Left 4 Dead's Survival Mode Sounds Hardcore

Keane Ng

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Sep 11, 2008
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Left 4 Dead's Survival Mode Sounds Hardcore



Valve has revealed a peek [http://www.l4d.com/blog/post.php?id=2417] behind the scenes of next week's Survival Pack DLC for its smash hit shooter Left 4 Dead, and it sounds, in a word, intense.

Next week Valve will release the first additional content for its wildly popular co-op zombie shooter, Left 4 Dead. The primary feature of the DLC will be the new Survival Mode, which pits a group of players against neverending waves of undead foes. Sounds pretty basic, right? According to Valve, it's far from simple. In fact, it's fairly complex, and, moreover, freaking hardcore.

"Survival Mode draws on the planning and communication aspects of a successful Finale or Crescendo event, while taking it to another level," Valve wrote on the L4D blog. "It rapidly hits a fever pitch that only a well coordinated team will be able to successfully survive. Everything from simply covering a reviving teammate, to making every shot count to minimize reloads becomes crucial in Survival Mode."

I'm not sure my heart will be able to handle this. Sounds like everything in Survival will be a serious life-or-death conflict. As Valve says, even "making an all important ammo run is rarely a safe proposition and requires good teamwork and planning. Timing your resources correctly to be able to make a run when necessary can make or break a team. The perfect pipebomb or well placed molotov can mean the difference between a cakewalk and catastrophe."

Considering just how intense Survival can be, Valve had to take extra special care to tweak the difficulty curve. From all the different spawn frequencies for the Infected types to the invisible "lull" that occurs when nothing new spawns, Valve needed to make "all of these variables to work together to create a fairly smooth difficulty curve."

Read some more fancy game design talk about L4D (featuring graphs!) here [http://www.l4d.com/blog/post.php?id=2417].

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Ilosia

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Mar 10, 2009
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This does indeed sound very interesting but it would seem to me that this would make the ability to work together of the team your in even more make or break regarding the ability to enjoy the game than it already is
 

cainx10a

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May 17, 2008
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Bring on the pain! I don't play L4D that much, while it's certainly entertaining, I have for a while longed for such a type of game play facing off waves and waves of enemies in a fps settings, well, must say, I'm hyped! :)
 

[Gavo]

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Jun 29, 2008
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Yeah, this is finally catching on! I saw a gameplay video about it about a month ago....we're all gonna die.

And Lighthouse map!
 

Goldeneye103X2

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Jun 29, 2008
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Huh. Less is more, apparently.
But i haven't played left4dead, so i can just shut up i guess.
It's essentially one of those zombie flash games in 3D,on the 360,with 4-player co-op. Sounds exciting.
 

oliveira8

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Feb 2, 2009
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MiloP said:
This DLC due on Tuesday? Wednesday? Monday?
Tuesday I think.

Also apart from the DLC PC users will get the SDK. Which means...User made content!! All those juicy Dawn of the Dead remakes and Resident Evil maps will come to live at last!! Theres even a Moria map for L4D. Hooray for mods!
 

Pumpkin_Eater

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Ilosia said:
This does indeed sound very interesting but it would seem to me that this would make the ability to work together of the team your in even more make or break regarding the ability to enjoy the game than it already is
That's the point. L4D was always meant to be a co-op game, this should accentuate that by upping the difficulty curve.
 

scotth266

Wait when did I get a sub
Jan 10, 2009
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oliveira8 said:
MiloP said:
This DLC due on Tuesday? Wednesday? Monday?
Tuesday I think.

Also apart from the DLC PC users will get the SDK. Which means...User made content!! All those juicy Dawn of the Dead remakes and Resident Evil maps will come to live at last!! Theres even a Moria map for L4D. Hooray for mods!
Waitwhatdidyousay!?!

SDK for this with the release! Well now, I might get back into L4D and try out my editing skills! God, and I thought I had fun messing about with TF2 levels....

I predict that a lot more people will be willing to grab the PC version after some sweet user content pops up!
 

oliveira8

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Feb 2, 2009
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scotth266 said:
oliveira8 said:
MiloP said:
This DLC due on Tuesday? Wednesday? Monday?
Tuesday I think.

Also apart from the DLC PC users will get the SDK. Which means...User made content!! All those juicy Dawn of the Dead remakes and Resident Evil maps will come to live at last!! Theres even a Moria map for L4D. Hooray for mods!
Waitwhatdidyousay!?!

SDK for this with the release! Well now, I might get back into L4D and try out my editing skills! God, and I thought I had fun messing about with TF2 levels....

I predict that a lot more people will be willing to grab the PC version after some sweet user content pops up!
Actually...I found out today after I lurked on the L4D developer blog and...

SDK WONT BE RELEASED ON THE SAME DAY OF THE DLC!! *Cry*

They say it will be shortly released after this DLC along side with a new patch that is suppose to change the server browsing for PC users so we can see the user made maps when we want to play online.

Also theres already tons!! Of user made campaigns/single maps just waiting for the SDK with the right tools(Like the AI director, textures and stuff like that.) Theres RE3(think) campaign that is looking awesome. Also a LotR Moria map too and a the Winchester remake map too. It will be awesome! Or really bad!
 

confernal

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Feb 5, 2009
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Surviver mode doesn't sound that hard(turns around and pukes blood) then again it might be(flies swarm out of eye sockets)okay! okay! make it stop! It will be hard! It will be hard!(nothing happens) *whew...(pack of dogs attack and drag away the victum.)
 

Evilbunny

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Feb 23, 2008
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I wish I could play four people on a console at the same time, because my friends and I could definitely do this, but only one actually owns a 360. Oh well.
 

Jumplion

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Mar 10, 2008
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God damnit, I'm starting to hate my Pc for not being able to play Left 4 Dead!

Damn you short ended funds and laziness! DAAAAAAAMMMMMMNNNNNNNNN YYYYOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!