Template:Blog Post (Left 4 Dead 2)

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. 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. It is also available on the official Left 4 Dead website, with wording changed to include the Xbox 360 community.

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.

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.