Team Fortress 2

Team Fortress 2: Brotherhood of Arms
File:Tf2box.jpg
Developer(s)	Valve Corporation
Publisher(s)	EA Games (distro. only)
Composer(s)	Mike Morasky
Engine	Source engine
Platform(s)	PC File:XPlogo.png
Release	Unknown
Genre(s)	Unknown
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

Team Fortress 2 (TF2 for short) is the long-anticipated sequel to the original Team Fortress mod for Quake. It is currently being developed by Valve Software. It is to be a multiplayer team-based first-person shooter and is expected to be released over Valve's online distribution system, Steam. The current state of the game's direction is unknown, however, as of 1999, the game appeared to be deviating from the original Team Fortress and heading towards a more realistic and militaristic direction. It is expected to feature "classes" like those found in Team Fortress and Team Fortress Classic. Its long development cycle has caused it to be labelled as vaporware and it regularly makes the top 5 of Wired Magazine's annual vaporware list.

History

Originally planned to be released as a free mod for Quake II, development later changed to the Half-Life game engine after the development team was acquired by Valve Software. Once development had switched to the Half-Life engine, it was planned to be released as a free mod available to purchasers of Half-Life upon its release or shortly thereafter.

Some time into development, the team working on TF2 decided to make a more ambitious title and release it as a stand-alone game. Development continued on TF2 after Half-Life's release and the game was on show at the 1999 E3 where it earned several awards including E3 Game Critics Award Best Online Game (1999) and E3 Game Critics Award Best Action Game (1999). Around this time, it was renamed Team Fortress 2: Brotherhood of Arms. The TF2 revealed at E3 boasted improved graphics over the 1998 TF2 and several new features including Parametric Animation, a technology that seamlessly blends animations for smoother, more life-like movement, and Intel's multi-resolution mesh (MRM) technology that dynamically reduces the detail of on-screen elements as they become more distant to improve performance.

In 2001, Valve Software announced that TF2 development had once again been delayed and was being developed on Valve's own propriety game engine. What Valve did not reveal at the time was that Half-Life 2 was also being developed for that engine (the Source engine) and that TF2 would not be released until after Half-Life 2. In the lead up to Half-Life 2's release, when pressed, Valve's Director of Marketing Doug Lombardi said that TF2 was still in development and that information on it would come after Half-Life 2's release. Valve recently revealed (Spring 2005) that information on TF2 would come shortly when being interviewed on their upcoming Half-Life 2 expansion pack "Aftermath". As of Late Autumn 2005, no new information regarding TF2 has been officially released other than that it is being developed on Valve's Source engine.

The game has gone through several subtle name changes over its lengthy development cycle. In some early promotional artwork, the game was called Valve's Team Fortress even though at the time it was widely referred to as Team Fortress 2. Later on, the game would be called Team Fortress 2: Brotherhood of Arms, and whether this name still applies to the game is unknown.

Due to the game's engine switch and seemingly endless development cycle, it is often mentioned alongside Duke Nukem Forever, another long-anticipated game that after years of development and game engine changes has yet to materialize.

Game Features

As of 1999, the game was to feature various improvements and additions to the multiplayer team-based first-person shooter genre. The most interesting of these was the improvement to the "class" structure present in Team Fortress and Team Fortress Classic as well as later games such as Return to Castle Wolfenstein. In addition to including and improving upon many of the classes present in Team Fortress Classic, TF2 promised to introduce several new classes. The most promising of these classes was the "Commander" class, which put the player in control of a team of players with the task of coordinating them to victory. This class would add strategic elements to the game, borrowing ideas from the genre of strategy games. In an interview, Robin Walker, the game's lead designer, said the game was more appropriately labelled a first-person strategy as opposed to a first-person shooter. Another feature was the much touted in-game voice communication that would allow players to talk to one another to coordinate strategies. Such a feature is no longer unique and is standard in most current multiplayer first-person shooters.

It is worth noting that the game never boasted any truly compelling features to warrant the anticipation that at times has surrounded it. The anticipation for it has largely been based on the popularity of the original Team Fortress and the desire by fans for a true successor to the mod.

Many of TF2's features and themes, including squad-based command structures, commander views, and the fusion of RTS and FPS itself, have since apeared in other games such as Natural Selection and most recently Battlefield 2.

Information leaks

While Valve has been very successful in keeping the game under wraps, when the full Source SDK was released along with the Half-Life 2 source code, it contained many references to the game. Some merely confirmed what was already believed, but others provided completely new information, such as NPCs in multiplayer matches, the game taking place in the Half-Life 2 universe, fixed plasma gun and missile launcher emplacements, and more. While unofficial, the data must, at one point, have been included in a version of the game.

For more information, see the topic Team Fortress 2 snippets on the Steam User Forums.

See also

• Team Fortress

External links

• PlanetFortress
• Team Fortress 2 official site ('coming soon')
• Valve Software
• TF2 snippets - Team Fortress 2 information found within the Source SDK