Left 4 Dead has been updated to include a lobby browser. The lobby browser (under Play Online) will show you a list of optimal games available for you to join. The browser pares down the thousands of lobbies and games currently being played to show you the best list of games available to you. This list includes official and add-on campaigns, including add-on campaigns you have not yet installed, making it a great way to discover them. You can filter by difficulty, official and/or add-on campaigns and by lobbies and/or games in progress. The specific changes include:

 Play on Steam Group Server-  screen now displays which Steam group it’s searching while updating the list After calling a vote to change difficulty in game it is now correctly updated in matchmaking.

 Add-on Campaigns- When downloading a new version of an add-on and installing it (by double clicking the .VPK file), it will now correctly overwrite the previous version, even while Left 4 Dead is currently running.

Addressed a crash when two mission files with the same name are installed.

 Steam Group Servers now will now correctly offer download links when running add-on campaigns.

The server will now warn if the public or private tags exceed their limits. Public tags are limited to 63 characters. Private tags used for matchmaking are now limited to 1024 characters. Note that the private tags include the name of each add-on campaign installed on the server, so an excessive number of add-on campaigns can hit this limit.

 The VPK tool should be able to handle campaigns larger than 500MB now.

 You can now drag and drop or pass a VPK file to the vpk.exe tool to have it extract the contents of the add-on to a folder. This mirrors the functionality of passing a folder and having it create a VPK file.

Detail.vbsp and lights.rad have been added to the distribution.

Waahhh, no matchmaking, no custom models, no new content, no punishment for ragequitters.  Gaben should boycott cheeseburgers and cupcakes wahhh.

Client
Removed an infinite ammo exploit for molotovs
Add-on Campaign Support
Players download third party campaigns as single .VPK file
Players can manage and select add-on maps and campaigns via game UI
Added matchmaking support and download/update prompt for add-on campaigns
Custom campaign support in Leader boards
If not already registered, left4dead.exe registers .VPK extension to allow automatic install of add-ons

Servers and the steam API have been extended to allow servers to send up a list of keys for matchmaking up to 1200 bytes in size

Left 4 Dead Authoring Tools
Fixed missing fgd error
Added vpk.exe command line tool for extracting, creating, and appending .VPK files
Removed info_versus (not used)
Added info_gamemode which fires outputs for Coop, Versus or Survival depending on what game mode the map is loaded in
Updated tutorial_standards example map, repackaged as ‘Dead Line’ campaign example add-on
Sample content now includes source files for official maps

Prototyping a quick web page?  Pehaps you have heard of the 960.gs grid system, a grid system used to rapidly prototype a web design with alot of the heavy lifting done ahread of time. Avialbale in either 12 or 16 columns, this design tool helps create a working model quickly. Not to be mistaken for a template, the 960.gs is simple yet brilliant.

Valve announced the L4D sequel yesterday, and it seems the only ones who are happy are the bankers. With promised updates not appearing and the expectations that the new game will be around $50 retail, the steam forums are rocking with hate.

The new game looks fantastic, but there is one point that made this a must buy for me- Cutty from The Wire voices one of the characters.  If the characters were based on Stringer Bell, Cutty, Snoop and Chris, this would be the greatest game ever created.

Here’s the announcement:

• Game Information
  

  - Release: November 17, 2009
  - Platforms: Windows and Xbox 360
  - Engine: Source
  - Price: $59.99 for Xbox 360. Unknown for PC.

• Highlighted Features
  

  - 5 new campaigns
  - 4 new characters
  - 4 new melee weapons: axe, chainsaw, frying pan, and baseball bat.
  - New ranged weapons: pistols, silenced SMG, new shotgun, new sniper rifle.
  - New (heretofore unknown) game mode
  - Updated “AI Director 2.0″
  - New Infected types (e.g. Charger)
  - Missions in full daylight

• Other Features
  

  - Will work with community maps from the current one
  - A more coherent storyline between campaigns with more tie-ins
  - Round characters: over the campaigns, their personalities and relationships will change.
  - Still no backstory to the infection.
  - Left 4 Dead 1 content may be included in the DVD, so that Xbox players will not have to switch DVDs to play the old content.
  - All current game modes will (most likely) be included.

• Campaigns
  

  The Parish
  The final campaign in the main story sequence. Set in New Orleans, LA, it features daytime gameplay and a primarily urban setting. The goal of the map is to battle through various parts of the city (including the French Quarter) to escape on a military vehicle. Gameplay footage reveals building-to-building tactics as well as an elaborate scene where the Survivors must race across a bridge littered with cars, Infected, and dangerous drops. There also appears to be a much greater emphasis on other humans, as fighter jets can be seen in the background. This comes in stark contrast to the current L4D, which has a decidedly more bleak outlook with almost no show of a cohesive defense against the outbreak.

  Other Campaigns
  Very few details are available about other campaigns right now, but there are five, total. The first campaign is set in Savannah, GA , where the infection has not completely taken hold yet. Between Savannah and New Orleans, there may be some swamp-based campaigns.

• Characters
  

  Coach
  A high school football coach who used to play for a college team until he had a career-ending knee injury and decided to get his degree. He’s from the Savannah, GA area, and is used to handling kids and parents. Coach is voiced by an actor from “The Wire”. When asked about whether or not the character is based on the “Survivor” contestant, Chet Faliszek, the leader of the L4D team, had this to say: “[He's] not based on the world’s biggest ♥♥♥♥♥♥bag. We made that design choice.”

  Rochelle
  A northerner from Cleveland. She has a degree in communications and always wanted to be involved in the news. After working for a cable news station as an associate manager, doing meaningless tasks, she was promoted and sent to produce a story in Savannah, where some kind of odd occurrences were happening.

  Ellis
  A smart, fun-loving, beer-loving, goofiness-loving mechanic with Southern flare. Need we say more?

  Nick
  A gambler, conman, and all-around picaresque personality in a slick, expensive suit, Nick joins the other three and is unsure about whether or not he can trust them. He’s the most cynical and bitter of the Survivors, and is still trying to figure out the best “angle” to get from the recent zombie apocalypse. Over time, he begins to value his new compatriots.

• Weapons
  

  - The axe will be able to crown a Witch if used properly.
  - The pan will make a CLANG sound when used.
  - The silencing of the SMG (a Mac-10) makes no difference in gameplay.
  - The game appears to have multiple types of sidearms. Currently, two 9mm models have appeared in the videos: the Glock 17 and Sig Sauer.
  - The new shotgun model appears based on the SPAS-12, but it is unclear if it has any effective difference from the Benelli M4.
  - There will be a chainsaw. A chainsaw. Say it again. Chainsaw.
  - New ammunition type: incendiary. After picking this up, your first clip will set fire to all Infected hit.

• Infected
  

  The Common Infected and current Special Infected will still be in the game. However, there will be some noticeable differences. Common Infected will be harder to kill. In the daytime, they won’t be able to see you from as far as in nighttime, and they will behave differently. They also have a different appearance. Clothing will be more in line with Southern appetites.

  The Witch will behave differently during daytime. Instead of sitting, she will stand and wander around, making her much more difficult to crown. She may also turn around randomly.

  Two new zombie types have been revealed: the Charger and the uncommon “suited” Infected. For information on the Charger, you may want to look at this thread.

  The Charger is designed to defeat camping tactics by rushing Survivors. He is not as strong as a Tank, but can do serious damage. From some accounts, there is less warning when a Charger appears, so he may surprise you and your group, especially from the flanks. He has a habit of charging groups like a bull, tossing and stunning anyone he hits. However, he has trouble turning, and it may be possible to side-step him.

  If the Charger grabs you, he picks you up (disabling you) and slams you to the ground repeatedly. Other Survivors must rescue you.

  The suited Infected is a type of “uncommon Common” Infected who is immune to fire-based attacks like Molotovs.

• Gameplay Changes
  

  The developers have said that they want to change things up and throw off current tactics and exploits without changing too much of what made the original game so enjoyable. This means that there will be some game mechanics changes and some new challenges.

  The AI Director (2.0) will have significantly more control. In addition to “his” current tasks of controlling spawns, item locations, and music, the new AID will also be able to control the layout of the map itself, changing the location of obstacles and available pathways. It can also control weather and other effects to completely customize the experience.

  In addition to crescendos, the new experience will include “gauntlets”. These are designed to force Survivors to move by placing an objective at the end of a path. This objective must be reached to stop the hordes from coming. Stacking and camping will no longer be viable options for these.

• Superficial Changes
  

  - Increased gore
  - More complex location damage (shearing of limbs, part of the chest, etc.)

Want to play Left4Dead, but are so cash-strapped you split the plys on your 2 ply toilet paper? Good news! Left4Dead will be FREE for 24 hours. This is a great way to check out a hilarious game- hilarious when it all goes to shit that is. You can start downloading from Steam and the game will be live As of 00:01 GMT this Friday. You then get 24 hours of non-stop zombie killing goodness.  This is the type of game you can jump right into. Valve hopes to boost sales with this promo, but we all know that this is to propagate the Swine Flu that turned everyone into zombies.  If you missed out on the demo, this is your chance to try out L4D. 

Get going, try this awesome game, and enjoy puking on Zoey.

Too good not to share: The following method ( from the Steam L4D offical forums, credit: Warchamp7) outlines the way to return to the classic menu, banishing the lighthouse menu to eternal darkness. Follow along, and be far less annoyed when the game finds a full server every 5 minutes.

Navigate to the following folder

Steam\SteamApps\common\left 4 dead\left4dead\media

For restoration purposes, make copies of l4d_background.bik and l4d_lighthouse_bg01.bik

Rename l4d_lighthouse_bg01.bik to something else
(I renamed the copies and put them in a “Backups” folder within the media folder.)

Change the name of l4d_background.bik to l4d_lighthouse_bg01.bik.

Your menu is now the original, enjoy.

First and foremost- the patch is out. Here’s the skinny (my commentsin red):

New gameplay Mode- Survival
16 maps including Last Stand
Leaderboards- oh yay, epeen++, which one of my friends is exploiting for bragging rights?
7 new achievements -Achievements need to be skill based or unlikely to occur- like smoking someone out of the elevator.

Versus Changes
2 new versus campaigns
New- lol
Fixed a case where versus team score would continue to be recalculated after the score panel was displayed
bugfix
Fixed an issue with recalculating the versus score health bonus for a player when they are rescued from being incapacitated
bugfix
Fixed being able to start a swing as an infected, then teleport to the survivors and have the claw swing hit a survivor
Oh noes, ghost swipe killed!
Fixed a case where teleporting to the survivors would not reset the ability timer
Bugfix.
Fixed an exploit where you could load the chamber of a weapon with bullets by holding down the melee key
Oh noes my charged shot!
Fixed a case where it was not possible to join a game while it was in a finale
could be good, testing needed.
Fixed a rare case where listen servers would speed up the game over time
Don’t play on listen servers very often
Removed convars related to melee fatigue
Good for standardization
Fixed a case where infected players would get a respawn time on their initial spawn into a map
THANK GOD

Server Changes
Made ms_force_dedicated_server not require cheats
Good stuff
Add a message when queuing a heartbeat
bugfix?
Simplified setting of game mode
Good for admins who like control
Removed convars director_no_human_zombies and director_holdout_mode
No more practice as infected against bots, youtube braggers can’t cheat in their 1337 pounce videos with shitty music soundtrack
Added mp_gamemode [coop,versus,survival]
Good for admins who like control

Why you suck at Survival mode
Stop playing with pubbies.

Annoying Lighthouse
I need a way to get the old menu background back, because that lighthouse graphic is driving me nuts  FLASH……..FLASH…..FLASH….

Eagerly anticipating the release of the survival pack for Left 4 Dead?  Aren’t we all. It is due to come out TODAY, and indications point to sometime after 2PM PST. The survival mode for L4D seems like it may be fun, but the real star of the update is the Dead Air and Death Toll campaigns. Having the opportunity to play the single player campaigns in Versus mode lately, I can say that map changes will have been made, but overall the campaigns are good quality.  Also, the few public exploits that still work ( charged shot, ghost slashing, and spiderwalking ) may be fixed, but there is no indication that this is in the patch due today- check back later for the full skinny.

Like papercraft? You too can make your own Montreal Canadiens Carey Price origami! Pretty true to form if you ask me, this instruction set walks you through all the steps. A must see for those awaiting the start of the playoffs.

Good post over here on how to choose a SAS70 audit firm.  The auditor can make or break your experience, so picking a good one can make the audit go smoothly.  Pick the wrong firm, and you will be overrun by the “junior associates”, while the big boys hang back and pick up a check.