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Much like in Goldilocks and the Three Bears, specifically the part where Goldilocks broke into a bear's house looking for a place to sleep, some of you thought the one Tour of Duty we shipped with Mann vs. Machine was too hard. Others of you found it too soft. A lot of you thought it was just right.
In the fable, of course, Goldilocks held the defenseless bear family at gunpoint until her boyfriend Chet got there, at which point things turned truly grim. This is where our story diverges from that true crime drama, because we've sidestepped the issue by adding more Tours of Duty to MvM mode. Now, in addition to Operation Steel Trap (hard), we've got Operation Oil Spill (less hard) and Operation Gear Grinder (very hard). As Chet might say, "You goddamn bears are in for a lonnnnng night."
In the same way that Goldilocks and Chet drove off covered in bear blood and honey with a flatscreen TV and fourteen dollars in cash, we've cooked up some tour-specific loot you can take to your hideout in Florida. Just like the Botkiller heads awarded to survivors of Operation Steel Trap, we've got some brand new spoils of war you can only get in these new tours: rusty, blood-covered 'bot heads for the intermediate-level Operation Oil Spill, and some 24-carat diamond 'bot heads for the expert-level Operation Gear Grinder, so those of you players who survive the tour can show off a little bling to prove it.
(Remember: as always, loot is the only difference between MvM on the unofficial "Boot Camp" server and official "Mann Up" servers. Otherwise the gameplay is identical.)
You can now select multiple missions you'd like to play, to maximize the chances of finding compatible players as quickly as possible. We’ve also added some handy buttons that'll let you select all missions of a particular difficulty level, or all missions not yet marked off on a Tour of Duty.
Lastly, like when Chet and Goldilocks beat a retired cop to death in Boca Raton and were sent to separate federal prisons, when your MvM group beat a mission, we used to disband the group. Now we've made it so that when you beat a mission to death in Boca Raton or elsewhere, you and the other players on the server are sent back to the matchmaking screen as a group, so you can keep playing together.
In just under a month, we'll start accepting entries for shorts made with the Source Filmmaker, Valve's filmmaking tool. You'll be able to submit in five different categories (Best Action, Best Drama, Best Comedy, Best Original Universe and now Best Replay) with the hope of taking home a Saxxy at the star-studded Second Annual Saxxy Awards. So if you've got an SFM opus in you, crack those knuckles and get creating — November 1st'll be here in no time.
Also, a couple of quick changes for entrants:
We've Added a Replay Category
The Source Filmmaker is the perfect resource for creators looking to dramatize the TF2 mercenaries' off-hours — but after we announced the Saxxy rules, we realized we'd under-represented some of the great dramatic, comedic or just plain violently entertaining moments in-game. So we've added a new category to celebrate all the creators out there who'd rather make their movie magic on the battlefield.
You Can Use Non-SFM Tools for Post-Production
Because the SFM didn't ship with a few post-production features, like titling and transitions, we've decided to let people use other effects and editing tools for this year's contest.
Remember, though, that nothing makes us happier than people using and giving feedback on the SFM. We want this tool to keep getting better and better, and to do that, we'll need creative folks like you pushing the SFM in new directions.
It's a well-established fact that every Halloween, all the ghosts, goblins, Draculas, bigfoots, Frankensteins and Area 51 aliens leave their house at the cemetery to scare humans. But what would happen if you snuck down to the cemetery before Halloween? You would die. Of scaredness? No! Of boredom. That's because between now and October 31st, all the monsters are busy having meetings (about terror) and conducting focus groups (to test all the latest scaring techniques). Oh no! What's that chupacabra doing lurking in the shadows? (Answer: Reading a spreadsheet about blood.)
Scariness doesn't just happen, people. It's serious business. That's why we're giving you until October 1st to fill the Steam Workshop with horrifying Halloween-themed cosmetic items.
If you're not an item-making sort of person, you can still keep busy. Why not visit the workshop and rate other people's Halloween-themed items? Rating terrifying items will also help you build up your resistance to being scared before we unleash this year's Scream Fortress update. Other tips: Pay people to jump out and yell "Boo" at you. Have somebody paint ghosts on their car and then try to hit you with it. If you know an ugly person, why not ask them to try scaring you? Every little bit helps.
Mann vs. Machine's been up and running for over a week now, and we've been hard at work since we launched to make the experience even better. We've upgraded our matchmaking system and given a huge boost to our server count, reducing the average wait for Mann Up Mode down to a minute or less, and Boot Camp to around two minutes. So you should be able to get in to play a lot faster, and get matched up with people a lot closer to you.
Also, guess whose birthday it is? Did you guess Team Fortress or Valve? Well, technically sure, both are sixteen years old today. But more importantly, today is the birthday of high-wattage Hollywood megastar Steve Guttenberg, who is probably 112 years old today, if we had to guess.
In celebration of all of these birthdays, and birthdays in general, Birthday Mode is active in the game! Happy sweet sixteen, everybody! We're not going anywhere! Long term, we mean. Short term we are going somewhere, because Team Fortress is now old enough to drive, so we're gonna go Tokyo Drift over to the cake store.
The Multiplay Insomnia Gaming Festival in Telford, England is UK's biggest LAN tournament, and unquestionably one of the highest profile TF2 competitions in the world. One thing it didn't have until recently, though, was any American representation. E-sports broadcaster eXtv has been spearheading a fundraiser to get our boys in the fight, and the TF2 community has responded, donating the money for airfare, PCs, and accommodations to get America's top TF2 players to the 6v6 tournament. We couldn't be happier to hear this, firstly because it once again proves that TF2's got the most generous community in gaming history, and secondly because U! S! A! U! S! A! Actually, there might be some Canadians on the team. Close! E! Nough! Close! E! Nough!
