It's been almost a year since Team Fortress 2 went free-to-play and we met the Medic and over the past four years, Valve have introduced us to all of the other members of the Team Fortress 2 contingent... except the Pyro.

Well it looks like the flame-weilding, mumbling, sociopath may be finally getting his fifteen minutes soon, as suggested by this teaser image over on the official TF2 website that links through to the eight other meet the team videos.

Note however, that the image does say "coming in 2012", which in Valve Time, could just as soon mean 2015 or so.

It's currently Valentine's Day in America and usually on this special day everyone goes out of their way to spend as much money as possible to impress the opposite sex, usually with flowers, chocolates or a puppy.

However, the Team Fortress 2 Development team over at Valve think all that is a bit over-the-top and far to expensive. Their solution? A $100 in-game diamond ring, which is apparently useless, but just shows how much you really love that someone.

What if we told you that you could waste as much as 1/6 less money this Valentine's Day? What if we added that you could do it without even leaving your house? Then what if we sweetened the deal further by saying sorry for calling you stupid earlier?

Introducing the "Something Special For Someone Special". It's ring-shaped, it's gift-wrapped, it's basically useless, and it's really expensive ($100!). In short, it's the most accurate simulation of an actual Valentine's Day gift ever made available to the public.

Here's how it works:

First, it's not tradable, only giftable. When it shows up in your special someone's backpack, they can click on it to open a menu that will let them accept your proposal. Once the proposal's been accepted, a message will be broadcast to the entire TF community that will include your name, your special someone's name, and whatever you decided to call the ring. Then presto, the gift turns into two matching diamond bands you can wear in the rain while you smooch up a storm, you crazy kids.

Valve showed how successful hats can be, so it's no real wonder that they are trying to see if this avenue can be populated with other items, like the diamond ring. The question is, would you buy it?

Valve have sent through word they'll be celebrating four years of success with Team Fortress 2 and the first full year of user-generated, and sold, content through the TF2 Mann Co. Store, with a significant update they're calling the "Manniversary".

The Manniversary Update includes several new features, including Steam Workshop, an improved item submission system that allows community item-creators to test, share and track the status of their creations. The entire TF2 community will also be allowed to participate by browsing, rating and offering feedback on all submitted items. The Steam Workshop will be fully integrated with the Steam community.

In addition to the Workshop, the Manniversary Update will also ship 30 new hats and cosmetic items, an item decal system, weeklong "try before you buy" item tryouts, loadout presets, multiple miscellaneous items slots, improved game performance, and a new taunt. The Update is one of the largest and most ambitious in TF2's four-year history.

Valve has also initiated a sale in the Mann Co. Store that will run until October 17th.

"The 'Mann Co. Store' represents an important new direction for games and game makers," said Gabe Newell, co-founder and president of Valve VIA PRESS RELEASE. "By leveraging and extending the platform features of Steam, Team Fortress 2 has enabled a viable marketplace for independent content creators and significantly extended the gameplay experience in an incredibly short amount of time."

If you've ever created and sold something through the Mann Co. Store, drop a line about your experience in the Comments section.

Another Team Fortress 2 update has landed and the announcement post has the usual entertaining Team Fortress 2 vibe:

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Team Fortress 2

Added From Dust promotional content.
Fixed a problem with the application of team-colored paints.
Fixed Mac-only replay editor crash.
“Meet the Medic” startup music added.
Definitely did not add cheats for upcoming Free-2-Play Invitational Cup.

As always, bounce Steam for the update and get online to check it out.

On the back of their recent addition of free-to-play games on Steam Valve have now announced that their very own popular online shooter Team Fortress 2 has now joined the ranks as a Free to Play game.

The F2P announcement comes as part of the "Über Update". Released today, it is the largest content pack delivered to TF2 since it shipped in 2007.

New players interested in experiencing what PC Gamer calls "the most fun you can have online" will have access to training and offline practice modes, so they can hone their skills before jumping into the ever-expanding TF2 universe.

It looks like their press release might have jumped the gun a little as the "more information link http://www.teamfortress.com/freetoplay doesn't appear to be active yet (or the TF2 site is just getting hammered).

For more information about the Uber Update itself, head over to teamfortress.com and for details on Steam's other currently offered free to play games, check out the Steam Free to Play site.

They're also released a new "Meet the Medic" trailer. Check that out below or click here for HD

The Team Fortress 2 blog points out the awesome news that Valve and Team Fortress 2 players have managed to raise USD$430,543.65 in a recent charity drive. The money will be going to a Japanese disaster relief flood to help recovery from the earthquake and tsunami.

Hopefully the mainstream media will pick up on this; there's so many incredibly positive stories about video gaming it seems bizarre that the only ones they seem to hear about are the ones in which violence can somehow be related to it. Last time I checked, Team Fortress 2 still had people exploding in bloody chunks of flesh after getting hit by a rocket, so maybe playing violent video games also encourages dangerous levels of philanthropy?

Valve have released a new update for Team Fortress 2 with a bunch of fixes and changes to the crafting system. The details from the official announcement:

• Fixed a server crash caused by using the Half-Zatoichi to hit someone not holding a weapon.
  
• Fixed the Soldier/Demoman taunts not working correctly when the Half-Zatoichi is the active weapon.
  
• Fixed the Concheror animations not always playing correctly for players on the Blue team.
  
• Fixed a bug where players could switch weapons after deploying the Half-Zatoichi before they killed someone with it.
  
• Updated The Shogun Pack items to be tradeable.
  
• Crafting changes
  
  • All recipes are now known to all players.
    
  • Reduced the cost of most recipes.
    
  • Items previously crafted using recipes that will be reduced in this update have been upgraded to Vintage quality.

I am completely out of touch with Team Fortress 2 these days so someone will have to translate in the comments what this means for the game!

Those that criticized Valve's introduction of the Mann Co. Store -- the marketplace for Team Fortress 2 user-created content -- may want to adjust their opinions, as according to Gamasutra, several community content creators have now just banked over USD$39,000 each, courtesy of the venture's 25% royalty payments.

Today, Valve said that community content creators Rob Laro, Shawn Spetch, Steven Skidmore, Spencer Kern and Shaylyn Hamm took home initial royalty payments ranging from $39,000 to $47,000 each from the first round of Team Fortress 2 content creation. And these are just the checks from the first two weeks of operation.

...

Valve said it was going to deposit the royalties in the modders' PayPal accounts, but the revenue from the sales was so high that it exceeded some of the service's limits on deposit size. Valve flew Kern and Skidmore to the developer's Kirkland, WA headquarters to give them the payments in person.

Apparently, people really love those hats and are willing to pay for them. By offering the mod community a slice of that pie, Valve have opened up a whole new source of revenue and longevity -- one that other publishers will no-doubt be paying a lot of attention to. How long until we see a game offering royalties for user-created maps?

Click over to Gamasutra for the complete, and very interesting read.

As if hardcore TF2 players weren't refreshing the hell out of their machines, Valve have nonetheless shot through a reminder that the Engineer Class update is available now, and will be applied automatically through Steam for Team Fortress 2. This is the largest single class update the team have done, and it's been coming for a while.

As a non TF2 player (I just don't have the time, and am scared), I'd rather not attempt to relay the changes to the class or game, and instead will just link you to the official update page, which in typical Valve form, showcases everything in comedic and artistic style.

Click here for the full run-down.

The official Team Fortress 2 blog is up to Day Three in the listing of cool new stuff you can expect to see in the upcoming Engineer update, and today's reveal is a new map called Hightower.

You can check out the Engineer update promo page which has word of the other changes announced so far, including "The Wranger", a remote sentry gun controller and "Frontier Justice", a replacement for the shotgun which boasts two crits for every kill your sentry racks up.

The Engineer Update is almost officially upon us, and be sure to let us know as soon as you've given it an official run, your thoughts.