Counter-Strike: Source

• Added Steam Clan Tag support ( Set yours in Options->Multiplayer->Advanced )
• Added new achievement "CLAN WARFARE": Win a match of at least 10 players where the entirety of each team is composed of a single clan.
• All weapon fire rates now tuned to match their pre-update, tickrate 100 equivalents. (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1368659)
• Added automatic server tagging for some server convars ( "mp_startmoney", "mp_friendlyfire", "bot_quota", "sv_nostats", "sv_allowminmodels" )
• Fixed some issues for players who were experiencing stat corruption.
• Fixed several server crash exploits.
• Fixed server commands "sv_disablefreezecam" and "sv_nowinpanel" not working on dedicated servers.
• Adjusted some DX9 shaders to look more like their DX8 counterparts, e.g. flashbang effect.
• Community Requests:
  • Fixed entity I/O messages "OnPlayerPickup" and "OnPlayerUse".
  • Restored UTF-8 support in the console.
  • Added env_hudhint entity, for use in custom maps (The allplayers flag must be set for the hint to work in Counter-Strike.)
  • Added client convar "sv_hudhint_sound" to turn off emit sound for hud hints.
  • Restored the "cl_minmodels" client convar.
  • Added server convar "sv_allowminmodels" that allows them to prevent clients from using "cl_minmodels".
  • Added a button to Options->Multiplayer that allows players to reset their in-game stats.

Note: Due to the nature of stats corruption, it is not possible to automatically fix all types of stats (such as weapon statistics reflecting usage of the wrong weapon). Players who suspect their stats are incorrect and wish to start fresh may want to use the new stat reset feature

Counter-Strike: Source

• Fixed a crash that could occur after the bomb exploded.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when attempting to exit the game.
• Changed default values of the following server variables to reflect the increase of the default tick rate from 33 to 66:
  • sv_mincmdrate - 10
  • sv_maxcmdrate - 66
  • sv_maxupdaterate - 66
• Marked ‘developer’ cvar as cheat.
• Corrected kill/death reporting in gun games. Deaths were not being properly counted in games using instant respawn.
• Marked test_round_winpanel, test_match_winpanel, test_freezepanel commands as cheats.
• Added sv_nowinpanel and cl_nowinpanel options that can be used to disable the win panel that displays the team winner, MVP, and fun fact at the end of a round.
• Clamped ladder dampen values.
• Fixed jointeam cvar so giving it invalid values no longer spams the server console.
• Removed functionality of cl_minmodels.
• Fixed voice indicators to display at all times rather than just after their respective players have come into contact when -alltalk is on.
• Fixed scoreboard to display correct number of SourceTV viewers.
• Adjusted death notices to display under scoreboard.
• Defaulted ‘Simplified list’ to OFF and made the setting persistent.
• Fixed an issue that could make it appear as if a player already had one or more MVP stars upon joining a server.
• Made text on loading bar more legible.
• Added more materials that were missing for community maps.

Engine

• Fixed disconnect exploit causing players to be forced off of a server due to an overflowed packet.
• Fixed players being able to start the game using a DirectX level less than DirectX8.

Windows Dedicated Server

• Added Counter-Strike: Source to the list of games for the dedicated server when running through the Steam client.

General

• 144 achievements added
• New lifetime player stats and summary screens
• New match player stats and summary screens
• New end of round display with MVP and interesting fact about a player
• Updated scoreboard with new icons, visual style, MVP stars, and avatar pictures
• New cinematic death camera
• New domination and revenge system
• Added avatar icons to voice chat, scoreboard, and end of round display
• Incorporated many source engine updates
• Disallowed the use of arbitrary command strings for the message of the day screen. Now only a specific list of commands is allowed.
• Addressed issue in which AWPs and Scouts sometimes did not make the zooming sound.
• cvar mat_showlowresimage is now a cheat command.
• Many development console commands which would crash the server removed.
• Updated source engine addresses many issues:
• Better flashlight effect
• Better HDR behavior
• Multicore rendering support
• Added sv_disablefreezecam cvar to turn off the freezecam on a server.
• Added sv_nonemesis cvar to turn off domination/revenge on a server.
• Added sv_nomvp cvar to turn off MVP stars on a server.
• Added sv_nostats cvar to turn off stats on a server.
• Removed -tickrate command line option and defaulted tick rate to 66 rather than 33. This addressed a number of issues, including:
  • Tick rate affecting how fast doors open / close
  • Tick rate causing players hitting the ground to stutter
  • Tick rate affecting the firing mechanisms of certain guns

UI

• Added the following cvars to allow players to customize their scoreboards.
• cl_scoreboard_ct_color_red
• cl_scoreboard_ct_color_green
• cl_scoreboard_ct_color_blue
• cl_scoreboard_t_color_red
• cl_scoreboard_t_color_green
• cl_scoreboard_t_color_blue
• cl_scoreboard_dead_color_red
• cl_scoreboard_dead_color_green
• cl_scoreboard_dead_color_blue
• Changed the screen that appears when the message of the day fails to load to display proper error text.
• Made the CT silhouette for the auto-select option in the Choose a Class screen smaller and corrected its aspect ratio.
• Addressed a problem that occasionally caused characters to be colored incorrectly on the Change a Class screen.

Gameplay

• Made ladders easier to climb. Added cvars sv_ladder_dampen and sv_ladder_angle.
• Fixed issue that awarded three points when the bomb explodes after the round ends by elimination criteria instead.
• Fixed issue in which you weren’t given credit for grenade damage if you fired a weapon at someone then hit them with a grenade (in that order). Also fixed problem in which grenading a player and then killing them with another weapon showed as ‘*** in 1’ on console.
• There’s now a priority order for displaying win conditions when multiple win conditions are set.
• If timelimit exists and is not 0, then show timelimit.
• If timelimit does not exist, show maxrounds if not 0.
• If both timelimit and maxrounds are 0, show winlimit.
• If timelimit, maxrounds, and winlimit are all 0, show nothing.
• Added a cvar to ignore win conditions: mp_ignore_round_win_conditions. 

Steam Client

• Fixed an issue on Windows 2000 requiring the SP4 update rollup 1 package to be installed for Steam to run
• Fixed in-game overlay generating spurious D3D11 debug runtime warnings about CSSetUnorderedAccessViews when running on downlevel hardware
• Fix regression causing a crash on exit in the in-game overlay
• Small startup performance optimization to not initialize settings dialog data until needed
• Fix the you have been logged in elsewhere dialog to not leave Steam in a broken state on Cancel
• Support for a forthcoming news URL format change
• Fixed Retail not prompting for a CD key when creating a new account
• Fixed VGUI crashing when the number of panels was very large (ie, for users with huge friends/clan membership lists)
• Decreased number of VGUI panels active at once for friends list
• Decreased the time it takes Steam to launch some games
• Fixed memory leak when resizing in-game overlay web browser
• Fixed potential failure or client hang when failing talking to content server directory servers
• Fixed overlapping text for pending group invites in the friends list invites section
• Fixed error message “You don't currently have any games ready to backup..” when restoring a previous game backup
• Steamworks - Fixed case where building an installer could randomly fail due to an error in the Microsoft crypto library 

• Complete overhaul of Steam client UI design to improve discoverability of features and to better expose all the information related to games in your library
• Complete overhaul of in-game overlay UI design to create a richer in-game experience exposing context sensitive information related to the game you are currently playing
• New game details view, presenting a detailed view of all the information for a single game in your library
• New grid view, presenting a graphical view of your game library
• New news page in the store/client/overlay that aggregates Valve related news sites, official community groups, and third-party gaming news feeds
• New downloads view in the client, making it easier to track your progress downloading new games or game updates
• New Steam store design, including more integrated community features, improved recommendations, and improved video and screenshots viewing (and much more!)

Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Left 4 Dead, Counter-Strike and Half-Life) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced Portal 2 for shipment this coming holiday season.

Portal 2 is the sequel to 2007's Portal, which won 70 industry achievement awards.

WAR! is over and the update for Team Fortress 2 is now live on Steam. In true tradition of class updates the Team Fortress 2 Free Weekend is now under way! The Free Weekend is open to all players around the world; all that is needed is a Steam account to join so play now! Don't have Team Fortress 2? Buy it for 50% off until Monday!

The Free Weekend ends Sunday December 20th at 1 PM PST.

December 14, 2009 - Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress, and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced the first game add-on for its co-operative zombie thriller, Left 4 Dead 2 (L4D2), is in development and targeted for release in early 2010.

Dubbed "The Passing," the first game add-on for L4D2 brings the original Left 4 Dead (L4D1) Survivors down south for a meeting with the L4D2 cast, while delivering new single-player, multiplayer and co-operative gameplay for the PC and Xbox 360.

Targeted for release in early spring, "The Passing" takes place just after the Dead Center campaign of L4D2. Set in a small town in rural Georgia, players assume the role of the L4D2 Survivors as they meet with the L4D1 characters.

In addition to the new co-operative campaign and associated narrative, "The Passing" will include new arenas for Survival, Versus and Scavenge mode and introduce a new co-operative challenge mode of play. The Passing will also include a new "uncommon common" zombie class, melee weapon, and firearm.

"The Passing will become the most important campaign in the Left 4 Dead story, as all the Survivors are being called together in one campaign," said Doug Lombardi, VP of marketing at Valve. "It will also be a huge offering of new gameplay content, with something new for every game mode plus a new uncommon common and weaponry."

Exclusively available for the Xbox 360 and PC, L4D2 sets a new benchmark for co-operative action games. The title adds melee combat to enable deeper co-operative gameplay, with items such as a chainsaws, frying pans, axes, baseball bats, and more.

With the AI Director 2.0, L4D's dynamic gameplay is taken to the next level by giving the Director the ability to procedurally change weather effects, world objects, and pathways in addition to tailoring the enemy population, effects, and sounds to match the players' performance. The result is a unique game session custom fitted to provide a satisfying and uniquely challenging experience each time the game is played.

Finally, with new Survivors, boss zombies, weapons, and items, Left 4 Dead 2 offers a much larger game than the original, featuring more co-operative campaigns, more Versus campaigns, new Survival maps, and the new competitive game mode, Scavenge.

Left 4 Dead 2: The Passing is targeted for release in early spring for the PC and Xbox 360. Pricing will be announced closer to launch.

For more information, please visit www.l4d.com

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Left 4 Dead 2

• Reduced Dedicated Server max search ping to 150 ms
• Teams that prefer listen servers will no longer be matched with teams that prefer dedicated servers
• Official dedicated servers are now preferred when searching for team matches
• More populous lobbies are now preferred over less populous ones when searching for games
• Players who crash or have failed to load are no longer banned if they have been kicked
• Update Russian subtitles
• Fixed not being able to interlink teams in team-on-team mode
• Fixed not being able to properly migrate team lobby after team leader would leave the lobby
• Fixed not being able to invite friends if player was not team leader in a team-on-team game

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Team Fortress 2

• Fixed a client crash related to arrows
• Fixed a server crash related to items
• Fixed a server crash caused by the Demo taunt kill
• Fixed a server crash caused by using the Equalizer
• Fixed client ragdoll commands resulting in ragdolls standing around
• Restored the missing point_teleport entity
• Fixed stats and achievements being tracked while using sv_cheats
• Fixed Spies being able to build dispensers
• Fixed clients not fixing up inventory items in bad backpack positions
• Added a new chat message when players craft an item
• Fixed "Bloody Merry" and "Second Eye" achievements being achieved incorrectly
• Updated the description of the "Bravehurt" achievement
• Fixed Blutsauger attributes
• Fixed the Direct Hit having an incorrect short range damage curve (now matches the normal Rocket Launcher curve)
• Fixed the Spy's unlockables watches using the wrong consume/recharge rates
  

First of all, happy Halloween to everyone. In between all the scary costumes and Halloween festivities this might be a good time to start pre-loading the Left 4 Dead 2 demo which will be released on the 3rd of November. L4D2 features one new multiplayer game mode, 20 new weapons - including a chainsaw, axe and frying pan(!) - five new campaigns including five new infected zombies to play and more.
The full game will be released on the 17th of November.

In other news Valve recently improved the Steam account security by adding e-mail verification. This means that email confirmation will be required to change critical Steam Account information like your password, contact information, and secret question/answer. If you haven't done this already go to your Steam settings and click the "verify e-mail address" button.

And now to the list of recent updates which Valve has released plenty of lately, including updates to the Steam Client, Team Fortress 2 and the new Left 4 Dead demo. Changelogs are available below:

Steam Client

• The Windows 7 Recently Played list should be repaired for people who play many games
• Friends Status now part of tasks on Windows 7, so they won't shuffle it away
• Fixed performance issues on Windows 7 for users with many friends and groups
• Improve the steam service update process
• Fix a case which could cause a decryption failure for newly released games
• Fixes a crash when the Left 4 Dead 2 Demo starts
• Fix a rare crash on receiving a chat message from a user you don't know as a direct friend
  

• Fixed bug that caused dedicated servers to become unjoinable over time without a restart or heartbeat update
• Fixed exploit that allowed players to end a campaign and return to the lobby without a vote
• Public players are no longer matched to lobbies that are idle for a prolonged period of time. These lobbies become "Friends-only" lobbies
• LAN servers list will now show listen server single player games as not joinable and will show game type as "single player" too
  

• Added a new community map: Koth_Harvest
• Added a Halloween edition called Koth_Harvest_Event
  
  • Contains a variety of Halloween related features: New hats, achievements, exploding pumpkins, ghosts, and more!
• Updated the CTF, Arena, and KOTH versions of Sawmill
  
  • Fixed Engineer exploit
• Added check to prevent clients from sending empty or all whitespace names to the server
• Fixed "item_found" announcements coloring the player names if the player has :: in their name
• QuickSwitch improvements
  
  • Added key input so you can cycle through it using the slot input keys
    
  • Added all loadout slots (not just primary, secondary, and melee)
    
  • Removed duplicate entries (should only see 1 flaregun, etc.)
    
  • Fixed a few small layout & empty slot bugs
    
  
  Community requests
  
  • Updated item_teamflag with flags to toggle the trail effects: 0 none, 1 all, 2 paper only, 3 color only
  • Added a "both" selection to the invalid winners field for team_control_point_master and team_control_point_round entities
    

Valve has released another update to Team Fortress 2. Among the changes are improvements to the backpack, an option to disable weathereffects as well as a bunch of bugfixes. The entire changelog is available below.

Also, starting today and all weekend Unreal Tournament 3 will be free to play, so if you haven't tried this game yet now might be the time. Visit the UT3 game page to start pre-loading and be ready to play as soon as it starts Thursday at 1:00PM PDT (8:00PM GMT).

Engine

• If the installation is an HLTV relay we allow clients to connect as HLTV clients even if tv_enable is set to false. A recent exploit fix made it such that we ignore the flag indicating that the client is an HLTV client if tv_enable is false, but it is possible that relays won't have this ConVar set

Additions / Changes

• Backpack improvement
  
  • Added support for 100 slots in the backpack
  • Backpack can now be sorted by type
  • Multi-selection in the backpack is now done by holding down the Ctrl key
• Alt-fire on the Sandvich now drops sandviches
  
  • A single sandvich can be dropped at a time. Dropping the sandvich removes it from the Heavy
  • A Heavy can regain his sandvich by collecting a healthkit while already being at full health
  • Eating a sandvich using the taunt method now heals a Heavy to full health
  • Dropped sandviches heal 50% of the collector's health
• Medic regen changes
  
  • Base regen amount increased from 1/sec to 3/sec
  • Regen amount increase since time of last damage decreased from 3x to 2x
  • End result of above: Old healing scaled from 1/sec to 3/sec based on time since being damaged (maxed out at 10 seconds). New healing scales from 3/sec to 6/sec
• Blutsauger
  
  • Replaced "No critical hits" negative attribute with "-2 health drained per second on wearer"
  • Health drain stacks on top of the above Medic regen changes, lowering the base regen by 2h/sec
• Added "mp_windifference" server ConVar (default to 0)
  
  • When set to X, matches will be considered won if a team gets X points ahead of the other team
• Added a "Remember the active weapon between lives" option to the Multiplayer->Advanced options dialog
• Added "Disable weather effects" option to the Multiplayer->Advanced options dialog
• Added "Show non-standard items on spectated player" option to the Multiplayer->Advanced options dialog
  
  • If set (default), it'll show non-standard items being carried by the player you're spectating
• Tournament mode changes
  
  • New item whitelist allowing tournaments to control what items can be used by players
  • Added "item_whitelist_example.txt"
  • Added "item_show_whitelistable_definitions" command to get a list of whitelistable items
    
• Added Tournament mode Spectator HUD
  
  • Added "Use advanced spectator HUD in tournament mode" option to the Multiplayer->Advanced options dialog
  • Shows all the members of your team (or both if you're a spectator) at the top of the screen, along with class/health/respawn time/charge level
  • Spectator indices are now shown on the team members, and hitting the corresponding weapon selection key (slot1-slot12 commands) will spectate them
• Changed idle player check to include spectators & players who haven't chosen a team
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed explosive radius detection using an axially aligned box instead of a sphere
  
  • Compensated by increasing the radius of grenades, pipes, and rockets to 50% of what they lost at the corners of the OBB
  • Grenades/Pipes radius change: 132->159
  • Rocket radius change: 121->146
  • End result of above: Explosives have had their radius reduced at some angles, and increased at others. Radius is now consistent, angles are now irrelevant
    
• Fixed Sniper using the reference pose if he has the Huntsman deployed when his team loses
• Fixed Spies speaking their response rules lines after killing a player as the class they were disguised as
• Fixed Medics getting MedicCallerPanels in their HUD for cloaked enemy Spies disguised as their team
• Fixed the Huntsman not firing crit arrows when the Sniper is being CritBoosted
• Fixed being able to fire the Huntsman under water if you jump into the water with the arrow charged
• Added check to prevent clients using the "firstperson" command to get out of thirdperson view while they're phasing, taunting or control stunned
• Fixed Halo glow effect not being hidden for cloak/disguised enemy Spies
• Fixed wearables not destroying their attached particles when they're removed
• Fixed several player & viewmodel simulation issues that occurred when the game was paused
• Fixed a DX8-based exploit that allowed modified particle effects to work under sv_pure 2
  

Community Requests

• Added the entindex() of the object being built to the "player_builtobject" game event
• Added flag to allow CTF map authors to turn off the Overtime mode when timers expire
• Added IgnitePlayer input to TFPlayer

A rather interesting column about what needs to be changed in Counter-Strike 1.6 has caused a huge debate over at Gotfrag. The column, written by Garett "Grt" Bambrough, argues that CS 1.6 has become boring because of how the same 4 maps are being played constantly...especially in professional leagues and tournaments:

Perfecting four maps is hard enough, adding a fifth? Hell no, right? I'm sorry but I would love to watch fnatic get shit on by some mediocre team because that team put in the time. Although... I'm sure if that was a map fnatic knew they had to play, they would put in the time, haha. Pros just throw these maps out cause they don’t want to work on it. I haven't seen a scrim post in the past few days for Tuscan with the exception of coL.ca.

Yep yep, another Steam client update fresh from the Valve office. Several bugs are now a thing of the past - including nasty stuff like "rare crashes and memory corruption bugs", uff.

Check out the changelog below:

Steam Client


• Made connections to misbehaving content servers timeout and retry a new server correctly
• Fixed the client sometimes forgetting a game exists after a content update on Steam
• Fixed several rare crashes and memory corruption bugs
• Workaround for a Firefox 3.5 bug where they activate random windows after minimizing which would confuse the state of some Steam windows
• Fixed internet tab in the in-Steam ServerBrowser not updating sorting as more servers are refreshed
• Fixed the first time launch "Installing ..." dialog which is shown while installing things like DirectX for a game taking too much CPU and making the install take a long time
• Fixed the sorting of the games list to be case insensitive and fix the mini-games list to use the same sorting method as the full games list
• Fixed Change User menu option not logging you out correctly
• Fixed one case of downloads getting stuck
• Fixed a potential crash in D3D8 games switching between windowed and full screen caused by the in-game overlay
• Fixed unnecessary minidump when in offline mode
• Fixed overlay bug where opening the overlay from an in-game menu (ie, Invite Friends in a L4D lobby) could result in the overlay opening and closing immediately if you had previously used the "Close" button in the overlay itself

How does improved Steam startup performance sound? Not too bad right? Well, that's exactly what Valve included in this new Steam client update. And there's more than that...just have a look:

• Improved Steam startup performance
• Fixed a crash when clicking on very long URLs in friends chat
• Fixed the in-game overlay not showing over some D3D9 games that set a texture as the render target
• Fixed a case where the overlay could go temporarily unresponsive due to using a skin that generated bad geometry
• Fixed some cases of trying to send data to Steam servers while disconnected
• Fixed chats in the overlay which have existing text from out-of-game not scrolling to the bottom by default
• Fixed log files from in-game overlay corrupting some output
• Fixed app cache download issue for users with slower connections

It's been almost a month since Valve released Counter-Strike related updates which, among other things, fixed the silent walking exploits. Unfortunately Valve has now decided to pull these fixes back and look for "less impactful" ways of dealing with this issue.

There are other great fixes in the latest update though - take a look at the changelog:

Counter-Strike 1.6

• Rolled back recent silent walking exploit fixes as we investigate less impactful ways of preventing the bug
• Adjusted bomb bounding box to prevent silent plant exploit
• Fix to eliminate or significantly reduce "flashbugs"
• Fixed status icons (buy zone, bomb zone, etc) disappearing when starting a recording, or issuing a fullupdate
• Prevent creating aliases using the same name as existing cvars
• Rate limit fullupdate and some other commands to prevent spamming
• Fixed an issue with grenades where they could go into an area and bounce infinitely, causing the server to choke and or crash

The good people at Valve has released another update to the Steam client. Several disconnect issues has been fixed as well as a list of various bugs. Take a look at the changelog:

Steam Client

• Fixed reconnect issues with chat rooms
• Fixed clients in chat rooms getting into 'ghost chats' if they disconnect and reconnect from the Steam servers
• Fixed client hang if the server browser window was closed while the "Add server" window was open
• Fixed the name of mods being played not always showing to friends
• Fixed switching between fullscreen and windowed mode in a DX7 game with the overlay enabled
• Fixed texture corruption in OpenGL games with the overlay enabled
• Steamworks: added more logging & warning info for the networking API

Finally some Counter-Strike related updates from the Valve office. Most content in this update is server related, but hey, they've fixed the annoying INVALID_STEAM_TICKET rejection when connecting to a server. Hmm, I wan't to see it before I believe it!

Here's the changelog:

Counter-Strike and Condition Zero

• Prevent Russian Walking exploit

Server changes

• Fixed players being kicked from servers with an INVALID_STEAM_TICKET rejection
• Added a message to the server console to show when the server has reconnected to Steam
• Made map name and other variables reported by the server stay more current
• Fixed mp_timeleft not updating in server rules (or any unlogged cvar for that matter)
• Show HLTV being connected in the player count for pings
• Fixed HLTV staying in players list even after disconnect
• Fixed server hang when a user connects with a specially crafted info string
• Fixed occasional crash under Linux on startup for SMP machines (Linux)
• Cleaned up hlds_run script (Linux)

Valve has started off the weekend by releasing several new updates to both Team Fortress 2 as well as the Steam client. The TF2 changes include a new duck timer that prevents duck spamming as well as increased backstab check that makes it possible for spies to side-stab again.
The Steam Client updates fixes the bug with HL2.exe hanging on shutdown as well as several other issues. Complete changelog available below.

Team Fortress 2:

Gameplay changes

• Added a duck timer that prevents duck spamming while running around on-ground
• In-air, players are only allowed to duck once before they touch ground again
• Fixed several bounding box issues with jumping, falling, and rocket jump air-walking. Bounding box should be much more accurate there now
• Increased backstab check so that Spies can side-stab again
• When disguising, Spies now always start showing the primary weapon in their disguise, and can then switch it with the last-disguise key
  
• You can now duck twice in the air. Scout double jumps reset the in-air jump counts
• Increased the jump velocity to account for the tuned bounding box sizes. Jump height should now match the prior-to-last-update heights
• Added "tf_clamp_airducks" convar, set to 1 by default
• Setting it to 0 will remove all constraints on ducking while in the air. Useful for servers running RJ challenge maps

TF2 Fixes

• Fixed flamethrower loophole that resulted in the flame effect being stuck on while the flamethrower wasn't really firing
• Fixed exploit that allowed players to circumvent the force-fire timeout on the pipebomb launcher
• Fixed a bug that caused Natasha's slow on hit effect to be inverted from 75% to 25%
• Restored sawmill_logs.mdl file, fixing some user maps that used it
• Fixed some localization issues with Scout achievement strings
• Removed the "Final" phrasing in the map loading screen
  

Engine fixes

• Fixed a server crash on startup under Linux
• Fixed a buffer overflow issue related to network string tables
• Gamestats uploading is now done asynchronously. This fixes the client timeout issues on map changes
  

CP_Junction

• Fixed an exploit where engineers could build a teleporter exit in an invalid area
• Fixed a few bad overlay assignments and other minor issues
  

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Steam Client

• Fixed possible case where Steam would get stuck with "Downloading starting..." when trying to download
• Added NTFS check when trying to install Empire: Total War
• Added new dialog to inform the user they failed to register a CD key because they do not own a game which is required to register the key (Empire: Total War Special Forces)
• Added more download regions for Australia
• Fixed several update news links for games going to the wrong page
• Added more information to the game launch display when first-time install steps are being ran
• Fixed HL2.exe hanging on shutdown
• Increased max width of links on game properties dialog (general tab) to match the now wider properties panel.
• Fixed the 'launching game' dialog always waiting for user input if there was update news available
• Updated localization files for dialog variable changes (fixes %s1 appearing in some languages)
• New notification shown when an application is downloaded or updated
• Added teamfortress.com, tf2.com, etc. to list of approved chat urls
• Fixed case where retail install would be unnecessarily slow
• Fixed third-party installers not running if an installer before it failed
• Several Steamworks updates
  
• Fixed "endless update" bug when trying to download Empire: Total War
• Fixed possible case of "Game is unavailable" bug when trying to launch Empire: Total War