Edit: reader research suggests this is free – see comments – but still no official response from Valve. We’ll let you know, but assume it is free!
Valve say: “The first L4D DLC – dubbed the L4D Survival Pack — is due for release this spring and introduces a new multiplayer game mode entitled, Survival, plus two complete campaigns for Versus Mode.” They also say: “In addition, for PC gamers and aspiring developers, the first Left 4 Dead release for the Source Software Development Kit (Source SDK) will allow the creation of custom Left 4 Dead campaigns that will be discoverable via L4D’s matchmaking system. The SDK update is also due for release this spring, and is free of charge to all owners of L4D on the PC.”
There’s also a new retail version of the game also due in the spring, called “Critic’s Choice”, with all that stuff to be included.
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Ignore above post for crappy formatting, apologies to all
Le sigh.
Alright, since you’re so freaking insistent on how clearly and badly Valve botched up, let’s review.
About the only point I can partially agree with, they took those two out to meet time constraints. As opposed to simply dumping them in because “hey the maps are there” and not doing any balancing. Problem is, I can understand why they did it, the game was undergoing constant revision up to release, and the decision to have a separate competitive mode came fairly late. So they didn’t have time to make redefine a couple of campaigns before ship time. I can’t say it’s a huge issue since they’re releasing them just a few months later.
As you say yourself, it’s a trivial bug, and one that was fixed pretty freaking fast once identified. Like, within a week. Not unsurprisingly, trivial bugs will always make it through to the end product (and the reason that there was never a bug of this nature in TF2 is because TF2 never had AI actors), so it’s a question of how fast they can be dealt with once they’re picked up in the wild. So far Valve’s record has been much faster and far more frequent than any other developer I’ve seen to date.
Again, as you say, trivial, and fixed immediately after it was discovered.
If you’re talking singleplayer, the game is most certainly NOT easy, most people I’ve seen play and have played with definitely die a tonne on the harder difficulty levels.
If you’re talking about VS, then I’m afraid you’re misconstruing the nature of the game: fundamentally that it’s asymmetric and designed around the infected having a tougher time of play. Until of course that it’s their turn, and then we see who the better team actually is. What I will say is that the point scoring system certainly has it’s issues. So far as I’ve seen, the better team usually wins. Sometimes it comes down to points, which as I said, definitely has it’s issues, but I can’t really call the gameplay broken.
The basic gameplay is only broken if you believe that both the infected and survivors sides are supposed to have the same chance of success. The game isn’t designed that way or with that intention in mind. This is also the reason that both teams swap sides on a level.
Fortunately, I am an owner of an 8800 Nvidia card and… hmm… nope, still seems to work. Tell you what, I’ll try whacking my card a few times with a hammer first…
Or perhaps you’re referring to the issue where Nvidia’s new release drivers caused issues
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=759292
Design decision. I can’t say that having cutscenes slow down the gameplay in a multiplayer game would be particularly awesome to me.
Only needs to be in one campaign. Anything further and they’re re-iterating everything they’ve already said (going over the course of 4-5 levels here) or having to go on about specific types of wall texture in each level.
I’m sorry, but you’re comparing Left 4 Dead to freaking KotoR II? You don’t remember a game more buggy than Left 4 Dead? Seriously? Sorry, I’m calling bull on that right now, I can easily think up five right away, and a whole freaking list later on if you give me time. If you want to see what a buggy and problematic game really looks like, you should’ve been playing Gears of War 2, a game they didn’t even bother patching for months.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=cQ0gtjGxJs4
And that’s just a sampler of the kind of glitches you’d see.
Seriously, there was the odd glitch and bug with Team Fortress 2, GASP, right from release. Like I said, it’s impossible to actually find and test every single combination of circumstances that may occur, you do as thoroughly as you can, and when a glitch turns up in the wild, you fix it. So far, I can’t say I’ve seen anything slow about Valve’s responses to any issues that have cropped up in their multiplayer games to date.
Yeah, the whole concept of asymmetric gameplay seems to escape some people. The game simply isn’t designed so that survivors make it to the end of each map half of the time. And comparing Left 4 Dead to Knights of the Old Republic 2 is laughable.
About the broken gameplay:
I agree about the asymetric sides, and i love it. I am a old PvPM lotro player, where theres one side x3 powerfull than the other, and I like asymetric gameplay more than symetric. But there are problems, like corner camping, that remove all the fun from the game. Thats integrall part of the game, since the survivor mele is soo important (and fun) element of it. With more time, Valve could have figure out how to desintegrate these cheap and boring tactics.
Away, thanks for your post. I was not tryiing to “prove” nothing, just giving the information you ask for.
‘“Infinity Ward put up extra maps for free on PC and not on XBL.”
Payed by Nvidia if I recall correctly.’
Although I resent the fact that you called bullshit, I say … you spelt ‘paid’ wrong!
Zing!
awwwww no new weapons like a bazooka would b nice
and a heavy machine gun would b cool the bazooka would be good against the tank but make you slow so you would have to carry your pistol the machine gun would be good against hordes but less affective on tanks =(
WHY VALVE WHYYYYYYYYYYYY
the new l4d dlc includes survival mode ( a mode sort of like nazi zombies on cod 5 except you dont board up windows and buy weapons off the wall just points taking out hunters smokers boomers tank hordes ect but you cant use medkits)dead air and death toll on versus mode which will be cool and 2 new campains have been confirmed in a mall and milatary base but have not been said for the update and this is a rumor my friend told me that a new boss infected and weapons i know its true about survival and versus and new campains but niot on the dlc for spring the other stuff isnt probably true just a rumor :]
wow, that last comment just leaves me breathless… Almost the textbook example of the Excitable Internet Person.
No punctuation? Check.
No Spellcheck? Check.
Verging on the incomprehensible? Check.
Did I miss anything?
Well, you capitalised spell-check instead of wow, while failing to hyphenate spell-check.
Which isn’t even a word!
Zing!
Im new with this is the DLC a CD or is it something i got to update?
how r u supposed to download the new content?
@subedii
I’m surprised anyone can manage to make a relatively bug-free game using UE3.