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Adult Swim and Valve teamed up to give us... yep, a hat
When Valve and Adult Swim announced a partnership involving the Team Fortress 2 universe, we winked at each other, throwing out the tired joke that it would probably just be a bunch of hats. Today, we're not sure if we should be laughing or weeping silently into our keyboards: Adult Swim has revealed a free, limited-edition Robot Chicken hat for any class in TF2, as the first iteration in a series of new stuff coming from Valve and Adult Swim.To get the Robot Chicken hat, just sign up for the Adult Swim newsletter by July 4.In related, not-completely-predictable news, the FAQ for redeeming the Robot Chicken hat asks and answers an intriguing question: Q. Are you making a Team Fortress cartoon? A. Go ask your mother.As long as it's not called "The Hatsure Brothers" or any variation thereof, an Adult Swim Team Fortress 2 cartoon sounds like something we could get behind.In still-related, by-now-old news, Valve launched the "Meet the Pyro" video and announced the Source Filmmaker movie-creating tool today.
Make in-game movies with the Valve Source Filmmaker
Valve's in-house movie-making machine, the Source Filmmaker, is now available to the public in beta form. Source Filmmaker is the tool Valve uses to create its own films, including the "Meet the" series for Team Fortress 2: Valve teased the Source Filmmaker at the end of today's long-awaited, disturbingly depressing "Meet the Pyro" video.The Source Filmmaker can make a movie out of any game running on the Source engine, Valve writes in the tool's introductory post."Because the SFM uses the same assets as the game, anything that exists in the game can be used in the movie, and vice versa. By utilizing the hardware rendering power of a modern gaming PC, the SFM allows storytellers to work in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get environment so they can iterate in the context of what it will feel like for the final audience."Interested amateur directors can sign up for the Source Filmmaker beta right here and "start shooting your movie on location inside the world of TF2 today."
Finally, you can officially meet Team Fortress 2's Pyro
The final introductory video for Team Fortress 2 has been released; watch above as the other classes guess what kind of motivation lies beneath the Pyro's stoic demeanor. It turns out he's just a misunderstood psychotic killer!Today is the third and final day in Valve's Pyromania promotion, culminating in the video above but also bringing new content to the free-to-play shooter. Yesterday saw the addition of several new weapons: the Scout gets a new pistol and shotgun, the Sniper gets a new SMG and sniper rifle, the Soldier has a new bazooka and the Pyro gets himself a flare gun, which "knocks back target on hit and ignites enemies in a small radius."
Valve economist examines TF2's 'sophisticated' barter system
We're not sure why Valve's economist is concerned with the finances of prestigious Covenant Elites in Halo, but the first publication from Yanis Varoufakis on Valve Economics is about exactly that. Only he spelled "Arbiter" wrong like 20 times.Oh, he's talking about "Arbitrage," the practice of capitalizing on the price difference between two or more markets, and its place in the Team Fortress 2 economy. That makes more sense, barely, but between the specialized equations and graphs Varoufakis offers some plain insight into the world of digital economies.For example, Varoufakis calls the TF2 barter economy "peculiarly sophisticated," noting that Steam's support system allows players to side-step the introduction of currency, operating solely on a "double coincidence of wants." This is something that civilizations for centuries have not been able to support for any protracted period of time, and its complexity is the reason we now have money, rather than things to trade with.The isolated nature of digital economies lends itself to intriguing happenings such as that one, as Varoufakis explains in great detail, we assume because he's thrilled to be able to calculate the exchange rates of laser guns and hats rather than boring old dollars and cents.
Team Fortress 2 'Pyromania' update is three days of new content
The Pyro is finally getting his own "Meet the Team" short on Wednesday, and to celebrate Valve is trickling out three days of update goodies for Team Fortress 2. Valve is calling it the Pyromania update.First up today is Doomsday, a new map and corresponding game mode where one team attempts to deliver a suitcase nuke to a waiting rocket, while the other team attempts to stop them. This new map and game mode brings a whole slew of new achievements to unlock. We'll learn more about this Pyromania update as Valve unlocks even more new content in Team Fortress 2 over the next two days.
Valve and Adult Swim are planning big things together
Valve and Adult Swim have come together in a glorious union of witticism, snark and something else that they're not telling us until next week. Adult Swim has a promo page decked out in Team Fortress 2 images and hashtags, and it promises this partnership will beget "something that you'll probably enjoy."The surprise is "coming next week," with more information to be disseminated in the newsletter, apparently. Clicking "Sign Up" leads to a registration page with this image of TF2's Pyro, who is due for a "Meet the" feature from Valve any time now.Valve is running a summer ARG at the moment that may be connected to this Adult Swim deal, or it might just be another thing that Valve may never finish.
Valve has an economist now
Economist Yanis Varoufakis was analyzing the financial crisis in Europe, focusing on Greece, when he got a proposal seemingly out of nowhere. Valve co-founder Gabe Newell saw similarities between the situation in Europe and Valve's troubles with its own virtual economies (for DOTA 2 and Team Fortress 2, presumably.)"Here at my company we were discussing an issue of linking economies in two virtual environments (creating a shared currency), and wrestling with some of the thornier problems of balance of payments," Newell said in an email to Varoufakis, "when it occurred to me 'this is Germany and Greece', a thought that wouldn't have occurred to me without having followed your blog. Rather than continuing to run an emulator of you in my head, I thought I'd check to see if we couldn't get the real you interested in what we are doing."Varoufakis stopped by Valve HQ during a speaking tour and became excited about the possibility of researching a digital, fully recordable economy. "Think of it," he said, "An economy where every action leaves a digital trail, every transaction is recorded; indeed, an economy where we do not need statistics since we have all the data!" And now he's writing a weekly blog called Valve Economics. Unless, of course, he decides to do something else.
Steam Trading comes to Super Monday Night Combat, hats and costumes in tow
If you were home schooled through Kindergarten, or grew up as a single child, the concept of sharing may be foreign and difficult to understand, but allow us to break it down for you: By giving someone something they want, there's a good chance you'll receive something you want in return, either immediately or down the road!It's a system that's worked well for millennia, and now it comes to Uber Entertainment's Super Monday Night Combat in the form of Steam Trading support, which allows Steam users to trade in-game items. To celebrate, two Super MNC hats ("Gunslinger Hat" and "Assassin Helmet") are now available in Team Fortress 2, earned by achieving levels five and 20 (respectively) in Super MNC. Conversely, TF2 costumes have been added to Super MNC: An Engineer's uniform for CombatGirl and a Soldier uniform (plus rocket launcher skin!) for Megabeth, unlocked at levels 10 and 15.
Portal 2 Perpetual Testing Initiative success leads to Workshop sale
Valve's "Perpetual Testing Initiative" has already been yielding results, and they provide evidence for the hypothesis that people still like playing Portal 2. Since the DLC's release on May 8, the company reports that over 35,000 user-created maps have been uploaded, which have been downloaded over 1.3 million times.To celebrate this successful experiment, Valve has discounted several items on Steam, including, of course, Portal 2, which costs just $6.79 right now! Fellow Steam Workshop title Skyrim is on sale for $40.19, and several Workshop items within Team Fortress 2 can be found for 50 percent off.
PAX East 2012: A talk with PlanetSide 2's Matt Higby
"For me, it's such a compelling genre for anybody who's played it," SOE Creative Director Matt Higby said about PlanetSide 2's niche. "But that's the thing. There's not a lot of people who have played a MMOFPS, but the people who have are addicted." Hibgy sat down with us at PAX East to promote SOE's upcoming sci-fi shooter, saying that it scratches two itches with one bird (or some other mixed metaphor). "I'm a competitive player; I love shooters," he said, "but I'm also a very social player and love the progression aspect of MMOs." It's not as if the MMOFPS field is going to remain wide-open for very long. Competitors are rushing to mine this largely untouched market. Still, SOE has an advantage above the rest: It launched one of the first of its kind and has years of experience managing such a game. While we anxiously wait for word on PlanetSide 2's beta, we listened to Higby tell us why this title will continue the company's reign over the genre.
Mists of Pandaria: Battlegrounds preview
The Mists of Pandaria previews didn't show us nearly as much PvP content as what we saw of PvE content. We didn't see any of the new world PvP mechanics or anything related to the Arena, but we did see previews of two new Battlegrounds, the Temple of Power and the Silvershard Mine. World of Warcraft's initial Battleground offerings were based around classic competitive game modes: capture the flag, conquest and domination modes from first-person shooters, and so forth. Mists of Pandaria's Battlegrounds are built upon the same concept, borrowing beloved concepts from other games while stepping up to embrace the competitive innovations of more recent titles. The mechanics are a bit more complicated than simply capturing a flag, but they're no less beloved by the gamers who see them in action. Temple of Power Much as Warsong Gulch is set on the border of Ashenvale Forest and Arathi Basin takes place in the Arathi Highlands, the Temple of Power is set in the new zone called the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. The temple contains an artifact that could turn the tide of war should it fall into the hands of one faction or the other, so the Horde and the Alliance have taken to the battlefield to claim it. The artifact sits in the center of the map. Whoever claims the artifact must hold onto it as long as possible -- a difficult task, since not only is the opposing team trying to kill you and recover the artifact for themselves, but the artifact also causes a constantly increasing amount of damage over time to its bearer. The longer you hold it, the more dangerous holding it becomes. Once the bearer of the artifact dies, it falls to the floor and another player of either faction may pick it up.
TF2 in 2012: 'Meet the Pyro' is coming, more secrets
Valve has finally put together its schedule of events for 2012, announcing the big things happening in Team Fortress 2 in the coming months. Most notably, Valve says its final character video, Meet the Pyro, will air in 2012 and it will feature "lots of blood pretty much all the way through."The TF2 team is also working on a secret project that isn't a hat or a map, Valve reports. This leaves speculation open to new characters, a feature-length film, a live-action feature-length film, or a live-action feature-length film starring Brendan Gleeson, Jude Law and Emma Stone. These are the only options.The Steam Workshop has a shiny new blog, and Valve says it plans to unveil another secret at the second annual Saxxy Awards. We're pretty sure this secret will be the announcement of the TF2 movie's sequel, starring Katherine Heigl as Brendan Gleeson and Brendan Fraser as everyone else.
Saints Row: The Third straps on Team Fortress 2 hats
Saints Row: The Third is about to get some big-headed Valve love from Team Fortress 2. A set of Team Fortress 2 masks will be added to the Steam version of Saints Row: The Third this Tuesday, January 17, as revealed on the Saints Row website. The masks will be added via an automatic update, so anyone with a Steam copy should get the masks upon starting the game after the update is launched. Now, if only we could get a Team Fortress 2 voice pack, we'd be in business. Boink!
Steam sales increase 100 percent for the seventh straight year
Steam now hosts more than 40 million accounts and 1,800 games, and its 2011 year-over-year sales increased 100 percent for the seventh year in a row, Valve announced today with a ridiculously smug grin on its face (we assume). During the Holiday Sale, Steam clocked more than 5 million simultaneous users -- in perspective, that's easily more people than the entire population of Norway, all on Steam at the same time. Steam served over 780 petabytes of data to gamers in 2011, more than doubling the amount delivered in 2010, Valve reported. More than 19 million items were traded in-game, Valve president Gabe Newell said, and he promised that more free-to-play titles will be launched in 2012 to supplement the 18 Steam already hosts. Newell hasn't forgotten about Big Picture Mode, Valve's attempt to infiltrate living rooms with a top-boxy device that will offer Steam via controller navigation on "more screens throughout the house." Newell said Valve is "preparing for the launch" of Big Picture Mode, so we're guessing we can expect to see something concrete by 2015.
Team Fortress 2 update rings in second annual Australian Christmas
Valve has unwrapped the second-annual Australian Christmas update for Team Fortress 2, bringing with it the kind of cheer that can only come from a pile of heavy-duty, particle-melting weapons and a brand new map to use them in. The update includes two new Dr. Grordbort weapon packs -- The Brainiac Pack for Engineer and The Moonman Pack for Pyro -- and Foundry, a new control-point map with 12 unique achievements. Valve is also dropping 14 community-created holiday weapons in Nice Crates, and strings of festive weapon lights in Naughty Crates, through Dec. 22. More than 50 items in the Mann Co. store are up to 75 percent off through Jan. 2, and the in-game item-drop rate will be doubled for the first week of the event. If that doesn't put you in a joyful mood, maybe a child stabbing Santa in the neck will -- read all about it in the new TF2 comic, "A Smissmas Story."
Valve gifts Notch his own head, on other people's heads
It's official -- Notch, the creator of Minecraft and all-around Swedish dude, has made it big. In his most recent blog post, Notch describes his intense love for Valve's TF2 and then shows off the custom-made fancy hat that Valve made for his characters exclusively, called Top Notch. It's basically a cardboard box with square-ish pasties resembling Notch's Minecraft avatar worn over a character's entire head, and it's the sweetest gift we've seen in a long time. Notch agrees, writing, "Hooooly cow. Thank you, Valve. You wouldn't believe the amount of medic I get now. Also, spies."
Valve offers Heavy outfit for Saints Row: The Third pre-order
To be a generic character in Team Fortress 2 nowadays is a constant humiliation, we're sure. But if you're a Heavy kinda guy -- er, rather, you like to play as the Heavy in Team Fortress 2 -- then you may wish to know about the gear that sparkly chap above is rocking. Valve's skills of synergy have culminated in a new Saints Row-themed Heavy outfit. If one were to, say, pre-order Saints Row: The Third on Steam, then, say, their Heavy could wear a diamond-encrusted Luchador mask and wield giant, diamond-encrusted boxing gloves in Team Fortress 2. Actually, that's exactly what Valve is saying. That's the deal. That's exactly how this works. Oh, we forgot to mention the tasteful sweater vest, too. You know, in case all of those diamonds didn't properly convey the classiness of this ensemble.
The Soapbox: The battle for story
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. When I was in grad school, one of my favorite classes spent a couple of sessions talking about the use and importance of story in teaching. It opened my eyes to the fact that stories are one of the most universal elements of the human experience, from antiquity to modern times, ranging from a little kid playing with toys to an adult penning a novel. We simply love to tell and listen to stories -- they grab our attention, spark our imagination, teach us valuable lessons, and create lasting memories. But somewhere along the years, something went horribly wrong when it came to MMOs and stories. MMOs were always supposed to be the ultimate platform for storytelling, as both developers and players could pitch in to weave epic sagas, and for a while that seemed to be the case. Lately, however, I've seen a movement that is thrashing hard against stories in MMOs, typically using one of the following two statements: "Get your stupid story out of my game!" or "Stories are better left to other forms of entertainment." It's made me a sad panda to realize that MMO storytelling is under attack by the very players who should embrace it, and often they're acting as if they're being dragged, kicking and screaming, into future MMOs where story is placed as a priority. Make no mistake: The battle for story is on, and the stakes have never been higher.
Scream Fortress 2 returns with new comic, costumes and at least one haunted eyeball
If you've ever wondered why fanatical Valve devotees are so fanatically devoted, this is exactly why. The company's titles have an excellent sense of humor, sure, but its fun, intelligent stuff like this that endears the development studio to the hearts of gamers everywhere. In celebration of everyone's favorite cosplay justification, Valve has released a free update for their free-to-play free-for-all Team Fortress 2, which promises an "ENORMOUS HAUNTED EYEBALL," as well as fresh 'chievos and costumes for each class. There's even a comic to provide a little backstory, which is worth checking out strictly for its artistic merit, even if TF2 isn't your jam.
Valve has no idea why almost 30 percent of TF2 players spend cash in the game
"We don't understand what's going on," said Valve co-founder Gabe Newell, during last week's WTIA TechNW panel in Seattle. According to Newell, 20 to 30 percent of the people who play Team Fortress 2 end up spending money on the title's various microtransactions, far beyond the average two to three percent "conversion" Valve's partners are reporting. "There seems to be something about the content that significantly changes how your monetization occurs, with apparently much broader participation than you would see out of something like FarmVille." When Team Fortress 2 relaunched as a free-to-play title back in June, the title's user base increased by "a factor of 5," which Newell attributes to TF2's designation as "free-to-play" rather than simply free: "You have to start thinking about how value creation actually occurs, and what it is that people are valuing, and what the statement that something is free-to-play implies about the future value of the experience that they're going to have." Hey Valve, wanna know the secret? It's the hats. People love hats.
