As expected shortly after the 100th wrench was dropped the Engy Update went live!
With that the seventh class update was applied, concluding the update round for the last remaining class.
Of course the update went live in the middle of the night and I was far too tired to give it a glimpse. Especially since all I could have done was to look at the new maps, since getting my hand on the new weapons was likely to be a more lengthy process (or so I thought).
So this morning I took half an hour before work to join a server running the new maps and was pleasantly surprised that within a few minutes I received the Wrangler as an item drop. But time was too short to even try that one out. New maps are always so confusing and I’ve spend half the time trying to figure out where I was and where I was supposed to go, only to get transported back to the respawn by a little help of enemy weaponry seconds later.
But the bits I saw of Hightower and Upward looked quite good. Upward appears to be a good mix of open spaces and sneaky passages. I will certainly have the opportunity to examine the new maps more closely over the next few days.
Speaking of maps:
While the presentation of the update might have been less exciting than the previous ones it certainly made up for that with its content. We have been treated with four (!) new maps; three Valve-made maps (PLR_Upward, PL_Hightower, PL_Thunder Mountain) and one community map (CP_ColdFront). Let’s hope these are good; I’m quite ready for some change of scenery (though the Valve maps are quite similar texture-wise).
The final release also introduced the last unlocks.
The melee unlock is the Gunslinger which additionally enables the engy to place mini-sentries (not upgradable, doing only half damage, faster build). This might be an interesting add-on for dynamic gameplay (like CP) to place quick throwaway sentries.
And yes, Valve indeed snuck in the capability for the engy to move his buildings. If I have seen it correctly a relocated building will downgrade to level 1, but that would be a fair trade-off. Correction: No, the buildings do indeed restore to their previous level. So much for trade-offs 
Almost more than anything else this could change the dynamic of the game. Not only can an engy better keep up with a lot of back and forth (CP), or only back OR forth (PL, A/D), but also it becomes possible to pre-build a building in safety and then simply move it to its destination
On the new weapons I will comment later, once I was able to get a closer look at them (probably from the receiving end only for a day or two).
So ... was that it? All classes updated, case closed?
Will Valve stop developing further class updates and only supervise the development of new community weapons? It’s not an unlikely scenario. Valve has supported and evolved the game for almost three years now. It would be quite understandable if they would take a less active stance in the future.
As far as weapons go I could accept that. Even if future map additions would only integrate community maps I could live with that. But I would really wish Valve would come up with new game modes as a cornerstone for the future evolution of the game.
But for now let’s dive into the engy update and find out if it’s hot, a miss or simply lukewarm ...
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