Team Fortress 2 goes free-to-play!

[MrNelson]

http://ca.kotaku.com/5815052/team-fo...e-free-forever

That's right, TF2 is now free to play for everyone! If you bought it, don't despair! You will still get things over the F2P people.

From the TF2 F2P FAQ:
Free:
Backpack: 50 slots
Items: Standard
Crafting: Limited blueprints
Trading:Receive items only
Gifting: Can receive gifts

Paid:
Backpack: 300 slots (expandable up to 1000)
Items: Standard, Rare and Cosmetic
Crafting: All blueprints
Trading: Full trading
Gifting: Can give and receive gifts

Q. What do I get if I paid for the game?
To thank you for your years of support, we will be giving players who have purchased TF2 a special Proof of Purchase hat to wear on any character in-game

Personally, I see this as an opportunity to get my friends that were too cheap into this (and destroy them in the process )

[Vlcice]

Also, Meet the Medic is out today, and fantastic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36lSzUMBJnc

[portnoyd]

Isn't it more hat collecting simulator than fps these days?

[Drath]

The Meet the Medic video is definitely the best so far in the series. Or wait, is it the last one? I kind of predicted this would happen. They were basically giving TF2 away in several sales and deals. Everybody has this game.

[Oobgarm]

I have never played this game, ever.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Isn't it more hat collecting simulator than fps these days?

Pretty much.

The Meet the Medic video is definitely the best so far in the series. Or wait, is it the last one? I kind of predicted this would happen. They were basically giving TF2 away in several sales and deals. Everybody has this game.

We're still missing Meet The Pyro.

I'm kinda ticked off that all we normal TF2 players got was a stupid hat. Why couldn't they give us something worthwhile, like a free copy of HL2 Episode 3? :P

The big issue, in my opinion, is that people will find it super easy to troll and hack into games now that they don't have to pay for the game to play it.

[fahlim003]

The Meet the Medic video is definitely the best so far in the series.

I bet the Meet the Pyro will come out when Episode 3 comes out, so essentially 2013. Otherwise, the new Meet video was a nice icing on the cake to get TF2 for free. I lump into the category that I was too cheap/not inclined enough to ever get the game and now that's no longer a problem. I have my doubts on how it plays given the class restrictions (so I believe) but it seems to be very popular so it's worth a freebie. I will say I don't expect it to be similar to Quake 3/LIVE, Urban Terror, CS:S, or GoldenEye Source for that matter so into the oblivion!

[Cryomancer]

Episode 3, paid for entirely with dirty hat money.

[substantial_snake]

The Meet the Medic video was awesome, certainty the best.

I have seen a lot of Valve hate on the web after this announcement and I just honestly don't get it. I bought the Orange Box when it was brand new and yet somehow fail to feel cheated by the Free-to-Play announcement. People are seeming to act like if they were aware of this in 2007 or whenever they picked up a copy that they would of waited untill now inorder to play.

[Richter Belmount]

Episode 3, paid for entirely with dirty hat money.

Its not against the rules.... HERP A DERP

[MrNelson]

I have seen a lot of Valve hate on the web after this announcement and I just honestly don't get it. I bought the Orange Box when it was brand new and yet somehow fail to feel cheated by the Free-to-Play announcement. People are seeming to act like if they were aware of this in 2007 or whenever they picked up a copy that they would of waited untill now inorder to play.

I feel that same way. I haven't even had the game a year yet, and this doesn't upset me in the slightest.

Also, I've never really understood the hat hate. The hats aren't a big deal to me, and they never seem to interrupt the flow of the game (at least when I'm playing).

[Kitsune Sniper]

Also, I've never really understood the hat hate. The hats aren't a big deal to me, and they never seem to interrupt the flow of the game (at least when I'm playing).

Guess you've never had your framerate drop in half because of those stupid hats with effects.

They're the first people I try to kill.

[Cryomancer]

Yeah I'm not really hating this decision or anything, but I did actually uninstall the game a couple days before this announcement. It's like over 10 gigs now and I hadn't played it in months. I'll install it again next time I build a computer. I'm sure the freeness will have some bad effects (cheaters etc) but eventually it'll be a good thing, games anyone can play for free are always cool.

[JSoup]

You know, I got this game a few months ago when a friend bought me Orange Box. Never installed it, figured that my laptop couldn't handle it. Thought about trying to run it now for the hell of it but...10gigs?

[Nz17]

You know, I got this game a few months ago when a friend bought me Orange Box. Never installed it, figured that my laptop couldn't handle it. Thought about trying to run it now for the hell of it but...10gigs?

10 gibibytes of pure GOLD!

I bought the Orange Box back when it launched in 2007 and I got it specifically to play Half-Life 2: Episode 2. With all the positive buzz around Portal and its short length, I played and finished that game first. But after I completed Half-Life 2: Episode 2, I figured, "I'm not that interested in this Team Fortress 2 game, not really my thing, but as it is a 'free' game, why not? - no harm in trying it."

Four years later I have logged 611.15 hours of this Team Fortress 2 game, and it is the only game from the Orange Box that I play routinely.

The Half-Life games, while great, are only really something I play every few years when thinking back to them makes me want to play them again. HL2 Multiplayer has never been my thing. Portal is also great, but once you know the story and the solutions to the puzzles, it doesn't hold much re-playability. I have played it a few more times as it is a high-caliber game, but often do so when trying out fan-made levels or when Portal 2's release was drawing near.

But Team Fortress 2, well, with new official content being added every month (over 200 updates now!), an incredible amount of fan-made content for use in-game, and the constant dynamic of playing with people from around the world, there is so much variety to the game that it stays interesting and fresh. And with the "chance of the draw" of getting item drops every time you play, the ability to craft and trade the ones you don't want for the ones you do, and the "lottery" of buying keys to unlock crates in an attempt to get stupendous items, there is a lot of appeal.

Plus it is hard to argue with the "Meet The Team" videos.

Now that it is free, I see a huge growth in the number of players which will only be a good thing. Servers which would previously empty at night now stay moderately busy to very busy all day long. I believe that Valve would not have made this decision if it had not figured out how to prevent cheaters/item farmers from playing the system. And now that the game will auto-find a good server (based on playing stats for the servers) for you to play instead of you having to find and bookmark favorite servers, the game is going to be bustling on the best spots 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.

Gameboy Color, if you do install the game from the DVD, the code contained in the case will authenticate to the Steam service and get you the "Proof of Purchase" hat and all the updates. As you will have the base files already from the DVD, you won't have to download the portion you already have.

Anyone who has only played this game before on the XBOX 360 or when it first launched, this game is so much more now than when it was originally released for console and PC, it is almost like stepping into a new game. I suggest you give the PC/Mac version from Steam a try... no, I RECOMMEND you play it. It's a good game, made fantastic, and all this now for free.

For anyone wondering, "How and why they would give this superb game away for gratis?" The answer is the hats and weapons which are normally randomly dropped for free just by playing can be purchased from the in-game store. Valve figures it can make more money from the public buying items than it would from people buying the game at this point. But worry not because nobody can buy his way to victory as the store doesn't carry exclusive items which could affect gameplay. All the weapons you can find in the store can be found through random drops in Team Fortress 2.

[Flashback2012]

The game going free-to-play is good news for people who held off buying the game. I picked up the Orange Box right around when it first came out but it's been a little while since I've played.

Out of curiosity I tried logging in today and spent 30 or so minutes waiting for it to populate a server list so I could try and get in a game. I unchecked all options to give me the broadest choice of servers and it hasn't shown me squat yet.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Gameboy Color, if you do install the game from the DVD, the code contained in the case will authenticate to the Steam service and get you the "Proof of Purchase" hat and all the updates. As you will have the base files already from the DVD, you won't have to download the portion you already have.

Just a note. The game is 10 GB total. The core TF2 files are 7.13 GB; but it also requires the Source 2007 Shared Files, which is almost 2.3 GB. Even if you use the files from the DVD, you're STILL going to have to download close 4 or 5 GB of updates. All those hats take up a lot of space! (Actually there's a lot of new voice content, too.)

And that's not counting the updated files from the other games. (For the record, Valve BROKE some parts of Half-Life 2 and Episode 1, and hasn't fixed them in over a year. Bleedin' lazy ass bastards...)

Flashback: Check your firewall. It might be blocking the game from accessing the internet.

[JSoup]

I guess I should have mentioned that I have the Steam version of Orange Box (not that that makes the download any quicker).