An update has just been applied to the Team Fortress 2 beta on Steam that paves the way for multiple loadouts for each class, a great quality of life change for TF2 players. It also allows multiple misc slots, allowing you to carry more than one cosmetic item, and various balance changes. The full patchnotes are below.


Synced with all changes and fixes from the official release

Added support for multiple Misc slot items being equipped at the same time

Added support for character loadout presets


Undocumented changes
Updated the Foster's Facade and Noh Mercy to use the misc slot.

The class select screen now displays currently equipped loadout.

The Reserve Shooter can now be equipped by the Pyro and Soldier.

The Tomislav now reduces the wearer's health by 50.

Metal consumption while using the Widowmaker was reduced to 30 from 60.

The cloak delay when using the Enforcer was increased to 1 second from 0.5 seconds.

The Claidheamh Mòr charge extension is increased to 1 second up from 0.5 seconds.

The Grenade Launcher and Stickybomb Launcher now use the in-game slot notation on the loadout screen.


(Via TF2Wiki)



http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/September_21,_2011_Patch_(Beta)

PC Gamer UK is getting fatter, and it's not just because of the Krispy Kreme doughnut store that just opened in Bath. For our next issue, we're dropping the disk and adding an extra 60 pages or so to the mag, and we'll be giving away a load of free stuff to celebrate. The exclusive Team Fortress 2 hat you can see modelled by the Soldier above is just one of those items. Break the news AND your enemies faces with this fetching cap, free to all who purchase the next issue of PC Gamer UK.

Subscriber copies will be mailed out very soon, and the issue will hit store shelves on September 28. Within, you'll find a code that can be entered into Steam to instantly add the hat to your Team Fortress 2 backpack. It'll fit the head of every class, and we find it looks especially fetching on the Spy. His cloaking powers make him the ideal candidate for any press trip that's likely to end in a gun battle for a control point (which frankly is most of them). Once you've redeemed your code, be sure to put it on and come kill us on the PC Gamer Team Fortress 2 server.

Here's a video of the Spy Umbrella Team Fortress 2 community member Grimboden is working on. Isn't that absolutely lovely?

The Steam trading beta we mentioned a month ago has stumbled out of the beta wilderness into the bright sunshine of a full release. Valve's own Portal 2 and free to play MMO Spiral Knights are the first games outside of TF2 to join the trading program, which means you'll be able to swap Team Fortress 2 and unredeemed Steam games for Spiral Knights loot and gear from the Portal 2 item store.

Valve announced the launch of the Steam trading beta on the Team Fortress 2 blog, where they also mention that more than a million items have been traded in the beta period. "To celebrate, items are on sale in the Team Fortress 2, Portal 2, and Spiral Knights in-game stores," the blog post says. To invite someone to trade, open up a Steam chat window, open up the drop down menu next to their name and select "invite to trade." For a full run down of how trading works, check out Valve's Steam Trading FAQ.

L.A. Noire. Red Orchestra 2. Tribes: Ascend. Batman: Arkham City. Torchlight II. There's a scary, money-demanding gang of games still coming in the waning quarter of 2011. In this ep., Dan, Chris, Tyler and new intern Gavin pick their favorites. Evan also leads a rousing round of truthiness and falsity, in which we confront the controversial issue of alltalk (on or off?), ask if multiplayer gaming is better than it's ever been, and wonder what PC gaming would be like if Valve declared itself a platform holder.

PC Gamer US Podcast 284: Cliché Catwoman

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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.

A post on the Team Fortress 2 blog from Robin Walker tells us how to get how to get hold of the new TF2 Skyrim, Brink, Rage and Fallout items we mentioned yesterday. If you buy or pre-order the relevant game from Steam during Quakecon, they'll unlock automatically in Team Fortress 2.

Pre-order Skyrim to get the Heavy Nord helmet, pre-order Rage to get the Wingstick for the Engineer and buy Quake IV to get the Quake launcher for the Soldier. Owners of Fallout: New Vegas will get a Pip Boy for the Engineer and owners of Brink will pick up a hood and mask for the Sniper.

The deal ends with Quakecon, so you'll be sure to buy or pre-order the games you want before 10:00 PDT / 18:00 BST on August 8

In the same blog post, Robin Walker also talks about Team Fortress' debt to id Software and Quake in particular. Team Fortress started out as a Quake mod in 1996.

"At the time it only had five playable classes, no maps, and--believe it or not--no hats, writes Robin. "There wasn't even a concept of teams yet."

"That's right, we didn't actually get teams into a game called Team Fortress until a couple of releases after the initial launch. (The next time someone says their game isn't ready to release yet because they're missing a core feature, you can helpfully point this out to them.)"

"When Quake celebrated its 15th birthday this past June 22nd, we realized just how damn many of us at Valve are here because of id software. Some of us were inspired by their games' technical prowess, and others by getting their first taste of game development thanks to Doom and Quake's revolutionary approach to user-generated content."

Quakecon is happening right now in Dallas, Texas. To celebrate, you can play Brink for free this weekend and loads of id's game are on sale on Steam where you can also download and play Team Fortress 2 for free.

Ever wondered what the Heavy would look like wearing the Nord's helmet from Skyrim? Good news! Kotaku reports that Team Fortress 2 has been updated with new weapons and items from a range of Bethesda's biggest games to celebrate the start of QuakeCon 2011.

There are five items. The Soldier gets a Quake rocket launcher, the Sniper gets a Brink cowl and face mask, The Heavy will get Skyrim's horned helmet and the Engineer will get both Fallout's arm-mounted Pip-Boy and the three-pronged boomerang-like Wingstick from Rage.

There's no news on whether there will be a special way to earn the new items, more will hopefully be revealed when QuakeCon kicks off tonight with a keynote speech from id co-founder John Carmack.

Preceding the game's August 30 release, Red Orchestra 2 is up for pre-sale on Steam. Tripwire also revealed a Digital Deluxe Edition of the game, currently discounted at $44.99, that includes access to the "final phase" of the RO2 beta, instant unlocks of four weapons, along with two TF2 hats and two Killing Floor skins.

Buy Red Orchestra 2 on Steam here.

If you own Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45, you'll get...

20% off the game's price (as opposed to the current 10% pre-order sale)
Special in-game item - Russian Guards Badge and German Close Combat Badge
Day 1 unlock of the Kar98 and Mosin rifle bayonets



If you buy the Steam Digital Deluxe Edition, you'll get...

Access to the final phase of closed beta before the August 30th launch
Day 1 Unlock of the Elite Assault Weapons (MKb 42(H) and AVT-40) and Semi Auto Sniper Weapons (SVT-40 and G 41(W))
Team Fortress 2 German and Russian hats ("vintage" if bought during pre-purchase)
Two new characters for Killing Floor - Russian and German Soldier Re-enactors

Tonight, top talent from Counter-Strike: Source, Call of Duty 4, Brink and Left 4 Dead 2 will fight for the opportunity to take on a six-man Team Fortress 2 dream team headed up by TF2 designer Robin Walker. You can watch them battle for a place in the final live tonight on Vanilla TF2 TV.

The qualifying matches will kick off at at 20:00 CEST / 14:00 EDT / 04:00 EST, and will be free to watch on the Vanilla TV livestream. Crack Counter-Strike team CKRAS will face Call of Duty 4 and Brink masters Epsilon and Left 4 Dead 2's Team Xotic. That's just the warm up. The contest will be followed by two grand final events

The winners are fighting for the opportunity to face TF2 lead designer Robin Walker. He'll be backed up by top shoutcaster TotalBiscuit, head of Replay dev. Jon Lippincott, Cadred editor Dr. Gonzo, pro medic for SNSD, theSucker and "awesome demoman," Macisum. The final match against the dream team will take place at an undecided later date.

The tournament will be followed by the CommFT Highlander EU Grand Final and the ESL season 7 premiership Grand Final. It's fair to say there will be some pretty phenomenal TF2 skills on show. The Highlander final kicks off at 20:30 CEST / 14:30 EDT / 04:30 EST and the Premiership Grand Final starts at 21:15 CEST / 15:15 EDT / 05:15 EST. Check out the line up on the Vanilla TF2 site.