Left 4 Dead 2 Announced - 6/02/09

Holy crap, Left 4 Dead 2 has been announced! Check the forums for the latest updates and discuss it in our L4D2 forum.

L4D Monthly Screenshot Contest - 3/29/09

Left 4 Dead 411 and GameRigs are teaming up to bring you the Left 4 Dead Monthly Screenshot Contest! Submit a screenshot of your favorite scenes in Left 4 Dead and win the monthly prize from GameRigs and partners (don't forget to name your image with a cool name). Submissions will be judged for maximum creepiness and humor.

Click the image above or head to http://www.game-rigs.com/left4dead to enter. There will be a new prize every month. You may remember GameRigs as the company with the custom L4D mousepad and PCs that we've featured in past news stories. Good luck to everybody!

Survival Pack April 21 - 3/25/09

The Survival Pack for Left 4 Dead is set to be released for Xbox 360 on April 21, 2009.

Shacknews explains what the Survival Pack will bring to L4D:

The free Survival Pack adds the new Survival game mode, where players are given time to dig in before fending off unceasing zombie hordes in an attempt to survive as long as possible. Survival Mode is played on 12 new maps--11 being sections of existing levels and 1 created especially for Survival Mode, Lighthouse.

The Survival Pack also brings Versus mode to the final two co-op campaigns, Dead Air and Death Toll. This release coincides with the release of Left 4 Dead: Critics Choice Edition, which contains the original game plus the Survival Pack.

The Survival Pack will be free for all Left 4 Dead players.

L4D 360 Update Released - 2/24/09

Valve has released an update for the Xbox 360 version of Left 4 Dead. Details below:

A free update for the Xbox 360 version of Left 4 Dead is available now via Xbox Live. The update includes a host of fixes, tweaks and new features, including enhancements to Versus mode for improved competitive play. The full change list is:

General
Fixed Survivors being able to climb surfaces marked for versus infected only
Fixed a class of SurvivorBot bugs dealing with rescuing downed players
Players can no longer grab ladders while flying through the air after a Tank punch
Shooting near a car with an alarm that has already fired the alarm will no longer make chirping noises
Fixed mini-gun physics exploit
Fixed propane tanks (and other physics objects) causing players to fall through elevators
Fixed rare achievement bug issues
Fixed several map exploits

Versus Changes
Added HUD elements to show status of other infected players
Fixed instance where a Survivor changing to the infected team would be attacked by infected bots
Normalized special infected melee damage
Fixed exploit where infected players could run away and teleport back to gain health
Players can only change teams once per map
Players can't change teams while other players are still loading
Tank spawns at the same % through the map for both teams in versus mode
Made the Tank and Witch spawn directly on the escape route
Increased chance of getting the Tank or Witch
Fixed team swap issue

Hunter
Easier to pounce a Survivor who is meleeing
Increased Minimum damage a Hunter pounce does

Smoker
Fixed Smoker tongue tolerance
Smoker now has to be killed or the tongue destroyed for the tongue to break
Survivors cannot bash someone off the tongue until the Survivor being pulled is paralyzed or hanging
Tongue attacks that fail to paralyze or hang a Survivor will use the shorter ability delay timer
Fixed cases where the ability timer was not using the correct time
Fixed case where you could point at a Survivor but not register a tongue hit
Fixed Smoker tongue not targeting and landing properly through PZ ghosts
Smoker tongue does damage every second while dragging paralyzed Survivors

Tank
Bashable objects now appear with a red glow
Tanks hitting a car with an alarm disables the alarm permanently
Tank frustration timer is only reset by hitting Survivors with rocks or fists
Reduced autoshotgun damage against Tanks

Witch
Witch spawns at the same % through the map for both teams
Avoids spawning within a certain % of the tank
Fixed an exploit where the Witch could be woken up and tricked into attacking Survivors

These updates bring the 360 version up to the PC version in terms of bugs fixed, which is sure to be welcome for all the 360 players.

L4D DLC Free for PC and 360 - 2/11/09

Valve has announced that the L4D DLC will be free for both PC and Xbox 360 users.

The recently announced Left 4 Dead Downloadable Content (L4D DLC) will be delivered to Xbox 360 and PC gamers free of charge.

Due for release this spring, the DLC for 2008's best-selling new game property on the PC and Xbox 360, is dubbed the L4D Survival Pack and introduces a new multiplayer game mode entitled, Survival, plus two complete campaigns for Versus Mode (Death Toll, Dead Air). A Critic's Choice Edition of the game will be heading to retail stores this spring, and will include access to all the content introduced in the L4D: Survival Pack.

No details on the release date yet.

New Game Mode, Versus Maps, SDK - 2/5/09

Valve has just issued a press release saying that a new game mode called "Survival" will be released this Spring along with Dead Air and Death Toll for Versus mode and the SDK.

Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress, and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced a series of content and development releases for its latest title, 2008's best-selling new game property for the PC and Xbox 360, Left 4 Dead (L4D).

The first L4D DLC - dubbed the L4D Survival Pack -- is due for release this spring and introduces a new multiplayer game mode entitled, Survival, plus two complete campaigns for Versus Mode . A Critic's Choice Edition of the game is also heading to retail stores this spring, and will include access to all the content introduced in the L4D: Survival Pack.

In addition, for PC gamers and aspiring developers, the first Left 4 Dead release for the Source Software Development Kit (Source SDK) will allow the creation of custom Left 4 Dead campaigns that will be discoverable via L4D's matchmaking system. The SDK update is also due for release this spring, and is free of charge to all owners of L4D on the PC.

"Since Half-Life launched in 1998, Valve has made continuous efforts to expand the offering of its products beyond what's included on the day of launch," said Gabe Newell, co-founder and president of Valve. "With Half-Life and Counter-Strike, and more recently Team Fortress 2, we've learned that we're no longer making stand-alone games but creating entertainment services. With Left 4 Dead we're extending that tradition by creating additional gameplay and releasing our internal tools to aspiring developers so they may also create and distribute new Left 4 Dead experiences."

Left 4 Dead is a survival action game from Valve that blends the social entertainment experience of multiplayer games such as Counter-Strike and Team Fortress with the dramatic, narrative experience made popular in single player action game classics such as the Half-Life series of games. Released in November of 2008, L4D has earned over 25 industry awards from outlets around the world.

No details yet on Survival mode.

L4D Valentines, Skins 4 Speed - 2/3/09

Left 4 Dead fan Oney originally posted his Left 4 Dead parody "Left 4 Speed" on newgrounds where it has received over 100,000 views, and has now uploaded it to YouTube so that we can embed it here:

Great job.

beavotron has created some Left 4 Dead valentines that you can find on the Penny Arcade forums, her website or her DA account.

Community member Sam has posted a new set of skins for Left 4 Dead called "Dead 4 Left" which make the Infected look like Survivors.

Sam also posted a tutorial on how to create your own custom L4D models that you can find on FPSBANANA.

College OTR has a list of the six types of players you meet in Left 4 Dead.

Bluellama took a video of a scoring glitch that took place in the AGERocks.com tournament.

Some construction signs warned people of the reality of L4D.

Big shoutout to the Steam developers who added an 'ignore all' button for both group and friend requests in Steam Community, now if only there was a way to search for people when selecting a player of the week/chat admin..

Francis Hates Left 4 Dead - 1/28/09

GCIDogmeat and GCITherewolf have made a music video on everything Francis hates about Left 4 Dead.

They have a thread in the official forums, post your comments there.

CAL Update, Videos, Eggs and Bravo - 1/27/09

CAL pre-season starts February 1, 2009! Check out the CAL L4D page here. If you're not one of the over 500 teams to already register, you can still make or join teams for two weeks after the start of pre-season. Sundays have been chosen as the day for matches, which received the majority of the votes from the team leaders. Schedules will be released every week on Wednesday by 10:00 EST, and default match times are 9:00PM depending on the conference. They have released a CAL mod/plugin as well as the server configuration, which allows the freezing of Survivors until the match is live.

If you're a team looking for a server, make sure to check out GameServers.

For anybody that has played Halo, the Hang 'Em High map will be familiar, and now you can play it in Left 4 Dead. Check out video and screenshots of the map here.

A video made with the L4D demo that escaped our eyes has been brought to our attention by Tom from AGERocks.com. Video embedded below.

iFrau on DeviantArt has created a L4D-TF2 hybrid map poster which you can see below. Two other pieces of her art caught my eye which are L4D-related, Happy New Year with Zoey and Watch out.

Lcpuche on the official forums has created a thread on Left 4 Dead easter eggs

There's a Johnny Bravo soundpack available and a video to show it off.

mystrdat has updated his L4D Essential Spray Guide on the forums with information on making animated multiframe sprays.

L4D Melee Exploit Fixed - 1/23/09

Valve has released a small patch to Left 4 Dead, getting rid of the melee exploit.

Updates to Left 4 Dead have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Left 4 Dead

* Fixed an exploit with melee where swapping weapons ignored the intended delay between swings.
* In Versus mode, the Tanks' health now reflects the damage he takes from burning.
* Fixed an exploit related to the "joinclass" command

Still no word on the new content/SDK release.

Wiimotes, Interview, Versus, More - 1/20/09

Lots of L4D news.

L4D PC Splitscreen Co-op with Two Wiimotes
Ryan Tani managed to play Left 4 Dead PC splitscreen co-op with two Wiimotes and has posted a video and guide. Check it out:

Awesome job, thanks Ryan for posting instructions.

Instructions for Versus Only Server
DirtyDave from our community has posted a great guide on how to set up a perfect Versus-only server. If you own a server and want it to be Versus mode, you have to read this guide. Great job Dave.

1UP Interview with Mike Booth
Thierry Nguyen of 1UP interviewed Mike Booth with some interesting questions and answers. One was about level design:

We actually started out with a single, huge city design with a great many routes for the Survivors to take to reach the extraction point. As we began to playtest in this zombie city, we immediately discovered that having that much choice combined with the chaos of zombie hordes made for frustrated and paralyzed Survivor teams. The Survivors didn't have time to discuss which way to go, so they would blindly run around and get lost. Eventually, once they had learned the map a bit, they would inevitably remember one route and use it every time. It was clear that Left 4 Dead wasn't about exploring large open spaces, but rather, making smaller moment-to-moment tactical choices, and working together as a team. So we carved up that giant city into the maps that now make up the No Mercy and Dead Air campaigns.

Read the rest of the interview here.

i hate vans
I do not hate madlep from boomercharged.net. He put together a website at http://ihatevans.com/ that combines Left 4 Dead with twitter in an amusing way, go check it out.

Poster Contest Results
Gamestar.de sent us word that they have announced the winners of their Left 4 Dead poster contest. Here's what they had to say:

We're happy that also one of Left 4 Dead 411's members, Adam Riches from Coulston/England, came in third with his "Cold Blooded"-poster and won an official L4D posterkit. Other posterkits were won by Philipp-Joel Dreykluft for his "Identity"-inspired handposter and Sebastian Heinicke for Ice Ice Zombies. The contest winner, Markus Bernhardt, already got a lot of attention when he first posted his "Final Flight" poster in the Steam forums where even some people thought the poster was one of Valve's. He wins the grand prize, Bill's jacket and the PC-Version of the game.

The winners and all other 89 posters can be found in our gallery:click here

Congratulations to Adam and all of the winners, great posters! Markus Bernhardt posted some custom L4D South Park spray logos for you to download.

Randy Savage Mod
GuidoAnchovy made a Randy Savage Infected Sound Mod, check it out in action here.

Hunter Tips and Tricks
dread armadillo has posted a great video on how to play the Hunter, which you can find embedded below:

Tank Origami
Somebody made some Tank Origami.

L4D Soundboards
MilkMan268 on newgrounds.com created some Left 4 Dead soundboards - Francis, Louis, Bill, and Zoey. There's no volume control which is a pain, but they serve their purpose.

That's all for now, folks. If you have news tips or want to contribute with your own article, let me know at squerl@left4dead411.com.

L4D Gameplay Stats Available - 1/16/09

Lifetime gameplay stats for every Left 4 Dead player are now being saved and can be viewed in your Steam Community profile. Stats are only being kept starting now, so your stats page might be empty like mine.

There are a bunch of stats being tracked, including games played, finales survived, infected killed, total time played and average infected killed per hour. Stats on pain pill and first-aid kit usage, teamplay stats, weapon stats including how many shots, your accuracy and headshot percentage; Versus game stats and how you do as each individual boss Infected, and your favorites like your most played campaign, character, level 1 and level 2 weapons.

This is what we like about Steam Community.

Update: As of Friday night, the new stats pages have been removed.

Left 4 Dead Update Released - 1/14/09

The first major update for Left 4 Dead has been released, fixing a lot of exploits, bugs, and empowering the Smoker and Hunter. Check out all the changes below:

Left 4 Dead has been updated with a host of fixes, tweaks and new features, including enhancements to Versus mode for improved competitive play. The full change list is below. For PC users the update will be applied automatically via Steam. Meanwhile, the update will be made available to Xbox 360 players in the coming weeks.

General
- Fixed Survivors being able to climb surfaces marked for versus infected only.
- Fixed a class of SurvivorBot bugs dealing with rescuing downed players.
- Players can no longer grab ladders while flying through the air after a Tank punch.
- Shooting near a car with an alarm that has already fired the alarm will no longer make chirping noises.
- Improved loading time.
- Fixed mini-gun physics exploit.
- Fixed propane tanks (and other physics objects) causing players to fall through elevators.
- Fixed rare achievement bug issues.
- Fixed several map exploits.
- Fixed various match making issues.
- Fixed NAT traversal issues.

Versus Changes
- Added HUD elements to show status of other infected players.
- Changed color of infected player name in chat to red.
- Fixed exploit where players could spawn infected bots
- Fixed instance where a Survivor changing to the infected team would be attacked by infected bots.
- Normalized special infected melee damage.
- Made the following client commands cheat protected: "Kill" and "explode".
- Fixed exploit where infected players could run away and teleport back to gain health.
- Players can only change teams once per map.
- Players can't change teams while other players are still loading.
- Tank spawns at the same % through the map for both teams in versus mode.
- Made the Tank and Witch spawn directly on the escape route.
- Increased chance of getting the Tank or Witch.
- Fixed team swap issue.

Hunter
- Easier to pounce a Survivor who is meleeing.
- Increased Minimum damage a Hunter pounce does.

Smoker
- Fixed Smoker tongue tolerance.
- Smoker now has to be killed or the tongue destroyed for the tongue to break.
- Survivor's cannot bash someone off the tongue until the Survivor being pulled is paralyzed or hanging
- Tongue attacks that fail to paralyze or hang a Survivor will use the shorter ability delay timer.
- Fixed cases where the ability timer was not using the correct time.
- Fixed case where you could point at a Survivor but not register a tongue hit
- Fixed Smoker tongue not targeting and landing properly through PZ ghosts.
- Smoker tongue does damage every second while dragging paralyzed Survivors.

Tank
- Bashable objects now appear with a red glow.
- Tanks hitting a car with an alarm disables the alarm permanently.
- Tank frustration timer is only reset by hitting Survivors with rocks or fists.
- Reduced autoshotgun damage against Tanks.

Witch
- Witch spawns at the same % through the map for both teams.
- Avoids spawning within a certain % of the tank.
- Fixed an exploit where the Witch could be woken up and tricked into attacking Survivors.

Hooray!

Patch Soon, Boomer's Day Off - 1/12/09

It's Left 4 Dead 411's second birthday today. We've gone from a couple thousand visits per month to over a million! Thank you to everybody in the community for helping out, sending us news tips and making 411 what it is today.

Patch soon
Shacknews reported on a forum post where somebody got an e-mail from Chet saying that a patch should be coming this week.

Boomer's Day Off Video
The people at kill9 created a new five-minute Left 4 Dead comedy and posted it to YouTube. Watch it below.

Great job, looking forward to future episodes!

L4D Action Figures
JFAK075 over at the All Things Zombie Forums posted pictures of his custom Left 4 Dead action figures.

Novint Falcon with L4D
Arstechnica reports that Left 4 Dead was playable with the Novint Falcon at CES this year and that a patch is on its way so that everybody with one can use it.

Metal - Left 4 Dead Hunter Part III
Metal has created the third and final part of his Left 4 Dead Hunter series which you can watch below. We posted part one before and part two is also available.

Great pounces and great job.

L4D Tournaments, Leagues, Ladders - 1/12/09

A number of Left 4 Dead leagues, ladders, and tournaments are popping up. If you're interested in some Left 4 Dead competition, check out any of the following and if you're successful or have something to share let us know.

CAL L4D Sign-ups
Sign-ups for CAL's Left 4 Dead 4v4 league are now open - go here. They have posted all of their rules and we're hoping for a successful first season.

UGC L4D League
UGC has a L4D league with about 25 teams right now.

GGL.com Left 4 Dead Tournament
Joe from GGL.com contacted us about their L4D tournament with the following basic information:

- Ladder format, team vs. team
- A ladder for PC and a ladder for Xbox 360
- Both ladders are open now, and run until 1/25/09. Teams can join anytime, but of course the earlier they join the better the chance to win
- We're giving away about $800 worth of free games to the teams that finish at the top of the ladders
- Teams gain points both by winning and just by playing

If you and your friends are interested, the PC ladder page is here and the Xbox 360 ladder page is here. Good luck!

Swedish Competition
Our Swedish friends at Left4Dead.se have a competition going (open only to Swedes) to win an L4D mousepad signed by Valve and L4D shirts. Head to their competition page here. I can't read Swedish, not sure what you have to do.

Trans-Tasman Zombie Challenge
Gee from Gamestah.com contacted us about an Australia vs. New Zealand L4D event on the 25th of January which will be streamed live on Gamestah TV - click here for the event page.

L4D Player Profiles Comic
The Gelatinous Cube has posted a new Left 4 Dead comic.

New Blog Post, CAL 4 L4D - 1/2/09

The official Left 4 Dead blog has been updated with a post on art direction in the game: Stylized Darkness. It contains screenshots and explanations that we've read and heard about before, so it's nothing too exciting.

CAL has posted some rules for their upcoming L4D league. Some highlights: closets are legal unless it's impossible for Infected to reach them, boss infected can't use cars to block paths, quick bashing is illegal, and map exploits are of course not good. xerox01 introduces the rules highlights as follows:

First, progress has been slow getting this off the ground with the holidays coming right after the first admins got hired. It is our aim to get things moving swiftly towards a stable first season in the very near future. For some idea of a timetable, we are basically just waiting on some minor logistics and we will be open for team signups. After a short period for signups, there will be a brief - 1 or 2 week preseason, mainly to get everyone familiar with CAL's system since there isn't going to be anything new or complicated in regards to the game. Then, the normal 8 weeks of regular season followed by a playoff format TBD.

Pay attention to the CAL L4D site if you have a team that wants to get competitive.

Dusty33 on the official forums has created a Fort Building Menu script so that you can create some forts in-game.

Some guy made Left 4 Dead character twitters.

A huge bug that needs fixed ASAP was brought to our attention by community member Frito, saying that in Versus mode you can basically have unlimited boss AI zombies by switching to spectator and switching back. Valve really is dropping the ball on fixing the many, many game-ruining bugs and exploits that have shown up, especially for a company that prides itself on Steam and post-release updates.

Speaking of semi-exploits, here's a Boathouse finale video guide:

ACCsperman showed the similarities between Amityville II and Left 4 Dead in this YouTube video.

Happy New Year!