Valve, I'm just going to warn you, RIGHT now: do not, I repeat, do NOT, replace the Heavy Update with the Scream Fortress Update
Valve, you're on very thin ice with the community, as of now.
You can't really afford to make any more mistakes, right now.
So, I feel I should say this, right now: do NOT pull another Tough Break on us, in the sense that it essentially replaces a major update, minus a select few holiday-related items and cosmetics.
After the absolute mess with Scream Fortress VIII, I'm not willing to take anything of what you say at face-value any more.
It doesn't matter if the Heavy Update does somehow live up to the hype, and it's considered an awesome update. People are still going to get pissed if this replaces it for the second year in a row.
And, if your reasoning as to why it releases around then is, "Well, we wanted to get this Update out as fast as we could. But, because of what happened with Scream Fortress VIII, and how all of you wrote that you wanted a deadline, we had to postpone it until then!", you need to take that thought process, and go take it out back, Old Yeller-style.
First off, the only reasons why we asked for extensions is that, not only did the Update make it so that a large portion of users (Mac users) couldn't even play a regular game outside of the Halloween stuff, but, for the rest of us that actually could play the game, nearly EVERY little thing related to the Halloween aspect of the Update didn't work.
No Merasmissions, faulty Gargoyles, and especially the inflation of those stupid cases on the market, since a select few that could get them sold them for upwards of $20!
Secondly, we asked for an extension of, at the very most, the days that we had "lost" during the start of the Update that had resulted in utter chaos. While the gesture was incredibly thoughtful, you didn't need to extend it all the way out to the 16th of November. Especially if that, in some way, affects the release of the other Updates.
That's not even mentioning what's going to happen if the Heavy Pack Update turns out to be complete garbage at release, like the past two (Pyromania and Meet Your Match) have been.
Not only is that going to mean that a lot of people will be pissed that this happened three times in a row, but, this will also make the people who look forward to the heavy update doubly enraged.
I can just see the Reddit posts, now.
"The TF Team replaced heavy update, again, with THIS? What the actual FUCK?"
It'll just be like adding salt and lemon to an open wound........and then giving that area an Indian Burn.
This next Update, as much as we hate to admit it, might be the make or break for TF2 for a lot of people.
Contrary to what you might think, people aren't going to be pleased and stick around after three failed Updates with band-aid fixes throughout, and play something that replaces a (supposedly) annual holiday Update, regardless of how good or bad it turns out to be.
The best solution, at this point, would be to maybe not go so gung-ho on trying to complete this Update by virtually abandoning others (see SFVIII's initial blog post), and maybe open back up a open beta session for actual direct feedback (not Stress Tests, mind you, Open Betas, since we all know how the stress tests worked, last time), so as to not fuck up one of the most "stigmatized" classes in the game.
There's a reason we have the phrases "pootis" and such, after all.
Now, I know what many of you are going to say:
"OH, Swizzly! Valve employees aren't going to look at this because they rarely ever listen to the Reddit community on stuff like this, so, get off your high horse. They're not gonna mess up or cancel a crucial update!"
And, to that, I say two things:
1.) We've been shown time and time again, especially during Meet Your Match, that Valve employees have indeed shown up on this subreddit, and will respond to any constructive criticisms or feedback after an update's released.......I don't necessarily think that's the best way to fix updates, myself, but, whatever.
AND
2.) Need I remind those people who say this that these were the same people who shoved a system down our throats that was broken, despite months of stress tests and community feedback, removed a way to play that had been a staple of the game for up close to a decade, and completely half-assed a supposedly "copy-paste" Halloween update.......and still managed to fuck that up, to the point where some users couldn't even join a single server, at all?
According to the blog post they've made, though, with the link from frompyrowithlove.com, they could be taking this a bit more seriously than we thought.
Then again, we are talking about the same people who had showed B4nny the Competitive Update to tell people about, and subsequently flabbergasted all of us (including him) with the result, despite the posts, and these are also the same people who wanted to buff the Reserve Shooter, buff the Phlogistinator, and nerf the Bison.
Let's just say I'm no longer taking anything the TF Team writes on the blog or says to other TF2 professional players as law, anymore, and forgive me for taking it at face-value and for being skeptical.
Valve, you're already on two strikes with us.
Please don't let this be one of the few times where you actually count to three.