Valve plans to greatly expand the items available to TF2 players.
In the last Team Fortress 2 (TF2) update, there was an incredibly puzzling patch note. Its quite ominous wording was “Added the ability for players to permanently delete items from their inventory using the new Backpack menu. This does not reset achievements. Once an item has been deleted it can never be re-earned”.
This was puzzling because items were earned through class-specific achievements – deleting them would mean that players couldn’t access these advanced weapons at all. Besides some sort of bizarre e-peen inflation through self-handicapping, no one would ever want to delete their hard-earned gear.
It is now clear that this change was done in preparation for the inclusion of many more items into the game. In an interview with Shacknews, Valve’s Robin Walker has outlined some of the plans, and touches on the item deletion issue, saying “The reason we shipped it in the last update, even though there was no real reason at all to use it, was to get some real world testing. So thanks to the 270 people who went ahead and deleted items! In addition, it gave our support team some warmup practice in handling the inevitable customer issues resulting from this kind of system.”
For now, the items will be purely cosmetic headwear. It is clear that while Valve is keen to ‘RPG-ise’ TF2 to a larger extent, it is not sure just how it will impact the balance of the game. There are also obvious problems with the nature of TF2 servers, where ‘achievement’ type servers could be set up to provide a free flow of items to players. It is a problem ducked by MMOs by keeping servers in-house, rather than run by whoever can be bothered setting one up.
According to Walker, the hats will most likely appear before the upcoming sniper update. As for items that impact gameplay, it seems that these are still a way off. Valve is clearly very keen on making a system that the players like, so expect to see a trickle of items into the game over time rather than a sudden massive change to how it works.
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2009.04.30 12:47
A spy's sappin' mah inventory! What I find hilarious about these cosmetic additions is that the imitation has now come full circle with Battlefield Heroes. Although different forms of play, they're inevitably compared, and EA's 'free-to-play' title will now look much less so, considering hats are how the game makes money.
And plenty of achievement servers already exist, although Valve doesn't seem to mind. This is probably because the unlockable weapons are usually fairly balanced (well, a patch or two after they're released).