Non-TF2 related: Path of Exile & Midnight Club 2 freebies

Two PC gaming freebies to share with you all.  First is a free weekend, today until Monday for Path of Exile which is a game under development.  It's PC only and this is a chance to basically beta-test the game for the weekend.  Link here.

The second freebie is from Steam and is Midnight Club 2, to anyone who has purchased a game via Steam previously.  You will need to join Rockstar's group.  Looks like an older game, since it is not supported on Vista/Windows 7.  Link here.

New update, front runner for the scout, promos

Team Fortress 2

• Added The Front Runner
• Added new promotional items^[1]
• Added the UGC Highlander Season 6 medals
• Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented servers from reconnecting to the item server after dropping connection
• Fixed a client crash when using custom main menu .res files
• Fixed a bug that allowed buildings to be built in nobuild/respawn volumes
• Updated the localisation files^[2]
• Added Enabled/Disabled inputs for the mapobj_cart_dispenser entity
• Added ability to add custom colors in chat messages. ^[3] Use either:
  • \x07 followed by a hex code in RRGGBB format
  • \x08 followed by a hex code with alpha in RRGGBBAA format

Undocumented changes

• Added the Mann Co. Store Package.

Notes

1. ↑ Triclops, and Flamingo Kid.
2. ↑ In British English.
3. ↑ For server plugins only, players cannot use these.

TF2 Crate Sim

What more fun can you have than wasting hundreds of dollars in fake money?  If you're an avid crate unboxer then this may not do it for you, but to those who don't have a trust-fund it may be just good enough.  This crate simulator allows gamers to unbox most crates (the latest and greatest aren't there yet, only up to #36).  There is a tally of how much you've spent as well (at Valve prices for keys so if you buy them through other sources then you will have to factor in that yourself).

Poll results: Your opinion on "Duped" items

It appears that few Team Fortress players actually like duped items, or just don't really know what they are or simply don't care.  Loving a duped item may mean getting it for a cheap price or something else we are unaware of.

Poll: Your opinion on "Duped" items

Won't touch 'em!	1406 (42%)
Love them!	641 (19%)
What does duped mean? What's an opinion?	1262 (38%)

Votes so far: 3309
Poll closed 

New update

Team Fortress 2

• Added The Fruit Shoot
• Fixed a rendering error affecting sticky bomb particle effects
• Updated the main menu message notification system
• Updated the Frying Pan so it can also be equipped by the Scout, Sniper, Medic, Heavy, and Pyro
• Updated pl_thundermountain
  • Fixed a build-in-spawn exploit in the Blue spawn room for stage 2
• Community request
  • SetForcedTauntCam player input now accepts a value of 2 to allow the taunt camera to remain even while the player is dead

Undocumented changes

• Added the Dual-Purpose Fruit set.
• Added the Valve Store Shipment Box

New update, new towel & crate w/ stranges and parts...

Team Fortress 2

• Added The Toss-Proof Towel
• Fixed a bug that caused many avatar images to not show up in the scoreboard
• Fixed the Sharpened Volcano Fragment not igniting players
• Fixed damage to buildings applying on-hit effects such as the Übersaw charge ^[1]
• Fixed Sticky Jumper stickybombs changing team when air-blasted
• Fixed large floating point values getting truncated in WebAPI responses
• sǝlıℲ uoıʇɐʇɐzılɐɔo˥ pǝʇɐpd∩^[2]
• Community request
  • Added SetForcedTauntCam player input for map makers to place the player into third-person

Undocumented changes

• Added style names for the Texas Half-Pants.
• Added Mann Co. Supply Crates Series 43 and removed Series 39.
• Added two new strange parts. Strange Part: Posthumous Kills and Strange Part: Allies Extinguished.
• Added files for a third, as yet unused, strange part that tracks kills during Full Moon.

Notes

1. ↑ This also applies to the Black Box, Blutsauger, and Concheror.
2. ↑ Unicode characters forming "Updated localizatation files" upside down in Australian.

PSA: If It Sounds Too Good To Be True...

We've seen this kicking around and just to make sure people are not falling for this scam we want to point it out. Apparently there is a link that scammers are posting that promises to enable you to change the quality of items in your backpack.  Details are in a safe link here.  As with anything, if something sounds too good to be true it usually is.  Even if this were possible, once Valve found out, your account(s) would likely be banned and you would lose everything.  And seeing as this isn't possible and the scammers are just pointing to a phishing program, if you were crazy enough to install it you would likely lose all your items or some trojan would be installed.  Either way you lose.

Stay safe, don't download anything like this.  Duping is over and these schemes aren't even worth attempting.  If you want to make a profit at trading take the time to understand prices and earn it.

update: a few people have wrote to us and tried to equate duping with Valve replacing stolen items.  While the result of both are indiscernible to anyone outside of Valve, it is not the same.  Duping was the uncontrolled copying of hats via the old steam strading and in-game trading glitch. This is fixed.  The other issue is when a player has a stolen/hacked account and items are replaced by Valve, effectively creating doubles if the offender is never caught.  This has always existed and is a smaller scale issue.  It is controlled by Valve and is not "duping".  If this practice upsets you tell Valve about it.

Non-TF2 related: Diablo 3 Beta for PC/Mac for free

Until Monday the 23rd at 1:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, Blizzard is offering free signup to the open beta for Diablo 3.  This is available for both PC/Mac users, thanks for Dealnews for the story here.  You will need a Blizzard account to sign up for this.