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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
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.
Dude, I'm sorry. I couldn't disagree more. Yes, they did drop all of the original plans for that TF2 you mentioned, but the one that they made was still decent. If you wanted some highly advanced combat game, then I see your point. TF is not that, and never was. You should play Call of Duty or CS. TF2, first off, is SUPER balanced. They did a huge job at class balancing everything, and that meant eliminating grenades, correct. Eliminating grenades DOES make it less realistic, sure... but it also makes it more fun. In TF2 you can actually try to get down and dirty and spar with people by using whatever special tricks your class has. It won't be screwed up by some 12-year-old who can spam 3 grenades down a football field and just kill you (unless you play a Demoman in TF2 of course.) The point of TF2 is cartoon-like combat and fun. You have to suspend disbelief somewhat. If you insist on something realistic, then I can totally see why you say it sucks.
TF2 used to be balanced. Then they started rolling out updates for classes on at a time. And if you don't have the new unlocks you are at a disadvantage. Even worse they tied to unlocks to lame ass achievements, alot of which require you do stuff that is counter to the whole team concept. Of course that just leads to achievement servers where you don't actually play you just do what you need to to unlock the weapons.
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.