A new update for Team Fortress 2 is about to land, offering updates for both the Demoman (sword and shield) and the Soldier, who gets a new rocket:

...the Direct Hit has a 70% smaller blast radius than a traditional rocket launcher. But the rockets that come out of this thing move fast and hit hard: 80% faster and with 25% more destructive force. Best of all, for you real sharpshooters, the Direct Hit guarantees mini-crits on airborne targets.

A free weekend is about to kick off as well, giving you the chance to take the new changes for a test drive - so (if you haven't got the game already) start pre-loading and get ready for a weekend of TF2 mayhem.

the soldier has a pick axe and a bugle now

Note: Pretty much any time we reveal a new weapon, somebody on the forums claims they thought of it first. But this time, assuming it’s Tom Francis and jibberish, they are absolutely correct. As a special thanks to them for doing our work for us,

LOLZ

Email Valve sent to the guy who thought up the idea.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12559753&postcount=317

last edited by ctd at 18:23:16 17/Dec/09

bugle is going to be awesome.

i have just completely lost track of all the updates for tf2

They'll also (finally) be releasing 'item crafting' which basically lets you trade your duplicate items for something you actually want.

Hopefully I can get a hat out of my fifty or so dead ringers.

Man I really thought soldier would win but I guess its going to the demoman now. I blame 32 player servers with tight corners. The grenade spam has been pretty nasty over the past week. And teams of all demomen seem to work surprisingly well in most circumstances.

I can't believe the demos caught up. I call match fixing by valve.

nope, that would be me (and me bottle o scrumpy).

go demo!

Valve Ban Hammer weapon

Robbin Walkers Level 100 weapons

SOLDIER WON!

SOLDIER WON!

It was never in doubt, tbh. I tried to boost demo myself but probs did more harm to the cause than good.

Anyway, it's neither here nor there - whatever they update will be balanced for one, and whatever they don't update now they will update later. Life is one big marketing game.

So when is the update available?

No advancement has been made in the escalation sciences since… until now. Introducing the Gunboats, secondary-slot boots that reduce rocket jump damage by a huge amount, rendering stairs forever useless. What is the science behind these miracles of technology? Magic, probably.

Haha, I love the humour at Valve

update should be out today

Haha particle effect? tf2, the mmo.

you know smoke and explosions and teleporters and crits and heaps of s*** are particle effects...

Many servers are yet to update :'(

so much updated goodness, and I'm still capped :(

hah.. s*** i just realised on those tf2 update pages that look like newspapers, you can actually click 'read more' to read more. f***ing interface fail - who expects a newpaper to be interactive?