{"id":12549,"date":"2011-06-24T09:02:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-24T07:02:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T22:00:00","slug":"team-fortress-2-is-now-free-to-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/business\/12549-team-fortress-2-is-now-free-to-play","title":{"rendered":"Team Fortress 2 is now free to play"},"content":{"rendered":"

Valve has announced that after four years and over 200 updates, its popular and critically-acclaimed online team-based FPS, Team Fortress 2 (TF2), is now Free To Play (F2P) for both PC and Mac Steam users. Valve has pointed out that this makes Team Fortress 2 one of the most highly rated free games of all time; it sits with an average Metacritic<\/a> score of 92\/100.<\/p>\n

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Team Fortress 2 will now generate income through the Mann Co. in-game store, which sells all manner of cosmetic and gameplay items. Those who already own a copy of Team Fortress 2 will be given a ‘Proof of Purchase’ hat to wear on any character in-game.<\/p>\n

Account types will be divided into ‘Free’ and ‘Premium’. Those who have already spent money on Team Fortress 2 will automatically become Premium account holders. Free account holders need only make a purchase at the Mann Co. store to be upgraded to Premium. Comparison chart below.<\/p>\n

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According to Valve, “The entire game can be played without making a purchase. All game modes, classes, and maps are available. Nearly every weapon is available through achievements, drops, or crafting.”<\/p>\n

The F2P announcement comes as part of the Team Fortress 2 “Über Update”. Released yesterday (23 June 2011), it is the largest content pack delivered to TF2 since it shipped in 2007, with new items for all of the classes and a new map.<\/p>\n

There have also been a bunch of tweaks and added features:<\/p>\n

•    The Main menu now has a “Start Playing” option which presents users with various game modes to choose from. Once selected, the game matches the player into the best available server for that mode.
•    The Crafting interface has been redesigned to accommodate the fact that crafting blueprints are always known to players now.
•    The Item selection screen in Loadouts has been redesigned to support selection among a larger number of items.
•    Training improvements:
     o    New training user interface
     o    Added “A,W,S,D” movement instruction to Soldier training
     o    Added ammo instruction to Engineer training
     o    Clarified many instructional strings
     o    Added new voting sounds
     o    Fixed various Coaching bugs
     o    Fixed various gameplay bugs<\/p>\n

For more information and to grab the game, head on over to the Team Fortress 2 Free to Play website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As part of the fanfare surrounding this announcement, Valve has released one of the last remaining Team Fortress ‘Meet The’ short films – Meet The Medic!<\/p>\n

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Team Fortress 2 is now free to play<\/strong><\/a> << Comments and views<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Polish your wrench and oil your mini-gun, Team Fortress 2 has adopted a free to play model<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":157,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}