SNiGS Forums: Zippy the Squirrel - Viewing Profile

Is that an Equalizer in your pocket?
July 28, 2010 - Brandon Reinhart

This afternoon Corey Peters suddenly yelped and jumped out of his chair claiming that a Creeper had gotten into the new training map he was working on and that it was blocking his ability to get any work done. This was followed a few minutes later by Jon Lippincott claiming he couldn't finish up his code because he had run out of Iron Ore. Even as I write this I can hear Dave Riller telling a story about how he beat a sheep to death with his bare hands to make a new set of pants and a woolly hat.



It seems, dear friends, that our development team has succumbed to Minecraft addiction.

Minecraft is an amazing little (read: freaking huge) world building sandbox game by Markus Persson, aka Notch...the very same Notch that developed Left4kDead a couple years ago. In Minecraft you carve out your own little empire in the wild, building just about whatever you want while the natural world tries to slaughter you every nightfall. The game's box-like representation of reality is cute and definitely charming...until a horde of cute box-like skeletons rip your cute little box-like arms from your cute little box-like body in a spray of cute little box-like blood and gore.

Yes, you should play this game.

Apparently we aren't the only ones to fall prey to the lures of Minecraft. A number of you in The Community have also discovered the game and, as we have come to expect, you immediately went out and imported it into our game, Team Fortress 2.

Check out this Payload Race map developed by some Minecraft fans:



I have a feeling we'll be "playtesting" this map once it's available.

You can check out the latest updates for Minecraft by reading Notch's Blog.

http://forum.globala...p?f=156&t=22454

New update will be available at 5 PM EST tonight.

• Open areas to explore
  
• Story missions
  
• 10 man co-cop missions!
  
• Consumables
  
• Salvaging old weapons/armor for parts

Tokens have been changed:

• There's now only one Token type. Mercenary and Conquest tokens have been removed.
  
• Conversion rate: Mercenary (30), Conquest (150).
  
• Daily limit on Tokens: 2,000 (Account limit 20,000 whatever that means)

High Security Missions stop giving rewards at level 30

Bunch of other small bug fixes, but also Bot Kills now appear on the scoreboard.


EDIT: Also, did I mention that Global Agenda had to temporarily disable their unlimited Free Trial because they didn't have enough servers for all the players? This game NEEDS MORE SERVERS. That's what I call success!

Full notes list here.
Notice: The game servers will be down until 6 PM EST today as they put in the patch.

Of note:

30 new weapons, including combat jetpacks which allow shooting while flying.
IMPORTANT: The new weapons (and weapons with stats higher than level 29) must be bought with a new currency independent of credits, Tokens that you earn during certain missions. These Tokens are bound to your ACCOUNT, NOT CHARACTER.

Choosing ranks for each device has been removed. All devices are now locked at rank 4 and there's no device points.


New game modes and maps, such as ULTRA MAX Security, Solo PvE play, and 10 player PvE maps
New enemy types and behaviors -- 10 player PvE Boss, regular PvE miniboss the Elite Techron (npc Robotics).

Weapons are now dropped randomly during PvE instead of automatically acquired by level up.
Each weapon drop has a random set of stats to it that can be upgraded or modified with the new crafting system (it's sorta like Borderlands -- even the weapon's appearance will change depending on its stats).
Blueprints have been replaced by weapons that drop a bigger capacity for upgrades.

When missioning, you can choose to mission SOLO, with an incomplete Team, or wait in a queue for a full team. SOLO missions have difficulty settings set apart from Team missions.

New shops available: Four shops for the classes, a shop to change your character's looks (THEY HAVE GREEN HAIR DYE YYYYYYYYYYYYYYES), etc.

In short, let's all play TF2 Monday, if for no other reason than to actually have a set time for us to all play together, instead of random people randomly coming on so there's never enough people on the server.

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS -- ANY DIALOGUE IS LIABLE TO CHANGE FOR INCREASED LULZ
Preferred actors:
TF2 Sentry: Hawkeye
Portal Sentry: Any female SNiG or someone with a voice mod program
SPY: MasterBetty / Kiel

[MAC vs PC commercial music starts playing]
[title card : MAC vs. PC _ by Valve* _ *(not really)]

[Fade from black onto generic MAC vs PC set. A Portal Sentry Gun and an Engineer's Level One Sentry Gun sit facing each other and the camera, fireplace style]

PSG: Hello. I am a Mac.

[cut to TFSG]
TFSG beeps.

[cut to PSG]
PSG: As you can see, I am better built and much more user-friendly than my mute companion.

[cut to TFSG.]
TFSG beeps.

[Cut to wide shot. A SCOUT runs by. TFSG fires a few shots at him but the SCOUT survives. A PYRO runs by. The PSG obliterates it.]
PSG: I am more efficient. I am better.

[Cut to close-up on TFSG. TFSG upgrades to LVL 2. Cut to PSG]
PSG: It is true that I cannot upgrade. However, consider that I do not require upgrades. I am still better.

[Cut to wide shot. A DEMO and SOLDIER jog by. The TFSG shreds the Soldier while the PSG kills the DEMO in a slightly (but noticeably) longer time.]

[beat; cut to PSG]
PSG: Well, consider that even with upgrades, the PC will become obsolete over time, whereas I will last for much--
[cut to TFSG; TFSG upgrades to LVL3]
[music stops]
[beat]
TFSG: S'up, faggot.
[cut to PSG]
[beat]
[cut to wide shot]
[beat]
[TFSG unloads into PSG, blowing it OFFSCREEN, while bellowing obscenities]
(IMPORTANT: Allow Hawkeye room for improvising, consider montage of TFSG killing random things like ducks, children, green screened live action people, this very scene as shown on Youtube)

[beat]
[SPY uncloaks and saps TFSG (TFSG dies quickly for time's sake)]
SPY: I'm Linux. Bitches.
[music resumes and ends on end credits]