Team Fortress 2 - Big Interview

[Evo]

GameInformer has a massive Team Fortress 2 interview with several big-whigs at Valve and in the TF2 Development Team. You can find the interview here and I must say it is well worth a full read...very much so![br]I'll give you all a quick snippet of what is in the interview and a couple of the images too to keep you occupied![br]

GI: You?re launching with six maps. In the age of downloadable content packs?especially with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, with the hard drives and everything?and how heavy your mod community is, there are going to be popular mods that land on the PC, will there be the possibility of bringing those over to the consoles as well?[br]Walker: I don?t think we know yet. From our perspective, we?d like to do it all. We?d love to have the Xbox and PC play together, and technically, from our side, there?s no technical reason why you can?t?the engine is the same, the network they use is the same.[br]Brown: It?s a matter of what?s exposed and what we?re capable of doing.[br]Walker: It really comes down to negotiations with Microsoft.[br]GI: Speaking of Microsoft, are there any plans of cross play with Vista and 360?[br]Brown: That kind of falls in the same boat.[br]Walker: We?d love to, technically from our side, there?s no reason why we can?t, it really comes down to knowing Microsoft has announced that Shadowrun is going to do that, but they haven?t let anyone outside of Microsoft, I mean we don?t have an API or anything.[br]Brown: The easy way to say it is we haven?t seen it yet. As soon as we do, then great. (laughs)

[br]There is much more in the interview that what I have posted here, so check it out here![br]

​

 

[Krynn72]

Ennui wins, but your post was better

 

[Evo]

Ennui wins, but your post was better

Thankyouuu!

As i am off to bed i will let someone with some sense sort this out...thanks and goodnight folks!

 

[Ennui]

Mine was halfassed, I deleted it, this is all you evo!

 

[theguy]

Hands on TF2 tomorrow!

Don't forget to read part 1. It's also a good read

Part 1 of Interview

 

[DesertChicken]

Sometimes something is happening on screen, like the heavy weapons guy punching a sniper, it looks so great! I?m really happy with it.

WTF!?!

 

[riles]

ARGH i want tf2 so hard.

good post. good read. i cant wait til i can see heavys punching various enemies.

 

[Stigmata]

I'm hard for TF2 after this interview.

 

[63]

*Creative reference regarding hardness, TF2, Stigmata*

 

[nutcrackr]

tf2 gets worse every time I hear it

 

[Mr-Fusion]

6 maps...err.

That ****ing sucks, especially if it gets the dodgy dod:s/hl2dm treatment with a few extra sub-par crap maps added on later. Colmar and Jagd...shudder.

 

[Narvi]

Six maps. Six.

The new tech sounds interesting... wonder what this new facial technology will look like.

 

[Stigmata]

I think we're all forgetting something important.

Only 6 maps in one game.

Just one game.

Which is part of a three-game compilation from Valve.

Sold for the same price as one game.

 

[Mr-Fusion]

I think we're all forgetting something important.

Only 6 maps in one game.

Just one game.

Which is part of a three-game compilation from Valve.

Sold for the same price as one game.

In theory communism works!

 

[nutcrackr]

I think we're all forgetting something important.

Only 6 maps in one game.

Just one game.

Which is part of a three-game compilation from Valve.

Sold for the same price as one game.

Episode 2 is not a full game, I also don't consider Portal to be a full game. Price wise it's still good value but it's not three full retail games for one.

 

[Tamer17]

Not again..

The interview is awesome. TF2 sounds great. I can deal with 6 maps but i hope they won't take too much time to release more after they ship.

 

[Rapstah]

Episode 2 is not a full game, I also don't consider Portal to be a full game. Price wise it's still good value but it's not three full retail games for one.

You have a right to have an opinion.

Even if it's wrong

 

[Ennui]

6 maps...err.

That ****ing sucks, especially if it gets the dodgy dod:s/hl2dm treatment with a few extra sub-par crap maps added on later. Colmar and Jagd...shudder.

Well, at least it launches with 6 maps instead of 4, and in DOD:S's defense I liked both of those maps (colmar was decent, at least, if somewhat boring and outclassed by the likes of donner, flash, and avalanche... and jagd I quite liked, though I'm definitely in the minority with that opinion).

Plus, TFC people (as evidenced by the TF2 threads) are more hardcore anger-prone than DOD players, so I expect if Valve doesn't keep adding content relatively quickly they'll have inboxes full of angry hate mail.

Episode 2 is not a full game, I also don't consider Portal to be a full game. Price wise it's still good value but it's not three full retail games for one.

Are you disagreeing with Stigmata then? If you agree, then this post is just nitpicking, but if you disagree, this is still not an argument, so do continue to enumerate your reasoning...

 

[Evo]

Thanks Ennui

Only 6 maps? May not sound much but considering we've never been this close to actually getting a release i don't mind

 

[Tamer17]

In Part 1 of the interview they comment about the # of maps so that should give you the idea of their decision.

 

[X-Ray]

Two complaints:

First, the apostrophe-to-question-mark thing in the interview snippet might just make it undreadable. Anyone else getting that, or has my Firefox betrayed me?

Second, I think pretty much everyone that plays CS:S would be hard-pressed to name six maps. And even more hard-pressed to name six maps that they regularly play on. And no-- playing dust, dust2 and office on a server with a zombie mod doesn't count as new levels.

Really, the quality of the levels will matter much more than the variety.

 

[we11er]

For all of you complaining about only 6 maps:

Understanding that well, we need to build maps that are fundamentally more playable than previous titles. When we build 20 maps for a multiplayer game or 100 or whatever, people are going to play five of them over and over again. They?re not going to play 100. They?re going to play five.

What we have to do is figure out how to make five much more replayable, not 50. Because that?s just the reality of the space, whether you like it or not, the community hones in on a couple of things. If you look at any multiplayer game out there people are playing a tiny subset of the total maps over and over again.

I think he makes a good point, and as long as the 6 maps are really good, I don't mind.

 

[sensai]

I don't like the fact that concs were taken out. I feel as if Valve totally forgot about the TFC community and is trying to make it "noob-friendly" for the console folks. I want to play TF2, but I feel that the game will lose a lot of its competitive edge.

 

[bigburpco]

Oh god no!

Work dammit...

 

[Asuka]

Yes A Interview Thats Really A Interview!!!!!!!

Fucjagoiashndlkajd Shit I Cant ****ing Wiatjl:asfdjl:a$ie_qaik@!{sd Asd!

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

You have a right to have an opinion.

Even if it's wrong

haha good one.

Looks cool. Its good to know Valve arn't just making "Team Fortress with cartonny source" but they are making a proper sequel.

 

[DiSTuRbEd]

I rather have 6 fun/replayable maps then 15 boring ones, ok? Ok.

 

[mortiz]

Gamers must be really dumb these days because everyone seems to be trying to make things "accessible". They're trying to the remove all of the challenge, and therefore all of the fun, out of learning how to play a new game. Personally I don't mind joining a server and getting my ass kicked a few times because I don't know what the hell to do, it's all part of the learning process. Where's the joy in everything being spoon fed to you?

This isn't neccessarily aimed at Valve but the industry in general. Don't make things impossible to begin with so it gets really frustrating, but also certainly don't go too far the other way.

 

[Stigmata]

They're not removing "challenge" from the game by making it accessible. They're making the game easier to understand so more people are apt to play it. Like it or not, the original Team Fortress was NOT friendly to newbies. I had no ****ing clue what was going on for the first day I played it. It then took me another week to understand the classes, and even longer to understand the maps.

 

[Cruor]

I don't like the fact that concs were taken out. I feel as if Valve totally forgot about the TFC community and is trying to make it "noob-friendly" for the console folks. I want to play TF2, but I feel that the game will lose a lot of its competitive edge.

From what I gathered only the scout is losing his conc in favor of the double jump thing. I sincerely hope the medic is keeping his conc grenade. I still think they're leaving most of the special grenades in it and still accessable, I hope so indeed. TF2 will feel pretty darned empty without any grenades whatsoever.

 

[Some_God]

They're not removing "challenge" from the game by making it accessible. They're making the game easier to understand so more people are apt to play it. Like it or not, the original Team Fortress was NOT friendly to newbies. I had no ****ing clue what was going on for the first day I played it. It then took me another week to understand the classes, and even longer to understand the maps.

Thats what got me hooked. :hmph:

 

[PriNcE oF SpAcE]

From what I gathered only the scout is losing his conc in favor of the double jump thing. I sincerely hope the medic is keeping his conc grenade. I still think they're leaving most of the special grenades in it and still accessable, I hope so indeed. TF2 will feel pretty darned empty without any grenades whatsoever.

well get used to it...because the interview clearly states they took grenades out all in all.

 

[sensai]

well get used to it...because the interview clearly states they took grenades out all in all.

Yeah, from what I've gathered is that the only grenade in the game is the demoman and the dynamite mirv. And that will be a selectable weapon.

 

[Darkside55]

I can deal with the six maps thing. If you look at TFC over the past almost-a-decade, what maps have really survived? 2fort, Well, Badlands. Three maps, and the last one's only as new as version 1.1.1.0. Nine times out of ten you're going to be playing one of these maps, especially today when there are far less servers out there than in the games heyday. The only exceptions are A) private or custom rotation servers, and B) servers with a standard map rotation (Valve maps exclusively). And previously in the aforementioned heyday almost all the servers were custom rotation, playing community-made maps: Shutdown2, Bam, Push, Cornfield, Darkness2, Totalwar, the list goes on. Judging by the community map scene in HL2DM, I'd say that even the most hardcore map whores won't have anything to complain about when TF2 is released. Give it about a month at most, and there'll be new maps everywhere.

That all being said I'm bummed about the choice of returning maps. 2fort and Well, like I said, most heavily played so they had to be in there. But Toiletbowl? Friggin' Toiletbowl, always hated that map. Would've done better to keep Badlands. If they wanted a REAL command point map, as what the new gameplay seems to emphasize, the obvious choice was creating Cz3. Cz2, of course, being one of the best maps ever. Especially if you were a spy and had command over bhop...flit from lightpost to lightpost and never touch the ground until you needed to drop down and kill someone.

I really dig how they're expounding the weaknesses of each class. I also am appreciative of how true they're remaining to said weaknesses; my soldier brethren can back me up on this one, scouts are our bane. With grenades out (something I'm still a bit torn on, as they were a heavy part of our arsenal) we're boned. Scouts have always made me wary on the battlefield; now I'll probably take steps to avoid them completely lest I'm defense. Hopefully someone else in the base will take care of them beforehand, though.

They kept the teleporters in.

Multiplayer commentary. I'm down for that. A nice little diversion, say when you're on defense and waiting around, or just pubbing and not really caring about the outcome of a game. SHARED commentary, that's really hot. I'd love to participate in something like that.