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Meet Level Designer, Katelyn Pitstick
Oct 6th
Tell us a little about what you do at Hi-Rez Studios.
I’m an associate level designer- I create and develop the feel of the play experience for both PvP and PvE instances, placing bots to attack you and things to hide behind and toxic goop and lava pits for you to fall in. I also helped flesh out some of the open zone areas, as well as developing the look and feel of some new yet-to-be-released maps.
How did you get into the gaming industry? How did you get to Hi-Rez Studios?
I started working at Hi-Rez Studios before I actually finished my degree from the Savannah College of Art & Design, helping to develop areas and levels for the Sandstorm release. Prior to (and during) that, I did the classic student experience tasks: working on senior projects, working on mods, making my own UDK deathmatch arenas and concepting out new worlds, levels, and zones. Hi-Rez is my first industry company, and it’s a great crew to work with!
Describe your video game experience. When did you start playing / making games?
I started old school (for me). I remember getting a Super Nintendo when I was probably 5 or 6, because that was THE coolest thing way back when! It really wasn’t until I was playing FFIX though and watching the in-game movies that I sat back and went "Wow… that’s really pretty… I want to do that!" From there, I really started looking at games as a form of art, and decided to break my dad’s heart (he wanted me to be a tax accountant) and make games my life.
What is your favorite class / build to play in Global Agenda?
Healer-spec medic. Despite being super squishy, I like being a player that people can rely on to help them push a point or make it through an objective. I also like being able to threaten them with no-heals if they try to troll me: it’s super effective ;D
What are you most excited for in Global Agenda?
A lot of the new levels that will be shipping out for the next expansion, and not just because I’m working on some of them- we’ve got some great ideas rolling, and it’s always exciting to see player’s reactions to what we’ve made.
What experiences do you draw from when creating content for the game?
I pull from a lot of different sources- my minor in school was in Architectural History, so some of the references and designs I pull from are inspired by places from all over the world, and from all periods of time. Mythology, science blogs, other games and stories also give me some inspirations to work with.
Favorite game(s)?
Shadow of the Colossus, Dead Space, Final Fantasy IX, Fable II, ForumWarz, Spyro, Settlers of Catan…
I really hate this question- there’s so many different great games, and still so many games I haven’t gotten a chance to play yet!
What do you do in your free time?
Prepare for the zombie apocalypse.
What is on your iPod/MP3player?
A bunch of really random stuff. Nine Inch Nails, Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog Songs, E.S. Posthumous and some OverClocked Remix tunes make up a healthy portion of it though.
What is your favorite quote / meme from the office or game?
I like listening to some of the crazy stuff that Chuck says. It keeps me entertained. Things like, ""You’re just this brain stuck in a meat bucket!" and "It was like, a werewolf was just all RAWRAWWWWBAUGHAUGH and I’m just all ‘woah! what the hell is even going on?!’ ". It’s a great example of not needing context to appreciate the humor in something.
Check out some of Katelyn’s personal work
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Global Agenda Patch Deployed
Oct 6th
The following updates to Global Agenda were deployed today, Friday, October 1. Some of the features may not be accessible until you receive a new client update from Steam or the Hi-Rez Launcher (Version 1.3.7.11).
The major changes include:
- Players with an active BOOSTER will be rewarded 2,000 tokens a day automatically at approximately Midnight GMT. Note that tokens will **NOT** be awarded if a player is at their WEEKLY or BANK limit on tokens (currently players are limited to earning no more than 50,000 tokens in a week and have a maximum bank size of 50,000 tokens). Players will not see the tokens until the first time after they relog following the token distribution time.
- Pre-made teams joining Mercenary PvP queue must now contain either all Level 30+ players, or all players less than Level 30.
- Players must now be in an agency for 7 days prior to the AvA end of season in order to receive the end-of-season reward.
- Several client crash conditions have been fixed.
- Possible fix for players launching onto another region’s server even when the "Match on other Regions" flag is unchecked.
- A bug in which items could be improperly unbound from your character has been fixed.
- German profanity filter added.
- Some bot spawns in the Moving Target map have been fixed. Commonwealth spiders will no longer take out their frustrations on the Dune Commander.
- Modifications have been made to the AvA End of Season device rewards.
- Hex 219 added to Region 2 of NA Sovereign zone.
- Deleted some players "Single class top stats" achievements that were incorrectly awarded.
- Deleted everyone’s "All class top stats" achievements, along with the helms. Playing 1 mission will award all legitimately earned "Top Stats" achievements again, and send out your achievement helms again.
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Introducing Season 8, part 2!
Oct 6th
Welcome back all to the second half of our Season 8 launch! Our menu tonight definitely consists of the sweet stuff as we’re revealing the prizes for ETF2L’s biggest Season yet, and all the details for the juicy new Playoff system!
If you still haven’t signed up yet however, what are you waiting for!
Prizes
We’re delighted to be able to announce that the total prize pool value for Season 8 will be over €3,000, with both cash and hardware up for grabs! Once again, the Season will be supported by our partners SteelSeries, who will be providing us with some more of their fantastic hardware. I’ll cut to the chase and give you the breakdown:
1st : €750 + 6x SteelSeries 7H
2nd: €350 + 6x SteelSeries Xai
3rd: €150 + 6x SteelSeries 6Gv2
We’re also thrilled to be able to reveal that the new Division 1 will also be competing for prizes alongside their fight for promotion to the Premiership! We really want to encourage the ‘sub-top’ to develop, so we hope these prizes act as a great incentive!
1st: 6x SteelSeries 9HD
Huge thanks go out to SteelSeries for again coming up with the goods!
Playoff System
With all these new prizes at stake, it would be a huge shame to see the top spots decided by a default win in Week 5, for example. For that reason, Season 8 will be the debut for our new Playoff system. Allow us to explain.
The teams that finish in the top 4 positions of the Premiership will progress through to the Playoffs, and seeded #1-4 respectively. In reward for their #1 finish, the team at the top of the table will be allowed to pick their opponents, and 2 of the 3 maps to be played in a Best of 3 Semi-Final. This creates a whole load of tactical drama, and is something we’re really looking forward to!
The two remaining teams will similarly battle it out in a Best of 3 game, with the higher seed again picking 2 of the maps. The losers of these 2 games will meet in a Consolidation Final to decide the 3rd spot, whilst the victors will progress onwards and upwards to the Grand Final – the climax of Season 8!
With more and more teams within the Premiership emerging as title contenders, we can’t wait to see how the Season unfolds, and we look forward to a hugely dramatic Playoff Series to determine who gets these great prizes!
Seeding Applications
Keep your applications coming in if you feel your team needs special consideration for Season 8 seedings. Read all the details here, and email your application to staff@etf2l.org
Updated ETF2L Config
As announced yesterday, we will be introducing a new Whitelist config to enforce our unlock rules. We are currently doing final tests, so expect to hear more very very soon!
Sign up ye madmen!
That’s it for Season 8! We hope you’re as excited about it as we are! There’s nothing else to say except sign up!
Introducing Season 8!
Oct 6th
We are delighted to be able to officially launch ETF2L’s 8th Season tonight! It’s been a while in the making, and we have spent considerable time and effort working to improve many aspects of the League, so we hope it will be worth the wait!
There’s loads to announce, but before we get into the details, here’s that all important Sign Up link. We will be accepting more teams than ever to compete this Season, so get your team registered!
Prizes
It gives us great pleasure to announce that Season 8 will be our biggest prize-giving competition ever – rest assured, it’s more than ever before. But that’s all we’re saying… yet! Tomorrow at 20CEST, right here on ETF2L, the prizes will be announced, so tune in then to find out exactly what’s at stake!
Division Structure
We’re thrilled to be able to announce that Season 8 will be the launch of a new Premiership Division that will house the 10 very best teams in European TF2. Just below the Premiership will be Division 1, comprised of the 10 top teams from the current Division 2. The new Division 2 remain the same and will be the perfect place for up and coming teams.
Our hopes are that with the new Premiership and Division 1, and through a well-worked playoff system we will be announcing in the near future, we can see the top echelons of TF2 grow and become more competitive. We’re incredibly excited to see the ‘sub-top’ develop throughout this Season, and we hope you are too.
We are also happy to say that we are certain we can place the vast majority of teams who apply for the season. There won’t be preset limits. Depending on signups, another improvement we would be happy to introduce is a new division for newer teams. Division 7 would be the perfect place for new and casual teams. So if your clan is interested in trying our competitive play, be sure to give it a shot.
Map Pool
One of the great pleasures about working within the TF2 community is the creativity it inspires, and like every other Season ETF2L has hosted, choosing maps has been a tough decision from a wide selection of excellent candidates. We wanted to make sure a map is fully suited for competitive play if it’s added to our season.
After much deliberation, we have decided that we believe the time is right at the moment to encourage teams to develop excellence across a specific range of maps we believe have become solid aspects of our game. For that reason, the map pool will be as follows:
Badlands, Granary, Gravel Pit, Obscure_Final, Gullywash_imp3, Freight_Final1
Each map will be played 3 times across the Season.
We will continue to use Monday Night Madness Cups (and other similarly named custom map cups) to review other maps. These competitions provide invaluable feedback to map makers, and will help us to work towards finding new maps that are suitable for competitive play.
Unlocks
And now on to possibly the most tricky situation our Admin team has ever had to deal with! It would be a vast understatement to say that a huge amount of discussion has gone on within our team, with every member of Staff giving their opinion, as well as spending time consulting with players across the spectrum to gather their thoughts.
We want to make it clear from the very beginning of Season 8 that our decision is not one we have made lightly, and it is by no means one set in stone for future competitions. As Valve continue to add weapons to our game and the competitive play-style evolves, the issue of unlocks will remain persistent and we plan to evaluate how our decisions have worked out at the end of Season 8, in order to best serve you, the TF2 community.
With that said, we are pleased to announce that Season 8 will see only weapons we believe to be detrimental to the game-play of TF2 banned, rather than a blanket removal on weapons introduced after the Medic unlocks. Thus, the following weapons will be banned:
Force-A-Nature, Sandman, Direct Hit, Buff Banner, Gunboats, Wrangler, Natasha
ALL weapons added in the Mann-Co Update
Please note the new weapons from the latest patch are banned simply because we do not have time to evaluate their effects on TF2 gameplay before the start of the season, as well as all teams not having had sufficient access to them yet. We fully recognise however that as more and more weapons become available, it can be complicated to remember what is and is not allowed in official games. Therefore, with many thanks to F2, we are introducing a new addition to our official ETF2L config that will take away that problem – a Whitelist file that simply blocks players from equipping any item that is banned.
More information on how this works will be posted this week.
As always, we are open for your input regarding unlocks, and value the opinions of all players. We will continue to work through the Experimental Ordnance Cups and other methods to give feedback to Valve regarding these unlocks, and reach a solution that is beneficial to us and to Team Fortress 2 as a whole.
Premiership Demo Rule
For Season 8, we are introducing a new rule that will require all Premiership players to upload their POV demos and the STV demo of their game to ETF2L. We are doing this for a variety of reasons, but we hope all players will do this with minimum hassle, or else we will be administering warnings to those guilty individuals.
Season 8 Schedule
And finally, the Season 8 schedule! It’s vitally important that all players – not just team leaders(!) – are aware of the relatively few key dates we ask participants to adhere to. Therefore, please read the following carefully!
Sign ups Open: Now! Click here to Sign up!
Sign ups Close: 11:59AM, Sunday 10th October
Scheduling for Week 1 games: Wednesday 13th October to Friday 15th October
Week 1: Monday 18th October to Sunday 24th October
Week 1 Default Dates will be assigned on Monday 18th October
Seedings
We are aware that there have been lots of changes since our last full Season, so if you think your team deserves special consideration regarding your seedings, please read the Division Applications page and follow the instructions accordingly, emailing your application to staff@etf2l.org
The end is here!
Thus ends the Season 8 launch post! Please tune in tomorrow at 20CEST to find out all about the prizes our teams will be competing for!
In other news, we are expanding our use of Twitter, so we would love it if you started following us! Twitter is a great way for us to easily communicate small news updates to our community and is incredibly easy to use, so look out for ETF2L!
Mann-Conomy F.A.Q.
Oct 6th
We’ve been getting some emails asking a lot of the same questions answered on the Mann-Conomy F.A.Q., so we thought we’d go ahead and send the link around again for those who missed it.
Probably not a big deal, but…
Oct 6th
One of the interesting side effects of shipping free updates for Team Fortress 2 over the years has been a large and devoted group of people who write us asking if they can simply buy game items directly. We also get regular feedback from the bean counters on our fourth floor, who — after watching with tooth-grinding irritation as we shipped over 120 free updates to a three-year-old game — gently suggested that we “make some f$*&ing money already.”
Then it hit us: it’d make everybody happy if we really DID let players buy items directly. Players’d be happy because we actually listened to them for once, and the bean counters would be happy because in-game stores are the future of everything, including making some f$*&ing money already.
Flash forward a few months, and we’re proud to introduce the in-game Mann Co. Store. And, because we’d hate to satisfy the bean counters completely, we’ve decided community item contributors will get paid based on the sales of their items. So you can make some f$*&ing money already too.
Now, I’m sure you have dozens of questions, so just this once we put together a nifty F.A.Q. Of course the best way to find out more is to fire up the game yourself and check out the new Mann Co. Store for yourselves!
theRant: Don’t change my meta game, please.
Oct 6th
It’s been a tight weekend of unlocks and season 8. Meanwhile, we were left with this latest rant about the meta game. Go on:
Hello ladies and gentlemen, today I am trying to get some insight on the current meta game of TF2. For those of you who might actually not know what i mean by meta game, I am going to clarify it.
The meta game is the way the game is played, affected by circumstances from outside of the game. This is of course not really specific, so let us go into detail:
What does a usual 6v6 (!) on cp_OnlyMapInMapPool (badlands) look like?
Lineup: 2 scouts, 2 soldiers, 1 demoman and 1 medic
All of us except for those who are really new to tf2 know the rollout. And everybody does it the same way, except for some minor variations. On a lucky day (or when your team gets rolled), you go through valley with your soldiers. And that’s it. And that is very good and very bad at the same time, but let me explain: cp_badlands is an awesome map; I think we all agree on that. But why? Because its easy, because you can relax and turn your brain off and play your favorite game. And that is pretty awesome. On the other hand, exactly this lazyness that you are allowed to have while playing badlands (maybe granary as well for that matter), makes the community lazy. That’s it. My explanation goes deeper however; because we are not done yet.
Besides the maps, there are unlockable weapons which lead to a massive discussion (sometimes even rage, hate or frustration) in the last few days. Back in the days, all of our beloved 9 classes only had 3 weapons. So called “vanilla tf2″. Then the “medlocks” arrived. Therefore: “vanilla + medlocks”. Many players (especially from higher divisions) are arguing that this state of tf2 was (is) the best, because it is their good right to claim that. Others however, who do not have the insight like div1 players and want to have fun are like: “Le’ts allow all new unlocks. We need variety. Keep TF2 alive.” It is also THEIR good right to demand that. But what to do now? How to satisfy the majority? This is where I come back to the meta game.
TF2′s current (–> all time except for really old school) meta game is built up around the demoman and the medic. As Fragga pointed out in his soldier tutorial: “If you take out those 2 key classes, you win.” And that is what this game looks like. Medic down? PUSH! Demo down? PUSH! Soldier down? PU.. oh wait, that’s only a soldier…! I mean: What? rendering 4 out of 6 players out of a team in a team and tactic based FPS so useless? Really? The soldiers are handled as the weakest class ingame anyways. And there is a reason why a scout suicide for a demo is worth the death. This is the way TF2 is played since the heavy weapon guys were ungently removed from the game by some nasty attitude… The big shaved bear always got mobbed out of the map by the whole enemy team, because he was dealing damage 24/7 (Focus fire, ofc). Fat as the Heavy is, he was not even able to run away… So the meta game changed to 2 Americans instead of 1 Russian and 1 American FOR EXAMPLE. And it’s still ike that today. And it MUST NOT BE CHANGED, BECAUSE WE ARE TOO SPOILED BY BADLANDS AND A GAME THAT WE CAN PLAY WITH OUR BRAINS TURNED OFF.
The GRU is a great opportunity to bring some fresh wind into the rusty meta game. It’s just something new but still something that all/most/some of us are already used to. And what if the enemy team runs a heavy?
Option #1 YES; CRY SOME MORE. Option #2: run a sniper. do a SIMPLE adjustment. A heavy cant jump onto you, you take him out and have a sniper that can headshot everybody (depending on his skill). The GRU make him actually viable again.. give it a chance and prove yourself that you are no whining kid without a brain. Get into the game. Think about it. Use your brain. And DO NOT whine and make yourself a fool…
In the first part of my post, I referred to a demoman and medic based meta game. 2 Key classed and so on… We all remember that. A nice high risk/high reward possibility to change that slow stalemates is the OLD buff banner. Litterally adding a 2nd small “charge” into your own game makes it so much faster. you dont have to wait for über; you have an advantage for which you had to do sthg before; you have no shotgun; and you can completely overrun your opponent with an unexpected new game style and EITHER: make them cry OR make them adjust and counter your strategy.
To finish this awesome wall of text, I wanna say that i wrote it because I want to point out that there is more in TF2 than just “good aim, but no brain.” It’s a tactic FPS with so deep strategic possibilities which are unused so far. And by the sake of the game fun… I don’t want to achieve that all of you are running a Fagtasha now. If any weapon is to ban atm, it is the Natasha. In my honest opinion, all of the new polycount unlocks are ban worthy, because they make the game way too confusing…
Amongst the enormous amount of shit unlocks, there are a few who really bring the game forward. I pointed 2 of them out. But there are more. Now you either think about that or stick to your old demo/medic meta game and get rolled by everyone doing something different.
PxL Lan in Arles!
Oct 6th
In 2 days, up to 500 players will meet in Arles in the south of France and fight over the title of the 28th edition of PxL Lan.
This Lan will be approved “Master Series” by the Masters Français du Jeu Vidéo (more info below) and will be the first step of the season 2010/2011. The event will host:
- 40 CS 1.6 teams
- 40 CSS teams
- 48 Starcraft2 players
- 6 TF2 teams (for the first time @PxL)
The Lan will take place in a huge room (6000 m²) housing the largest screen in Europe… A LED screen (3000m²) on the roof where most exciting matches will be casted.
About prizes, they are quite nice for TF2:
- 450 € cash + 779€ harware
- 589€ hardware
- 286€ hardware
Which team will grab them?
Nitrose:
- utaL
- Payard
- Tsu
- H4rem
- CaptainHax
- Gladia
EFALL:
- Nortifer
- Oximore
- Daylight
- Madje
- Kzantor
- DroSoPhiLe
Pain au Chocolat:
- Flinn
- Anrolif
- Slip
- Cami
- piT
- Kash
orKs:
- seM
- Nealz
- Flippy
- Seyren
- Zest
- Nihil
Punchline:
- Bun
- Chill
- Slay
- Zak
- Doud
- MiniTichou
nOskiLL:
- Exta
- Healbot
- Shaik
- Atwa
- Shinra
- Lambda
More info:
http://www.pxl-lan.com/
http://www.mastersjeuvideo.org/
Most french Lans belong to this org. Each of them is set a certain ammount of points. Teams with most points at the end of a season are invited to a LAN grand final with huge prizes.
Pxl trailers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5hT3svyWBU&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuNStKDFMnk
LED screen on the roof:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-NsMKCy-hw&feature=related
- DroSoPhiLe and Oximore
Last Chance for APB Refugees and Other Shooter/MMO Fans to Receive 30% Discount Off Global Agenda
Sep 30th
Dear Shooter/MMO Fans:
Recently, I wrote an open letter to APB Refugees and other fans of the Shooter/M
MO genre. In that letter, we offered players 30% Off Global Agenda when purchased from the game’s official webstore using the promotion code "LongLiveShooterMMOs" (that’s $20.99, £13.12 and €15.75).
Since that letter, we’ve had thousands of new players join the game! With each additional Shooter/MMO fan the Global Agenda community grows stronger and the online multiplayer competition becomes more intense.
Based on this, we’ve extended the promotion through Monday, October 4.
So if you are interested in Global Agenda’s high-flying shooter combat inside a futuristic game world, there’s no better time to strap on that jetpack! And, remember, the game has no monthly fees.
Still unsure? You can try before you buy by playing the free trial, available here.
We welcome all the new players that have recently joined us, and hope to see the rest of you in game soon!
Todd Harris
Executive Producer, Global Agenda
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Golden Joystick Awards: vote for Global Agenda!
Sep 24th
Yes! Global Agenda has been nominated for a Golden Joystick Award!
Vote Global Agenda for Online Game of The Year and receive mad virtual "street cred" for playing such an awesome game.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/joystick/shortlist.php
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