The Workshop Approaches

October 17, 2012 - L4D Team

The Left 4 Dead 2 Workshop is getting close but before we unleash it on everyone, we first need to do some testing with outside contributors in a closed beta. This way we can make sure the Workshop works for add-on authors and they can see how best to interact with the Workshop.

Most content packages will simply work but in a few cases the user experience can be improved by the content package author.

An example change we have seen is the need to break apart model packs to avoid conflicts. If your Survivor model pack has all 4 characters it will conflict with other packs and individual models. For example, this would mean if you download the Minecraft character pack but then want to include Vacation Zoey – there would be a conflict over which version of Zoey should be shown.

This conflict exists now as well, but with the Workshop content creators can include the four individual models as a collection so people can choose to download or activate all four or each individually. We have also added conflict reporting to the interface so people are aware of any conflicts with the various addons they are subscribed to.

We will start the process for adding people to the beta next week.

This week we are looking to feature a new community campaign. If you haven’t already, let us know what campaign should be featured by posting in this thread.

Today we have an update preparing for the workshop and fixing various bugs. You can read the full release notes here.

Bonus zombies today! Are you getting too tired to chase zombies by foot? Want to drive over them instead? Zombie Driver HD is being released today and has a little L4D Easter egg… the L4D Crash Course Rescue Van! Check it out here.