The Heavy update for Team Fortress 2 has now been released and is available through Steam. This update is the largest to date and includes several new unlockables, maps as well as the new new arena game mode! Take a look below for the entire changelog:

Added 3 Heavy unlockables

• Natascha, The Sandvich, The Killing Gloves of Boxing
• Added 35 new Heavy achievements
  

Added Arena game mode

• 5 arenas: Lumberyard, Ravine, Well, Granary, Badlands
  

Added 2 new maps

• Badwater Basin, a new payload map
• cp_steel, a community map by Jamie "Fishbus" Manson
  

Changes

• Added server map timeleft to upper right of scoreboard
• Added new firing sounds to The Backburner
• Removed the Custom Tab in the serverbrowser, and added the Tags field to the base Internet Tab
• Increased The Kritzkrieg's uber-charge rate bonus from 10% to 25%
• 32 player servers can now support an extra slot of SourceTV
• Made the freezecam item panel description easier to read
• Players now broadcast whether they chose a team directly or use autoteam
• Added proper handling of cart blocking recognition to Payload maps
  

Bug fixes

• Fixed bug where switching from flaregun-wielding Pyro to another class meant you didn't get a full ammo loadout on first spawn
• Fixed Spy watch arm not using team skins
• Fixed weapon switching preventing you from using secondary attacks for a 0.2s window after the primary became available
• Fixed players getting stuck in a bad animation state when class switching while spinning the minigun
• Fixed a loophole that allowed players to pickup weapons of other classes
• Fixed a bug that resulted in players earning more crit chance bonus in large, single damage events than they are supposed to
• Fixed an issue with the floating HUD +X health indicators that resulted in them appearing incorrectly
• Fixed a bug which caused the minigun spinning & firing sounds to occasionally stop while the Heavy was still firing
• Fixes the Loadout player model panel causing the in-game player facial animation to perform incorrectly
• Fixed spectators not having the target ID labels display correctly
• Fixed the cart alarm sound occasionally getting stuck on in Payload maps
  

Valve Software has released more information about the upcoming "Heavy Update" for Team Fortress 2 which is the - well, heaviest - update for the game so far. Beginning today gamers may find details of "The Heavy" Update being disclosed via http://steamgames.com/tf2/heavy/. The site will reveal new information and screenshots each day, as well as a special installment to the "Meet the Team" series of video shorts.

"The Heavy" update is the largest update to Team Fortress 2 since it was first released as part of The Orange Box last October. In addition to offering new unlockable weapons, achievements, "The Heavy" update also includes a brand new gameplay mode and a number of new maps.
The rollout culminates next Tuesday, August 19 when the update will be made available to all owners of Team Fortress 2.

To give all gamers a chance to check out the new gameplay introduced in "The Heavy" update, Valve will be running a Team Fortress 2 Free Weekend via Steam, a leading online platform for the delivery and management of PC games. The Free Weekend is open to gamers the world over and scheduled to begin Friday, August 22 at 11 am PDT.

One of the things we're looking at for the next update is the creation of a new type of environment for our levels to be built in. We're pretty happy with the way our environments have turned out so far, but as we create more and more maps with these achievement packs, we want our level designers to have more to work with in terms of giving their settings a unique look.

The challenging part of this type of design process is in finding types of terrain and structures that provide an understandable, interesting set of visuals and at the same time staying within the constraints of what we want to do with gameplay. In addition to this, we want to be able to stay within the strengths of the engine that TF is built around.

 

Valve has just released a new Steam Client update a few minutes ago. Among the list of changes are several voice improvements that stand out, so not only are the voice quality now improved there's also an audio recording device selection as well as push-to-talk support.

Have a look:

Steam Client

• Improved cache defragmenter to both defragment at the OS level and internal files
• Improved defrag progress dialog
• Improved download status reporting in games list
• Increased background update frequency
• Improved voice quality
• Added audio recording device selection for voice chat
• Added push-to-talk support for voice chat
• Fixed apps getting stuck at Updating 0% when downloading
• Fixed possible crash when resuming from Standby mode
• Fixed Steam preventing some PC's from entering Standby mode
• Fixed overlay sometimes getting stuck up and not responding to hot-keys after server join
• Fixed uninstalled apps becoming installed when viewing their Properties page after Steam restarts
  

For all the medic players out there, the official Team Fortress 2 blog offers an interesting explanation of the Medigun healing ramp. It's actually been on the blog for a few weeks, but if you haven't read it yet now is the time.

As you might know there's a variability in the rate at which medics heal their targets based on the amount of time since the heal target was last injured. If it's been greater than 10 seconds since the target was hurt, the heal rate is increased. The amount of increase ramps linearly up to 3 times the base heal rate at 15 seconds since the target was hurt. So if you're healing a target who's been hurt less than 10 seconds ago, you'll only be getting the base heal rate of 24 health a second. If the target was hurt 12.5 seconds ago, you'll be healing at 48 health a second. If the target hasn't been hurt for over 15 seconds, you'll be getting the maximum heal rate of 72 health a second.

The healing ramp was implemented to encourage players to retreat for healing purpose and then get back into the combat instead of just dying and respawning in the same amount of time it would have taken to heal without the ramp.

Source: TF2 blog

Valve Software has released a small update for Team Fortress 2 taking care of a few bugs. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted.

Team Fortress 2

Fixed a memory leak affecting both clients and servers

Fixed a malicious packet exploit

Valve has released the awaited update for Team Fortress 2 which gives the Pyro a (necessary) boost consisting of new weapons, which should make his struggle on the battlefield a bit easier. Besides the new weapons (The Axtinguisher, The Backburner, and The Flare Gun) the Pyro can now use an alt-fire compression blast with the basic flamethrower and unlock 35 new achievements. Also, a couple of new community maps (cp_fastlane and ctf_turbine) has been added to the package.

• Added 2 community maps: cp_fastlane and ctf_turbine

Pyro

• Added alt-fire compression blast to the basic flamethrower
• Added The Axtinguisher, The Backburner, and The Flare Gun
• Hadouken taunt now kills people it hits
• Tuned the flamethrower hit detection to improve detection versus retreating opponents
• Removed Flamethrower's damage falloff (was falling off to 25% by the end)

cp_well

• Added a route from the forward central foyer up to the battlements
• Redistributed health and ammunition throughout the bases

ctf_well

• Added a route from the forward central foyer up to the battlements
• Removed central building, reduced overall map length
• Redistributed health and ammunition throughout the bases

Other Notes

• Removed Soldier's 40% damage reduction from his own rockets. Does not affect rocket jumps
• In-game avatar images will now have a badge around them if the player is your friend
• Fixed bug that allowed players to move around in a reference pose
• Added custom death icons for unlockable weapons
• The player join team message now specifies whether the player used the auto team option
• Payload maps now support four control points per stage
• Achievement dialog will stay open when you're moving in & out of the game and the main menu
• Added full Russian localization, with both fonts & speech
• Returned the "Report a Bug" option to the main menu
  

Valve has been busy. Busy updating HL2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 as well as the Steam client. What's new you ask? This is what's new:

Team Fortress 2

• Changed video options initialization to fix some HUD resolution problems in mods
• Fixed crash issuing the last disguise command when not connected to a server
• Fixed rare crash on exit
• Fixed a couple of issues with gamestats reporting incorrect values
• Fixed an exploit that allowed clients to crash servers
  

• Added a new advanced video option that allows the user to easily change the field of view to any value they wish between 75 degrees and 90 degrees
• Updated the particle rendering code and particle data files to make them compatible with the particle editor included in the Source SDK
  

Steam Client

• Fixed input coordinates being off for the overlay in full screen OpenGL games on the secondary monitor
• Fixed possible game overlay crash
• Fixed incorrect reporting of app metadata

Another update to the Steam Client has been released. Besides additions such as D3D10 support to the in-game overlay you'll notice that voice chat requests are now ignored from blocked callers...yep, no more voice chat harassment!

Steam Client

• Enabled ClearType fonts if they are enabled in Windows
• Improved in-game status and play time tracking for games with launcher apps
• Improved in-game overlay input handling in a variety of games that previously did not capture or block keyboard input correctly
• Added D3D10 support to the in-game overlay
• Made voice chat requests ignored if you've blocked communications from the caller
• Fixed the original Half-Life not getting to 100% complete downloading when it should
• Improved server selection logic for Friends and VAC server connections
• Improved Steam network connectivity in the face of dropped UDP packets
• Fixed the overlay not recognizing the Tab key in some games (breaking the default hot-key)
• Improved Friends duplicate name collision detection
  

We've got another update for Team Fortress 2. Changes include some bug fixes, some other bug fixes and some Goldrush map exploits has been taken care of as well:

Team Fortress 2

• Fixed mat_queue_mode crash during level transitions
• Fixed rapid weapon switching allowing Medics to prevent deployed UberCharges from draining
• Improved prediction of Spy's speed changes when disguising
• Fixed Stopwatch panel not updating if level designer ends round by hand instead of letting the gamerules end it
• Optimized particle traces on multi-core machines
• Fixed tracers sometimes firing with the wrong team color
• Fixed rapid-fire weaponry critical hit checks getting out of synch between the server and client
• Fixed map exploits in Gold Rush
  

A couple of Team Fortress 2 updates has left Valves office the last few days and are now available through Steam. Among the news are a fix for the unlimited übercharge exploit, a bug where the Kritzkrieg didn't charge faster than the Medigun, network fixes and some other stuff:

• Fixed clients getting the "Reliable snapshot overflow" error
• Fixed another unlimited UberCharge exploit
• Fixed elevators not working in user maps
• Networking optimizations

• Fixed several issues with the Family Practice achievement. Players with 10/10 progress that have not been awarded the achievement will get the achievement the next time they UberCharge any Steam friend
• Fixed toggle-fire option for the Medigun preventing players from earning the Second Opinion achievement
• Fixed The Kritzkrieg not charging faster than the Medigun
• Fixed issue that was preventing players from using their new Medic items on some servers
• Fixed melee weapons not being affected by The Kritzkrieg's critboost
• Fixed Server Browser sometimes refreshing in the background on startup when it wasn't visible
  

Should you be one of the few soles who have not yet played Team Fortress 2 Valve now offers you the chance for free. This weekend you can log on to Steam and play the game, including the new Goldrush update and items, without any cost. The offer ends Sunday, May 4th at 1pm PDT, so there's no time to waste - read more at http://www.steampowered.com/goldrush.

The official CS Pro MOD website has been updated with news about the upcoming release of Beta 1.4. There has been a few delays in the closed testing process but the team assures that a release-worthy build is close, so expect the new beta in the near future.

For those unaware, CS Pro MOD is a modification that combines the gameplay from CS 1.6 with the updated graphics and effects from Counter-Strike Source as well as added features related to the competitive level of the game.

Just a reminder of the newest Steam Client update, although it's a few days old so you probably already know about it. Oh well.

Here are the changes:

Steam Client

• Improved in-game overlay compatibility with Kaspersky Anti-Virus
• Fixed potential crash when launching a game and having a large chat history
• Fixed error in client auto-updater which would incorrectly detect Steam already running, and then fail to update