Valve adds 100-player support to Team Fortress 2, immediately tells people not to use it

pcgamer.com:

If you've ever thought to yourself that Team Fortress 2 would be perfect if only you could cram more players onto its maps, you are going to love today's new update. It more than triples the maximum player count, from 32 to 100—and also, Valve says you probably shouldn't do that.

Unlike the big content update that Valve released (but did not make) earlier this month, today's update is a fixer-upper, because somehow people are still finding things to futz with in a 16-year-old videogame. It's a testament to Valve's commitment (although it's not like it's out there making new games or anything) but it also reflects TF2's ongoing popularity: The game that launched in 2007 crushed its all-time concurrent player count record just two weeks ago, thanks in part to the addition of a fat seal, who joined the game in the fan-made map Selbyen, which was included in the summer update.

Still, with that many years under its belt, it can be tough to keep things fresh. That, presumably, is what led to the decision to pop the cork on the player count: It'll be chaotic as hell on the smaller maps no doubt (although that's not necessarily a bad thing—I'd love to try some 50v50 2fort) but it also opens the door to experimentation with larger-scale designs that just wouldn't work (or be any fun) at lower player counts.

Note that letting 100 people crash full-force onto your TF2 server is an «at your own risk» move: Valve said the option «is unsupported and not recommended.» That doesn't mean catastrophe is inevitable, or even likely, but it's definitely on the table. Although that said, it seems to be working pretty well in the gameplay video up top—if you call a raging goat rodeo stalemate «working,» that is. (For the record, I do.)

The new