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Left 4 Dead Update Will Bring Completed SDK, Content Sharing Tools

Posted by Soulskill on from the no-word-on-left-4-dead-3 dept.

Valve has announced details of an update to Left 4 Dead that is due out next week. To start, the SDK open beta is over, and the final version is being released. They're also adding a framework for easily sharing player-created content, accessible through the menu system in-game. In addition to that, they're revamping the matchmaking system to accommodate custom campaigns (like this Resident Evil 3 mod). Quoting: "Content authors will be able to package up their new maps, along with new posters, models, and textures, into a single .VPK file. To install and activate this content in-game, players need simply download the .VPK and double click on it. ... When creating or searching for a lobby, a new option named 'Add-on campaign' will let you select from among the add-on campaigns that you have installed. You can then find games or lobbies as well as create a lobby for that campaign. You can invite your friends, too. If they do not have the campaign installed, they will automatically be offered and an option to download it."

21 of 30 comments (clear)

  1. Hrmm by acehole · · Score: 1

    Left 4 dead 3 was announced, they thought that Left 4 Dead 2 has been out long enough.

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    1. Re:Hrmm by derGoldstein · · Score: 3, Funny

      They managed 2 make Left 4 dead 1 a legend within 3 days. Don't 4get that it was a 1derful, remarkable 6ess. A lot of zombies 8 brainz. It's 4 this reason that Left 4 dead 2 is being pushed out 2 months after Left 4 Dead 1 reached market sa2ration. Maybe they'll throw you a reb8 if you bought Left 4 Dead 1, but don't expect them 2 just hand it over to every1.

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      Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
  2. Why are they even bothering? by VGPowerlord · · Score: 3, Funny

    The only reason the Left 4 Dead SDK is of any use at this point is it's supposed compatibility with Left 4 Dead 2, as the first game has essentially five months before it's left for dead.

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    1. Re:Why are they even bothering? by Crookdotter · · Score: 1

      Well, if it is compatible, they are releasing free content creators for a game that's not out until november. That's pretty amazing isn't it? Won't that mean that L4D2 will skyrocket in popularity if the amount of official and fan content is staggering when put together?

    2. Re:Why are they even bothering? by Rog7 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      They're bothering because this is exactly the kind of support they promised for Left4Dead.

      Let go of the silly nerdrage, you''re blinded by it.

      A decent co-op game (a genre all too rare) and full tools for the community to mod with, and you're counting days until you consider abandoned? Seems like an odd perspective.

    3. Re:Why are they even bothering? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Huh? Since when does it matter that you fulfil what you promise in games?

      I mean, when I think of the promises and the final of Spore... Or Windows Vista ...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:Why are they even bothering? by icsx · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They're bothering because this is exactly the kind of support they promised for Left4Dead.

      Let go of the silly nerdrage, you''re blinded by it.

      Everyone expected more content from _Valve_. More campaigns, more survival maps and only thing L4D seems to get is Tools for community to make their own campaigns and survival maps so that Valve can concentrate for L4D2 instead.

      However, the L4D2 Boycott group on Steamcommunity (that has around 18% of people compared to the official L4D Group) made Valve to change their mind. Now they promise more content for Left 4 Dead, the original one and promised not to ditch it when L4D2 is out.

      I paid 50$ for the game, i assumed that it would get atleast 2 more campaigns before the end of the year + a lot more content than this, for free. Now 7 months passed after it's release and i've seen 1 _new_ map, survival mode lighthouse. Rest are just warmups for the maps that has been played over and over and over again. Then L4D2 was announced and it's not a suprise for me that a lot of people are dissapointed for the current count of DLC.

      TF2 has gotten a lot more content since and so did CS Source too. In the first year of their release, there was amazing count of new maps for these games and new features. L4D is way behind in the schedule.

    5. Re:Why are they even bothering? by Rog7 · · Score: 1

      TF2 has gotten a lot more content since and so did CS Source too. In the first year of their release, there was amazing count of new maps for these games and new features. L4D is way behind in the schedule.

      TF2 was 11 years in the making. CS Source leveraged from the original CS. Both were based upon mods, so I do find the "mods aren't good enough" bit absurd when the premium professional products compared aren't far removed.

      So that's what this is really about I'd say. Time versus money. I'd rather pay $100 in two years to get full content than wait a decade. Of course, it's human nature for most people to want it all, timely and cheap / free. But the expectations aren't reasonable when the release schedule, updates and overall product aren't comparable. In several ways Left4Dead can be considered a bigger project than TF2 or CounterStrike, it certainly involves a lot more design and code.

      Maps aren't hard to come by once the tools are available, which is what this is all about.

      What's bugging me more than the semantics of promises versus expectations? Some people want free, free, free, but mods aren't good enough for them? Have these guys been paying any attention to Valve products for the past 12 years?

    6. Re:Why are they even bothering? by ShakaUVM · · Score: 1

      TF2 was 11 years in the making.

      Eh, kinda. Rebooting your tech two or three times and then redoing the entire thing from scratch two years before launch doesn't really count as 11 years in development. As someone who followed all the news on TF2 over the years... it's nothing like what it was originally supposed to be - a commander class to organize attacks, people cooperating to fire machine guns, a realistic approach to graphics, etc. While all these things are probably inferior to what they actually released, I dunno if it counts as active development. I think TFC counts as their original TF2 mod, actually.

      What's bugging me more than the semantics of promises versus expectations? Some people want free, free, free, but mods aren't good enough for them? Have these guys been paying any attention to Valve products for the past 12 years?

      TF2 hasn't released its code for modability. Until that happens, then yeah...

      Their core product with L4D and TF2 both only held my interest for about 10 hours.

  3. Lack of grateful fans? by Rog7 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Valve is still one of the few companies that puts out full SDKs not only for mods for their engine, but pretty much every game they make on it as well-- Yet it's they're getting much appreciation, at least not by the comments above, and I expect some below as well. It makes me wonder why they bother, although I for one am really glad that they do.

    Usually my complaint is that sequels take too long to come out, so I'm a bit at odds with those that are complaining a year is too soon. Seriously? A year = timely.

    1. Re:Lack of grateful fans? by rsmith-mac · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They're not going to get much appreciation, because while custom levels are a nice thing to have, they're not high on the list of problems people have with L4D1. There's a good Yahtezeeism from his review of Little Big Planet that drives this point home:

      If a game that stands up by itself wants to release level design and modding tools, than Brillo Bananas: good modding communities are the sprinkling of cinnamon on a delicious trifle and hence relying on user made content is like eating heaped spoonfuls of cinnamon right from the jar. I don't want to have to wade through waste-high rendering runoff to get to the good levels, especially when I can do that by just playing the story mode: you know, the levels designed by professional fucking level designers. If I buy a house, I want an architect to design it. If I design it myself, it may have a more personal touch, but it's going to fall over very fast and even if it doesn't the giant fiberglass breasts on the front will be very tacky and the neighbors will complain when the gingerbread garage starts to smell.

      L4D1 is not yet "a game that stands up by itself" like HL2 or TF2 are. It was $50 and shipped short of content that was promised by Valve but instead rolled in to L4D2. Most people don't want modding tools at this point, they want enough professionally developed content to finish the game - something that satisfies players' baser needs. Then, if the game were finished, the modding tools would be a great addition to get even more out of the game.

      So no, you're not going to find a ton of appreciation for Valve releasing the SDK. User made content is not a replacement for true professional content, particularly content Valve said they were going to give out long, long ago.

    2. Re:Lack of grateful fans? by Kneo24 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, you just pretty much took the words out of my mouth.

      Don't get me wrong. I've enjoyed countless hours on L4D. However I also bought the game based on promises that Valve has shown they can deliver on in the past. And with those games in the past, they didn't release an immediate sequel to them a fucking year later. L4D is stale now, so it doesn't matter how many modding tools they release. They never updated the game fast enough with content. Bug fixes? Sure, they did all of that, but that's already to be expected. If they had released a few new campaigns sooner, well, maybe there won't be this overwhelming bitterness being felt a lot of people.

    3. Re:Lack of grateful fans? by icsx · · Score: 1

      If i would have mod points, i would put you up in the sky with them. You said everything so well that i was gonna say.

      While i know community mappers will have tons of good campaings on the works, they will not reach the same level of quality as Valve maps are for a quite a while. Professional is always a professional.

    4. Re:Lack of grateful fans? by nog_lorp · · Score: 1

      I'm gonna have to be the one guy who disagrees I guess. In my opinion, L4D is already worth the cost - it is a genuinely novel game idea that was VERY well implemented. There are some very minor issues, but none that have gotten in the way of it being immensely fun and not growing old at all.

    5. Re:Lack of grateful fans? by LingNoi · · Score: 1

      Bug fixes? Sure, they did all of that, but that's already to be expected.

      I disgaree, when selecting a quick match game it still boots you back to the main menu saying that the auto selected game is "full". It would take 5 seconds to code if (gamefull) { quickmatch(); } or something similar for when you hit the quick match button but here we are still lots of lame clicking.

      The last update has screwed up the game for me. A fix that makes rendering better for Multicore machines has given me a problem where every 5 minutes the FPS will drop badly for 10 seconds which never existed before.

      They still haven't fixed voice chat issues, for example when in the lobby the push to talk button makes some people crash.

      The only thing they have really done is fix map exploits and even here they've failed in some respects for example the stupid room next to the elevator on no mercy and hiding under the pipes on Death Toll. Places which don't exist in the survival modes because it's lame. The map fixes though is such simple things to do. In all the cases all they've really done is add a box here, remove an air vent there it's not difficult stuff to do.

    6. Re:Lack of grateful fans? by ukyoCE · · Score: 1

      I don't recall any promises by Valve to add twice as much content to L4D and give it all away for free. L4D was an excellent and complete game upon launch and well worth the cost.

      If you didn't like L4D or enjoy the replayability of the extremely well-designed game rules and levels, that's OK. You're probably also not one of the people who played CS and CS:S for a decade with over half of that time being spent in Dust, Dust2, and Office.

      L4D is about well-designed and replayable multiplayer game rules and maps, not about dumping crappy content on users.

    7. Re:Lack of grateful fans? by Kneo24 · · Score: 1

      Just because every bug hasn't been squashed or that every exploit hasn't been fixed doesn't mean they didn't do patches to remove some of them. I think you read too far into my comment.

  4. Hmm... by Durrok · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hitler is not going to be pleased... http://www.youtube.com/v/6K9bFlt_0A0&hl=en&fs=1&

    --
    I keep telling myself I'm not the desperate type.
  5. What promises? by Rog7 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That link contains nothing but Gabe Newell describing exactly what they've done. Community support, SDK, the occasional gamemode and map tweaks.He talks about TF2 as an example, but did you think they were adding classes to L4D?

    I'd be more inclined to agree with you if you had some specific promises that weren't met, or like many (many, many) other games that are bug ridden and missing significant features shown during pre-release. Left4Dead is nearly exactly what they described, so if you were let down, I don't know what game you thought you were buying.

    If we were discussing the merits of the game and you didn't like it, I could accept that just fine. It's the premise about unmet promises that's bogus. List something concrete, otherwise you're just tossing rhetoric about your own failed expectations.

    The game sold well, got good reviews and is currently played by many. If you didn't like it, fine, write a review, but stop with the high and mighty broken promises thing, it's just childish.

  6. Beta Tools already available by Rog7 · · Score: 1

    As the article states, the beta for the SDK was already available, so that's what people have been using to develop maps. No need for alternative methods, it's mostly the same SDK. You can download it directly from Steam and follow additional information from their Wiki: http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Authoring_Tools/SDK_(Left_4_Dead)

  7. Lack of content is the issue here by Flipao · · Score: 1

    The mod tools should have been released when the game came out, and all 4 campaigns should have been available in VS mode. The game was fun, but nowhere near as replayable as CS of TF2.

    AS far as L4D2 goes, I would rather they left the yearly sequel thing to EA.