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Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2 is bundled as part of The Orange Box.
Developer(s)	Valve Corporation
Publisher(s)	Valve Corporation
Distributor(s)	Electronic Arts (Retail) Steam (Online distribution)
Designer(s)	Robin Walker, John Cook
Engine	Source engine
Release date(s)	Microsoft Windows & Xbox 360 (Retail): Template:Vgrelease Template:Vgrelease[1] Template:Vgrelease Template:Vgrelease Template:Vgrelease Microsoft Windows (Steam): Template:Vgrelease PlayStation 3: Template:Vgrelease Template:Vgrelease Template:Vgrelease[2]
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: M, PEGI: 16+, BBFC: 15
Platform(s)	PC, Xbox 360, PS3
Media	Steam, DVD and Blu-ray
System requirements	1.7 GHz Pentium 4 512 MB system RAM DirectX 8 video card[3]

Team Fortress 2 (TF2) is a multiplayer team-based first-person shooter, developed by Valve Corporation as part of the game compilation The Orange Box.

The game was announced in 1998 as a sequel to the original Team Fortress mod for Quake, but has since been through various concepts and designs. In 1999 the game appeared to be deviating from the original Team Fortress (and Valve's own Team Fortress Classic, a mod for Half-Life) by heading toward a more realistic and militaristic style of gameplay, but the design metamorphosed further over the game's nine-year development. The final rendition of Team Fortress 2 bears more resemblance to the original Team Fortress and Team Fortress Classic games, and sports a cartoon-like visual style, based on the art of J. C. Leyendecker^[4] following a popular trend in recent CGI films (in particular, films recently made by Pixar/Disney, such as The Incredibles).

The lack of information or apparent progress for six years of the game's development caused it to be labeled as vaporware, and it was regularly featured in Wired News' annual vaporware list among other ignominies.^[5] The game was officially released on October 10, 2007.

Contents 1 Development history 1.1 Origins 1.2 E3 1999 1.3 "Invasion" design 1.4 Final design 1.5 Release 2 Gameplay 2.1 Classes 2.1.1 Scout 2.1.2 Soldier 2.1.3 Pyro 2.1.4 Demoman 2.1.5 Heavy 2.1.6 Engineer 2.1.7 Medic 2.1.8 Sniper 2.1.9 Spy 2.2 Maps 3 Graphics 4 Critical reception 5 External links

Development history

Origins

Originally planned as a free mod for Quake, 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 outright employed by Valve Corporation.^[6] At the point of Team Fortress Software's acquisition production moved up a notch and the game was promoted to a standalone, retail product;^[6] to tide fans over—since, as well as time issues, much of the Team Fortress player base had purchased Half-Life solely in anticipation of the free release of Team Fortress 2—work began on a simple port of the game which was released in 1999 as the free Team Fortress Classic (TFC).^[7] Notably, TFC was built entirely within the publicly available Half-Life SDK as an example to the community and industry of its flexibility.^[8]

Walker and Cook had been heavily influenced by their three-month contractual stint at Valve, and now they were working full-time on their design, which was undergoing rapid metamorphosis. Team Fortress 2 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.^[9] This initial design for Team Fortress 2 is quite possibly the only game to have spawned a thriving sub-genre without ever being released itself.

E3 1999

The new design was revealed to the public at the 1999 E3, where it earned several awards including Best Online Game and Best Action Game.^[10] By this time Team Fortress 2 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,^[11] and Intel's Multi-resolution mesh^[11] technology dynamically reduced the detail of on-screen elements as they became more distant to improve performance^[11] (a technique made obsolete by decreasing memory costs; today games use a technique known as level of detail, which uses more memory but less processing power). No date was given at the exposition.

In mid-2000, Valve announced that development of Team Fortress 2 had been delayed for a second time.^[12] 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 Team Fortress 2 entered its notorious six-year radio silence, which was to last until July 13, 2006. 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.

"Invasion" design

When the Half-Life 2 source tree was leaked in late 2003 three Team Fortress 2 models were included, along with direct references to the game in the stolen source code. They consisted of an alien, Combine-like grunt and a very cartoon-like and out-of-proportion soldier. The code was interpreted by fans as making references to the Seven Hour War, an integral part of the Half-Life story; however, the two leaked player models did not look combine or human.Template:Fact

The Source SDK was released with the Half-Life 2 source code, and also provided references to the game.^[13] Some code merely confirmed what was already believed, but other segments provided completely new information, such as the presence of NPCs in multiplayer matches, the possibility of the game taking place in the Half-Life 2 universe, fixed plasma gun and missile launcher emplacements, and more.

None of the leaked information appears to have any bearing on today's version of the game. This iteration was mentioned in an August 2007 interview with Gabe Newell by GameTrailers, in which he mentions "Invasion" as being the second-phase of Team Fortress 2's development under Valve Software.^[14]

Final design

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 Team Fortress 2 was still in development and that information concerning it would come after Half-Life 2's release. This did not happen; nor was any news released after Lombardi's similar claim during an early interview regarding Half-Life 2: Episode One. Template:Fact Near the time of Episode One's release Gabe Newell again claimed that news on Team Fortress 2 would be forthcoming Template:Fact — and this time it was. Team Fortress 2 was re-unveiled a month later at the July 2006 EA Summer Showcase event.^[15]

Walker revealed in March 2007 that Valve had quietly built "probably three to four different games" before settling on their final design.^[16] Due to the game's 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 beta features three multiplayer maps which contain commentary on the game design, level design and character design, and provide more information on the history behind the development.^[17] The commentary suggests that part of the reason for the intentionally cartoonish style was the difficulty in explaining the maps and characters in realistic terms -- questions like "Why would two teams put their bases so close to each other?" become more relevant when there is an emphasis on realism in a game.

The art style for the game was inspired by J. C. Leyendecker, as well as Dean Cornwell and Norman Rockwell^[4]. Their distinctive styles of strong silhouettes and shading to draw attention to specific details were adapted in order to make the models distinct, with a focus on making the characters' team, class and current weapon distinct and easily identifiable.

The commentary also explains why the commander (a single player who sees a top-down map and is responsible for organizing the team) was not included in the final design: it was too hard to make the experience fun given a poor team and a good commander, or a good team and a poor commander.

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. 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." The game will be sold retail as part of The Orange Box. He also stated on a video interview with IGN, that the game will be available on Steam on October 10, 2007.

A beta for Team Fortress 2 was released on Steam on September 17, 2007, for customers who pre-purchased the Orange Box and those who activated their Black Box coupon which was included with the ATI HD 2900XT Graphics cards. As well as Orange Box customers, LAN gaming centers using the Steam for Cafe system have the game installed and ready to play.

Team Fortress 2 was released October 10, 2007 as both a standalone product on Steam and at retail as part of the Orange Box, a Half-Life 2 bundle pack priced at $49.95USD. The package also contains Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and Portal. Valve offered The Orange Box at a $5 discount for those who pre-purchased it on Steam before the October 10 release, as well as the opportunity to participate in the final beta test of Team Fortress 2.

Gameplay

Template:Shorten As in the game's predecessors, Team Fortress 2 players can choose to play as one of nine classes,^[15][18] each with their own unique strengths and weaknesses. Some class abilities have changed from the original Team Fortress, but the basic elements of each class have remained: the heavy class is slow, but has 300 health points, while the Scout class is quick, but has 125 health points. Only the Capture the Flag and Control Point game modes were available at launch.^[19]

There are also several features to enhance gameplay. Classes are designed to be balanced. Effective strategies result from using a variety of the different classes. Some classes work well together, such as soldier and demoman, or heavy and medic.^[20] Armor has been removed. Each class has a number of starting health points ranging from 125 lighter classes to 300 for more heavily armed classes.^[20]

Engineers can pick up deceased players' weapons to replenish their "metal" count, which is the engineer's building resource. Other classes can also pick up dropped weapons to replenish their ammunition supply. Ammunition is universal, in that a player does not need to find specific ammo types.^[21] Spawn rooms feature an equipment locker to fully restock ammo and health while standing in front of it, instead of the bags as in previous versions.^[21] Grenades have been removed from all classes, with the exception of the demoman's regular weapons. ^[20]

The game includes detailed charts that can be changed to show two of the following while the game loads: time played as each class, average points, maximum points, most damage, and other class specific achievements. Persistent statistics tell the player how they are improving, for example telling them if they came close to their record number of kills with that class.^[19] The game only displays "points" to other players, instead of displaying each player's kills and deaths. The distinction encourages non-combat classes to stay out of combat: the Medic class will receive points for enemies killed by the player he or she is healing. Each player can see his own stats on the scoreboard.Template:Fact Players are able to spectate a game, including the option of spectating in first-person.^[19] A freeze-cam allows a player to see who killed them.^[19][18]

One can "dominate" a player by killing him 3 times in a row, then the dominated player can get a "revenge kill", leading to more points. Critical hit shots are chosen based on a player's momentum on the scoreboard, causing a player's rockets, bullets and grenades to become visibly coloured blue or red - depending which team the player is on - and to fire with an electrical charge sound. It is important to note that the sound means that a shot is critical, not a hit, so a player could miss a critical hit if he misses the shot. Melee weapons can also be critical hit charged. Critical hits can also be scored with a Headshot as the Sniper class. When you hit someone with a critical hit, a text icon appears over their head.^[21] Characters respond to the environment dynamically with dialogue, such as when on fire, when destroying enemy structures, when invulnerable, or at the start of the round. When one hits an enemy he will shout in pain, giving instant audio feedback.

In Capture the Flag mode, flags/intelligence dropped by the enemy team take 1-2 minutes to return to base, and display a timer over them. A friendly can't return the flag by touching it, as in other games, but the enemy can still take it from its new location. The defending team must hold the flag from being captured for 60 seconds.^[22] In Control Point mode, if a point is partially captured, it takes time to reset, giving the team time to get someone else there to finish the capture.^[22]

Team Fortress 2 features numerous "achievements" (similar to Xbox Live's Gamerscore) for carrying out certain tasks, such as scoring a certain number of kills or completing a round within a certain time. Messages appear in the bottom-right corner of the screen to inform the player of their success, or progress with regards to numerically-based achievements.

Map player limits are 24 on the PC (although it has been increased to 32 by the community), 16 on the Xbox 360 console and on the Playstation 3 console.^[23] Control point match maps also feature a timer after which the game enters sudden death, which is also timed, where no respawns are allowed in an effort to reduce tie games. If sudden death finishes without a definitive winner, a stalemate is announced.^[24] On control point maps, if the attacker controls any part of a point when time runs out, the game is extended to overtime. Overtime lasts until the point is completely lost or gained. If the point is gained, the attacking team wins or receives additional time if there are additional points left and the game is not already in sudden death.

Multiplayer modes include Xbox Live Player Match, Xbox Live Ranked Match, and System Link Match. The Xbox Live Player Match mode does not have statistics tracking and allows players to join matches already in progress or switch teams mid-match. The Xbox Live Ranked Match mode matches you with players around your skill level using Xbox's Trueskill^TM ranking system. The System Link Match mode lets you wirelessly link two or more consoles for multiplayer matches. In all modes, only one person can play per console. A problem that has arisen with the game though, is that the match tends to have quite bag lag, if the host doesn't have a better than average connection. Luckily these bad games can be avoided by the ping meter shown (the more bars the better the connection), when searching for a game.

Classes

Template:Gameguide The nine playable classes have all returned from the original Team Fortress. New classes may be added after the initial release.^[25] To help new players understand class roles, classes are classified as offense, defense, and support, but any class can be played in any role.^[19] Class abilities have been altered from the original Team Fortress to make each class a distinct playing experience.^[19] Also, hand-thrown grenades have been removed from every class.^[19]

Scout

The scout is lightly armored and is displayed as a young man with a New England accent, wearing running shoes, a baseball cap with a thin headset, dog tags and carrying a messenger bag over a team-colored t-shirt. The fastest class in the game, the scout's role is to capture objectives once enemy defenses have been disabled and as such a scout represents two players when capturing points.^[20] Scouts are able to double jump, giving extra height to a leap and allowing a change of direction in mid-air, and when combined with his natural speed this makes the scout a difficult target to hit. Armed with an underlever sawed-off shotgun, a pistol and an aluminum baseball bat, the scout is able to deliver significantly more damage at close range than in previous Team Fortress incarnations.^[20]

Soldier

The soldier is a slow moving class, but has a high damage tolerance and can boost himself to higher platforms by rocket jumping, though rocket jumping still causes damage accordingly. Speaking with a barrel-chested military drawl - a nod towards George C. Scott's performance in the film PattonTemplate:Fact - the soldier wears a team-colored American World War II army uniform and carries a rocket launcher, a shotgun and can use an entrenching tool for melee attacks. Used for spearheading offensives through firepower, the soldier is well-suited to long range combat as his rockets have infinite range and cause area damage on impact.^[20]

The soldier was given a video in the "Meet the Classes" series, where he is shown talking to supposed blue players about military strategy, involving a misinformed lecture on the role of Sun Tzu as the inventor of combat and zoos, as well as being involved in a variation on the life of Noah and a sport fighter. At the end of the lecture it is later revealed that the blue "players" are only severed heads of enemies that he has killed in the preceding battle with blue combat helmets placed on them.

Pyro

The pyro is equipped with a short-range flamethrower, a shotgun and a fire axe, and it is near impossible to distinguish the class's nationality as the gas mask the pyro wears renders his speech incomprehensible. Unlike its counterparts in previous Team Fortress incarnations, the pyro's primary weapon, the flamethrower, is one of the most powerful short range weapons in the game, able to set enemies on fire to cause damage over an extended period of time. Other pyros cannot be set alight, but will still take damage from the initial attack.^[20] Due to the short range of the flamethrower, the pyro relies on ambushing enemies to achieve the full effect of the weapon.

Demoman

The demoman is a defensive class with average damage tolerance. Speaking with an intoxicated Scottish brogue, the demoman wears a skull cap, an eyepatch and a team-coloured EOD suit. Demomen are armed with a timed detonation grenade launcher, a remote detonation sticky bomb launcher and uses a Scotch bottle that can be broken for melee attacks. The demoman can use these grenade launchers to fire grenades over obstacles and around corners, though its range is extremely limited. Sticky bombs can also be used in a defensive role for setting traps and mining routes, although the opposing team can displace them with most weapons. The demoman can only have a maximum of eight active sticky bombs at any one time and placing more sticky bombs with eight already in place will begin detonating previously-deployed bombs in the order they were launched. Demomen can also use their explosives to jump, when timed well this can send the Demoman to great heights but takes a lot of damage. The demoman moves slightly slower than most other classes. ^[20]

In one of the trailers for Team Fortress 2, the demoman was shown throwing a four-stick of dynamite, which corresponded to the MIRV demoman grenade from the original Team Fortress Classic. However, this weapon is not in the current version of the game.

The demoman received a video in the "Meet the Classes" series in October 2007. In it, the demoman is shown as a severe alcoholic with an annoyed attitude, noting bitterly that as a "black Scottish cyclops" he is quite rare. He also seems to be jealous of people with two eyes.^[26]

Heavy

The heavy is the toughest physical class in the game. This large character speaks with a thick Slavic accent, carries a large, heavy and very powerful minigun and wears a Kevlar vest over a team-colored shirt. His secondary weapons are a shotgun and his bare fists. The slowest of the nine classes, the heavy is used for both offensive and defensive purposes. The minigun itself has a short wind-up time and its low accuracy limits a heavy to medium and short range combat. The combination of high health, a large body and a powerful weapon commonly allows medics to take cover behind heavies.^[20]

Valve released a video about the heavy as part of its "Meet the Classes" advertisement series. In it, the heavy seemed very obsessed with his weapon, citing its enormous costs of maintenance and use, becoming extremely angry when he believes someone else has handled it, and even giving it the name Sasha. This video was later translated and revoiced into his native language, Russian, while also updated to show off the newer, high-resolution face animation.

Engineer

Engineers are used to defend bases and passageways, as well as to supply and transport the team. Only lightly armored, the engineer wears a construction hat and team-colored overalls and speaks with a Texan accent. The engineer is able to build various structures through "metal" points to support the team: a sentry gun that can be upgraded through three stages of effectiveness, a teleporter matrix consisting of an entry and exit facility, and a dispenser that gives teammates ammunition and health. While its ammunition supplies are infinite, the dispenser requires time to regenerate metal supplies^[20]. Metal is collected from resupply points, dispensers, the weapons of fallen players, and even the debris of destroyed structures. Engineers are armed with a shotgun and a pistol in addition to a monkey wrench that serves as a means to repair, upgrade, and speed up the building of structures^[20], while doubling as a melee weapon.

Valve released a short movie about the engineer in its advertisement series, "Meet the Classes". In it, the engineer is shown as a laid-back and intellectual Good Ol' Boy, sitting around drinking beer and playing a 6-string acoustic guitar while the sentry guns he set up shoot at enemies. Although multiple sentry guns are seen in this video, an engineer can only build one of each structure at a time, although other engineers can also maintain this equipment. When an engineer dies, any equipment he built remains in the game until it is destroyed or until he changes classes, except when in the sudden death mode.

Medic

Medics are tasked with keeping other players alive and are equipped accordingly. With average protection and clothed in a doctor's labcoat and thick team-colored rubber gloves, the medic speaks with a German accent. Armed with a healing gun, the medic is able to quickly and continuously regenerate a teammate's health up to a temporary 150% of their initial health. The medic can also use the healing gun to "Übercharge" other players after using the device for a certain amount of time. Übercharge renders the medic and the targeted teammate invulnerable for up to ten seconds. The healing gun cannot be used in an offensive capacity, although the medic is equipped with a Flechette gun that shoots syringes, and a bonesaw to defend himself. The syringes fired are proper projectiles and so are subject to gravity; as such, since they are fired at quite a low speed, they drop the ground fairly quickly and for longer range targets a fair degree of elevation is required to obtain the necessary range. Medics are able to slowly regenerate their own health passively and are second in speed only to the scout^[20].

Sniper

Snipers are a support class. An Australian^[27] character with low damage tolerance, the sniper wears an Akubra of Australian military Slouch Hat style^[28], a team-colored shirt, and yellow tinted shooter's glasses. Carrying a bolt-action sniper rifle, the sniper is able to kill all classes instantly with a shot to the head, although he must "charge" his rifle in order for the shot to be fatal against tougher targets, such as the heavy. Charging occurs while aiming with the scope, and a percentage bar on the right side of the crosshair indicates the amount that the rifle has been charged. However, the rifle leaves a visible team-colored laser dot where it is aimed which can reveal imminent danger for the target. For closer combat, the sniper is armed with a submachine gun and a machete.^[20]

Spy

The spy is lightly armored and is used for infiltrating, assassinating and sabotaging the enemy team and is capable of disguising himself as any class on either side. When undisguised, the spy speaks with a Franco-Spanish accent, and wears a team-coloured, pin-stripe suit with a team-coloured, full-face balaclava. He wields a revolver, a butterfly knife, an electric sapper, and a disguises kit^[20]. While disguised, allies perceive the spy as usual but with a paper mask of the face of the class he is disguised as, penetrated by his always-present cigarette. Spies randomly use an alias name of an enemy of the disguise class, occasionally having his cover blown by the player he is mimicking. Spies can take damage when disguised, but Spies do not bleed like other classes. Spies also have the ability to cloak for a maximum of ten seconds. This cloak must recharge after use^[20], and can be disrupted by enemy fire, contact with an enemy player or by being set alight by the pyro's flamethrower. Spies cannot attack through the cloak, but they can disguise whilst cloaked and vice versa yet will be clearly visible when disguising. Spies also carry electronic sappers that are placed on enemy structures, disabling them and slowly damaging them to destruction unless an engineer repairs their sabotaged equipment. A spy's disguise is not lost when he places a sapper.^[20].

Maps

The game ships with six maps^[19] released by Valve as well as multiple community produced levels. Valve is planning to release more maps in the future.^[19] The maps included in the initial release are:

• 2Fort, a capture the flag map.
• Dustbowl, a turn-based territorial control point map.
• Granary, a control point map.
• Gravel Pit, a turn-based control point map.
• Hydro, a territorial control point map.
• Well, a control point map.

Maps added since the initial release^[29]:

Arena

• Badlands, added August 19, 2008.
• Granary, added August 19, 2008.
• Lumberyard, added August 19, 2008.
• Nucleus, added May 21, 2009.
• Offblast, added August 13, 2009.
• Ravine, added August 19, 2008.
• Sawmill, added May 21, 2009.
• Watchtower, added February 24, 2009.
• Well, added August 19, 2008.

Capture the Flag

• Sawmill, added August 13, 2009.
• Turbine, added June 19, 2008.
• Well, added January 25, 2008.

Control Point

• Badlands, added February 14, 2008.
• Egypt, added February 24, 2009.
• Fastlane, added June 19, 2008.
• Junction, added February 24, 2009.
• Steel, added August 19, 2008.
• Yukon, added August 13, 2009.

King of the Hill

• Nucleus, added August 13, 2009.
• Sawmill, added August 13, 2009.
• Viaduct, added August 13, 2009.

Payload

• Badwater, added August 19, 2008.
• Goldrush, added April 29, 2008.
• Hoodoo, added May 21, 2009.

Payload Race

• Pipeline, added May 21, 2009.

An introductory video shows how to complete map objectives.^[19]

Graphics

Team Fortress 2 does not support the naturalistic graphical approaches taken by the official Valve mods Day of Defeat: Source and Counter-Strike: Source. Rather, it uses a more stylized, cartoon-like approach "heavily influenced by early 20th century commercial illustrations"^[4] and the Pixar film, The Incredibles.^[30][31] The effect is achieved using a special Valve in-house rendering and lighting technique making extensive use of Phong shading.^[32][18] The game debuts with the Source engine's new dynamic lighting, shadowing and soft particle technologies, among many other unannounced features, alongside Half-Life 2: Episode Two. Team Fortress 2 was also the first game to implement the Source engine's new Facial animation 3 features. The stylised graphics have been praised by critics.

Critical reception

Charles Onyett of IGN awarded Team Fortress 2 an 8.9, praising the quirky graphics and fun atmosphere, but criticizing the lack of extra content, like bots, as well as the removal of the per-class grenades, which were one of the defining features of the original Team Fortress.^[33] By contrast, PC Gamer UK praised Team Fortress 2 for removing the grenades, continuing to compliment Valve Software for the unique nature of each of the game's characters. Despite some mild criticism over map navigation and the medic class, PCGamer UK awarded the game 94%.^[27] X-Play awarded The Orange Box with its highest rating (5 out of 5) and had nothing but good things to say about Team Fortress 2.

As of October 22, 2007, the Orange Box has a gamerankings score of 96.4% on the Xbox 360, making it the highest ranking Xbox 360 game, and a score of 97.0% on the PC.

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External links

• The Team Fortress 2 page at the official Orange Box site.
• Valve Software official site.