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Today Valve announced the Team Fortress 2 update: Mann VS

Today Valve announced the Team Fortress 2 update: Mann VS Machine in a Left 4 Dead blog post:

http://www.l4d.com/blog/post.php?id=8648

There is a link at the bottom you might find interesting. When you click it, it takes you to the Team Fortress 2 update page but if you typed in the ACTUAL url it took you to a special Steam profile of someone called "Chase."

Here is the clickable secret URL in question:

www.teamf6rtress.com/mvm/

The interesting part about Chase? He is playing Half-life 3: Indev. Is this the start of a new ARG or Valve having a bit of fun with players?

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http://www.dorkly.com/comic/39783/releasing-the-valve?yes-its-a-repost

hardeyez wrote on 08/16/2012 at 02:55pm

Nice! I love it when the devs mess around like this. But it could just be a joke...

Travis Admin wrote on 08/16/2012 at 04:05pm

Looks like that url is now broken. People have flooded it!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 08/16/2012 at 04:08pm

I was able to click it and got this now:

http://sybolt.com/mvm//mvm

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 08/16/2012 at 04:08pm

Same Steam page.

Chowda wrote on 08/16/2012 at 04:11pm

Ha! That's great. I bet sometimes he really wishes he could do this.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 08/16/2012 at 06:03pm

Did anyone notice that the top comment on the profile for "Chase" says "Thank's for that hat you traded! Gordon looks good with a beret."

Seems like Steam trading coming to Half life 3, not that that's very surprising. Does this also mean there will be an item shop for HL3?

Travis Admin wrote on 08/16/2012 at 06:46pm

I don't know how much of that is a joke and how much of it is real. I just found that on the profile page for Chase, if you click on the HL3 dev, all the screen elements fall apart. So it's obviously not a real page, but Valve loves mixing hints with jokes.

Tungsten wrote on 08/16/2012 at 09:43pm

Hey, speaking of which, anybody else up for some Left 4 TF2? Kill some zom... robots or whatever. Sure would be a change of pace from terraria.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 08/17/2012 at 01:20am

Yes. I want to try my hand at it tonight I hope. Heard threre are lines for servers though :)

geoffreyk wrote on 08/21/2012 at 03:16pm

They appear to have "fixed" the L4D post. 2 possibilities: A. Valve really meant for this to be a thing. B. Someone made a typo, and an opportunist took advantage of it to register the broken URL and send it somewhere fun.

On the "URL Not Found" error page that I see now for that link above, it mentions "black-aperture.com" in the Apache server/port 80 reference. This is a site that has been previously identified (not via this particular page), and which people have been claiming is a fake/hoax for months. For some reason, my cynic brain is telling me to go with Option B, even though the rest of me so-very-much wishes it was Option A.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 08/21/2012 at 03:20pm

Hmmmm, yeah that makes sense. I am still holding out for option A but... Yeah I guess we will see.

I want HL3 but I'm not crazy about it. If I had to wager, I'd say they are working on it now. Especially since Valve employees can work on whatever they want. Unless there is a 100% company wide "no HL3 policy."

Travis Admin wrote on 08/21/2012 at 04:21pm

Dammit Geoffrey, you ruined my fun. But you're probably right, this does seem to be hoaxy.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 08/22/2012 at 01:03am

http://nooooooooooooooo.com/

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Okay, well this isnt a game... yet. From the people that

Okay, well this isn't a game... yet.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/659943965/planetary-annihilation-a-next-generation-rts

From the people that made Monday Night Combat comes an RTS, the spiritual successor to Total Annihilation.

I actually picked up Total Annihilation the other day and have been playing the heck out of it, when all of a sudden I watch this video. This may be what finally gets me into kickstarter.

Oh, and if you think this video is cool BUY TOTAL ANNIHILATION (GoG.com, $5.99) AN LET"S BLOW EACHOTHER UP!!!

Sorry, I'm just sick of the AI... but not the explosions.

Next up, the Wizard. This one is getting a slight nerf to

http://us.media3.battle.net/cms/blog_header/YQMJ0JY8PSMN1344643110267.jpg

Next up, the Wizard.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/6939564/Patch_104_Preview_Wizard-8_15_2012

This one is getting a slight nerf to one skill, although the comments would have you believe it's the worst thing that's ever happened since the Holocaust. Honestly, it doesn't *seem* like that big a deal to me, but I have yet to play a Wizard, so I'm not sure.

It seems that every other rune that isn't the most widely used for each skill is getting major buffs though. This post seems less informative than the last, so I guess we'll have to wait for the patch notes.

A bit ago I finished watching another presentation from

A bit ago I finished watching another presentation from QuakeCon "The Game of Making Games" with Todd Howard (Bethesda Game Studios), Jens Matthies (MachineGames), Raphael Colantonio (Arkane Studios), and Ted Price (Insomniac Games).

Fun to hear about how different studios approach game development and design. A few awesome moments when the audience asked questions you should check out. At one point someone in the audience asked how it feels to have your games go to the bargain bin faster than others. I have a new sense of respect for these leads and what they do.

Kinda lost in all the Diablo III news, but the Diablo III

http://us.media5.battle.net/cms/blog_header/UXGDSU8GL3801344966729658.jpg

Kinda lost in all the Diablo III news, but the Diablo III Starter Edition is now free, just like WoW and Starcraft 2. No need for guest passes.

It's the same content as the guest pass and the beta weekend-- you can level to 13, and get all the way through the Skeleton King.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/6939568/Diablo%C2%AE_III_FREE_Starter_Edition_Now_Available-8_14_2012

Blizzard has just updated their blog with the Barbarian

http://us.media5.battle.net/cms/blog_header/84RUBV0I1VTO1344643109957.jpg

Blizzard has just updated their blog with the Barbarian changes.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/6923460

More classes coming soon.

The one major thing to take away from this-- *nothing* is getting nerfed, and tons of things are getting buffed. The Barbarian is really the best well-rounded at the moment, so there are probably fewer things to do for this class than the others.

Stay tuned for the rest of the class updates!

Next blog about the 1.0.4 patch is out. It addresses the

Next blog about the 1.0.4 patch is out. It addresses the problems they've had with legendary items, and I must say their fixes look pretty awesome.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/6923457/

Anyone else want fire chains?angels and demons? Molten shielding?
Oh, and that axe at the end would make me consider a two-hander.

So then I got this in the mail. @chowda and I are headed to

So then I got this in the mail. @chowda and I are headed to PAX this year and I am really excited. To be able to see games exhibited with full wall art work, developers possibly answering questions and the ability to play it before launch? To experience an event in person which I only read about on blogs is a really cool thought.

PAX recently posted a schedule and speakers here if you are interested:

http://dev.paxsite.com/schedule
http://dev.paxsite.com/speakers

PAX Also dropped there will be a few tourneys and seeing people play games like League of Legends should be fun. Over the next few days I am going to digest the schedule and plan out what I want to do. I want to... Read All

The Game Genie is Magic

To celebrate Retro Tuesday today I am dialing the time machine back to awesome and talking about Galoob's magnificent Game Genie. Buckle up kids, the Game Genie allowed you to enter video game worlds you didn't know possible and often times more glitchy than before!

First time I was exposed to the Game Genie was when @WhiteboySlim showed it to me. It was a gold half cart that connected to the end of any Nintendo game. After you switched on the Nintendo a screen came up to enter a code and after the code was entered you could start the game. Game Genie came with a manual for how to essentially mod or cheat at a game. The only mod I remember was in Super Mario Brothers... Read All To celebrate Retro Tuesday today I am dialing the time machine back to awesome and talking about Galoob's magnificent Game Genie. Buckle up kids, the Game Genie allowed you to enter video game worlds you didn't know possible and often times more glitchy than before!

First time I was exposed to the Game Genie was when @WhiteboySlim showed it to me. It was a gold half cart that connected to the end of any Nintendo game. After you switched on the Nintendo a screen came up to enter a code and after the code was entered you could start the game. Game Genie came with a manual for how to essentially mod or cheat at a game. The only mod I remember was in Super Mario Brothers where Mario could jump really high. This allowed you to jump over the flag and if you did that and continued right, the map would continue without end.

Oh right, check out this awesome Game Genie commercial from the 80's. I remember this one as it was released during the Bill and Ted era and the commercial totally rides that 80's skateboard to paydirt:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xi4m2qnZaY

The Game Genie manual recommended you try out random codes on games and see the effect. I remember us trying a bunch of random codes on Gradius and most of them scrambled the screen and other less awesome things. I am not sure if we hit pay dirt with any of the codes but it was fun trying things out. We always wrote them down in case we hit Genie gold so we could do it again.

Game Genie lives on in PC gaming now in that some games offer a console mode to change things if you desire. Proliferation of mods allow you take your game to a level Game Genie didn't, Skyrim being one modern example. That said, the ghost of Game Genie lives on in most emulators as all the major emulators support game genie codes.

Game Genie is one of those awesome things from the past that I don't see make the transition into the modern console era. In a world where console manufacturers are making systems more closed, a system to allow you to mod your game sanctioned by Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo seems unlikely. The openess of the PC system allows this but not as retroly awesome or one stop as the Game Genie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Genie
http://gamehacking.org/w/images/2/2a/Game_genie_nes_screen.png (the code screen)

New Borderlands 2 trailer dropped this morning. This one

New Borderlands 2 trailer dropped this morning. This one features the villain Handsome Jack and showcases a little of the four playable classes.

Can't wait to head back to Pandora. Thinking of playing the Gunzerker or Assassin at launch. What class will you roll?