47927 In-game now on Steam
Dead Air Beta Released
July 21, 2011 - L4D Team
Besides adding melee weapons, we have made some changes to the 4th and 5th maps of the campaign. Give them a few play throughs and let us know what you think. Make sure to try some different strategies – especially in the finale.
We have also tried something new with the Scavenge map in this campaign. I won’t give away the experiment here but it should be interesting to see how people choose to play the map.
Cold Stream and the rest of the Left 4 Dead 1 maps will be out later this summer as part of the Cold Stream DLC.
July 15th Update
July 15, 2011 - L4D Team
Bleed Out Versus, Movie Fan, Spawn Distances
Bleed Out Versus
Now you have a good excuse for rushing through Versus.
There is no permanent Survivor health, it is all temporary and it is ticking down. Even if you don’t normally play Versus, this is a great mutation to try. The action is frantic and fast as team wipes are always just a few seconds away.
Movie Fan
Have you watched any live action Left 4 Dead movies on YouTube 60% of you have, 30% of you have not and 9% are just confused. What this really means is 39% of you need to visit YouTube and search for some Left 4 Dead related movies. The community is making some really awesome stuff.
Spawn Distances
We made a change to shrink the finale spawn distances from 600 units to 300 units. In this week's poll, let us know what you think. We have tested this change heavily but if you find any oddity with a Community Campaign or our own campaigns, please let us know.
Streams Crossed!*
July 7, 2011 - L4D Team
We asked for 20,000 players to get the Stream Crosser achievement by Sunday night. You started playing at 10am on Wednesday morning. Four and half hours later you surpassed the 20,000 target. By 5pm you passed 30,000. By this morning at 10am – a mere 24 hours later you hit 60,774!
Thanks! This is a great stress test on Cold Stream. If you can, keep playing and submitting bugs this weekend. We have a bunch of bug reports and feedback – seems some of you don’t believe in purple and black checkerboard paintings. For Cold Stream the campaign this means we can fix those bugs, continue tweaking some game play and do our final performance optimization pass.
The rest of the campaigns included in the DLC are also being worked on as we modify some locations and make some optimization improvements on them as well.
Since you hit your mark, this means we are going to unlock Dead Air early. We are going to try and release it as early as possible but will release it on July 22nd the latest. It isn’t currently ready for release as we have been working on The Terminal and Finale maps and need to test them more internally.
What else is coming? We have been working on and testing a new version of the Dark Carnival finale and some gameplay changes for finales in general. We want to get some more of these changes out and tested on the PC. Once those are solid and our new campaigns are ready, we will go into the certification process on the Xbox 360 and then release. What date is that? Hard to say but with your help it just got closer.
*While we crossed streams we did avoid total protonic reversal. Good job everybody.
Stream Crossers Needed!
July 6, 2011 - L4D Team
While we are still tweaking Cold Stream and making some game play changes, we really want people to pound on the Cold Stream maps and help us find any bugs.
Normally on an internal project we would have the whole company take a part of each day and do nothing but play the upcoming game or DLC and submit bugs. To add to the fun we often give out prizes for participating. Since Cold Stream is not just being developed internally but also with the community - we want the community to help pound on the campaign and look for bugs.
What’s your prize? If 20,000 people can earn the Stream Crosser achievement (Survive a campaign of Cold Stream on any difficulty) by the end of day this Sunday, we will give all Steam players a reward - On July 22nd we will release Dead Air from the upcoming Cold Stream DLC early.
Don’t have Left 4 Dead 2 on the PC yet? Maybe you play on the Xbox 360? Here’s some encouragement to give it and Cold Stream a try; Left 4 Dead 2 is 75% off today only! That makes today the perfect time to pick up a copy or gift one to a friend.
July 1st Update
July 1, 2011 - L4D Team
Lone Gunman, Following L4D2, Movie Fan, Next Wednesday
Lone Gunman
You and your Magnum against the deadly horde and Boomers.
So you have your Magnum pistol and… well you do have your Magnum pistol. You better be counting bullets because four swipes by a common and you are dead. Getting boomed? Forget about it.
Following Left 4 Dead 2
How do you follow Left 4 Dead 2? It depends on your platform.
If you are on the PC or Mac:
| Facebook Only | 4% |
| Twitter Only | 2% |
| Steam Forums Only | 36% |
| Facebook/Twitter/Steam | 5% |
| Facebook/Twitter | 1% |
| Facebook/Steam | 16% |
| Twitter/Steam | 4% |
| None of the above | 32% |
Another way to look at it is 26% PC/Mac players use Facebook, 12% use Twitter, 61% use the Steam forums and 32% use none of those ways.
If you are on the 360:
| Facebook Only | 22% |
| Twitter Only | 2% |
| Steam Forums Only | 9% |
| Facebook/Twitter/Steam | 6% |
| Facebook/Twitter | 5% |
| Facebook/Steam | 7% |
| Twitter/Steam | 1% |
| None of the above | 48% |
That means 40% Xbox 360 players use Facebook, 14% use Twitter, 23% use the Steam forums and 48% use none of those ways.
If we combine the communities – they are about the same size - 33% use Facebook, 14% use Twitter, and 43% use the Steam Forums and 40% use none of these. These numbers do not include the non-votes and only include players who read the blog so the – none of these – option is probably much larger. We have some work to do…
Movie Fan?
Have you ever watched a Left 4 Dead 1 or 2 inspired live action video on YouTube?
Next Wednesday?
Check back next Wednesday for a special update. We are going to need your help...