Aug 10, 2011

These TF2 LEGO Figures are so Small! They are Funny to me!

Team Fortress 2

It's easy to take a LEGO minifig and paint it to look like something. What's harder is taking a ton of actual LEGO bricks and turning them into the likeness of a range of cartoon video game characters.

Matt De Lanoy has done just that, though, recreating the cast of Valve's Team Fortress 2 in blocky, old-school LEGO bricks.

Looking sharp! Quite literally. The edges on that Scout look like they could take a chunk out of a toddler's wrist.

Team Fortress 2 [Flickr, via Super Punch]

You can contact Luke Plunkett, the author of this post, at plunkett@kotaku.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.

Aug 10, 2011

Steam trading beta will let you swap TF2 items for spare Steam games

Team Fortress 2

Steam trading system - items acquired from Big Tom!

The Team Fortress 2 hat economy is in full swing, with players bartering, backstabbing and frantically crafting their way to the best items. The carnage is about to spread beyond TF2. The TF2 blog announces that the Steam trading beta is now live, and will let you swap Team Fortress 2 items for unredeemed gift games on Steam.

One of the pleasant side effects of the enormous Steam sales is that you'll often buy a bundle that contains a copy of a game you already own. Most of the time you're able to gift this spare game to anyone with a Steam account. The Steam trading beta now lets you exchange a Team Fortress 2 item, say, a tower of hats, for one of those spares.

If you want, you can also buy a new game purely for the purpose of trading. As long as you don't add the game to your Steam library, it's swappable, and this is just the beginning. The trading system looks set to items in other games as well.

The wording on the Team Fortress 2 blog post states that "Steam Trading Beta lets you securely trade your in-game items for other in-game items from participating games." That suggests we might eventually be able to trade TF2 items for Portal 2 items, or even in-game items from third party games that opt into the trading system.

You can opt into the beta by selecting "Steam Settings" in the Steam menu, then picking the trading beta from the drop-down menu. For more information, check out Valve's Steam trading beta FAQ. We've tried it out. Here's how it works.

Aug 10, 2011

Valve announces Steam Trading Beta

Team Fortress 2

You can now trade in virtual items for other virtual items through Steam.

Steam Trading Beta lets you do that, and trade Steam gifts: games on Steam you've bought but not yet added to your Games Library.

Currently Team Fortress 2 items and Steam Gifts can be traded.

You can try it out now by going to Steam, then Settings, then opting into Steam Trading Beta.

"Now your Steam Community profile will have an item inventory, and you'll be able to view the item inventories of every public profile in the Steam community," Valve said.

You can invite people to trade through Group Chat, and trade with anyone in your Friends List who's also opted in.

To do so, you need to right click on their name and select Invite to Trade. Once the offer is accepted, a trade window will open up.

There's more on the Trading Beta FAQ.

Video:

Aug 10, 2011

Games For Hats: Valve Trials Steam Trades

Team Fortress 2 - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alec Meer)

Valve’s in-game TF2 item store is about to become an out-of-game item store. They’re trialling something called Steam Trading, which primarily involves swapping your TF2 unlocks (i.e. those damnable hats, mostly) for other games.

It’s an old-fashioned barter system in new-fangled clothes. What happens is you invite someone on your Steam friends list or who you’re in a group chat with to trade, and can offer up your various TF2 items to the other guy. In return, he or she can offer you other TF2 items – or to gift a game to you. You can’t do this with any old game in your Steam library – only games you’ve purchased from the store as a gift, or received as an Extra Copy.
(more…)

Aug 9, 2011

Introducing Steam Trading Beta

Team Fortress 2 - SZ

<img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/trading_beta.jpg" width="420" height="162" border="0">

As we all know, Jonas Salk invented money in 1955 so he would have a way to earn a living from his polio vaccine. Before that, people just traded things they found for things that other people had found. So you might "sell" somebody a scrap of carpet, say, in exchange for an old bottle. It was a perfect system with only one drawback: people spent their lives bartering for piles of garbage before dying of polio.

But wait. What if we told you that you could barter for things that weren't garbage, AND not die of polio? Steam Trading Beta lets you securely trade your in-game items for other in-game items from participating games. You can also trade Steam gifts (games on Steam that you've purchased but not yet added to your Games Library).

Want to try it out? In Steam, go to Steam > Settings, and opt into Steam Trading Beta. That's it! Now your Steam Community profile will have an item inventory, and you'll be able to view the item inventories of every public profile in the Steam community.

Now that you've opted into the Trading Beta, you can invite people to trade through Group Chat, and trade with anybody in your Friends List who's also opted in. Just right-click on their name and select "Invite to Trade" from the dropdown menu. Once your friend accepts your offer to trade, a trade window will open up. The first time you open the trade window, a step-by-step walkthrough will guide you through your first trade.

That's it! Opt in and get trading, or surf over to the <a href ="https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6748-ETSG-5417">Trading Beta FAQ</a> for the nuts and bolts. And remember: Trading is still in beta, so don't forget to give us your feedback here on the <a href="http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2047727">Forums.</a>

Aug 9, 2011

Introducing Steam Trading Beta

Team Fortress 2 - SZ

As we all know, Jonas Salk invented money in 1955 so he would have a way to earn a living from his polio vaccine. Before that, people just traded things they found for things that other people had found. So you might "sell" somebody a scrap of carpet, say, in exchange for an old bottle. It was a perfect system with only one drawback: people spent their lives bartering for piles of garbage before dying of polio.

But wait. What if we told you that you could barter for things that weren't garbage, AND not die of polio? Steam Trading Beta lets you securely trade your in-game items for other in-game items from participating games. You can also trade Steam gifts (games on Steam that you've purchased but not yet added to your Games Library).

Want to try it out? In Steam, go to Steam > Settings, and opt into Steam Trading Beta. That's it! Now your Steam Community profile will have an item inventory, and you'll be able to view the item inventories of every public profile in the Steam community.

Now that you've opted into the Trading Beta, you can invite people to trade through Group Chat, and trade with anybody in your Friends List who's also opted in. Just right-click on their name and select "Invite to Trade" from the dropdown menu. Once your friend accepts your offer to trade, a trade window will open up. The first time you open the trade window, a step-by-step walkthrough will guide you through your first trade.

That's it! Opt in and get trading, or surf over to the Trading Beta FAQ for the nuts and bolts. And remember: Trading is still in beta, so don't forget to give us your feedback here on the Forums.

Aug 9, 2011

Introducing Steam Trading Beta

Team Fortress 2

Aug 9, 2011

Team Fortress 2 Update Released

Team Fortress 2 - Valve

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Team Fortress 2

Renamed The Tamrielic Relic to The Dragonborn Helmet
Updated The Original, The Dragonborn Helmet, The Anger, The Pip-Boy, and The Wingstick so they can be purchased/crafted/traded/found
Updated the gamehaptics file
- Added draw/recoil/reload/crit forces for The Original
Updated the localization files

Aug 9, 2011

Now You Can Trade Team Fortress 2 Hats for Actual Video Games

Team Fortress 2

Does your Team Fortress 2 backpack runneth over? With the newly launched Steam Trading Beta, you can turn your excess in-game TF2 items into other in-game items or, more importantly, a gifted copy of Left 4 Dead.

How does it work? Well, first, Steam users must first opt-in to the Steam Trading Beta. Then, should they have a Team Fortress 2 hat, weapon, badge, footwear item or can of Crit-a-Cola that another user may covet, they can trade said virtual item for, say, a gifted copy of some other Steam game. Just look for other players who have opted into the beta via Group Chat or your Steam Friends List to get your trade on.

The system marries the already existing gifting of Steam games with Team Fortress 2 item trading, basically. It also represents a great way to put those extra copies of Steam games acquired via sales and bundles to use in TF2.

Right now, beta trading is limited to Team Fortress 2 in-game items and Steam Gifts (unplayed extra copies of games), but Valve says it plans to extend item trading to Portal 2 and third-party developers who are interested in managing in-game items and inventories through Steam.

There's a FAQ for this whole thing, if you'd like to learn more.

Introducing Steam Trading Beta [Team Fortress Blog]

You can contact Michael McWhertor, the author of this post, at mike@kotaku.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.