Left 4 Dead

Wow, a bunch of us over at thewavelength.net had an idea to make a HL/HL2 mod based on this concept over 3 years ago.

I'm glad to see someone else eventually had the same good idea [smile]

I've been pretty excited about this since the initial announcement. Pity it's still so far away.

Yeah, L4D looks awesome. I'm also looking forward to Natural Selection 2 and Black Mesa Source (while we're sort of on the Source Engine.)

it seams like a good idea but i think from a hardcore gamer point of view its poorly implemented (at this point).

If you are getting alot of heat from the zombies the game will dial down the difficulty temporarily and then dial it back up a bit later. I dont want a magical developer hand guiding me through the game. If they cant create a proper difficulty level, try harder.

The AI sounds like a load of hype. Bioshock had enemies spawning around any corner and coming from any direction. I hated that.

All the zombies should exist in the world when the game loads, they should hear, smell and walk around the city and thus each battle would still be different. When you kill them they are gone.

The zombie players would choose which zombie they want to possess and then lead other zombies to the players. When they die they choose another zombie.

It will never work on public servers. Even on BF2/142 with squads and what not its hard to create proper teamwork.

A good party game. I can see being drunk and playing being a total blast.

I refuse to take part in anything that uses numbers in place of words merely because they sound the same. Unless the game is about leaving 4 people dead, then the use is probably correct.

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Original post by nobodynews I refuse to take part in anything that uses numbers in place of words merely because they sound the same. Unless the game is about leaving 4 people dead, then the use is probably correct.

2 bad. ;-) Looks like a fun game. They need to hurry up though... I've been waiting for this one forever.

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Original post by nobodynews I refuse to take part in anything that uses numbers in place of words merely because they sound the same. Unless the game is about leaving 4 people dead, then the use is probably correct.

I presume it is left 4 dead because there are 4 survivors as it says in one of the interviews... not just because 4 sounds the same as for.

it would be nice if the human controlled zombies were not limited to 4.

Was it just me, or do the zombies move incredibly fast? When I think of zombies, I think of undead, partially rotting corpses that want a bite of your head.

I like the dynamic difficulty, it reflects the, uh, what was that called? The One Zombie principle or whatever, where one zombie is an unstoppable juggernaut, walking through a hail of bullets and dragging itself Terminator-style forward with its one intact limb, but if there are forty zombies, they die from one bullet each?

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Original post by RivieraKid If you are getting alot of heat from the zombies the game will dial down the difficulty temporarily and then dial it back up a bit later. I dont want a magical developer hand guiding me through the game. If they cant create a proper difficulty level, try harder.

So games shouldn't have pacing? I don't think you meant anywhere near what you just said. Every game has a magical developer hand guiding you through it. That's called the design.

Having periods of time to cool off after intense sessions is a key component to preventing games from becoming stressful and to building up tension for the next major encounter. It's one of the most crucial aspects of design that differentiates between amazing games and mediocre ones.

You seem to be under the impression that the game turns on "easy mode" and lets you win if things get tough. That's not at all how it works, and if you think the developers are just failing to make the game properly you have it completely ass-backwards.

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The AI sounds like a load of hype. Bioshock had enemies spawning around any corner and coming from any direction. I hated that.

Respawning enemies were terrible in Bioshock because it had stealth elements and tons of forced backtracking. In otherwords, it was nothing like Left 4 Dead.

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All the zombies should exist in the world when the game loads, they should hear, smell and walk around the city and thus each battle would still be different. When you kill them they are gone.

Why do they need to wander around the entire city? You aren't in the entire city, it makes no difference to you.

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It will never work on public servers. Even on BF2/142 with squads and what not its hard to create proper teamwork.

Then you build in implicit systems that result in teamwork regardless of whether people are trying for it or not. In this case, the basic premise of the game. Four people in close proximity trying to shoot of zombies are going to work together simply by virtue of trying not to die as individuals.

I don't think the videos make it look all that fun. Swarms of hand to hand combat units rushing at you at high speeds doesn't seem all that interesting. Also there doesn't seem to be friendly fire, that or they were damn lucky.

I would pay for Zipster's game long before I even play Left 4 Dead, even for free.

actually, come to think of it this sounds exactly like ut2k4 - invasion mode with a couple of tweaks.

This game seems pretty terrible. I thought it was just a mod, but this is an actual retail game? Do not want.

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Original post by boolean This game seems pretty terrible. I thought it was just a mod, but this is an actual retail game? Do not want.

Just curious boolean, why do you think that?

The game seems like everyone is flying about 100mph spamming weapons at quick moving badly animated zombies, terrible AI that just runs at the players, and the entire game comes down to "back pedal and hold down fire button at incoming swarm #1935472, then proceed to next monster trip wire." It just looks like Painkiller, but without the interesting weapons, enemies (zombies zombies zombies), AI (rush rush rush), levels, characters or fun. It looks like all they did was take the source engine, trash the graphics, then just grab the head crab zombies and type in '1000000' over all the 1's before slapping Left 4 Dead on the box. It seems like the most mind numbingly repetitive, 1980's style gameplay that I can't see a single redeeming aspect of this game. Like I said, if it were a mod, I'd call it a bad mod with boring gameplay, but the fact that this is a retail game? It blows my mind.

Point in case: A mod that is pretty much the same thing, but actually sounds improved for the zombie players as opposed to Left 4 Dead.

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I really don't get what the appeal of Left 4 Dead is. What am I missing?

Not trying to argue with you here boolean, but some of the stuff you said didn't sit right with me. Now I've never played it and I've only been privy to the same videos/articles as the general public... so it's all opinion/speculation from any of us anyway... yet even so:

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Original post by boolean The game seems like everyone is flying about 100mph spamming weapons at quick moving badly animated zombies,

I thought the animations looked fine, I didn't notice anything odd?

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Original post by boolean terrible AI that just runs at the players, and the entire game comes down to "back pedal and hold down fire button at incoming swarm #1935472,

I can't really argue this... you're probably right, and I've never played it so I can't say otherwise.

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Original post by boolean then proceed to next monster trip wire."

You may not have read about the AI director, but supposedly the infected are controlled by this AI, and it takes in account pacing and how the players are doing, or something like that. And it randomly chooses when/where/what will spawn, so that the experience is never the same. In other words, there are no triggers or 'monster trip wire's

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Original post by boolean It just looks like Painkiller, but without the interesting weapons, enemies (zombies zombies zombies), AI (rush rush rush), levels, characters or fun.

Never played painkiller *shrug* :) But they levels look interesting and the survivors have some character, even if it's only a rough sketch. Purportedly they have 1000+ of lines of 'dialog' (I'm guessing one liners and such like 'Help', 'That was close', 'Phew', etc...) This may not satisfy some though. For me, a game like this isn't really about the characters.

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Original post by boolean It looks like all they did was take the source engine, trash the graphics,

How did they trash the graphics? I thought the overall quality was improved from the original Half-life 2 game.

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Original post by boolean then just grab the head crab zombies and type in '1000000' over all the 1's before slapping Left 4 Dead on the box.

This is obviously an exaggeration. I'm not sure whether you meant 1000000 being the number of zombies, or rather the stats of the zombies (speed, dmg, what-have-you). As well as the fact that the zombie models are not a copy-paste job (but I know you didn't really mean that).

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Original post by boolean It seems like the most mind numbingly repetitive, 1980's style gameplay that I can't see a single redeeming aspect of this game. Like I said, if it were a mod, I'd call it a bad mod with boring gameplay, but the fact that this is a retail game? It blows my mind.

Looks like Valve will not be getting their hands on your hard earned cash. :)

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Original post by boolean Point in case: A mod that is pretty much the same thing, but actually sounds improved for the zombie players as opposed to Left 4 Dead. ">Video #1 ">video #2 I really don't get what the appeal of Left 4 Dead is. What am I missing?

I actually played this a few days ago. It's what lead me to look at L4D, actually. While it is fun, for me there is something left desired... perhaps it just needs a dose of polish with the animations and maps... can't put my finger on it. Also, you can't actually play as a zombie in ZM, only the master(RTS gaming). But I'd certainly encourage anyone interested in zombie/survival/horror games to give a whirl.

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Original post by Naxos I thought the animations looked fine, I didn't notice anything odd?

The players need take about 5 steps for the walk animation to kick in, so you get the ice-skating effect as in Quake Wars. The zombies on the other hand seem to be moving too fast for the walk animation and seem to just cycle through 'flail arms wildly' animation until they get shot in the face while teleporting around the map with blinding speed. Most of the crappy animations are caused by the fact that the game moves WAY to fast. The players move with the speed of an olympic runner, the zombies which are normally slow creatures of the damned all seem to come equipped with mechanical racing legs.

But everything generally just seems to be running so damn fast, that there appears to be absolutely no team work, no strategy, no planning, just four people zooming around a map randomly firing at groups of zombies. It's what annoyed me about Quake Wars, and this game follows suit.

I expect this game to do poorly once players actually get some hands on time with it or the reviews start rolling out.

Im looking forward to Left for Dead. Ive played that ZombieMaster game (mentioned above) to death, and I'm expecting L4D to be way way better. So are all the other ZombieMaster players. ZombieMaster is a cool game, but it has a TON of bugs and limitations and drawbacks. L4D is going to be an awesome game for any fan of Zombies. No story? Swarms of mindless zombies? Thats exactly what zombie fans expect lol.