Left 4 Dead

Sierra Oscar

Overheal wrote: »

does that just effect the l4d servers or will that affect all steam games

if so you can tell them to just ping a command to my client to restart in offline mode

It only applies to games which require lobbies or matchmaking to begin. As both rely on the Steam Friends system, when the friends system goes down so do lobbies and matchmaking.

pixelburp

New DLC For Left 4 Dead:

http://kotaku.com/5329836/left-4-dead-on-a-crash-course-to-new-dlc

Downside? You gotta pay (well the xBox gamers have to, the article's not clear on what it will cost PC gamers considering we have Steam, not MS points to trade with ).

5uspect

Its free for us real PC gamers!
http://store.steampowered.com/news/2708/

pixelburp

Sweet! It's great being a PC gamer sometimes

It would be nice to see some new game-modes too in the near future..

Sierra Oscar

Downtime confirmed:

Beginning at 6:00 pm Pacific time Thursday August 6th, we will be performing software maintenance on some Steam servers. We expect the resulting downtime to last three hours at most, putting the end of the window at 9:00 pm Pacific time.

Some Steam services will be offline during this time. Affected services will include the Steam Community, in-game matchmaking or lobbies, downloading games from Steam content servers, and making purchases from the Steam store. Games that do not rely on Steam matchmaking services should remain playable.

News updates and any further information will be posted in this space.

We will work to make this downtime as short as possible. Thank you for your patience!

Overheal

Outrageous!

Antar Bolaeisk

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

Downtime confirmed:

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That's sometime this afternoon for us isn't it?

Edit: I think it's sometime between 1 and 3 on Friday morning which is generally the time I'm on

Sierra Oscar

Antar Bolaeisk wrote: »

That's sometime this afternoon for us isn't it?

Edit: I think it's sometime between 1 and 3 on Friday morning which is generally the time I'm on

2AM-5AM for us, im nearly sure.

Overheal

Prime gaming time for me: 9PM East Cost

Hey Sierra is DOWII affected or not, because that uses matchmaking through GFWLive.

Overheal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=071KqJu7WVo

witnessmenow

Just so we dont ruin the in the well thread.

There seems to be a few people interested in playing campaigns. I definitly would if I was free, which i am most evenings.

Im already friends with everyone on the other thread who expressed an interest in playing, but if there is anyone else my stean ID is the same as here

New map pack ''Crash Course'' out today.

pixelburp

Downloading it now as I type ...

Sierra Oscar

Here is the PR:

LEFT 4 DEAD CRASH COURSE AVAILABLE NOW

L4D1 DLC2 Expands Award-Winning Game


September 29, 2009 - Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress, and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced that Crash Course -- the second downloadable content (DLC) update for its zombie thriller, Left 4 Dead(L4D) -- is available now for Xbox 360 and PC. To celebrate, Left 4 Dead (PC) is available via Steam for 50% off its regular its regular price thru Oct 1.

Entitled "Crash Course," the latest DLC delivers new single-player, multiplayer and co-operative gameplay to both platforms. Targeted for release in September, "Crash Course" bridges the gap between the end of the "No Mercy" campaign and the beginning of "Death Toll" in the original game, expanding the game universe with new locations, new dialogue from the original cast, and an explosive finale

While containing both Survival maps and a Co-operative Campaign, the primary goal of "Crash" is to deliver a complete Versus mode experience in just 30 minutes, resulting in a streamlined version of the game's existing Versus campaigns. A recharge timer for infected teammates has also been added, and item spawn behavior has changed for more balanced gameplay.

Left 4 Dead is an action horror game from Valve that blends the social entertainment experience of multiplayer games such as Counter-Strike and Team Fortress with the dramatic, narrative experience made popular in single player action game classics such as the Half-Life series of games. Released in November of 2008, L4D has earned over 50 industry awards from outlets around the world and sold over 3 million copies worldwide.

For more information, please visit www.l4d.com. Xbox 360 players may also obtain Crash Course via [FONT=&quot]http://marketplace.xbox.com/games/offers/0ccf0001-0000-4000-8000-000045410830?cid=ValveL4DSP [/FONT]

Nick_oliveri

Pretty short campaign. I dont know what the versus is like. seeing as the dedicated servers were down (AGAIN!) but i hear the roofs (rooves?!) are blocked off in this too like other valve maps.

Seifer

Nick_oliveri wrote: »

Pretty short campaign. I dont know what the versus is like. seeing as the dedicated servers were down (AGAIN!) but i hear the roofs (rooves?!) are blocked off in this too like other valve maps.

Surely that can't be true? The map is designed for versus and one of the achievements is to land a 25 damage pounce The mind boggles at their stupidity if it is.

Played through it in coop last night. It's fine. What concerns me is that there is a lot of places to wander off that aren't the way forward, which prolong a first coop experience but make me think they will never be looked at in a versus game. Also there were shed-loads of guns and ammo on the second level.

pixelburp

Yeah I noticed that in a playthrough last night; there's too many dead ends and little corners you could waste precious moments going down. Maybe it's just because we're so used to the existings maps by now, but I found this new map a tad confusing in places.

grizzly

Crash course? Did they call it that because they had an intern working on it? Boring and confusing map.

I hope they spent so little time on this due to efforts going into L4D2.

Kinetic^

Lads, moving this to the Half Life forum.

5uspect

I have to say I enjoyed the shorter campaign and versus mode.
The original maps are often too long and exhausting for me.

I'm still pretty rubbish at versus tho!

The map itself wasn't too hard to figure out. There were a few abrupt diversions with road blocks etc but I only got really lost on one occasion with a few minor "where the **** am I?" moments. I don't have a problem with the map having lots of cul-de-sacs. You're supposed to be a survivor fighting through a destroyed town full of zombies, not a race track full of zombies.

With the new map randomiser in L4D2 will we see more of this? I think the confusion adds to the atmosphere.

Hercule

Having played it through 2-3 times now I have to say Crash Course is a really boring and average campaign - very short also (only one checkpoint??!!) - most custom campaigns have more variety

imo one of the worst if not the worst official campaign in the game - its as if they took a load of prefabs from other maps and dropped them onto a flat surface

Seifer

Tried to get a game of versus going last night but valve's servers are gone to sh!t so it kept starting local servers. And they unhelpfully removed the audible countdown to starting a local server so you can't stop it as easily. Also using an IP wouldn't connect the lobby to specific server (I know the command changed).
Skimming over the steam forums, they've messed it up good.
The ridiculous number of tier 2 guns on the second level is a bug.
Apparently health items are spawning with too much frequency on all maps.
Also popups from steam friends now appear in the top right corner?
I don't understand how they can take so long to make a map and a few changes and then clearly not playtest it at all during that time

Seifer

They have added to the first band-aid patch:

Made the variable "mp_gamemode" available again. Note that you can also load maps directly with different game modes by specifying it in the map command. For example, "map l4d_garage01_alleys versus" will set mp_gamemode versus for you automatically and load the first map of Crash Course

Added "mm_dedicated_force_servers" to allow specification of a list of dedicated server addresses manually used for searching (ms_force_dedicated_server is depreciated)

Updated shared libraries and DLLs preventing dedicated servers listing correctly, appearing on Steam groups, and being found via sv_search_key

with another:

Item density calculation corrected for Versus games

Fixed weapon density in Crash Course

mp_gamemode now a valid command

New localized audio for Crash Course now available

Fixed achievement issues in Crash Course

Fixed dedicated servers not updating correctly to master server

Increased the timeout to fallback to listen server when searching for a dedicated server to 45 seconds

Antar Bolaeisk

Kinetic^ wrote: »

Lads, moving this to the Half Life forum.

You sir have just confuzzled me greatly. I venture into the "games" forum to see what people think of the new dlc for the game Left 4 Dead and I now find it has teleported to a different forum

Fair enough L4D is a shooter and has some ties with Half Life in that it is made by the same people but why is the added confusion required. The thread seemed quite happy and content residing in the games forum.

Personally I find the massive amounts of forums here nigh on unnavigable and have just gotten used to where the games forum hid. Is there really such need for the massive number of sections? They are after all, just games. Perhaps seperating things out into the different platforms might make for an easier time on us poor confused users (or perhaps I'm the only person in this boat).

Anyways, so what does everyone think of the new DLC, haven't had a chance to try it out myself but will hopefully get some zombie slaying in shortly.

grizzly

Perhaps it should be boards.ie > Games > Shooter > Half-Life

Did I miss something? Does this map incorporate a new map randomiser? If so I'd forgive the bland presentation.

5uspect

grizzly wrote: »

Did I miss something? Does this map incorporate a new map randomiser? If so I'd forgive the bland presentation.

No, that's coming in L4D2. But I was speculating that such a system is likely to produce similar results to the scatter found in CC. Certain sections of L4D2 maps are supposed to be randomly generated. I'm not certain on the details but it may very well happen that you may end up going the totally wrong way more times than once.

pixelburp

5uspect wrote: »

No, that's coming in L4D2. But I was speculating that such a system is likely to produce similar results to the scatter found in CC. Certain sections of L4D2 maps are supposed to be randomly generated. I'm not certain on the details but it may very well happen that you may end up going the totally wrong way more times than once.

Wasn't there some interview suggesting this had been severely toned back, or even canned? I vaguely recall an interview that spoke of how testers were getting frustrated going down paths that the AI had turned into dead-ends.

L31mr0d

pixelburp wrote: »

Wasn't there some interview suggesting this had been severely toned back, or even canned? I vaguely recall an interview that spoke of how testers were getting frustrated going down paths that the AI had turned into dead-ends.

I hope it isn't. Automatic map generation would be perfect for the L4D series. Main reason I quit playing L4D was the campaigns where just becoming boring, it had lost the initial feeling of confusion and fear and had just become a game of repetitive motions through the linear level.

Although I don't know how they'd work it into versus. Whoever gets the map first would be at a disadvantage if it doesn't randomize for the second round. Even if it does randomize for both rounds there are going to be some random routes that are preferable.

Plus I'd hope it would be actual level randomizing, and not specific areas of the map having multiple routes, all but 1 of which will be blocked by a car or dumpster... that would just be lame.

Seifer

L31mr0d wrote: »

I hope it isn't. Automatic map generation would be perfect for the L4D series. Main reason I quit playing L4D was the campaigns where just becoming boring, it had lost the initial feeling of confusion and fear and had just become a game of repetitive motions through the linear level.

Although I don't know how they'd work it into versus. Whoever gets the map first would be at a disadvantage if it doesn't randomize for the second round. Even if it does randomize for both rounds there are going to be some random routes that are preferable.

Plus I'd hope it would be actual level randomizing, and not specific areas of the map having multiple routes, all but 1 of which will be blocked by a car or dumpster... that would just be lame.

The only thing I heard about it was when they first released info on "The Parish" they said there was a certain part of the level that would have multiple paths through it. So I think it will be fairly gimicky and just something to put on the back of the box.
It won't affect gameplay is any real way.

5uspect

From here:
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/09/15/interview-left-4-dead-2s-chet-faliszek/

There are sections, I believe it's in the parish, in the graveyard section, where the map will actually be different depending on how you play.

In certain parts of the campaigns, the Director looks at how you're doing and, as the map starts, lays out that section of the map differently.

That sounds like there are n possible jigsaw type sections that they can piece together.

Also the maps appear to be much bigger so perhaps there may be several static paths through the game.

EDIT. and finally there is more here:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/left-4-dead-2-interview?page=2

Eurogamer: Did you ever discuss using the AI director to move actual geometry around, or is that something that's just never going to be a good idea?

Doug Lombardi: It's something we're toying with. In New Orleans, the coffins are above ground, so you have these mini mausoleum buildings, for example: the first time you go through, the mausoleum will be laid out in a certain way, and the next time it will be different. It's not quite random level generation, but it is doing things with world objects and pathing to give you one more thing to keep you on your toes. Another thing is weather effects. When you're in the swamp for example, you're up to your waist a lot of the time, and one thing we might do is roll in fog effects, so you've got enemies coming at you from ten feet of visibility. Obviously, only if you're doing well will you see that, but it's another way to tailor to people's skill set.