Left 4 Dead Megathread - Games

[QUOTE='[GRiM];30485130']I demand Valve release auto tapes with Ellis telling stories of him and his buddy Keith. I need to know. I NEED TO KNOW.[/QUOTE] And release them as audiobooks, HELL YEAH!

Chapter One: That Time Me and Keith Went Scavenging in the Junkyard for Spark Plugs

Chapter Two: In which Keith learns what "statutory" means.

Chapter Three: Keith and the the 3rd Degree 3rd Degree Burns

Chapter Four: The Day the Army Bombed My Buddy Keith.

Chapter Five: horse

-snip-

[QUOTE][url]http://www.l4d.com/blog/[/url] The Train Station Last poll we asked about the difficulty of the Left 4 Dead 1 map The Train Station from Blood Harvest. An odd question for a Left 4 Dead 2 poll maybe, but on the PC side in particular we have a high number of players who have also owned and played Left 4 Dead 1 so they do have some first-hand experience. 50% of the voters think the map is too easy. 27% think it is fine the way it is and 23% of you haven’t played it. So that means, 50% of you are going to be finally challenged by the map, 27% of you might be a little overwhelmed, and 23% are going to in for a treat - just wait until you see the corn fields.[/QUOTE] I'm looking forward to the changes in Blood Harvest and the other campaigns for that matter.

[QUOTE=J4censolo;30521084]I'm looking forward to the changes in Blood Harvest and the other campaigns for that matter.[/QUOTE] I am curious to see what they will change to that map, I was thinking a train crescendo but that was already done in the previous map. But of course, to see what was changed we have to wait for Shit Stream to be finished...

Best case scenario: Cold Shit is canceled and Valve releases the L4D1 campaigns anyway, this time actually putting effort in making the port bug-free and enjoyable for players. Inb4 rainbows. :v:

I'd like there to be more dynamic map stuff, and not something like, "Oh, there's a car in front of the door, let's go 3 more feet to the alley which leads to the same exact place."

[QUOTE=A B.A. Survivor;30527163]I'd like there to be more dynamic map stuff, and not something like, "Oh, there's a car in front of the door, let's go 3 more feet to the alley which leads to the same exact place."[/QUOTE] I remember thinking that by " dynamic weather/dynamically changing levels " they meant that you could play a campaign and it would either be sunny, raining, night or day, and by dynamically changing levels I thought they meant the maps would have hugely different routes and not just an alleyway that would occasionally open up. :saddowns: AI Director 2.0 was misleading as fuck [editline]17th June 2011[/editline] However they did dabble into this a little more in The Passing where it would be a light rain or a heavy thunderstorm, but that still isn't all that different. The dynamically changing routes were still really small subtle changes.

Come to think of it, wasn't Cold Stream supposed to include user suggestions? I was following the suggestion forum for it, and I swear to god as I played it not a single suggestion was used. [I]At all.[/I]

[QUOTE=Blooper Reel;30561777]Come to think of it, wasn't Cold Stream supposed to include user suggestions? I was following the suggestion forum for it, and I swear to god as I played it not a single suggestion was used. [I]At all.[/I][/QUOTE] Probably cause the creator is an arrogant asshole who rages at people who gives him constructive criticism.

Yesterday I noticed in the English subtitles it said "I am reload!" I think the guy said 'Imma reload"

[QUOTE=BrQ;30569620]Yesterday I noticed in the English subtitles it said "I am reload!" I think the guy said 'Imma reload"[/QUOTE] You might've read it wrong, it normally says "Im a reload", although it should really be "I'm-a reload".

[QUOTE=Lordgeorge16;30569998]You might've read it wrong, it normally says "Im a reload", although it should really be "I'm-a reload".[/QUOTE] Ah right, that was it

[img]http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/170/d/5/giantmoray__s_nick__colored__by_scottyhood-d3j9lt8.png[/img]

[QUOTE=Joyful Mystery;30591733][img]http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/170/d/5/giantmoray__s_nick__colored__by_scottyhood-d3j9lt8.png[/img][/QUOTE] Can you make a spray version?

[QUOTE=Lordgeorge16;30595333]Can you make a spray version?[/QUOTE] On it. [editline]20th June 2011[/editline] [img]http://filesmelt.com/dl/Nick.jpg[/img] I think is working... [url]http://www.mediafire.com/?mo0cp6c265yc9iv[/url]

:siren:[B]SORRY FOR THE MASSIVE WALL OF TEXT, PREPARE FOR EPIC SCROLL[/B]:siren: [QUOTE=J4censolo;30527491]I remember thinking that by " dynamic weather/dynamically changing levels " they meant that you could play a campaign and it would either be sunny, raining, night or day, and by dynamically changing levels I thought they meant the maps would have hugely different routes and not just an alleyway that would occasionally open up. :saddowns: AI Director 2.0 was misleading as fuck [/QUOTE] Well, most of that was originally included, because there was some old footage of the parish at night somewhere. The dynamic levels also existed, but they had reasons to get rid of both. Allow me to explain. So, they told us that they planned to have huge different places in maps, like you would go to the other side of the city and possibly get a different rescue. It was abandoned pretty early after they told us. They did this because, well, for one, it was pretty confusing to playtesters and that making huge routes would've delayed production and was too much work. Also, custom mappers would've had to do the same thing, since the AI Director doesn't actually generate the map, so it has to choose from things the mappers place down and what not. Meaning you would get the same experience on Suicide Blitz 2 with those features or without. You can still make them, it's just not going to be on these. The weather part also had some good reasons. The system was very buggy and a lot of times it would be too bright or too dark, the rain storms could go on for too long (Even the whole map!), restricted map travel in areas (yes, the wind got very strong on the DC hotel and people had to wait for it to calm down before going out onto the balcony) and also didn't fit the environment (meaning it might be snowing in the swamp) Now, they could've fixed some of that, but it takes a lot of work to do, and I still think that to a degree you're right and they probably should've randomized it more, but it would be less fun if they kept it like it was when they told us, trust me. Long post :ohdear: [QUOTE=mixshifter;30386693]It really does. There so much they could do with it and have it expand. But I don't know, I think Valve lost their creativity and they should just let it die at this point. The only way I would lay a finger on a L4D3 is if it was everything I've ever wanted in L4D: 1. Good lovable characters that have a lot more to them other than being stereotypical. 2. A wide-spread of weapons that are all balanced, well-made, and well-animated. 3. New infected that are balanced and not a gigantic walking joke (the Jockey is just a ridiculous idea for an infected and is useless 90% of the time in regular versus play), as well as them also having some character to them. (Charger and Spitter are a big success in my opinion.) 4. Better, more polished maps. This is why No Mercy is the most successful map. The surrounding is always changing with every level as well as the environment giving you a lot to look at, while leaving a lot of places for zombies to do their thing. 5. Some sort of customizable system. I don't see the problem in creating your own survivor as long as you do the modeling + voice work. As well as maybe leaving a small kit for creating simple custom characters. If the custom survivor is playing with default characters, they will refer to them as "guy/girl/'you!'/etc." 6. A spectator system that allows you to play as a regular zombie (or maybe a bird like in GMod Zombie Survival?) while awaiting your next respawn. As an option, of course. Otherwise you should be focusing on your next attack. (But that's kinda hard when you don't know what infected you'll be spawning as, right?)[/QUOTE] I think VALVe has a ton of creativity. They haven't lost it, and aren't losing it. You shouldn't be mad that they are making lots of TF2 items and lacking DLC updates. Well, for one thing, they have a system called Valve time, and that basically gives them rights to increase the wait time and never tell us when something will come out. Obviously if they are taking so long to do new DLC and HL2EP3, then most likely it is going to be outstanding quality. I mean, Portal 2 took a while, but it was really fun, and it kept the uniqueness and creativity of the first one. It was a lot of original concepts plus mostly new ones that haven't ceased to amaze people. They have PS3-steam support for it, that's pretty cool. And they are actually making co-op. (Oh, and VALVe doesn't have time to do L4D, that's why they are letting Matthew do this, if they actually cared to work on it, they would make something GOOD.) I don't think VALVe is going to make a 3rd L4D for a while, but if they do, I'll have to counter everything you'll say ;) 1. Most characters (Besides Rochelle) are believeable, and actually have a personallity if you pay attention to dialouge in game and read the comics and the like. You may think Ellis/Louis are a bit too optimistic and crazy, but it's not true. I know plenty of people and friends (including myself) who always try and find the fun out of bad things (like cleaning out the garage in the afternoon and the like). And there is people who don't understand that someone else DOESN'T want to be their friend (I.E. Louis-Francis, Ellis-Nick) in real life, even my buddy Joel does that sometimes( I won't continue on that) 2. There is a large amount of weaponry already, and they are pretty well balanced/fit the gameline well, and their animations make sense if you've actually fired guns before. Besides some of the shotguns, that is. The silenced SMG was a more powerful and accurate but slower SMG, made for players who wanted to effectively take out specials. The Chrome shotgun has a tighter spread and is pretty much for longer ranged shotgun blasts and accurate indoor standoffs. Boomer bile offered a huge tactical advantage and changed all of my strategies, because it is great to divert hordes and also keep a tank or some specials off of your back for a minute, buying you time to react, but it wears off, making it fair. Adrenaline is also my favorite and I use it more than pills because many times I need to react quickly in situations and it offers a quick boost to defib,heal,reload and melee anything away, that 15 seconds is almost crucial to get you across the Parish bridge on Advanced/Expert at the last minutes, and is better to revive teammates with since you are always in a rush, it also makes it great for the Dark Carnival crescendos and for the Dead Center Finale. The defib was put in as a way to be able to revive teammates without looking for a closet, which offers an advantage on the finale and sometimes in versus (minus the point decrease) and on levels that don't have many of them. Incendiary and Explosive ammo and laser sights kind of made my game. The ammo requires teamwork (because you do more damage onto your teammates, and you need to spare it) but is good for specials and tanks when you don't have a grenade or have a dead teammate or two. The laser sight is alright because it just gives you an accuracy boost, not too big, and it's not the most supportive thing, but it's nice to have in open spaces. The military sniper is now one of my favorite weapons because it is a very powerful and penetrative sniper rifle, which actually makes me want to use weapons of the sniper category. It has a slower reload than the hunting rifle, but it is still very good. The Combat Rifle also changed my gameplay experience, since the burst fire allows me to conserve ammo and it's nice for levels like Swamp Fever or Hard Rain when visibility is low but it's still wide open. The AK47 also offered some nice resistance against the tanks and special infected but it's accuracy hurts. The grenade launcher is pretty nifty because it requires teamwork (very high damage to eachother, not good for close range) but is the best at taking out specials and tanks in open finale areas. The chainsaw also makes a good finale weapon because you don't need to worry about zombies being attracted (They already do that) and you have access to Tier 2 weapons. Melee weapons are an awesome concept that really shouldn't have been left out just because of realism, and then they also are good against commons and deterring some specials but you don't want them when you are against a Tank/Witch/Boomer/Spitter because of the close range damage they can do (A chainsaw is good for a witch, though) and I use a melee weapon very often, if not dual pistols or MAYBE a magnum which I think was the secondary weapon designed for taking out special infected. 3. The new infected were pretty good, the walking witch created a bigger challenge to teammates who know they could easily avoid her and skip and speed through the map, since she'll randomly appear around. I think you're right that the jockey isn't that great, but the IDEA of an infected that controls the survivors in a way is a nice concept and could be adapted into something else. The spitter and charger and all the originals, well, that's explanatory. I also think the uncommon commons (CEDA, Riot, Mud etc.) were fantastic because they made sense and created a certain difficulty for any area. 4. Maps have the potential to be more polished and creative, but it's hard to do once you have used up many ideas (Left 4 Dead had Metropolis, Urban, Smalltown, Rural, Barren) already put into use so it's kind of difficult to feel original with a realistic idea. They did a good job with some places by putting the use of those categories into something else (Sugar mill, theme park, hotel etc.) and the maps are still balanced, even though detail could be increased. And yes, a mix of Wide open/Cramped/Interiors/Rooftops/Cliffs in different forms make a great map. 5. Customization might sound cool, but it doesn't entirely fit the L4D style. You can already create your own survivor and voice/models, it's just not an in-game feature. It's not really a feature, it's just available since the game is made up of sound clips and models and that. And also, they would have problems with making the custom survivors do certain dialouge with certain characters, since the stuff you see in game is built into the map (meaning all maps would HAVE to do that to make it work) 6. I've always wanted to be able to play as a horde of zombies, but I don't think we should play as zombie animals, that's not L4D style. Really, I think the 20 seconds you get of respawn time are to get a notice of your allies/survivors locations and decide what you are going to do. plus, if it were only playing as some zombies for that short amount of time, it seems kinda pointless. I hope I've, well, done something. [B]tl;dr READ THE FUCKING POST ANYWAY.[/B] [IMG]http://i51.tinypic.com/o6z3tw.jpg[/IMG] Jesus that took me an hour to write.

[QUOTE=Coco Puffs;30601602]-Coco Puffs' massive wall of text-[/QUOTE] You just summed up every single reason why I think Left 4 Dead 2 is superior to Left 4 Dead 1. I wish I could give you a Friendly, a Winner and an Agree at the same time, but I guess I'll settle for Winner.

[QUOTE=Lordgeorge16;30605696]You just [b] summed up [/b] every single reason why I think Left 4 Dead 2 is superior to Left 4 Dead 1. I wish I could give you a Friendly, a Winner and an Agree at the same time, but I guess I'll settle for Winner.[/QUOTE] Summed up or wrote a book about? :v:

[QUOTE=Coco Puffs;30601602]Well, most of that was originally included, because there was some old footage of the parish at night somewhere. The dynamic levels also existed, but they had reasons to get rid of both. Allow me to explain. So, they told us that they planned to have huge different places in maps, like you would go to the other side of the city and possibly get a different rescue. It was abandoned pretty early after they told us. They did this because, well, for one, it was pretty confusing to playtesters and that making huge routes would've delayed production and was too much work. Also, custom mappers would've had to do the same thing, since the AI Director doesn't actually generate the map, so it has to choose from things the mappers place down and what not. Meaning you would get the same experience on Suicide Blitz 2 with those features or without. You can still make them, it's just not going to be on these. The weather part also had some good reasons. The system was very buggy and a lot of times it would be too bright or too dark, the rain storms could go on for too long (Even the whole map!), restricted map travel in areas (yes, the wind got very strong on the DC hotel and people had to wait for it to calm down before going out onto the balcony) and also didn't fit the environment (meaning it might be snowing in the swamp) Now, they could've fixed some of that, but it takes a lot of work to do, and I still think that to a degree you're right and they probably should've randomized it more, but it would be less fun if they kept it like it was when they told us, trust me.[/QUOTE] I understand how difficult it would be for them to have the maps much much more diverse than they already are with randomized paths. I have spent quite a lot of time in L4D2 Authoring Tools so I've seen a thing or two, especially on their own maps where they're optimized to high hell so I can imagine it would quickly get confusing and overwhelming to have included anymore than they already have. In theory the idea is nice but in practice it would take a lot of work. Something they weren't able to achieve in the time they wanted to release L4D2. The weather changes would've been nice to have had, I didn't expect to see heavy rain and thunderstorms in Dead Center or snow in Swamp Fever. ( By the way, where did you get that information? ) However I would have loved to have subtle changes, like light rain in Swamp Fever or night time in The Parish. I'm fine with the version of L4D2 we have, it's still a great game to me and I love it as much as the first one. It would've been cool to see these dynamic elements in the game, but I'm content without them. [editline]21st June 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=J4censolo;30614794]Something they weren't able to achieve in the time they wanted to release L4D2.[/QUOTE] Also speaking of this I'm a bit sad how much flak Valve received on the announcement and release of L4D2. Honestly I loved it, it wasn't their best game and compared to L4D1 not many people liked it due to under detailed campaigns and a change of atmosphere and characters, but it still turned out great for only being developed in one year. That's a lot more than what other companies can achieve. I also find it a bit sad how in an interview Gabe talks about how he thought the fans would be excited and think that Valve is shaping up a bit and releasing a game so quickly instead of delaying it, only to upset most of their fan base. [editline]21st June 2011[/editline] In the end I found L4D2 to be the fun, have a laugh run & gun co-op game, where as L4D1 is the more atmospheric, gritty horror co-op. Partly due to the locations in either of the games.

[QUOTE=J4censolo;30614794]. ( By the way, where did you get that information? ) [/QUOTE] All over the place. The L4D wiki, Trailers, Videos, Gameplay, Websites etc. It's hard to remember where I found it all, which makes it seem hard tthat I remember this.

[QUOTE=Coco Puffs;30618317]All over the place. The L4D wiki, Trailers, Videos, Gameplay, Websites etc. It's hard to remember where I found it all, which makes it seem hard tthat I remember this.[/QUOTE] This piqued my curiosity a bit and I searched around for a night time Parish but instead found a user made modified version. As usual instead of just modifying it to be night time ( a piss poor job at that, not really surprised here ) they have to go and edit the hell out of the maps and add in out of place props and basically destroy an otherwise fine mapping job. Example of the ugly golden/brown lighting. [img]http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/9251/c5m2darkpark0003.jpg[/img] ( Obviously you can't see anything changed here apart from lighting, but he spoke of how he modified it some more. ) Why is it that nobody can just make a decent edit or port of a campaign without royally fucking it up and changing everything in it to be the way they want it? [sp]Oh by the way this was on SPUF, again, not surprised![/sp] [editline]21st June 2011[/editline] And what the fuck happened here? [img]http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/3427/c5m3darkcemetery0008.jpg[/img]

I don't see a daunting problem.

[QUOTE=J4censolo;30618988] And what the fuck happened here? [img]http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/3427/c5m3darkcemetery0008.jpg[/img][/QUOTE] It got dark? That tends to happen at night. I don't understand what's supposed to be wrong here.

[QUOTE=Kyo;30621858]It got dark? That tends to happen at night. I don't understand what's supposed to be wrong here.[/QUOTE] Compare this with an official campaign at night time. You can actually see the fucking ground instead of it being a big black oil spill of shadow. The people who make these don't know how to make it look like night time yet still be pleasing to the eyes.

[QUOTE=J4censolo;30621917]Compare this with an official campaign at night time. You can actually see the fucking ground instead of it being a big black oil spill of shadow. The people who make these don't know how to make it look like night time yet still be pleasing to the eyes.[/QUOTE] That "big black oil spill of shadow" is what you see on the ground at night in real life if there's not a light source nearby. :hurr: