke, right?
report
it’s already perfectly possible to replace stuff and use your own models and skins, but the changes will only appear in YOUR game and for ALL players who use the replaced weapon/hat in question
all this does is allow more individual customization visible to everyone. it’s not like people will be making their own unlocks and class updates.
report
I can’t tell if this is sarcasm.
report
When was the last time you paid for a TF2 update? Once you’ve thought about that question long and hard, I have another: What’s wrong with giving back?
report
SATIRE
report
http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww300/seanachie/NotSureIfSerious.jpg
report
Oh crap. We’ve just been Poe‘d.
report
Heavy wearing monocle.
NOW
report
http://www.fpsbanana.com/skins/67195
BAM!
Not mine, but I’ve always admired it.
report
Obvisuly:
– a 4 floor hat (a hat made of 4 invidual hat’s)
– a crab, parrots are soo 2009, everyone sould have a big crap perched on his shoulder.
– a lightlamp
– “vote for me president of the internets” (or this is too meta?)
– anime-ish soulderpads
– a pirate flag
– a enormeous blade on the back
– …
report
See: the real question is which one was the mis-spelling?
report
The way you people keep stalking every one of Tei’s posts with weird remarks is getting pretty creepy, you know that?
report
@sana: if loving tei is wrong, I do not want to be right.
report
@Sana
He’s our half-mad, incoherent, gaming messiah
report
Tei is best.
report
Yes.
report
as custom objects on a private server I’ve arelady seen the stack of hats, a warhammer space marine style shoulderpad for the soldier and most recently a glowing monocle on the demoman. This could turn out well.
report
You may have trouble putting the parrot on the shoulder. If the hats are attached to the character model’s head bone, any mesh offset to sit on the shoulder would fly-around in space when the head turned.
An erratic parrot-satellite.
report
The soldier’s medal attached to his breast. I guess you can specify which bone to attach to.
report
You can attach things to any bone.
You could for example, even make a fully armoured suit or something.
report
remember the Gunboats?
various cloaks, and even entire armor sets are available as hat replacements on FPSBanana and other fps skin/model sites. this isn’t a problem.
report
“An erratic parrot-satellite.”
I’m okay with this!
report
certainly better than an ‘Erotic Parrot Satelite’… or is it?
report
A good idea from Valve. Pretty much win-win really. People will do stuff for fun and they’ll add the best content to their game without having to do it by themselves.
report
Wouldn’t the parrot be a bit of a give away that you’re a spy, or would the parrot also be a master of disguise?
report
In that case, when the Spy was disguised, would players on the same team see the Spy wearing a mask, which a parrot sat on his shoulder also wearing a mask?
report
I just had to comment on this. If Ethzee’s bit comes up in the game, I will wee a little bit.
report
Yes, I think I just felt brief happiness upon reading that. It is…strange.
report
Ah brilliant. I stand corrected.
Parrots on all limbs!
report
The correct answer to what people who can model shall craft for me is obviously Lockheed from the X-men floating beside my shoulder breathing fire when I am ubered. City of Heroes denied me an awesome shoulder dragon, don’t let me down modellers.
report
A set of earmuffs that automatically mutes everyone, please.
report
You can turn off mic audio in the options.
report
Yeah, but then,
a) you wouldn’t get a sweet set of earmuffs, and
b) it would not be obvious to everyone you meet that you’re ignoring them. It’s not enough to turn the audio off, you need to have the (stylish) equivalent of plugging your fingers in your ears and running around shouting “LALALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU LALALALA.”
report
That parrot looks more like a penguin, you know.
report
I’m still waiting for the four way maps with the green and Yellow teams
report
Played some of them in TFC. They were crap then & I suspect they’ll be equally crap now. FPS games don’t work with more than 2 teams.
report
I thought it was a spider standing on its rear legs and pointing at itself at first
report
The most important question has been missed… WHAT TYPE OF PARROT?! I suggest the Palm Cockatoo due to its awesomeness (clearly) and because:
“It has a unique display where the bird (typically the male) drums a large (ie. up to 1″ diameter, 15cm long) stick or seed-pod against a dead bough or tree, creating a loud noise that can be heard up to 100 m away.”
furthermore:
“The Palm Cockatoo also has a distinctive red cheek patch that changes colour when the bird is alarmed or excited.”
You will also note that the Palm Cockatoo has one of the largest bills of any parrot… a very… sharp bill….
PALM COCKATOO!
P.S. i am fully aware that the sniper is the Australian character. but i dont care.
report
sorry about the massive link… i guess i didnt close that properly…
report
The question is, where do those who don’t know how to create TF2 items learn such things?
report
Hitler ‘stache on Medic. That is all I want.
report
A parrot?
I’ll make a hawk for the scout!
report