Template:Blog Post (Left 4 Dead 2)

The in-game Blog Post was introduced along with The Passing in Left 4 Dead 2 as a means for Valve to communicate more directly with the community in-game instead of solely on their website. It is directly available in-game at the game menu with a biohazard icon next to it, and will be colored yellow when new Blog Posts have been posted.

The following is a history of blog posts taken from the PC version of Left 4 Dead 2, with Xbox 360 poll results and such inserted where necessary. Blog posts posted here are to be kept in relation to the community. Technical updates to the games are to be reported here.

Thursday January 17, 2013
Today we are moving the Left 4 Dead 2 Workshop out of beta! So right now with a click of a button, you can add campaigns, items, clothing, weapons and more.

Content creators have been hard at work creating content for L4D2 but they have just gotten access to the new Workshop, so give them some time to upload their work. But with over 1,000 community campaigns and thousands more items and skins already created for the game, we should see many of these pop up in the Left 4 Dead 2 Workshop in the coming days and weeks (Note: Please don’t upload other people’s work. If a campaign you like isn’t in the Workshop, please nicely ask the creator to post it). You can start browsing the Workshop now.

To help other players find the coolest content, make sure to rate and discuss the submissions. We will also be featuring submissions on l4d.com

To add content to L4D2: Load up Left 4 Dead 2 (or browse to it here). In game, click on the add-ons section from the main menu. There you can see add-ons once they are downloaded or choose browse the Workshop. Go into the Workshop, find a something you like – let’s say a skin for Francis where he is in a cop outfit. Click the subscribe button and it will automatically download and appear in the list. If you are doing this through the web browser, it will appear next time you start the game.

Please note – the Workshop has increased its file size limit to 200MB. But this still means some of the larger campaigns will be broken up into sub-200mb chunks. Those campaigns will be in collections and you will need to subscribe to the collection to get all the files.

To create and share content in L4D2: You will need to update your Authoring Tools and run the Workshop Manager in the tools to upload your content to the Workshop.

A great tip from GShock: If your campaign is over 200MB you will need to split your vpk into parts with content in each part.

This will also allow you to update your content a lot faster and in turn users do not have to download a much larger file when you release an update to a part.

Part 1 Sounds and Scripts Part 2 Map 1 Part 3 Map 2 Part 4 Materials Part 5 Models
 * Example:
 * Include your missions folder in each part along with your addoninfo.txt file

Once this is done add all your items into a collection and mark it as a "items that work together (will show a 'subscribe to all' button)"

For both consumers and developers, there is a new forum – the Workshop discussion forum. Here you can discuss using the Workshop and report any bugs you are encountering. Each item in the Workshop has its own area to discuss that item.

Friday November 9, 2012
Today we are adding a new community created campaign onto our official servers – Warcelona.

How do you play this great campaign? Well.. it’s kind of a pain. You can download it from here and copy that file in your \Steam\steamapps\common\left 4 dead 2\left4dead2\addons directory. You can also double click it and it should copy it there – but if it doesn’t, you can just move it there and then start your game. Having it on our servers means you can start games on an “Official Server” for a better experience.

Sure wish it was easier…

Good news! It will be. The Left 4 Dead 2 Workshop has been in a test beta and will be expanded into an invite only private beta this week. Using the workshop will allow you to simply click a subscribe button and you have them map! It’s that simple.

While we aren’t there yet, we have had a giant uptick in interest in mapping and modding thanks to the impending addition of the workshop. So we wanted to kick off a new event – meet the creators.

For the inaugural session, we will be having a chat session this Saturday at Noon PST with the team behind Warcelona and some of the Valve devs. It will be a mix of playing and chatting so stop by the Official Left 4 Dead 2 Game Group and join the chat. If you can’t make it then, download the campaign and check it out.

Sunday October 28, 2012
In the short term, keep playing tonight and buy the game during the sale so you can join us in everything to come. Don’t forget to check out the L4D2 Game Hub to see all of the incredible Left 4 Dead movies and other content. Join the community in the Community or Steam forums, join the Official Game Group, and friend players you meet online.

If you have been playing Campaign mode, time to try Versus. It is competitive, but let people know you are new and looking for help. Read the forums for suggestions. If you are good at it, join one of the competitive groups, try some of the variants.

In the longer term, Steam Workshop is being added to Left 4 Dead 2. This will make it easier to add custom content to the game. This includes skins, weapons, campaigns and more. The screenshot above is from the great community campaign Suicide Blitz 2. The Workshop will begin rolling out in a closed beta this week.

We are also working on some new tools to help content creators design new experiences and push past custom Mutations. We will have more information on this and some example new content as we get closer to release.

Friday October 26, 2012
With the free weekend in full swing, it’s time to get everyone together. Join us in the Left 4 Dead 2 Steam Chat or Official Forums to discuss the game, hookup with players, and give the game a try. Developers and community members will be in game and chat from 10am to 6pm PST.

If you are new to the game, we have to thank the current community for taking the time to compile a list of great tips to help you (list one – list two). When you are playing, don't hesitate to ask questions or for help.

For current L4D2 owners, better hurry up and get your Good Guy Nick Achievement. It will only be available during the Free Weekend which means until Monday morning at 10am. The Dev accounts playing this Saturday.
 * L4D2_DEV_1
 * L4D2_DEV_2
 * L4D2_DEV_3
 * L4D2_DEV_4
 * L4D2_DEV_5
 * L4D2_DEV_6

Friday October 26, 2012
Three years after release, Left 4 Dead 2 is a massive game containing 13 Official Campaigns, 8 Game Modes and countless user created Campaigns and Mutations. It’s a lot to soak in over just one weekend so here is a breakdown of what’s included.

The original Left 4 Dead 2 campaigns take the four survivors, Coach, Nick, Ellis, and Rochelle from Savannah to possible safety in New Orleans. These campaigns are: Dead Center, Dark Carnival, Swamp Fever, Hard Rain, and The Parish. The Passing is an additional campaign fitting between Dead Center and Dark Carnival that introduces the L4D2 survivors to the gang from L4D1. Cold Stream is a non-cannon community campaign released as an official campaign.

With the release of Cold Stream, L4D2 now also includes the L4D1 campaigns which follow Bill, Zoey, Francis, and Louis through No Mercy, Crash Course, Death Toll, Dead Air, Blood Harvest, and the Sacrifice. The comic “The Sacrifice” takes place after Blood Harvest and through The Sacrifice campaign and beyond.

We suggest new players start with Campaign mode. This is a co-operative mode that pits four humans against the zombie apocalypse. Realism is a play on Campaign mode where some of the player aids are removed and difficulty heightened. Single player mode is campaign mode with computer AI companions instead of humans.

Versus is the main the competitive mode that pits human Survivors against the human controlled Special Infected. Players take turns playing each side as they go through the campaigns. Realism Versus removes aids for the Survivors.

Scavenge mode is a round based competitive mode that keeps score by how many gas cans you can recover.

Survival is a co-operative mode that tests to see how long you can hold out in one location.

Mutations are a play on the other modes with different rule sets based on the individual Mutations.

A good way to learn the different modes is to play with friends or helpful group. Join us this Saturday in the Official Left 4 Dead 2 Steam Group Chat to hookup with like minded players and give the different modes a try.

Left 4 Dead is more than just the game. Countless community made movies both live action and animated have been made to celebrate the game. Make sure to visit the Left 4 Dead 2 Game Hub and check some out.

Thursday October 25, 2012
Left 4 Dead 2 is now free to play this entire weekend. If you are new to the Left 4 Dead world, we have a list of tips below. If you have been around for a bit, don’t forget we have the Good Guy Nick achievement for you to earn starting today.

Additionally, to help find players and start games or just talk about Left 4 Dead 2, join us in the Official Game Group chat. Devs will be hanging out in chat and in games from 10am to 6pm PST this Saturday.

If you are brand new to the game, here are some tips for you:

1 – Play Campaign First – there are many different game modes available, but all rest rely on the skills you will learn in Campaign Mode.

2 – Talk. Hook-up your microphone. Don’t worry, you don’t need to talk non-stop but having the option to call out for help when you really need it is invaluable.

3 – Stay Together. Left 4 Dead is all about playing with a group. You need to stay with your group or you will die. Some of the special creatures can incapacitate you and the only way you can be saved is by your teammates.

4 – Make Friends. If you meet players you work well with – add them to your Steam friends to play with them again. To date we have four marriages (we know of) and countless friendships created by people who met playing Left 4 Dead.

5 – Join the Community. Participate in the discussion, view clips, see screenshots, and read news on our Steam Community hub. Check back on the blog as we will be updating every day this weekend. The community has even provided some valuable feedback and tips for new players in two forum posts available here and here. Don't be scared to ask questions in the forums or in the game. You can't survive the zombie apocalypse alone.

The Dev accounts playing this Saturday.
 * L4D2_DEV_1
 * L4D2_DEV_2
 * L4D2_DEV_3
 * L4D2_DEV_4
 * L4D2_DEV_5
 * L4D2_DEV_6

If you are running AVG anti-virus software and are getting a warning about the client.dll, make sure to get the latest signature file from AVG as this notice is a false positive.

Wednesday October 24, 2012
To celebrate Halloween, we are unleashing L4D2 on the world. Starting this Thursday, the entire game will be free to play for the whole weekend. New players can begin pre-loading now. For long time players, it is time to welcome your new found friends and help them survive the zombie apocalypse.

For current players, we created a new achievement. Good Guy Nick - – “Plays games with free weekend players and helps them survive a campaign.” Who is a free weekend player? You’re going to have to talk to each other to find out or you could always let your friends know Left 4 Dead 2 is going to be free this weekend and have them join you. Spread the word! It’s the zombie apocalypse, bring friends.

Friday Ocotber 19, 2012
The Left 4 Dead community has created a wealth of movies. They range from a simple collection of Nick’s profanity, to animated shorts, to full feature films.

Previously we would have to hunt around on Youtube to find all the movies but now with the new Steam Game Hubs, we can find all the movies in one place. To help us have all the movies in one place – if you created a movie for the L4D world - add it to the L4D2 Game Hub (We don’t have a way to attach the movies to a franchise so we are using L4D2 which incorporates both games). To do that, click on the "Videos" link on your profile page and associate your Youtube account with your Steam Id and then select the L4D themed movies from your channel and attach them to the L4D2 channel.

Everyone can let us know about missing movies in this thread. Plus visit the video tab in the Game Hub to rate and discuss the videos.

With so many movies, we are thinking we should have a movie night of sorts closer to Halloween. Get together, talk about the movies, talk with the creators, discuss all things zombies, and end the night with some good old fashioned zombie killing…

Wednesday October 17, 2012
The Left 4 Dead 2 Workshop is getting close but before we unleash it on everyone, we first need to do some testing with outside contributors in a closed beta. This way we can make sure the Workshop works for add-on authors and they can see how best to interact with the Workshop.

Most content packages will simply work but in a few cases the user experience can be improved by the content package author.

An example change we have seen is the need to break apart model packs to avoid conflicts. If your Survivor model pack has all 4 characters it will conflict with other packs and individual models. For example, this would mean if you download the Minecraft character pack but then want to include Vacation Zoey – there would be a conflict over which version of Zoey should be shown.

This conflict exists now as well, but with the Workshop content creators can include the four individual models as a collection so people can choose to download or activate all four or each individually. We have also added conflict reporting to the interface so people are aware of any conflicts with the various addons they are subscribed to.

We will start the process for adding people to the beta next week.

This week we are looking to feature a new community campaign. If you haven’t already, let us know what campaign should be featured by posting in this thread.

Today we have an update preparing for the workshop and fixing various bugs. You can read the full release notes here.

Bonus zombies today! Are you getting too tired to chase zombies by foot? Want to drive over them instead? Zombie Driver HD is being released today and has a little L4D Easter egg… the L4D Crash Course Rescue Van! Check it out here.

Thursday October 4, 2012
With today’s update and Steam’s Beta update we should have all of the “error 55” issues resolved. If you are in the Steam Beta program, make sure to accept the update to the beta today as that was causing a conflict.

When we had the issue with "Remove plug-ins” many players added “-insecure” to their command line. After we resolved the issue, if you still had “-insecure” in your command line it would continue to give you the "Remove plug-ins” error. We have updated this error text to give you the correct information. If you get an error that you are trying to connect to a secure server in an insecure manner remove –insecure from your command line launch options.

Thursday September 20, 2012
The Steam Workshop website will allow you to browse, rate, and discuss thousands of community created add-ons and even install them directly to your game with just one click of the mouse. We are also going to try an experiment with the L4D2 Workshop that will allow content to appear in the L4D2 world even more seamlessly based on the community’s response.

To compliment the new access to maps, weapons, and items, we are also creating an expanded scripting tool to allow deeper and more varied experiences inside of Left 4 Dead 2. Similar to the current Mutations, these experiences can be laid on top of existing maps or included with brand new maps. These new style Mutations will also be available from the Steam Workshop.

All of this will also be available not just on the PC and Mac, but also for Linux users as well starting in the middle of next month and rolling out from there. We will have more details as we get closer to launch.

This week the featured Mutation is also changing:

Follow the Liter, L4D1 Campaigns, Scavenge?

Follow the Liter

Scavenge one can at a time.

No more fighting over what cans to grab first. This Mutation spawns only one group of cans at a time, so survivors know exactly where to go. There is only one problem: the Infected know exactly where they are going.

This presents a different strategy from regular Scavenge mode and actually tips match in favor of the Infected.

Friday August 17, 2012
Left 4 Dead is going on a road trip this summer. If you missed the announcement, some of our common zombies made their way over to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive for the Zombie Mod.

The guys over at Mojang and 4J Studios have seven L4D themed skins ready for their aptly titled Skin Pack 2 for the XBLA version of Minecraft. The pack contains 45 skins in total and will be available later this month.

While you should normally let sleeping dogs lie, in this case, if you want to sport a Midnight Rider’s Shirt or Ellis’s Bullshifter shirt in another game – wake up and buy them in the new game - Sleeping Dogs - available now on Steam.

And lastly, while the Saxxy awards are hosted by Team Fortress, don't forget you can submit any SFM created movie for an award. With the L4D2 characters available to use in the SFM, we would love to see a L4D themed movie take one of the top spots. So stop by the Saxxy Awards page to get the details and start filming.

Wednesday August 15, 2012
Today, Team Fortress 2 is adding co-op and robots to their game! There is only one problem - don’t worry, robots are just the zombies of the future that’s not the problem – the problem is this is 6 player co-op not 4. So you’re gonna need to find a few new friends, a younger brother, your mom, someone, anyone to join you and your three friend to fight the lethal horde of robots.

And don’t forget Team Fortress is free, so when you invite your new found friends to the game – tell ‘em you bought it for them and it set you back $50. It’s your early birthday gift to your 4th and 5th favorite people in the world…

Visit www.teamfortress.com/mvm/ for more information.

Friday August 3, 2012
Gib Fest, Cold Stream, Updates

Gib Fest

Blast the infected to shreds with M60s.

Swords can slice up some fun. Chainsaws can tear apart the infected. But you need to get close for both and well… chainsaws are really loud! Time to go with the ultimate gun, you and three friends armed with M60s and unlimited ammo. This is going to get messy.

Cold Stream is out for the Xbox 360! For Xbox 360 players this is your first chance to play the 5 Campaigns contained in Cold Stream... We have all the details available on our Cold Stream update page at www.l4d.com/coldstream. Also With this update, you can now play any mutation at any time - just press the Y Button to cycle through to your favorites! (You need to own The Passing DLC for access to Mutations.) Continued...

Tuesday July 24, 2012
Cold Stream Is Out! For PC players, we have some map updates that move the big Beta needle to Release. For Xbox 360 players sorry but the Cold Stream DLC on the Xbox 360 is going to be delayed until next week.

We have almost all the details available here on our Cold Stream Update page – we just missed one – to celebrate the launch of Cold Stream – Left 4 Dead 2 is 75% off on Steam! Time to introduce some new friends to the Zombie Apocalypse.

Friday July 13, 2012
It has been too long since we had some stats, so we took a break today to run some numbers from yesterday’s (July 12th) activity on the PC. 237,412 Players played 7,147,979 minutes for an average session time of 30 minutes.

What game types were they playing?
 * GameType	% of Total Player Minutes


 * Co-op	               37.71
 * Versus	       33.49
 * Survival	       15.16
 * Scavenge	       4.92
 * Realism	       3.06
 * Single Player	       2.43
 * Current Mutation     1.70
 * Realism Versus	1.53

What skill level are people playing Co-op?
 * 15% Easy
 * 53% Normal
 * 19% Advanced
 * 13% Expert

The most popular campaigns?
 * No Mercy
 * Dark Carnival
 * Swamp Fever
 * Dead Air
 * Hard Rain

The Most popular custom campaigns?
 * Dead Echo 2
 * Death Aboard 2
 * Arena of the Dead 2

We should be adding these into the featured custom campaign list.
 * There were 6,541,389 incidents of friendly fire.
 * 98% of the game sessions had zero players kicked during the game.
 * 28,495 achievements were earned.

All in all, a pretty good day for a game that was released 969 days ago.

Tuesday July 10, 2012
Confogl Competitive Versus Mutation Confogl is a set of rules for competitive L4D2 Versus that standardizes many of the elements and changes item and weapon distribution. In general it tips the balance a bit more towards the Infected. ProdigySim, the creator of this Mutation, has made another update based on community feedback. This week would be a good time to test this mutation. We are hoping these final tweaks are good and we will make this the version we include in the big update. So please – if you can – play it this week. Any guesses on how many unique players we can get to give it a try this week?
 * Single hunting rifle given out in saferoom on non-intro maps, other hunting rifles removed.
 * Spitters removed from spawn rotation while Tank is in play.
 * Natural hordes are removed.
 * Hunting Rifle reserve ammo increased by 70 bullets.
 * Extra witches spawning on round 2 of Hard Rain chapter 2 are removed.
 * Item Limits and limiting algorithm tweaked.

Cold Stream Release In case you just read the in-game blog – good news. We have a release date for Cold Stream! The entire DLC consisting of Blood Harvest, Crash Course, Cold Stream, Dead Air, and Death Toll, will be released on July 24th. With the update going out at the same time (also for the PC), all of the mutations will be available at all times. This will allow players to choose to match into games playing Taannkk!, Gib Fest, or even a user created mutation like Confogl.

Blood Tracks For PC players we also updated the featured community campaign to Blood Tracks. Grab it from here and you can choose to play it on Official Dedicated since we have updated our servers with it.

Friday June 29th 2012
After months *cough*year*cough* of play testing not just the Cold Stream campaign on the PC but the entire DLC consisting of Blood Harvest, Crash Course, Cold Stream, Dead Air, and Death Toll, we are ready to release on the Xbox 360.

The date will be July 24th. There are some other surprises and details we will give you later but for now we just want to confirm an often requested feature. With the update going out at the same time (also for the PC), all of the mutations will be available at all times. This will allow players to choose to match into games playing Taannkk!, Gib Fest, or even a user created mutation like Confogl.

Stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks as we get ready to launch.

Friday June 15th 2012
Nightmare You’ll never see them coming

This Survival Mutation was inspired by Karma Jockey. There are commons, plenty of beefed up Specials, no glows, and lots and lots of fog. If you like to be scared by things that jump out at you from the night, this one is for you.

What do Zombies Think? While cleaning/moving our offices around (all our desks at Valve are on wheels so we can have desk races), we discovered this old, long ago used Zombie decision making tree. It was created before our session with Mike Patton to record the common zombie sounds. While it is near indecipherable gibberish thanks to bad penmanship, it shows not at an AI level how a zombie behaves but all the speech opportunities and transitions.

Our favorite is the top. Lay Down? Nope. Want to vomit? Sure.

Friday May 25th 2012
Flu Season The smell of spit and bile in the air.

This Coop Mutation is a mashup of "Boomer Shooter" by SR69MMJC and "Spitters!" by Karma Jockey. The only specials are Boomers and Spitters. The only commons are the result of the Boomer. The only other change is we amped up everything about these two Specials. But don’t worry you’ll be okay as long as you avoid all the goo flying in the air.

PAX? PAX Prime is taking place this year from August 31st to Sept 2nd. It is a great event filled with gaming and gaming culture. While the tickets have already sold out, we are curious to know how many L4D players will be visiting. So the question is simple – will you be attending PAX Prime this year?

Friday May 4th 2012
Follow the Liter, Infection!

Follow the Liter Scavenge one can at a time.

No more fighting over what cans to grab first. This Mutation spawns only one group of cans at a time, so survivors know exactly where to go. There is only one problem: the Infected know exactly where they are going.

This presents a different strategy from regular Scavenge mode and actually tips match in favor of the Infected.

Infection! Besides working on getting the DLC out on the 360 and playing L4D2 ourselves, the team has recently started playing some other zombie infection related games we thought we would share.

Our most obvious pick is Telltale’s The Walking Dead: The Game - Episode 1 available on Steam. If you love the comic and like the TV show as much as we do, the game is a great addition to the franchise.

Just this week, Pandemic 2.5 was released on the IOS. We played this game a ton on the PC while we thought about how viruses spread. While it is not a scholarly study like the book Flu, it is quite a bit more fun. With its release on the iPhone, you can now plot the world’s demise while sit in the Doctor’s office waiting for your appointment.

Let us know in the forums or on Facebook what games you’re playing.

Friday April 20th 2012
Today we have released a pretty big update for Left 4 Dead 2 that includes map bug and exploits fixes.

These changes will be coming to the Xbox 360 with the title update that will accompany Cold Stream's release. Before we send the game off to certification, we want to test these fixes on the PC. So please, give these maps a play through and tell us what you think.

The Cold Stream DLC will include 21 maps in total - the Cold Stream, Blood Harvest, Crash Course, Dead Air, and Death Toll campaigns. Besides the massive amount of new content, 360 users will also be getting many of the bug fixes and changes we have implemented since the last update.

We don't have a release date yet, but we will make sure to post the minute we do.

Friday April 13th 2012
Last Man On Earth, Loners?

Last Man On Earth

You will become legend to the infected as the last human left.

You are the only Survivor left in the world. No split screen help. No Survivor bots. But don't worry you aren't entirely alone. While there are no Common Infected, Special Infected will hunt you down and become close, close friends with you.

This Mutation is available in Single Player Mode.

Loners?

While the first part of this blog post should make the results of our last poll obvious, the second place finisher is just as interesting. Between Lone Gunman and if you are scared to play alone, seems about 30% of you are scared to play alone – putting that choice in second place. With that being true, today is a great day to overcome that fear and play Left 4 Dead 2 alone with Last Man On Earth.

After all, it is Friday the 13th, what could happen?

Thursday March 29th 2012
Versus Survival, Next Mutation for Loners?

Versus Survival

The first Survivor team sets the time. The second team tries to beat it. Then the first team tries to beat the second team's time. Then the second team tries to beat the first team's time. And then the... you get the idea. Rounds keep switching until someone fails to beat the previous time.

This is a great way to try Versus. Rounds are only as long as you can keep beating each other's times. There are no rushing Survivors. Infected spawns get quicker as the time increases. It is mayhem filled with all the weapon perks and items. What's not to like? Give it a try.

Next Mutation for Loners?

For the next mutation, do you prefer Lone Gunman or Last Man on Earth? Let us know.

Friday March 16th 2012
Four Swordsmen of the Apocalypse, DLC Date, Upcoming Mutations

Four Swordsmen of the Apocalypse

Four Swords against plenty of apocalypse!

Armed with only swords the survivors face near continuous streams of Special Infected ready to be sliced and diced.

DLC Date

Now that we have a solid version of the maps (some minor changes still coming), we are focused on the DLC and getting some pesky bugs out of the shipping version. As soon as we have a release date we will let you know.

Upcoming Mutations

Thursday we tweeted out a request for the next mutation. Minutes later we had a request for Four Swordsmen and just as we said it aloud we decided to load it up and check it – it had been awhile and we have some new members of our team.

Four hours later we realized we better ship this since it's what we tested. So while it only has three votes, we will take the top tweets for upcoming Mutations. Right now we are leaning towards Versus Survival. A team favorite as well.

Friday February 24th 2012
Taannkk!, Thaaannkks!

Taannkk!

Everything is coming up Taannkk!!

Scared to play Versus? Think there is too much strategy? Don't want to embarrass yourself? Give Taannkk!! a try. We simplify everything. What does everyone spawn as? Tanks. What is trying to kill you? Tanks. Why should you keep running? Tanks. You’re welcome.

Thaaannkks!

With the update this week we want to take a moment and thank everyone in the L4D2 community. Many of the bug fixes and changes over the last few months have come from the community. These fixes and changes will help make the game not just better for PC players who are already seeing the fixes, but Xbox players as well who will see them in a future update.

So thanks to everyone in the Steam forums, Twitter, and Facebook. You are helping make Left 4 Dead 2 better.

Friday February 3rd 2012
Hard Eight, More Cold Stream

Hard Eight!!

Double the specials, quadruple the fun!

Face eight Special Infected at one time, this is double the standard number! And if that wasn’t trouble enough, we also increase the spawning frequency so it is raining Specials.

Why aren’t you going to give it a try? Scared?

More Cold Stream

Today we are releasing some bug and exploit fixes on the PC for Blood Harvest.

We have to thank everyone for their feedback and help catching these issues and making the campaigns better but we want to give a special thanks to Tabbernaut from the Steam forums for providing a concise lists of issues.

We still have a few minor fixes and performance improvements for the Cold Stream Campaign. We are going to be releasing those changes in a few weeks as the final build for the DLC.

On the 360 side we have been making some additional performance improvements. The finale section of Cold Stream in particular was a sticky area to pull off. Not only do we have to worry about view distances but the way the common infected move and navigate areas.

One of the results of our extensive performance tuning of the Cold Stream campaign is that we will be writing up and sharing some information with modders on improving the performance of their campaigns.

So enjoy Hard Eight and in a few weeks we will have another content update as we prepare Cold Stream to go into the Xbox 360 certification process.

{clr}

Friday January 13th 2012
Gib Fest, Cold Stream, Updates

Gib Fest

Blast the infected to shreds with M60s.

Swords can slice up some fun. Chainsaws can tear apart the infected. But you need to get close for both and well... chainsaws are really loud! Time to go with the ultimate gun, you and three friends armed with M60s and unlimited ammo. This is going to get messy.

Cold Stream

As we recently posted on our blog, we are busy working on the full Cold Stream DLC which will include Cold Stream, Blood Harvest, Crash Course, Dead Air, Death Toll, and No Mercy. We will be updating Campaigns on Steam with bug fixes as we get ready to ship the DLC.

Check the release notes as the list of fixes is extensive. The Xbox 360 will get Campaigns with the bug fixes at a future date.

Updates

We are going to begin to experiment with our updates, their frequency and their content. On Steam we will be updating a little more frequently as we get finished versions of the map into testing. For both platforms we want to start using the in0game blog to display and discuss some data we have collected along the way.

Friday December 2nd 2011
Special Confogl Update

Confogl

Competitive Versus Mutation

Confogl is a set of rules for competitive L4D2 Versus that standardizes many of the elements and changes item and weapon distribution. In general it tips the balance a bit more towards the Infected.

ProdigySim, the creator of this Mutation, has made an update based on community feedback. He has reduced scavenge item counts, reduced number of hunting rifle spawns, and some other small tweaks. Keep giving him feedback on the changes.

We have other updates for this month but we want to let people get accustomed to this Mutation so we will be having Confogl for the entire month of December.

CSGO

In honor of the competitive mutation and the start of the CSGO stress test this week, we will be keeping the poll active. Let us know.

Friday November 18th 2011
Headshot!, Confogl, CS:GO?

Headshot!

The only shot that counts is the one in the head.

Shoot them in the arm, shoot them in the leg, shoot them in the chest - it just doesn't matter! The only way these zombies are going down is with a head shot. Other hits will stumble them back, but only a head shot or decapitation will kill them.

This Mutation is available for Campaign Mode.

Confogl?

The voting was close, real close on the 360 but people want to give it another try. One of the problems with a big change like Confogl is that two weeks is not enough time to adjust to the changes. You need to learn what is different and adapt.

To help, the next update is going to bring back Confogl and we will leave it in rotation until the new year. That should give you enough time. It will also give us a longer period to evaluate the data on people playing.

CS:GO?

With the imminent release of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Beta, we were curious; will you try CS:GO?

Friday November 4th 2011
Confogl, Confogl?, Confoglgol?

Confogl

Competitive Versus Mutation

Confogl is a set of rules for competitive L4D2 Versus that standardizes many of the elements and changes item and weapon distribution. In general it tips the balance a bit more towards the Infected. Thanks to ProdigySim for creating this Mutation.

Confogl?

We asked if you would like to try Confogl and you answered yes by 70%.

Confoglgol?

Now that you had a chance to play Confogl, what do you think?

Friday October 21st 2011
Iron Man, Impact Special, Confogl?

Iron Man

No respawns, no restarts, no ammo, all tension!

Do you think the game is too easy? Looking for a challenge? Try this one on Expert. Realism rules are in effect. There are no respawns in the map. There is no ammo. If your team wipes, you need to restart the whole campaign.

Impact Special

What L4D2 Special has the biggest impact on the L4D1 maps? Sometimes experience and expectations do line up. Both 360 and PC players chose the Charger as making the biggest impact – 52% of the vote. For the next two we do see a split, PC players voted 22% for the Spitter and 13% the Jockey. 360 players were more split, 19% for the Spitter and 18% for the Jockey.

Confogl?

While we don’t expect you to be able to pronounce it, would you play it as a mutation? Confogl is a set of rules for competitive L4D2 Versus that standardizes many of the elements and changes item and weapon distribution. In general it tips the balance a bit more towards the Infected.

If you would still like more information or to ask a question this thread is a good place to start.

Friday October 7th 2011
Gib Fest, Mobile, L4D2 in L4D1, Community Help

Gib Fest

Blast the infected to shreds with M60s.

Swords can slice up some fun. Chainsaws can tear apart the infected. But you need to get close for both and well... chainsaws are really loud! Time to go with the ultimate gun, you and three friends armed with M60s and unlimited ammo. This is going to get messy.

Mobile

We asked last poll if you play games on your phone. For PC players only 9% of you frequently play games on your phone compared to 16% for 360 players. The "Sometimes" answer was closer with 23% on the PC to 21% for the 360. "Rarely" saw 20% for the PC and 16% for the 360. 35% of PC players never play games on their phone compared to 31% for the 360. Finally 13% of the respondents on the PC and 16% on the 360 do not own phones to play games on.

L4D2 in L4D1

What Left 4 Dead 2 Special Infected makes the biggest impact is the most dangerous in the Left 4 Dead 1 maps? For PC players this will be based on experience for 360 players this is a question about what you anticipate.

Community Help

Special thanks to LarryBrains for the Death Toll Finale changes and Rayman1103 for some survivor audio help/suggestions that are included in today’s update.

Friday September 23rd 2011
Healthpackalypse, Glitches, Game on your phone?

Healthpackalypse! No health in this versus game.

Grind down the Survivors and don't worry about them bouncing back. With no health kits in Versus, their permanent health is on a one way ride to zero.

Glitches Last poll we asked if you exploit glitches. Both platforms have 40% of the votes fall into the depends category. Where they differed slightly is 14% of PC users will always use the glitch compared to 20% of the Xbox 360 users.

Do you game on your phone? We know you are playing L4D2 on your Xbox 360, PC, or Mac but what we don’t know is – do you also game on your phone? If so, how much?

Friday September 9th 2011
Hunting Party, Guns How Many?, Can you help yourself?

Hunting Party

Nothing but Hunters on the prowl.

In this Coop Mutation we pit you against non-stop hunters. No booms, no spit, no tongues, no charges, no being ridden... Great practice on dead stopping a hunter pounce.

Guns How Many?

We asked last poll - How do you like your guns in the wild? Do you like to see single instance guns or enough for everyone? PC players voted 40% want single instance weapons and 60% want enough for everyone. On the 360 the split was wider with only 25% wanting single instances and 75% going with enough for everyone.

Can you help yourself?

If you are playing and find an exploit in a map what do you do?

Friday August 26th 2011
Versus Survival, Upcoming Zombie Apocalypse, Guns! How many?

Versus Survival

Can you survive against your friends?

The first Survivor team sets the time. The second team tries to beat it. Then the first team tries to beat the second team's time. Then the second team tries to beat the first team's time. And then the... you get the idea. Rounds keep switching until someone fails to beat the previous time.

This is a great way to try Versus. Rounds are only as long as you can keep beating each others' times. There are no rushing Survivors. Infected spawns get quicker as the time increases. It is mayhem filled with all the weapon perks and items. What’s not to like? Give it a try.

Upcoming Zombie Apocalypse

What's your first reaction when the inevitable Zombie Apocalypse hits your town? 25% of you would hole up where you were, 61% would go look for friends and 13% of you told the truth and admitted you would cry in the corner.

'''Guns! How many?'''

Do you prefer the guns outside of Saferooms to be single items that disappear after the first person picks them up? Or do you prefer that there are enough for everyone?

Friday August 12th 2011
Healing Gnome, Mutations, Cold Stream, First Reaction

Healing Gnome

There is only one way to heal, holding the Gnome!

This Coop game is all about the Gnome and his magical healing properties. There is only one way to heal and that is by holding the Gnome. Better share him with your teammates!

Mutations

We asked, would you like the next set of Mutations to be the top 4 by player minutes? 4-1 you said yes. So what are the top 4? Starting next Mutation you are going to find out.

Cold Stream

When is Cold Stream coming out? It depends. We have asked the PC community to help us test the DLC before it is released. Just today they start testing on Blood Harvest. Based on their feedback we are making adjustments to the campaigns and removing any exploitable areas. We will continue testing the campaigns and then assembling them for official release later this Summer.

First Reaction

The inevitable Zombie Apocalypse hits your town. What's your first reaction? Do you hole up where you are or risk it and go look for friends?

Friday July 29th 2011
Taannkk!, Spawn Distances, New Mutations

Taannkk!

Everything is coming up Taannkk!!

Scared to play Versus? Think there is too much strategy? Don’t want to embarrass yourself? Give Taannkk!! a try. We simplify everything. What does everyone spawn as? Tanks. What is trying to kill you? Tanks. Why should you keep running? Tanks. You’re welcome.

Spawn Distances

4 to 1 you prefer the smaller spawn distances in the finale. That ratio is the same on PC as 360, so it looks like experience and desire lined up. We also looked at the poll during the time it was up to see if longer play time changed the ratio – nope. If you miss the old spawns, let us know why on Twitter, Facebook, or in the Steam Forums.

Mutations

Would you like us to cycle through the top 4 Mutations next or continue through all of them one by one? The top 4 does include Taannkk! So this could be the start of the cycle or we can continue going down through the rest of the Mutations in order. So the question is – Would you like the next set of Mutations to be the top 4 by player minutes?

Friday July 15th 2011
Bleed Out Versus, Movie Fan, Spawn Distances

Bleed Out Versus

Now you have a good excuse for rushing through Versus.

There is no permanent Survivor health, it is all temporary and it is ticking down. Even if you don't normally play Versus, this is a great mutation to try. The action is frantic and fast as team wipes are always just a few seconds away.

Movie Fan

Have you watched any live action Left 4 Dead movies on YouTube? 60% of you have, 30% of you have not and 9% are just confused. What this really means is 39% of you need to visit YouTube and search for some Left 4 Dead related movies. The community is making some really awesome stuff.

Spawn Distances

We made a change to shrink the finale spawn distances from 600 units to 300 units. In this week's poll, let us know what you think. We have tested this change heavily but if you find any oddity with a Community Campaign or our own campaigns, please let us know. Do you like the change - play before you vote!

Friday July 1st 2011
Lone Gunman, Following L4D2, Movie Fan, Next Wednesday

Lone Gunman

You and your Magnum against the deadly horde and Boomers.

So you have your Magnum pistol and... well you do have your Magnum pistol. You better be counting bullets because four swipes by a common and you are dead. Getting boomed? Forget about it.

Following Left 4 Dead 2

How do you follow Left 4 Dead 2? It depends on your platform.

Another way to look at it is 26% PC/Mac players use Facebook, 12% use Twitter, 61% use the Steam forums and 32% use none of those ways.

That means 40% Xbox 360 players use Facebook, 14% use Twitter, 23% use the Steam forums and 48% use none of those ways.

If we combine the communities – they are about the same size - 33% use Facebook, 14% use Twitter, and 43% use the Steam Forums and 40% use none of these. These numbers do not include the non-votes and only include players who read the blog so the – none of these – option is probably much larger. We have some work to do...

Movie Fan?

Have you ever watched a Left 4 Dead 1 or 2 inspired live action video on YouTube?

Next Wednesday? Check back next Wednesday for a special update. We are going to need your help...

Friday June 17th 2011
Hunting Party, The Train Station, Following L4D2

Hunting Party

Nothing but Hunters on the prowl.

In this Coop Mutation we pit you against non-stop hunters. No booms, no spit, no tongues, no charges, no being ridden... Great practice on dead stopping a hunter pounce.

The Train Station

Last poll we asked about the difficulty of the Left 4 Dead 1 map The Train Station from Blood Harvest. An odd question for a Left 4 Dead 2 poll maybe, but on the PC side in particular we have a high number of players who have also owned and played Left 4 Dead 1 so they do have some first-hand experience.

50% of the voters think the map is too easy. 27% think it is fine the way it is and 23% of you haven't played it. So that means, 50% of you are going to be finally challenged by the map, 27% of you might be a little overwhelmed, and 23% are going to in for a treat - just wait until you see the corn fields.

How do you follow Left 4 Dead 2?

We are trying to reach and interact with people in many ways. If you go to l4d.com you can see the list, but how do you follow or discuss Left 4 Dead 2?

Friday June 3rd 2011
Versus Survival, Bunker?, The Train Station?

Versus Survival

Can you survive against your friends?

The first Survivor team sets the time. The second team tries to beat it. Then the first team tries to beat the second team's time. Then the second team tries to beat the first team's time. And then the... you get the idea. Rounds keep switching until someone fails to beat the previous time.

This is a great way to try Versus. Rounds are only as long as you can keep beating each others' times. There are no rushing Survivors. Infected spawns get quicker as the time increases. It is mayhem filled with all the weapon perks and items. What’s not to like? Give it a try.

Bunker?

Last poll we asked, what do you think of the end bunker in Cold Stream's first map. If you actually played the map - you love it. The vote breaks down to 84% for 16% against. The other option was if you hadn't played the map. That vote was 71% against and 19% for, almost the exact opposite from the results of those who played it.

This is a good illustration for why we design based on observed play tests and not anecdotal evidence. Those who didn't play aren’t wrong with their vote, that is their opinion but without first-hand experience they were unable to evaluate the true impact of this change.

The Train Station

We are bringing over more L4D1 maps for the upcoming L4D2 DLC. We have been making some changes to accommodate the differences in L4D2 game play. For example, at the very start of Blood Harvest, it was way too easy to charge someone from the start position off to their death. But now we have a question for you, if you have played Blood Harvest, is the 4th map, The Train Station, too easy?

Friday May 20th 2011
Gib Fest, Midnight Riders Comic, Cold Stream, Crescendo

Gib Fest

Blast the infected to shreds with M60s.

Swords can slice up some fun. Chainsaws can tear apart the infected. But you need to get close for both and well... chainsaws are really loud! Time to go with the ultimate gun, you and three friends armed with M60s and unlimited ammo. This is going to get messy.

Midnight Riders Comic?

Last poll we asked what you thought about the idea of a Midnight Rider's Comic. We will admit; we aren't surprised. 70% of you want a comic, 14% of you have a negative outlook on life, and 16% of you are dirty liars... How did you know it said you can't read unless you could read it!?!?

Cold Stream Crescendo

Last update we made a change in the beta version of Cold Stream's first map. Originally the final bit of the map before the safe room was a boarded over culvert leading down to the door. It made a great place to hide and then charge while the Survivors came down the tunnel.

We made a change to experiment with a bunker. The bunker has a large steel door that needs to be moved and alerts the horde causing them to come streaming out as you try and enter. The second way also introduces a one way drop down into the passage so all Survivors needs to jump at the same time or at least make sure not to be smoked up top.

So what does everyone think of the change? And if you haven't played it, based on the descriptions – what do you think you would prefer? Please make sure to pick the right choice if you played or not.

Friday May 6th 2011
Taannkk!, Portal 2 Co-op?, Midnight Riders?, Cold Stream

Taannkk!

Everything is coming up Taannkk!!

Scared to play Versus? Think there is too much strategy? Don’t want to embarrass yourself? Give Taannkk!! a try. We simplify everything. What does everyone spawn as? Tanks. What is trying to kill you? Tanks. Why should you keep running? Tanks. You’re welcome.

Portal 2 Co-op?

For last poll we asked, do you plan on playing the Co-op section of Portal 2? 60% of you said Yes. Thanks! 18% of you plan on ignoring the robot filled co-op fun fest and 22% of you are undecided on the amount of fun you want in your lives.

Midnight Riders?

Would you like to see a Midnight Riders Comic?

The upcoming DLC is our experiment in not having a story tied to the DLC. While we are working on that, we also wanted to keep expanding the story and world of Left 4 Dead. We like comics, in fact we just released one yesterday for Team Fortress 2. So we were thinking about another comic. What about one starring the Midnight Riders? Vote in this week's in-game poll and let us know what you think.

Cold Stream

To help with public testing, we fixed more bugs and exploits than we normally would on maps that are still in a transitional state. So don't take bug fixes as declaring something final. Besides that we also added two experiments. The first is the end of the first map. The second is an alternate route around the mast of doom. Let us know what you think about those two and all of the changes.

We are going to be concentrating on the first 3 maps in the next update as we do some design work on the finale based on your feedback. Thanks for all your feedback, suggestions, and bug reporting.

Friday April 22nd 2011
Versus Survival, When to Tier?, Portal 2?

Versus Survival

Can you survive against your friends?

The first Survivor team sets the time. The second team tries to beat it. Then the first team tries to beat the second team's time. Then the second team tries to beat the first team's time. And then the... you get the idea. Rounds keep switching until someone fails to beat the previous time.

This is a great way to try Versus. Rounds are only as long as you can keep beating each other's times. There are no rushing Survivors. Infected spawns get quicker as the time increases. It is mayhem filled with all the weapon perks and items. What's not to like? Give it a try.

When to Tier?

The last poll asked when to place tier 2 weapons?

The winner was to place Tier 2 weapons unpredictably in Map 2 followed by unpredictably placed in Map 1. After those two the rest are all distant runners muddled together.

So this makes it clear you want unpredictable tier 2 weapons when they are first available. We will try them on map 2 first and go from there. Remember, polls aren't the final word. You never really know how something is going to work until you test it. We use this as a place to start testing and then react from further testing.

Portal 2?

With Portal 2's release this week we were wondering, do you plan on playing the Co-op section of Portal 2?

Friday April 8th 2011
Last Gnome On Earth, Scavenge?, To Tier One Or Not To Tier One

Last Man on Earth

You will become legend to the infected as the last human left.

You are the only Survivor left in the world. No split screen help. No Survivor bots. But don't worry you aren't entirely alone. While there are no common Infected, Special Infected will hunt you down and become close, close friends with you.

This Mutation is available in Single Player Mode.

To Tier One Or Not To Tier One

Last poll we asked, what do you prefer: just pistols and melee to start or do you like to have a full complement of weapons at the start? With your answer we will keep the tier one weapons in as we continue to test. Here is how the results broke down:

Tier 1 39%

Melee and Pistols 30%

Just Melee 22%

No Opinion 9%

Tier 2?

Now that we know to keep the tier 1 weapons, what about tier 2 weapons? In a 4 map campaign, do you like to see tier 2 weapons hidden around the map? A good example of this is in the first map of The Passing. You can either go straight through the park or back track to the left to check for tier 2 weapons. For the poll, unpredictably means the weapons may or may not be there. Consistently means the weapons can always be found in a spot. For both answers this spot would be off the main path.

Thursday March 24th 2011
Last Gnome On Earth, Scavenge?, To Tier One Or Not To Tier One

Last Gnome On Earth

Protect the gnome at all cost.

Do you crave attention? Want all the infected to swarm you and the gnome you are carrying? Then we have the campaign game mode for you. The team needs to carry the garden gnome from start to finish in any campaign. The common infected hate the gnome and will swarm whoever is carrying him. Watch out putting him on the ground, a boomer explosion will send him flying!

Scavenge?

For last poll we asked, are you going to play at least one round of Scavenge in the original Left 4 Dead campaigns once they are ported to Left 4 Dead 2? 60% of you are going to give it a go, a whopping 23% answered huh, what?, and 17% of you hate fun.

To Tier One Or Not To Tier One

We just released the Cold Stream Beta on Steam this past week. This campaign is a work in progress and will eventually make its way onto the Xbox 360, check the blog for more information. The intro map originally had no tier 1 weapons and players were left to fend for themselves with just melee weapons and pistols. Because of the length of the map, an SMG spawn was added just before release. What do you prefer: just pistols and melee to start or do you like to have a full complement of weapons at the start?

Friday March 11th 2011
Follow the Liter, L4D1 Campaigns, Scavenge?

Follow the Liter

Scavenge one can at a time.

No more fighting over what cans to grab first. This Mutation spawns only one group of cans at a time, so survivors know exactly where to go. There is only one problem: the Infected know exactly where they are going. We dare you to give it a try.

Most anticipated L4D1 Map?

Dead Air and its hunter perches leap to the top with 40%, Blood Harvest's corn fields plow into second place with 22%, Death Toll Church Guy rings in at 19%, Crash Course drove its van into last with 11% and 8% of you have no opinion on how much fun the rest of us are going to be having.

Scavenge?

Since this week's mutation is a play on Scavenge, we are curious. Are you going to play at least one round of Scavenge in the original Left 4 Dead campaigns once they are ported to Left 4 Dead 2?

Friday February 25th 2011
Reminder, Bleed Out, Favorite NPC, Anticipation Reminder

We are going to cycle back to the original Mutations for a little bit. After our recent poll about community Mutations we received many emails pointing out that you cannot earn Mutant Overlord playing custom mutations. Don't stop with the Mutation ideas, we will come back to community Mutations. We are just taking a little break for now.

Bleed Out

Your health is a ticking away!

With constant mobs chasing you, there's no time for standing around. You have no permanent health, only temporary health that is continuously ticking away. You won't find any health packs to restore your health, only pills and adrenaline. This mutation is for Campaign mode.

Favorite NPC

We asked, In all the L4D world, who is your favorite NPC?

Death Toll's Church Guy won with 27% of the vote with Swamp Fever's Virgil following with 23%, Whitaker from Dead Center and the Chopper Pilot from No Mercy tied with 15%, John Slater from Death Toll took 9% of the vote, and 11% of you couldn’t make up your mind or are so in love with all of them you couldn’t choose just one.

Most anticipated L4D1 Map?

With the announcement of Cold Stream we also mentioned that we will be porting over additional Left 4 Dead 1 maps. Which one has you the most excited?

Friday February 11th 2011
Death's Door, Kick the Vote, Favorite NPC

Death's Door

This Co-op Mutation from Rayman1103 features death, death at a moment's notice. No sitting around waiting to die. No wondering if your friends will save you. Nothing. You go down, you're dead. So stick close to your friends and make sure to watch out for friendly fire.

Kick The Vote

For last week's poll we asked, if you vote kick why do you vote kick? Clearly getting rid of Team killers is a top priority. Here are your answers in order of votes.

28% Team killer

19% Poor skills

15% Annoying

11% Rude or Crude

11% I don't vote kick

9% Waiting for a friend

4% To grief other players

3% Unknown player

Favorite NPC?

In all the L4D world, who is your favorite NPC?

Friday January 28th 2011
Nightmare, Encore?, Vote Kicking

Nightmare

You'll never see them coming

This Survival Mutation was inspired by Karma Jockey. There are commons, plenty of beefed up Specials, no glows, and lots and lots of fog. If you like to be scared by things that jump out at you from the night, this one is for you.

Encore?

This week's new Mutation should make it clear how people voted in the previous poll. 46% of the votes were for a new community Mutation this week. 29% voted for an Encore Mutation. 24% of the voters were undecided, confused, or both. We will still occasionally have an Encore Mutation, but this week - a new Mutation.

Vote Kicking

Do you vote kick? Why do you vote kick? If you do vote kick, pick the most common reason when answering this week's in-game poll.

Friday January 14th 2011
Riding My Survivor, Secondary Weapon, The Next Mutation, Custom Campaigns

Riding My Survivor

Do I hear a Jockey?

This Versus Mutation is all about Jockeys. The Jockeys have increased health, speed and damage. The humans have increased hatred for the Jockey's call. This community Mutation was created by Winded.

Secondary Weapon

Last poll asked what secondary weapon do you prefer. 47% chose Melee. 33% chose the Magnum. 18% chose dual pistols. And that leaves 2% for a single pistol or more likely 2% of the people answering the poll each week hit the wrong button ...

Future Mutation?

One last question on Mutations themselves. Would you prefer encore selections on a regular schedule or continuing to experiment with Community Mutations each update?

Custom Campaigns

PC users, don't forget we updated the current featured campaign to One 4 Nine. Check our blog at l4d.com for more information.

One of the most asked questions we get - can the Xbox 360 get community campaigns? Yes and no. We can't just put the maps up on our servers and have them work. We need to release the maps as part of a DLC package.

So the next question is - will we include community campaigns in future DLC? We are exploring that possibility and meeting with people to try and put it into motion. You can help by participating in the next poll that will be about community campaigns for both the PC and Xbox 360.

Friday December 31st 2010
Flu Season, Mutation Poll, Secondary Weapon, Next Year

Flu Season

The smell of spit and bile in the air.

This Coop Mutation is a mashup of "Boomer Shooter" by SR69MMJC and "Spitters!" by Karma Jockey. The only specials are Boomers and Spitters. The only commons are the result of the Boomer. The only other change is we amped up everything about these two Specials. But don't worry, you'll be okay as long as you avoid all the goo flying in the air.

Mutation Poll

Last poll asked what game mode should this week's Mutation support. PC and Xbox 360 players voted almost identically. Coop squeaked out a win with 35%, Versus followed with 33%, Survival and Solo tied with 13% each and Scavenge came in last with 6%. This week we will have a Coop Mutation and will look at Versus Mutations for the next one.

Secondary Weapon

While this answer can be situational, in general – what secondary weapon do you prefer?

Next Year

We hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year's Eve tonight. Remember, the safest way to spend your New Year's Eve is at home, in the safety of your basement killing zombies. The entire Left 4 Dead team would like to thank everyone for a great 2010 and we are all looking forward to more fun in 2011.

Friday December 17th 2010
Special Delivery, The Walking Dead, The Next Mutation

Special Delivery

These Specials delivery non-stop action!

This Mutation is a variation of Hard Eight. Spawn timers have been removed and the Special spawn cap has been raised to ten. The changes sound subtle, but they really mix up the gameplay.

The Walking Dead?

Last poll asked if you were watching the television series The Walking Dead. If it is available in your area - you are. 55% of 360 players and 49% of PC players are watching. 20% of the PC players did not have it available in their area compared to 15% on the 360. This variation matches the geographical makeup of each player base as there is a slightly greater International mix of players on the PC.

Mutation Madness!

With today's Mutation, we are releasing for the first time for us community created content on the Xbox 360. This is only the first with many more to follow. Some Mutations will be takes on existing ones and some will take us into wild variations. We wanted to start with something familiar and move from there.

It has been great playing all the community Mutations and we can't wait to release more for everyone to play. With that in mind, while we can see what Mutations are the most popular, the numbers can be misleading. That number only shows us what people play but doesn't tell us what they want to play. Right now the most popular Mutations are Coop then Versus. But our question to you is what game mode should the next Mutation be? Vote in this week’s poll to let us know.

Holiday Schedule

We will have another update and blog post in two weeks and then we will get back to a regular schedule of a Mutation every two weeks, a featured campaigns on the off week, and more frequent blog posts. For upcoming posts we are going to look at the data we have gathered from our Realism Versus tests, the impact of playing with friends, a look at coop and more.

Friday December 3rd 2010
Hard Eight, Do you compete? Mutation Madness, The Road Ahead

Hard Eight!!

Double the specials, quadruple the fun!

Face eight Special Infected at one time, this is double the standard number! And if that wasn't trouble enough, we also increase the spawning frequency so it is raining Specials.

Why aren't you going to give it a try? Scared?

Do You Compete?

We asked if you competed in Left 4 Dead 1 or 2 Tournaments. That both platforms tied with "Play competitive games but not in tourneys" and "Where am I?" is a little scary. Here are the numbers by platform:

Xbox 360

30% Play competitive games but not in tourneys

30% Where am I?

15% No, But I do compete in other games

13% Played in tourneys

12% Don’t play competitive modes

PC

26% Play competitive games but not in tourneys

26% Where am I?

19% Don’t play competitive modes

17% Played in tourneys

12% No, But I do compete in other games

With 13-17% of you responding you do play in Tourneys – which ones? Where? Because that response rate dwarfs the numbers I see in online Tourneys. Do you have a tournament you are running or do you know about one? Let us know! We have been known to kick in prizes and who doesn't want to win one of these?

Mutation Madness!

The next Mutation will be a community created Mutation. We have been talking with Raymond Nondorf about his Mutation mod that he posted in the forums. We are going to be pulling the next Mutation from his mod and then after that the question becomes – can you create a better Mutation? Raymond, not content with just releasing his own Mutations, has also created a tutorial for others to create their own. You can check it out here. Nice work Raymond!

As we continue to update bi-weekly, we will be incorporating some of these community Mutations. To make a Mutation, you will need to build and test your mutation on the PC but we will release them on both PC and Xbox 360. So user created content is beginning to see itself on the Xbox 360!

The Walking Dead

This season's final episode of The Walking Dead is this Sunday. Have you been watching it? Use the in-game poll to let us know.

The Road Ahead

First up, Realism Versus. While the really short respawn interval was interesting, it removed our ability to increase difficulty in other ways. Today's update includes one of those other ways, the uncrownable Witch. Not only is she deadly in Realism but now she is also uncrownable. Good luck with that.

We will have more gameplay changes and bug fixes coming and not just in Realism Versus and Versus.

What else can you expect? We have some longer term projects that we are working on that have been taking our time. The biggest project is working custom content back into the core game on our official dedicated servers. There are complications to how that works and how we insure against cheating, so you will not see the results instantly but we are working on it.

Past that, we should have some news for you early next year (it really isn't that far away) on any new content we might have in the works.

Friday November 19th 2010
Gib Fest and..., You are Glowing, Do you compete?

Gib Fest

M60s and buckets of blood.

For our coop mutation this week we return to everyone's favorite Gib Fest. Simple, go play.

We are also "featuring" Realism Versus. This week we added quicker spawns for the infected. If you haven't played recently, you are missing out on one of the most intense Left 4 Dead 2 competitive experiences. It is like regular Versus but no health kits in the world, no glows on fellow survivors, harder to kill commons and now faster Special Infected spawns (coming soon to the 360). Give it a try this week, it's what all the cool kids will be playing.

You are glowing

You liked the idea of changing the Survivor's glow. The breakdown was roughly 50% for, 30% against, 20% no opinion but I just like to vote.

So this week we are changing the glow to include temporary health, and also incorporating a suggestion from the forums. The glow color will now correspond to the run speed of the Survivors. This should help Tanks know who they can catch. While we were at it, we added a glow to the Witch for the Infected team.

Sometimes poll results can be incorporated quickly into the game, sometimes they take a bit longer – just a warning for past and future polls. Just because we don’t make a change that week doesn't mean the results are being ignored. Also, any changes that we make on the PC will come to the Xbox 360 in a future update.

Do you compete?

This week's poll question: Have you ever played in an L4D1 or L4D2 tournament?

Friday November 12th 2010
Taannkk!, The Breakdown, Feature?

Taannkk!!

Everything is coming up Taannkk!!

Scared to play Versus? Think there is too much strategy? Don’t want to embarrass yourself? Give Taannkk!! a try. We simplify everything. What does everyone spawn as? Tanks. What is trying to kill you? Tanks. Why should you keep running? Tanks. You’re welcome.

The Breakdown

Taannkk! won easily and here is how the rest of the field faired by platform.

XBOX 360

51% Taannkk!!

17% Hunting Party

16% Healing Gnome

10% Lone Gunman

6% Bleedout Versus

PC

47% Taannkk!!

17% Healing Gnome

16% Hunting Party

12% Lone Gunman

8% Bleedout Versus

Feature?

You are playing Versus, you see a Survivor in red, you pounce on them! You tear them up for 10 seconds and when you get knocked off they get right up. Seems they had temporary health you didn’t "see".

So we propose that the Player's outline should match their current health not their permanent health. So if they have 20 health and take pills we show their glow as green not red. As their health counts down the green would turn to orange then red.

The problem here is if everyone was green, you wouldn't clearly see who had temporary health or permanent health – most people would rather be eating through someone's permanent health in this case. You can always check the scoreboard but this is just for the quick identification you do based on the infected glow.

So that leads us to the poll question. Would you rather the glow color reflect permanent health only or reflect permanent and temporary health combined? Let us know.

Friday November 5th 2010
Healing Gnome, Halloween?, Pick the Mutation, Tweet Tweet

Healing Gnome

There is only one way to heal, holding the Gnome!

This Coop game is all about the Gnome and his magical healing properties. There is only one way to heal and that is by holding the Gnome. Better share him with your teammates!

Halloween?

If you haven’t checked out the Halloween Costumes on our Facebook pages, what are you waiting for? Hunters, Zoeys, Bills, and even Rochelles are all there to TERRIFY YOU!!! For the poll, the Hunter handily won followed by the Tank. PC players then chose Bill and 360 players chose Ellis. From a quick headcount in the real world, I think the order was Hunter, Ellis, Zoey, and then Bill. The Tank seemed to be too much for most people's costume making abilities.

Tweet Tweet

Want to know what the Left 4 Dead development team is working on or thinking about? Follow us on our brand new Twitter account at twitter.com/l4ddev. We promise we will never bore you with what we are eating or ... okay, we did have some really good Thai food today. But look, we said that here and not on the Twitter account, the Twitter account will stay food free. We promise. Most likely.

Next week's Mutation: ???

Friday October 29th 2010
Bleed Out Versus, You Rock, Halloween?

Bleed Out Versus

Now you have a good excuse for rushing through Versus.

There is no permanent Survivor health, it is all temporary and it is ticking down. Even if you don't normally play Versus, this is a great mutation to try. The action is frantic and fast as team wipes are always just a few seconds away.

You Rock!

It didn’t matter on the platform, 38% of you have rocked out with the Midnight Riders in Rock Band. We need to get cracking on converting the rest of the Riders' catalog.

Are you dressing up for Halloween?

Of course you are, the real question is - are you dressing up as someone from the Left 4 Dead universe? If you do dress up, make sure to post your picture on our Facebook pages.

This week's poll, if you weren't too cool to dress up or if you do; who would you pick for your Halloween costume?

Still not sure who you want to be, what about just being part of the crowd? If you are going to go as a common infected make sure to check out this tutorial on getting your infected makeup right.

Don’t forget, if you are in Seattle this weekend, the first annual ZomBcon will be in full swing. Look for us Sunday, we’ll be the ones carrying shwag and concept art to hand out at our 12 noon panel.

Next week: Healing Gnome

Friday October 22th 2010
Lone Gunman, Did you Win, Do you rock?

Lone Gunman You and your Magnum against the deadly horde and Boomers.

So you have your Magnum pistol and... well you do have your Magnum pistol. You better be counting bullets because four swipes by a common and you are dead. Getting boomed? Forget about it.

Did you win? Last week we asked - Do you consider that you won the Campaign when you sacrifice yourself to restart the generator or did you just sacrifice yourself so your team won? Is it individual or team glory?

68% of you consider it a team victory and 32% of you believe you lost. For the 32% that either means you never go yourself or you really are a team player. This is one of those questions where we assumed the answer would have been closer to 95% of the people choosing you won. So if you have time, explain your votes in the forums or on our Facebook pages.

Do you rock? With two Midnight Riders songs on Rock Band, have you ever played any of the Midnight Riders songs?

Next week: Bleed Out Versus

Friday October 15th 2010
Hunting Party, Comics Going Mobile, Did you Win?

Hunting Party Nothing but Hunters on the prowl.

In this Coop Mutation we pit you against non-stop hunters. No booms, no tongues, no being ridden... Great practice for dead stopping a hunter pounce.

The Sacrifice comic has gone mobile Thanks to Comixology, The Sacrifice is now available on the iPhone and iPad. How do you get it?

Go to the App store on your iphone/ipad.

Download the Comixology app (be sure to get the one that says "Comics" not "Pull List")

Use the search engine to find Left 4 Dead.

Download for Free! When it is finished, go to bottom of the U.I. and you will find it in "my comics".

Did you win? You get to the end of the Sacrifice. You and three friends are on the bridge and someone needs to jump down. You offer to do it yourself, so you jump down, restart the generator and save the team.

Do you consider that you won the Campaign or did you just sacrifice yourself so your team won?

Next week's Mutation: Lone Gunman

Tuesday October 5th 2010
Week 25: TAAANNNKK!!, Who do you Sacrifice?

TAAANNNKK!! Survivors Vs Tanks, who will win?

We kick off the release of "The Sacrifice" with the new Mutation TAAANNNKK!!

It is a Versus game. The only Special Infected are Tanks. As Survivors you get a 15 second head start. But there's not time to look back, there is so little time - we even convert First Aid Kits to pills.

Who do you Sacrifice? The comic gives you the official Story of what happens. But in-game you can choose your own story, so who are you choosing to Sacrifice?

Next Week's Mutation: Hunting Party

Friday September 24th 2010
Week 23: Survival Versus, What Form?, What the what?

Survival Versus Can you survive against your friends?

The first Survivor team sets the time. The second team tries to beat it. Then the first team tries to beat the second team's time. Then the second team tries to beat the first team's time. And then the... you get the idea. Rounds keep switching until someone fails to beat the previous time.

This is a great way to try Versus. Rounds are only as long as you can keep beating each other's times. There are no rushing Survivors. Infected spawns get quicker as the time increases. It is mayhem filled with all the weapon perks and items. What's not to like? Give it a try.

What Form? We are onto part 2 of the comic, part 3 is coming out on Tuesday. Besides being released on the web, are there other formats you would like to see?

Our first localized version (Russian) will be coming out soon. We are also releasing versions of the comic to help with localization. Make sure to check it out in its current form and we will be announcing other formats in the future.

Here are your votes by platform.

Xbox 360 45% All 30% Television 10% Just Web 7% Mobile Device 7% Print

PC 33% All 25% Just Web 24% Television 10% Print 9% Mobile Device

What the What? Sorry no poll this week and no new mutation next week. With the release of the new DLC October 5% we want to be able to make some changes to our infrastructure leading to that release. On the 5th we will have a new Mutation and we mean NEW!

The DLC "The Sacrifice" will be available for the XBOX 360, PC, and Mac on October 5th. It will include the new Campaign "The Sacrifice" and the Left 4 Dead 1 campaign, "No Mercy". In both campaigns you will be able to play as the Left 4 Dead 1 Survivors but you will be using Left 4 Dead 2 weapons and items against Left 4 Dead 2 monsters!

Don't forget, the Midnight Rider's Save Me Some Sugar video contest. Submissions are due by October 1st. Make sure to promote your video online using the Steam forums] or our facebook pages! For more information visit http://www.midnight-riders.com/videocontest/.

Friday September 17th 2010
Week 22: Healthpackalypse!, This or That?, The Comic should come in what form?

Healthpackalypse! No health in this versus game.

Grind down the Survivors and don't worry about them bouncing back. With no health kits in Versus, their permanent health is on a one way ride to zero.

This Mutation is available in Versus Mode.

This or That? For the new DLC for Left 4 Dead 1 and Left 4 Dead 2, "The Sacrifice" we have a Comic, Teaser movie and of course the game. Do you prefer to get a more in depth preview through the comic? Watch the teaser? Wait for the game? Or All of the above?

Here are the votes by platform.

Xbox 360 38% All of the above 33% Watch the Teaser 21% Wait for the game 8% Read the Comic

PC 31% Watch the Teaser 30% All of the above 25% Wait for the game 14% Read the Comic

What Form? We released the Comic on the web last week. Another issues is coming out Monday. Besides being released on the web, are there other formats you would like to see?

Next Week's Mutation: Developer’s Choice!

Friday September 10th 2010
Week 21: Follow the Liter, Favorite Survivor, Whose back story?

Follow the Liter Scavenge One Can at a Time.

Week 3's Mutation did not win over the crowds, but we think that's because it was misunderstood. It has a very different feeling than Scavenge and games tend to be much lower scoring. You have to remember, if their can goes up in flames – they have to wait for it to respawn. So get that can on the ground and use the Spitter to light it up!

For the month of September we will continue bringing back previous Mutations and explain why we think you should give them a chance. So if you missed them the first time, give them a chance. It won't hurt. Probably...

This Mutation is available in Scavenge Mode.

Favorite Survivors The PC crowd continues to love Zoey. The polls were pretty much identical except for the top two. Xbox 360 users prefer Ellis then Zoey for their top picks. PC users prefer Zoey and then Ellis. Last week Bill (3rd place in this week's poll) was ranked ahead of Zoey in the 360 poll and behind Zoey in the PC poll. I think PC players are sweet on somebody...

This or that? For the new DLC for Left 4 Dead 1 and Left 4 Dead 2, "The Sacrifice" we have a Comic, Teaser movie and of course the game. Do you prefer to get a more in depth preview through the comic? Watch the teaser? Wait for the game? Or All of the above?

Next week's Mutation: Developer's Choice

Bonus: What would the Hunter do in Toy Story? What Hunters do of course.

Friday September 3rd 2010
Week 20: Hard Eight, Whose Back Story?, Favorite Survivor?

Hard Eight Double the specials, quadruple the fun!

Face eight Special Infected at one time, this is double the standard number! And if that wasn't trouble enough, we also increase the spawning frequency so it is raining Specials.

During its first release, this Mutation gained popularity through the week as people realized how much of a challenge this Mutation really was. So if you didn't try it the first time around, give it a shot.

This Mutation is available in Campaign Mode.

Whose Backstory? Last week we asked whose back story you were most interested in for the upcoming comic. We love them all, so no one is going to be disappointed but here is how you voted. I don't think we can attribute this split to the controller!

Votes by platform: Xbox 360 30% Bill 28% Zoey 24% Francis 13% Louis 5% None

PC 34% Zoey 27% Bill 21% Francis 13% Louis 5% None

Favorite Survivor? Many Left 4 Dead 2 players have played Left 4 Dead 1. For those that didn’t, you met 3 of the Left 4 Dead 1 survivors in "The Passing". Bill is normally a bit more active... You are about to get to play all 4 of them in the upcoming DLC "The Sacrifice". Out of all 8 Survivors, who is your favorite?

Next week's Mutation: Developer’s Choice!

Friday August 27th 2010
Week 19: Split Vote! Whose back story?

Gib Fest (PC) Blast the infected to shreds with M60s.

Swords can slice up some fun. Chainsaws can tear apart the infected. But you need to get close for both and well... chainsaws are really loud! Time to go with the ultimate gun, you and three friends armed with M60s and unlimited ammo. This is going to get messy.

This Mutation is available in Campaign Mode.

Chainsaw Massacre (360) 4 chainsaws, millions of zombies.

You are armed with the only thing you need to survive a Zombie Apocalypse, a chainsaw. Rip apart thousands of zombies on your way to safety.

This Mutation is available in Campaign Mode.

Split Vote! Both the PC and 360 crowd want to see the blood flowing! 360 users preferring chainsaws and PC users going with M60s. Whichever way you like to kill zombies, it's going to be messy.

The numbers by platform. XBox 360 26% Chainsaw Massacre 21% GibFest 18% Versus Survival 15% Last Gnome on Earth 11% Four Swordsmen of the Apocalypse 9% Bleed Out

PC 25% GibFest 20% Versus Survival 16% Chainsaw Massacre 14% Four Swordsmen of the Apocalypse 13% Last Gnome on Earth 12% Bleed Out

Whose backstory? The new DLC for Left 4 Dead 1 and Left 4 Dead 2 is due out in October. In the DLC you will get to play the Left 4 Dead 1 survivors. The accompanying Comic is coming in September. The Comic is broken up into 4 separate sections. Each section features the back story from one of the Survivors. Whose back story are you most interested in?

Next Week's Mutation: Developer Choice!

Friday August 20th 2010
Week 18: Last Man on Earth Returns!, Bill?, Favorite Mutation?

Last Man On Earth Returns You will become legend to the infected as the last human left.

You are the only Survivor left in the world. No split screen help. No Survivor bots. But don't worry you aren't entirely alone. While there are no common Infected, Special Infected will hunt you down and become close, close friends with you.

This Mutation is available in Single Player Mode.

Bill? Last week we asked if you had a guess to how Bill dies. We won't be giving away the answer yet, you will have to wait for the final chapter of the comic for that. Until then, here are your guesses by platform:

The numbers by platform: PC 28% Killed by Tank 24% Overrun by Zombies 20% Friendly Fire 16% Old Age 12% Killed by Witch

Xbox 360 29% Killed by Tank 25% Overrun by Zombies 17% Old Age 16% Friendly Fire 13% Killed by Witch

Favorite Mutation? While we still have more mutations to come, we are going to cycle through the first group for a few weeks. Excluding Realism Versus and Last Man On Earth, out of your previous favorites, which ones would you like to see come back?

Next Week's Mutation: ????!

Friday August 13th 2010
Week 17: Iron Man, Diagnosing Mutations, Bill?

Iron Man No respawns, no restarts, no ammo, all tension!

Did you vote the Mutations are too easy? Try this one on Expert. There are no respawns in the map. There is no ammo. If your team wipes, you need to restart the whole campaign.

Diagnosing the Mutations If you don't play a mutation why?

The numbers by platform: PC 27% None of these 22% Lack of Interest 22% Enjoy Traditional 10% Too Gimmicky 10% Too Easy 9% Too Hard

Xbox 360 41% None of these 21% Enjoy Traditional 17% Lack of Interest 8% Too Easy 7% Too Hard 6% Too Gimmicky

It was nice to see people trying Gib Fest last week. It not only had a high rate of people trying it, but it kept a stead 20% of the player minutes for the week.

Bill? If you played The Passing, you know that Bill dies. If you didn't play The Passing, sorry for the spoiler. We will be explaining Bill's death in an upcoming comic and DLC but what are your guesses as to how he died?

Next Week's Mutation: Developer's Choice!

Friday August 6th 2010
Week 16: Gib Fest! If you only had one thing? If you don't play a mutation, why?

Gib Fest Blast the infected to shreds with M60s.

Swords can slice up some fun. Chainsaws can tear apart the infected. But you need to get close for both and well... chainsaws are really loud! Time to go with the ultimate gun, you and three friends armed with M60s and unlimited ammo. This is going to get messy.

If you only had one thing... Last week's question was - Ignore the game for a minute. This is real world zombie apocalypse. You fought your way to a boat and boarded. You are unbitten. You are heading towards an Island in the Keys you hope is deserted but you have no idea. If you only had one thing you could wish to be on the boat with you heading towards that Island - what would it be?

Since the numbers are similar on both platforms we combined them: 56% Zoey 22% Shotgun 13% Ellis 7% Health Kit 2% Defibrillator

While we would have taken Ellis over the shotgun ourselves, this voting makes sense. Almost. I have to ask the 2% who voted for the defib. If it was for you, who was going to use it on you? If it was for someone else, were you really going to walk around looking for a random dead immune Survivor to resurrect? Either way, you scare us.

If you don't play a mutation, why? We did an update to our web blog this week about Mutations. While we go into more detail there, we are curious. If you don't normally play Mutations, what is the main reason why?

Next week's Mutation: Iron Man!

Thursday August 5th 2010
With the first dozen Mutations out we wanted to take a minute and talk about the Mutations.

Overall the Mutations and weekly polls have been a great success and an amazing way for us to get feedback from the community. Don't worry we still have more Mutations coming and we will also be tweaking and bringing back some of our favorites.

The idea behind the Mutations was simple. Left 4 Dead 2 is played by many different players and types of players. Some players have 300+ hours played in almost daily games and some players only play in weekly casual games with friends. We wanted to create weekly events that mixed up the game rules to experiment with gameplay and made people look at the game in new ways.

Before Mutations, what got played the most? It really depended on the day. Versus and Co-op Campaign were tied neck and neck each with around 40% (80-85% total) of the players on any given day. The other 15-20% was split between Survival, Realism and Scavenge.

Some of the constraints we decided on when creating Mutations: It was okay if it wasn't something that you wanted to play enough to replace an existing game mode as long as it was fun for a short period. Not every Mutation was going to appeal to everyone. Some Mutations would be directly aimed at smaller demographics inside the larger player base.

The decision to make Realism Versus permanent was easy. 41% of the players that week tried it. It grabbed an impressive 22% of the player minutes the week it was featured. That compares to the similar but different Survival Versus which was tried by only 25% of the players and was played for 4% of the player minutes the week it was featured.

Chainsaw Massacre was the most tried Mutation with over 52% of the players that week giving it a try and it was played for almost 14% of the player minutes that week. The voting pattern for encore weeks became obvious; the most played Mutation of the four received the most votes. The results of those polls were often a surprise for the forums but with a sample size for some polls reaching almost half-a-million votes these responses, by statistical necessity, reflect a more stable measurement of player sentiment.

The top 3 Mutations based on percentage of players who tried it at least once: 52% Chainsaw Massacre 45% Last Man On Earth 41% Realism Versus

The top 3 Mutations based on percentage of players minutes during featured week: 22% Realism Versus 14% Chainsaw Massacre 12% Last Man on Earth

The "You should have tried it because you would have loved it" honorable mention goes to Hard Eight which was only tried by 26% of the players but hit 12% of the player minutes that week.

Hard Eight leads us to our last point. Not sure about a Mutation? Try it. Too often we see people dismiss a Mutation before they play it only to play it and then request it be made permanent. The only way you can be sure if running scared from multiple Special Infected is fun or not is to give it a try.

Friday July 30th 2010
Week 15 of the in game blog: Split Vote! If you only had one thing? TANK!

We split in this week's vote. PC users went with Survival Versus and Xbox 360 users went with Four Swordsmen of the Apocalypse.

Four Swordsmen of the Apocalypse Four Swords against plenty of apocalypse!

Armed with only swords the survivors face near continuous streams of Special Infected ready to be sliced and diced.

Encore Mutation: Versus Survival Can you survive against your friends?

The first Survivor team sets the time. The second team tries to be beat it. Then the first team tries to beat the second team's time. Then the second team tries to beat the first team's time. And then that... you get the idea. Rounds keep switching until someone fails to beat the previous time.

We added a start timer for this encore of Versus Survival. You have 90 seconds to get setup and then the onslaught will start whether you hit the button or not - but the timer will only start when you hit the button.

How did the voting break down?

On the PC it was 32% Versus Survival 26% Four Swordsmen 22% Hard Eight 20% Healthpackalypse

On the Xbox 360 38% Four Swordsmen 28% Versus Survival 17% Hard Eight 17% Healthpackalypse

Similar numbers for the bottom two and a flip for the top two. Can anyone hazard a guess why we are seeing the split?

If you only had one thing... Ignore the game for a minute. This is real world zombie apocalypse. You fought your way to a boat and boarded. You are unbitten. You are heading towards an Island in the Keys you hope is deserted but you have no idea. If you only had one thing you could wish to be on the boat with you heading towards that Island - what would it be?

Next week's Mutation: Gib Fest!

TANK! The Tank statue over at the IP Factory is available for pre-order now! This is a very limited run so hurry up and click here].

Wednesday July 28th 2010
The above is from our friends at the IP Factory. This Friday they are releasing their Left 4 Dead 2 range of strictly limited high end collectibles. First up is the Tank. Pre-orders go live Friday July 30th.

Today’s update covers quite a few subjects so we thought we should touch on a few of them.

When we did our blog poll on rage quitting we mentioned we would be working on some of the underlying issues. Left 4 Dead 2 doesn’t have a more rage or less rage button – well not directly...

We checked some stats, did some testing, checked more stats, and did more testing. We have many more changes we are working on, some ideas failed, some were exploitable, and some were just bad ideas. What we are releasing today is not the sum of our answer to the problem but simply some of the updates that are ready to ship. More are coming.

While we were testing other changes with the Charger, we were bothered that doing the right thing did not give you the best score. New players were often confused by this lack of feedback, so we fixed that.


 * Charger now receives 300 points for any Survivor that is insta-killed.
 * Charger now receives 100 points for any Survivor that is insta-incapped by a charge.
 * Any infected that causes a Survivor to stumble into a "ledge hang" situation will receive 50 points.

Friendly fire is never fun, especially when it really isn’t friendly fire. So in both Versus and Co-op we wanted to remove those times when you receive a friendly fire warning for shooting through an infected.


 * Bullets that first pass through an infected character before striking a Survivor are now ignored as friendly fire.

Failing at the Tank is miserable experience. We all know the feeling when you are trying to explain to your team - but he was already on fire! So we did some work there.


 * Tanks go into a stasis when they spawn and leave stasis when the human player takes over.
 * Tanks do not attack when they are in stasis.
 * Tanks in stasis are invisible but still show a glow to the infected team.
 * Tanks in stasis cannot be set on fire.

The updates aren't over and you should expect to see some more shortly. As for the blog, besides the regular Friday update, next week we will be going into details on the Mutations, why Realism Versus was made permanent and other Mutations have not been. Plus what gets played more - Versus, Co-op, Survival, Single Player, or Scavenge?

Friday July 23rd 2010
Mutation Week 14: Healthpackalypse!, What else are you playing?, Pick Your Mutation, Extra updates.

Healthpackalypse! No health in this versus game.

Grind down the Survivors and don't worry about them bouncing back. With no Health kits in Versus, their permanent health is on a one way ride to zero.

What else are you playing? Last week we asked, what else are you playing? On the Left 4 Dead 2 team, our own poll winners are Modern Warfare 2 and Team Fortress 2. Red Dead Redemption would have won a few weeks ago.

With "None of These" winning the PC poll, and coming in second on the Xbox, what else are you playing? Let us know in the forums or on Facebook.

Here are your votes.

PC 27% None Of These 25% Team Fortress 2 16% Modern Warfare 2 11% Bad Company 2 11% Counter-Strike Source 7% GTA 4 2% Empire Total War 2% Football Manager 2010

Xbox 360 32% Modern Warfare 2 16% None Of These 13% Halo 3 12% Red Dead Redemption 8% Gears of War 2 7% Bad Company 2 5% GTA 4 5% Crackdown 2 2% FIFA 2010

Pick Your Mutation? It's time to pick your favorite Mutation! Vote for next week's Encore Mutation.

Extra Updates PC players will also be getting some Versus updates this coming week. We have more updates coming so don't think this is all we are going to do. These changes will show up on the Xbox 360 in a later update.

Next week's Mutation: ????

Friday July 16th 2010
Mutation Week 13: Hard Eight, What is your favorite Melee Weapon?, What else are you playing?

Hard Eight Double the specials, quadruple the fun!

Face eight Special Infected at one time, this is double the standard number! And if that wasn't trouble enough, we also increase the spawning frequency so it is raining Specials.

What is your favorite Melee Weapon? Last week we asked, what is your favorite Melee Weapon? I see I am not alone being a Katana man. It is interesting to see that Xbox 360 users prefer the Chainsaw that much over PC users. Is it all about the controller and that rumble?

Here are the votes by platform.

PC 44% Katana (Sword) 12% Machete 11% Fire Axe 9% Chainsaw 5% Baseball Bat 4% Golf Club 3% Frying Pan 3% Electric Guitar 3% Crowbar 2% Cricket Bat 2% Tonfa (police baton)

Xbox 360 34% Katana (Sword) 17% Chainsaw 12% Machete 10% Fire Axe 7% Baseball Bat 6% Golf Club 3% Frying Pan 3% Electric Guitar 3% Crowbar 3% Cricket Bat 1% Tonfa (police baton)

What else are you playing? Besides of course playing L4D2, what else are you playing?

Next week's mutation: Healthpackalypse!

Friday July 9th 2010
Mutation Week 12: Four Swordsmen of the Apocalypse, What is your favorite finale? What is your favorite Melee Weapon?

Four Swordsmen of the Apocalypse Four Swords against plenty of apocalypse!

Armed with only swords the survivors face near continuous streams of Special Infected ready to be sliced and diced.

What is your favorite finale? Last week we asked, what is your favorite finale? The answer is in and The Parish: Bridge and Dark Carnival: Concert are the winners. In parenthesis is the ranking and percentage the overall campaign had in our favorite campaign poll.

Here are the votes by platform.

Xbox 360 40% Dark Carnival: Concert (1/33%) 26% The Parish: Bridge (3/17%) 11% The Passing: Port (2/21%) 9% Swamp Fever: Plantation (6/5%) 7% Dead Center: Atrium (5/12%) 7% Hard Rain: Escape (4/13%)

PC 32% Dark Carnival: Concert (1/27%) 32% The Parish: Bridge (2/21%) 10% The Passing: Port (5/15%) 10% Dead Center: Atrium (3/16%) 9% Swamp Fever: Plantation (3/16%) 7% Hard Rain: Escape (6/5%)

What is your favorite melee weapon? This week's mutation limits you to the sword, but if you could pick any melee weapon which one is your favorite?

Next week's mutation: Hard Eight

Friday July 2nd 2010
Mutation Week 11: Versus Survival, Do You Play on More Than One, Favorite Finale, Play with Devs.

Versus Survival Can you survive against your friends?

The first Survivor team sets the time. The second Survivor team tries to beat it. Then the first team tries to beat the second team's time. Then the second team tries to beat the first team's time. And then the... you get the idea. Rounds keep switching until someone fails to beat the previous time.

Do you play on more than one platform? Last week we asked, do you own L4D1 or 2 on the Xbox 360 and PC. 30% of you do play on both the PC and Xbox 360. Xbox 360 users voted 57% No, 33% Yes and 10% Don’t Know. PC users voted 62% No, 29% Yes and 8% Don’t Know.

The Don’t Know votes scare us.

What is your favorite finale? We previously asked your favorite campaign, but do you like the finales the same?

Game with Devs! Play with Devs games this Friday. We might even be forming Valve teams to take on your team! Look for us all this weekend using steam names - L4D2_DEV_1, L4D2_DEV_2, L4D2_DEV_3, L4D2_DEV_4, L4D2_DEV_5. All valid dev accounts are members of the Valve steam group. Or on the Xbox 360 L4D2 DEV 1, L4D2 DEV 2, L4D2 DEV 3, L4D2 DEV 4, L4D2 DEV 5. Our friends lists are full, but just play Versus Survival and look for us.

Thanks to everyone who submitted Avatar pictures last week. If you haven’t checked them out yet, visit facebook.com/left4dead2 to see them and other cool community content.

Next week's mutation: Four Swordsmen

Friday June 25th 2010
Week 10 of the in game blog: Chainsaw Massacre, Encore Week Voting, Do You Play On More than One?, Have You Earned a New Friend?

Encore Mutation: Chainsaw Massacre 4 chainsaws, millions of zombies.

You are armed with the only thing you need to survive a Zombie Apocalypse, a chainsaw. Rip apart thousands of zombies on your way to safety.

This Mutation is available in Campaign Mode.

Encore Week Voting On the Xbox 360 Chainsaw Massacre won the voting by a large margin. Chainsaw Massacre earned 44% of the vote, Last Man On Earth 26%, Headshot! 20% and Room For One 10%.

On the PC the voting was much closer with Chainsaw Massacre winning by only 500 votes! Chainsaw Massacre earned 33% of the vote, Headshot! 32%, Last Man On Earth 22%, and Room For One 13%.

Do you play on more than one platform? We often hear people say that they play Left 4 Dead 1 or Left 4 Dead 2 on both the PC and Xbox 360. We are curious, for how many people is this true? Do you own either L4D1 or L4D2 on the Xbox 360 and the PC?

Have You Earned a New Friend? Xbox 360 owners who have been playing the Mutations may have noticed a new Avatar award. You only need to play 6 Mutations to earn everyone’s favorite Gnome. With 8 Mutations released and 12 more to go, time to get cracking on that Avatar award. How cool does the Gnome look with your Avatar? Does he clash with your cat makeup? Show off your Avatar and Gnome by posting a screen shot of both on our Left 4 Dead 2 Facebook page.

Next Week's Mutation: Versus Survival

Wednesday June 23rd 2010
Voting is going strong for next week's Encore Mutation Poll.

http://i442.photobucket.com/albums/qq150/Jo_The_Marten/pc.png http://i442.photobucket.com/albums/qq150/Jo_The_Marten/360.png On the 360 side, Chainsaw Massacre is the runway leader with 43% of the vote. On the PC side, we are quite a bit closer with Headshot! leading with only 33% over Chainsaw Massacre's 32%. This is a close race, so make sure to get your vote in by Thursday night!

What happens if the PC and Xbox 360 have different picks? They each get what they voted for. We created the system to accommodate this scenario. The different platforms can be running different Mutations.

When you are done voting, check out what the Left 4 Dead 1/2 community has been up to this past year.

We have been busy playing I Hate Mountains in L4D1 while we wait for the L4D2 version.

Gravitybomb has created a simple but very cool Left 4 Dead 1 poster.

Do you have visions of a Cheeseburger Apocalypse?

With the Portal 2 announcement at E3, we have all had cake on our mind. This google image search returns plenty of tasty images along with our favorite.

http://i442.photobucket.com/albums/qq150/Jo_The_Marten/cake.jpg

You can also always check out the L4D1 or L4D2 photo pages on Facebook for a ton of cool community pics.

Friday June 18th 2010
Week 9 of the in game blog: Headshot!, This is my Rifle, Pick Your Mutation

New Mutation: Headshot! The only shot that counts is the one in the head.

Shoot them in the arm, shoot them in the leg, shoot them in the chest - it just doesn't matter! The only way these zombies are going down is with a head shot. Other hits will stumble them back, but only a head shot or decapitation will kill them.

This Mutation is available for Campaign Mode.

This is my Rifle Last week's poll results for the question: Pick your favorite Weapon Class.

The results were very similar between the PC and Xbox 360. Everyone picked the Assault Rifle class as their favorite and Auto-Shotguns next. The third choice is where the two platforms differed. Xbox users preferred Melee weapons and PC users went with Sniper Rifles. Is this where the controller Vs mouse/keyboard makes a difference?

The rest of the field in order of popularity: Shotguns, Grenade Launcher, SMG and Pistols.

Also in This Update We have the first of our planned Versus Changes. These changes will appear on the PC and later on the Xbox 360.

While not removing Defibrillators, we have made some changes to them. We scaled dynamic Defibs based on map length. This means unless the Defib was expressly set by the level designer to have more, the Director will only spawn them on a long map. The Director will also cap the number to one per map.

Using the Defibrillator is no longer free; there is now a 25 point scoring penalty for using a Defib. That means each time you use one, you will have 25 points removed from your final score. Will your revived Survivor make it far enough to be worth it?

Health kits will also be less numerous as we have removed the Director's dynamic Pill conversion. Previously if the first team was injured, the Director would spawn First Aid Kits instead of Pills for both teams. Now the Director will always just spawn Pills.

The Jockey received some minor buffs. His damage per second was increased and we removed his damage delay.

Pick your Mutation It's time to pick your favorite Mutation! Vote for next week's Encore Mutation. Last Man On Earth, Chainsaw Massacre, Room For One, or Headshot!

Next Week's Mutation: ???

Friday June 11th 2010
Week 8 of the in game blog: Room For One, Everything Must Go, Favorite Weapon Class

New Mutation: Room For One Only room for one survivor in this rescue vehicle.

You need to work together only long enough until you can survive on your own. First person to the rescue vehicle wins!

This Mutation is available for Campaign Finales Only.

Everything Must Go Last week's poll results for the question: If you could remove one item from the Survivors in Versus, what would it be?

PC Results 23% Nothing 19% Medkits 19% Defibs 18% Grenade Launcher 14% Explosive Ammo 7% Incendiary Ammo

Xbox 360 Results 27% Nothing 21% Medkits 18% Defibs 16% Grenade Launcher 11% Explosive Ammo 7% Incendiary Ammo

Only 14% you answered this poll correctly.

In this kind of Poll we don't consider "Nothing" the winner, as nothing to anything loses 23 to 77. What it does say is there are many things that people feel strongly about, maybe not strong enough to remove but strong enough that we should make some adjustments. So we are going to be making adjustments.

On the PC this week we are testing increased self-inflicted friendly fire damage for the Grenade Launcher. Will this change balance the Grenade Launcher? Time will tell. We will continue to experiment with changes on both platforms through this process.

Poll What is your favorite weapon class?

Next Week's Mutation: Headshot!

Friday June 4th 2010
Week 7 of the in game blog: Chainsaw Massacre, Loving the Dark, Is Less More?, and Last Video on Earth.

New Mutation: Chainsaw Massacre 4 chainsaws, millions of zombies.

You are armed with the only thing you need to survive a Zombie Apocalyse, a chainsaw. Rip apart thousands of zombies on your way to safety.

This Mutation is available in Campaign Mode.

Loving the Dark

Last week's poll results for the question: What is your favorite campaign?

PC Results:

27% Dark Carnival 21% The Parish 16% Dead Center 16% Hard Rain 15% The Passing 5% Swamp Fever

This compares to what was actually played the most last week on the PC:

26% Dead Center 21% Dark Carnival 20% The Parish 15% The Passing 8% Hard Rain 7% Swamp Fever 3% Community Maps

360 Results:

33% Dark Carnival 21% The Passing 17% The Parish 13% Hard Rain 12% Dead Center 5% Swamp Fever

This compares to what was actually played the most last week on the Xbox 360:

27% Dark Carnival 23% Dead Center 21% The Parish 11% Hard Rain 9% The Passing 9% Swamp Fever

Our stats are based on play minutes across all game types.

Is Less More?

If you could remove one item from the Survivors in Versus, what would it be?

Last Video on Earth

We have picked our top 3 videos from all those submitted. With over 700 videos submitted we had our work cut out for us. Thanks to everyone who submitted a video and helped us select the winners. Please visit www.l4d.com/blog for more information and to view our favorites.

Next Week's Mutation: Room For One.

Friday May 28th 2010
Week 6 of the in game blog: Last Man On Earth, Special Infected Love, Favorite Campaign, and Last Video on Earth.

New Mutation: Last Man On Earth

You will become legend to the infected as the last human left.

You are the only Survivor left in the world. No co-op help. No Survivor bots. But don't worry, you aren't entirely alone. While there are no common Infected, Special Infected will hunt you down and become close, close friends with you.

This Mutation is available in Single Player Mode.

Special Infected Love

The results from last week's poll are in and the Hunter clawed his way to the top.

Here are the numbers from the PC:

20% Hunter

17% Charger

15% Tank

13% Spitter

12% Smoker

11% Witch

7% Boomer

5% Jockey

And the 360:

22% Hunter

18% Tank

14% Smoker

14% Witch

13% Charger

7% Jockey

7% Spitter

5% Boomer

Favorite Campaign

So now that we know what creatures you like, what campaigns do you like? Tell us in this week's poll - What's your favorite campaign?

Last Video on Earth

Since this week's Mutation is Single player only, we can't really play it with you. How about this? You play by yourself. Record a video of your best 60 seconds. Upload that clip to Youtube with the tag "L4D2LastSurvivor". We will wade through the submissions and feature the best in next week's web blog. For more information please visit www.l4d.com/blog.

Next Week's Mutation: Chainsaw Massacre.

Friday May 21st 2010
Week 5 of the in game blog: Return of the Gnome and Realism Versus plus pick your favorite Infected.

Encore Week: Last Gnome On Earth

Protect the gnome at all cost.

Do you crave attention? Want all the infected to swarm you and the gnome you are carrying? Then we have the game mode for you. The team needs to carry the garden gnome from start to finish in any campaign. The infected hate the gnome and will swarm whoever is carrying him. Watch out putting him on the ground, a boomer explosion will send him flying!

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP PUTTING HIM DOWN HE IS THE LAST GNOME ON EARTH!!!

This Mutation is available in Campaign Mode.

Return of the Gnome

Last week was the first of a regular poll we will be running. After every four Mutations, we will have a vote to bring one back for an encore week. Last week The Last Gnome on Earth won handily, followed by Bleed Out and Follow the Liter.

Thanks to your votes on a previous poll, Realism Versus has graduated from a Mutation to a permanent Game Mode.

Favorite Infected

This week's poll question is simple. Which Special Infected is your favorite?

We will continue the Play with Devs games this weekend. Look for us all this weekend using these Steam names - L4D2_DEV_1, L4D2_DEV_2, L4D2_DEV_3, L4D2_DEV_4, L4D2_DEV_5. And on the Xbox 360 these gamer tags - L4D2 DEV 1, L4D2 DEV 2, L4D2 DEV 3, L4D2 DEV 4, L4D2 DEV 5.

Next Week's Mutation: Last Man On Earth

Friday May 14th 2010
Week 4 of the in game blog: New Mutation, Angry and Confused, and Pick a Mutation.

New Mutation: Last Gnome On Earth

Protect the gnome at all cost.

Do you crave attention? Want all the infected to swarm you and the gnome you are carrying? Then we have the game mode for you. The team needs to carry the garden gnome from start to finish in any campaign. The infected hate the gnome and will swarm whoever is carrying him. Watch out putting him on the ground, a boomer explosion will send him flying!

This Mutation is available in Campaign Mode.

Angry and Confused

Last week's poll asked what makes you rage quit. The answers were pretty spread out. The top two were skill imbalance and team disharmony. A thread was started in the L4D2 forums where people clarified their voting, thanks to everyone who participated. This helps us make choices on how to combat this problem.

Our stats show the best way to avoid rage quitting is to play with friends. Steam supports friendly people you recently played with. So if you have a good game with someone, make sure to bring up that dialogue and send a friend request. Your future games depend on it.

Pick a Mutation Any Mutation

Next week Realism Versus will slide into a permanent slot but what about the other three Mutations? One is coming back for an encore week and you get to pick it. Your choices are Bleed Out, Follow the Liter and Last Gnome on Earth. Make sure to at least try Last Gnome on Earth before voting.

We will continue the Play with Devs games this weekend, someone needs to protect you while you carry the Gnome. Look for us all this weekend using these Steam names - L4D2_DEV_1, L4D2_DEV_2, L4D2_DEV_3, L4D2_DEV_4, L4D2_DEV_5. All valid dev accounts are members of the Valve steam group. And on the Xbox 360 these gamer tags - L4D2 DEV 1, L4D2 DEV 2, L4D2 DEV 3, L4D2 DEV 4, L4D2 DEV 5.

Check back next week to see which Mutation will be returning.

Friday May 7th 2010
Week 3 of the in game blog: New Mutation, Landslide Victory!, and what rages you?

New Mutation: Follow the Liter

Scavenge one can at a time.

No more fighting over which cans to grab first. This Mutation spawns only one group of cans at a time, so survivors know exactly where to go. There is only one problem: the Infected know exactly where they are going.

LANDSLIDE VICTORY!!!

Last week's poll asking if we should make Realism Versus a permanent mode ended up telling us clearly - make it permanent. The final results were 68% Yes, 21% No, and 11% No Opinion. Thanks everyone for voting, even those of you who have no opinion. Next week we have news on when this Mutation will become permanent.

Don't Get Mad At This Poll

Do you play Versus Mode? Do you ever get frustrated mid-match and quit? Do you ever Rage Quit? If you do, why? While we can collect hard stats on this behavior, finding the motivation behind the behavior will help.

We will continue the Play with Devs games this Friday. We might even be forming Valve teams to take on your team! Look for us all this weekend using steam names - L4D2_DEV_1, L4D2_DEV_2, L4D2_DEV_3, L4D2_DEV_4, L4D2_DEV_5. All valid dev accounts are members of the Valve steam group. And on the Xbox 360 these gamer tags - L4D2 DEV 1, L4D2 DEV 2, L4D2 DEV 3, L4D2 DEV 4, L4D2 DEV 5.

Check back next week for info on the next mutation: Last Gnome on Earth

Friday April 30th 2010
Week 2 of the in game blog: New Mutation, previous poll results, and putting the game in your hands.

New Mutation: Bleed Out

Your health is ticking away!

With constant mobs chasing you, there's no time for standing around. You have no permanent health, only temporary health that is continuously ticking away. You won't find any health packs to restore your health, only pills and adrenaline. This mutation is for Campaign mode.

Poll Results

Last week's poll asking who your favorite L4D2 character was resulted in an interesting stat. Xbox 360 users were clearly Ellis fans with him winning by a large margin with 43% of the vote. PC users were split with Nick and Ellis coming in a virtual tie with 33%. Reading the forums, Rochelle surged a bit in popularity after people watched her in "The Passing" teaser. Our internal poll tells us we should make more teasers.

This Week's Poll

This week's question, should we make Realism Versus a permanent game mode? With the overwhelmingly positive response to this Mutation, we wanted to leave it in your hands if you think it should always be available for Left 4 Dead 2 or not.

Check back next week for info on the next mutation: Follow the Liter.

Thursday April 22nd 2010
Welcome to the Left 4 Dead in-game blog.

We will be updating this space every Thursday evening with information on the Mutation going live Friday. Every week there will be a new Mutation and every week we will give you the details here.

Mutations are tweaks and changes to the game rules. They can be for any game mode. For example the first Mutation is Realism Versus. This is a Mutation of Versus. It combines Versus and Realism to put a twist on regular Versus. It is playable on all maps, not just the maps in "The Passing".

Each Mutation will last for one week and then it will be replaced by a new Mutation. At regular intervals you will be able to vote for your favorite Mutations and the winners will be cycled back in.

In addition to information on the Mutation we will also be running weekly surveys and posting the results the following week. Sometimes the survey will be general feedback and sometimes it will directly control what is released next - so make sure to vote every week.

The first Mutation is Realism Versus.

What this means is, Survivors have all Realism changes working against them, no glows on items or survivors, tougher zombies, instant kill witches, etc. The Infected have all those changes working for them. The Jockey becomes one of the most powerful specials for his ability to steer a survivor out of view. Make sure you have a working microphone so you can scream for help.

To give us more detailed feedback on the individual Mutations and Mutations in general visit the forums at forums.l4d.com.

Check back next week for info on the next Mutation: Bleed Out.