Valve's Team Fortress 2 Goes Free-To-Play

heptapod writes "Valve has announced that Team Fortress 2 is now free to play. 'We've been toying with the idea of making Team Fortress free-to-play ever since the Mann-conomy update [in September 2010],' said Valve's Robin Walker. 'Team Fortress 2 would only be monetized by microtransaction payments. No advertising model will be pursued, Walker said. No premium subscription model will be used. No cynical "pay-to-win" options will be implemented, he assured.'"

Comments

Splitting hairs

[pushing-robot]

No cynical "pay-to-win" options will be implemented, he assured.

No, it's more of a pay-to-not-lose.

Re:Splitting hairs

[Nimey]

The only things you can buy in-game is stuff that you can earn with enough gameplay.

Besides, all of those items have trade-offs versus standard kit. It's not like you can buy a gun for each class that clearly bests anything else.

Re:Splitting hairs

[The MAZZTer]

Unlockable items are meant to be balanced with the default set. Even if all you have is the default set the idea is you still can play well against players with unlockables. Some players even say most of the default weapons have an edge against unlockables.

Re:Splitting hairs

[Opportunist]

Most unlockables in TF2 are highly situational items and some more are very dependent on your play style. The aforementioned Natasha is a great tool to keep pesky scouts at bay but in pitched slug-it-out battles, especially against targets that receive healing, it's at best useless. It depends on your problem, and in some situations, having access to unlockables will give you an edge. But they're hardly a must-have to compete sensibly or be an asset for your team.

Re:Splitting hairs

[JohnnyBGod]

Yeah, that's true. The actual problem with the game since the Mann-conomy is another. Threats in TF2 used to be highly recognizable, both by sight (different silhouettes, different poses for holding guns, etc.) or by sound. Nowadays there are so many weapons and some of them look and sound so similar it is impossible to distinguish between them all in any useful way.

Re:Splitting hairs

[Danse]

The only things you can buy in-game is stuff that you can earn with enough gameplay. Besides, all of those items have trade-offs versus standard kit. It's not like you can buy a gun for each class that clearly bests anything else.

Don't really agree with this. There are some weapons that are just clearly better. The Dead Ringer and Your Eternal Reward are clearly better than the default spy weapons. Same with the Backburner and Axtinguisher for the Pyro. There are other examples as well, but the list would start getting long. Bottom line is that there are plenty of weapons out there for some of the classes that make the default weapons seem pretty useless.

Re:Splitting hairs

[SpeZek]

The Dead Ringer and Your Eternal Reward are clearly better than the default spy weapons. Same with the Backburner and Axtinguisher for the Pyro.

Maybe for you. I find the default Pryo weapon better than the backburner (putting out allies can be very useful, as well as reflecting projectiles -- I've gotten tons of kills from stupid soldiers who just keep firing and getting hit by their own rockets) and for a smart spy, the default cloak is infinitely more useful for actual sneaking around than the Dead Ringer, if you know where ammo drops are.

If there's one thing Valve is good at, it's balance. I don't think any of the additional weapons are clearly better than the original ones.

Re:Splitting hairs

[VGPowerlord]

The Spy is a Glass Cannon.

The Dead Ringer is balanced by its much louder decloak sound than the normal cloaking devices. It's only really a problem if they're using the Saharan Spy set, which makes it completely silent (but also means they have the Your Eternal Reward knife).

Spies in general are countered by Pyro, among other things.

Plus, only a Dead Ringer Spy can run through an active fire fight and live through it... any other cloaking device makes him light up like a Christmas Tree when hit by any weaponry, particularly if Heavies are involved, they can kill a Spy from full health in less than a second.

Re:Splitting hairs

[Mercano]

Natasha and the Backburner are also awarded for earning enough class achievements, so you don't even need to get lucky with the drop system. You just have to play the respective classes long enough to hit the achievement milestones.

Re:Splitting hairs

[YojimboJango]

I'd have to disagree with all of your points. My personal preference leans to a Spy played with the default invisibility watch default knife and the ambassador. I find Dead Ringer Spys are effective if you're looking to build up a good kill death ratio, but for actually accomplishing objectives and helping your team out the default set is better. As for the Pyro, I still prefer the degreaser/flare gun/axestinguisher combo for general purpose, but occasionally go backburner/shotgun/powerjack if I'm attempting to be sneaky.

As it stands there may be a few weapons that are always better than others, but 99% of the time that's not true, and it's especially not true of the default weapons you get.

Re:Splitting hairs

[VGPowerlord]

The only things you can buy in-game is stuff that you can earn with enough gameplay. Besides, all of those items have trade-offs versus standard kit. It's not like you can buy a gun for each class that clearly bests anything else.

Don't really agree with this. There are some weapons that are just clearly better. The Dead Ringer and Your Eternal Reward are clearly better than the default spy weapons. Same with the Backburner and Axtinguisher for the Pyro. There are other examples as well, but the list would start getting long. Bottom line is that there are plenty of weapons out there for some of the classes that make the default weapons seem pretty useless.

I've clocked over 600 hours as Spy, and I'll tell you right now that it's completely situational.

The Your Eternal Reward is a tradeoff. You start off with no disguise, and if you miss a backstab or have to shoot someone, your disguise goes away until you get another backstab.

The Dead Ringer is balanced by its loud decloak sound and the limit on how much cloak you can regenerate from ammo boxes/dropped weapons. I personally like the DR, but it is fairly useless at the start of Attack/Defense maps if you're on RED. However, the Cloak and Dagger works really well there, as you essentially have infinite cloak as long as you don't move.

The normal invisibility watch is still useful as you can collect ammo boxes along the way to restore your cloak. The C&D can't do this (instead you have to stop and stand there) and the DR has a hard 40% cloak regen limit per medium or large ammo box (invis watch gets 50% from medium and 100% from large). This is probably why most expert Spies use it.

Am I an expert Spy? Hard to say. I know that I got 15 backstabs in one life using the DR and YER on cp_degrootkeep, though...

Free to play accounts are limited

[VGPowerlord]

They've also made it so new accounts have limits, such as:
No random cosmetic item drops.
Can receive items in trades but not send them.
Cannot gift items to other players
50-slot backpack (as opposed to 300-slot for normal accounts)
Limited crafting recipes.

Of course, the way to "fix" this is to buy anything from the Mann Co. Store. That'd be easy... if it weren't for Valve having a $5 minimum on funds put into your Steam wallet.

These restrictions make sense, though. They are in place to prevent people from creating a whole bunch of Steam accounts to farm item drops.

Re:Free to play accounts are limited

[VGPowerlord]

The problem I have with this is that they've taken away the option - you can't buy an account without these restrictions anymore; you can only get a "free" account.

So unless you already have purchased TF2, your friends who have will have an advantage over you. And depending on their playing style, they may not even welcome you, if they have to make special considerations for your limited account's abilities.

I'm all for the option of "free" play, but only as an option. I'd much rather buy a game with all the bells and whistles, and not having to bring out my wallet for DLC at all. If I can't have that choice, I'll go elsewhere.

Buying anything from the Mann Co. store removes these restrictions. I believe I already mentioned that.

And most of the items in said store are cheaper than the game is, but Valve has a minimum of $5 that can be added to the Steam wallet.

However, you can add $5 to your Steam wallet, buy a Rocket Jumper for $0.99 and have $3.99 left to spend on Steam daily sale games.

Re:Free to play accounts are limited

[FrostDust]

you can't buy an account without these restrictions anymore; you can only get a "free" account.

While that is technically true, you can permanently upgrade to the normal account with your first purchase in their store. See their FAQ.

You have to add a minimum $5.00 to the Steam Wallet to buy stuff from the store, so practically you can look at this as the price of getting a normal account. If you feel like spending $1 on a cosmetic item is unfair to other players for whatever reason, there's a Map Stamp item which basically lets you vote on your favorite maps, and the creator gets a bit of that money.

And if it's the DLC system itself that you don't want to give money to, you can try looking around if there's still retail copies of the game around somewhere.

Re:Free to play accounts are limited

[Chris Mattern]

However, you can add $5 to your Steam wallet, buy a Rocket Jumper for $0.99 and have $3.99 left to spend on Steam daily sale games.

$5 - $0.99 = $3.99?

I believe Steam approves of your arithmetic.

Re:Free to play accounts are limited

[Ced_Ex]

However, you can add $5 to your Steam wallet, buy a Rocket Jumper for $0.99 and have $3.99 left to spend on Steam daily sale games.

$5 - $0.99 = $3.99?

I believe Steam approves of your arithmetic.

He had to subtract his 2 cents for his thoughts.

Re:Free to play accounts are limited

[geekoid]

No it's not a game play advantage to have a larger backpack. The starter backpack is large enough to hold all the optional gear for all the classes. It's a convenience, nothing more.

"Colors matching the environment and making you harder to spot isn't a gameplay advantage?"
what are you talking about? I've played for 900+ hours and haven't seen an advantage of 'matching' the background.

Re:Free to play accounts are limited

[Thiez]

> A six times as large backpack isn't a gameplay advantage?
Not particularly, no. The alternative weapons are pretty balanced with the default ones, and you're probably not going to use every single one of them anyway. I doubt most people use every class, I know I don't.

> Colors matching the environment and making you harder to spot isn't a gameplay advantage?
We're talking about TF2 here, not some stealth shooter. The thing you can change about the look of your character is... your hat. And there is no prone position. I have never heard of anyone wearing a hat to 'blend in' with their environment, and if you had any experience playing TF2 you would realize how completely preposterous that idea really is.

My favorite online FPS. Ever.

[Viewsonic]

So far TF2 has been the only online shooter I've liked. I used to like Quake back in the day with grappling hooks and whatnot, but nothing since then has really been as enjoyable until I came along TF2. I'm glad more people will play, just means more kills.

I guess what I am saying is, play this! It's worth it. Very fun.

A model economy

[Veggiesama]

The rich, and those with more money than sense, subsidize everyone else's play by purchasing useless cosmetic doohickeys that fund further development of the game to the enjoyment and benefit of all.

Why can't the real world work this way?

Re:Does it run on Linux?

[Beelzebud]

Over the years I've tried TF2 in Wine about a half a dozen times, and every time I immediately went back to the native client under Windows. The performance just isn't there, and even a few of the HUD elements are always messed up. In short, it looked like playing TF2 on an emulator, and that is pointless when I have a copy of Windows.

Re:Eternal September, TF2 style.

[Hatta]

This is why I never liked TF. Can't I just shoot things? I'd rather lob a grenade up your ass than listen to you bitch about me choosing the wrong class.

This is interesting, but .....

[King_TJ]

As someone who's been kind of hooked on TF2 ever since they released the native OS X version (and gave me a good excuse to spend a lot of time in the game, as the Mac doesn't exactly have a plethora of other options!) -- I'm not sure the change in emphasis towards micropayments and inventory items is beneficial?

It's a great shooter with just the basic characters and default weapon choices, really. The ability to occasionally find a new, alternative weapon is good too, since it keeps the game-play "fresh". But lately, with the "Mann Co. store" being added, you've got this overly-commercial vibe starting to permeate the game. Every time some other new game is released, it seems like they're throwing in new hats or other items related to it -- even if said hats or items really feel a little "out of place" with the overall theme of TF2 itself. And I've seen more and more servers hosting "custom maps" that exist primarily or ONLY for people to sit around "leveling up" their characters or trying to exchange items. (There was some stupid server I joined recently that offered maps stuffed full of endless stationary bots that kept regenerating every 2 seconds when killed, so you could stand there as, say, a Pyro, hold down the button for the flamethrower, and generate hundreds and hundreds of kills for yourself.) I guess this always existed ... but it seems like once the micropayments, limited-edition items and purchased items came about, it started attracting more of this crowd.

I did really like the concept of offering a few items that you had to donate to charity to receive, via their store. My characters wear one of those they sold for the Tsunami victims in Japan. That, IMO, is a really GOOD use of the technology. (Why not make it more fun to donate to a cause, by giving back something that has essentially a zero cost to provide, yet still has value for the gamers? Heck, for a large enough charitable donation, I wouldn't even mind people being able to buy some SERIOUS weapons that always give them an edge in the game. How can you *really* get mad at someone who beats you repeatedly in a game because he or she donated generously to a good real-life cause??)

But overall, I think it kind of detracts from the original point of the game ... to just hop in, "run and gun", and have a good time. Now I'm made to feel like I'm supposed to be regularly managing my inventory "backpack" and thinking carefully about what I want to swap and what I'd be better off hanging onto. That's more the arena of an RPG, isn't it?

Lest anyone think this is novel or special

[argStyopa]

"Valve has once again turned to Team Fortress 2 as the studioâ(TM)s outlet for experimentation, this time with a daring move to make the triple-A game entirely free to play."

"Daring move"?

The original TF (1996+) was a FREE mod that you played by often connecting through the FREE Gamespy server, connecting to any of a number of FREE games hosted all over. It was an *excellent* game, with a variety of extremely well-designed maps, novel & varied gameplay, and challenging mods.

In fact the current game, while a significant facelift, doesn't markedly change much in terms of gameplay. Even the modern maps, while nicely prettified, are largely re-creations of 2fort4, Canalzone, Prison, etc. All of it was 100% free of charge.

So while I commend Valve for finally releasing the game from serfdom, let's remember that it was Valve that originally decided that they would take a free game and charge for it in the first place.