Title says it all, grab the package @ http://tf2b.com/downloads/

Due to recent inquiries I thought it would be helpful to give everyone an update of 2.6′s development progress so far. The good news is all the nagging concerns have now been more or less rectified, with the various issues remaining are now just a matter of code cleanliness.

To recap, TF2B 2.6 has two significant features over 2.5, being the addition of the item attribute/stat system and the new parallel API request code. The first concern being the ability of said attribute system to display all appropriate strings correctly in all supported languages, and finding a better solution to the busy-wait loop in the new API request code.

The busy-wait loop was especially a big problem due to the excessive CPU utilisation generated, and hacky use of usleep() was not a valid solution.

As always, the release date for 2.6 is “when it’s done”, but hopefully the process of cleaning up the code to a respectable, releasable state should not take long.

P.S. Reminder to 3rd-party server hosts: PHP’s APC module is now a requirement for TF2B to function, and will not work without the module installed and active.

Sorry about the lack of updates recently, school hasn’t been kind to my free time.

ICONS MODIFIED:
Mann Co. Cap
Fists of Steel
Coupe D’Isaster
Purity Fist
One-Man Army
Lumberjack
Benefactor’s Kanmuri
Maganimous Monarch
Gentleman’s Gatsby
Mining Light
Stahlhelm
Sergeant’s Drill Hat

ICONS ADDED:
“Reckoning” Hat
Holiday Punch
Surgeon’s Stethoscope
Garlic Flank Stake
Silver Bullets
Ol’ Geezer
Prairie Heel Biters
Spirit of Giving
All of the Festive weapons
Holiday Headcase
Ebenezer
Outback Intellectual

As is usual for the time of the year, work has been progressing slowly but surely.

I’ve spent the last month or so polishing up TF2B’s implementation of the item attribute system, I’m fairly confident all the display bugs are fixed now thanks to me finally getting off my ass and learning how to write my own RegEx patterns. As an extra little bonus the schema compiler has been totally refactored and improved to cull out item attributes that do not otherwise appear.

In addition to this, I’ve reimplemented the MotD system to pull text from a textfile rather than be defined in-file. This makes things much more convenient and allows for the new rotating messages that are live right now. So expect to see lots of new and interesting notes instead of the same line of text constantly for 2 months straight.

So to wrap up, I hope you all had a good time over the holidays and new year. I look forward to seeing what new projects and features come up in this second year of TF2B’s life!

No smarmy comments this week. Sorry.

ICONS MODIFIED:
- Ellis’ Cap
- Blighted Beak
- Anger
- Frenchman’s Beret
- Charmer’s Chapeau

ICONS ADDED:
- Manmelter
- Phlogistinator
- Third Degree
- Unarmed Combat
- Voodoo Pin
- Cold Shoulder
- Wrap Assassin
- Braniac Goggles
- Dr. G Bubble Helmet
- Grimm Hatte
- Fallen Angel
- Tail from the Crypt
- Brown Bomber
- The All-Father
- Jingle Hell (pyro bells)
- Santa Hat
- Scout Elf Hat
- Scout Elf Sneakers
- Winter Coat
- Ornament Armament
- Head of Full Steam

As a nice little conclusion to the last few blogposts on vanity IDs and etc, Valve recently have added a new API specifically for looking up SteamID64 values with vanity IDs. With the addition of this new API, I’ve been able to make a few new significant changes.

Firstly, Vanity ID lookups are now indefinitely stored in a volatile cache provided by APC. However the API request for a lookup is very cheap to perform, so initial requests on a profile do not incur a significant penalty.

Edit: As a quick heads up to anyone who runs an install of TF2B on their own webserver, 2.6 now lists APC as a requirement instead of an option.

Part of this change means that profile data is again uncached and is live. I’ll be keeping an eye on this feature’s feasibility, so if necessary a cache will be instituted.

One of the biggest results of the introduction of this new API is the ability to perform the API requests for a user’s backpack and profile data asynchronously, this greatly reduces the time spent waiting for API requests to complete.

In ending I’d like to make a quick note regarding the TF2B iconset. I can confirm we do plan on releasing a pack for in-game use, however the release of said pack is dependant on actually having a solid set of icons to use. As it requires additional steps to produce a pack for TF2 itself, we’re waiting on having all the nagging issues with the icons currently (such as scaling) sorted out before we release anything.

Once we have something that is respectable, we will happily make it available for use. Half-assing it benefits no one.

New icons are good for everyone. You probably already know this. What you didn’t know beofre but know now is that there are new icons this week! Hooray.

FUCK UPS FIXED:
- Scottish Snarl’s large icon was 512×512 before. This was fixed.

ICONS MODIFIED:
- Batter’s Helm (headset added, complain in the Emporium about it if you must)
- Anger
- Quick-Fix (hose w/ fade added)
- Bill’s Hat
- Desert Marauder (de-mannequin’d)
- Nanobalaclava
- Dr Grordbort’s Novelty Mutton Chops and Pipe
- Backwards Ballcap
- Villain’s Veil (de-mannequin’d)
- Pocket Medic
- Planeswalker Goggles
- Geisha Boy
- Team Captain
- Jarate
- Killer Exclusive

ICONS ADDED:
- Mask of the Shaman
- Blazing Bull
- Holy Hunter
- Big Country
- Professor’s Peculiarity
- Teddy Roosebelt
- Itsy Bitsy Spyer

The writing part of my brain has taken a vacation due to me being sick this week. If it was here it’d tell you about how AWESOME these icons are in a style that is TOTALLY NOT LIKE THE TF2 BLOG POST ABOUT THE SUMMER SALE!

ICONS MODIFIED:
- Crit-a-Cola
- Force a’ Nature
- Bonk! Atomic Punch
- Mad Milk
- Shorstop
- Lugermorph
- Gym Rat (hair’s no longer very very dark)
- Soviet Stitch-Up (legs removed)
- Triboniphorous Tyrannus
- Bonk Helmet (what the christ was up with the size of the last one)
- Specter’s Spectacles

ICONS ADDED:
- AC:R Cowl
- Dr. Whoa
- AC:R Switchblade
- Atomizer
- Solemn Vow
- Conscientous Objector (LARGE ICON ADDED)
- Soda Popper
- Winger
- Reggaelator
- Conjurer’s Cowl
- Samur-Eye
- Sultan’s Ceremonial
- Purity Fist
- Flair!
- Couvre Corner
- Cremator’s Conscience
- Lo-Fi Longwave
- MONOCULOUS! (for real, I swear)
- The Demoman Halloween items
- Top Notch (like you’ll ever see it)
- Hero’s Tail
- Sign of the Wolf’s School
- Costa Nostra Cap
- Lucky No. 42
- Tam o’ Shanter
- Rogue’s Col Roule
- War Head
- Point and Shoot
- Proof of Purchase (LARGE ICON ADDED)
- Large Luchadore (LARGE ICON ADDED)

Since there has been a positive response over the last couple of days to these blogposts, I thought I’d keep you guys up to date with some of the stuff that otherwise goes on behind the scenes, or stays locked up inside my head until it’s done.

Yesterday I began cleaning up the old viewcount database, I’ve now dumped the view counts themselves alongside the IP address validation field that was used to prevent basic count padding. I also went in and as a result, cleaned up the actual “viewsystem” code and polished the “Recently Viewed” table by increasing the number of users shown to 20 and moving the table.

Because of the absence of the viewcounts, this has rendered the top150 list obsolete. But seeing as how people love lists, I’m going to be keeping the total account value and re-implementing the page as a “Backpacks of interest” list, documenting profiles with Community and/or Self-Made items. This is in part thanks to some work I did on behalf of the TF Wiki, in documenting these profiles and the items, so the new list will not only document which users, but the items they’ve been awarded or created.

Today so far I’ve implemented the new caching system into the individual item summary pages, which are now even faster than they were before. (Which was very fast, as they’re purely SteamID64) Later on today I hope to get the groundwork done for the new “Backpacks of interest” page, provided I don’t get distracted with TF2 or Dota2.

Before I end, I’d like to make a quick shoutout to NeoDement for reporting a most grievous error with the previous MotD message. Thanks dude!

This should be a shorter blog post to cover the couple of questions I’ve gotten and cover some changes I’ve made.

Firstly, since the previous post; vanity IDs have been reintroduced on TF2B. However, due to the relative cost of a current vanity ID-based request compared to that of a SteamID64-based request, I have doubled the caching interval on profile data originating in this manner. Remember, this only affects profile data like the user’s name, online/ingame status and avatar.

In addition to other previous changes, to reduce the number of junk requests going to the site, I have doubled the auto-refresh interval from 5 minutes to 10 minutes. I feel that this is the best option, rather than making the feature opt-in. While the interval is longer, it should be more than sufficient.

To explain the whole “vanity ID” mess; TF2B uses a number of “WebAPIs” with which to retrieve a user’s backpack data and so forth. These APIs only accept SteamID64s as input currently, so we must “convert” a vanity ID first. This is done by retrieving an XML version of the user’s Steam Community profile; and as explained previously, these sort of requests are far more expensive than a straight-up SteamID64 query.

Hopefully at some point in the future, we should be able to query vanity IDs via the WebAPI, although there is no set date or absolute certainty this feature will be introduced.

That should cover everything for now, and as always; if you have questions, drop a comment below.