I really wonder how Valve is going to pull off releasing another two ‘Meet the’ videos. Probably going to outsource it to someone making gmod videos.

Oh well, at least Portal 2 looks fairly interesting.

Now time for a small rant. Actually, hit the jump, I don’t think this is related and I shouldn’t throw walls of texts at you, but anyone that has a paypal account should give it a read.

So. See that little paypal donate link on the left column somewhere? You don’t? Oh, right paypal screwed me over and annoyed the crap out of me the past two weeks. Basically my account got limited after I apparently hit a transaction limit without warning. Now nevermind the fact that I’ve used this account for two years without a problem, I have to verify myself!

So I have to provide Photo ID and proof of address. Well, the first one was relatively easy, but the second one is where shit gets annoying. Let’s just say I’ve submitted about a dozen documents, half of them signed and official, and my account still remains limited. I’ve called them internationally about 5 times, as their mailbox just shits out boilerplate replies every time, and I haven’t made any progress, even though support assured me otherwise.

Now I do have a nice debit card, and I can pay through that, so why is this such a big deal? You see, my account got limited as I was trying to order the EU version of SC2. The transaction got frozen, and the shop freaked out asking me what I’m trying to pull. Neither of us can’t cancel that transaction, so I’m stuck with this now. Hopefully the shop understands what the situation is and works something out with me.

Here’s my advice to anyone that frequently uses a paypal account. Don’t. You can google around and you’ll find plenty of horror stories, but you’ll disregard them until inevitably one of them happens to you. If you are receiving money through paypal, withdrawl anything to your card as soon as you can.

See, paypal isn’t even that secure. You can get scammed, and paypal won’t rush to your aid. It’ll just freeze accounts until something happens, but they won’t reimburse you for your losses if the guy already got his money. With your bank, however, this problem doesn’t exist. And with a bank I wouldn’t be out of a couple hundred dollars for the next months, nor would I have had a crap week waiting on phone calls all day.

EDIT: Yeah, my limitation isn’t going to get lifted any time soon. 180 days to be exact. I’ve submitted official, signed documents that contain the right information, and support kept reading over what I sent telling me everything’s right, but whoever verifies that information blows me off every single time.

Take it from me, if you’re using paypal, you’ll enjoy the service until they screw you over with their overly paranoid policies. Use your bank to make payments, it’s a lot more secure.

Also, slow news days ahead, I’m going to the beach till August 12. I will have some net access but I don’t know how much time I’ll have.

Head on over there, there might be a few things you’ve missed, like that reproduction of those rather embarassing scout mom photos.

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.

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.

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.

• 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.

…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.