Kotaku: pyro

Valve Taunts Us With Pyro Card

Owen Good — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 14:00:00 MDT

So on the bio on the new TF2 baseball card for Pyro (updated Thursday on the Team Fortress blog) there are five masculine pronouns and one reference to Pyro being a dude. And then the kicker, "if he even is a man." And now let the bitching and bickering begin again. Valve knows what it's doing here, and isn't going to stop. Well played, Valve. (Full size on the jump)

TF2 Trading Cards — Part 3 [TeamFortress.com, thanks reader Max]

Also, I think I forgot to link you the second trading card update, which covered Medic and Heavy.

Sweet Pyro Costume from Down Under

Owen Good — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 12:00:00 MDT

Reader Paul from Australia sends in this pic (and two others) of his homebrewed homage to Pyro from Team Fortress 2. Naturally, because this is how my mind works, I thought "well if Pyro is a female character, this dude is running around in girls' clothes." I kid! I keeeed! The mask is right on, but the suit's not the same texture as Pyro's rubberized get-up, which in addition to being expensive would also look like fetish gear. What. What?!

No really, I think I have a strange form of Tourette's, that causes me to blurt out wildly inappropriate, if not profane, things. Fahey and Leigh can attest to that. So can my girlfriend from my senior year of high school. We saw "Ghost" on a date and, while she was crying during the scene where Patrick Swayze possesses the mystic's body so he can hold his wife one last time, I leaned in close to whisper, "You know, what's really going on here, is Demi Moore is actually dancing with and kissing Whoopi Goldberg." And I wondered why I was a teenage virgin.

Wow, that was a digression. Hit the jump for the images.

Paul also advises that it's available for sale if you want to buy it. You can e-mail him, just be sure to remove the ATs and DOTs.

A Journey Into the Servers of Darkness

Owen Good — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:00:00 MDT

"The server I found myself on was an odd, unsettling place," writes Alec Meer, exploring Team Fortress 2's "Achievement Servers" for Rock, Paper, Shotgun. "The tiny, custom map placed the red and blue spawn points right next to each other, removed the wait period between respawns, dropped a single capture point in the middle and placed intelligence briefcases at either end. A small pool of water was placed awkwardly in a corner, and health packs scattered in bizarre columns. No-one could ever win this map - it was set up to repeat forever."

No sooner than Pyro's unlockable weapons drop than does the grinding and achievement farming begin again with great intensity. Alec visited an achievement servers to witness the depravity himself firsthand and, of course, found himself unlocking 14 achievements and getting the Flare Gun. "It’s as though someone’s stamped LIAR on my Steam page."

Loads of good vignettes in this piece. If you like TF2 or have an opinion on achievements, give it a look.

Achieving Nothing in TF2 [Rock, Paper Shotgun]

Save The Fire Hose Jokes: Pyro Is A She?

Leigh Alexander — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:20:00 MDT

So Team Fortress 2 fans have been eagerly awaiting the Pyro updates, but the gents at Rock, Paper, Shotgun have been busy mulling gender issues. They found some evidence to support their theory that Pyro is a female character, and cited this CS-Nation interview with lead developer Robin Walker, where he conceded:

"Looking back, we should have shipped some of the classes as female and some as male."

Said Walker further on:

“We’ve never been terribly happy with the Pyro, in particular with her shallower skill curve than other combat classes. We really want highly skilled Pyros to be visibly more effective than the average Pyro, and the new features are designed to address that.”

Progressive! And speaking of progress, the same interview also hints that the Engineer might be the next class to get a bump-up:

“We’ve been playtesting an upgradeable teleporter, where the level affects the recharge time. It’s working out well, so it’s likely that you’ll see something like it in the Engineer pack.”

By the way, the header image for this post is a rather hazardous looking flamethrower handmade by Tom Swozzer, who sent us his pics of his Pyro-celebratory project. I want to say "Nice work, Tom," but I don't want to encourage anyone to assemble such flammable objects in their backyard.

Robin Walker Talks TF2 [CS-Nation via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

TF2 Updates: May I Ax You A Question?

Owen Good — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 10:00:00 MDT

Limber up your fast-twitch weapon-switch reflexes. Valve's dropped word that the next update for Team Fortress 2 — centering on the Pyro class — will include a new weapon called the Axtinguisher, among other things.

The Axtinguisher does half damage as a regular axe, unless the target is on fire. Then it's an automatic critical hit. So my friend Sander, who plays Pyro relentlessly, will now add "swing ax if anyone gets close" to his "backpedal and barbecue" combat strategy.

Valve didn't say when the new stuff hits, only that it's "almost completely wrapped." This latest build incorporates feedback from the April update to the Medic class. That one delivered three new unlockable weapons. However, in addition to the Axtinguisher, Valve says there will be "significant changes to the Pyro class for everyone," regardless of unlocked items, but didn't specify. So stay tuned.

Axtinguisher, Other Changes for Pyro in the Works [Steam]