Valve Approves Team Fortress 2008 Mod, Reverses Decision, Angers Modding Community

[VSG]

Well this was a tale that took a roller-coaster ride, and then some. It started with a YouTube trailer for a mod that promised to take back Team Fortress to its 2008-era, which unsurprisingly got many fans of the game excited. The developer/modder who went by the handle XYK initiated a website (now inactive), along with other social media channels that included an active Discord server for the project. Timely updates followed, and good news came in the form of news from Valve that informed the modder of approval of a Steam release, as well as upcoming beta test keys as well. This was followed by Valve wanting some things to be changed, which were also done and things looked smooth at the time.

Then Valve decided they were not sure the mod was more than just a re-purposing of leaked game code, and decided to reverse their decision of approving a Steam release for the mod. This, as expected, did not go well with the vast majority of fans. The killing blow to the project came, however, not from Valve but from the modder himself who decided to go out with a negative bang of sorts instead of working with Valve. As it is, not only is the game community upset at both Valve and the modder but the u-turn taken by Valve has since been negatively criticized by other modders as well.



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[qubit]

This looks like bad PR for Valve, but I reckon they can take the hit given they're the only game in town.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

“I will gut you like a Cornish game hen!”

 

[Basard]

Much like TFC, the original TF2 was fun as hell.... then they turned it into an RPG.... If I wanted to play an RPG, I'd play Diablo 2.

 

[lexluthermiester]

given they're the only game in town

How is that?

 

[dj-electric]

This whole case sounds very familiar, much like wow vanilla

 

[Dr. Nick]

This looks like bad PR for Valve, but I reckon they can take the hit given they're the only game in town.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Valves studios closed down in the next few years. They haven't released anything original in years, they just hire on popular developers, let them make their game, and that's it. When Portal 2 came out, I felt pretty certain that Valve wouldn't have a problem making quality content for years, but it seems like they lost their motivation. Since then, they've lost interest in every project they started.

 

[Easo]

Anyone still remember when Valve actually made games? This is so dissapointing...

 

[silentbogo]

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Valves studios closed down in the next few years.

With nearly 700k simultaneous Dota 2 players and 500k CS:GO players I doubt it will happen that soon. Just because they didn't make any games lately does not mean that they are not making any money off their titles. Plus someone has to take care of upkeep and updates for their milking cows.

This looks like bad PR for Valve, but I reckon they can take the hit given they're the only game in town.

As a private company they can do whatever they want. Including not approving/publishing a half-assed pseudo-mod "made" in a couple of months by a single unstable teenager.
I do not approve many things that Valve did, but this is definitely not one of them.

 

[Ruru]

Never played, never will play. I don't even get what's this all about.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Never played, never will play. I don't even get what's this all about.

same here.

Steam has idiots working for them 4 days a week.

 

[Solaris17]

Never played, never will play. I don't even get what's this all about.

Same, Im curious how some think this is a big deal. I mean there has to be more then a handful who dont give a crap about this.

 

[silentbogo]

Same, Im curious how some think this is a big deal. I mean there has to be more then a handful who dont give a crap about this.

Never played, never will play. I don't even get what's this all about

Wut? No one bought Orange Box? No one played the classics, which has been ripped off and cloned hundreds of times by now (khm-khm... overwatch...khm...)?
I think that was my first ever purchase on Steam back in 2008.

The ordeal is - the game was excellent at release and stayed that way up until 2011 when it went Free-to-Play. After that everything went to shit: the game became overburdened by cosmetics, lootboxes, paid one-use passes for "Man vs Machine" DLC, and of course tons of people with 200+ ping. The core gameplay was still fun, but it sinked deep under the pressure of all the shit that went wrong with the rest of the game.

I think last time I played was back in 2014, and it was only bearable in private matches with my friends and former clanmates. Public games were laggy, new weapons made people forget about classes and team-based gameplay etc. Basically a bunch of idiots just running around and shooting.
Given that there are still nearly 100K peak players every day, some people are still happy with it.

Here's an excerpt from my own review:

Even though it's free, I'd rather pay $50 again to have everything back to normal.

And I was not the only one with that exact same opinion.

 

[Ruru]

LMAO I got Orange Box recently.. Never played TF2 even since when it was launched as a free game. I'm more a CS guy.

 

[silentbogo]

I'm more a CS guy.

Haven't touched that one since high school(v1.6 being the latest at the time). Back then I used to work night shifts at a small local internet cafe, which made me develop a phobia towards anything CS and GTA related.

 

[Ruru]

Haven't touched that one since high school(v1.6 being the latest at the time). Back then I used to work night shifts at a small local internet cafe, which made me develop a phobia towards anything CS and GTA related.

Played CS:S all day 12 years ago, these days a few CS:GO matches then and then... not that addicted anymore.