The Highlander Nations Cup semi final match is on today! In fact it is starting in thirty minutes. Prepare yourself as Finland takes on France, broadcast times can be found on the VanillaTF2 website. Or just trust us that it starts in thirty minutes and tune in.

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

• Fix server crash bug caused by setting tf_mm_servermode before map command
• Increased The Red Tape Recorder's downgrade speed from 1.6 seconds to 3.0 seconds.
• Fixed The Huo Long Heatmaker not consuming additional ammo while firing
• Fixed building health compounding after being downgraded
• Fixed direction arrow showing on teleporter exits
• Cleaver is now available in Medieval mode
• Fixed missing Lollichop taunt sound
• Fixed item conflicts with The Champ Stamp
• Fixed item conflicts with The Triad Trinket

Purchase Awesomenauts before September 5th and receive 3 Awesomenaut-inspired items to use in Team Fortress 2.

Updates to Team Fortress 2, 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 (TF2, DoD:S, HL2:DM)

• Marked mem_force_flush as a cheat to prevent client exploits
• Fixed %n console crash in the client

Team Fortress 2

• Added new items:
  • The Red-Tape Recorder
  • The Huo Long Heatmaker
  • The Flying Guillotine
  • The Neon Annihilator
  • The Triad Trinket
  • The Champ Stamp
  • The Marxman
  • The Human Cannonball
• Added new promo items
• Fixed sappers attaching incorrectly to teleporters that are still building
• Improved reliability for finding a coach
• Fixed Engineer training shotgun and pistol images being swapped
• Fixed GetPlayerItems web APIs not respecting inventory privacy settings
• Quickplay beta: Fixed bug causing game servers to sometimes stop receiving traffic upon victory condition
• Quickplay beta: Added more status information while in the matchmaking queue

Interesting China Fact: Did you know China has a mafia? Did you know that, not only do they exist, they'll loan you money? And not even a little -- as much as you want! We hadn't even heard of them until last week, and now we're treating them like a cash machine. Seriously, these guys are nice. They've even started calling us all the time now, probably to ask how we're getting along with all that free money they gave us.

Anyway, the Chinese Mafia made their own game, Sleeping Dogs, so we've added some all-new items to TF in honor of our new best friends. Also, if anyone's seen Robin Walker, tell him somebody mailed us his hand, because he's probably looking for it.

Introducing eight new items available in the Mann Co. Store, or FREE when you pre-purchase Sleeping Dogs on Steam before August 14th.

Updates to Team Fortress 2, 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 (TF2, DoD:S, HL2:DM)

• Fixed dedicated servers not being able to set sv_region

Team Fortress 2

• Fixed Replay/SourceTV clients getting kicked when quickplay servers hibernate

The first of several replays have been made live from the Team Fortress 2 Mix-up #4. These are from the event where players raised an impressive $9,664 for children's hospitals around the world and a chance to play several matches against and with various community celebrities. Much fun was had and we're already looking forward to another.

Source Engine Changes (TF2, DoD:S, HL2:DM)

• Fixed Unicode characters getting stripped from player names

Source Engine Changes (TF2, DoD:S, HL2:DM)

• Added sv_namechange_cooldown_seconds, to throttle clients from changing their name too rapidly. (Defaults to 20 seconds)
• Added sv_netspike_on_reliable_snapshot_overflow to selectively enable the automatic dumping of netspike file if a client drops due to "reliable snapshot overflow" (defaults to 0, which disables the debugging)
• Added check to prevent player names from containing color codes
• setinfo console command will now reject attempts to set / change convars with any unusual characters

Team Fortress 2

• Fix a bug that caused gameservers to not properly receive client inventory updates. (Frequent cause of the "The server you are playing on has lost connection to the item server" error message.)
• Fixed not being able to equip all-class items properly
• Fixed the DX8 water effect
• Fixed the Beggar's Bazooka misfiring with 100% crits after firing a crit rocket
• Fixed the Strange Sandman not accepting the Posthumous Kills strange part