Summary: We’re back! Following our moments of insanity breaking into song for the KK200 show we’ve much to catch up on. Tempest didn’t quite make it through Smissmass unharmed so we were happy to have Helene, our head admin step up to fill the void. Valve’s Mecha update brought with it new weapons in the form of the Vaccinator, Loose Cannon and Rescue Ranger. There were warm winter wears in the Nice Winter Crates and weapons wrapped in fairy lights in the Naughty Winter Crates. Though you could bypass the drop system all together and grab the lot, including reindeer hats and reindoonicorns in the Smissmass Bundle. While we’re on the topic of buying things, it’s now possible to buy in game items outside of the game Mann Co. has finally broken free of TF2 and is running their own store website. Aside to one side the Mecha Update also brought with it a new MvM map, Big Rock, the Engineer Robot (we thought it would never happen) and a slew of fancy new giant robot types (in hats); Giant Burst Fire Soldier, Captain Punch, Sergeant Crits and Major Bomber. Oh and a new comic too. Map makers, the unsung heroes of the TF2 creator community finally get some love in form of the stamps. When you taunt on a map a trail of stamps follow in your wake, assuming you’ve bought a stamp for that map. The more your buy the longer your trail. I wonder if you leave a trail of invisible stamps if you’re playing as spy? Adult swim see a little more of their work appreciated in TF2. Someone at Valve must love these guys as there’s now an entire pack of items with hints of characters you may recognise from the mad genius animators. We didn’t though.. The previously closed beta for Steam on Linux has been opened up to the public. It’s only a matter of time till we get Neon Genesis Evangelion style pet penguins in game now. It’s too late to make a Smissmass present now but that’s okay since there aren’t any left but Mann Co. branded GameCom Commander headsets were briefly available on the Valve store. Technically you can still get your hands on (should this be “your ears on”, or “on your ears”, no probably not) them directly from plantronics. Lastly, a quick update on our hat, the Lo-Fi Longwave. We gave out close to 700 of these beauties following the release of KK200. Twitter, facebook and Steam each received a budget of 200 (plus a few more). They have all now been distributed, largely due to the speedy and efficient coding of JimboMcB. Please join these groups if you haven’t done so yet. We’ve already got things brewing for 2013 and news of them will surely break there first.
