Valve Teases, Releases 'Meaningful' Team Fortress 2 Friend and Mercenaries Patch (Updated)

Update: The Team Fortress 2 blog has now been updated with the phrase "Friendship ends in one day," with an accompanying comic suggesting that whatever this brings, it involves the Red Demoman and Blu Soldier.

"We've got something coming, but it's not a new game mode," Valve's Robin Walker further teased Kotaku. "The key to understanding the new sound files is to figure out who's hearing them in-game, and who isn't."

Original: Following reports that the latest update to Team Fortress 2 PC brought with new Announcer quips mentioning friends, mercenaries and betrayal, developer Valve tells Shacknews they are already being used in-game for something "meaningful."

"So far, we haven't seen anyone on the various forums out there who's figured it out," Valve's Robin Walker told us, noting "there's something about the way they're used in-game that's meaningful."

Whatever the new functionality is, it's already in the game, as Walker added that "user reports of hearing [the new sound bites] in-game are also legit."

Those quips include: "Friendship ends in 10 seconds," "Betrayal will not be tolerated," "You can not hide anything from us, mercenaries," "It's me or him and I pay your salary, so make your choice," "Friendships are in direct contravention of mercenary conduct as delineated in your contracts, and on a personal note, I am very, very disappointed."

As for what else the latest update delivered, the patch notes are below:

Engine

• Added checks to prevent transferring .smx, .gcf, and .sys files between client/server

• Fixed upload/download exploits with spaces in the file extension or a path separator at the beginning of the requested file (as reported on the HLDS mailing lists)

Team Fortress 2

• Fixed custom particle systems inside maps causing particles to break in successive maps

• Fixed a rare vphysics crash

• Fixed background highlight for KOTH timers not being aligned properly in minmode

• Fixed the Heavy's fists being hidden while taunting

• Fixed cloaked Spies having the critboost effect on their weapon

• Fixed banned clients being able to spamming a server with the "joined" chat text

• Fixed seeing the wrong class counts if the game swapped teams while the class menu was open

• Fixed Spies being able to disguise while performing a taunt

• Fixed having to press the voice menu key twice if the menu timed out and closed itself last time it was open

• Fixed the "Confirm Delete" dialog in the Items menu not handling the key correctly

• Fixed dispenser not healing players at the correct rate if it's upgraded while the players are already touching the dispenser

• Fixed exec'ing the .cfg file for a class change before the player has actually changed class

Thanks to everyone, especially Big D, for the heads up.