Mann vs Machine Brings Six Player Co-op to Team Fortress 2

Post by Dan @ 10:46am 14/08/12 | 58 Comments

Revealing the fruits of their latest ARG teaser, Valve Software have officially announced Mann vs Machine, uniting mortal enemies RED and BLU in a new horde-style co-operative game mode for the free-to-play shooter Team Fortress 2.

Gray Mann has built an unstoppable automaton army with a single purpose: to destroy all things Mann Co. Luckily for you, the majority of this robot legion is equipped with basic weaponry that could never level an entire building. Unluckily, they also have access to giant bombs, which they’d drag through hell if it meant dropping one in a Mann Co. bombhole. And it’s up to you to stop them. And it’s up to a small cadre of Special Robots to stop you from stopping the regular robots.

...Mann vs. Machine is a new co-operative game for Team Fortress 2 that lets you and five friends wage a desperate battle to stop a lethal horde of robots from deploying a bomb in one of Mann Co.’s many strongholds. Take advantage of breaks between waves to upgrade your abilities and weapons. Survive all the waves in any of a variety of missions to earn incredible loot.

There's still more to be revealed, but impressively, Mann vs Machine is set to launch on August 15th 2012 (US Pacfic Time), so we won't have to wait long to start kicking some robot ass. Watch the Mann vs Machine trailer below (here in HD) and check out the official website for more details.

team fortress 2 valve software trailer

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Latest Comments

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TiT
Posted 11:03am 14/8/12

so it looks like its going to be like killing floor etc. waves of bots and you will need to defend

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MARLINBLADE
Posted 04:28pm 14/8/12

I just can't go past the fact that this game has been out for years, is now free to play, and has had continuous support, mods, custom user made content from the very beginning. It's a bloody good effort imo. I'll definitely be keen to fire this old girl up again for this.

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ravn0s
Posted 05:13pm 14/8/12

there's been 308 updates since it's release in 2007.

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dais
Posted 06:08pm 14/8/12

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Totenkopf
Posted 10:33am 15/8/12

Nothing but great news from Valve.

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ravn0s
Posted 12:22pm 15/8/12

day 2 is up

http://www.teamfortress.com/mvm/mercs/

last edited by ravn0s at 12:22:25 15/Aug/12

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trog
Posted 12:43pm 15/8/12

as always - awesome trailer. Valve, the last bastion of the PC gamer.

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fpot
Posted 03:17pm 15/8/12

Remember when people thought Valve were dodgy and id were good? I do.

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groganus
Posted 03:24pm 15/8/12

fpot, that blame gen was totes legitimate back then, the amount of CS players that would come along whinging about hacks/server exploits or just general terrible-ness but placing all the blame on server admins/hosts instead of the developers of the game.

The good news is that valve listened.

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trog
Posted 03:57pm 15/8/12

Remember when people thought Valve were dodgy and id were good? I do.

that's not why that page exists, but nice boring attempt at id bashing and revisionist history!

I still go through regular battles with things that I would call sheer idiocy on the Valve side of their implementation (e.g., see the CS:GO beta thread about their latest update to the game which makes it unplayable - just spent 20 minutes trying to get a game going with three people and it is almost not even physically possible)

But at least they're still making games for the PC, unlike basically anyone else, including id (who I'm the first to say haven't done anything useful for PC gamers for a long time).

I'll take that page down when I can go a couple of months without me or someone else in our company who has to beat their head against a wall trying to make sure that Australians can buy, download and play Valve games. You'd be amazed at the work that goes on behind the scenes in supporting their games - and their platform - here in Australia, and how many headaches occur as a result of the way they choose to implement certain things.

edit; pretty funny time for you to try to troll given I have a brand new fresh experience of why that URL is still able to be busted out though

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Dan
Posted 07:16pm 15/8/12

CD Projekt RED remain my fav PC champion devs for the time being. Epic could redeem themselves if fortnite pans out as good as it sounds.

Valve have done, and continue to do a lot of good, but I remain hugely wary of how dependent many people have become on Steam. I still really begrudge any retail disc game that requires perma-authing to a Steam account, and the same goes for Blizzard games.

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fpot
Posted 08:10pm 15/8/12

So you are saying that I should probably play The Witcher games which have been sitting in my Steam list since I bought them in the summer sale.

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Khel
Posted 08:52pm 15/8/12

Yeah, at least play the Witcher 2, its really f*****g good, suprised the hell out of me. I waited for ages to buy it and bought it cheap a few months back, not expecting much, and its probably one of the best fantasy rpgs I've played. S**** all over Dragon Age for sure. It gave me a bit of a Game of Thrones vibe while I was playing it too, not that the world is much like the world of Game of Thrones, but its that same sort of dark and dirty fantasy and theres all sorts of politics and betrayal and s*** going on.

Also they made it DRM free and released heaps of updates and content for it for free, so they deserve mad props for all that.

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eXemplar
Posted 09:02pm 15/8/12

Yeah, at least play the Witcher 2, its really f*****g good

Plus, there's boobs.

Also, when is this available in australian time ?

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Obes
Posted 09:04pm 15/8/12

S**** all over Dragon Age for sure

That's not exactly hard ...

I found Witcher 2 a struggle very quickly.
Didn't compare to say Skyrim, Planescape or Baldur's Gate 2 or even the original Bard's Tales.

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Infidel
Posted 09:10pm 15/8/12

The witcher 2 was very good, the graphics that they managed to churn out also surprised me

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mongie
Posted 09:27pm 15/8/12

Valve sucks cause they haven't release HL2:Ep3 or HL3.

F*** YOU VALVE.

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Totenkopf
Posted 10:45pm 15/8/12

Witcher 2 far more better than skyrim

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Tollaz0r!
Posted 11:33pm 15/8/12

Witcher 2 was definatly the better RPG compared to Skyrim.

edit: O that trailer is cool too.

last edited by Tollaz0r! at 23:33:31 15/Aug/12

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Habib
Posted 09:47am 16/8/12

Speaking of back when id were making awesome PC games, I just found out that Paul Steed died recently.

:(

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Khel
Posted 10:17am 16/8/12

So is this out now?

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glynd
Posted 10:21am 16/8/12

Day 3 - Bounty

http://www.teamfortress.com/mvm/bounty/

Also,

http://www.teamfortress.com/mvm/faq/

Q: What is Mann Up Mode?
When you play Mann vs. Machine on an official Mann Co. server, this is called Mann Up Mode. Mann Up Mode allows you to earn special item rewards and track your progress through various Missions. To enter Mann Up Mode, you must possess a Tour of Duty Ticket."

Q: What is a Tour of Duty Ticket?
A Tour of Duty Ticket gives you access to Mann Up Mode, and can be purchased from the Mann Co. Store for $0.99. You do not need a Tour of Duty Ticket to play Mann vs. Machine on non-Mann Co. servers (i.e.: not in Mann Up Mode).

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dais
Posted 11:05am 16/8/12

I just found out that Paul Steed died recently.

WTF?! I wonder what happened.

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TiT
Posted 11:38am 16/8/12

its out who is keen to play?

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TiT
Posted 11:39am 16/8/12

4000 players in que :(

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ravn0s
Posted 12:49pm 16/8/12

wow the update is almost 1gb.

guess i wont be playing tonight if the servers are getting pounded :(

last edited by ravn0s at 12:49:07 16/Aug/12

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TiT
Posted 03:02pm 16/8/12

cant get a game happening like20min wait for game

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DM
Posted 03:59pm 16/8/12

Here is a short, TF2 related clip because why the hell not?

Also 37 min wait time per game, #13500 in queue. Yeah no thanks.

last edited by DM at 15:59:38 16/Aug/12

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eXemplar
Posted 05:46pm 16/8/12

I got into a game after 40 minutes in queue, every other person in the server had 150+ latency and I had 250 ish (server was in the states). Seems like it might be fun but the wait and seeming lack of official australian servers will probably make this not even worth trying until the weekend.

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DM
Posted 05:48pm 16/8/12

Waited an hour only to get a "cannot connect after 4 retries" message. Will give it a few days to calm down before I try again.

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trog
Posted 05:49pm 16/8/12

So in case anyone is wondering why there's a dearth of games - the servers are extremely CPU intensive because of the bots. We've been putting up more servers but we're talking like a factor of 5x more CPU power for the same number of people (according to some metrics we've seen) so it means it is much harder to get enough capacity.

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koopz
Posted 05:54pm 16/8/12

lol...

20 min wait to join a game.

I really liked L4D Survival Mode so this should be good - though I reckon many will steer clear of it.

*edit* they need a little graphics of a tape player loading up the game on some oldskool Commodore or something while you wait

last edited by koopz at 17:54:24 16/Aug/12

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ravn0s
Posted 06:08pm 16/8/12

cant even download the update because the servers are too busy.

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ravn0s
Posted 08:05pm 16/8/12

this queue waiting is kind of lame...

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eXemplar
Posted 10:46pm 16/8/12

Fair warning, I tried grouping earlier with a friend using the matchmaking system and we decided to wait. Just under 20 minutes later it tried to place us in a passworded server and we were kicked back to the main menu, leaving us at the start of the queue again and 20 minutes out.

Best way is to filter servers running mvm maps and join one with at least 1 person in but obviously no more than 6 and hope your friends can join off you quick enough.

I really don't think this type of matchmaking belongs on the PC.

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Arathorn
Posted 06:57am 17/8/12

looks boring as f***, who wants to play online games against bots???? I just don't get it sorry, maybe I'm just getting old, but for me it's just not my thing. I play online games to play real players, not AI. Thumbs down. TF2 RIP you were a good game but you're old too and like me, past your best before date.

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dais
Posted 08:18am 17/8/12

Riiight, clearly you have never played Left 4 Dead.

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ravn0s
Posted 08:21am 17/8/12

i finally managed to get a game after waiting for 30 mins. i enjoyed it despite having a ping over 200. just smashed s*** by upgrading sticky launcher and spamming like crazy.

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TiT
Posted 08:51am 17/8/12

man loving the new mod its bring me back to tf2!

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mongie
Posted 04:31pm 17/8/12

So in case anyone is wondering why there's a dearth of games - the servers are extremely CPU intensive because of the bots. We've been putting up more servers but we're talking like a factor of 5x more CPU power for the same number of people (according to some metrics we've seen) so it means it is much harder to get enough capacity.

What sort of specs are you running servers on? I assume they're VM's? ESXi? how many vCPU/RAM etc?

I'm not about to try and host a server, i'm just interested in what is required these days.

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thermite
Posted 09:05pm 17/8/12

looks boring as f***, who wants to play online games against bots???? I just don't get it sorry, maybe I'm just getting old, but for me it's just not my thing. I play online games to play real players, not AI. Thumbs down. TF2 RIP you were a good game but you're old too and like me, past your best before date.

It's like a tower defense game. Granted you can get sick of those pretty fast.

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ctd
Posted 12:51am 19/8/12

Anyone get this to work yet?

Every time me and my mates try to find a game we finally load after 5 billion years and either get "bad password" or "server is running older version" errors.

I'd go manual server browser but I want to join with friends and start fresh. Thought it would be good after 48hours or whatever of being out.

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DM
Posted 02:07am 19/8/12

Nah not been able to yet and now that i've gotten into sleeping dogs I doubt I will anytime soon.

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WetWired
Posted 08:17am 19/8/12

had a few games last night, not bad. Would have been better playing with people I know on headset though as they're some tards on the public servers, particularly though on Mac as you have to hit F4 to say you're ready at the start of the round and they couldn't figure it out as macs don't have F keys.

the upgrades a cool, nothing funnier as an engineer than seeing those sentry busters come running up to you, picking up your sentry and jumping into a 2 way teleporter before it goes off.

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ctd
Posted 08:39am 19/8/12

Got it working by just manually joining an empty server from the browser. Valve can never get matchmaking to work after l4d, l4d2, cs:go, tf2.

dota2 matchmaking does its job I guess.

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WetWired
Posted 09:22am 19/8/12

yeah I used the server browser too, even then though some servers show up as empty until you try and connect to them, when you find out they're full.

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thermite
Posted 10:51am 19/8/12

I've played a couple times, by waiting an hour to play in the queue. I've waited more times than that, but I usually alt-tab out and forget or it never connects.
I'll try browsing for a game.

I haven't quite worked it all out. I've been trying to kill sentry busters, and I've run away from one with a sentry but he followed me to the new spot apparently. I guess you have to wait for him to do the move he does like a dog taking a s***, then teleport away.

I've played as pyro, engie, and briefly as demo. Didn't get the hang of demo, he needs a lot of time to reload.

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trog
Posted 12:47pm 19/8/12

What sort of specs are you running servers on? I assume they're VM's? ESXi? how many vCPU/RAM etc?

I'm not about to try and host a server, i'm just interested in what is required these days.

I don't know the details. Pretty beefy generally I believe.

Not VMs though; noone doing serious game server hosting runs in VMs, though I suspect it will become a little more common.

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Lynx
Posted 01:15pm 19/8/12

Pro Tip

1) skip the match making and go straight to the server browser.

2) put in mvm_ as a server name filter and only connect to servers with less then 6 players.

3) ???

4) win

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The GuVna
Posted 02:17pm 19/8/12

for step 3)

I reckon:
- 1x Medic with Kritzrieg
- 1x Engie
- 2x Soldier with Buff Banner
- 2x Heavy

That said only played mvm once, but when I had a medic kritzing my rockets, then buff banner, repeat, worked pretty well i thought

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ctd
Posted 10:07pm 19/8/12

So I haven't played TF2 since about when they started giving all the characters extra weapons. I want them now! Not willing to play tf2 to unlock em.

That achievement unlocker work still?

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thermite
Posted 10:26pm 19/8/12

they have penalised people for using the unlockers, but people seem to go on idle servers to get random weapon drops since your chances of a random drop are higher the longer you've played or something like that.
there are a lot of weapons and items out there so I doubt you will get them all with an unlocker

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ravn0s
Posted 09:06am 20/8/12

what's the point in getting the weapons if you're not gonna play?

you can buy most of them from the store. only ones you can't buy are the old weapons that you used to get from the achievements.

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dais
Posted 09:10am 20/8/12

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thermite
Posted 09:29am 20/8/12

I'm not really aware of what tickets and vouchers are. I'm guessing that's something you have to buy? I also see the 'mann up mode' and talk of canteens.
Not sure why you'd wanna spend money on killing AI bots?

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Keato
Posted 12:28pm 20/8/12

Played this yesterday with Kuffs, havent played TF2 in a long time (years) and it was pretty brutal, we could not get past 6/8, even with uber Kuffs.

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TiT
Posted 02:13pm 20/8/12

yeah played a few times now and finish about 3 maps... i like it

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ctd
Posted 07:16pm 20/8/12

what's the point in getting the weapons if you're not gonna play?

Because I want to play this co-op mode for an hour or so with the alternative weapons.

you can buy most of them from the store. only ones you can't buy are the old weapons that you used to get from the achievements.

Yeah good one cuz! - The weapons I want ARE from the achievements (i stopped playing when they introduced all those milestones and shizzle)

I used the achievement unlocker and all good now.

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