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As you might have noticed, over the last week Valve has released different information each day about this huge patch. The first tasty morsel we received was last Tuesday, when Valve announced that popular community map CP_Steel would be included in the patch, making it an official stock map. The map revolves around capturing the fifth and final point (pictured), which can be captured at any time. However, capturing any of the four surrounding points makes capturing the final point easier by opening doors, extending bridges, and cutting off the defending Red team from direct access to the final point.

On Wednesday, Valve announced what will be the last weapon to be unlocked: the Killing Gloves of Boxing. These gloves, which probably have horseshoes in them or something, swing slower than the Heavy’s bare fists. However, for every kill you get with them, you get a constant stream of critical hits for five seconds. Pair these bad boys with an Ubercharge and you have the potential to do some real damage. They also announced the names of some of the achievements, all of which are pretty good Soviet jokes. From Lenin a Hand (Help 5 teammates get revenge on a nemesis), to Marxman (Kill 10 enemies in mid-air with the Minigun), all of the achievements seem to continue the theme of the Pyro achievements: They all seem to be easy to obtain in standard play.

Day 3 brought us news of the new Payload map, Badwater Basin. Continuing Valve’s theme of industrial desert areas, Badwater Basin looks like a factory in the middle of the desert. Valve states that this map will be much more accessible than the last official Payload map, Goldrush, which had chokepoints a plenty. Also, this will be the first official Payload map to consist of one stage with multiple checkpoints for the cart to reach.

Day 4, as you know if you’ve listened to the podcast, brought us the new Minigun and the first unlockable for the Heavy: Natascha. As the image says, this minigun slows down the target when they get hit. However, the gun only does 75% standard damage. Presumably, this weapon will not only help make the Heavy more viable on it’s own, one of Valve’s goals for the update, but will also make the Heavy more of a supporter, helping other players get kills or assist in the clearing of a room.

So, after what felt like a LONG weekend, Monday rolled around. After a long delay (Read: about 4 hours after the usual update time), Valve updated the page to read "Coming Monday-ish", meaning they were still working on whatever. Shortly after, the page was updated again, unveiling the new game mode: Arena Mode, a sort of Counter-Strike meets TF2 mode in which each team must either eliminate the opposing team or capture the lone control point after it’s been activated. The 2 new maps were announced, along with news that Well, Granary, and Badlands would have the middle point converted for arena play. The new maps are Lumberyard, an alpine-ish (Read: NOT INDUSTRIAL DESERT!) lumber production facility with only one medkit in the entire stage. The second map is Ravine, a slanted map in a desert setting.

And finally today, the first unlockable for the Heavy was announced: A… Sandwich?! Not just any sandwich though. It’s the Sandvich, a replacement for the shotgun. You can’t attack with it, but after using it, you regain 120 health. Sadly, while the Heavy loudly snacks on the sandvich, you are completely vulnerable for four seconds. The best part? No ammo. Meet the Sandvich, the new video with the update (imbedded above; I’ll replace it with the Gametrailers one when they upload it.), is one of the funnier "Meet the" videos as of yet, showing just how strong the Heavy can get when he’s hungry.

And finally, the patch notes:

Added 3 Heavy unlockables

• Natascha, The Sandvich, The Killing Gloves of Boxing
• Added 35 new Heavy achievements

Added Arena game mode

• 5 arenas: Lumberyard, Ravine, Well, Granary, Badlands

Added cp_steel, a community map by Jamie "Fishbus" Manson

Changes

• Added server map timeleft to upper right of scoreboard
• Added new firing sounds to The Backburner
• Removed the Custom Tab in the serverbrowser, and added the Tags field to the base Internet Tab
• Increased The Kritzkrieg’s uber-charge rate bonus from 10% to 25%
• 32 player servers can now support an extra slot of SourceTV
• Made the freezecam item panel description easier to read
• Players now broadcast whether they chose a team directly or use autoteam
• Added proper handling of cart blocking recognition to Payload maps

Bug fixes

• Fixed bug where switching from flaregun-wielding Pyro to another class meant you didn’t get a full ammo loadout on first spawn
• Fixed Spy watch arm not using team skins
• Fixed weapon switching preventing you from using secondary attacks for a 0.2s window after the primary became available
• Fixed players getting stuck in a bad animation state when class switching while spinning the minigun
• Fixed a loophole that allowed players to pickup weapons of other classes
• Fixed a bug that resulted in players earning more crit chance bonus in large, single damage events than they are supposed to
• Fixed an issue with the floating HUD +X health indicators that resulted in them appearing incorrectly
• Fixed a bug which caused the minigun spinning & firing sounds to occasionally stop while the Heavy was still firing
• Fixes the Loadout player model panel causing the in-game player facial animation to perform incorrectly
• Fixed spectators not having the target ID labels display correctly
• Fixed the cart alarm sound occasionally getting stuck on in Payload maps

Not many big things this time around, save for the class weapon glitch and the Civilian-esque Heavy glitch being fixed. The biggest change, however, is that the Kritzkreig got buffed, increasing the ubercharge rate bonus to 25%.

Note: A lot of players are getting a glitch right now about the Steam servers being too busy to launch the game. This is probably just because everyone is downloading the patch at once and trying to play. Restart Steam, and if that doesn’t fix it, give it a while. They’ll come back up soon enough.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: We’ve got a Steam group now! Just click here and click on "Join" to get in!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some achievements to farm.

[From the Team Fortress blog]