So with the last Team Fortress 2 update settling behind us, the question is inevitably going to come up; what’s next? There’s so much that Valve could do with the game, it’s just a question of where to start.
Engineer Update
It’s been almost 2 years since the first of the class updates were rolled out, we’ve only got one class who hasn’t received a major update, complete with new weapons and achievements. So it’s a fair to assume that one of the next updates to be released will be for the Engineer. This of course means new achievements, but in the case of weapons, the Engineer is a little different to other classes, being he is able to build sentries and other buildings. This leads to a lot of options; will the Engineer get new types of buildings, or new upgrade levels for them? I can see something being made similar to the Sniper’s Razorback item, but can be applied to buildings to protect from sapping.
In the case of new buildings, an idea in my head is having more than one type of sentry, such as one that shoots flame, or a trip mine similar to those in Half Life (you step into the laser beam and the bomb goes off). The concept being that an Engineer could only build one type, creating more strategies and abilities for the character without creating building spam. Just some thoughts.
Trading System
As was hinted by Valve months ago in the TF2 Blog, eventually we will see a system for trading items with other players, and being able to work towards getting specific items. The latter was rolled out with the Soldier/Demo class update in the form of a crafting system, which lets you combine multiple items together to eventually create an item you (hopefully) didn’t already have. This leaves us waiting for the trading system. Implementation needs to be thought out though, since we can’t just stop midgame to see if anyone wants to trade a weapon, bring up a box, and do it while bloody war rages around us. It’ll probably be something like a trade with Steam Friends, or more likely it’ll be set up like a bidding list system, where you post that you want to trade item a for item b, and someone goes through the search results and finds the swap they want. Either way, it’ll be interesting; will players be able to ask for more things? Like someone putting up a Tyrant’s Helm and asking for 3 camera beards?
The Fabled 10th Class
Someone, somewhere, is currently posting on a forum about the age old theory that Valve will incorporate a 10th class into the game to shake things up. The whole thing was caused by the cereal box in Left 4 Dead, and whether or not this will happen has long been debated, as while it would create a new experience, the complete overhaul of the game dynamic is too large to think. I’ll leave you to think about this one.
New map type
Although I have no idea what exactly Valve could pull out of their hat in terms of a new game type, it’s still possible that they might. My thought goes to the old Escort missions, where you had to escort one civilian player to a point while the other team tries to kill and stop him. We’ve seen the escort game type in the form of payload maps, but the Civilian class code was placed in TF2 right from the start, as is apparent from the fun YouTube videos exploiting it. Future game? Maybe.
Completely Random Item Updates
The other day, Valve made the official request for item design contributions from the TF2 community. Players submit their designs for hats and even weapons, and Valve will take the best, modify them to keep the game balanced, and inject them into the game. Now, I can see this being a completely awesome addition, and effectively ensuring new content comes out for the game as long as the TF2 community wills it. It’s a clever move from Valve, because this means that the items they bring in were what the players wanted. These could be rolled out as random item updates with just different assortments of items each time, or hopefully…
More Class Updates
Just because Valve have gone and updated (almost) all the classes once doesn’t mean it’s over. They could go back over and give a third set of items for each class. It would add further flexibility in strategy to the game, and more. With the recent Contribution System update, that could happen, as chances are people are going to submit their designs for the items they feel SHOULD of come out in the initial updates.
To prevent this post going too much longer I’ll stop here. But there really is so much Valve could do with this game. What else do you see Valve implementing?
