Nov 15, 2012

Team Fortress 2 - SZ

<a href="http://www.steamcommunity.com/saxxyawards/"><img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/saxxys_2012_votenow.jpg" width="100%" border="0"></a>

Voting is now LIVE for the Second Annual Saxxy Awards, from now until midnight GMT, November 27th! Your votes will help our panel of judges make the final call on which entries are the most gut-bustingly hilarious, the most eye-wettingly dramatic, the most pants-crappingly action-packed, and the most heart-tuggingly romantic. We don't want to oversell things here, but this is quite literally the most important thing you will ever cast a vote for. All that Presidential election hooha? Consider that nonsense practice for your voting finger, like the training montage in Rocky IV, except instead of your finger lifting a telephone pole up a mountain on its back, it'll be clicking a mouse button.

How to Vote

Every video entered in the 2012 Saxxy Awards can be viewed and voted on at the <a href="http://www.steamcommunity.com/saxxyawards/">Saxxy Awards voting page</a>. Head over now to vote! We've randomized all the entries to keep things fair; however, you can filter by category if you're more interested in some genres than others. After you've watched an entry, simply upvote it or downvote it and move onto the next one. Vote as much as you like, but remember: you've only got one vote per entry.

Also, with such a huge number of entries, it's a challenge to keep on top of entries breaking the <a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/saxxyawards2012/"> contest rules.</a> So if you spot an entry that's longer than five minutes, or that's using copyrighted (i.e. not Valve, and not public domain) material, help us out and report it.

The winners of this year's Saxxy Awards will be revealed on November 30th, with the exception of the Best Overall category. Why? Because the winner of the Best Overall category will be announced LIVE on the <a href="http://www.gametrailers.com/shows/gt-tv">GTTV</a> Spike Video Game Awards pre-show on December 7th, AND their entry shown on the air. Stay tuned for details!

Nov 15, 2012

Vote! Vote! Vote!

Team Fortress 2 - SZ

Voting is now LIVE for the Second Annual Saxxy Awards, from now until midnight GMT, November 27th! Your votes will help our panel of judges make the final call on which entries are the most gut-bustingly hilarious, the most eye-wettingly dramatic, the most pants-crappingly action-packed, and the most heart-tuggingly romantic. We don't want to oversell things here, but this is quite literally the most important thing you will ever cast a vote for. All that Presidential election hooha? Consider that nonsense practice for your voting finger, like the training montage in Rocky IV, except instead of your finger lifting a telephone pole up a mountain on its back, it'll be clicking a mouse button.

How to Vote

Every video entered in the 2012 Saxxy Awards can be viewed and voted on at the Saxxy Awards voting page. Head over now to vote! We've randomized all the entries to keep things fair; however, you can filter by category if you're more interested in some genres than others. After you've watched an entry, simply upvote it or downvote it and move onto the next one. Vote as much as you like, but remember: you've only got one vote per entry.

Also, with such a huge number of entries, it's a challenge to keep on top of entries breaking the contest rules. So if you spot an entry that's longer than five minutes, or that's using copyrighted (i.e. not Valve, and not public domain) material, help us out and report it.

The winners of this year's Saxxy Awards will be revealed on November 30th, with the exception of the Best Overall category. Why? Because the winner of the Best Overall category will be announced LIVE on the GTTV Spike Video Game Awards pre-show on December 7th, AND their entry shown on the air. Stay tuned for details!

Nov 15, 2012

Vote! Vote! Vote!

Team Fortress 2

Nov 15, 2012

For Your Consideration: The Second Annual Saxxy Awards

Team Fortress 2

Valve has opened the voting for the second annual Saxxy Awards, celebrating cinematography in Team Fortress 2, and a winner shall be crowned on Nov. 30. Why so soon? Well, because the best overall winner is going to be announced at the Spike Video Game Awards on Dec. 7, and the video is going to be shown live.

In that case, my vote is for this four-minute, 45-second retcon of the history of the Saxxy Award (above), and the revelation of its creator, mostly because the whole shebang is 15 seconds under the 5 minute limit and would require Spike to devote 1/20th of its broadcast time to a fan film. The voting page is here. Get to it.

Saxxy Awards [Steam]

Nov 15, 2012

Because Your Day Needed to Start With a Team Fortress 2 vs Godzilla Movie

Team Fortress 2

Master Source Filmmaker user Zachariah Scott returns once again with an amazing piece of work, this time crossing the world of Team Fortress 2 with that of Godzilla.

It's... look, I'm starting to think Zachariah Scott isn't one man, and that he's instead a complex computer program nestled beneath Valve headquarters, devoted entirely to designing and rendering terrific movies at record speed.

Big trouble in Rumble City [ Saxxy Awards 2012 ] [YouTube]

Nov 14, 2012

User Uncovers Dodgy Russian Trading Scheme... in Team Fortress 2

Team Fortress 2

User Uncovers Dodgy Russian Trading Scheme... in Team Fortress 2 Steamrep forum user base64, having noticed a strange spike in transactions for a rare in-game item, decided to do a little private investigating. And uncovered some very strange happenings.

Picking up on a weird increase in trades for "earbuds", a rare item in the game, his investigations led him to discover a closed Steam group that was involved in highly suspicious item trading. The report is a lengthy and surprisingly fascinating read, but for the time-starved, let's cut to his tl;dr hypothesis:

tl;dr A group of Russians bought >5,000 Keys from Store today using illegitimate credit cards and bought few hundred Buds from TF2 Outpost at an ridiculous price of 28-30 Keys (The average yesterday was 25.5 Keys). They have been doing this for quite a long time and their activity today is alarming.

One motive for this could be the hilariously bizarre (if unlikely) possibility that Russian gangsters are using Team Fortress 2 to launder dirty money. Another, more likely outcome is that a band of crims have got hold of some stolen credit cards, and are spending the cash on rare TF2 items they can re-sell.

Today I discovered that there are tons of Keys with doubtful origin injecting into the market [Steamrep, via PC Gamer]

Nov 14, 2012

Investigation of TF2 Earbud trading may have uncovered major organized fraud

Team Fortress 2

A user on the SteamRep forums who goes by base64 has potentially uncovered evidence of organized Team Fortress 2 market fraud. On Sunday morning, the community investigator noticed an unusual jump in the price (in TF2's common currency of Keys) and volume of Earbud trades. Earbuds, if you're not familiar, are an especially valuable TF2 item. Further investigation revealed that the Keys used to purchase the Earbuds at an above-average price had consecutive or regularly alternating (odd or even) original ID numbers, which indicates they were likely purchased in bulk directly from the Mann Co. Store.

That brought up questions, like, say, why would someone purchase thousands of Keys for $2.49 each, trade 28 to 30 of them at a time for Earbuds, and then sell those Earbuds for 700 Russian rubles, for a loss of about $47 each? Base64's thorough investigation can only lead to educated speculation, but it's all very suspicious.

The big drama version of the story is that Russian mobsters are using Team Fortress 2 to launder money. Since this isn't a Neal Stephenson novel, the more likely story is that someone's sitting on a few stolen credit card numbers. Some SteamRep posters say base64's research reveals "nothing new," suggesting that this activity is commonplace. Whatever the case, credit to base64 for uncovering so much via Valve's API and interviews with Earbud sellers involved—if nothing else, it's a fascinating study of digital forensics. Check out the post for the full investigation.

(Via PCGamesN)

Nov 14, 2012

Is Someone Cutting Onions, Or Did I Just Watch The Most Dramatic Team Fortress 2 Video I've Ever Seen?

Team Fortress 2

It might not be tear-worthy, but it's certainly a touching account of the Team Fortress 2 characters coming together in a moment of need. And that song ain't half bad either.

Lozeng3r's dramatic take on Team Fortress 2 is a submission to Valve's second annual Saxxy Awards, which will be open to votes in two days.

Team Fortress 2 - Till Death Do Us Part (Saxxy Entry) [YouTube]

Nov 13, 2012

Team Fortress 2 charity tournament roster announced: Day[9], Valve, Notch, and more

Team Fortress 2

The good people at TF2 Mixup (actually a collaboration between Gamers United, Vanilla TF2, eXtv, and Kritzkast) are gathering another League of Extraordinary Internet People to fight for the benefit of Doctors Worldwide in Team Fortress 2. Announced today, the line-up includes StarCraft 2 emissary Day, TF2 creator Robin Walker, YouTuber Freddie Wong, Notch, Counter-Strike pro cArn, and me, apparently.

The match will take place in early December. More importantly, you can win a chance to play alongside us by donating to Doctors Worldwide through the tournament. The more you donate, the higher your chances of earning a spot on the server. How much are you willing to spend for a chance to shoot Tay Zonday with TF2 weapons?

The last TF2 Mixup, videoed below, was a happy success, raising $14,462.25 for Child's Play.

http://youtu.be/EQFt9oHQ89w