"'Who here likes good times?' asked David Copperfield as he removed his shirt and popped a whistle in his mouth with the words GOOD TIMES etched in its side. He began tooting on the whistle, signaling the beginning of the good times."

So begins Charles Dickens' feel-good sequel to The Tale of Two Cities, the 800-page Bleak House (a printing error that misspelled the book's original title Good Times Beach House). Day Two of our Two Cities Update picks up in the spirit of Dickens with 100% good times-dedicated announcements: A new animated short, another new map, some more achievements, and some long-anticipated upgrades.

"It was the best of times. It was the best of times."

So opens Charles Dickens' feel-good surf classic Super Good Times, and Dickens' words are as true today as they were at the beach cabana where he wrote them: The best of times, you guys. Let's have some.

Presenting a first-day tease of our imminently-releasing Two Cities Update, including new maps, new achievements, and new effects-generating loot.

The Oscars sputtered out after only two years, the Grammys are of course fictional, and the Stanley Cup has yet to be awarded to anybody. That means that with the Third Annual Saxxy Awards, we will officially be the longest-running awards event of all time. Help us make history by voting, from now until midnight PST on November 24th!

And if voting wasn't exciting enough, how does sending people to jail sound? Because that's what you'll be doing by helping us police the entries for following the rules. Filmmakers will rot in jail on your say-so! In fact, the lawyers tell us they've updated the SFM license to also include an ancillary license to kill! And hold on, there's even more late-breaking news, because the lawyers are now telling us--are in fact typing this right now--that the SFM does not grant you the right to kill and you can't send anybody to jail. Okay, the lawyers stopped typing. I know we're all pretty angry about this turn of events, but we still do need your help checking entries for rule-breaking.

Nominees will be revealed on November 25th and the winners of this year's Saxxy Awards will be revealed on November 26th, so get voting and watch sourcefilmmaker.com for more details!

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:

• Added new series of Chemistry Sets
• Added "Collector's" item quality. "Collector's" items are created by completing special Chemistry Sets.
• Added a server cooldown period for Eternaween votes
• Spooky Keys are now regular keys
• Fixed seeing the fire texture on The Maniac's Manacles, PY-40 Incinibot, The Parasight, and The Foul Cowl in DirectX 8
• Fixed some Halloween spells not working during Eternaween

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:

• The Grandmaster will now update its model based on the owner's current kill streak
• Removed the requirement for SSE2 that was introduced during a previous update
• Updated The Jupiter Jumpers so they can be equipped with the Mantreads and the Gunboats
• Halloween event notes:
  • The Eternaween server enchantment can now be used to call a server vote to enable Halloween items on that server for a two-hour period
  • Fixed an exploit in Helltower caused by attempting to change teams while in hell
  • Updated Halloween spells so that the effects will only be visible during Halloween/Full Moon events. Spells will not be removed from the items they have been applied to.
  • All Halloween event items have automatically expired except the Spooky Crate and the Pile Of Curses, which will automatically expire tomorrow.

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:

• HTML MOTDs will no longer be shown when connecting via quickplay
• Increased speed and damage of the lightning ball spell
• Fixed some items and spell attributes showing incorrect expiration times
• Fixed being able to instantly respawn by changing teams while a ghost
• Fixed taunts with a special purpose being overridden by the Halloween taunt
• Fixed a bug that allowed Merasmus bomb-heads to be passable between enemies
• Fixed the Open Loadout button on the item pickup menu not working properly
• Fixed being able to get into the enemy spawn with the teleport spell in Helltower
• Fixed the crouch+click problems for Mac players
• Fixed a problem with VR mode on Linux when the VR display overlaps the main display
• Removed the prompt to opt-in to quickplay beta
• Updated the equip region for Ivan The Inedible to match the other Spooky Companion items
• Updated the materials for The Hyperbaric Bowler, The Snaggletoothed Stetson, Carrion Companion, and Lieutenant Bites the Dust
• Updated the localization files
• Community requests:
  • Added HalloweenSetUsingSpells input to the tf_logic_holiday entity for custom Halloween maps to enable spells
  • Added userid to the player_turned_to_ghost game event

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 dedicated server crash related to players becoming ghosts in hell
• Fixed a dedicated server crash related to spellbooks and switching weapons
• Updated materials for the following items: Caffeine Cooler, Tartan Spartan, Carrion Companion, Sackcloth Spook, and the Pin Pals
• Updated the Crusader's Crossbow
  • Fixed an exploit related to switching weapons
  • Reduced damage from 75 to 50
  • Lower reload time from 3 seconds to 1.5 seconds

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 client crash caused by low detail skeletons
• Fixed a dedicated server crash related to gamestats
• Fixed a dedicated server crash caused by the payload carts getting stuck
• Fixed green zombies not spawning on Linux dedicated servers
• Fixed broken melee animations for some all-class weapons
• Fixed players being able to issue the "boo" command when they are not ghosts
• Fixed cloaked Spies losing their spells if they attempted to cast them while cloaked
• Fixed the stealth spell only lasting for 2 seconds instead of 8 seconds
• Fixed players keeping their spells if they were rolling for them while leaving hell
• Fixed not switching back to the normal weapon if a spell was cast while standing on another spell
• Updated spells so they cannot be deflected

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:

• Added new main menu character images for Scream Fortress 2013
• Fixed a server crash related to The High Five taunt
• Fixed neutral pumpkin bombs exploding with blue particles
• Fixed health on hit particle effect precache error
• Fixed client nTextureFrame < 0 warning spew in dev console
• Updated the round restart event to remove spells after playing in hell
• Updated plr_hightower_event to improve server stability
• Updated The Chicken Kiev so it can't be equipped with the Cold War Luchador or the Large Luchador
• Re-enabled the crafting recipes for zombie costumes
• Note missed from yesterday's update:
  • Updated the Vaccinator to use the reload key to cycle through resist types

Ahoy, buoys and gulls, it s almost Docktober 31st, and that means it s time for the Fifth Annual Team Fortress Tort-urous Halloween Special, which this year is based entirely around the terrifyingly complex legal questions that haunt maritime law. AWOOOOOOOO! [Sound of receiving a jury summons]

And that horrifying description of an obviously terrible idea for a Halloween update an idea so dreadful that we gave up on it almost fourteen hours ago was just the FIRST of this year s many spine-chilling, spine-tingling, all-around spinal cord-injuring shocks. We have one word of advice to those of you who survived our previous four Halloween Specials: Stop lying. These updates will kill you GUARANTEED! [sound of our lawyers reading that sentence]

This year's Scream Fortress map is Helltower, a Payload Race variation, with at least one major difference: You're all powerful magicians. Everybody gets a spellbook gifted to them automatically, which you can equip in your Action Slot in order to pick up and cast spells. The team that wins the race will be granted a buff for the final climactic battle, where you will fight for the ultimate Halloween reward: Your own lives. And a reward.

So, fear fans, it s time to put aside your precious laws of the sea, because this year anything can happen. Ghosts? Yes! Forbidden magic? Yes! Skeletons? Oh, yes. A Hellmouth? Obviously. A corpse? Yours. Really? Check your pulse. The murderer? You. Anyway, we d love to sit here and shock you to death all day, but the update s live.