Team Fortress 2 ‘Badlands’ Update Live; First Screens

By Alex Petraglia on Thursday, February 14, 2008 at 7:00 PM EST

The Team Fortress 2 update Valve promised yesterday is now available. Restart STEAM to begin automatically downloading it.

Here’s a rundown of the changes:

Badlands released

Changes to Dustbowl

Added a new access point to the stage2 attacker gates (drop-down left from spawn), allowing attackers a way to reach the left route without being subjected to the spam and sentry gun fire

Fixed a gap in stage 3, cap 1 that allowed a player with to wiggle above the “ceiling” clip

Fixed a gap behind stage 1, cap 1 house

Fixed a high perch on stage1 cap1 house roof

Fixed a perch offering view of nodraw textures and the skybox (stage1 cap2 rock barrier)

Fixed a few places where rockets/demoman pipes could pass through non-solid models

Sealed up a gap over stage1 lower startgate

Clipped off tall windows in stage 3 to prevent sentry guns from behind built behind them

Changes to Capture the Flag Well

Fixed trains not starting on map spawn

Removed cap association from red spawns that were spamming console

Changes to Granary

Removed spawn timing advantage from the middle (from -3 to 0)

Fixed several model perch exploits (red, blue cp1 gate and blue cp2 gate pipe)

Fixed a few places where players could get stuck between containers and silos

Adjusted playerclips on red container that made it appear like players were floating

Misc. Changes

Added a small delay (200 ms) before a zoomed sniper shot can get a critical hit

Added server side convar mp_fadetoblack. Same functionality as Counter-Strike, used mainly during in-person tournaments and LAN events

Added flamethrower “sizzle” sound when the Pyro is hitting a target

Updated explosion debris to be a bit darker

Made some small changes to the Demoman viewmodel that were causing performance problems

Added a new timer to the HUD to show the value of mp_timelimit. This is useful if you’re playing a timed match on 2Fort, where you only set a timelimit on the server and no other win conditions.