We're just about done with the Scout pack, and our design and coding has already moved on to the next pack. The weapons and achievements are all nailed down, and we just have to finish up the final artwork on them. We like to do the final art as late as possible to ensure that we don't waste any work, which turned out to be a good decision this time around due to the large number of unlockables we tried out as alternatives to the Scattergun. Balancing his replacement weapon has been very tricky due to large threat difference of the Scout between skilled and non-skilled hands. More on that soon.

In the meantime, here's a few answers to some questions we get regularly:

"When's the next update going to be out?"

* We've got an update that should be out tomorrow with a bunch of bug & exploit fixes. Later this week we hope to have another update out that changes the way we store your unlockable items. You shouldn't notice much difference, other than if you play on multiple computers we'll now propagate your item choices. You can think of that update as the one that moves your inventory into the Steam Cloud. Once that's out of the way, we'll be able to ship the Scout pack.


"Why did you change the minigun's muzzle flash away from the original one shown in Meet the Heavy?"

* That muzzle flash was one of the earliest effects that we put in the game and it was done before our new particle system was in place. As we moved forward with the effects we decided that such a cartoony hard-edged look to the effects didn't help the readability of the overall game. If the muzzle flashes and all the effects had well defined edges, they would visually compete with the rest of the TF2 world and the players. So it was decided that the effects should be much softer than the rest of the game so as to not overwhelm an already visually dense game.


"Why should I use Natascha? And doesn't she only do 66% damage, not 75%?"

* You're correct, there was a bug that caused her to lose 0.75 damage off each individual bullet she fired. She spits out so many bullets that a tiny amount like that added up to a significant difference. Tomorrow's update will fix that, and also includes a slight boost to the amount of slowdown she delivers. Our internal playtesters have been finding her much more useful, especially on the large number of Scouts running around with new toys.


"Why is the Sniper such a fake Australian? Aren't several members of the TF2 team Australian?"

* Yes, it's true, the Sniper is a fairly unconvincing Australian. Most of his lines make him sound more English than Australian, and the voice actor is clearly an English actor faking an Australian accent. As for why we didn't fight to make him more authentic, we though it was appropriate that he was about as convincing an Australian as the Demoman is a Scotsman, or the Medic a German.

Me I'm just gonna farm the achivements because I never play scout.

Cannot wait for the scout unlockables

P.S. Taking bets on whether one of the unlockables will have something to do with increased crit chances.

You still didn't understand my point. :P :D
The scattergun, as it is, is a fabulous primary weapon and there isn't anything that comes in my mind or suggestions that I've read on various forums that would make a scout player drop it for anything else. Unless it's a complete buff, with no real downside. So far, the primary weapon upgrades for the other classes are either situational or just downright useless.

Cant wait for first few days after the update, with 26 scouts running around:
*snip*

For Kritz vs Medigun: I think I'm using them around 50:50. I normally have the Kritz and switch to Medigun, if ubers are needed.

Team Fortress 2

• Added percentage to UberCharge HUD panel for the Medic

• Added upgrade progress and levels to Engineer HUD panel for all buildings

• Added mp_tournament_allow_non_admin_restart server ConVar to allow server admin to toggle whether non-admin players can issue the mp_tournament_restart ConCommand on the server. Default is 1 (current behavior)

• Added flag to the gamerules entity so map authors can override the HUD type being used. Allows map authors to force CTF or CP HUD to be used if they mix CTF/CP entities in the map

• Added check in CTF HUD to make sure it doesn't point at disabled capture zones when the player is carrying the flag. Allows map authors to have more than one capture zone for each team in the map

• Changed AutoTeam to give new players to the attackers on attack/defend maps if the teams are even

• Fixed Pyro model not animating in the class menu

• Fixed players getting stuck in the "prepare to respawn..." countdown loop

• Fixed Natascha not getting the proper 75% of damage and slightly increased the strength of Natascha's slowdown

• Fixed teleporter entrance/exit effects being drawn when they don't have a matching teleporter entrance/exit

• Fixed announcer saying "the cart is nearing the checkpoint" after the round has already been won

• Fixed cloaked spies having a particle-beam effect while standing next to a dispenser that's healing them

• Fixed server crash when trying to load a map that contains control points with duplicate index values

• Fixed several materials warnings in the console

• Fixed "Cart.Explode" sound script entry using an unknown sound channel

• Marked the cl_bobcycle and cl_bobup ConVars as cheats

Update released.

http://store.steampowered.com/news/2203/

Team Fortress 2 and Day of Defeat: Source
* Fixed clients using reloadresponsesystems, sv_soundemitter_flush, sv_soundemitter_filecheck, sv_findsoundname, and sv_soundscape_printdebuginfo to lag/crash servers

Source Engine
* Fixed client "timeout on mapchange" problem
* Fixed setinfo exploit
* Marked the r_aspectratio ConVar as a cheat

Server Browser
* Renamed "Quick List" to "Map List"
* Removed minimum ping filter from Map List

Lim-Dul is gonna be very happy, since it fixes one of his custom map favorites with the CTF/CP mode.

the goal of Shmitz & Co. is to include tc_meridian as the community map in the next update