Day One Of Mann vs. Machine Update

The Mann vs Machine Update is finally heading its way to Team Fortress 2 with multiple updates and new information released everyday. Day One for the Mann vs Machine Update includes a new trailer in which Blu and Red will be working together to take down a common enemy - the Machines.

Along with the trailer is a new TF2 mode for players to enjoy, a co-op mode. The new co-op mode will allow you and five friends to stand against hordes of robots. The robots you will be going against will also be sporting different weapons, for example, the Bowman is a Sniper robot with Huntsman and a Minor League Scout is a Scout with Sandman. But those are just foot soldiers as there will be different types of robots; there is a bomb carrier robot in which players will need to destroy quickly, the bomb carrier will have a defensive buff, health regeneration and full crits all the time. There are also Giants which are just giant version of the foot soldier robots. And then there are Sentry Busters which are giant walking bombs that goes straight for sentries.

Of course this co-op mode is going to need a new map, so Valve has introduced Mannworks. not much information has been given about the map except that it is where the co-op mode will take place.

To see the Mann vs Machine update, which should be out this Wednesday, check out the Team Fortress 2 website.

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Newest TF2 Update Celebrates the Year of The Dog

Today Valve released a Content Update for Team Fortress 2 known as the Triad Pack that gives players new weapons, hats and misc. items as well as announcing a new King of The Hill map that will be released in the near future.

Weapons

Red Tape Recorder (Spy) -  A new type of sapper that instead of destroying buildings, will reverse the building's cycle until it reverts back into a toolbox that can be picked up as ammo. Engies can destroy the sappers but will have to rebuild it where it was sapped.

Flying Guillotine (Scout) - A new secondary for scout, this throwable hatchet will cause enemies to take bleed damage for a few seconds. Long Distance throws will mini-crit and stunned enemies will take full on crits.

Huo Long Heatmaker (Heavy) - This new minigun that will surround you in a ring of flames that will set any enemy on fire in range while deployed, useful for warding off spies. However when you spin-up the weapon it will use 6 ammo per second.

Neon Annhilator (Pyro) - This unorthadox melee weapon for Pyro will automatically crit on enemies that are wet (from mad milk, jarate and possibly when submerged in water) but will have a 20% slower attack and has no random crits.

Hats & Misc.

Human Cannonball (All) - This new all-class hat resembles Crash Helmets worn by Stuntmen, this hat has 3 styles which are regular, adding dragon decals on the side and also adding skater stickers all over the helmet.

Marxman (All) - An all class Misc item that gives the wearer a pair of Groucho Glasses bound together by tape. The item has two styles that gives the item a novelty cigar and one that doesn't have one.

Champ Stamp (Heavy, Sniper, Engineer, Scout) - Be the first class to have a tattoo of a dragon on your arm as well as wearing some fancy wristwear also.

Triad Trinket (Heavy, Sniper, Scout, Engineer, Spy) - Quite possibly the weirdest item in the update, this gives your class an open shirt with a flipped collar and gold necklaces. What makes it weird is that the item has a style that adds chest hair on your character. (except for Scout)

In the near future Valve will also be releasing a new King of the Hill Map named: Kong King, nothing is known about this map except it's gametype and that it will have a Hong Kong theme. Expect this map to be out this month.

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Adult Swim Offers Robot Chicken Hat For Team Fortress 2

Last week Adult Swim and Valve teamed up in order to bring something to the game. Today Adult Swim has unveiled that it will be a hat, no surprise honestly.

The Robot Chicken Hat is only available when you sign up for Adult Swim's newsletter, from there you will get a code and you then will be able to activate through Steam. You must sign up before July 4 in order to get the hat.

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Meet the Pyro

At long last, the final video in the "Meet the Team" Series has been unleashed onto the world, Get a chance to see what the Pyro see through his/hers/its eyes, and it's not what you quite think.



I don't think I'll look at Pyro the same way ever again...

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Valve and Team Fortress 2 Presents the Pyromania Update: Day One

After a weird week of small updates and events, Team Fortress 2 has revealed the Pyromania Update. On the first day we have been revealed not only a new map but a new new game mode as well.

The new Map titled: Doomsday pits RED and BLU in a race to deliver Nukes to Poopy Joe's Australium powered rocket to fight the evil Russian Space Chimp, Vladamir Bananas, I'm not joking.

Each team races to get the necessary fuel and nukes and race to deliver it to a small elevator to deliver the goods to the space ship. The new map and mode will feature 7 new achievements  to unlock. will there be a prize like they did for Foundry? Who knows.

You can head over to the Pyromania HUB page to keep updated on what they have in store. Meet the Pyro will be released in 2 days from the counters perspective.

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Adult Swim And Valve Team Up

Today Adult Swim has announced that they will be teaming up with Valve for something. All we know is that it is Team Fortress 2 related and that whatever both Adult Swim and Valve is coming up with will be out next week.

If you want to keep up with what's going on, just head over to the site and sign up for the news letter.

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Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Gets A Release Date

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive finally has a release date, which was announced this morning by Valve. The revamped classic first-person shooter will be out for the PC, PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade for just $15 on August 21, 2012.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive gives Counter-Strike fans a different look and feel of older Counter-Strike games with touched up graphics, maps and textures along with new and updates guns and weapons and new game modes.

I recently got a hold of a beta version of the game, so I'll write up a review sometime soon.

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Dota 2 Will Be Free-To-Play

If you were wishing that Dota wouldn't be a subscription based game, then you should be happy as Valve has announced today via the Dota 2 blog that the game will be free-to-play.

On the blog, Valve states that they have addressed the top two most concerned things, whether or not Dota 2 will be free-to-play or not and if all the heroes will be free to play as or not. Well we already addressed the free-to-play part, and as for whether or not all heroes will be available free of charge, they will be free.

Not only will the game be free-to-play and the heroes will cost nothing, but Valve has also announced that there will be in-game microtransactions and that Dota 2 will be supported by the Steam Workshop. So if you have some great ideas for armor, weapons, clothing and other such things and you would like to see them in the game, then just upload your models onto Steam Workshop!

Valve has also set up a FAQs page for those who need it.

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Overkill And Valve Team Up For New Game

Developers Overkill have announced today that they will be teaming up with Valve in order to create a game that is a cross blend between Overkill's game Payday: The Heist and Valve's Left 4 Dead.

"We are working on a very cool blend of Payday and Left 4 Dead," says Overkill's game director Ulf Andersson. "I am sure it is so exciting that it will have some players check into the hospital before we are done.”

Both games have pretty similiar core gameplay as you and three friends team-up in order to fend off against mass waves of enemies, but in Left 4 Dead you're bashing zombies and in Payday you're robbing banks.



[Discuss this on the forums.]

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Valve And Blizard Finally Agrees On Dota Trademark

Today Valve and Blizzard worked out an agreement due to a trademark problem that had to deal with Dota.

Due to the agreement, Valve will continue to be using the Dota name for Dota 2 and Dota merchandise while Blizzard will be using "Dota" for non-commercial Warcraft III and StarCraft II maps. This will be forcing Blizzard to change their StarCraft II Blizzard Dota game name to Blizzard All-Stars.

"Both Blizzard and Valve recognize that, at the end of the day, players just want to be able to play the games they're looking forward to, so we're happy to come to an agreement that helps both of us stay focused on that," said Rob Pardo, executive vice president of game design at Blizzard Entertainment. "As part of this agreement, we're going to be changing the name of Blizzard DOTA to Blizzard All-Stars, which ultimately better reflects the design of our game. We look forward to going into more detail on that at a later date."



[Discuss this on the forums.]

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Valve Has No Plans To Announce Half-Life 3 At E3 This Year

For those that were actually hoping that Valve would be announcing anything Half-Life 3 related at this years E3 will be bummed out to hear that they in fact won't be announcements for the game this June.

"We're not announcing anything. Really. We are not announcing Half-Life 3 or Portal 3 or Left 4 Dead 3," says Gabe Newell. "We are going to be showing stuff everyone already knows about."

The "stuff" Newell is referring to are products such as Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Steam's Big Picture Mode.



[Discuss this on the forums.]

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Portal 2 DLC Coming Out On May 8

The Perpetual Testing Initiative DLC will be coming soon for Portal 2 and Windows and Mac PC owners as you can expect to see it on May 8.

There is no news at the moment in which Valve will be releasing the DLC for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. As for PC owners of Portal 2, we will be able to create our own puzzles with the Test Chamber Editor that is being included in the DLC; the puzzles can be the most simplest thing ever or the most rage inducing puzzle seen by man kind.




[Discuss this on the forums.]

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Steam Coming To Linux Systems

Steam is no longer available just for Windows and Apple based PCs, Linux owners will now be able to play Steam games such as Left 4 Dead 2 on the operating systems.

News comes from Michael Larabel, founder of Phoronix, who visited Valve's headquarters yesterday and got a first hand experience on Left 4 Dead 2 on an Ubuntu 11.10 installation.

According to Larabel's article of his experience, Valve will be releasing the Linux version of Steam in a possible beta format later this year and that more titles will be available than just Left 4 Dead 2.



[Discuss this on the forums.]

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A Meet the Pyro Coming Soon

At GDC 2012 we got an interview with three writers from valve, that told us some pretty interesting information pertaining to our mysterious little friend. Pyro is the only class with out the "Meet the" video, and everyone has eagerly been awaiting for it. They have actually FINISHED Meet the Pyro, but they don't drop any hints as to what is really in it. In the interview with the three writers, they mention that it could be soon and that we most likely will be getting a big update that has to do with the release of the video. Most likely something similar to the Uber Update. We already knew it was bound to happen sometime this year, but at least we know they are one step closer to uploading the video.

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Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Pushed Back

If you were planning on playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive this Spring, then you're going to have to actually wait until this Summer. The next Counter-Strike installment has been pushed back a few months to give players a better chance to enjoy the game.




[Discuss this on the forums.]

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Fill Out A Survey, Get A Global Offensive Beta Key

Valve has already given away 9,000 beta keys for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and they plan to give out more, all you have to do is fill out a survey.

Participating in an online survey will win you a beta key for Counter-Strike Global Offensive. There are two steps to the survey, the first step is a hardware survey, after completing it you will then be taken to the second part where you answer questions.

For more information, check out the official Counter-Strike: Global Offensive blog.

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Power Failure Caused Steam Outage

We finally know who the culprit is that was behind the outage that made Steam and other Valve services go down earlier today, it was a pesky power failure according to their Twitter post.

"Our data center's UPS experienced a power failure. Power is back on now and working to get service restored asap," says Valve.

"Our data center's uninterruptible power supplies experienced a power failure. The power is back on now and we're working to get service restored as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused."

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Steam Suffered From An Outage Earlier Today

Reports today are saying that Steam is down, everything from the client to the forums. Well, that was the case at 1:30 p.m. EST today, but as of now it seems like the client, games and the forums are back up.

Valve seems to be suffering from some sort of outage that affected every aspect of Steam along with valvesoftware.com and steampowered.com. According to Steam's official Twitter page, they "are investigating reported outages," but that was at 2:36 p.m. EST.

I've just checked my Steam client and it seems like things have been taken care of, except that it says the Steam Community is currently unavailable and I have no connection to the Steam servers. I can still play my games and access the Store.

Valve has yet to say what has caused the outage, but I'll post an update once I find out.

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Information Might Have Been Stolen From Valve Hack Back In November

Back in early November, Valve's database was hacked into. Originally everything was fine and not out of the ordinary, but today Gabe Newell is saying that there might be a problem.

In a statement to Steam users, Gabe Newell states that backup files with information on Steam transactions between 2004 and 2008 might have been stolen from the hack. These files includes user names, e-mail addresses, encrypted billing addresses and ecrypted credit card information, but not Steam passwords.

Here is the full statement below:

Dear Steam Users and Steam Forum Users

We continue our investigation of last year's intrusion with the help of outside security experts. In my last note about this, I described how intruders had accessed our Steam database but we found no evidence that the intruders took information from that database. That is still the case.

Recently we learned that it is probable that the intruders obtained a copy of a backup file with information about Steam transactions between 2004 and 2008. This backup file contained user names, email addresses, encrypted billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. It did not include Steam passwords.

We do not have any evidence that the encrypted credit card numbers or billing addresses have been compromised. However as I said in November it's a good idea to watch your credit card activity and statements. And of course keeping Steam Guard on is a good idea as well.

We are still investigating and working with law enforcement authorities. Some state laws require a more formal notice of this incident so some of you will get that notice, but we wanted to update everyone with this new information now.

Gabe

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Meet the Pyro Coming This Year &, TF2's Secret Project and Many More.

Valve has announced on the TF2 blog that they will be releasing the "Meet the Pyro" Video sometime later this year, making this the final "Meet the Team" video. About bloody time! They also teased us a new image of the new video as well.
They have also announced that this 2012 they'll be working on something BIG for TF2, and no, it's not a hat, it's not a map and it's not a bunch of hats or maps or weapons or misc. items either. That's all they'll let us know for now, so keep your eye on TF2's blog for more information.

Valve has also released the new Steam Workshop blog, there you can view community created items, announcements and even post your TF2 creations over there. Check it out over here.

And finally, Valve has announced the second annual Saxxy Awards, which rewards the community for their achievements for skill, dedication, creativity and who has the most fashionable loadout. Whoever is lucky enough to win an award will receive a Saxxy item, a gold statue that turns your fallen foes into solid australium

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