Roadwolf's Blog

Let us take a look at the Enigmatical image in the hidden pages and dissect it a little.

First off, lets look at the name of this page.  “enigmatical”

Adj.

1.

enigmatical – not clear to the understanding; “I didn’t grasp the meaning of that enigmatic comment until much later”; “prophetic texts so enigmatic that their meaning has been disputed for centuries”

The page itself is named as to be foresight to something we will understand later.

Okay, so the title stands out quite a bit.  “Broad Swords, Musket-Gonnes & Doomsday Weaponry.”  Well swords are fairly obvious in refering to new melee weapons.  Now, what is a Musket-Gonne?  Some historical references refer to it as a small cannon attached to a Musket which fires a small explosive proectile.  Kind of like a modern day gernade launcher attachment for a M16/M4.  It is very possible that this refers to devices to attach onto weapons, like gernade launchers…  Or perhaps a whole new weapon all-together.

Also note that the article suggests that these are for “Immediate Sale”.  There are many hints at trading, betting, waging and winning items in this update so far.  Just keep this in mind for later…

First column starts off with “A VIEW of the Weekly Essays and Controversies, spec.”.  This basically suggests that this page is an index and hint at whats to come.

I. ARTILARY & MUNITIONS, viz. the Zepheniah Mann & Sons Co. Sulphurous Cannonading Projectiles & their profligate uses; the Musket-Gonne : Philosophy or Whitchcrafte? var. obvervations from Learn’d Men.

Well lets see here.  Back in the early days a Rocket may have been called a Sulphurous Cannonading Projectile.  The use of Sulphur actually also indicated a incindary device rather then a explosive device.  Musket-Gonne.. Well I think that this still refers to a new type of weapon, or weapon attachment which is Mortar or Gernade related.  The fact that the word “Philosophy” is present, suggests perhaps that this relates to the Engineer.  In Meet the Engineer, The Engineer appears ‘Learn’d’ or well educated.  But in contrary to that, the engineer claims he doesn’t solve “Philosophical” problems, but rather he solves “Practical” problems.

II. VIRULENT POISONS, viz. the Zepheniah Mann & Sons Co. Vial of Toxiferous Plague & proper handling of same; Tincture of Mephitic Vapours & its intrinsicically volatile nature; Miasmatic Swamp-Gas Capsules & the proof of their quality by hue & texture.

Very interesting.  It seems that we will be getting some new poisons.  Vial of Toxiferous Plague, Tincture of Mephitic Vapours, and Miasmatic Swamp-Gas Capsules.

Now some are suggesting that these will be gernades but I believe that will be too over powered.  I believe these will be poisons that can be applied to melee weapons or even possible bullets, which will have a temporary durration.  Similar to poisons for Rogues in World of Warcraft which must be applied to the blades of their daggers in order to have any effect.

III. PHILOSOPHY from var. Craftsmen on the Proper Construction of Zeppelins.

Judging on the rest of the article, I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that this is a fragmented statement.  The use of italics between Construction and Zeppelin suggest that they are 2 different things.  I believe that this suggests that we will learn about how things are crafted.

IV. DOMESTIC OCCURANCES. A List of Casualties, Burials, Chritenings & Beheadings.

Domestic usually refers to things at home.  I believe this will deal with stuff happening in Valve.  Likely mentioning the rumored beta testing of TF2 2.0, or possibly mentioning layoffs for more leaked content.  But I think the beta testing is more likely.  Likely also listing new ideas in 2.0 and ideas that were nixed and removed.

V. PHYSIC. Liniment Remedies, Magickal & Otherwise, for the Treatment of Maladies, Grievous Wounds & the Indisposition of Humours; also Bilious Fevers.

Generally speaking, Liniment’s are sold to relieve pain and stiffness. So these could improve mobility.  Bilious Fevers refers to fevers which include vomiting diarrhea and nausea.  In my judgement, these will be temporary items which you can take to counter the poisons.

VI. POETRY & MUSICK on the Subject of Weaponry.

I believe that this will be a new Meet The…  Video.

IN NEXT QUARTER’S PAMPHLET: “A Colloquy On The Soldier’s Arte”

I am going to guess that this indicated that the soldier is getting updated next.

After a careful examination of this page, I am going to conclude that I believe that this will be an overall classless update which will include new general weapons and introduce poisons.

It is possible that Engineers will build Weapon Dispensers, Poisons Dispensers, and Healing Dispensers.  Also, there are more hints at the Engineer in GearingUp.jpg and teleporter.jpg.  This very well could be the Engineer update in disquise, making the Engineer more useful by providing his team with various poisons, weapons or health potions as required.  I imagine only one Dispenser can be equipted at a time.

A Dispenser will buff a player, giving them a buff for a period of time.  Perhaps the player can select which buff they recieve, or perhaps it is automatic.  Weapon Buffs may allow weapons to fire special ammo, or even upgrade stock weapons.  While poison buffs will infect anyone that the player attacks with a poison which will slow the enemy and induce pain.  Healing buffs will revert, heal and protect against poisons.

Tags: Computer Game Reviews, FastLane Crew (TF2 by Roadwolf
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Watch Meet the spy in Tech & Gaming  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

There are a few reasons why I love Team Fortress 2.  One being that Valve is such a cool company.  Okay, sure, they tend to fuck up every now and then whenever they update the game, and end up breaking some other aspect of the game, and having to do an emergency patch to fix things.  But that is forgivable if you really get to know them and follow the community.

TF2 is a work in progress, like many Valve games.  The thing about Valve is that their updates are free, unlike other companies which make you pay for extra content (or pay to actually play the game).  TF2 has nine classes which you can play, with rumors of a tenth class which will be revealed down the way.  Over the last year or so, Valve has been releasing periodic updates which expand the capabilities of specific classes.  This started out with the Pyro update, and then the Medic update, and the Heavy update.  The Scout update was the most recent and in some aspects kind of dissapointing.

Every time a class gets updated, Valve will post information about the new class weapons and such on their blog.  Usually they will tease us by releasing this information over the course of a week, letting one item or piece of information slip each day.  Every time this has happened, there has been a crowd of people on the TF2 forums who would speculate that the update is actually a Spy update, and Valve would reveal that the update character in the teasers was actually a disguised Spy.

Well it seem that these conspiracy therorists were right…  at least 20% of the time.   There is supposed to be an update coming out on the 19th of May which was going to be the sniper update.  The Sniper is getting some new weapons, like the Longbow, and the Razorback Shield.  As well as the speculated Jarate from the April Fools ‘joke’ – although Valve has not confirmed or denied this at this point.

There seemed to be a theme through all of this however.  Jarate, and the Razorback Shield are both very effective anti Spy weapons.  So started the Spy update crowd.  Well as it turns out, yesterday, May 15th, Valve shocked the world by letting the Spy backstab and sap the Sniper update.  They also unveiled 2 new Spy unlockables; The “Dead Ringer” Spy watch, and “The Cloak and Dagger” Spy watch.  They also pushed the Spy update back to May 21st.

The Dead Ringer is a throw back to the Original Team Fortress game, where spies could drop corpses of themselves to confuse the enemy into thinking they killed the spy.  The Dead Ringer will automatically drop a corpse of the spy if he takes a non lethal hit of damage.  At the same time it will instansly cloak the spy, and also place a false kill message in the top right corner of the screen.  My theory is that since this device is passive, it will likely replace the Spy’s Revolver.  Since Spies will, or should still have the ability to cloak whenever they wish, and this device does not allow spies to choose when to cloak.  But it is very possible that there will just be 2 new watches, and the Spy can choose which one to wear, with the Dead Ringer, providing a little more security, but giving up the ability to cloak whenever you want.

The Cloak and Dagger is a Spy watch, which is similar to the original spy watch, but instead of being able to replenish your cloak using metal, it will only replenish if you are standing still.

Valve has confirmed that both updates will happen at the same time.  So the Snipers and Spies are both happy.  Another thing that is kind of driving people crazy is that Valve has all but denied that the Pyro is a female.  In Yesterdays update posting, the original text was “Holy hell. All those conspiracy theorists on the TF forum couldn’t have been right all along, could they? When the Pyro hears about this she’ll be inconsolable.” This goes along with another Quote from Robin Walker, one of the lead designers of the game, which states “The Pyro is the focus on the next pack. We’re making some significant changes to the base Pyro class & weaponry, in addition to the three unlockables and thirty-five achievements. We’ve never been terribly happy with the Pyro, in particular with her shallower skill curve than other combat classes…” .  Valve removed the ’she’ll’ part of the original post on the teamfortress.com blog about 20 minutes after it was posted – only creating more mystery.

But that is what Valve will do, they will hint at things, and then sit back and watch the community troll their forums and argue about conspiracy theories and all that, while Valve sits back, and laughs.

What will we expect in the next 4 days left until the update?  Well I suspect that the knife replacment will likely be a Garrote or something which will allow the spy to silently kill someone, while they remain disguised.  However I imagine it will freeze the spy in place, and take a good 5 to 10 seconds to actually kill the target.  This will mean that targets will have to be able to call for help quickly and ensure their not far away from team mates.  Other possibilities, would be a knife which would perhaps deal more damage, yet you wont get backstabs anymore?  Or perhaps a DoT type weapon, like a needle, which the spies could use while disguised, which would slowly kill a target unless they get to a health pack, or medic.  In fact the more I think about it, the more this sounds like something that would be realistic.

I honestly believe that the Jarate is part of the Sniper update…  But we shall see.

Tags: Computer Game Reviews, FastLane Crew (TF2 by Roadwolf
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