New TF2 blog post, this time answering a few questions about the Mac version of TF2. Gotta love their tone.

Q: Is it just some crappy emulated version of TF2?
A: No! Also: How dare you! Mac users aren’t getting a crappy emulated version of the game. TF2 will run natively on OSX, like an actual big boy game for adults.

In other news, CEVO season 5 starts next week, and registrations close on Sunday. More info on this here.

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.

For those of you who don’t check the Left 4 Dead blog too often, and none would blame you, Erik Johnson posted on the 13th explaining that Gabe Newell and him had returned from their trip over in Australia. The visitation, for those who don’t keep up to date with the Valve news, was to test out Joe W-A’s Left 4 Dead campaign, after a few joke e-mails between the parties resulted in Joe W-A’s community forking over $3000 in under 48 hours.

The blog post explained that Valve was unable to actually make the contributors pay for their ticket, and instead donated the $3000 to Child’s Play, a video game based charity organization. However, they still counted the contributors donations in a pretty long image, showing the contributor’s name, amount and the distance that amount got them. The chart can be found by clicking the image below:

Pictures from the trip, as well as videos and information can be found on the Fly Gabe Newell blog set up by Joe W-A.

I’ll just skip the bugfixes and such and get to the gameplay part:

• Bullet spread algorithm changed to fire a bullet right down the crosshair under these circumstances:
  • The first bullet of a spread weapon (except for rapid fire spread weapons like the minigun)
  • The first bullet of a non-spread weapon if it’s been >1.25 seconds since firing

Why Valve decided to mess around with bullet weapons this late is unknown, but the most significant change will be with the revolver. Although it’s cone of fire is still worse than the ambassador’s, the first bullet fired in the last 1.25 seconds will be pinpoint accurate. This means you can pelt low hp people running away at longer ranges.  The other weapons that will behave the same are the engie/scout pistol and the SMG. Imagine your regular CSS machinegun except any bullets fired in a burst will go all over the place after you shot your first.

And on a related note, the TF2 Blog has also been updated with some behind the scenes footage on how the developers work on new levels.

At least from my perspective. The official blog’s been updated, and the main thing that stands out is:

…We’ve decided to go ahead and release the source behind all the player character models, as well as associated animations. We hope this will make it much easier for custom modellers to design new character models, and for machinima makers to have more control over how characters animate in their movies. Look for that SDK update in the next week or so.

One of my main pains with TF2 was how hard it was to even start getting into custom animations and the like. Hopefully they’ll include some nifty instructions on how to properly compile any edits so at least simple modifications to the models won’t make them show up as freaks of nature.