Weaponized mackeral: the new TF2 item list
Love’em or hate’em, you’ll want to know what they are. Here’s the full catalog of purchasable (or earnable) items that Valve’s rolling out today with the Mann-conomy update.
Team Fortress 2 now selling items for real money, massive update just launched
The biggest update in Team Fortress 2′s history is about to go live, letting players pay real money for in-game items. The Mann-conomy Update adds 17 new community-designed items, and the players who created them will receive a percentage of the takings from their sales. Item trading has also been added, along with item customisation systems for you to rename and recolour your kit. There’s a new dueling mini-game, crates of mystery items to be found and unlocked, and special item sets that give you major bonuses for wearing them all at once.
This is huge. And it’s probably going to make a lot of people angry. But before you make up your mind, and before you read our full interview with Robin Walker on why they’re selling in-game items for real money, here’s exactly what’s happening and how it works – plus a few shots.
Interview: Valve on why they’re selling TF2 items for real money
A massive Team Fortress 2 Mann-conomy Update has just added the ability to buy unlockable weapons and items for real money – anything from $0.49 to $4.99. The 17 community-made items the game’s just added can still be unlocked for free, but there’s no quick or reliable path to do so – unlike the achievement route of previous updates. If you want them soon, you’ll have to pay.
TF2 has long been the industry posterchild for ongoing free content: its free updates have added 26 of its 32 maps, 8 of its 10 game modes, and 52 of its 77 weapons. So why start charging now? Team Fortress 2′s lead designer Robin Walker offered to answer our questions before the update went up, to help clarify the thinking behind this – the first of three big surprises Valve have planned in the next twelve months.
New Team Fortress 2 comic about “some new way to buy hats”
A highly entertaining new Saxton Hale comic just went up on the Team Fortress 2 site. In it, Hale says a chunk of the comic is going to be “about some new way to buy hats”, then mentions “If [the customers] are going to build items anyway, why don’t we offer to sell them through Mann. Co?” and “We could even give them a cut of the profits.”
Interesting! Probably unrelatedly, we have some incredibly big news about Team Fortress 2 to go up on the site very soon – it should be in about an hour’s time. Prepare your F5 buttons for a hammering.
UPDATE: Valve are now selling TF2 items for real money. Here’s Robin Walker on why they made that decision.
Vote for the best strategy game in the Golden Joysticks
It’s Golden Joystick season, and this week we’ve got a list of the nominees for the best strategy game category. Unfortunately, StarCraft 2 isn’t in this list – it was released a little too late to make it. The good news is that all but one of these games are on the PC, and the other one is on the iPhone. Sucks to be you, all those many console strategy games! Here’s a video rundown of the nominees:
Primal Carnage trailer pits a T-rex against a Spinosaurus
Primal Carnage is an upcoming multiplayer class shooters vs biters game for Windows and Linux. It’s being made with the Unreal Development Kit, and it’s got massive dinosaurs mauling mercs with guns.
The 15 worst PC games of all time
Let’s face it, bad games are brilliant. As long as you didn’t do anything stupid like actually spend money on one, there’s hours of fun to be had just savouring the failure.
Great games? They need no help. Mediocrity is never enjoyable. A true stinker on the other hand, a bad idea executed hilariously poorly, is a thing of beauty. The only real problem is where to draw the line. Here are 15 of the worst games ever made.
Interview: Blizzard’s Chris Sigaty on the future of Starcraft II
Chris Sigaty is StarCraft II’s lead producer, and rhythm guitarist in Blizzard house band The Artists Formerly Known As Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain. His business cards are lengthy and hairy. I interviewed him the other day about StarCraft II’s launch, its first patch, and the game’s future. Here’s what he said.
Interrogate enemies in Batman: Arkham City
If there’s one thing that Batman loves to do, it’s hang a thug upside down and scream at him until his spirit breaks. Rocksteady have revealed that in Batman: Arkham City, you’ll be able interrogate your foes for leads. Not only that, but the Riddler’s back, and he’s smarmier than ever.
AI War and the hidden cost of indie games
Earlier this month Chris Park revealed that his company could be bankrupt by November. His company is Arcen Games, the developer of popular space strategy game AI War. Despite that game’s excellence, it wasn’t a surprise to find he was struggling: most indie games developers do.
Prompted by the tale of trouble on his site, I sent him an email asking for more information. What are the costs involved in independent game development? What are the profits of a game like AI War? Chris was willing to talk numbers – something no developer ever does – and he kindly replied with a breakdown of the profits and costs of AI War and his latest game Tidalis. I’m reprinting his email in full below with permission.
Thighboned in Vindictus [Giveaway]
See this piece of ham? It’s about to be lodged down the throat of a dirty Kobold that’s squirming around on the ground in front of me. I could just use my sword or a spear but the sight of a giant thighbone smacking a Kobold is just so much more satisfying than pinning it up against a wall or slashing it apart. This is just one reason why I’m having fun playing in the beta of the free-to-play MMO, Vindictus.
Giveaway: Tell us in the comments what food, decorations, or random debris in a dungeon that you want to kill kobolds with and why. 50 winners will receive open beta keys for Vindictus. Winners will be selected tomorrow (September 30). Only residents in North America (see ‘Contest rules’ below) are eligible for this contest.
New Borderlands DLC: Claptrap’s Robot Revolution out now
Remember those boxy little Claptrap robots that danced a lot and gave you missions in Borderlands? Well now you can slaughter them in their hundreds in this slice of new DLC, called Claptrap’s Robot Revolution. Read on to find out what’s included, and a picture of a man tearing a robot apart with his bare hands.
Fable III is full of British talent
There’s some dazzling star quality on show in the latest development video for Fable III. Ben Kingsley, Stephen Fry, Simon Pegg and John Cleese all make an appearance to give some insight into the characters you’ll be meeting in your fight to overthrow the evil King Logan. Video below.
Guybrush Threepwood is in The Force Unleashed 2
This might fall into the ‘just because you can, doesn’t mean you should,’ category of decision making, but Lucasarts have put Monkey Island’s Guybrush Threepwood into the Force Unleashed 2 as an alternative skin for Dave Starkiller. Or whatever he’s called.
Dawn of War II: Retribution shows off Eldar campaign
The new single player campaign for the next expansion to Dawn of War II, Retribution, will let you play as multiple races, including the Eldar. THQ have released a trailer showing the futuristic space elves slashing and blasting their way through a host of chaos. The trailer below includes twelve foot tall Wraithlords crushing chaos warriors with giant swords, and bucketloads of vomit.
