

Team Fortress 2 now free forever - cookiecaper
http://www.teamfortress.com/freetoplay/
http://www.teamfortress.com/freetoplay/
======
brianwillis
If you care about gaming in any way, you owe it to yourself to give TF2 a try.
It's quite complex, with intricate levels and lots of weapons, but it's easy
to learn and you don't need to have every concept fully understood before you
dive in.

I've also been surprised by the community that surrounds TF2. People are
usually pretty nice about answering questions over chat, as opposed to Xbox
Live where all communication comes in the form of racial slurs.

~~~
w1ntermute
> I've also been surprised by the community that surrounds TF2. People are
> usually pretty nice about answering questions over chat, as opposed to Xbox
> Live where all communication comes in the form of racial slurs.

I think this is a byproduct of the demographic differences between console
gaming and PC gaming. Console gamers tend to be younger (and thus less mature)
than PC gamers because consoles are cheaper (the parents are paying) and more
locked down (parents again).

~~~
mestudent
It depends on the game, play competitive counterstrike and everyone is a dick
(source or 1.6)

~~~
w1ntermute
That makes sense - unlike TF2, you can pirate CS and your computer's specs
don't need to be that great to play it. So even children can easily get a copy
of CS and a computer to play it with.

I'm hoping that the fact that TF2 is free now isn't enough to cause a large
enough demographic shift to ruin the online multiplayer experience.

~~~
starwed
Could you easily pirate CS? From what I remember when you connected to a
server it would authenticate a CD key with Valve, and while I'm sure there
were servers that had that disabled it was easy to avoid playing on those.
Likewise, there were no doubt pools of stolen CD keys, but that was probably
pretty hit or miss for those using them.

It also wasn't too hard to find servers with good a "culture" where there were
so many well behaved regulars it didn't really matter.

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patio11
I've been saying for years that US gamers have been voting for the
Korean/Chinese economic model: free clients and paid content locked down on
company-owned servers. Hug your local pirate; you won't be able to _buy_ any
major PC games in ten years because the notion of selling games will be
quaint.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
I've heard people say that the Steam model - easier than piracy, lots of
games, well-implemented DRM, not too expensive - works pretty well. Am I
wrong?

~~~
Havoc
100% spot on. Steam is totally awesome. I find your reference to steam _model_
disconcerting though. If more companies try to copy it & we've got a
distribution for each publisher then its back to square one. Actually make
that square -1.

~~~
bane
That's an easy one to solve...don't buy it unless it's on Steam. (though if
Mass Effect 3 isn't on steam....)

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cookiecaper
For the record, TF2 runs excellently on WINE and that's how I play it. Don't
let the non-Linuxness of the game put you off.

~~~
andrewflnr
Aw crap, there goes my weekend! I won't even have to boot Windows to try it.

~~~
andrewflnr
Steam runs, but I can't seem to get TF2 to work on Wine.

~~~
cookiecaper
What's the issue? Console log + any records of errors please. You can bring
this up on the appdb comments page for TF2, where I am a moderator.

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retlehs
TF2 is an extremely fun game. Looks like there's a Hacker News group on Steam
with a few members..

<http://steamcommunity.com/groups/newsyc>

~~~
cookiecaper
I have played TF2 for several years now and I haven't gotten sick of it. I
think TF2 is really the only game that I can say that about. The mechanics are
extremely solid and Valve is constantly pumping new content to shake things up
and keep people interested. TF2 should be the textbook example of doing a
commercial multiplayer game right. The one caveat may be Steam DRM, but as far
the actual game goes, it is head and shoulders above everything else in its
field and should become _the_ model for its genre.

~~~
InclinedPlane
I've been playing TF2 since beta and I'm still learning how to play! It's a
very easy game to get into but it's also a very deep and rich game that
rewards continued learning. There are also many, many different styles of
play.

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true_religion
I'm curious if they're planning to fund the sever maintenance cost simply by
selling _hats_.

I knew that microtransactions were a viable money maker, but not to this
extent.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Valve doesn't need to provide server infrastructure, individuals do that. They
only provide the front-end for server searches. The only thing they need to
continue to fund is ongoing development.

Also, yes, they _can_ fund continued development solely on the hat-conomy, as
crazy as that sounds.

~~~
JL2010
I think what the OP meant was paying for their content distribution servers,
not game servers.

~~~
InclinedPlane
That infrastructure is amortized over all steam titles though, so effectively
very tiny for TF2.

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bprater
League of Legends is a free game that has been making a big splash in
monetizing through in-game purchases, which I believe TF2 is doing now? I'm
wondering if Valve is making a similar big play in this area?

~~~
ulvund
Valve has Steam from which they take 30% of any game sale. So they will never
hurt for cash. They can give away every game they ever make and still make a
killing from selling others' games because they have the most popular and best
working platform.

Valve is now in the content delivery network business and just happen to have
a department that produce video games.

~~~
starwed
Heh, I remember how heavily Steam was derided back when they rolled out the
beta. And people screamed bloody murder when they made it so you had to go
through Steam to play CS online.

~~~
spindritf
To be fair, it failed completely then -- Steam servers crashed, downloads were
slow and it offered virtually no benefit.

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JL2010
If anyone hasn't seen this yet, I highly recommend watching this interview
with Gabe Newell conducted by a high school marketing/economics class:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOMI0BxB0yA>

Gabe Newell is a founder of Valve Software and I believe he is a true
visionary in the industry. Steam would likely not be what it is today if it
weren't for his leadership at Valve.

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devmach
Is there some other way download the game other than stream? With 16Mit
connection, i can download only 17KB/second and it suspends all the time...
Such times, i think that who designed and/or coded such a system/program
should stop working on IT subject... I can understand low download speed
(server load, too many downloads etc), but why suspend the download ? and why
not f*ckin' auto-resume ?

~~~
cookiecaper
From Steam, go to View -> Settings -> Downloads + Cloud -> Download Region and
choose a server located in off-peak hours right now. Downloads from Steam
often are slow when big news like this comes out, but if you connect to a
server in a place where its 2am, you usually still get pretty good download
speed.

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aaronbrethorst
I don't suppose anyone knows _why_ Valve made TF2 free, do they?

edit: Steam adoption+in-app purchases. Good call.

~~~
mwilcox
Valve makes a killing off the in-game item store. With the game nearly 4 years
old I'd say they're pretty much through most of the people who would have
bought the game, and making it free increases the number of people playing
(good for all the current players) as well as the number of sales of items.
Valve makes use of it's community really well, it supports a lot of community
events and encourages mod-makers to make items which Valve puts into the game.

~~~
cookiecaper
It will definitely be interesting to see how the influx of free users will
affect the community and the games. I know that people used to detest free
weekends when a lot of non-paid newbies would be allowed to play for free on
the weekend of an update. Are we getting into an "Eternal September" for TF2?

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fuzionmonkey
I think there's no doubt this is great for Valve.

But as a player who dearly misses vanilla TF2, how is Valve going to combat
the influx of greifers and hackers? What stops someone from running TF2 in a
VM and continually making new accounts?

I wish there was a way to bring back TF2 as it originally was (no hats, no
gimmicks). But I guess the transition to gaming as a service was inevitable.
Valve has been going in that direction for a long time.

I hope they do make a proper Half-Life 3.

~~~
Zakharov
I haven't tried it, but I think you can mod out hats. You can certainly host a
server which restricts players to only the original weapons, and I wouldn't be
surprised if someone's already done that.

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amurmann
I am really unhappy about the move towards premium-content, DLC, IAP or
however you want call what's happening in the gaming industry right now. When
I play a game I do not want to make financial real world decisions and I don't
want my gaming experience to be altered by my real world wallet. Isn't it the
point of gaming to get away from worries like that?! I also want to be able to
experience the game as it was originally intended by the game designer. That
last point is not so much of an issue with a game like TF2, but more so with
RPGs like Dragon Age or Mass Effect. Is the game balanced right with the
stronger bonus armor that I got for per-ordering or does this make the game
too easy??

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natesm
I wonder how they'll deal with cheaters, since you can now have infinite
copies for free.

~~~
jeffool
I think the question becomes "Will people really want to make a new Steam
account every time they want to cheat?"

~~~
mestudent
You would be surprised by the amount of cheaters with multiple accounts in
source games even though they weren't free.

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zemanel
i've been using Steam for Mac and playing TF2 since it came out, and
eventually bought other games (L4D2, Killing Floor, all of Half-Life series
games + Portal 1+2). Till then i have never bought some many games. I just
love Steam, the way it works ("stores" your [save] games on the cloud). It's
an amazing system and i hope other industries can learn some lessons here
(something i tried to talk about here [http://zemanel.eu/on-filesharing-
steampowered-and-the-film-i...](http://zemanel.eu/on-filesharing-steampowered-
and-the-film-indu) ).

------
baconner
Confession: I still miss the original TF.

~~~
vyrotek
Indeed, the old maps and the original Demoman with is bomb pack were awesome.

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tobylane
In case you're wondering (and you should) you can craft any item you can buy.
I have pretty much the best loadout possible, without paying for anything, and
it's all from items that you get when you die (which is a lot).

~~~
seabee
The best loadout IMO is the one you get by default.

I won't deny that the other weapons are tons of fun to play with, though.
(Everyone has to play a Demoknight at least once!). But you _will_ be
competitive without a single drop. The guns are balanced well.

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teyc
I've not heard of TF2, but the characters are quite unique in the sense that
none of the them conform to our daily ideas of what heroes look like.

~~~
oscilloscope
I wouldn't call the characters heroes. Demoman is a scottish drunk. Heavy
loves massacres. The medic seems like a former nazi who delights in torture.
They enjoy killing their enemies and celebrating the slaughter.

The cartoon-y style definitely takes the edge off though.

~~~
andypants
All the characters are adorable though!

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Groxx
And now Steam gets even more customers.

Brilliant move. Steam has consumed a lot more of my money than any other store
like it, and TF2 is a fantastic hook.

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codabrink
Wow, I just paid for this game a week ago. No big deal though, it's a good
game I hear. I have yet to have a chance to play it.

~~~
random42
Dont worry. Paid games have additional features.

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BrainScraps
I just paid for this like 5 days ago! BLARG!

~~~
cmurdock
Contact Valve tech support, they might refund your money.

~~~
BrainScraps
Thanks for the tips, folks!

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parenthesis
Am I the only one who thought the headline meant Guy Steele's Fortress-the-
programming-language team is leaving Oracle?

------
Sheepol
What if I don't want to install that trashy Steam app?

If Steam is required, it's a gimmick and a joke.

~~~
esrauch
Steam is completely integrated with the game. The server browser in-game is
actually just steam, so it really would make no sense at all to have TF2
without steam.

What exactly is your critique of Steam, just that you are fundamentally
opposed to DRM? I do agree that it's something that I don't really want
automatically starting up with my computer (even though I'm a pretty heavy
gamer, I don't use the steam friend chat or anything) but as a platform and a
piece of software it doesn't seem too trashy.

~~~
fragsworth
The first time I installed Steam was when it came with Half Life, and back
then it was a steaming pile of crap. So bad, in fact, that I deleted it and
didn't touch it again until 2 years ago.

A lot has changed since then, but some folks might not yet be aware of it.

~~~
cmurdock
True, back in the days of Counter Strike 1.6 it was a terrible, buggy piece of
DRM. It's improved by leaps and bounds since then.

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jbermudes
Well, at least until the Steam authentication servers go offline if Valve ever
shuts down. While Gabe Newell has been quoted as saying that if that were to
happen they would unlock everyone's games, it bugs me that there has been no
official offer of such. Until then, people can continue to point at Steam and
say "but DRM == evil!"

~~~
sukuriant
Game Newell sounds like a man that'll be good by his word. I may eat my own
words, but I trust him for that.

~~~
wnight
You do understand that if anything happened to the company he'd be legally
prohibited from releasing anti-DRM patches, right? It'd destroy the
shareholders' value.

Unless it's in writing as a condition of your purchase, and the code is in
escrow somewhere, it ain't happening.

~~~
sid0
You mentioned "shareholders". Think about who owns Valve -- I understand Gabe
owns 100% of the company.

~~~
wnight
Yeah, I should have said creditors. It's more to the point.

~~~
sid0
I find it hard to believe Valve has any debt whatsoever.

~~~
wnight
The point though is that these vague promises to unDRM products are probably
not permitted even if they thought about it and had the patches ready. And
this isn't just a Valve thing, id software said something similar when Quake3
first required an online auth check to play on registered servers.

But considering how much you'd lose if Steam went away I can see why people
are nervous of using them versus buying CDs.

