An orange in an apple orchard
I’m thinking about writing a short/moderate length survival guide for Left 4 Dead 2. Haven’t been playing much of anything lately, but after like 60 hours into the game, I’ve become extremely competent at it. When I do play, I’m still a lethally proficent team member.
Unlike some people, I also have a rather strong aversion to leaving fallen teammates behind, except for bots, hehe. That means I can drop more than my fair share of zombies in a hurry!
There is just something so cool about employing fire and manoeuvre techniques against a horde of zombies, and on the fly to boot.
How do you survive? Team up, nut up, and shoot’em up!
Just got out of a Hard Rain campaign in L4D2 with some excellent teamwork going on. Once we hit the end game however, our luck resoured.
First the tank smashes one of the teammates into the roof, incapacitating him while two of us leap off the side and the fourth man dives down the hole in the roof; who summary gets tackled by a charger moments before rescues due to arrive.
I’m one of the two dreebs who leap off the roof, because it hurts less than being hit by a tank lol. We kill the tank and pull a quick split: he goes to save the charged guy while I go zap the teammate on the roof back into action with my defib. kit; not exactly something I would want to do during a real thunderstorm. That goes out the window when my fellow pigeon gets himself whacked by a charger from behind, and I have to save his bacon instead.
Another tank suddenly comes stomping through the middle of the building as the charged teammate finally dies – we get our butts bounced out onto the lawn by the tank. Now this is where it gets silly.
Taking an adrenaline shot (speed booster) and making ready to fight the tank 2 on 1, while hacking my way to the roof: I ended up slipping off the peer and getting water logged — as the rescue boat runs me over and the tank flings my sole surviving teammate into it, killing him instantly.
Then the hard rain campaign plays it’s end video clip, as the boat floats away. Miraculously Spidey01 who almost got drowned before being run over by the boat, was the only player to survive the campaign!
There is just something so wrong with that, lol.
Lately I’ve been playing a lot of L4D2, the sequel to Left 4 Dead. I was never able to acquire L4D, so I was of course happy to find part two on sale :-D.
At first glance it is a fairly typical game: the objective is to reach the levels end (safe house or final evac point) alive, while killing anything that gets in your way. Then again that pretty much describes most games on the planet, doesn’t it? Even most of the original Rainbow Six was that way really, until the patches came. For joe smuck, L4D2 is certainly enjoyable enough from the perspective that you have like a good 150-600 zombies per map, the average is closer to 300 I would say.
What I have found, is an incredibly well designed game!
Left 4 Dead works off the premise that a rabies like virus has plunged the world into a zombie apocalypse. Unlike the more graphic depictions in the original Night of the Living Dead, or the flesh-eating norm in most zombie flicks: L4Ds infected “Zombies” just beat the loving crap out of people, no eating. The weak of stomach will be happy that there is nothing remotely resembling the whole truck/gas station thing from NotLD. Gore mongers ofc being made happy by what happens to the zombies ;).
Four “Survivors” are thrown together in the plot, and multiplayer tends to recreate this feeling through a lobby oriented way of hosting games, as well as a “Quick match” function. Gladly, they avoid the brain damage behind SWAT 3s massive lags. Rather than being strictly round based, killed survivors may respawn in a “Closet” somewhere and are stuck in spectator mode until “Rescued” by living survivors. Even going this far, they work to help bring that survival-horror flick mood to things. You just never know who your going to meet during a zombie apocalypse ;).
At it’s heart, Left 4 Dead is a game for people with a different “Taste”. It’s not going to satisfy simulation fans and it isn’t just another DooM clone in a CoDs skin either. The game play and design tends to attract a different crowd, enough so that I have been impressed by some of the teamwork you can get going with a random crowd of survivors. We can only hope the same happens if there ever is such a zombie take over o/.
The control layout at first glance, just breaths of a console games influence (it’s also on the XBox 8=). In actual practice though, it works flawlessly: it is simple, consistent, and almost intuitive. I say almost intuitive because it’s more consistent than most preceding games on the PC lol. At its core, you simply shoot everything as normal or shove things around using what’s equipped. When medical items are in hand, holding fire uses it on yourself, where as holding shove uses (or give) it on(/to) the team mate you’re looking at or shoves. More normally that would’ve been an action/use-button kind of thing. Once you get used to the item model, you’ve mastered the only “Thinking” required. There’s also few controls, which makes my old-side happy, since I grew up where six buttons and a D-pad was a lot of keys. Whoever worked through how to play test this thing, must really have earned their pay cheque IMHO.
Since each level is riddled with a ton of common infected, having four guns firing is a great help. With a little applied thinking and the fact that you are so much stronger than a single infected (zombie), team mates are not needed so much as they come in handy. Namely with that much bullets and limbs flying everywhere, someone is going to protect you or draw off attention from you, sooner or later ;). A basic application of tactics can also be useful, but needs to be adapted to fighting swarms of melee-oriented targets rather than an armed attacker.
Most game modes are little evolved past single player, so there is no real reason not to play in Campaign (co-op) or Versus mode. The difference between co-op and versus mode, is that one team controls the “Special” infected and their spawn points (under tight control). In the strictly co-operative mode, everyone is a survivor, and bots fill in for missing or idle players. Having players as the special infected in versus mode, generally results in a more challenging game than co-op, if not quite as plausible as the one driven solely by the “A.I. Director”. You can’t spawn to close to the survivors, or to fast, but the positioning can still be a bit much at times. Such as a bathroom that’s already been swept clear.
Something that really makes the game, is the special infected: most posse an attack that once successful, is effectively a death sentence unless another player saves your bacon. The rest are mealy a recipe for mopping the floor with everyone. It’s been done to such an exquisite balance that loose cannons are still found, but you will almost always find *team* games! No one can survive alone indefinitely, and statistics tend to add up when a campaign takes nearly an hour (or more depending on pace). The shortest game I’ve actually had, was about 35 minutes for one campaign, but we blew through it like four lighting bolts, hehe.
I’ve never seen a game that so well balances individual skills along side the need to work together, let along one that feels like your knee deep in zombies gone wild.
The game can be rather gruelling at times from the horde, but it’s rather enjoyable. Where as most games have fairly limited replay value, L4Ds use of a “Director” to drive the gameplay takes things to the next level. At the very least, randomising the location of items and enemies is a pretty damn simple thing to do in terms of game design, if so often ignored. In L4D however, it goes as far as giving the A.I. Director control over enemy spawning, item placement, and can be unforgiving at times. In the end the game play is always slightly different, and tends to flow with how well you’re doing. One of the most impressive moments (from my developers perspective) was playing through The Parish campaign, and noticing on the previous attempt: we found a weapons cache in a store room, second attempt it was totally barricaded off – because we were doing well that time around.
I wish every game could take advantage of such technology. It would make things so much nicer, and sure as hell beats Raven Shield. The closet I’ve seen to L4D, is SWAT 3s best maps, but L4D takes it to many more levels of gameplay.
My only gripe with the game has been it’s fairly short: about 6 campaigns (Dead Centre, The Passing, Dark Carnival, Swamp Fever, Hard Rain, and The Parish), ranging perhaps 3-5 levels each. Realistically you could clear the entire game (online) in 3-4 hours time with a solid team, and a rapid pace of attack, sans failures of course. That and the game crashes if I set the shader setting to a higher quality setting than my graphics card apparently supports >_>
For the first time in quite a bit, I’ve opened my Private Airport kai map, watching tangos climb up a drain pipe today was a good memory jogger ^_^.
Almost everything I had worked on was complete, except for the question of what to do with the terminal buildings now accessible roof. I need to redo a lot of the maps original layout there, because of how the fake backdrops were done (creating distant scenery for unreachable areas). The amount of work all that represents, means I need to decide whether or not to make the second tarmac area and associated grounds accessible to the player. Well, technically it is accessible since you can walk through a fake backdrop but the HOM effect isn’t welcome lol. I’ve also modified a few things to reward an inquisitive player, rather than making it as obvious as first planned.
I’ve added a set of rooms on the terminals roof, meant to simulate a small office like environment that is rather missing from the stock maps architecture. Minor tweaks to the backdropping there, extra spawns, and some finishing touches in the administrators office, then my map is basically RC ready.
Today I also had a rather interesting idea: while adding that office space, it occurred to me that it would be practical to put a small catwalkesque bridge over to the air traffic control tower would be a nice idea. The ATC of course, is just a big static mesh, which is fairly normal (modern) practice for such scenery – but surprising for raven shields level designers. That means there is no way to make a habitable ATC without building one from scratch. Since the fake backdrops in the area are associated to the ones near the new offices, there is a fair bit of work to be done in that area anyway. The only problem with building a proper ATC however, is the fact that I’ve never had to climb one before lol.
At least Random is consistent, he usually proves my train of thought correct once he opens his mouth.
I heard a while ago from friends (firstly one in [SAS] uniform) that Random had been banned off NTFs Raven Shield server(s). I also had decided not to look up the threads mentioned. To be honest, I hadn’t stayed up to date with either clans forum for several months, nor really cared much about doing so. Those close to me, likely have some understanding of my point of views -> this thing doesn’t change that! What has, is I can’t say nothing…. after reading that thread. Y’all said it was bad but I didn’t think it could be THAT bad.
A few days ago, I was playing a mod that was mentioned a long time ago in NTFs forums and I wanted to make a reply now that I tried out the mod. Did that. Since leaving [SAS], as a matter of respect (since I have friends in each), when I check one clans forum I tend to check the other as well. While I was on [SAS]’s forum, I checked Randoms thread in clan topics and was appalled.
When I was an [SAS] member, if I had posted anything like that, I would have been eaten alive. It’s the kind of stuff that could get a member banned from the entire clan!
Since seeing the clans commanding officer, in my honest opinion managed to disgrace everything [SAS] members have been demanded to uphold in their conduct, I posted a “Thank you” message addressed to Random. Publicly because he disgraced the regiment publicly in his own forum! Why a thank you? Because having to see just how low things have been allowed to sink, when the CO pulls that off and gets away with it unquestioned, it makes me happy to be out of the picture once and for all.
A [SAS] member questioned me about it, and since he has offered no objections to it when prompted, I will quote myself as a brief explanation of my logic:
Spidey01: If NTF, Rouge, and Medic each fall into the set of “other players and organizations” in the [SAS] Code of Honour, where it is clearly understood as other than an “[SAS] member”, does it follow that Randoms conduct in Clan Topics is “therefore a demotable, and potentially a bannable offense if any member is caught being disrepsectful in any online server, forum, chat room, or game room.” –> ?
Spidey01: I would act the same way if it was Tom, Dick, and Harry from clan Fools Horde.
Spidey01: Since all [SAS] Members are bound by the [SAS] Code of Honour, and Random is an [SAS] Member, it surely follows that Random is bound by the [SAS] Code of Honour. Yes?
And of course I mean no disrespect towards NTF, Rouge, Medic, Tom, Dick, Harry, or Fools Horde by that remark ;).
In my opinion Randoms conduct in [SAS]’s public forums, does constitute major breaches that code. It may even be the single biggest violation of Article 1 that I have ever seen in my life. Public and in-front of the mebership is the only areas I’ve seen GCHQ enforce the clans code of honour, so it is deffo applicable to a public forum post in Clan Topics.
If you have ever been inside [SAS] for more than a brief stay, then you know how members are supposed to resolve “Issues”, if you are or were ever of Sgt grade, then you have probably read the Moderator guidelines (last stored in the policy forum afaik), all you should have to do is read the [SAS] Code of Honour and Randoms thread, to conclude that it is a violation of [SAS] CoH. I don’t give a crap if NTF justified such action or if they gave him every possible concession, no [SAS] member is above the CoH. There is __N_O__exception to that, and even that is all but coded into the CoH! The CO has the final authority in holding members accountable: but who holds the boss man accountable, hmm? When I joined [SAS], that kind of thread would never have gotten past Randoms first posting before being obliterated as a CoH violation. The member responsible for posting it would’ve had head on a chopping block. Being a red blooded American, you could say that notions like that, may as well be tattooed on my hind end, and proud of it.
Considering that my membership in [SAS] amounts to about a quarter of my life thus far, after reading that thread, I really can’t avoid saying Random blew a nuclear sized hole in the CoH and appears to be getting off scot free.
It’s not slanderous either, it’s as factual as a speeding ticket.
Somehow after joining Timbo for a game, and compiling a list of links to their map list… I can’t help count how many of these maps I already know :-S
After more than 18 hours of Left 4 Dead 2, I must admit the game is addictive.
Some how I can’t help but remember what I told a friend and [SAS] member on my way out of [SAS].
“Lived in shadow, died in shadow”
Such is the nature of someone who follows orders and serves without seeking their own political benefit.