GGL Wire

Last night Valve, in an attempt to breath new life into an old franchise, released an update for Day of Defeat: Source. How is an update going to rekindle interest? Well Valve has included a new map, Palermo, as well as adding integrating some of Team Fortress 2’s innovations; such as Steam Community integration, Achievements, Player Stats and a Freeze Cam.

DoD: Source is a fantastic game that is worth your money. The community is solid, the gameplay is fun and the variety keeps you coming back for more. Don’t believe me? Valve is having a free play weekend starting tomorrow, July 4. Check it out.

Read: Day of Defeat: Source Gets Steam Achievements, New Map.

Yesterday I posted some info on the new Team Fortress 2 update, due out Thursday, and more importantly what changes the Pyro will get. Well, today Valve revealed the rest of the Pyro’s new arsenal. In addition to the Axtinguisher, the Pyro will be getting a Flare Gun, which allows him to toast enemies from a distance, and The Backburner, which is a flamethrower that does critical hits is striking an enemy from behind while giving the Pyro 50 health. In addition to these new weapons, the standard flamethrower is getting a new alt-fire. Now the Pyro can shoot out a burst of compressed air that will blow away players as well as incoming projectiles.

Personally I can’t wait for tomorrow. As soon as I get out of work, you can be sure that I’ll be trying to unlock these new guns. If any of you care to join me, my steam name is Yuenanimous. I look forward to fragging alongside you guys.

Read: Pyros Blow In The New TF2 Update.

Today Valve released their new service, Steamcloud. This new service allows players to access their saved games, retrieve their control schemes, and download purchased games from anywhere in the world. All of this comes incorporated in the newest steam update. According to RPS writer, John Walker, “Your games are now available on any PC and you can play exactly where you left off, without having to invert the mouse and disassemble your friend’s lunatic configuration.”

Sounds pretty cool. I really think Valve is one of the best software developers. They are always innovating and delivering quality products.

Read: Valve puts saves and player identity online with Steamcloud.

Valve seems to have a handle on what they are doing when it comes to games. With Team Fortress 2 being such a success, they’re thinking about Counter-Strike 2.

According to Valve’s marketing director Doug Lombardi: “With Counter-Strike 2, there’s a big question between, do we go start over from scratch and build a whole new game, do we do something that looks more like Team Fortress 2 that is rooted in the old game but has a ton of new stuff, or do we just sort of take everything that’s new that we’ve released and put that out in a new box.

I think we’re leaning more towards the two more radical places than just sort of rolling up the new box and re-skinning the box and putting out all the new stuff. “

As someone who has by far dedicated more time to Counter-Strike (Source and 1.6) than any other game in my life, this story is really important to me. One part of me wants the game to remain the same so I can still boast about all my accomplishments in leagues and tournaments. However another part of me knows that in order for the game to survive it must evolve. I can rest assured because I have the utmost faith in the guys at Valve. They haven’t really disappointed me yet.

Read Valve Still A Little Unsure On Counter-Strike 2.

These past few days the Internet has been set ablaze with Team Fortress 2 talk. Ever since Valve came out and said that there will be “a large scale modification” to gameplay, the speculation has been off the hook.

Recently, some new info has been released and it involves the Pyro class.

According to Robin Walker, a software developer at Valve: “As for the Pyro scoring, we have a minor tweak coming down the pipe. He’s going to get a small amount of points for every enemy he ignites. This should reward you for those moments where you drop into the middle of an enemy pack and light them all up, hurting them all and disrupting their plans, but not managing to actually kill them.”

Next in line to be changed is the Soldier class. Walker said: “We are indeed investigating Soldier changes, and one of the changes we’re trying out is focused on making Soldiers a little more careful firing their rockets at point blank targets.”

I am a huge Team Fortress 2 fan boy. I just wish that Valve would stop with all these changes until they release a new version of “The Hunted”.

Read: Valve confirms TF2 class changes.