Team Fortress 2

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Team Fortress 2
Developer(s)	Valve Corporation
Publisher(s)	Valve Corporation (Steam)
Distributor(s)	Electronic Arts (All) Unalis (Windows)
Designer(s)	Robin Walker, John Cook
Engine	Source engine
Release date(s)	Summer 2007
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: Rating Pending
Platform(s)	PC, Xbox 360, PS3
Media	Steam, DVD and Blu-ray

Team Fortress 2 is the long-anticipated sequel to the original Team Fortress mod for Quake being developed by Valve Corporation. It is a multiplayer team-based first-person shooter with strategy elements. The game has been through various concepts and designs: in 1999 the game appeared to be deviating from the original Team Fortress by heading toward a more realistic and militaristic style of gameplay, and the design metamorphosed further over the game's seven-year development. The final rendition of Team Fortress 2 currently appears to bear more resemblance to the original Team Fortress design, and sports a distinctive, cartoonish visual style which hasn't been seen in a first-person shooter since 2004's XIII.

The lack of information or apparent progress for six years of the game's supposed development caused it to be labelled as vaporware, and it was regularly featured in the top five of Wired News' annual vaporware list among other ignominies.

As of August 24, 2006, two trailers for Team Fortress 2 have been released and are widely available on various gaming-related websites and Steam.

[edit] Release

During the July 2006 Electronic Arts press conference, Valve revealed that Team Fortress 2 would ship as the multiplayer component of Half-Life 2: Episode Two, which is currently scheduled for a 2007 release. A conference trailer demonstrated the game's new graphical style featuring all of the original Team Fortress classes, points towards a more light-hearted and whimsical visual style as opposed to the dark, somewhat more traditional military simulation that had originally been shown. Gabe Newell, the managing director of Valve, has said their goal is to create "the best looking and best-playing class-based multiplayer game." ^[1][2]

[edit] Gameplay

A collage of the Team Fortress 2 player classes in action. Top row: (left to right) Demoman, Engineer, Heavy; Middle row: (left to right) Medic, Pyro, Scout; Bottom row: (left to right) Sniper, Soldier, Spy.

Just like its predecessor, in Team Fortress 2 players will be able to choose to play as one of several archetypal classes at the start of a match, each with its own unique strengths and weaknesses. While it is unknown if the abilities of each class will be similar to the original Team Fortress, all indications so far are that the basic elements will remain the same: Heavy Weapons characters will have huge guns with incredible firepower but will have a slow walking speed, scouts will be able to move very quickly, but are lightly armoured, and so on. While it is unclear at this time what sort of gametypes will be included upon release, capture the flag and control point matches are likely to return.

[edit] Graphics

Team Fortress 2 will not opt for the realistic graphical approaches taken by the official Valve games Day of Defeat and Counter-Strike. Rather, it will use a more stylized, cartoon-like approach. The effect seems to have been achieved using a special Valve in-house rendering and lighting technique making extensive use of phong shading ^[3]. The game will debut the Source engine's new dynamic lighting, shadowing and soft particle technologies, among many other unannounced features, alongside Half-Life 2: Episode Two. It should be noted however, that the depth of field and motion blur effects seen in the game's trailers cannot feasibly be rendered during gameplay^[4] unless inferior approximations, such as vector motion blur or image -space depth of field, were to be used.

[edit] Classes

Nine playable classes have been confirmed,^[1] all returning from the original Team Fortress. Robin Walker has discussed the possibility of introducing new classes over time,^{[citation needed]} but the initial release is expected to include only the 'classic' set:

Soldier

Perhaps the most traditional FPS class, the soldier is equipped with a rocket launcher which can also be used to rocketjump.

Medic

Valve has confirmed that this class will retain its important support role of healing other players. They have also said that the medic will be one of the most radically changed classes in terms of gameplay mechanics from the original game (rejecting the original mechanics of requiring physical contact to heal as well as the ability to infect opposing team members with a contagious disease) but have not released further information on exactly how.

Heavy (formerly Heavy Weapons Guy)

In-game action with the Heavy on the 2fort bridge

Valve have said that this class is perhaps the most faithful to the original and among the easiest for new players to learn how to use. The Heavy is very slow moving with a powerful gatling gun that requires a short period to "spin up" to full power.

Spy

Primarily used to infiltrate enemy territory, Valve have shown the spy class using a cloaking technique and attacking from behind with a balisong, or "butterfly knife". They have also discussed the use of disguises as well as the ability to "feign" death, both returning from the original game but are still debating exactly how these abilities should work.

Scout

An extremely swift class capable of rushing past enemy defences and achieving objectives. The scout has a baseball bat as a melee weapon. Valve has also confirmed that some sort of concussion grenade will return for the scout from the original game.

Pyro

Little information has been released concerning this class other than its use of a flame-thrower.

Demoman

Valve has stated that the increased use of physics in the gameplay world has changed the way this class plays. The Demoman is equipped with a pipebomb launcher that can detonate its ammunition on command as well as throw sticks of dynamite which explode in two stages much like the MIRV weapon from the original game.

Engineer

In-game action with the Engineer

Equipped with a shotgun and a wrench, the engineer is capable of building autonomous turrets which can defend areas of the map. As with the original team fortress, turrets can be upgraded and repaired if they sustain non-critical damage. Valve has also suggested that the engineer can build other structures and sometimes alter areas of the map, but have not released any further details.

Sniper

Snipers can achieve kills from long distances with a scope and a high damage rifle. The scope appears to use a slight fisheye lens effect.

[edit] History

A box art design for the 'old' Team Fortress 2.

Originally planned as a free mod for Quake II, development on Team Fortress 2 switched to the GoldSrc/Half-Life engine in 1998 after the development team (Team Fortress Software, consisting of Robin Walker and John Cook) were first contracted and finally flat-out employed by Valve Corporation,^[5] then merely Valve Software. At the point of Team Fortress Software's acquisition production moved up a notch and the game was promoted to a standalone, retail product;^[5] to tide fans over (since, as well as time issues, much of TF's player base had purchased Half-Life solely in anticipation of TF2's free release), work began on a simple port of the game which was released in 1999 as the free Team Fortress Classic.^[6] Notably, TFC was built entirely within the publicly available Half-Life SDK as an example to the community and industry of its flexibility.^[7]

Walker and Cook had been heavily influenced by their three-month contractual stint at Valve, and now they were working full-time their design was undergoing rapid metamorphosis. TF2 was to be a modern war game, with a command hierarchy including a commander with a bird's-eye view of the battlefield, parachute drops over enemy territory, networked voice communication and numerous other innovations that planted the game, quite literally, years ahead of its time.^[8]

The new design was revealed to the public at the 1999 E3,^{[citation needed]} where it earned several awards including Best Online Game and Best Action Game.^[9] By this time TF2 had gained a new subtitle, Brotherhood of Arms, and the results of Walker and Cook working at Valve were becoming clear. Several new and at the time unprecedented technologies on show: Parametric animation seamlessly blended animations for smoother, more life-like movement,^{[citation needed]} and Intel's Multi-resolution mesh technology dynamically reduced the detail of on-screen elements as they became more distant to improve performance^{[citation needed]} (a technique today known as Level of Detail). At this point, the game was slated for release in late 1999 or early 2000.^{[citation needed]}

In mid-2000, Valve announced that development of TF2 been delayed for a second time.^[10] They put the news down to development switching to an in-house, proprietary engine that is today known as the Source engine. It was at around this time that all news ran dry and TF2 entered its notorious six-year radio silence, which was to last until July 13 2006 (see 'Release' section). During that time both Walker and Cook worked on various other Valve projects—Walker was project lead on Half-Life 2: Episode One and Cook became a Steam developer, among other tasks—raising doubts that Team Fortress 2 was really the active project that would be repeatedly described.

A 1999 promotional screenshot, demonstrating TF2's then gritty and modern-day art.

The next significant public development occurred in the run up to Half-Life 2's 2004 release: Valve's Director of Marketing Doug Lombardi claimed both that TF2 was still in development and that information concerning it would come after HL2's release.^{[citation needed]} This did not happen; nor was any news released in a timely manner after Lombardi's similar claim during an early interview regarding Half-Life 2: Episode One, then known as Half-Life 2: Aftermath.^{[citation needed]} Near the time of Episode One's release Valve's Gabe Newell again claimed that news on Team Fortress 2 would be forthcoming^{[citation needed]}—and this time it was. Team Fortress 2 was re-unveiled a month later at the July 2006 EA Summer Showcase event.^[1]

Due to the game's engine switches and lengthy development cycle it is often mentioned alongside Duke Nukem Forever, another long-anticipated game that has seen many years of protracted development and engine changes.

The 'old' Team Fortress 2 is quite possibly the only game to have spawned a thriving sub-genre without ever being released itself.

[edit] Information leaks

While Valve were very successful in keeping the game under wraps during its protracted development, when the full Source SDK was released the Half-Life 2 source code it provided contained many references to the game.^[11] Some merely confirmed what was already believed, but others provided completely new information, such as the presence of NPCs in multiplayer matches, the game taking place in the Half-Life 2 universe, fixed plasma gun and missile launcher emplacements, and more.

This information is now known to be outdated and is extremely unlikely to have any bearing on the final game.

[edit] See also

• Team Fortress
• Team Fortress Classic
• Fortress Forever
• Half-Life 2: Episode Two
• Portal

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Official

Team Fortress 2 official site (redirects to Half-Life 2: Episode Two's official website)

Valve Software

Community

PlanetFortress: The only remaining fansite for Team Fortress 2. Not maintained, but still available

Jolt Team Fortress: TFC/TF2 News Page, Images & some of the most popular TFC servers in Europe.

TeamFortressTwo.com: An up and coming fansite for Team Fortress 2.

Media

Trailer 1 - Steam

Trailer 2 - Steam

Team Fortress 2 Trailers - Xboxyde:

Trailer 1 - Teaser (16.12 MB): - Xboxyde

Trailer 2 High-Quality (217.92 MB): - Xboxyde

Trailer 2 Lower-Quality (30.43 MB): - Xboxyde