Well it's coming soon, it would appear, and I would guess next Wednesday from the new site they have made;

Blog

Site

Interesting snippets;

cp_steel is the community map for this update. It looks like there's only one this time round. If you haven#t played Steel, it's a fantastic map with a lot more depth. It is an attack/defend map with 5 control points, with the last control point being the only one that needs capturing, but the other 4 can be captured (in order) to open up more routes, add more time and generally give the attacks more advantage. The last point is only accessible by scouts, soldiers and demomen until the 3rd point (I think) is captured, as it is on a high up platform with a bridge only extending once C is captured.

New gamemode with 5 (!?!?!) arenas. Not maps? Interesting.

New pl_ map - more open than GoldRush (better for heavies, methinks).

And, of course, heavy gets 3 weapons and 35 achievements, I'm guessing 10/15/20 for unlocks, as before.

This makes it the largest update so far!

The update site has 6 daily (not weekend) updates before the final release. I'm guessing it will be (not in order);
Community map (Steel - already released)
Payload map
New gamemode
New gamemode arenas/maps
New weapons
New achievements
And then the actual release on Wednesday.

Looks good!

Oh man, not only the biggest release but it sounds like it's going to be the best so far as well! These updates sound incredible! Team Fortress 2 represents some extremely good value for money it almost makes me cry with joy.

It's a shame that the last day I have in front of a high spec PC is Tuesday next week... the day before the update... so I'll be reading about how awesome it is from you guys on this forum until I get my PC built next Saturday midday-ish.

ENJOY YOUR UPDATE! I will when I get the chance!

Aargh More updates.... I was hoping none would come until i was at Uni! xD

How large is it going to be? atleast they are spreading it across several days....

Ma looks awesome tho! Havent played Steel before ;D

The update will be released all in one, but they're releasing information slowly.

I would imagine a hundred megs, or something. It's a few maps and some new weapon models, not much info to it.

And Aaron, I was only speculating Wednesday, I could be wrong.

Just looking at the news on the Steam site it says "as well as a special installment to the "Meet the Team" series of video shorts." So it's a special instalment... hmm?

Maybe the Spy! Maybe a group thing!

At last!!!! Heavy is getting his weapons!!!! He definitely needs more weapons as he mainly relies on having a Medic at all times with him to kill lots of people...
An good update to the videos they could do is update the Meet The Heavy video- give it the typical Meet The Class intro and the updated poster ending. Strangely, the Meet The Heavy videos in other languages are up to date with the rest of the videos whereas the english one is older... they could be making the videos able to be watched in the game...
A new gamemode? Interesting... possibly escorting the civilian from one end of the map to the other whist protecting him from fire? The Meet The Sniper video hinted that the civilian may be coming back, and since you can play as one in the game, it all fits together...

You can play as a civilian already? Wasn't that just a bug when you switched classes?

I think the Heavy should still rely on a Medic to be honest.

Oh yay... Another day wasted downloading stuff

There was a bug where you entered join_class 0 into the console and you be a civillian (or something like that). It's not already in the game, as there is no model, just the scout with no weapons. It has since been fixed, you can't chose that class anymore.

Heavy shouldn't have to rely on medic to be successful, and Valve have said that is one of their main aims.

Nice,
steel = awsome
another pl map = awsome
new weps for heavy = heavy is actually worth playing
new gamemode = (but the escorting a civillian thing has already been done in a TF2 mod called hunted but i guess valve could do it more proffesionally...

P.S. i´m sending this message from Tenerife

So you mean like VIP in counter-strike. This would be interesting, make a player the point to move across..

Hunted was in TFC, I believe (you see the model as the bobblehead in the sniper video). I think Valve didn't like this idea as it wasn't fun for everyone or something, and they replaced it with PL.

I want to know why they called the maps arenas, though.

Deathmatch maps maybe?

Tho, on TF2 that hasn't really worked in the past...

Deathmatch would suck and it's not some Valve would do, IMO.

It must be something objective based, but what could it be

EDIT: I was actually wrong about the release date, it is Tuesday according to the Steam news post.

Well they've released todays, and we have;

KGB - Killer Gloves of Boxing. These gloves swing slower than the standard fists (not stated by how much) but guarantees you 5 seconds of crits after you score a kill, with the crits affecting any weapon. Further kills with the glove extend the crit time (doesn't state if it adds more time or just resets the timer). This will make melee_ringking look more real but make it a first heavy to score a kill wins situation.

Achievement names - very corny! No details for what you have to do, yet, but it looks like there's a few PL and medic related ones in there. A few taunt ones (I see the gun hand and "photo").

KGB! How controversially fantastic!

Oh man, this is going to totally HECTIC!

Update: I am interested to know what the following achievements will be: Redistribution of Health, OK that's it... The others sound cool and also the Soviet Union achievement shows a picture of the Heavy's original appearance (with hair)

Yeah, I was wondering why he had hair, they don't usually use a new character model

I think from the names of most of these achievements you could probabily work out what they do

Im guessing there will be a boxing one xD

And probably Kill 10 scouts with your fists or something...

Here's what I think all the achievements will be based on the fact if you download the high quality PNG images it gives you the image names. Such as "heavy_tf_kill_taunt".


Obviously we can see a few new intresting things from these achievements. The heavies melee taunt can now instant kill just like the pyros, and one of his unlocks appears to be the 'Sandvich'.

Ganonduck infromed me of some rumors that had been heard from the SA forums.


These were posted here on the steam forums before any of the heavy update news came out on steam recently. As of yet 2 of these rumors look to be true, so I think we will be seeing a 'Swamper' on the heavy site sooner or later.

Sandvich might be a way of healing himself...

Hmm, another instakill taunt? I t was what made the pyro special, that and it doesn't make sense with the heavy (he doesn't actually fire anything).

Minigun sounds interesting. Sandwich is strange, but fits in with them trying to make him less medic dependant.

We already know about the gloves, I think they're interesting.

Arena sudden death mode? Sounds a bit out of phase with the rest of the game tbh.

Hmmm... Some nice achievements... How many bullets tho? Like 10 million or something ridiculous? It would have to be the amount of ammo it chews up

And i like the idea of the sandwich... how many people actually use the shotgun as a heavy?

I tend to use it when running about, as it is quicker to use (no spinup). Then again I don't play heavy much.

I like Heavy... But I dont think ive ever killed anyone with the Shotgun O.o

I do with the Pyro coz thats actually useful xD But the heavy there doesnt seem much point... Even more so on large games when all youre doing is firing the chain gun everywhere....