Slashdot Mirror
Valve Discusses Team Fortress 2's Future
The Escapist chatted with Valve's Robin Walker about how the Team Fortress 2 team has been listening to feedback and continually updating the game to fix problems and add to the gameplay experience. Walker mentions that ideas for new classes are "floating around," and that a new mode of play will be introduced soon.
"'Players have driven our entire approach to designing achievements, the way we tie unlockables to those achievements and the design of those new weapons themselves. The choices we made within the Medic and Heavy updates were very much the result of the ways that players have used that combination of classes within the game. The addition of the payload game mode came from players requesting an old Team Fortress Classic map called Hunted, and describing what they did and didn't like in that map.' ... The Scout is the next class slated for the special treatment, and Walker expects the update will be available early this year. Additionally, the team is juggling a number of side projects at the moment, including finally bringing a year's worth of the downloadable content and upgrades to the Xbox 360 version of the game. A new Payload map is in the works, more community maps are on the way and the team will soon unveil a very different new game mode."
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Time
You mean the old "Hunted President" map?
Hell yes, that was great. I haven't played a lot of TF2, but back in the days of old I was a big player of TF (over quakeworld, not over HL, the original TF!). Is the old "Rock" map available too?
I really liked Quake and Team Fortress but I still haven't played TF 2, mostly because I have a mac.
Anyway though wifi play on the DS suck I think it would had been a nice title on the DS. The graphics probably makes it somewhat easier to render with the very limited amount of polygons usable on the DS, the controls would probably work somewhat and the graphics would be good enough for old school enjoyment.
Too bad it will never happen =P, 360? Couldn't care less, I'd prefer it on PC any day.
Omg, was browsing around videos and found this:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VqBPq48x6GA&fmt=18
Fucking amazing, I haven't played Halflife so I don't know how powerful the weapons and bunny jumping is there but I know the methods used and I so like to watch people with mad skills in a game :D
A game mechanic I hope to see return: collect multiple flags for the win.
I used to love the original QWTF, I thought it was fantastic, perhaps the game I spent more time on than any other, despite having to pay dialup costs per minute back then.
I followed TF ever since it came out, and when TF2 was originally announce as a mod for Quake II I was excited, I was equally excited when it was slated as a massive combat game with commanders and people dropping down out of helicopters as the screenshots showed for Half-Life and then it's own game. After around 5 years I got bored of waiting then something like 9 years on it finally arrived.
Yet, when it arrived, everything new had been dropped and it turned out to be some copy of the original TV, minus some pretty damn important features like grenades and coupled in with some horrible graphical style. Now they talk of some of the classic maps and game modes, perhaps they'll even bring grenades back.
But my point is this, whilst TF2 is great, people obviously want more. It's taken them 9 or 10 years to end up back where they started, mimicking QWTF and even then not quite (again no grenades, lack of old favourite maps). Surely the lesson to be learned by now is that if they want to immitate the success of the original then all they needed to do all along is simply immitate the original albeit with updated graphics (minus the cartoony theme change).
Yes, I very much miss the QWTF days, but it does really seem Valve is only just in recent years beginning to realise what the old QWTF fans said all along- just stay true to the original. They've had a decade to figure this out.
http://se.youtube.com/watch?v=QYBs_lslyuY&fmt=18
The absence of grenades is one of the best parts of TF2
Not inventive? You've got to be kidding me. I love it that there's 9 classes each with it's own weaknesses and strengths. That's different from most FPS'es I know.
And the graphics are fantastic. The cartoonesque atmosphere is a lot more fun than a realistic one would be.
The grenades were removed because of very valid reasons, like the stupid spamming at the beginning of every map. Too bad they had to include critical hits which ruins the game for me in a completely other way
Really, I don't understand what you want. You want innovation but at the same time you're mad at Valve because they didn't copy stuff from the old Team Fortress? That's pretty contradictory. And don't forget that a bad economy is not good for innovation, companies are more likely to stay with the old tried and true methods, because it's those which bring in the big bucks.
As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.
TF2 and L4D while different, are both examples of Valve listening very closely to the community.
With TF2 in particular there are servers you can join just about any time of the day and experience very high level quality gameplay. The maps are for the most part decent, some are great, and the play is very balanced provided you get a 'Team' to act like a team. On a recent warpath map over the holidays we had 3.5 hour single match with 16 v 16 teams. Just about everyone on those teams was a top tier player. Intense action, balanced class distribution, and amazing individual and team play. the fact that you can log into an arbitrary server and experience that level of play is something that is missing from just about every other team experience out there.
Having said that. the scout doesn't really need an upgrade, people who are good at playing scout are already devastating. Most aren't very good. That doesn't make it a class problem. I personally would like to see the engineers (and I normally do not play engineer) have a bigger role. Once the engineers set up their equipment, there really is not much else for them to do. What would be great is the ability to use an uber charge to get an engineer through enemy lines, and to one of the enemy garages. The engineer being able to 'pick the lock' and then change the lock would give the team the ability to flank the enemy and force their respawn point back one level. It would make the battle a bit more non-linear and make distribution of engineers much more interesting (instead of the cloud of engineers at the current point). It also gives the engineers a tactical offensive capability. Also, spys could be used to pick the lock and let the engineers have a key which would give them access. That would accomplish the same thing but much more subtly.
A second addition I would like to see is to be able to pass objects between teammates. A demo could give a spy a bomb to plant. The medics could give away med-packs, anyone could bring an engineer metal (drop ammo).. etc..again, emphasizing the team aspect.
Its truly a great game, and while different from its predecessors without losing the core essence, it stands alone with the level of balance that exists across the classes.
I should prelude this with a bit of info on my PC, to give some perspective. It's a Dell Inspiron laptop, so, in all fairness, it's not really a 'gaming PC'. It has a Core2Duo 2.0Ghz processor (I think the model number was T-7200), nVidia GForce Go 7200 video chipset, 1 Gig of RAM, and a 7200RPM hard drive (I payed extra for the faster HDD instead of going with the stock 5400RPM disk).
I think my system sits somewhere in the middle of PC's, performance-wise. I know there are systems that are much faster than mine, but also a lot of systems much slower.
Anyhow, I tried playing TF2 for awhile, but even with all the graphics settings turned down quite a lot, my computer just could not keep up with it for some reason. I play quite a lot of other 3D games on this laptop with no problems (or minimal problems). Since the most important attribute of an FPS is speed, I'm disappointed that TF2 doesn't scale down to middle-tier systems better.
I realized after submitting, I had put the model for the GPU wrong. It's a GForce Go 7900, not 7200.
Dear Valve:
Please kick EA in the ass so that the PS3 people can get some updates and enhancements. Though the press claims that PS3 is the console of the year/future, PS3 TF2 players are still sucking hind tit. It's been a year and a half since TF2 came to PS3 and we've had NOTHING since.
Unlockables ruined the game for so many, including myself. They have no place in a game like this.
"The Escapist chatted with Valve's Robin Walker about how the Team Fortress 2 team has been listening to feedback and continually updating the game to fix problems and add to the gameplay experience"
Really? Don't tell that to the PS3 fans. You might get an ear full. The PS3 version was basically abandoned by valve and EA. The problem is valve and EA had another company port it to PS3 and so they both claim they are not responsible for updates for it. This has caused PS3 users to be very upset with valve and EA.
For example - Of course the characters look cartoonish. They're rocket and sticky jumping around, they're being healed by a giant blue raygun and they're fighting over bases they've built 100 feet from each other.
Parent - just play on a no-crit server.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
Toss a cooldown timer on the grenades and limit standard grenades to 2. Problem solved.
Sometimes I do play one one, but it was more to somewhat prove that I'm no TF2 fan boy and dare to admit that I don't approve of every decision Valve had made. You just responded to my subtle psychology.
As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.
The grenades were removed because of very valid reasons, like the stupid spamming at the beginning of every map.
I agree. The grenades in TF1 were really unbalanced to where they were more important than the other weapons. In principle the different classes having different grenades was very interesting and could have furthered the different class concept, but in practice it made every class equally good at offense.
Medics in TF1 for example could be played on offense. The medpacks poisoned the other team and that seemed to be the primary use, and of course there were the grenades (I think, it's been a while). I can't remember what the medic's specific grenade did, but they were all devastating. A medic VS a heavy weapons guy was actually fairly evenly matched, you just lob a grenade, or poison him. It made the classes were pretty superficial. Sure you could heal people as a medic, provided they stood still and you ran right up to them, but this was rarely used from my experience. It was all about grenades. In TF2 on the other hand, a medic has to get pretty lucky to take out an enemy. As a medic, you heal your own team and stay away from the enemy at all costs, it's a totally different game play style.
The classes have completely different styles of play based largely on the removal of grenades.
I don't believe that there's any type of spamming in TFC. Grenades offer an interesting strategy to the game. Grenades are in plenty of other FPSs. If you think grenades are "spam", perhaps FPSs aren't for you.
Obviously you've never played Dustbowl in TFC. The nadespam doesn't seem so bad if you usually play CTF maps (2fort, etc) instead of attack/defend.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
Actually,equipped with the blutsauger, the medic can be quite competent on offense.
I didn't know the Chief Justice's name was Banana.
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
Wow a lot of people must love playing TF2 since it is so crappy. Even on the competitive level they love to play it because of its controls, the level design and overall gameplay is mediocre. Our customers are saying "Hey! At the end of a long day the only thing I want to play right now is a terrible game. Let's play Team Fortress 2 and continue to be masochists!"
Yep. Not making back the amount we used in our budget on a game that sells over a million copies. Not at all
Damn, If only we made Crysis 3 with unachievable minnimum requirements we would make A FORTUNE!
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
It doesn't matter. Team Fortress 2 is now.
Team Fortress Classic is still available for play!
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
Is the old "Rock" map available too?
I played on Rock2 just the other day. That is the former name of the map for TFC. It plays very similar to the original if not dead on.
I couldn't agree more.
I'm supposed to be working right now.
I'm hoping Valve or another company such as Epic, Id, Dice will give us a FPS MMO some day soon. TF2 is sort of there with the weapon unlocking, but to have something like TF2 with huge world battles...I'd happily hand over my monthly cash.
I thought TF2 was highly addictive, and very fun; I've been playing games since the early 1980s. My favorite kinds of multiplayer games are those where there is no "one best way" - there is always a valid counter to a particular strategy, and this forces a constantly evolving game. The more balanced classes, the more variety, and the more tweaking it takes to get the balancing right. And ultimately, the more longevity the game has. (There is a limit; a good game must still be easy enough to learn while being very difficult to master). Games like these are more like good sports, or chess. I don't think it's an accident that such games choose to dispense with realism because realism isn't the point - see Starcraft for example - or chess.
Perhaps in a downturn people will become more value conscious. With the replayability of games like TF2, the cost to play TF2 is negligible compared with WoW or a 12 hour, interactive movie type FPS.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
WFA (q3 mod) had 9 classes, it evolved from WF (q2 mod) which was inspired by the original TF. Played much faster, offered much more in terms of gameplay also.
The TFC medic's grenades were the frag grenade, which was overpowered, and the conc grenade, which was even more overpowered. Good riddance to them both.
worst thing for me is no team damage. Makes it a spamfest imo
I find no-crit servers extremely unsatisfactory although I want to play on them to remove the random "you die now without any recourse" moments.
TF2 was built with crits in mind; the game depends upon it to break up stalemates at choke points. I see why it's important for competitive games, but on public servers it just breaks the flow of the game.
Second of all, the cartoon characters. It looks like a children's game.
Newsflash boyo, you've always been playing children's games. It just happens that some of them are fun to play as adults too. Don't take yourself too seriously.