f13.net

5 minutes bitches.

So, 10 minutes until we hear about how grossly over/underpowered one/some of the Infected are?

This game will be short lived. It's got no staying power, not with only 4 levels. Once you memorize them you know exactly where all the safe zones are, where to run, where to pause, and what to do.

I expect moderate popularity for the first 2 months and then tapering off to only the super hardcore. It's a casual game that's priced out of casual play.

If it was retailing at $30 or less, I would extend that time by several months.

I said elsewhere that 2 weeks is a lot of fun. 2 months is four times that amount of fun. Sign me in!

More seriously, I see your point, but who cares? Without a REAL versus system it'll have the typical staying power of a single game. Doesn't matter how fun is to play together, it's still a "story mode" from point a to point b. You can replay it, but there's no competition so it follows the fate of every single payer game. Your prediction is realistic to me but what's wrong with it?

Box sale ---> 1 to 8 weeks of fun ---> done with it.

Isn't that the same with any non-(100%)-multiplayer game?


Oh, and updates/new maps/chars/modes for the win.

I think a lot of people around here keep underestimating the Director. Playing for a couple hours last night with random people produced some interesting results and not just from them. The director really is a thing of beauty. My point is that you only know where to run, if that. The rest can change just based on the monsters you encounter.

I agree though, as with any game, it'll taper off after 2-3 months. I don't think it'll be that significant though especially considering they already have TF2 maps working with L4D.

My problem with the game is the pacing.  Everybody runs too fast, there's no communication, and for the most part it's a mad dash for the safe rooms interspersed with a little bit of gunplay.  I'm actually having more fun in single player than I am in pick up groups.

Are you playing on expert? That runs I spent on Dead Air last night on expert were amazing. We never made it beyond the third leg, but howdy it was fun. Mad dashes won't help you against swarms of undead with a witch just on the edge of the fight.

I don't know what you're playing >_>

You know as well as I do Schild that it all depends on the group of people. Some people refuse to communicate and just play it like a shooter. I encountered 2-3 groups like that last night.

Gulp, once you land a fully voice chatted group, you won't have a problem. If one person becomes the "leader" and starts calling stuff out, the game hits a whole new level of awesome.

I hear that Xbox users can play with PC users. Confirm?

This game is a blast in a lan environment so you can throw things at the guy next to you who thought throwing a molotov was a good plan to get that zombie swarm off me.

AFAIK, Neg.

Nobody is ever going to be fool enough to make an FPS that lets consoles play with PCs.  There's no way to balance the two.

Didn't Shadowrun allow that?

Patches is a bigger issue that keeps PC and console games separate.

But with the 360 you can force a game to get patched before you allow online play ..

Doesn't matter.  Console manufacturers require a much higher level of QA (both from the manufacturer themselves, i.e. Microsoft, and from the developer itself).  It's a much slower process to get patches approved for console then it is to get them approved for pc games (whcih just requires the developer to give the go ahead).

This means that if they find a issue with cheating on the pc, they can't immediately release a patch due to the console version.

With an install base of five Vista gamers, it didn't really matter.

Fury tried it, it took about a week for them to segregate them because the 360 players were getting completely destroyed.  Boom, Headshot!  I just can't play shooters on a console, it drives me batshit trying to strafe my crosshairs across the target and thinking "With a mouse, I'd be picking 'right eye, or left?'"  Mass Effect is a completely different game when you get headshots more than half the time (I played it both ways).  If it doesn't come out for PC, I usually don't play it, I don't even play most of the sneakers because without the mouse "head flick" to find a vector for a sound while it's still playing, it's just not the same.

--Dave

Fixes out today

General


Fixed Survivors being able to climb surfaces marked for versus infected only

Fixed a class of SurvivorBot bugs dealing with rescuing downed players

Players can no longer grab ladders while flying through the air after a Tank punch

Shooting near a car with an alarm that has already fired the alarm will no longer make chirping noises

Improved loading time

Fixed mini-gun physics exploit

Fixed propane tanks (and other physics objects) causing players to fall through elevators

Fixed rare achievement bug issues

Fixed several map exploits

Fixed various match making issues

Fixed NAT traversal issues


Versus Changes

Added HUD elements to show status of other infected players

Changed color of infected player name in chat to red

Fixed exploit where players could spawn infected bots

Fixed instance where a Survivor changing to the infected team would be attacked by infected bots

Normalized special infected melee damage

Made the following client commands cheat protected: "Kill" and "explode"

Fixed exploit where infected players could run away and teleport back to gain health

Players can only change teams once per map

Players can't change teams while other players are still loading

Tank spawns at the same % through the map for both teams in versus mode

Made the Tank and Witch spawn directly on the escape route

Increased chance of getting the Tank or Witch

Fixed team swap issue


Hunter

Easier to pounce a Survivor who is meleeing

Increased Minimum damage a Hunter pounce does


Smoker

Fixed Smoker tongue tolerance

Smoker now has to be killed or the tongue destroyed for the tongue to break

Survivors cannot bash someone off the tongue until the Survivor being pulled is paralyzed or hanging

Tongue attacks that fail to paralyze or hang a Survivor will use the shorter ability delay timer

Fixed cases where the ability timer was not using the correct time

Fixed case where you could point at a Survivor but not register a tongue hit

Fixed Smoker tongue not targeting and landing properly through PZ ghosts

Smoker tongue does damage every second while dragging paralyzed Survivors


Tank

Bashable objects now appear with a red glow

Tanks hitting a car with an alarm disables the alarm permanently

Tank frustration timer is only reset by hitting Survivors with rocks or fists

Reduced autoshotgun damage against Tanks


Witch

Witch spawns at the same % through the map for both teams

Avoids spawning within a certain % of the tank

Fixed an exploit where the Witch could be woken up and tricked into attacking Survivors




Excited bout smoker changes. Makes him a little more useful. Team switching changes are meh.

Just went on a test run. Smoker kills now. Survivors have to worry more about getting as far as they can rather than completing the map. Bad teams that used to make it to safehouse through sheer luck will get destroyed in the first part of the map.

To sum up, holy fuck. It's like playing versus on expert.

I wonder if they fixed the bug where online campaign games turned into versus after you reached the first safe room.

I haven't really run across that one, so I'd say yes.

It didn't happen every time, but when it did, it didn't go away until you restarted or someone else hosted.

Started playing with my brother again. I'm reminded why we stopped. Every server has the worst fucking ping in the world.

You should locally host campaigns on the best machine out of the 4 players.
Don't host a versus, it too hard even for top of the line computer.

I think you have the worst luck in the world Nix.

It might help if the matching making/browser wasn't so fucking brain damaged.

That too, but for the most part it's either 1 red bar or 2 orange.

Maybe I'll run a dedicated server on my old computer.

openserverbrowser is your friend.

Still a piece of shit.

Anyone want to get together one of these nights and plow through expert mode?  I really haven't found a group that was good enough to do it yet.

Count me in. Don't worry, my brother and his buddy will not be in attendance. They have much to learn.

What a I really want is some strats for playing infected in Versus. We can get totally decimated as survivors by teams working well together but we never seem to be able to co-ordinate as well. Any hints?

Voice chat. It's a must. You have to be able to time the boomer vomit with both the hunter and smoker taking out 2 survivors. That way the other 2 are left fending off the rush.

hunter sucks, boomer can't do shit.
i still much prefer the smoker over other infecteds. Especially on a map with manhole, ladders or ledges. Just wait for the right time to pull the isolated ones and make sure your team isn't full of retards who don't even know how to use each mechanics.

But I'm quite annoyed with their pistol damage while incapacitated. It still hit pretty hard. I had one instance I pulled one guy while he was trying to revive his teammate, but i got killed by the dude on the floor. Assholes.

I did alright as a boomer the other night on one of the No Mercy maps where I hid in a room and vommed on them whenever they went past. They got swarmed in a corridor and I just waited. When they cleared the horde, my vom timer had reset so I did it again. Managed a third time before some bright spark worked out that I must be in a room nearby.

Generally I am hating versus but would like to love it.  And I am currently the retard who doesn't know how to use each of the mechanics.  Is it even possible to play versus against the AI or in anyway as a single player - it's the only way I'm going to be able to work it all out.

You can, but the AI has pinpoint accuracy and knows you're there well before you are.

Hehe.  Noobs need some help.


Boomer : the most important infected. Your team mates will hate you if you die with out a successful vomit or explosion.  The easiest way is to spawn in front of them with a protected angle, a few second before they reach you (this will reduce their reaction time because they wont hear you for more than 2-3 sec).  Mastering the boomer explosion is harder, you can throw players over an edge with a god explosion (the explosion that kill you),

Hunter : Learn to leap form a building or a cliff.  You can also try to leap to the sky and drop on a survivor but it's harder than a simple leap. You can do up to 25 dmg.  Here's a video with some good example : http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhx8Yn0c83s (http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhx8Yn0c83s) 
Inside building, wait for a boomer vomit and simply claw the survivors.

Smoker : Wait for a boomer or catch the last one to leave an hard to reach area (the players will have trouble coming back to save him, sometime it's impossible and you will kill him no mather what the players do).

Tank : don't pass trough fire.  It's not a problem if your timer runs out, an other player will get the control.  Don't rush survivors if they are waiting for you, throw stone from a distance until your partner can start some chaos.  Use cars and logs when you can.

Left 4 Dead Survival Pack announced (http://store.steampowered.com/news/2223/). DLC includes SDK for PC users, new Versus campaigns and Survival mode.

When I first saw that, I was like  :drill:

Then I saw the release date, and I was like  :uhrr:

Damnit.

It's not like Spring is that far off.

Call me naïf, but for some reason (read: lack of longevity of L4D) I was expecting lots of free upgrades as they did for TF2.
I'll buy this one but unless I missed something I am somewhat disappointed.

It's free. For the PC at least.

That is the part I was missing then! Are you sure? Anyway yay!

Pretty sure it's free but they're re-releasing a retail version which has all the DLC included on it as well.

Hopefully the SDK will let people put in Romero zombie mods as well as being a campaign builder. I'll also put money on the fact that the first user created map/campaign to be released will feature a Mall.

Did the TF2 SDK let new game types be developed?

Not really.  For instance, people made pl maps that were a bit less pretty before Valve actually released the pl map stuff.   There are creative uses of existing mechanics (Like cp_steel), which are a bit different, but not really entirely new game types per se.

Some of us have already been messing around with user created maps in Left 4 Dead, you can sort of fake Hammer into letting you use the content in L4D, but you've got to do a bit of work.

http://www.l4dmaps.com/

Valve has heard you and many others like you: It is free. (http://store.steampowered.com/news/2234/)

Survival Mode will hopefully be a ripoff of Zombie Survival. In which case, it will instantly become a game I play too much. I fear for my personal time.

Unfortunately I fear when survival mode comes the best place to be is standing in a closet.

I know! I can't wait!

I kinda hope at some point they do something about the "unassailable corner" defense.  The game was more fun before everyone figured that one out.

Depending on the corner, it's breakable. It just takes coordination. Smoker does a quick pull to disorient, boomer with the vomit and as the rush happens hunters jump into the fray. It works about 50% of the time.

Smoker tongues get broken by bashing at the person being pulled, and since everyone in the corner is bashing constantly, this is not usually difficult.  Assuming the smoker can even get the tongue to land before someone sees it and pops it (they have their backs to the corner so you can't approach from outside their field of view).

Hunters have similar issues; the leap will be interrupted half the time by a bash (it seems like you can get around this by coming from above, assuming you don't have one person who bashes up), and the rest of the time you'll be knocked off the victim before you can get your first claw in.

Boomer hordes are pretty much irrelevant if you have a wall-of-bash up.  Even one person can hold off a horde pretty easily with their back to a corner; with four it's not even a minor inconvenience.

Now, if someone fucks up, you can always take advantage of that, but if you're playing against four people who know the trick, it's pretty much impenetrable, even by a Tank.

The simplest fix to my mind would be to make players block other players, so you can't fit four people into one narrow space.  The usual reason for not wanting this (griefing) is pretty much out the window with L4D since it generally makes it really easy to screw your own team anyway if you're so inclined.

Even with the smoker pull changes you will not break any corner dog pile by even semi-competent players. I was thinking give the smoker a DoT effect with the smokescreen that happens when one dies. Forcing the group to move or take progressive damage from remaining still. Melee/stacking creates an impenetrable barrier that is next to impossible to break. Maybe a new zombie with some form of ranged/AoE attack?

Something is needed to force movement. Every encounter will quickly devolve into the survivors hiding in a corner/room and be neigh invulnerable regardless of what the infected do.

You CAN Break those situations, but it just takes WAY too long, so it's generally not worth it.  Most players playing hunters jump directly at their prey, when if you come in from above them (leap JUST over their head) you can pin even through continual melee attacks.  You get knocked off pretty quick though.. So the chipping away of heath through attacks is way too slow.

Pouncing for 3 damage (any pounce with more distance you will be gibbed in air or smacked by melee) to be instantly knocked off is not "breaking the circle". And even being able to land that very ineffectual pounce is a rare proposition. Even if on fire you will do more damage just running up to them in the swarm and meleeing the survivors a majority of the time.

Chipping away at a team in a corner is not about pounces. Its about using the boomer and hoping someone gibs you while on top of the survivors forcing a knock back effect and giving your team a "brief" moment to pounce/pull. But as i said this wont work on even a semi competent group of players.

Perhaps I am missing something here, but how is the group moving forward if it is constantly in a shield wall in the corner?

They cant move forward of course but any corner in the game can be used for this. So any tank/swarm/event is instantly and easily nullified. There are ways to use this to your advantage (very cheap/exploity ways). It just generally makes versus pretty damn boring and its far to effective.

A well done pounce also does some knockback, btw.  It's just not easy to pull off.

You don't do this all the time, just during the "event" sections where the idea is to defend against a rush for a set amount of time.  In No Mercy, that'd be the door-opening in the subway (everyone gets under the pipe in the corner to wait it out), the ladder-raising before the sewers (everyone gets in the building across the way to wait it out), the elevator in the hospital (everyone gets in the corner next to the ammo pile to wait it out), and the rooftop rescue (everyone piles in between the AC units to wait for the chopper).

All the rest of the time, there isn't that much to defend against unless you're up against a very organized set of Infected players who'll make a coordinated strike en route.  Even then there are a finite set of good "ambush spots" on the map that an equally organized set of survivors will shield-wall to wait out (i.e. they'll hole up until the infected get bored and try to dislodge them, which generally ruins the ambush and lets them proceed to the next point).

Yes, this is pretty much exactly my experience of the game.  Its really a shame, but versus mode is pretty much ruined to me.  People generally don't cheese their way through campaign mode this way, for whatever reason.   As soon as they are competing with actual players instead of a computer, people just want to win at all costs without a lot of regard for anything else.  In campaign mode, the game does a pretty good job of making you feel like you really are in a zombie apocalypse movie, which is the appeal of the game to me in the first place. 

*shrugs*

So uh.

I'm going to be called a retard for this I'm sure but....

I just played left 4 dead for the first time tonight (I kinda took a haitus from gaming for a bit).  Except for the game freezing on me this is freaking win.  Most fun I had gaming in a good while. 

That is all....

I still have fun on this game. Played the shit out of it too. My hunter needs some work yet, but I'm good to darn good with everything else.

How can killing zombies with friends not be fun?

I'm going to echo the sentiments of KallDrexx above me--sans the freezing issue.  This was my first time playing as well, and when the Bill I had been playing with through the No Mercy campaign got pulled off the pad right as the helo landed--well that pretty much made the game for me.  I shot the smoker that tagged him, of course, but he was lost to us in the wave of undead, and all that was left was to look on as the survivors hopped into the chopper.

The game's still actually pretty fun and I'm still playing it a fair bit.  It's just not as fun as it was before people "solved" it IMO.

This would be why I didn't buy the game. Seemed a very short life span, if you'll pardon the pun.

To be fair, most FPS games end up that way, folks figure out the maps and it's just going through the motions. I remember in UT trying to see how many seconds it would take to win some Assault maps. Meh.

I don't understand what you mean.

Before people knew the optimal play patterns, it felt more like a zombie movie.  When one of those big rushes came, people would try to cover doorways and windows and gun down the zombies before they could get close.  It was awesome.  Now, it's all corner-crouching and clubbing.  Less awesome.

Take, for example, the elevator rush in the hospital level of No Mercy.  The first few times I did that bit, it was by crouching behind the little barrier in front of the elevator (the spot that looks like it's set up as a defensive position) and shooting.  Two people would shoot down the hallway, with the two others guarding the flanks as the zombies started to break down the walls.  When the elevator came, there was a fighting retreat to get inside, usually with everyone just making it in as the door slammed on the zombies.  It was exhilarating.

Now?  Every single time, it's "crouch in the corner and bash until all the zombies are gone."  You can't even see the zombies because you're wedged inside the other three people.  But if you don't get on board with that, you're dead because nobody's going to cover your stupid sub-optimal ass.  The opening of the door and corresponding zombie rush isn't even exciting any more, because you can just stay in that corner until the wave of zombies finally runs out and then stroll into the elevator without a care in the world.

Oh. I play so very little. Rather, I play when I need a zombie fix. Assuming Survival Mode is a ripoff of Zombie Survival, my playtimes will drastically change. I wonder if Valve can do the earlier versions of that game justice. It was a delightful mix of bad design and insanity. They need to add the ability to move furniture.

What got solved?

I'm pretty sure what he is trying to say is that the game was very fun when it was new, because no one was "pro" at it yet, and it genuinely did a good job of being a survival/zombie game.  However, now that people have figured out optimized paths through maps, stuff like closet stacking/camping, etc, the game is less fun because its just about exploiting game mechanics to win. 

Happens to pretty much every game, to be fair, but I do agree that L4D was hit particularly hard by this.

Yeah, I'd say it was a bit more fun when you didn't know where to go and shit would suddenly hit the fan.

We're LAN'ing this up tonight.  Should be exciting as one of our friends have never played, and I haven't played past the first mission thingy.

How? I'm not aware of any way to run your own games right now with out an account on steam.

We all have accounts on Steam and all own the game....

I think you might have just blown Bloodworth's mind.

Not really, this is what me and a group of friends do, i was just wondering if he had found some way around this and was able to run local servers ETC..

EDIT: The friend that never played made me think this.

Finally got around to doing some co-op over the weekend.  It's still a damn good time, but yes, having people know the "optimal" path lessens the OH SHIT WE ARE FUCKED GAME OVER aspect of the game.   Still worth playing though.

Upgrade yourself to playing versus. Oh so much better.

As a non-rhetorical question... Am I the only XBOX L4D player on here?

I have both. I refuse to play the 360 version.

Standard console FPS controls gripe or are there any other differences?

I have both and I prefer the 360 version, mostly because my computer kind of sucks these days.  If I had a more modern system I'd much prefer it I'm sure.

Controls mostly, but there are some slight adjustments they made to the game, but none to make it more manageable. Expert is pretty much impossible unless you pull the exploits that people use in the PC version. At least in the PC version you stand a chance without corner hugging or closet stacking.

I feel your pain. Though the problem is really map related then players simply playing to win. Your talking about No Mercy, which is really survivor friendly map. You see normal zombie logic dictates city = bad, country = good. L4D logic is quite opposite, No Mercy provides lots of corners and very little points of ambush. Blood Harvest, less corners tons of places to ambush along with visual cover to hide yourself (especially the corn field). Most vs matches happen in No Mercy so the corner humping is a problem. There are better solutions to the problem than the one you mentioned.

1. Allow normal zombies one more attack option. A simple attack option would be an infected (normal) who grabbed and tossed a survivor behind him. It would work like the smoker tongue except you don't brake it when bashing, only by killing the zombie while he holds a survivor will prevent and free the survivor before the infected throws him into the horde.
2. Increase the chances of a tank showing up in No Mercy. No matter how good survivors are, a good tank will break things up and open up opportunities for the infected to do major damage.
3. Maybe allow players to choose what type of infected they want to play. Though I'm pretty sure L4D vs mode wasn't balanced around that. It would provide more strategic freedom and give the infected side more options to break those situations.

Any three of those solutions by themselves would shake things up. If all three were magically implemented  :drill:

Finally got around to playing, i like the latest changes.

 :awesome_for_real:

10 Cranium-Consuming Left4Dead Mods (http://www.fileplanet.com/fileblog/archives/2009/03/entry_1366.shtml)

(http://www.fileplanet.com/fileblog/images/Left4DeadMods/screenshots/Steroids-3.jpg)

(http://www.fileplanet.com/fileblog/images/Left4DeadMods/screenshots/KittyHunter-1.jpg)

 :drill:

Hmmm, new update on Steam adds Melee Fatigue and Boomer bile no longer being blocked by normal infected.  Has anyone tried this yet and see if it makes a big difference?

Played a vs. last night where the opposing team literally bashed there way straight through to the safespot, so I'd say no  :awesome_for_real:

Just got Zombie Genocide.

Melee fatigue is interesting.  It's changed my playstyle a bit - in some places where I used to just spam melee, I now use my gun a bit, to avoid the melee fatigue timer.  It does make the fact that you can melee while reloading much more obvious though, which feels like a bug...  Instead of constant melee, it's now more like melee 3 times, shoot 3 times, hit reload, and while reloading, melee 3 times, shoot 3 times, etc...  I think it's a good change.

I haven't played enough to really notice the boomer bile yet, but I did notice the downward change (if you're shot while jumping down near some players, your explosion can hit them, rather than totally missing because you're still above them).

DLC hit PC/360 today.

Anyone tried it?

Updating it now, going to see what's new in a bit.

 * Edit:

Both Dead Air and Death Toll are now officially playable. People are bad at this game. Haven't tried Survivor yet. May be some minor tweaks to Boomer and Smoker health (might have been upped).

I know Schild launched it last night.  Him not posting since you asked probably means he's beating up zombies.  Or he got eaten by one. ;D

hmmm tempted to start playing. I burned myself out after the first month of 20+ hours a week.

Officially playable? In VS?

Sorry, should have clarified that. Yes, playable in versus officially, with no serverside hacks required. I routinely yell STRIKE FROM THE SKY BROTHERS while hunter leaping off the church roof in Death Toll.

I play'd some Survival and even tho I and the people I played with sucked it gave me a fucking kick. Need to do this with smokes or blow :drill:

Found myself in a random Survival group the other day that worked surprisingly well. We survived for slightly more than 10 minutes (Enough for Gold achievement, woho!) in two different maps - the lighthouse and warehouse - and then 6-7 minutes in a third I can't remember before the group eventually broke up. Other groups I joined weren't as coordinated, but overall it's been much fun, and the Survival-mode really put the emphasis on the importance of team-work, more so than the Campaign/Versus modes where other players were as likely to run for the safe-room and leave you behind as to watch your back - you'd respawn in the next chapter, after all.

We should get togehter and play some.

Sure, I'm game.

Schild, Sam, Some other dude and I just played a few rounds of Survival. It is damned fun! Trying new things, failing miserably and sometimes succeeding create some interesting results.

I should play some tomorrow.

If someone would throw me an invite to the Steam group I'd be up for some games.

Didn't see this mentioned but the game is 40% off this weekend.  You can also download and play it free for today only.

Played it, had some great experiences and some not so great.  Its one of those games that loses its charm quickly once you l2p.  If I thought that I'd get some sessions sans asshats or if I knew they were going to be releasing new campaigns I'd bite but I'm still on the fence.

Brilliant marketing move though, hook em with one free day but its not long enough for them to get sick of it.  Then advertise the discount and profit.

It's quite enjoyable to play with friends but playing with random pubbers gets old quite fast.

A healthy friends list is a must for this game.

So very very true.  If only my friends were able to play when I can though.. :(

I think this game has legs.  I've played it a ton, and haven't gotten bored yet.  Gameplay is just unique enough to keep everything exciting.  Everybody is right that playing with friends makes it much better, but I've still had fun playing public VS. games.  Even though I want to skull fuck most the other players out there.

WTF is with people not understanding that you are supposed to right click the hunter off me when they are close, not shotgun blast me 10 times in the chest?

Pulling in straglers as a Smoker is lots of fun.

Caved and bought this, so yeah would like to play with people who understand teamwork.  I hate playing campaign with people who know all the spawns and anyone who doesn't fuck em just leave their asses.  But not as much as I hate versus, god versus is shit.  You can have some fun sure but there's no way I will play versus in a week.

In VS at least, it makes more sense to shoot them, since you take no damage when you're pinned.  If you knock a hunter off with melee, it gives them a chance to scratch you or pounce again if they're lucky.

I've only played since Friday, but aren't the spawns random?  I thought that was the idea with the director thing.  I've only been doing campaigns in pubs because I don't really have any friends who play this type of game.  But I've had fun so far.  I don't know why people have such bad experiences because in most games I've done we've all stuck together and done pretty well.

It does quite a good job of giving you reasons to work as a team. I just finished playing a game with friends and it's a wonderful game for a bit of atmospheric, co-operative zombie slaughter. It pretty quickly gets repetitive though, few maps, weapons or mobs and the director isn't all that. Tanks are so cheesy too.

Versus mode and the new survival mode I can't stand. The narrative of banding together to survive against the ruthless horde I can get into. Cheesing the game to see how long you can live against a timer or other players just makes the whole thing really artificial and uninteresting.

See what Francis hates:

http://ihatevans.com/ (http://ihatevans.com/)

"i hate when ppl say they luv me how u gone luv me & u damn near dont luv yo self the funnyist shit ppl lie 2 talk so 1991"

Left 4 Dead 2 announced (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/06/01/left-4-dead-2-exclusive-rps-preview/)

Link goes to preview at Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

L4D 2 will officially have a chainsaw.

This thread can now be locked.

L4D 2 better be a HUGE improvement to justify paying for another game that soon after the first one.

And a cast iron frying pan.

Stoked.


Oh shut up.  It's 60 bucks. 

You'll spend more than that on dinner and a movie with your wife/significant other.

You paid $60 for L4D?

I have a bridge to sell you...

I refused to pay full price for L4D and sure as hell wouldn't pay it for L4D2 unless it has a lot, lot, LOT more content.

Actually I have no idea how much I paid for it...I think I got it the day it launched?  Maybe within a week?  So, however much that was.


Do you squeek when you walk?

I paid full price for L4D, TWICE, since I have it for both PC and the 360.  Given how much I've played both, I've more than had my moneys worth. 

Congratulations, you've learned how to make unconstructive, trolling posts.  Good for you!

I don't think I saw anyone post the teaser trailer yet - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSfsMJgypdw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSfsMJgypdw)

I really haven't seen or heard anything explaining why this couldn't be an expansion (even a paid one).

Supposedly it is bigger than the original game. 5 campaigns, all of which are bigger, plus a melee weapon system, a whole set of new characters and baddies, and  a greatly improved variety of weapons, along with the Director 2.0 which has a wide range of new tools at its disposal. In the podcast Chet says it just snowballed from a few ideas into a big set of new stuff that seemed easier to roll out at once. They decided in January to make it a whole new version.

The good news is they are going to continue updating the first version as well, since the community expects that.

They had me at "creates new pathways." I hated the linear feel of L4D and they knew that. They're psychic.

Why does the style now look like L4D and TF2 had a child (L4D2, i mean)? Not really into that, the style of the first title was much better with its gritty style.

Isn't that a cinematic trailer?  I imagine it says nothing about how the game will actually look.

Anyway, I'm not remotely interested in this, L4D flopped big time for me, and I don't see this really making much of a better impression.

Who needs L4D2 anyways now, sounds like Natural Selection 2 might be out by end of the year and for only $20.

Your dead inside. Dead.

Lots of haters of fun in this thread.

I liked co-op mode, but you can only do it so long before its boring, and versus mode suffered from the fact that this game had just a terrible community for the most part.  My gaming time is way better off spent elsewhere at this point.

I just hope they get rid of closets in the new one. Closet camping at the end of Death Toll kinda killed the game for me, although the idea of having your defense reduced to such a tiny space is kinda cool.

Is that the one with the dock and boathouse at the end? Waiting for a ship to arrive?

That's the one. On the ground level, inside the house, are two closets set opposite each other toward the back of the building.

edit:


http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1138

Played L4D today at Valve's room, it fucking rocks the house.  Everything is more refined, I had such a fun goddamn time playing it.  Best thing at E3, besides God of War 3!

Are there any new infected types?  Or changes/enhancements to the existing ones?

There ya go.

(http://www.shacknews.com/images/image-o-matic.x?/images/sshots/Screenshot/12134/12134_4a2470d5e3627.jpg)


Original atmosphere gone. Like i said, its like TF2 and L4D had a baby. Not really enjoying the new stylized look. They had it right already.

WTH are you talking about?  That looks nothing at all like TF2, not one bit.  What exactly is "stylized" in that picture?

It'll be fun for a bit, I'm sure. It's Valve.

But a sequel within a year of the original? From Valve? That's a paid-for rush-job.

L4D was set at night, L4D2 has day time maps. Obviously tf2 has something to do with it.

While I don't agree with MBW on that TF2 stuff...

I do agree with Fabricated that Uncle Phil is one of the weirder choices for a character.

It's the less-detailed TF2-style textures. The models aren't stylized like TF2 is.

That, and the bright colors, And what looks like the lack of all the post process stuff they were so proud of. (http://www.l4d.com/blog/post.php?id=1962)

Fact: ever since the release of TF2, every time Valve announces a new project, every retard on the Internet says "OMG THEY'RE GOING TO MAKE IT ALL CARTOONY JUST LIKE TF2 RAAAAAGE."

I mention this as an interesting piece of trivia, nothing more.

From the sounds of it, the developers were just really excited to keep working on L4D even after the game released.

I'd be shocked if ANYONE at Valve isn't excited to keep working on ANY of their licenses.

Here's how I see it:
This would've been free content if Microsoft didn't get their panties in a bunch when Valve wanted to make the TF2 stuff free on the marketplace instead of charging users. Not to mention the Versus patches. Valve has never been in the business of nickle and diming and really, this is a step beyond that. Four new players, some new maps and melee simply isn't something I can see Valve charging for in a console world where Microsoft didn't exist. But Microsoft said no and EA probably brought down the hammer as well, so Valve had to expand the content a bit to make it worth another $60. It just doesn't strike me as Valve-like, excitement or not.

Good thing i didn't say that then.Allow me to explain my comments then, I was only pointing out, that some of it was similar, I in no way was trying to say that it was drastic, just, that it was there. I also do not use the word cartoon for everything stylized, i use it for cartoons. We had this conversation.

It is not beyond reason to think they would bring some of the optimizations that the styling or creation of assets brought to TF2, to other games, ESPECIALLY if its the same artists making the assets. I do not think its a coincidence that in a lot of the screen shots i have seen, just about every screen, or view had some of the same colors that are very prominent in TF2.

Case in point, the shot i posted above, the player avatars have been intentional "pushed out" of the background with color, to the point of almost being color coded (something TF2, and really any good factional FPS games uses), this is in opposition to the horror gritty look of the original, where at times, other than silhouette, the players could easily be confused for zombie.

I just enjoyed the refined, and accurately captured Horror "Grit" the first one had, that seems to have been lessened in this sequel.

All that said, you know i will buy it, and i am sure it will be just as fun as the original, but for me, visually the atmosphere has been compromised.

Gamasutra actually has an article up about it. (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23911)  They've also pointed out elsewhere that one of the main reasons they're doing this as a sequel instead of just patching stuff in is because the changes made to the Director would have been to difficult to try to patch in.

Has anyone ever used director's mode in the first one?  I didn't even know it existed or what it does or how I would know if it was in use.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
It sounds like it should be a way for a human to control the zombie spawns and whatnot, like a DM with limited resources or versus with chat turned off and no side switching.  That's why I'm so confused when I hear about it.

Isn't the director just the AI for the whole game?  As in, its always on?  It's what causes the weapons/granades/med kits to be in different places every time, as well as the random chance for a witch/Tank spawn.

At least thats what I thought.

Yes, that is what I had always heard. I guess the new one is going to allow more randomized playthroughs.

The director is the AI that controls everything. Determines when to rush you, with how much, what music to play, if a special infected should be involved..etc. Considers things like your ammo, health, position..etc. Hearing that they're doing some heavy modding to the director makes me giddy.

As for the TF2 look, it's just that it's during the day. All of L4D1 was dusk or night time, so no real colours came through. Plus, most of those effects they put in place emphasized shadows, darkness and grit. Daytime doesn't have any of those.

I just think its his bright shirt and the dudes super green hat.

Oh snap, girlfriend.

Yes, forgot. When you're warned of a pending zombie apocalypse, please, change your clothes to reflect the atmosphere.

One of the best Hitler video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQe4tlsfRbY)

I've played it and at no time did I even associate it with TF2.  You people are crazy.

I've always wondered why the hell the survivors are moving at night anyway. Why the fuck would you go camping in the middle of zombie infested woods. Daytime will be just fine I'm sure.

Looks to me like the screenshots just don't have the post processing effects yet.

That, and people need to stop bitching about valve using colours other than brown and grey.

Am I the only one on F13 still playing this?

Occasionally I play it. Sometimes I just need a zombie fix and this is awesome and will stay awesome for a long time.

I think I played for about 2 weeks after I first got it... Just gets too boring with so few maps. Even with pubbies, the variation isn't enough.

I fire it up every now and then. I dunno...TF2 feels more casual, so I usually jump onto that.

Right about the time you show me a good zombie movie with crayon colors.


(http://www.smartcine.com/images/28_weeks_later_still.jpg)

(http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2007/06/01/28weeks.jpg)


Granted, my comments were based off the few screen shots shown at the time, so I am sure its not the case, fully.

I play L4D all the time, did you not get the memo?  :awesome_for_real:

Bloodworth, stfu about the colors in l4d2.  Like, seriously.

Best zombie movie I ever saw had only black and white, and we LIKED it that way!!

Yes, so, because a movie hasn't had colours means Valve is not allowed any creative rights whatsoever.

Hmm I thought the sarcasm was obvious. Guess not.

(http://dl-client.getdropbox.com/u/39720/miscellany/ot/SHL5QA5I674HUX7776NVLA2HTKFGO7SQ.jpg)
I still want a character creator instead of bland stories and bad excuses.

I was replying to MrBloodworth.

Not sure how many are still playing this, those that are might like to have a look at this 3rd-party campaign. I've played it a bit, it's pretty complete and fairly long with some nice level designs.

http://www.l4dmods.com/index.php?option=com_joomloads&view=package&Itemid=2&packageId=156

This mod was surprisingly inevitable: http://left4winchester.net/

New SI bitches!  The spitter!

Also new uncommon common infected, the mud man.

Yep, I got a 2006.

[sniffs] Yep. Smells like a storm comin. Hail most likely.

New campaign coming in Sept. (http://pc.ign.com/articles/101/1010550p1.html)

Hopefully this isn't code for "It's really short compared to the other campaigns."

I think the thing that hurt L4D the most for me when I think about Zombie Survival is the cooperative act of making barricades and sealing up a house or location was 10x as fun as just finding the best way to hide from zombies in a packed group shooting until you inevitably die.

Also, Zombie Survival was just plain better.

http://www.l4d.com/comic/comic.php?page=0 (http://www.l4d.com/comic/comic.php?page=0)

Art by Michael Avon Oeming.