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Rock, Paper, Shotgun

E3: The Trailers – Left 4 Dead

By Alec Meer on July 15th, 2008 at 12:00 pm.

Redesigned characters and procedural generation in Valve’s upcoming zomcom team FPS, as narrated by Gabe somebody. Never heard of him.

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61 Comments »

  1. 15/07/2008 at 09:05 Leelad says:

    Am I the only person on the planet wanting episode 3 wishing this sap on VALVe resources would GO AWAY IN THE TOILET OR SOMETHING!!

    Looks fun though, wait no it doesn’t GO AWAY!!!

  2. 15/07/2008 at 09:11 delfino furioso says:

    I can’t believe they’ve changed all the characters ;__;

  3. 15/07/2008 at 09:21 Freelancepolice says:

    They’ve not changed them I was under the impression they’re adding these as new characters? It even shows the old characters

  4. 15/07/2008 at 09:35 MasterBoo says:

    Looking great. Been waiting for co-op game like this for years for small LAN parties.

  5. 15/07/2008 at 09:47 MisterBritish says:

    Yeah, can someone confirm that these are extra characters we get to pick, and not replacements? Then again, all the stereotypes are the same; hard nut, cute chick, veteran and, erm, black guy.

  6. 15/07/2008 at 09:50 derFeef says:

    I HOPE they are replacements. I think they have not finished them and thats because the gameplay scenes are with the “old” ones. Looks way better, imho.

  7. 15/07/2008 at 09:52 Freelancepolice says:

    Actually watching the presentation it does look like they’re replacements. I prefer the old army guy but still looks great.

    The visuals have certainly got a marked improvement over the footage a few months back, the filmic filter looks even more prominent and the lighting effects are gorgeous in the fight at the end.

  8. 15/07/2008 at 10:28 Stefan says:

    Leelad: Left 4 Dead was being independently developed by Turtle Rock Studios, before they were acquired by Valve this year. They operate as a subsidiary of Valve, and are probably not draining resources from the team of developers working on Episode 3. Just be patient with them, although all the press is going to Left 4 Dead at the moment (which makes sense since it will be released before Episode 3), that doesn’t mean that they aren’t working on it in the background just as hard (though not as publicly) as the Left 4 Dead team are working on their title.

  9. 15/07/2008 at 10:34 Narvi says:

    They appear to have finally implemented clothing physics. Did you see that tie move when they showed off the black guy’s model?

  10. 15/07/2008 at 10:36 roskelld says:

    Gabe said they’re replacement characters to fit more with the final style of the game.

    I can’t remember what the old ones looked like, but these look great. Really well defined.

    It’s the first time I’ve felt some interest towards the game, which is strange because the Powerpoint presentation for it was something you’d hope to see more at GDC, not e3.

  11. 15/07/2008 at 10:43 Theory says:

    They appear to have finally implemented clothing physics. Did you see that tie move when they showed off the black guy’s model?

    http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/$jigglebone

    Edit: damn thing won’t show the link right. There should be a $ in front of jigglebone.

  12. 15/07/2008 at 10:46 sigma83 says:

    Based off a powerpoint slide I saw on a different video on gamevideos.com they wanted to take what they learned from TF2 about read hierarchy and conveying useful information through character design, and to match the characters designs with their new filmic filter.

    I guess the survivor models were way too muddled up and you couldn’t tell them apart. These seem much more identifiable in a pinch.

  13. 15/07/2008 at 10:47 Captain Bland says:

    I really like the “Office Worker” character model, but I’m not so sure about the others. I think i prefered “Grizzled Ex-Army Guy” with a beard. And “Biker Man” looked better when he was hairier.

    I think what i am saying is Beards is Best.

  14. 15/07/2008 at 10:48 BJ Blazkowicz says:

    Meh, I had better first impressions.

  15. 15/07/2008 at 10:53 gulag says:

    They’ve had this at a playable level for quite a while, and this is Valve, so I imagine play-testing has been exhaustive. If they’re changing the character models, it’s probably for a damn good reason. Can’t wait for this.

  16. 15/07/2008 at 11:04 Someone says:

    IMO best of the trailers of E3,expecting this game.

  17. 15/07/2008 at 11:04 Kitt Basch says:

    No more beard guy :(

    I think I’ll play as Black Shaun though. He’s even got red on him.

  18. 15/07/2008 at 11:10 sigma83 says:

    ‘Based off a powerpoint slide I saw on a different video on gamevideos.com they wanted to take what they learned from TF2 about read hierarchy and conveying useful information through character design, and to match the characters designs with their new filmic filter.’

    …and then I watch the video and I find out the slide is in the damn thing. Way to make me look stupid.

  19. 15/07/2008 at 12:33 DraconianOne says:

    November cannot come soon enough.

  20. 15/07/2008 at 13:21 sana says:

    I liked the other chick more. Bring her back!

  21. 15/07/2008 at 13:41 The Poisoned Sponge says:

    Wow… I had faith in the game before… but now I’m pretty sure I’m going to enjoy it a considerable amount. That director thing sounds like it’s going to make the game extremely exciting, although how they’re going to implement player boss infected into that will be interesting. But yeah… november now please!

  22. 15/07/2008 at 13:54 Subjective Effect says:

    Homage to Tony Todd? Looking good Valve, looking good.

  23. 15/07/2008 at 14:01 Tom says:

    oh yeah baby! This one’s never gonna get old.

  24. 15/07/2008 at 14:06 Alex says:

    Having the black guy as the cubicle worker CAN’T be good for avoiding the honking of the overly PC crowd.

    And I hope they still have the old models in the GCF at least, so people can mod them back in.

  25. 15/07/2008 at 14:15 MeestaNob! says:

    Holy shit, that looks awesome.

    Every time Valve shows us something I’m convinced they get gaming. They make it look good, let anyone be able to play, and at the same time steadfastly refuse to dumb anything down to the detriment of the hardercore gamers.

    I’m officially a fanboy now, I dont care.

  26. 15/07/2008 at 14:37 Saul says:

    They’ve taken it up a notch. I pretty much only play Valve games these days, and this is looking like another to add to the list.

    The director concept is even more awesome than I thought. I don’t care what the character models look like– Valve know best.

  27. 15/07/2008 at 14:47 Don says:

    @Narvi – They appear to have finally implemented clothing physics.

    Not entirely new, in Ep2 Alyx’s belt was separate and you’d see it shifting around if you kept your eyes open. At least that’s my excuse for spending so much time looking at her derriere.

    Wonder if the destructible scenery is just for show or whether they’ll make it part of the gameplay. Give you the option of blowing a wall down to make a shortcut at the expense of expending all the team’s pipebombs, say.

    One reservation I have is that we’ve seen little about the playing as a zombie option. Gets mentioned but not seeing anything in the demos. Whilst playing as a survivor is going to be fun my evil twin is much taken with the idea of sneaking around the rooftops as a hunter and springing an ambush at just the right moment to ruin the survivor’s day.

  28. 15/07/2008 at 14:52 cyrenic says:

    I had the exact same thoughts as Captain Bland on the character design. The “token black guy” voice actor sounded pretty funny, I’m hoping it was intentionally done as parody (Gabe saying they were going for a horror movie feel makes me think so).

    Hearing Gabe talk about the design theories raised my excitement up quite a bit. He’s so dreamy.

  29. 15/07/2008 at 15:07 RichPowers says:

    The new designs are cleaner and better-defined than the old ones. Since the game will have friendly fire (that can’t be disabled), easily identifying teammates will be of paramount importance I’m sure.

    Also, L4D will have a pure co-op mode in case you want the boss creatures to be AI controlled.

  30. 15/07/2008 at 15:11 PaulMorel says:

    whyyyyyy must we keep waiting?!! gawddamn I want this game.

    The only thing I didn’t like is that the director AI seems to implement a kind of ‘catch up mode’ where bad players will still be able to get through the game.

    I prefer multiple difficulty settings over automatically changing difficulty settings. That way if I need to play it on easy, I can. I usually prefer to take the time to work through a game on a medium or difficult setting. I think that it kind of maximizes what a user gets out of the experience.

  31. 15/07/2008 at 15:18 Mman says:

    I’m not so sure on the new characters, but I guess they’ll grow on me after I see a little more gameplay.

    “The only thing I didn’t like is that the director AI seems to implement a kind of ‘catch up mode’ where bad players will still be able to get through the game.”

    I don’t mind if losing is pretty hard, as long as there’s some sort of incentive for doing well, like a ranking at the end. So if you sucked and had to rely on the AI constantly toning it down to survive your team gets a bad rank, while if you survived an entire super-zombie apocalyse while barely breaking a sweat you get a great ranking.

  32. 15/07/2008 at 15:52 The D-Man says:

    I think the old army guy and the biker’s faces are just too similar, they’ve gone from both being hairy to both having very little facial hair.
    I preferred the old characters :(

  33. 15/07/2008 at 16:50 Saflo says:

    If there exists a more delightful term than “jiggle bone”, please let me know.

  34. 15/07/2008 at 17:17 Theory says:

    One reservation I have is that we’ve seen little about the playing as a zombie option. Gets mentioned but not seeing anything in the demos.

    There’s a video of someone playing the smoker on Gametrailers.

  35. 15/07/2008 at 17:30 Malex says:

    Mman: “So if you sucked and had to rely on the AI constantly toning it down to survive your team gets a bad rank, while if you survived an entire super-zombie apocalyse while barely breaking a sweat you get a great ranking.”

    I mostly agree, but I think the whole idea of the system is that you WILL break a sweat, no matter how bad ass you are.

  36. 15/07/2008 at 17:51 St. Andrew says:

    i’d really like it if some info on the sys req’s was out there. seems like most people are excited to play it, whereas i’m wondering if i’ll be able to play it. oh, integrated graphics..

  37. 15/07/2008 at 18:00 Andrew says:

    You poor sod, why do you have integrated graphics?

    They barely deserve the name.

  38. 15/07/2008 at 18:25 Vollgassen says:

    Whoa it’s a guy in a shirt! I want to be that guy!

    The new char designs are a little boring, but I guess they fit the ‘survivor’ idea better than everyone being big and chunky or in big chunky gear.

    The new female character seems out of place though. Maybe too attractive, maybe that she’s the only one smiling.

  39. 15/07/2008 at 18:33 KindredPhantom says:

    The replacements are much better than the ones shown in the footage so far.

  40. 15/07/2008 at 18:34 GeorgeR says:

    My only reservation is the whole lack of information on the Boss zombies. Hopefully we’ll hear more soon. that was one of the big play points for me.

    And man, i’m surprised at how upset people are over the characters being changed. Like others have said it was done to make it easier for you to not shoot your comrades, since the game has no Off switch for friendly fire.

  41. 15/07/2008 at 18:39 EyeMessiah says:

    BRING IT

    I hope the director works like a personal trainer. Not punishing you when things are going terribly but constantly pushing, pulling you apart and putting you back together as zombie killing machine.

    So many trailers…

    Nice to see some nice games coming out though. Makes me glad I maxed out my credit card buying a new PC at lunch though.

  42. 15/07/2008 at 19:11 Crispy says:

    I wonder if I’m the only one here who wants the game less and less the more I see of it.

    I’m losing interest the more they talk up the AI director and how it will have the “narrative and emotional impact of Half-Life”. It’s a multiplayer that will be played again and again. It cannot hope to have the narrative and emotional impact of a single-player game because a lot of people’s first experiences will not also be with virgin players, they will be subject to veterans who are dispatching enemies with ease and zombie players who are camping and doing various other unsportsmanlike and out-of-character techniques to ‘win’ the game. How do you instil horror and an appropriate emotional response in a player if another player is ramboing away up front and making sure you barely get within striking distance of a zombie? Personally from what I’ve seen, I don’t think the AI director will be advanced enough to deal with extreme discrepancies in player skill.

  43. 15/07/2008 at 19:19 Master Builder says:

    Left 4 Dead, starring Thierry Henry!

  44. 15/07/2008 at 19:40 Fat Zombie says:

    Thank you Master Builder, that’s just what I was thinking. He also reminds me of the Spy, slightly.

  45. 15/07/2008 at 19:52 yns88 says:

    Well, the black guy looks cooler for sure, but all the other characters just got way more generic. I really had my hopes going for that fucking awesome war veteran, but now he just looks like an NRA gun nut. Lame.

  46. 15/07/2008 at 19:53 Parasitic Elks says:

    I like the idea of having a difficulty control as well as the AI director. Sometimes I want to be challenged, sometimes I just want to murderise stuff, or play around with non-combat aspects of the game (find secrets or whatever). I imagine that even if there’s no control messing with config files would provide something similar. But, ultimately, there are plenty of games with a difficulty settings, so missing out on it this one time is no big deal.

  47. 15/07/2008 at 19:54 Don says:

    @Crispy: a lot of people’s first experiences will not also be with virgin players

    Is that not being taken care of by the player matching system? Already there in Xbox land (or so I’ve read, not a user) but also to be implemented on Steam so that you can play with/against players of roughly equal skill. Also records griefers whose first move in the game is to chuck a pipe bomb at the feet of the other players so you’ve got a good chance of playing in an asshole free zone.

  48. 15/07/2008 at 20:12 Erlend M says:

    However well the AI Director turns out to work, it’s a laudable experiment. I don’t know if I have any interest in this game, but I almost feel that I should buy it anyway, to vote more of this please with my wallet.

    I also like the concept of 2-player split-screen, unless it’s just for console. I have two gamepads lying around getting too little use. There are just too few split-screen FPSes on the PC.

  49. 15/07/2008 at 20:51 Alex says:

    Mman: Didn’t you watch the entire video? The ones playing well are the only ones to get the awesome cinematic physics gas station explosion. If that’s not a reward and a virtual medal is, I think you should take a long, hard look at your gaming style.

  50. 15/07/2008 at 20:56 Mman says:

    I’m not sure what the pretension is about, but there’s no confirmation that’s a reward for playing well, although if it is that would also be a cool way to do it.

  51. 15/07/2008 at 21:31 Ginger Yellow says:

    Er, that was the whole point of that part of the presentation. The Director isn’t just about enemy numbers/smarts.

  52. 15/07/2008 at 22:07 skalpadda says:

    This line about the Director caught my interest: “Writes a script for your character to expose state and provide emotional cues.”

    Does that mean that someone playing like me, being pretty bad at FPS games who get stressed and jumpy in tense situations will have that reflected in how their character acts while someone who’s a good FPS player with nerves of steel will have their character act and speak in a cooler way?

  53. 15/07/2008 at 22:40 Al3xand3r says:

    @ Crispy
    Or maybe the game is hard enough to require ALL players to do well in the harder difficulties for the team’s chance at survival, thus having the veterans feel the need to show newbies the ropes before taking on the harder levels. Kind of like Alien Swarm, only not quite as insanely difficult and scripted. As for unsportsmanlike behaviour, I doubt camping works for the zombie players since the survivors can win by escaping or achieving other goals or whatever, thus they have to be hunted down. At least in some game modes I think. No to mention that if they just camp some random place then they may not even get to see the players who go about for their own team goals… Unless the goal is to kill all zombie players, then camping will not do anything for them.

    Besides, griefing happens in every single multiplayer game out there, you don’t judge the gameplay by the idiots who try to ruin it and you can generally find servers to play on where either they don’t exist or they swiftly get kicked out. If there are too many idiots, then only play with friends, or at least “online gamemates” which you can depend on not griefing. Surely you must have a few of either kind.

    Anyone have a clue where procedural generation was mentioned? I must have missed it. Unless they just hyped the randomisation of objectives and enemy placement, that’s not quite the same as procedural generation.

  54. 16/07/2008 at 01:06 Razerious says:

    @Master Builder

    Haha, I was wondering if anyone other than me thought he looked like Henry when I first saw the concept art :D

  55. 16/07/2008 at 04:22 tmp says:

    Anyone have a clue where procedural generation was mentioned?

    On and during the first slide they show — “Dynamic shared narrative achieved with procedurally generated character performance, pacing, lighting and music”. Also on third slide (the AI director) — “procedurally populates the environment, sets stage for bosses and climaxes, controls difficulty and pacing”

    The objectives and enemy placement isn’t to be purely randomised, but matched (difficulty-wise) to performance of players.

  56. 16/07/2008 at 04:26 Sahagin says:

    When I play this, I’ll be Ben, from Night of the Living Dead.

  57. 16/07/2008 at 07:55 Bursar says:

    Regarding the Director

    As they’ve stated this is an attemptat an interactive horror movie I get the impression that all teams regardless of skill will be shepherded to the ‘final’ confrontation and then that will be tailored to their skill level. That way it works like a movie with a proper climax (that could go either way). There’s no point in building a narrative for a player if they’re going to be offed at the first encounter!

  58. 16/07/2008 at 09:01 itsallcrap says:

    That’s all very well from a cinematic perspective, but I like to ‘beat’ games. The knowledge that if I hadn’t played as well the game would have just made it easier for me kind of takes away from the sense of acheivement that comes from that.

    I really hope they let you put the director into a sort of “presentation only” mode where the difficulty just is what it is. No mention of it, though…

  59. 16/07/2008 at 13:28 Crispy says:

    @Skalpadda:
    I very much doubt it, but if this were the case it would go great lengths to justifying the ‘emotional impact of Half-Life’ claim.

    @Don:
    Is that not being taken care of by the player matching system? Already there in Xbox land (or so I’ve read, not a user) but also to be implemented on Steam so that you can play with/against players of roughly equal skill. Also records griefers whose first move in the game is to chuck a pipe bomb at the feet of the other players so you’ve got a good chance of playing in an asshole free zone.
    I have read nothing to indicate the particular example of Matchmaking you mentioned is coming to Steam. It is badly, badly needed and should (imho) take precedence over Ep3 resources because of the massive impact it could (should) have on Steam multiplayer.

    So far the only references I’ve seen of ‘Matchmaking’ for PC have been regarding the ability to filter servers and join lobbies and join friends’ games, basically nothing astoundingly new or really that helpful in terms of matching player skill and clamping down on griefers.

    The fact that L4D will be 100% ‘FF ON’ leads me to believe that the success of the game hinges on players’ collective ability to protect themselves (or be protected) against wanton spoilsportsmanship. After Insurgency for HL2 released with friendly fire ON by default, griefers descended on the mod from every corner of the underworld to feast upon their hapless victims: the players.

    Valve usually have something up their sleeve half the time, but occasionally they make the occasional blunder (how the Medic achievements were handled), so I’m not holding my breath just yet.

    Incidentally I like Erland M’s take on the AI Director. It is an interesting experiment, but I’m not sure if it will be enough to make me want to part with money. If the reviews don’t convince me, I’m sure I’ll find out on the first L4D free weekend, whenever it’s due.

    @Al3xand3r
    As for unsportsmanlike behaviour, I doubt camping works for the zombie players since the survivors can win by escaping or achieving other goals or whatever
    The levels are linear. Nothing I’ve read so far says they are ‘get from A to B or C’. It’s been said there are multiple paths to main areas, but it was also said that the team never got lost, which to me says it’s a straight “go one direction or the other” motif.

    Besides, griefing happens in every single multiplayer game out there, you don’t judge the gameplay by the idiots who try to ruin it
    I don’t, but I do judge developers very highly if they are clearly making strides to protect their intended end-user experience. Similarly devs who are multiplayer veterans but overlook the ever-present problem of griefing lose my respect, because they should know better and because the right kind of testing will find these problems.

    Anyone have a clue where procedural generation was mentioned? I must have missed it. Unless they just hyped the randomisation of objectives and enemy placement, that’s not quite the same as procedural generation.
    I think this is the latter.

  60. 16/07/2008 at 13:41 skalpadda says:

    I very much doubt it, but if this were the case it would go great lengths to justifying the ‘emotional impact of Half-Life’ claim.

    It would be interesting if it did. Considering the Director AI is actively monitoring how well you handle situations, aim, ammo, getting hit etc, it doesn’t seem like it’d be too hard to use slightly different voice clips for players of different skill for example. We’ll see.

  61. 16/07/2008 at 14:29 KingMob says:

    Still no details about playing as infected.
    Since this will be my main focus a month after launch, and create most of the replayability for those of us who currently play TF2 twice a week, I’d really like to know what it will be like.
    Eh, I’ll buy the game either way, just want more details…

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