NewNews - Team Fortress 2 is Free-to-Play!

Official Site: http://www.teamfortress.com/freetoplay/

Source: Youtube Channel teamfortress

Along with the new video "Meet the Medic", Valve has announced that Team Fortress 2 (TF2) will now be free-to-play!  This is exciting news as I plan to have a LAN party with some friends this weekend and can now add Team Fortress 2 to the list of games we can play.  Team Fortress 2 is a Multiplayer only, First-Person Shooter Action game.  Most would not add the word "Action" to TF2 as it's more FPS than anything else.  But unlike most FPS games, there are a lot of crazy elements that make it more than just a point and shoot sort of game.  For one, killing another player is not the main objective (as most FPS game modes would have for free-for-all and death match).  Team Fortress 2 is (as its name states) a cooperative-intensive multiplayer game that requires skill and tactics in order to obtain a goal.  There are capture points mode, escorting (payload), King of the hill, and there is sort of a team deathmatch where each team tries to survive an entire round without dying, but it still requires team work if victory is wanted.  So TF2 will now run on a micro-transaction basis, which is has been for a while, and rely a lot of their income on people buying items.  That's not a problem since players in the community have proven to be very supportive of the idea and buy items that are $5-$100+ in price.  It's crazy, I wouldn't buy it, but it's working.  I've been playing TF2 since December of 2009 and it have since then accumulated 134 hours of gameplay.  That isn't too much for most players (they usually have 300-1000+ hours), but it was a lot for me considering I played during my last year of college.  I have taken quite a long break from it and still play it once in a while.  The team working on TF2 is incredibly hard working and diligent as they have patched, adjusted, and added contents in the game since its release to optimize the run speed of the game, balance the classes, and added more maps, modes, and items for free (for the most part, until the item shop appeared).

If you've never played or even heard of Team Fortress 2, I suggest you go over to Steampowered.com and download Steam so that you can start playing it.  It's accessible for all levels of play, and you will get better the more you play.  The concept is simple, but obtaining the goal is hard.  I can't wait to play some more TF2!