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• Grenade kills no longer display the "in-air" killfeed icon.
  
• Fixed several cases where clicking on the buy menu or scoreboard would cause the game to stop taking keyboard input.
  
• Fixed too many usercommands being processed when skipping forward in demos. This reduces the skip time by as much as 80%.
  
• Added console output that may be helpful for advanced users to diagnose performance problems. When a very long frame occurs, a brief profile of the frame is printed. At the end of a match, a summary is printed.

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• Fixed a bug where grenade throw animations would get stuck when switching hands.
  
• Fixed a bug where the same grenade type couldn't be thrown multiple times without switching to another weapon first.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed picking up grenades beyond the normal maximum.
  
• Fixed a bug where smoke grenades would sometimes appear lit as if a flashbang detonated inside them.

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• Fixed a spot in Dust 2 above mid doors where grenades would fall through the world.
  
• Fixed a spot in Inferno where weapons could fall through the world.

The North American TF2 Competitive offseason is kicking off with a bang! Fireside is hosting the Fireside Cup, a $600 (with potential to increase via fundraising), two week cup featuring the best North American sixes players in the region. Not to mention, some of the best teams like Like A G6 will be participating! There is one kicker to this cup though: apart from the traditional sixes composition of two scouts, two soldiers, one demoman, and one medic, only one off-class can be on the field at any time.

This will force teams to put a little more creativity into how they approach any given scenario throughout the game. Gone are the days of the Engineer reinforced Heavy / Pyro / Sniper last hold! The first week will be a best of two group stage, and the next week will follow with a best of 3 playoffs to decide the winner of the cup.

The cup will take place on the weekdays between May 13 - May 23 and will be broadcasted by Fireside and EssentialsTF. Come tune in and watch the best of North America duke it out.

Important Links:

• Announcement
  
• Twitch Stream A
  
• Twitch Stream B
  
• Youtube Stream
  
• Tournament Page
  
• Official Fireside Website

Today's update includes a bunch of quality-of-life improvements that touch upon every part of the game, from maps to UI to gameplay. A few highlights are below, but check out the release notes to see what's new!


Lefties rejoice! Players can now redeploy their weapons, swapping between the left and right hand. You can set your preferred handedness in the settings menu and then switch hands temporarily mid-round with a key press (H on US Keyboards by default).


The buy menu has a few new tricks. To help you decide whether to buy or save, the top right of the buy menu now features the minimum amount of money you're guaranteed to have next round (thanks Kadomos). And at the bottom you'll find the new 'Dropped Weapons' panel, where you can see (and directly pick up) any weapons that you or teammates have dropped in the buy zone.


There are several more HUD/UI changes in today's update. For those of you who have memorized a library of grenade line-ups, a line-up reticle will appear shortly after you pull the pin (you can even customize the delay for each grenade type). And if you've had trouble navigating through smoke, set a Radar Map Alternate Zoom and add a Toggle Radar Zoom key binding, which will let you switch between zoom levels during a round.


We've updated the Active Duty map pool (for both Premier and competitions), removing Overpass and bringing back Dust II. And there are changes to many other maps, including significant changes to Inferno.

Jump right into a match and see what's new, or practice with your friends--practice matches and workshop maps can now be launched with members of your party.

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• Adjusted viewmodel bob movement
  
• Added "Preferred Viewmodel Left/Right Handedness" setting
  
• Added "Switch Viewmodel Left/Right Hand" key binding (default: US keyboard letter H) to switch hands temporarily during gameplay
  
• Viewmodel position setting and left/right hand state are now networked and visible to first-person spectators.
  
• Deprecated "Couch" viewmodel position setting

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• Added "Radar Map Alternate Zoom" setting and "Toggle Radar Zoom" key binding to toggle between zoom levels during gameplay
  
• Added a radar icon for the local player when free cam spectating
  
• Added a grenade line-up reticle that appears shortly after pulling the pin. The timing can be configured for each grenade type independently
  
• Changed weapon Swap text (when pointing at a dropped weapon) to always show the gameplay name of the weapon instead of any customized name it might have.
  
• Added a kill feed icon for "in-air" kills
  
• Added the scoreboard to the ESC menu
  
• Added an icon to indicate bots on the scoreboard

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• Added a "Dropped Weapons" panel, which shows (and allows the direct pickup of) weapons that have been dropped by teammates that are standing in the buy zone
  
• Added the minimum amount of money that a player is guaranteed to have in the next round to the buy menu title bar. (thanks, Kadomos)

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• Increased Zeus movement speed and adjusted the attack cone
  
• Increased Zeus kill reward from $0 to $100 ($50 in Casual)
  
• Increased CZ75-Auto kill reward from $100 to $300 ($150 in Casual)
  
• Reduced XM1014 kill reward from $900 to $600 ($300 in Casual)

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• Lighting adjustments in Inspect background maps
  
• Added Wear Category to the info tooltip in the Inspect screen
  
• Added gameplay name in panels that used to only show customized name. E.g., Inspect screen, inventory tile

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• Replaced Overpass with Dust 2 in the Active Duty Group, current competition map pool, and Premier matchmaking
  
• Baggage
  
  • Opened roll-up doors at spawns
    
  • Updated models for some conveyors
    
  • Solidified stairs
    
  • Various bug fixes
• Inferno:
  
  • Removed overhanging building at top mid
    
  • Removed overhangs at bottom of banana
    
  • Various map tweaks to improve player collision and readability
• Overpass, Nuke, Vertigo, Mirage and Office
  
  • Bug and exploit fixes
    
  • Collision and line of sight adjustments
    
  • Minor performance improvements

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• AK-47 | Inheritance: Texture and mask adjustments
  
• USP-S | Jawbreaker: Corrected ambient occlusion texture

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• Decoupled demo playback camera movement from playback speed. This allows moving the camera even if playback is paused
  
• Added ability to launch practice matches and workshop maps with party members
  
• Added Overwatch system to enable match demo review by trusted partners
  
• Copenhagen 2024 Major sticker capsules are on sale now -75% off
  
• Added ability to adjust brightness in windowed modes

An update has been released for Left 4 Dead 2:

- Fixed another exploit where malicious network packets could severely degrade server performance.
- Fixed a client exploit that could cause long server stalls.
- Fixed a potential crash if a Charger failed to return to valid nav for an extended period of time.
- Fixed a rare hang from ray traces encountering NaN values.

Over the last few days since Crownfall's release we've addressed the following issues:

• Fixed the match history Dota Plus rank change column sometimes displaying zero change for matches where a Ranked Double Down token was used. (The correct rank change was recorded on the server, this was just a display issue.)
  
• Fixed Crownfall Ranked Double Down tokens beyond the first not being correctly granted. Missing tokens have been granted to all affected accounts.
  
• Fixed voice chat indicators not appearing for some players.
  
• Fixed the in-game Ranked Double Down button not appearing for some players.
  
• Fixed a bug allowing Shadow Demon to level up his ultimate outside of the correct level points.
  
• Fixed the Demo Hero mode Target Dummy being unintentionally killable.
  
• Fixed a bug in the combat log that caused an additional tower killed message to be printed along with tower deny messages.
  
• Fixed a bug in the combat log that caused barracks kills by creeps being attributed to a player.
  
• Fixed a bug in the combat log that incorrectly showed no gold being given to all players when barracks were killed by creeps.
  
• Fixed models shown in loadout or pregame screens not always using the highest quality rendering options.
  
• Fixed missing visual effects for heroes with the Aviana's Feather neutral item.
  
• Fixed the Crownfall Snake Charmer encounter to also grant credit when you play two Turbo games.
  
• Fixed the Crownfall Snake Charmer encounter not greeting players the first time you open it.
  
• Fixed some minor visual issues with the Drow Ranger The Finer Points taunt.

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

• Fixed a crash caused by using -dxlevel commands
  
• Fixed some ABI compatibility regressions for server plugins/mods
  
• Fixed a crash under 64-bit caused by some custom HUDs using Half-Life 2 HUD elements which assume the player is Gordon Freeman
  
• Fixed a crash when opening options/going into game (mostly affecting Windows 7 users)
  
• Fixed the snd_cull_duplicates command not working
  
• Fixed a hang when importing cosmetics into the Workshop tools to upload
  
• Fixed an issue selecting surround sound audio settings (Headphones, 4, 5.1, 7.1, etc.)

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

• Fixed an issue where the game would be falsely detected as malware by some anti-viruses
  
• Fixed a crash relating to using some Unicode characters on Linux

For over a decade now, Skywrath Mage and Vengeful Spirit have been ambiguously entwined. Eagle-eyed players noticed that they come from the same town, seem to have related backstories, and might even be dating. Pretty mysterious stuff.

Earlier, we dropped a comic that solved those mysteries, but introduced an even bigger one: "Why are you posting comics instead of updates?"

We can now reveal the answer: Because we've just released The Markets of Midgate, the first act of an ongoing story event called Crownfall, filled with legendary heroes and unique rewards. In this act alone, you can expect dozens of new cosmetic sets, taunts, creeps, emoticons... are we forgetting anything? Oh right, and two brand-new Arcana, one for each of Crownfall's main characters.

So what is Crownfall? It's something completely new that we've wanted to try for a while. And when we say new, we mean new— a new way of telling stories, offering rewards, and making it more fun to win every game of Dota. And it's available right now to all Dota players for free.

Honestly, it's a little hard to describe in a tiny blog post. But luckily, the description is exactly website-sized. Go read the details here. Or, if you'd rather just play instead of hearing us describe it, boot up the game and enter the world of Crownfall for yourself.