February 25th Update

February 25, 2011 - L4D Team

Reminder, Bleed Out , Favorite NPC, Anticipation Reminder

We are going to cycle back to the original Mutations for a little bit. After our recent poll about community Mutations we received many emails pointing out that you cannot earn Mutant Overlord playing custom mutations. Don’t stop with the Mutation ideas, we will come back to community Mutations. We are just taking a little break for now.

Bleed Out
Your health is a ticking away!
With constant mobs chasing you, there's no time for standing around. You have no permanent health, only temporary health that is continuously ticking away. You won't find any health packs to restore your health, only pills and adrenaline. This mutation is for Campaign mode.

Favorite NPC
We asked, In all the L4D world, who is your favorite NPC?
Death Toll’s Church Guy won with 27% of the vote with Swamp Fever’s Virgil following with 23%, Whitaker from Dead Center and the Chopper Pilot from No Mercy tied with 15% , John Slater from Death Toll took 9% of the vote, and 11% of you couldn’t make up your mind or are so in love with all of them you couldn’t choose just one.

Most anticipated L4D1 Map?
With the announcement of Cold Stream we also mentioned that we will be porting over additional Left 4 Dead 1 maps. Which one has you the most excited?

Answers:
Dead Air
Death Toll
Blood Harvest
Crash Course
No Opinion

Mutations

February 21, 2011 - L4D Team

Starting this Friday we are going to cycle back to the original Mutations for a little bit. After our recent poll about community Mutations we received many emails pointing out that you cannot earn Mutant Overlord playing custom mutations. Don’t stop with the Mutation ideas, we will come back to community Mutations. We are just taking a little break for now.

That break will give PC players plenty of time to get ready for the Fragpipe’s crazy L4D2 Tournament. Check their site for more information. If you aren’t up for a tournament, maybe it is time to finally pop the question to your co-op partner.

Cold Stream

February 16, 2011 - L4D Team

Sorry for the recent lack of updates, we have been working on a surprise and here it is.

Matthew Lourdelet (2 Evil Eyes) has been working on a new community campaign – Cold Stream. We loved 2 Evil Eyes and Cold Stream looks even more promising with innovative game play arenas and effects. Matthew has really shown that there are still plenty of new ideas in L4D2 modding.

He recently shared it with us and we love it so far but it isn’t done. We were tempted to have him quietly finish it with our help and release it as part of an upcoming DLC.

Tempted… but we decided against that. Instead, we think we have a better idea. We want you the community to be part of the process of taking his unfinished campaign and releasing it as DLC on the Xbox 360, PC and Mac.

Since Matthew already has a start on the campaign, we need to back up a little in the process before we go forward.

The very first step in creating a new DLC is deciding on the larger goals and constraints for the DLC. The Sacrifice and the Passing were story heavy, so we want to see what the other end of the spectrum looks like. For this DLC we start with wanting to experiment by releasing a map pack that wasn’t about story. It would just be new campaigns for Left 4 Dead 2.

That makes the first constraint no new audio or story.

The easiest starting point for new campaigns is the three remaining Left 4 Dead 1 campaigns, so the DLC will include those. We also want something brand new and Cold Stream is the perfect fit.

That’s the start of the DLC. We have the basic information but we don't even have a name or release date yet.

We will hold off on the name for now.

That leaves the release date. The answer to when the DLC will be released is simple for now, sometime after Portal 2. Why don’t we set some date in stone right now? Because the real answer to when we are going to release something is always – when it’s ready.

Quality is a function of time and resources. So we can throw more people at the problem and/or take longer. We like to not constrain ourselves by either, so at this point we are willing to say - “Let’s not set a date yet, we’ll know better later.” Of course, that is also why the concept of Valve Time exists but later you will see why “Valve Time” is a good thing, not a bad thing.

For now, that’s it.

In the next few weeks we will add Cold Stream to the UI (user interface) and we will all begin testing it. As we receive feedback and test data we will also share some data we collect on player experience and show how we put that data to use. We will include you with regular posts, polls, and updates.

We have created a special forum just for feedback on the campaign and this project (Cold Stream Forum). While the beta will only be available for PC and Mac users, we appreciate feedback and ideas from the entire community. This is an experiment for us, so please let us know what you think and what you would like to see in the DLC – just remember the constraints.

February 11th Update

February 11, 2011 - L4D Team

Death’s Door, Kick the Vote, Favorite NPC

Death’s Door
This Co-op Mutation from Rayman1103 features death, death at a moment’s notice. No sitting around waiting to die. No wondering if your friends will save you. Nothing. You go down, you’re dead. So stick close to your friends and make sure to watch out for friendly fire.

Kick The Vote
For last poll we asked, if you vote kick why do you vote kick? Clearly getting rid of Team killers is a top priority. Here are your answers in order of votes. Team killer 28%, Poor skills 19%, Annoying 15%, Rude or Crude 11%, I don't vote kick 11%, Waiting for a friend 9%, To grief other players 4%, Unknown player 3%

Favorite NPC?
In all the L4D world, who is your favorite NPC?

No Mercy - Chopper Pilot
Death Toll - Church Guy
Death Toll - John Slater (boat guy)
Dead Center - Whitaker
Swamp Fever – Virgil
No Opinion

January 28th Update

January 28, 2011 - L4D Team

Nightmare, Encore?, Vote Kicking

Nightmare
You’ll never see them coming

This Survival Mutation was inspired by Karma Jockey. There are commons, plenty of beefed up Specials, no glows, and lots and lots of fog. If you like to be scared by things that jump out at you from the night, this one is for you.

Encore?
This week’s new Mutation should make it clear how people voted in the previous poll. 46% of the votes were for a new community Mutation this week. 29% voted for an Encore Mutation. 24% of the voters were undecided, confused, or both. We will still occasionally have an Encore Mutation, but this week - a new Mutation.

Vote Kicking
Do you vote kick? Why do you vote kick? If you do vote kick, pick the most common reason when answering this week’s in-game poll.