Left 4 Dead

[Flawless]

Re: Left 4 Dead

Valve launches Left 4 Dead blog

Since we announced Left 4 Dead in late 2006, the growing online community has been a great source of feedback and support during the development process. We're planning on using this blog to talk more directly with that community - through stories, artwork, and insights into our design and development process. There's also a Left 4 Dead forum where we're hoping you'll let us know what you think of the blog, the game, or anything else L4D-related.

The game is finally nearing completion, and we're down to the final tweaks before it goes out the door. This week, we're all playtesting the Xbox 360 version of the game non-stop. There are two kinds of playtesting at Valve. There's the kind that happens throughout development, where we bring in people from outside the company, watch them tackle the game, and then make changes based on their experience.

Then there's the kind we're doing right now, when we're just about to ship and well beyond the point of evaluating the design or tightening up the graphics. This testing is all about making the game crash in some spectacular way. The tests go on more or less around-the-clock and require everyone at Valve (plus whatever friends and family we can rope into helping) to playtest in shifts. This is pretty much the only part of the job where we can say we're literally getting paid to play games. And it sucks. I mean, Episode 2 is a great game. Until you have to play it 30 times in a row as fast as you can and also get the "Collect All the Grubs" achievement or you're fired. This is the dark secret the government doesn't want you to know about game design: At some point, playing your own game becomes torture. One company we know calls its weekly playtest session "The Hour of Fun" out of pure, ironic meanness. After three days of testing Half Life 2, Gabe Newell's cousin gouged out his own eyes, turned his bloody face to the sky and began screaming, "I can still see Alyx!" So what with the constant game playing and the eye trauma, it's all pretty horrific.

Usually.

One of the unintended consequences of making L4D, a game that's built from the ground up for replayability, is that we're actually having a blast playtesting it. The final sprint to ship has truly been one completely un-ironic "Hour of Fun" after another. "Company Loves Own Product!" probably doesn't sound like a huge newsflash. But, in all seriousness, it's a rare feeling at this point in the process. We're thrilled to be experiencing it, and even more thrilled that it won't be long before you're experiencing it as well.

[allBthere]

Re: Left 4 Dead

I was explaining this game to some friends at a gathering (they don't go online to get the deets on games) and they're hyped and want to buy it so we can brave the zombies together. I was kind of suprised at how excited they were getting, I must have explained it well.

[Flawless]

Re: Left 4 Dead

Pre-orders Going Well

Doug Lombardi told VGChartz in an interview that pre-orders for Left 4 Dead are currently "exceeding Orange Box pre-orders by well over 40%" and that the demo should be out roughly a couple weeks before release. Lombardi also spoke about the upcoming advertising campaign:

And one could assume this trend over Orange will continue as the pre-launch demo hits and the largest consumer advertising campaign for any Valve game begins on buses, buildings, billboards, TV, magazines, and web sites in the next couple weeks.

We're happy to hear this, hopefully the advertisements will be more mainstream-friendly instead of the somewhat odd Orange Box TV commercials of last year.

De-Frag: Hands-On

Ah, Left 4 Dead, when we first heard about this game it just seemed too good to be true, anyone who has seen a Romero film, or any other zombie film for that matter has pretty much had their dreams come true with this title. With three friends, you finally get the chance to fight off that evil, ever-growing zombie horde and after a few hours of playing at the PC Gamer Showdown, all we have to say is that it is absolutely ****ing awesome!

The first thing to remember when playing this game is to work as a team, if you don’t, you die, simple as that. On our first go we though it was going to be fairly easy so we jumped straight in all guns blazing, we failed…badly. Teamwork is the key and there are a number of features to help you out in this respect. For a start, you can heal each other, though you rarely get more than 1 or 2 medic-packs during a particular mission. Also, you won’t have to fight over weapons and ammo as if there is a rifle on a table, everyone can pick up the rifle, not just one of you, the same goes for ammo, though not for explosives and health. There is also a series of voice commands you can use to inform team mates of situations and we didn’t see “****!! I’m outta’ here!” as an option.

Teamwork becomes all the more important once you encounter the bosses in the game. There are five bosses to contend with and each bring their own challenge. First off, there is the tank who is basically a massive chunky zombie who can take a lot of damage, if you try to take him alone you will probably fail so it is important for your entire team to divert attention to this boss. Then there is the hunter who hurls himself through the air on to one of you, if this happens to you there is nothing you can do but wait as your health slowly goes down unless a team mate manages to shoot or punch him off you. The boomer is a fat explosive hulk who, when shot, explodes, so it’s a good idea to stay clear of him, if he gets close enough he will vomit on you covering your screen in green slime so you cant tell the difference between friend and foe. Then there is the smoker, who has a really long tongue and will wrap it around you given the chance and pull you towards him leaving you unable to fight back, again this requires the aid of a team mate in order to disrupt him. Finally, there is the witch and she is definitely the most unique boss. If you pass by her quietly she wont do anything, however once bullets start flying she will attack you, but more importantly she will screech, calling in a horde of normal zombies on to you in no time. We generally found that trying to take most of the bosses alone didn’t work, so you really need to work together to overcome their abilities.

Interestingly, while healing a team mate who is already up and running will take up a medic-pack, reviving a downed team mate doesn’t, so it sometimes pays to let the weak ones go down if you are sure you will be able to revive them easily enough. If you are so unfortunate as to get floored by the horde (huh, that rhymes) your health bar will go to 300hp though this will drain as you get attacked, leaving you a good amount of time to try and fight back with your pistol until a team mate can come and revive you. However, if you don’t get revived you will die fully, in which case you are out of that map, but not permanently, it is possible for your team to get you back in the game if they keep an eye out for an on-screen marker telling you to rescue nearby survivors, if you do, anyone who was dead will be resurrected with a weapon and ready to go, though these resurrection points are scarce (and random, I think) so its not a good idea to take them for granted. You will know if a team mate is in trouble as they will have a dark red outline to them as you look at them, whereas it will usually be white. It will also give you prompts on screen if there is something big going down, so it will warn you of nearby bosses, team mates in trouble and requests for healing.

Though we only got to play one of the campaigns (we asked for the one on the farm, but they only brought the hospital one) it was split in to 5 maps and each took about 10-15 minutes to complete. This may sound short but when strung together into one long mission it can be quite lengthy, though there are loading times between maps. At the beginning of each one you will also get the chance to fully re-supply with medic-packs and ammo.

By far the coolest part of the game though was the way the AI director works. By making it harder for groups that are doing well, spawns for zombies and bosses are always different, in one mission we had a tank on us literally 5 seconds after we left the safe house at the start (yeah, we got that pro over 2 days :P) and at the end, we had at least 3 bosses (smoker, tank, maybe 2 hunters) on us at once…. And because the normal zombies come from different places it keeps you on your toes the whole time. Every door you open might hold an empty room, while it may hold 30 zombies wanting to tear you limb from limb (sadly they can’t actually do that, though you can shoot off limbs from them). It’s such a tense game but it’s just incredibly fun to play with friends. I’m not sure how the friendly AI would hold up but I doubt anyone will struggle to find games online. Left 4 Dead is bound to be a real hit when it arrives in November, so keep an eye out, you don’t want to miss this one.

[Flawless]

Re: Left 4 Dead

Demo early November

As part of a $10 million (£5.9m) ad campaign for its zombie-based shooter Left 4 Dead, Valve Software managing director Gabe Newell confirmed to Edge that there will be an Xbox 360 and PC demo.

That information had already been communicated, but Newell also gave a time window for the demo of "early November."

He also said the demo will be cut from the No Mercy campaign and be playable by one to four players.

Left 4 Dead will ship to retailers on November 17.

Left 4 Dead's $10M Ad Campaign

"People had really strong reactions to Left 4 Dead when we started showing it," said Valve managing director Gabe Newell in an interview. "Our pre-orders are running 60 percent ahead of Orange Box. This in combination with the fact that it is a new IP made us think that an extensive marketing program made a lot of sense."

About half of the campaign's dollars will go towards television advertising. Valve has secured 30-second "high impact, premium placement" spots during USC, Notre Dame, Monday Night and Thanksgiving football broadcasts.

A Valve presentation said the commercials will mix humor and horror and will air November 9 through 28 on ABC, ESPN, Fox, MTV, Comedy Central, USA, Spike TV and other networks.

The studio also plans on substantial spending for environmental ads that involve billboards, buses, train station takeovers, jumbotrons, Go Mobile trucks and other venues.

Valve said it will "saturate" New York, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco with the outdoor ads, along with key placements in Minneapolis and Dallas, peaking throughout the month of November.

[Flawless]

Re: Left 4 Dead

L4D versus Mode by Prima

So we’re back from Valve after a solid week of blasting, igniting, and blowing up zombies in Left 4 Dead. It was an incredibly busy week, but we managed to come back with tons of useful info and assets for the guide. There really are no shooters that play like Left 4 Dead, making it a real treat to those of us who have become a bit jaded with the whole genre. The game’s unique style of play became apparent during our session with the developers on Friday. It was a four on four match with two Prima guys paired with two developers against four developers upstairs. Although I had played the game all week, I was a bit anxious to go up against the developers who have been playing for two years. In other words, I was prepared to lose big time.

In the game’s versus mode, each team gets the chance to play a map as the survivors and the infected; at the end of a level, both teams switch sides and the map is replayed. The goal for the survivors is to reach the safe house at the end of the level while the infected team tries to stop them. It’s a very transient attack & defend style of play, with the survivors trying to blitz through the map as fast as possible while the infected work together to stop them. The developers on our team helped us get the hang of it in the first few rounds, making sure we stuck together and offering advice on how to best ambush the survivors when it was our turn to play as the infected. Still, I was totally unprepared for how incredibly frantic the pace was.

After the first map, the score was pretty close. But in the second map our infected team laid waste to the other team’s survivors. I managed to snare one of our opponents while playing as the smoker, an infected variant with a long tongue that can lasso a player from long range. The tongue can either constrict them or drag them closer for melee attacks. My victim was a straggler who failed to join his team on the lower level of the map. When I snared him with the smoker’s tongue attack, his teammates had no way to get back up to the upper level, allowing me to pummel him into submission until he died. And once a survivor is dead, they’re dead for the duration of the map; there are no respawns for survivors. Since the opposing team was down a man, the rest of my team quickly picked off the remaining survivors one by one. In the remaining rounds, our team did even better. When playing as the survivors we managed to make it to all the safe houses in all the remaining maps and we stopped the opposing team at least a couple of more times during our turn as the infected. Although both teams got through the finale level, by then the score was so lopsided that we were virtually guaranteed a win, regardless of outcome.

Still, I can’t take much credit for the victory. If it wasn’t for the two developers on our team feeding us a constant stream of tips and tactics during the match, we would have been toast. This highlights the extreme importance of communication. Two experienced players were able to lead two complete newbies to an overwhelming win over a very competent team of experts. This match perfectly illustrates Valve’s goal with this game, showing that teamwork can trump skill and experience. That’s what’s so refreshing about this game. It doesn’t just encourage communication and coordination, it absolutely requires it. Those who wander off and try to win the match on their own will be the first to fall. But even more, the intangible rewards and sense of accomplishment offered by teamwork is hard to communicate. Given the severe difficulty of the challenge, simply making it to a safe house with all your buddies is an almost transcendent experience that’ll have you high-fiving everyone within reach…whether they’re playing the game or not.

I think Left 4 Dead will be an absolute hit with those seeking the next-big-thing in competitive multiplayer. Will it be a Counter Strike killer? It’s way too early to say. But it does have a completely different feel than any other game I’ve ever played, especially the amazingly intense versus mode. Once you get a feel for it, you’ll be hooked. Don’t get me wrong, Co-Op is a blast too. But when human players fill the roles of the infected, the game takes on a completely terrifying tone and pace. Some of the creative ways you can screw over a team of survivors is amazing and always chuckle-inducing…even when you’re the victim. After a solid week of play, I was still getting ambushed in dozens of different ways I never imagined. In one instance, I felt safe in a room only to be pulled through a hole in the floor by the Smoker’s tongue. My team managed to catch-up, but by then I was nearly dead.

Another thing I’m so impressed with is the balance. Here you have two different teams with two completely different sets of weapons, yet nothing feels overpowered or underpowered. Sure, you’d think the team with the guns would have the advantage, but that’s rarely the case. In fact, the devs said that when teams are evenly matched, the infected win almost every time. But winning always comes back to teamplay. Those who communicate and work together will do well. Those who don’t won’t stand a chance. For once, this is a game that punishes lone wolf players severely…isn’t it about time?

[Flawless]

Re: Left 4 Dead

IGN: Left 4 Dead Versus Mode Hands-on
We play the Xbox 360 version in coop and versus modes. Plenty of direct-feed footage included.

Valve's added in plenty of wrinkles to make it interesting, including split-screen offline and online co-operative modes for the Xbox 360 version. The modes split the screen only two ways, and you can choose between vertical and horizontal orientations.

When you're playing as infected and are killed by the survivors, you enter a respawn cycle that takes about 20 seconds before the game redeploys you. It's then up to you to determine where you actually spawn; the primary restriction being you can't select a location right next to the survivors. You'll be in communication with the rest of your team through your Xbox Live headsets or the PC version's built-in voice chat, so it's possible to coordinate different types of strikes. For instance, you can set it up so a boomer pukes on a survivor and when the infected horde rushes, a smoker can lasso whoever's furthest removed from the ground and drag them into the shadows. Ideally, the rest of the group is so distracted with the horde they don't notice their missing teammate, letting the smoker claw its victim to death.

In versus mode, eight players are split into two teams of four and put in control of the survivors and infected. In each string of maps, of which there are four total, there are subsections. Each subsection starts off with the survivors in a safe room where they can stock up on ammunition, weapons, and health packs. They then need to sprint out a door into the open and make their way to the safe room at the end of the subsection. In the campaign mode, you just continue through until you reach the end of the map string. In versus, players play each subsection twice on both sides. So if you play through the first time on the survivor side, you'll play through next as infected. After each round the survivor team is scored based on their distance travelled across the subsection, their remaining health, and the score is multiplied by a difficulty rating and the number of team members left. This is added up across each subsection and totaled at the end of the map string to determine a winner. Then it's back to the waiting lobby where both teams can mercilessly insult or congratulate each other.

It's clear Valve has focused on making the social experience of the game fairly painless, since if somebody drops out or needs to take a momentary break their character's control is given over to an AI. From what we tried out, it seems the AI works pretty well, reviving teammates when necessary, healing, and generally performing actions you'd assume an average-level player would be capable of. This aspect of the game is something we could comment on more expansively once we play for a while longer.

As far as the visuals go, the Xbox 360 version looks really sharp, particularly the lighting effects as we ran through abandoned farm fields and dilapidated railway tracks near sunset. More importantly, the game ran smoothly, even with 20 or so screaming, flailing infected onscreen, Molotov cocktail fires raging, in an online session with Valve employees and members of another gaming publication. The game also uses an onscreen icon notification system to let you know about item pickups or game events that seems to work well without stealing attention away from the action onscreen.

It's a Valve product, so naturally we're looking forward to it. Left 4 Dead is being readied for November 18 release through Steam and in stores.

New Videos

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[umd]

Re: Left 4 Dead

Give me this game now.

[Flawless]

Re: Left 4 Dead

Interview

Shack: And the demo will be out around Halloween?

Doug Lombardi: We're going to announce a date before Halloween, and the demo will come out in early November.

Shack: So it's just Survivor side for the demo?

Doug Lombardi: Just Survivor side for the demo. And it'll be the first, it'll be a special cut of the first two maps from No Mercy which is the hospital map. It'll be playable 1-4 people, online/offline. On the 360 you'll be able to play co-op and split-screen.

Shacknews Hands-On Versus Mode

Versus mode is not at all what people will expect from a "horror game." It's funny. It's hilarious fun. It brings out the twisted monster in all of us--the monster that doesn't care about cooperation, and only wants to grab a friend from across the room and bite his arm off.

That's not to say there aren't moments of tension. But while I'll make a comparison to Aliens vs. Predators later on in this preview, Versus mode is simply too much of a blast to play to sustain any sense of real dread. In that respect, it's got more in common with Team Fortress 2 than something like Counter-Strike.

[Flawless]

Re: Left 4 Dead

Some new videos showing the never before seen Dead Air campaign.

Video 1
Video 2
Video 3

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Pre Order Left 4 Dead, Get Early Access to the Demo

Xbox 360 and PC Pre-Order Includes 10% Savings Plus Advance Demo Access

October 28, 2008 -Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress, and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (Steam and Source), today announced a special promotion granting those who pre-order Left 4 Dead early access to the official demo.

Left 4 Dead is the new survival action 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.

Early access to the demo begins Thursday, November 6 on both the Xbox 360(r) video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and the PC. This pre-order promotion applies to all Steam PC pre-orders and all Xbox 360 and PC pre-orders from participating retailers in North America. The demo will feature single player and co-operative modes, supporting 1 to 4 player games.

On November 11 the demo will be made available to all Xbox 360 and PC and gamers, with no obligation to purchase. The demo concludes on November 18, when Left 4 Dead will be made available at retail outlets across North America and worldwide via Steam.

This pre-order promotion is scheduled in concert with the previously announced $10 million consumer launch campaign that spans television, outdoor, print, and online advertising.

"Every time someone plays Left 4 Dead, we witness the most overwhelmingly positive reaction that we've seen from any of our games," said Gabe Newell, president and co-founder of Valve. "This gives us tremendous confidence in the product and why we've taken the game on the road, produced this pre-launch demo, and invested more advertising dollars on the title than any prior release from Valve."

Playable in single player, co-operative, and multiplayer modes, Left 4 Dead is one of the most anticipated releases of 2008 and winner of numerous pre-launch awards, including Best of E3 from multiple outlets.

[Candyman5]

Re: Left 4 Dead

Wow Fable 2, LBP, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, etc. God. This game looks great.

[Flawless]

Re: Left 4 Dead

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[Flawless]

Re: Left 4 Dead

Official Movie 1

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[TeixeiraFanatic]

Re: Left 4 Dead

Just a heads up if you reserve the game at Gamestop and give them your e-mail address they will send you an e-mail that has a code for early demo access ala COD 5 beta, if you want to sign up follow this link...

http://www.gamestop.com/gs/landing/l...y/default.aspx

Also, if anyone wants to play it, i surely will be playing until release, my gamertag is TeixeiraFanatic. Can't wait for this game!

[sportsdude]

Re: Left 4 Dead

Just a heads up if you reserve the game at Gamestop and give them your e-mail address they will send you an e-mail that has a code for early demo access ala COD 5 beta, if you want to sign up follow this link...

http://www.gamestop.com/gs/landing/l...y/default.aspx

Also, if anyone wants to play it, i surely will be playing until release, my gamertag is TeixeiraFanatic. Can't wait for this game!

as much as I would love to have the demo on the 6th, Gears 2 comes out a day later and I want to immerse myself in that. I plan on getting Left 4 Dead the first day it's out so I think I'll be fine with two weeks of Gears 2. Besides, and I hate to admit this considering how much I loved the original Gears and will enjoy the second, I'm a little afraid Left 4 Dead may push Gears 2 to the backburner. Valve has a knack for making the most addicting online games (Team Fortress Classic, Counterstrike, TF 2) and I'm sure this will be no different.

[jmood88]

Re: Left 4 Dead

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This is a great trailer.