So you wake up one day and you find out your Steam friends list has been deleted. Something must’ve happened in the Valve offices, probably someone falling onto a server. I’m not going to make any more fat jokes on this subject for fear of HL2:Ep3 being delayed even more, so let’s talk about that new TF2 update.

You know that spot in 2fort on the Blu battlements where there’s a tiny tiny slit you can see through under the corrugated iron? Yeah, it’s gone. Doublecross got clipbrushed even more now so you can scratch your head and wonder why the crap you can’t rocketjump to that perfectly accessible spot. And flares can be reflected by the pyro yet again. Oh, who am I kidding, the only interesting thing going on on Steam right now is everyone complaining about their friends list!

Not harboring any ill will towards anyone, but I kind of enjoyed all the drama created by the friends fuck-up. Meanwhile, I’ll be playing Bad Company 2. If you’re played Battlefield 2/2142, I strongly suggest checking it out. You won’t regret it if you’ve had fun with those two games.

Edit: Well, logged on this morning, everything’s back to normal on Steam. Also, a beta.

I’ve updated the Johnny Bravo tank soundpack to work with L4D2. That’s all. :I

So whoever’s been waiting for that new expansion just so they could play with the original cast will be disappointed. The old cast is appearing in The Passing only as non-player characters. On the other hand, L4D1 will receive an expansion later on that ties in with the new L4D2 expansion. Derp.

Also, I’ll be updating the site from now on with other gaming news I find interesting. Source/Valve may be a fun subject but they don’t throw out good news that frequently, and since the editors I don’t pay stopped writing, I’m going to try to bring content here more often.

Edit: I’ll also be trying a few new things with the ads, if something does happen and you get bombarded with really annoying ads, please contact me.

This one sent by Odin, an animated movie about TF2. Starts out fun but then it goes nuts. You’ll see what I mean.

A new version of Pirates, Vikings and Knights  is out, and you’ve got no reason to just sit there and not play it. I mean, there’s Pirates, there’s Knights, there’s Vikings too, there’s a ton of fun game modes which are made even better thanks to the asymmetric teams, the melee system is actually done right (there’s no wussy autoaim stun bullshit ala AVP3), and the maps are great. I don’t know if it’s still in, but I remember having tons of TDM fun in an ancient mayan looking ruin filled with traps and dangers.

And to top it off, it’s also free. Get downloading ye scurvy dog.

Apparently made by a TF2 concept artist called Moby Francke. It’s probably a scrapped concept, as it doesn’t look like his head would actually fit inside his mask.

Not much to comment here. The runner-up entries have been posted, and there’s a rumor going around that a couple of entries weren’t exactly created by the submitters.

EDIT: Yeah, not much of a rumor, as the comments say. TF2’s also been updated to work with the steamcloud, but other than that, the patch doesn’t offer any new gameplay changes.

A few things:

First, on the blog, Valve has created two exciting new posts. The first gives the numbers for the top 20 cheaters in the Soldier-Demo war. As they point out, one spectacular player managed to score a soldier kill every 2.7 seconds. No way he was cheating, right?

The second post contains all the propaganda contest runners-up. Wow, are there a LOT. Many of those would make great sprays. Make sure you have a bit of time to read them, because there are WAY more than I thought there were.

I also want to point everyone toward tf2lobby.com, a new site for forming pug (pick-up-game) groups. It’s set up primarily for 6v6 matches, though it also supports highlander (9v9 with one of each class). Players register, set up and join lobbies, and the site launches your game and automatically connects you to the server. Really awesome, and much easier to use than any previous form of pug set-up. If you have been thinking about competitive play but don’t know where to start, GO THERE. It’s great.