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Left 4 Dead SDK Beta Released
Valve has released a beta version of their authoring tools for Left 4 Dead. The tools will allow you to "create your own campaign maps, character skins, 3D models, sound effects, and music and load them into the game." The kit includes a level editor and command-line compiling utilities, as well as example maps, props, infected, and explosives. It also brings plugins for a 3D modeling program called SketchUp. Valve has updated their development wiki to go along with the release.
Sorry, wrong approach. By you or by Valve is up for discussion, but L4D is only secondary a "zombie shooter". It's primary feature is that there is a very heavy emphasis on teamwork, more so than in any other game out there. Zombies just lend themselves well to that cause.
If you play it as a zombie survival shooter, you might be disapponted since, as you point out, a few key features of the zombie genre are completely missing. Like the fact that you can't fully rely on your mates, one of them could easily suddenly turn out to be infected and just not saying anything, knowing he'll be shot if the others notice. In L4D it's the exact opposite. You cannot distrust your teammates. You have to 100% rely on them. You can actually see this in a versus game, when you have a team of mediocre players against 4 FPS cracks essentially playing on their own without good teamwork. The mediocre team will win every single time.
That's the appeal of L4D, at least for me. That you mow down zombies by the hundreds is just the icing on the cake. :)
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