Team Fortress 2 Beta Begins

296w ago - Last night a gaggle of old-school Team Fortress Classic fans flocked to Steam for their first shot at playing Team Fortress 2, a "beta" only available to those who have pre-ordered The Orange Box through Valve's download service. Unfortunately, as tends to happen with these anticipated downloads, there were some hiccups in the process.

The problem began early when Team Fortress 2 became the first Orange Box game available for download. The rush to Valve's servers was unprecedented, meaning that many excited gamers got a disappointing "Our servers are currently too full" message when trying to pre-load the game. Further issues throughout the night were dutifully chronicled by ShackNews.

At one point well past midnight for most eagerly awaiting players, Valve's Erik Johnson stopped into the ShackNews chatroom to leave this update on the source of the delay:

"We're really close, just a few issues with the Linux server. We just released the Win32 server, so if people are running those, they can get started. If we don't make it with linux in the next hour or two, we'll just fire away with what we have and get linux out as soon as we can."

Whatever the problems, Valve got them worked out eventually, leaving several hours to play before people had to start leave for work. Congrats to those currently enjoying the beta. If you're waiting for the console release or just aren't ready to take the plunge on Orange Box yet, suit up for 1UP's preview.