New DLC for L4D2

[ShadyJane]

http://www.l4d.com/blog/post.php?id=5019

[TheCarpe]

Blah blah blah "other three L4D1 campaigns" blah blah blah.

That's what I got out of it, and I'm perfectly fine with that

[Supreveio]

Blah blah blah "other three L4D1 campaigns" blah blah blah.

That's what I got out of it, and I'm perfectly fine with that

That pretty much sums up the important parts of the blog post.

[ShadyJane]

I know the custom Dead Air campaign I've played has the survivors manually fueling up the airplane in the finale ala scavenge. I actually really like that version. Very challenging. I wonder if they'll incorporate that and potential other changes when porting them over.

[Boss Llama]

I know the custom Dead Air campaign I've played has the survivors manually fueling up the airplane in the finale ala scavenge. I actually really like that version. Very challenging. I wonder if they'll incorporate that and potential other changes when porting them over.

Problem with that, in my mind, is that the plane is a C-130. Those things have a fuel capacity of a bit over 9500 gallons. The engines, by virtue of being revved up, will burn through fuel at a phenomenal rate, and taking off is the most fuel intensive maneuver you can possibly do. Assuming you get airborne and reach cruising speed, the plane also has a fuel consumption rate of between 1.5 and 3.5 gallons per mile (not the other way around) depending on load.

Though it's a given that you wouldn't have to completely fill the tanks to get outta dodge, even just taxiing would burn more fuel than you put in to every generator in every scenario combined. Keyes could probably tell us a bit more about the specific consumption of C-130's, but I'd be willing to wager you'd need several hundred gallons of drawable fuel to even think about getting the thing off the ground (to say nothing of flying anywhere, or landing again).

Dead Air does a good job of realisticly recreating/simulating nearly all the operations of an airport (I worked in one when it the game came out, and was highly impressed by the accurate detail). Doing a scavenge style fill of an airplane that size just strikes me as a bit absurd. An airport fuel truck can put anywhere from 500 to 1000 gallons per minute through the system, therefore maintaining the map's outstanding realism in my mind.

[TheCarpe]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief

[Boss Llama]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief

You miss my point.

Dead Air does such a good job, that no suspension of disbelief is necessary, beyond the existence of zombies. In fact, most of L4D and L4D2 is this way - once you accept the world-premise that zombies exist, things flow in fairly realistic and logically valid paths from there.

Filling a car with gas cans? Realistic. Filling a generator with gas cans? Realistic. Filling a C-130 with a gas cans? Not realistic. The original designers were smart enough to know that, and installed a realistic solution instead. Why give up the believability that is already present for utter absurdity with no pay-off?

It's one of the biggest strengths of the game, one of the things that allows you to get shivers down the spine. The atmosphere, the tension, the fear, all derived from having a realistic world in which the zombie apocalypse is happening. Get rid of the real-world feel, transplant it to some Phobos-base space-marine setting, and it's just another slog. This is a hallmark of many of Valve's big successful games - Half-Life 2, Counterstrike Source, Day of Defeat, Left 4 Dead... fantastical elements, to be sure, but set in very realistic feeling contexts.

[Masakari]

Solution for everyone:

The airplane is almost full, but is missing about 14 jerry cans worth of fuel.

[Pine]

Remove the consumption of the fuel by putting it on a conveyor belt!

[Bakuryu]

The biggest thing that drew me to these games and not necessarily to others is that crazy believability. A lot of these scenarios are pretty well thought-out from a zombie movie standpoint (malls, freeways, hospitals, farms, airports, etc.), and a lot of the level designs are pretty plausible, especially with all the roof/car top navigation that has to happen and the improvisation of travel routes.

I'm not much for the mechanics of level design, but I know some folks are. What I would love to see is a mountain campaign ala Appalachia, which could be ridiculously frightening, especially if they incorporated deep forests, mines, moonshine/meth houses, and mountain trails. The thought also crossed my mind of doing a scenario that starts on the upper deck of a massive cruise ship and works its way to the bowels of the ship, or vice versa.

[Supreveio]

http://www.l4d.com/blog/post.php?id=5150

Cold Stream beta release today.

[BigBiker05]

With minimal spoilers, cold stream is pretty good. However, at some times you can easily get lost as the forward path is hidden or blended in the environment. It looks as though vs will have a lot of choke points and kill spots. Some guys are playing vs right now so I'm sure they'll post once their game is done.

[Zork Nemesis]

I played it single player, while it's a great map with some new mechanics (especially love stage 3), it's rather confusing in places. As a forest setting is relativly cluttered, it can be easy to get lost. Certain points where you follow the river and the river suddenly stops, the ramps to get on the riverbanks are about 40 paces behind where the river ends and can lead to confusion on where to go next.

At this point, it only seems the intro has unique dialogue, after that they haven't added any more conversations, which i'm hoping that's going to be dealt with in the final release. There are some issues with Nav-mesh but once again, new mechanics could be the reason. The level was very generous with chainsaws, in my run I came across at least 6, with 3 of them within 50 steps of each other. On top of that, I also found a lot of big guns (two grenade launchers and M60s), but that may be because I was getting beat up pretty bad in some places.

It's a good map, nice to see a new official map and not a remake or one designed by the community, and while those aren't bad, they're usually lacking, and new official maps tend to fill some of those gaps. As the beta, it's great and playable, should be even better with the final release.

[Masakari]

Stage three will never be completed in versus (Unless there's a terrible team stack).

Also, this map is designed by a community member and not Valve Zork. That kind of explains the lack of polish.