And what’s the deal with the first level sometimes having some sort of bombing run where you have to race your way to safety but there is no possible way to get anywhere safe in time? So weird. I just kept playing until it played out normally (you know it will play normally if the credits are showing).

Anyways, maybe I’ll load up the mall level and check that out, but the level design of the first two just leads me to believe it’s not going to be good enough to hold my attention.

The biggest annoyance for us was that every server we played on went into VS mode if we died, so we’d either have to wait for the AI to leave the safe room, or just quit and restart on another server.

Also it seems a bit higher difficulty than Valve’s campaigns, not a bad thing, just saying.

The “weird fire explosion” is the military bombing the city, which you get told about by the custom audio which you can only here if you rebuild your sound cache, as indicated in the instructions and further up.

Bug #1: clipping problem on the first door you come to
Bug #2: explosions can kill player with no warning
…

or similar, unless you’re just criticising in order to make people feel bad, rather than pointing out how they can make it better.

I’d just like to point out that what you describe is a scripting bug. In the first level, when you come to that military humvee type vehicle, that’s where your timer for the airstrikes is supposed to start. The fact that the event doesn’t trigger sometimes is a bug. The rest of the map is designed and balanced around rushing through that section before the timer runs out, and as such, becomes stupidly easy when the event doesn’t trigger.

And as for being a Beta, just how low should our expectations/standards be? Is it asking too much for all 5 maps to actually load without crashing the game? I’ve played a lot of custom content, including betas, and while they have had their share of issues, none have ever been as broken as this release. I guess the higher you rise, the harder you fall.

About 2 months ago, they had announced that the mod would release on Halloween. About 3 weeks before release, they mentioned that the campaign would have 5 maps + a separate finale. They also said that the 5 maps were virtually done, and they were working on the finale, but they were not sure if it would meet their standards of quality before release date so they might not include it. As it turned out, they didn’t release the finale, but it really makes me question just what their standards are if they deemed this package worthy of release.

Went through it in Singleplayer, as I do for almost every map, as I don’t like joining in with others online where I go the wrong way or get horribly lost.

I managed to get through the first map, to the end when it crashed. The first map was quite fun mind, albeit I didn’t really like having to run through the undergrowth with no idea if it’s the right way or not.

The second map had the beginnings of bugs, such as helicopters which only explode when you get very close to them and winches that don’t work, but then I didn’t like the wooden play house bit where there’s two tunnel exits from the area that are obvious yet it’s not obvious from afar which one is the right way. Walking down a long tunnel to a dead end is just annoying. Had to quit this map after the handle next to the wooden barricade wouldn’t trigger.

Restarted on the third map, nice beginning with approaching the mall, and fighting to be let in was alright, however I got kind of tired of listening to the guy on the radio jabber on for rather too long. I’d must prefer it if he just got to the point rather than chattering away whilst we wait for him to open a door. Also he wouldn’t open the roof door unless all the team were there, which with me only playing with the single player AI was never going to happen. They tended to be waiting on the stairs below me rather than coming up to the door so that he would open it, also Zoey never even made it to the stairs as she couldn’t traverse the store room wooden platforms.

Got annoyed enough by that to go online to play it, managed to join a game which I think was on the 4th campaign, getting lost in a warren of wooden panelled offices is not that nice, finally managed to get to the main mall area when I got a crash to desktop.

After that I just went into Mount & Blade Warbands beta and spent some time kicking people and couch charging.

Yes, the beta tag does give them some leeway, but I think I’ll only try it again when it is a complete release. Way more annoying bugs then certain other betas I’m a part of, kind of more bugs than enjoyment for myself.

What is with you lot these days? By you lot, I mean the internet. This tries something new with the audio driven objectives, random levels (on level 1 you may have credits, you may have to run for your life at the start) and all around pacing of the game. The million customer idea was genius!

Can we have some recognition of the good as well as the bad? The second screenshot is my highlight of the maps as look at it – it’s beautiful. It has some real problems right now such as things spawning behind indestructo-doors and that damned end of level 3, but the beta was popped out so that people could play it on Halloween. Arbitrary deadline or not, I appreciated the hand-out – I could have no new L4D level to play on halloween (Im choosing to ignore cold case).

With a bit more key direction then this will be perfect, but hey it’s a beta. You can criticise, but it would be more beneficial to do so on their forums and constructively. I played through it all with no crashing and thought it was really solid for an early build.