We're getting a little slack around here on the blog posting front. In our defense, we've just had our second day of snow in Seattle, and that means civilization has pretty much broken down entirely. We were about to eat our last intern when we realized we wouldn't have anyone who knew how to operate the blog posting tool/machine/software/doohickey. Luckily the intern, bless his little proactive (and tasty) heart, wrote a detailed description of how to use it on the company wiki. Around here, we call that a Career Limiting Move.

This coming Tuesday November 9th, 2010 the TF2 item system will be down for maintenance starting at 1pm PST and ending at approximately 2:30PST. We are significantly increasing the amount of database horsepower behind TF2 to accommodate all the recent additions to the system. During this maintenance the following TF2 features will be unavailable:

• Backpacks
• Crafting
• Trading
• The MannCo store
• Loadouts

The game itself will continue to work. All players will have their default appearance and weapons.

To keep abreast of the status of this and future TF2 item maintenance, subscribe to this thread in the TF2 forum.

Note to developers using the TF2 Item Web API: As part of this maintenance all item IDs will change to eliminate negative IDs. We will be shifting all item IDs forward by 2100000. Depending on what data you store in your database, you may need to do the same.

Poker Night at the Inventory is now available for pre-order. If you move fast, not only will you save 10% off the already low price, but you'll also pick yourself up a sweet pre-order bonus of this spiffy Poker Visor for your favorite Heavy. Once the game is released, you'll also be able to unlock new TF2 items by beating The Heavy, Max, Tycho, or Strong Bad at high stakes games of poker.



This is pretty exciting to us - it's the first time a game made by someone other than us allows you to find TF2 items by playing it. If you'd asked us, as we slaved away on TF2 back in '63, whether one day you'd be able to get the Heavy's first minigun off him by playing poker, we'd think you were nuts. Then we'd have hired you, because you had a vision for the future.

If you're curious, here's the set of items that you'll be able to collect inside Poker Night at the Inventory:

• The Enthusiast's Timepiece - Tycho's favorite timepiece (equippable by the Spy)
• License to Maim - Max's Badge (equippable by all classes)
• The Lugermorph - A second chance at Max's personal armament (equippable by the Scout and the Engineer)
• The Iron Curtain - The Heavy's first love (equippable by the Heavy, obviously)
• Dangeresque, Too? - Strong Bad's styling glasses (equippable by the Demoman)

Two blog posts in two days? Your eyes don't deceive you. We're blog-writing machines this week, and there's plenty of gas in the tank.



Today's update includes both of the Art Pass Contest Winners' maps: Mountain Lab by Valentin "3Dnj" Levillain, and Mann's Manor by Tim "YM" Johnson and Alex Kreeger.

Also included in this update: You being scared! [sound of bat wings] That's right, it's the Second Annual Team Fortress Halloween Special. Will there be ghosts? Quite possibly. Will there be exploding pumpkins? You never know. Will you wet your pants in terror? If you're anything like us, emphatically yes.



And what more perfect holiday than Halloween to add the scariest feature yet to the Mann Co. Store: Gift wrapping! If someone decides to trick or treat on your server, wrap up that spare bottle of Jarate and give them the gift a thousand words could never describe, and a thousand therapist appointments will never undo.

Also added to the store: new community items themed for Halloween and a few scary hats of our own dark design. Some of these new holiday items are only available to purchase during the holiday, but will remain wearable all year round, so grab 'em while they're grabbable.

We've been fairly busy around the office this week after it was mandated that browsing International Stately Hats of Nationals was not a good use of time and there was work to be done on the next update.

Are you prepared to make your mother proud? We've joined up with Kritzkast to determine what the Demoman really said during his diatribe in Meet the Demoman. Our sensitive ears are incapable of determining exactly what was said so it's best left to the experts. The funniest clean entry, funniest not so clean entry, and most accurate will all receive prizes. Recording your brother being dominated in Dustbowl is not a valid entry.

After days of deliberation, a moderate amount of yelling, and an M&M inexplicably up Drew Wolf's nose again, we're happy to announce the winners of the art pass contest. That's right, winners. Multiple. There were so many good-looking and fun maps that it was incredibly tough to narrow them all down to a single entry. So much so that we didn't bother.

Congratulations to Valentin "3DNJ" Levillain and Timothy "YM" Johnson. TF2Maps.net has a page up where you can view the winners of the contest, along with many of the other fantastic entries.

Hello there, Team Fortress people. Now that I got your attention, the name's Whitaker, from Left 4 Dead 2. Nice little setup y'all got here. Now, I'm told y'all are hired killers. Also, I wanna make it clear that this is ALL I've been told. Ol' Whitaker don't pass judgment, and he don't take sides. RED, BLU -- your money's all green here.



Now, to business. I have once again been asked to try and clarify the essence of some sales paraphernalia.

We've been getting some emails asking a lot of the same questions answered on the Mann-Conomy F.A.Q., so we thought we'd go ahead and send the link around again for those who missed it.

One of the interesting side effects of shipping free updates for Team Fortress 2 over the years has been a large and devoted group of people who write us asking if they can simply buy game items directly. We also get regular feedback from the bean counters on our fourth floor, who -- after watching with tooth-grinding irritation as we shipped over 120 free updates to a three-year-old game -- gently suggested that we "make some f$*&ing money already."

Then it hit us: it'd make everybody happy if we really DID let players buy items directly. Players'd be happy because we actually listened to them for once, and the bean counters would be happy because in-game stores are the future of everything, including making some f$*&ing money already.



Flash forward a few months, and we're proud to introduce the in-game Mann Co. Store. And, because we'd hate to satisfy the bean counters completely, we've decided community item contributors will get paid based on the sales of their items. So you can make some f$*&ing money already too. Now, I'm sure you have dozens of questions, so just this once we put together a nifty F.A.Q. Of course the best way to find out more is to fire up the game yourself and check out the new Mann Co. Store for yourselves!