Robotic Boogaloo Is TF2's First Community-Created Update

[Steven Bogos]

Robotic Boogaloo Is TF2's First Community-Created Update

The update drops all pretense of TF2 having been an FPS at some point in its life, and simply adds 57 new hats to the popular war-themed hat simulator.

"Help, we forgot how to do our jobs! Please make a new update or else the giant iguana posing as Gabe Newell will fire us and have us escorted out by security in that order," the staff of Valve's war-themed hat simulator Team Fortress 2 reportedly begged its community members. "Fear not, incompetent Valve employees," replied a modest community member, "the community is here to save the day once again. We have but one stipulation: we will not make robot hats under any circumstances and that's final. Unless you pay us lots of money." Robotic Boogaloo, the latest free update for TF2, is 100% created by the TF2 community, and contains 57 robot hats.

"And when we say everything [is created by the community], we mean everything-the in-game content, the update hub website, the animated short, the comic, even the splash images in the Steam store," said Valve in a blog post accompanying the announcement. The 39 hats and 15 miscellaneous items are "roboticized" versions of regular TF2 hats and misc items, that will be available through a new series of "RoboCrates," only unlock-able with "RoboKeys". Robo.

Along with this, 10 new robot-related Unusual effects (which are exclusive to the new RoboCrates), 3 new action items - the Pallet of Crates (which gifts a crate to up to 23 players on a server), Random RoboKey Gift (which gifts a RoboKey to a random player on a server) and Pile of RoboKey Gifts (which gifts a RoboKey to up to 23 players on a server)- and one tool - the RoboCrate Key - were added to the game.

A new comic [http://www.teamfortress.com/roboticboogaloo/comic.php] detailing the exploits of the 9 stupidest mercenaries in the world was also released with the update, and it's pretty good for a chuckle. "Plus, in a first for the Team Fortress economy," said Valve, "all the creators of the Robotic Boogaloo Update have decided to share the revenue earned from the sale of RoboCrate Keys. That means that everyone involved will be profiting from this update, not just the people making hats."

"This doesn't mark the end of Valve-produced TF2 updates, by the way," assured Valve, "As far as we're concerned, there's plenty of room for both to happily co-exist. We're in uncharted territory here, and it's exciting to be exploring it with you." The update is live right now, so you can go ahead and play it. Team Fortress 2 is free-to-play on PC, Linux and Mac.

Valve previously released a neat Baloonicorn [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/123758-Buy-Pyros-Plushie-Get-Team-Fortress-2-Asset] plushie via its Valve store, that comes with a code to unlock the item in-game.

Source: Robotic Boogaloo [http://www.teamfortress.com/roboticboogaloo/]

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[Infernal Lawyer]

Fans have been making it perfectly clear for years that they'll happily contribute to whatever fandom they're into. Valve is just smart enough to actually incorporate that into their business model, e.g. embracing modding, buying popular ideas and turning it into full games, and integrating the Steam Workshop with their games, etc, then making sure everyone gets a share of the profit. More companies should learn how to do this.

 

[Compatriot Block]

Fans have been making it perfectly clear for years that they'll happily contribute to whatever fandom they're into. Valve is just smart enough to actually incorporate that into their business model, e.g. embracing modding, buying popular ideas and turning it into full games, and integrating the Steam Workshop with their games, etc, then making sure everyone gets a share of the profit. More companies should learn how to do this.

I think it would be great if they did.

That said, my money would be on people accusing that company (especially if it was EA) of just lazily using work from its customers. Valve has a sort of permanent good-will relationship with enough PC gamers for it to work for them.

 

[New Troll]

I think it's been a couple months since I've played TF2 and after reading all about this new update, I still find myself with no desire to play. Do feel bad about all the awesome gear I have collecting dust in my backpack. Posted in the escapist TF group that I'd be willing to trade my TF2 items for games, especially from my Wishlist. Have like 20 Unusuals to choose from too.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I'm downloading the update now.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

I think it would be great if they did.

That said, my money would be on people accusing that company (especially if it was EA) of just lazily using work from its customers. Valve has a sort of permanent good-will relationship with enough PC gamers for it to work for them.

I had a feeling that would be brought up, and it's a valid point. Then again, it already happens outside of actual game content: People play games and talk about them, post videos on YouTube, make fan websites with fan art/fiction, etc, which is all free advertising; people go onto user forums when they need technical support rather than busying the companies dedicated customer support.

It's like you said though, people would get mad at EA and similar companies: it would be seen as EA being happy to dick around their customers when it suits them, e.g. DRM,lying about fucking EVERYTHING in SimShitty and A:CL (made by different guys, I know, shut up) and taking down anything on the web that 'might' be breaching copyright, yet acting all nice and accommodating when they try to make their fans to all the hard work for them.

Anyway, most probably think that modding "takes the game away from the producers vision" or some other rot is enough of an excuse not to embrace the community's contribution. But that's just me demonizing the big players

 

[Rad Party God]

Hate Valve all you want, but they definitely know how to keep their community engaged with such an old (and fun) game, unlike a certain company that all it wants is to keep churning out sequel after sequel.

 

[bravetoaster]

The update drops all pretense of TF2 having been an FPS at some point in its life, and simply adds 57 new hats to the popular war-themed hat simulator.

TF2 reintroduced me to the FPS genre after not playing any since the original DOOM. So when TF2, the most entertaining and spectacularly well-balanced FPS I've ever played, turned into a hat storefront, I was left angry and bitter and sad that I'd never again be able to play the game that I'd fallen in love with. That sentence, however, made me burst out laughing and, I think, helped me let go of all that baggage. So thank you, Mr. Bogos.

Also, that video's actually kind of cute. The game's probably still unplayable, but... such good character design.

 

[DugMachine]

snip

Hats broke the game? It's still pretty balanced as far as I can tell. Some of the newer weapons can be a pain in the ass but overall it's still the same game.

 

[Aeshi]

Yeah, I was rather disappointed when it turned out all this update adds is hats (and not even original ones, they're just reskins of hats already in the game)

No new weapons? nothing? This doesn't even deserve to be called a contribution, let alone an update.

 

[bravetoaster]

snip

Hats broke the game? It's still pretty balanced as far as I can tell. Some of the newer weapons can be a pain in the ass but overall it's still the same game.

Hats, themselves, did not break the game, no. I was excited when the first couple of updates for the game were released and new content was added. Then hats started appearing. Then more hats. And more items and hats. By the time they made it free to play and opened their hat storefront, it seemed, from my final attempts to play the game, that they'd added enough other items and weapons that anything resembling the original balance was completely gone. If you like it or still like it--I'm glad for you.

 

[Darren716]

I'm glad that this update was 100% community made but I was pretty disappointed that all we got were reskins of hats that already existed. I felt there were a lot of people in the community who have made new and original ideas for the game that should have had their creations finaly get placed in the game.

 

[major_chaos]

More hats? and now Valve is too lazy to even make their own overpriced cosmetic DLC? hooo boy this is why I quit TF2. I think the final straw was getting votekicked from a server purely because I had no hat, because obviously anyone with out a hat is a horribad F2P scrub.

 

[Thedutchjelle]

The first few hats where funny, but the it spiraled out of control with all the updates and more content.

Half the weapons are promo-weapons you get for pre-ordering a game, it's just.. too much. All the worthless crates that you got to pay for.

I stopped playing shortly after the Engineer update and I haven't really gone back since. I liked the game most just before the Engi update.