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Valve Provides Details On Left 4 Dead Survival Pack DLC

Posted by Soulskill on from the a-new-take-on-not-dying dept.

A post on the Left 4 Dead blog shares details of the Survival Pack downloadable content due out next week. It will be free, and available for both the PC and Xbox 360 versions of the game. "Our goals for Survival Mode are to deliver a mode of play distinct from Campaign or Versus, have games that regularly last under ten minutes, and emphasize competition with team play through leaderboards. Survival Mode draws on the planning and communication aspects of a successful Finale or Crescendo event, while taking it to another level. It rapidly hits a fever pitch that only a well coordinated team will be able to successfully survive. ... Given the extreme pace of Survival Mode, the number of zombies killed in a single round often outnumbers an entire campaign."

50 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Bad content:dollar by NemosomeN · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not sure what you want..... You say you don't want it to be DLC, but how do you want them to get it to you? It's already free. I'm not sure what you mean by MORE unless you are angry about having to pay your ISP. Anyway, $50 for a game is... kinda standard. I mean, it's more than the average on Steam, but off Steam, it's pretty normal. I'm not sure what you want. Maybe content that you already have that is only unlocked after some period of time? Because that's the only way around download it. Giving it to you and not letting you use it. You are a very strange consumer, and I don't think it's worth targeting you.

    --
    I hate grammar Nazi's.
  2. Re:Bad content:dollar by Jackie_Chan_Fan · · Score: 3, Funny

    Its free. You wont have to pay anything extra. You got your wish.

  3. Re:Bad content:dollar by Nihixul · · Score: 2, Funny

    This is free content, right? I don't see where they are wanting you to pay "MORE". Then again, my contacts should have come out about 30 hours ago, so I might just be misreading something....

  4. Hey idiot by deathtopaulw · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    It's free.

  5. Re:Bad content:dollar by Jackie_Chan_Fan · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I think he just didnt realize that it was free. I would agree with him if it were not free. Left 4 Dead needs a lot more content. It was a pretty shallow and under developed game. It was fun online with friends but way too short. It easily needed 10 more story campaigns or a much longer well thought out scenario. Perhaps 4 "movies" all sequential to each other, each film featuring newer "zombies" with different features than the movie before it.

    Left 4 Dead really is what Valve did to the game. They left it without much content. If valve was asking for money for this extra content, i would tell them to go fuck off. However Valve is doing the right thing and adding more to the game for free. They have done this for TF2 as well and many other games because they realize it increases the value of the game, rather than forcing you to pay for updates, they hope to sell more units of the game at full price.

    Valve has been pretty fair with gamers and I think they're the good guys. Say what you want about Steam, it has gotten much better, and its a pretty nice service now.

  6. Re:Bad content:dollar by Goldberg's+Pants · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What a ridiculous comment. I agree that L4D is overpriced, but they're giving you this content, for free, just like all the TF2 content.

    IT WILL BE FREE... Even the summary says that.

    As trolls go, you didn't even try. Either that or you're a moron.

    Can't wait for this content. Hoping Survival is playable in single player mode. A lot of people whine and say L4D is crap in single player mode, but I like taking it at my own pace. If I want to dash straight for the safe room and to hell with my partners, I can. If I want to shoot them in the head, I can. If I want to stand in one spot and just wait for waves to spawn, I can.

    Online is fun, but I like firing up single player and doing speed runs through No Mercy. (I find the rooftop finale so damn easy now...)

  7. Re:Bad content:dollar by X0563511 · · Score: 1, Redundant

    I'm a moron. My eyes jumped over 'free' somehow. I have a florescent light... maybe there's something to that theory.

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  8. Re:Bad content:dollar by X0563511 · · Score: 1

    Good thing you don't run Steam. You would owe me a hell of a lot more than $50.

    I guess you're the kind of person who would punch me if I told you I thought your haircut looked a bit poor today?

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  9. Re:Bad content:dollar by X0563511 · · Score: 1, Informative

    See above (or below, as your settings go) where I admit my idiocy.

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  10. Excellent! by A+Nun+Must+Cow+Herd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Having played multiplayer online FPS games since Quake 1, L4D is the first one that really felt like a different game to me. Part of that is the intense teamwork required - much more so than other 'team' games like the BattleField series. I'm not really into the whole zombie theme, but the gameplay and design are so well done that I can't help but love playing it anyway.

    Thanks Valve for making a fantastic and innovative game better, and giving away the new content for free!

    1. Re:Excellent! by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm not really into the whole zombie theme, but the gameplay and design are so well done that I can't help but love playing it anyway.

      It's actually interesting that the game is in many ways a parody on the zombie theme itself - in many things, from fast zombies (remember Zoey? "I can't get over how fast they all are, it's not even fair. I'm calling zombie bullshit on that, you know? *nervous chuckle* ... they're not allowed to be so fast") to occasional character comments (Zoey again, upon seeing an abandoned shack in the middle of the trees: "I know how this movie ends") to all the scribblings on the walls. It really takes some time to find all those little pearls, and it's enjoyable in and of itself. It certainly doesn't have much of your classic zombie movie atmosphere, but it has heaps of its own.

      What's also interesting is that the individual elements in the game aren't really all that innovative by themselves; it's the combined result that truly stands out. It's also worth noting that it is one of the few games today that competes entirely on gameplay, and not on the "ooh, shiny!" factor - the graphics is somewhat dated (HL2 engine isn't brand new anymore). On the other hand, it's actually good, because you can play it even on old hardware with good settings (or you can play it on the latest-gen with everything maxed out and 16x FSAA).

    2. Re:Excellent! by Fallingcow · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If you listen to the developer commentary, they say that they came up with the idea when they found themselves regularly firing up a Counterstrike game with a few human players on one team and a whole bunch of knife-only bots on the other, and loving it.

      My friends and I have been doing similar things since the N64. We'd play Perfect Dark against a bunch of melee-only bots, or play three players vs. one raptor in Turok: Rage Wars (we'd have played vs. a dozen stupid raptors, but that game only let you have four players no matter what, so we just had to set its AI to max). On the PC, we'd play one of the AvP games (I can't recall whether it was the first or second one) as marines vs. as many Alien bots as the game would allow, and just play to survive.

      I'm sure many, many others have done similar things. For us, this is one of those "dream games" that we've always wanted; maybe we've even imagined it in our heads in some detail. I fired up the demo for this game, played a level, and was blown away because it was so close to what I'd wanted for years. I'll occasionally play a game like that, though usually it's some kind of RTS for whatever reason (Hearts of Iron II, Rome: TW, and Sins of a Solar Empire all come to mind, as does the Hoth level of SW: Battlefront). Every time it happens, it's like being a kid on Christmas morning, times ten.

      L4D was one of those sorts of games. The Versus mode has proven to be where its long-term value lies for me, but the campaign is the part I'm in love with. That's the game I've wanted for the better part of a decade, and Valve read my mind and made it.

    3. Re:Excellent! by TheLink · · Score: 2, Funny

      Actually the glowing of enemies in L4D reminded me of AvP2.

      I think the AvP franchise still has potential as a game. Imagine using the crysis tech for AvP. Maybe the player controlled marines (as opposed to cannonfodder NPC ones) could have nanosuits, or maybe not :).

      --
    4. Re:Excellent! by rossjudson · · Score: 2, Funny

      You blew your chance to say that Valve read your mind, and ate it.

  11. Shorter rounds by skavenger · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It'll be nice to have an option to hop into a game for a little bit without committing to an hour+ long campaign or versus match. One of the main reasons I don't play very much is that I can rarely sit down for a couple hours and get a full round in.

    1. Re:Shorter rounds by SCPRedMage · · Score: 1

      If that's the case, I'd suggest joining a campaign game already in progress; there's a good chance that the players will already be halfway through the campaign by the time you join.

      And worst case scenario, just leave mid-game if you run out of time; the computer will take over for you.

      --
      My sig can beat up your sig.
    2. Re:Shorter rounds by drb_chimaera · · Score: 1

      Thats part of the point of the Survival mode - the games are a lot shorter (from what I've read you're doing well to last ten minutes once you started the game clock)

  12. Re:Bad content:dollar by Crossmire · · Score: 1

    It is expensive right now, but it was well worth it the weekend it was half price. I wouldn't have bought it at the current price not really knowing what I was getting, but the amount of fun I've had playing it is easily worth the full price in my opinion.

  13. no new maps? by sentientbrendan · · Score: 3, Informative

    The gameplay of versus is great... we don't need another game mode, we need *MAPS*. I can't believe they've been wasting their time on this. If they'd actually talked to anyone who *PLAYS* their game, they would know that people want new maps.

    Everyone is tired of playing mercy hospital for the trillionth time... A new game mode isn't going to make mercy more exciting.

    1. Re:no new maps? by Fallingcow · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'd feel like Valve had done right by their customers if they'd give us the two existing non-VS campaigns as VS--which they say they will do, but goddamnit Valve, that should have been done at launch or a couple weeks after--and at least two more official campaigns (for both VS and Coop). A new game mode is fine, but more maps are what I really want.

      I'm less upset by the small number of campaigns than many are, I think, as it seems to me like 20 maps is quite a few for a multiplayer-only game, but given the nature of this one it just feels like there should be 6-8 official campaigns rather than 4. I'm sure we'll get some great community content, but Valve is just so damn good at what they do that I want more of it straight from them.

      Maybe part of the reason it bothers me at all is that the game was so clearly rushed. The fact that only two of the four campaigns were ready for Vs. play was one sign, but others abound in the interface and menu system. Hell, it still (AFAIK) kicks you back to the menu if it tries to connect to a server during a server search and fails, rather than just re-trying with the same search terms which is what pretty much everyone expects it to do. They clearly tossed the game out to the public before it was polished on even such a basic level, so I find it hard to believe that they didn't cut some planned content for the same reason. That's what I want--the stuff they cut to ship it faster.

    2. Re:no new maps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      You do know that those large 5 map campaigns aren't just something a level designer can pull out of their ass on a weekend right? The four campaigns at 5 maps per must have taken quite some time to do.

      The two that were released for versus lent themselves fairly easily to versus mode play I think. The two that were NOT released for versus are a bit more wide open in some places. I played both of them a bit earlier tonight and found some spots were damned frustrating for infected as spawning was quite difficult at times, especially as the boomer.

    3. Re:no new maps? by SCPRedMage · · Score: 2, Informative

      Uh, both the remaining campaigns WILL be introduced to Versus mode as part of the Survival Pack...

      --
      My sig can beat up your sig.
    4. Re:no new maps? by SCPRedMage · · Score: 4, Informative

      Also, they're supposed to release the L4D SDK at the same time as the Survival Pack, which will let people make their own custom campaigns "discoverable via L4D's matchmaking system.

      So, new maps are DEFINITELY on the way.

      --
      My sig can beat up your sig.
    5. Re:no new maps? by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      > we need *MAPS* ... A new game mode isn't going to make mercy more exciting.

      Agreed.

      What the really weird part is, that you can _already_ play Survival mode. A co-worker (accidently?) invented a new game mode about 2 weeks ago since we were getting bored on Expert. We call it "Don's Survival Mode" after him.

      Details are: After contacting the rescue mission, run _back_ to the safe house (!), and try to stay alive as long as possible as you get wave after wave of zombie and tank rushes. (We count each Tank(s) spawn as a wave.)
      Recommended Difficulty: Easy
      Recommended Campaign: 2nd Campaign, "Death Toll"
      Recommended Map: 5th Chapter, "Boathouse Finale" (For a tougher challenge, try to hold out at the mini-gun.)

      We've introduced this alternate game style to a few co-workers and they'd absolutely loved it. The best part is that it doesn't require any mods -- just "house rules" so to speak.

      But yeah, we definitely need more maps -- we've checked out some of the player created maps, but they all suck. As a game programmer, I now how hard it is to design, texture, and play balance a map; can't do anything but wait...

      Little bit of L4D humor: "Life Imitates Art..."

      L4D Road Sign?! :)
      http://www.i-hacked.com/content/view/274/48/

      The real Zoey (scroll down to end)
      http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Boys-Club/IRL-The-Pretty-People-Who-Inspire-Pretty-Game-Heroes

      Fan Photoshoot
      http://pixelatedgeek.com/2009/03/left-4-dead-photoshoot-looks-perfect/?ea

      Cheers

    6. Re:no new maps? by icsx · · Score: 1

      These level designers at Valve get PAID for doing maps. However, models, textures and brains are needed to feed the zombie designers that Valve has at their basement but if you get paid, do it the job for more than 40 hours a week, you get a pretty nice campaing out in a month or in Valves casem 2 months as they tend to "tune" them up, unless already existing models and graphics are used. Besides, level designers have modelers, animators, graphics artists and so on as their help.

      It's not that hard to do a map. Average person can pull out one in 2 months of time with decent knowledge of Hammer editor. L4D campaign needs 5 campaigns but they are more easy to design than for their other games like CS Source or TF2. Those L4D maps are more like pipes, 1 way in, 1 way out. There isnt much diversity. I'm pretty sure i can pull out 5 map campaign within 4 months myself and i plan do do so too.

      I think biggest problem here is money. Making a level designer to do something in yet unreleased product is more profitable than doing content for a game that is already out (and the content is free).

    7. Re:no new maps? by anomnomnomymous · · Score: 2, Insightful

      One new map especially catering to the Survival mode, is released (called "Lighthouse"). Other than that, they also make the other two campaigns available to be played in Versus.

      Other than that, you should really have a look for the multitude of custom maps/campaigns already available: Definitely with the SDK going to be released, this is only going to grow.

      --
      When you shoot a mime, do you use a silencer?
    8. Re:no new maps? by DanWS6 · · Score: 1

      I agree. I'm not that interested in playing versus mode and survival mode will require playing with friends. Could you imagine how futile it would be playing on a pub? I bought L4D when it first came out for $50, while I have played it over and over I can't help wish they would've provided more than 4 hours of game play. My friends and I are able to play through each campaign on expert in rougly an hour. I'm ready for a few new campaigns, not new game play modes. I have a feeling that this new survival mode will turn out to be just like arena mode, popular at first but then it fades away.

    9. Re:no new maps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      The Developers Kit is going to be released for PC around the DLC time. Its already in beta testing... so there will be more high quality maps to play with over time. If you have Xbox version sorry you went with the worse choice.

    10. Re:no new maps? by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Of course this points to valve's who business plan for L4D. Try it out with four maps, see how popular it is, promise more maps, gauge response and then charge for extra maps if demand is strong. Personally I think they waited too long, the game got a bit boring, players started to misbehave and the licence has taken a bit of a bruising. They even made it unnecessarily difficult to run custom maps all to give their pay per map a leg up on the free competition.

      What they really needed was much more variety in the campaigns, from longer more complex campaigns to shorter quick campaigns, overall at least 10. Instead they seem to be trickling out content as battle of disinterest in the game, a solution that often leads to too little too late.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  14. Re:Bad content:dollar by derfy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It easily needed 10 more story campaigns or a much longer well thought out scenario. Perhaps 4 "movies" all sequential to each other, each film featuring newer "zombies" with different features than the movie before it.

    According to the ingame commentary, this and many more interesting features were scrapped due to playtesters feedback. You can blame them for the lack of sequence between chapters, the removal of the demerit system, and others. The pilot coming to the rescue in No Mercy was originally going to succumb to an infected wound he suffered doing a pickup before you (hence his line, "I just had a...an accident").

  15. Re:Bad content:dollar by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

    I'm still waiting for them to justify the price tag on Left for Dead by adding some more content (that's not DLC!)

    There is no way in hell the game is worth what they want, as-is. And here they want us to pay MORE!?

    Aw, c'mon. Back in the day I've bought Doom3 for more when it was just released; and L4D is far, far better. It's a new big title from a major game developer known for several game blockbusters in the past, it's got stellar reviews everywhere from mainstream to niche press, and it's really just an awesome (and extremely addictive - beware!) game.

  16. Re:Bad content:dollar by BikeHelmet · · Score: 1

    Most Valve games have incredible replay value, similar to most Blizzard games. ;)

    CSS, TF2... my favourite is definitely L4D. I don't think it's overpriced, but I'd still be happier if I had paid $25 for it rather than $50!

  17. Re:Bad content:dollar by Fallingcow · · Score: 1

    Aw, c'mon. Back in the day I've bought Doom3 for more when it was just released

    Oh, god, I'm so sorry. I pirated it and felt like I'd been ripped off. I can't imagine what you feel like. *shudder* The only scare that game gave me was the lurking dread that I'd click the .iso, hit "delete", and the powers of Hell would cause it to re-install itself instead.

  18. Survival mode? by joocemann · · Score: 2, Funny

    Bring it on! As if there was anything else to do as a survivor!

  19. Re:Bad content:dollar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's free. "DLC" refers to a specific distribution system on the Xbox 360 - the downloads menu. Those are optional downloads, show up as game data in memory management, are priced to the developers whims (or released for free), and you can release as much DLC as you want as big as you want (subject to the whole certification process, of course).

    Alternatively, you can release a "title update". This is that little window that pops up when you launch a game telling you that you have to update or disconnect from Xbox Live. It's a required download, can only be done 3 times a year, is mandated free, and gets stored in the hidden 8GB system partition that the console memory manager doesn't tell you about. I'm not sure what happens if patches fill up the update memory. Most likely, old patches get trashed and re-downloaded as needed, and there's probably a really restrictive size limit.

    In short, calling it DLC is a consequence of Microsoft having two different pathways to deliver content through Xbox Live.

    Additionally, I believe that the TF2 guys stated that the 360 update has been delayed so long just because they happen to be running up against memory limits on the 360.

  20. Re:Bad content:dollar by pharm · · Score: 2, Informative

    Right now, L4D is 15 UKP in the UK from Asda online (It's been a tad cheaper elsewhere, but the rest of the online distributors have put their prices back up).

    In the US, Amazon are selling it for $27.

    Anyone who pays sticker price for games these days just isn't looking hard enough.

  21. Re:Bad content:dollar by icsx · · Score: 1

    It's not overpriced anymore, costs only 29,99 or dollars in your local Steam client. Thats the price that the game should have had in the first place. However, Valve made a huge mistake for delaying the SDK release this far. Game is already 6 months old and most players are bored with the old maps. This "survival pack" does not fill the gap, even though the SDK finally gets out. Some players come back to L4D with this, including me but there should have been more campaigns before this update. I lost my interest months ago. I know every goddamn pipebomb, pills, etc locations and i hardly go down or lose any health during campaign, even on expert mode. No challenge, not enough to play so i quitted.

  22. Re:Bad content:dollar by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 1

    I got Doom 3 as a gift, and had to upgrade my old system to play it. Doom 3 was so dark and difficult to see anything that I felt like I must have gone blind and grown hair hands. Not all of us can afford $500 video cards and $1000 monitors: does Left for Dead suffer from the same lack of photons on the screen? I've been debating upgrading my game box to play it and Stubbs the Zombie.

    I'm a sucker for zombie games, it's true.

  23. L4D Survival Pack == the rest of the game by dr_wheel · · Score: 1

    Like most of my online buddies who enjoy playing multiplayer games competitively, I was very disappointed when I purchased L4D and learned that only 2 of the 4 campaigns were playable in versus mode.

    And while Campaign mode (humans vs. bots) was fun for the first week or so, the game quickly became stale and I shelved it. "Survival Pack" is a fitting name when you consider that L4D has been steadily slipping in use since it's initial boom at release:

    http://www.xfire.com/cms/xstatics_2009_january/
    http://www.xfire.com/cms/xstatics_2009_february/
    http://www.xfire.com/cms/xstatics_2009_march/

    So, thank you Valve... for giving us what we should have received at launch. When the Survival Pack is released, how about putting together a real DLC with more maps?

  24. Convenience sample by mahsah · · Score: 1

    Those stats are only for xfire, which I imagine most Left 4 Dead players are not using considering Steam already includes its own game overlay and social networking functions.

  25. Re:Bad content:dollar by anss123 · · Score: 1

    Doom 3 is still dark on $500 video cards and $1000 monitors. There was a hack to remove the shadows floating around though.

  26. Re:Bad content:dollar by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 1

    Still dark, yes. But the higher resolution, larger screen size, and better frame rate helped a lot to notice texture in the dark, and kept using the flashlight from absolutely washing out anything else on the screen. It was much more playable.

  27. It's About Bloody Time! by deweyhewson · · Score: 1

    I've been a player of Left 4 Dead since its release, and the fun factor has been slowly declining since that time, as each subsequent patch has seemed to cause detrimental changes to the gameplay, while removing many fun elements.

    For example, Valve, please fix these most blatant problems: the magic Boomer bug where often bile goes through survivors completely; the glitching Hunter pounce where you'll often fly right through survivors; finally get the Smoker grab working correctly this time; and get rid of the 360-degree radius of a survivor's punch!

    I'm really hoping this pack recreates how fun the game was when it was first released.

  28. Re:Bad content:dollar by Fallingcow · · Score: 1

    L4D isn't dark at all. In places where it would be dark, they have a light-colored fog instead. It's something I didn't even think about until someone pointed it out, but now it kind of bugs me :)

    Anyway, no, it's not a dark game. The fog succeeds in making some areas feel darker while not actually being very dark.

  29. Re:MONDAY!? by Odin_Tiger · · Score: 1

    This is to allow lifeless 13 year olds plenty of time to tune up and learn tricks so they can utterly pwn hardworking adults.

    --
    Unpleasantries.
  30. rooftop finale easy??? by tempest69 · · Score: 1
    ok, with one bot i've never made it.. with three thats madness... unless you have some unreachable spot, or are dinking the difficulty.

    If in fact you can easily handle 3 bots + expert + no hacks/glitching. then hats off 2 you.

    Storm

  31. Re:Bad content:dollar by Kevin108 · · Score: 1

    I didn't think it was worth $50 either. I waited and scored it one weekend when it was half off. After playing it daily since then, it's worth every penny of that $50 to me. It's the only game I've liked since Counter Strike Source and I bought DODS and TF2 and demo'ed COD4 because that's what the same crowd seemed to have moved on to playing. I hated all 3 of those other games. L4D feels and moves almost identical to CSS. Everything in it feels natural to anybody who's played CSS before. Hopefully one day you'll score a copy someday. I'm sure you'll like it.

    --

    It's a perfect time for being wasted.
    A perfect time to watch the stars.
    - Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"
  32. What I want by Kevin108 · · Score: 1

    and I don't care where it comes from, is outside, daytime maps. To be sure our 4 survivors didn't sleep all day and only make a run for the next safehouse at night! I want to fend off a horde in the broad daylight. I want a well-lit look at the face of a Tank. I want to see zombie flesh rotting in the sun!

    --

    It's a perfect time for being wasted.
    A perfect time to watch the stars.
    - Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"
  33. Re:MONDAY!? by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1

    This is to allow lifeless 13 year olds plenty of time to tune up and learn tricks so they can utterly pwn hardworking adults.

    You'd think I'd have better reflexes than all those teenage zombies. Sucks getting old...

    --
    Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  34. Good news for everyone complaining about the price by djnforce9 · · Score: 1

    Good news for everyone complaining about the price. It seems Left 4 Dead's price has come down from what I saw. It used to be $49.99 but now it's $39.99. In my case though, I have already bought it and look forward to the new content. However, this price cut is surely well timed in that it will likely make more people keen on getting it.