Team Fortress 2‘s latest big update, Gun Mettle, changed the game in some huge ways. Players, however, have discovered evidence that this is only the beginning.
This video from Valve News Network breaks down a handful of secrets hidden in TF2’s Gun Mettle update that point to a few titanic-sized additions, icebergs we can only just see the tips of.
First up, players have found a competitive matchmaking beta pass by sifting through the game’s code — something which seems to suggest that competitive matchmaking, a long (and loudly) requested feature, is coming sooner rather than later. On top of that, Gun Mettle included a sweeping re-balance of TF2’s classes and weapons. Certainly seems like a smart thing to do if you’re about to take things in a more competitive direction.
I’m not entirely sure Valve wanted people to find the competitive matchmaking stuff, but Gun Mettle’s new Valve-made map, Powerhouse, is littered with tidbits that players are interpreting as hints at TF2’s future. Good news: the future is space, unlike in the real world where it’s underfunded space exploration programs and the slow death of our increasingly abused and misused planet. Yay! Where was I? Oh, right: so in TF2 there’s a bulletin board that mentions a lunar landing, a computer display with a launch sequence, and — oh, right — goddamn rockets everywhere. They resemble rockets featured in a beta Robot Destruction map called Asteroid (it’s set in space, obv), and they seem primed to do their whole “to infinity and beyond” thing at any moment.
Now, Valve said they were working on some space-related stuff back in 2014, so it’s not like this is unprecedented. It seems, however, that the stage is finally set. Soon, THINGS will happen. THINGS and STUFF.
Finally, fans have found evidence that the Spy and Engineer are taking paces to their places for a showdown. Between the aforementioned re-balance and some contracts (another big part of the Gun Mettle update) that go out of their way to pit Spy and Engineer against each other, people are speculating that things are about to come to a head. So, as Valve News Network speculates, that means the theme of TF2’s next big update could be Spy vs Engineer… in space. I don’t know about you, but that sounds exactly like something Valve would do with Team Fortress 2 to me.
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5 responses to “Team Fortress 2’s New Update Might Be The The Start Of Something Bigger”
More impressively has been the rate that they have been pushing updates and bugfixes over the past few days. As a server admin, there has been a new patch almost daily since last week. Can’t wait to see what they release.
I’ve always wanted to know, how difficult is it to update a server in situations like that? It seems like a hassle
Nah it’s just like Steam for clients. Just shutdown the server then run a command and it will update itself off the Valve server and then you run your server again. There are scripts that will detect when there is a new version and completely automate it for you.
The process is pretty simple, we host on Streamline servers and its just a matter of logging in and hitting a button. Shuts down the server, runs the update, starts it back up. These updates aren’t too bad, but theres been a few updates where something gets pushed out that breaks server plugins, sometimes bad enough that the server can’t even start up.
The main killer is that once an update gets pushed out, anyone who updates TF2 can’t connect to your server until you update. At least its usually around 8-10am that an update goes out, so not many players for our timezone.
Really wouldn’t hold your breath.