Jun 27, 2011
Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch Updates Released
Counter-Strike: Source - Valve
Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM)
  • Reduced CPU usage for idle servers

Team Fortress 2
  • Added the Splendid Screen, Ali Baba's Wee Booties, and the Mantreads to the whitelist for Medieval mode
  • Added a server console message when a player is sent to the server via the matchmaking system
  • Fixed the cl_gameserver_list output
  • Fixed the Quick-Fix showing the fire overlay when running in DX8
  • Fixed a problem with team paints not being displayed properly when playing
  • Fixed a display problem with Hatless hats
  • Fixed a problem that prevented the new Scout items from being used in crafting recipes
  • Fixed a problem with clients seeing the incorrect vote options after changing servers
  • Fixed the backpack image for the Schadenfreude not being disabled when using paint
  • Updated the Planeswalker Goggles to not hide the Scout's hat/headset
  • Updated the taunt items to be nameable
  • Updated the localization files
Jun 24, 2011
Team Fortress 2 overtakes Counter-Strike to take Steam most-played top spot
Counter-Strike
Team Fortress 2 - meet the medic
For the first time in as long as we can remember, Counter-Strike has been knocked off the top spot on the Steam most-played list. Team Fortress 2 has stolen the crown. That means that overnight, TF2 has leapt from a top ten position to the very top, gaining tens of thousands of players in the process

It's a resounding indication of the success of TF2's move to free-to-play. Counter-Strike is routinely the most played game on Steam, often boasting twice the number of players of its nearest rivals. For a four-year-old online shooter to suddenly leapfrog the Counter-Strike is a big deal.

Team Fortress 2 already had a big player-base before it went free-to-play, and it might have been fair to assume that everyone who wanted to play the game already owned it, especially given the incredibly low prices it's been sold for in some of Valve's Steam sales, and the regular free weekends that were thrown after every major update. In practice, removing the barrier of entry completely has had an impressive effect.

Does this mean Valve will be making more of their catalogue free? Speaking to Develop, Team Fortress 2 lead Robin Walker said "with just the data from a single product, it seems dangerous to assume that it would be true for all our products."

"The data we got back from the Mann-conomy Update leads us to believe that TF2 would be more successful as a completely free product," he said. "Either way, we'll know a heck of a lot more in a couple of months, and that's the kind of thing that gets us excited around the office."
Jun 23, 2011
Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch Updates Released
Counter-Strike: Source - Valve
Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM)
  • Updated the shared interfaces for the TF2 Free To Play update
  • Updated the shared localization files

Team Fortress 2
  • TF2 is now Free To Play
  • Added the Uber Update: http://www.teamfortress.com/uberupdate/
  • Added PL_Barnblitz, a new Payload map
  • Added all kinds of new goodies!
  • The Main menu now has a "Start Playing" option which presents users with various game modes to choose from. Once selected, the game matches the player into the best available server for that mode.
  • The Crafting interface has been redesigned to accommodate the fact that crafting blueprints are always known to players now.
  • The Item selection screen in Loadouts has been redesigned to support selection among a larger number of items.
  • Training improvements:
    • New training user interface
    • Added "A,W,S,D" movement instruction to Soldier training
    • Added ammo instruction to Engineer training
    • Clarified many instructional strings
  • Added new voting sounds
  • Fixed various Coaching bugs
  • Fixed various gameplay bugs
May 25, 2011
Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch Updates Released
Counter-Strike: Source - Valve
Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM)
  • Fixed a client crash when disconnecting from servers with sv_pure set to 1
  • Fixed a client crash in the material system
  • Fixed a client crash caused by using alt-tab while playing

Team Fortress 2
  • Added the Concheror and the Fishcake to the list of weapons allowed in Medieval mode
  • Fixed a few server crashes caused by the replay system
  • Fixed a server crash caused by the vote system
  • Fixed the notification text being clipped when you receive items
  • Updated the localization files
May 21, 2011
Gaming Made Me: Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (RPS)

This week in our ongoing retrospective series on games journalists’ most formative games, we very proudly welcome Eurogamer‘s god-king and operations director Tom Bramwell to the word-stage. He’s here to tell you about his long years spent with arguably one of the most definitive PC games of all time, and what for one generation of gamers was a global obsession that today’s shooters, no matter how much bigger they might be, just can’t seem to match…>

I also wanted to write this about Grand Theft Auto, and I might still do that another time if RPS will have me back. There were probably other factors, but no one game is so singularly responsible for my being a games journalist (or at least having been one) as DMA Design’s original PC game. But I’m really here today to bang on about Counter-Strike>, and I owe that game a massive debt too, because it’s thanks to Counter-Strike that I don’t play Call of Duty or Battlefield or Medal of Honor or any of that stuff on the internet nowadays for a moment longer than my job requires.
(more…)

May 19, 2011
Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch Updates Released
Counter-Strike: Source - Valve
Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM)
  • Fixed another case where the $ignorez material flag could be used as a cheat

Team Fortress 2
  • Extended the Saxxy contest deadline to 11:59:59 PM GMT, Friday, May 20th, 2011
  • Fixed the third-person camera options dialog not displaying correctly in the Replay performance editor
  • Fixed a rare case where users running Service Pack 3 on Windows 7 64-bit with graphics driver version 12.42 saw a graphical glitch on the main menu Options button
  • Updated the Three-Rune Blade, Hero's Tail, and Sign of the Wolf's School items so they can be crafted and traded
May 18, 2011
Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch Updates Released
Counter-Strike: Source - Valve
Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Important notes
  • If you were previously crashing on startup, please have Steam verify the integrity of your game cache
    • Update your game to the most current version
    • Right-click on the game and select "Properties"
    • Click on the "Local Files" tab
    • Click on the "Verify Integrity of Game Cache" button
  • If you were previously crashing when connecting to a server, please run once with "-autoconfig" to reset your graphics state
    • Update your game to the most current version
    • Right-click on the game and select "Properties"
    • Click on the "General" tab
    • Click on the "Set Launch Options..." button
    • Add "-autoconfig" to the launch options and click OK
    • Restart your game
    • After doing this, you should remove -autoconfig from your launch options

Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM)
  • Fixed several client crashes on game startup, shutdown, and replay interaction
  • Updated the materials used on models to ignore the $ignorez flag, to make it harder to create wallhacks on sv_pure 0 servers

Team Fortress 2
  • Added an Advanced Options button to the main menu to allow tweaking of many gameplay options
  • Fixed server crashes related to replays and new items
  • Added "per_class_loadout_slots" and "attribute_controlled_attached_particles" sections to the GetSchema WebAPI call
May 9, 2011
Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch Updates Released
Counter-Strike: Source - Valve
Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM)
  • Fixed a client crash in the material system

Team Fortress 2
  • Replay publishing system will try to do a rename for local HTTP mode but will manually copy and delete the file if the rename fails, which can happen if the source and destination are on different volumes.
  • Fixed threading issues on Linux, which was causing major lag spikes.
  • Fixed replay data cleanup system, which cleans up stale data at the end of each round. This asynchronous operation can be explicitly invoked by executing a replay_docleanup command on the server.
  • Removed unused convar, replay_cleanup_time.
  • Saxxy fanfare music wasn't playing on music channel. Music will only play once per launch now and will not play on a changelevel
May 9, 2011
FY_abbottabad lets you play Counter Strike: Source in Bin Laden’s secret(ish) lair
Counter-Strike
Bin Laden's Compound Thumbnail
A map has been released for Counter Strike: Source that give you opportunity to play in, and around, Osama Bin Laden's compound.

As reported on bitthirty, the map is available to download from gamebanana now.

According the map's creator, Fletch, "What a lot of people don't seem to understand is that the only thing this map has in common with Osama is location." Fletch is planning on evolving fy_abbottabad into a bomb or hostage map later. At the moment, you're restricted to aimlessly shooting your chums around the final resting place of a deceased terrorist.
May 6, 2011
Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch Updates Released
Counter-Strike: Source - Valve
Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM)
  • Fixed more crashes related to Alt-Tab in fullscreen mode on Windows
  • Removed ConVars "r_portalscloseall" and "r_flashlight_version2" to fix a wallhack exploit

Counter-Strike: Source
  • Fixed a server crash caused by players committing suicide

Team Fortress 2
  • Fixed a bug that caused Mac replay renders to be blurry
  • Fixed a client crashed caused by using custom main menu resource files
  • Fixed a bug when crafting class tokens
  • Fixed a paint bug on the Aperture Labs Hard Hatz
  • Updated the localization files
...