L4D 'Crash Course' Campaign is now out

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Re: L4D 'Crash Course' Campaign is now out

Postby no00dylan on Sat Oct 03, 2009 2:25 am

I agree with the above poster, fun but ugly, like his girlfriend.
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Re: L4D 'Crash Course' Campaign is now out

Postby Phott on Sat Oct 03, 2009 12:58 pm

I do think that this map was a sort of taste of how L4D 2 will be, no more corner camping because the zombies are coming from everywhere, and like the finale, you can't just sit and wait out the storm, you have to go back and restart the generator. While the gameplay was of the better I still think Valve could have done a better job visually.
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Re: L4D 'Crash Course' Campaign is now out

Postby tundra_cool on Sun Oct 04, 2009 8:47 am

Phott wrote:I do think that this map was a sort of taste of how L4D 2 will be...


I'm pretty sure all of the maps are a taste of how L4D2 is going to be.
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Re: L4D 'Crash Course' Campaign is now out

Postby Phott on Sun Oct 04, 2009 11:41 am

tundra_cool wrote:
Phott wrote:I do think that this map was a sort of taste of how L4D 2 will be...


I'm pretty sure all of the maps are a taste of how L4D2 is going to be.

Not really, the other maps are more linear while this map is more open, it's harder to just corner camp and the finale requires that you activate the generator again.
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Re: L4D 'Crash Course' Campaign is now out

Postby krainert on Mon Oct 05, 2009 1:56 pm

Okay, guys, this is the time where I say something aggressive so you can hate me a little bit more.

Good things
  • Longer and fewer maps - Less loading, more dynamic infected strategic gameplay, more variation to game development as the infected can actually beat the survivors now
  • Multiple survivor paths and more off-road stashes - More strategic choises
  • More compact mapping - Easier navigation for infected, less time wasted catching up with and running ahead of the survivors
  • More varying finale - Partially eliminated the permacamp tendency

Bad things
  • Poor mapping - Sparse detailing, monotone environments, extreme amount of restricted areas
  • Extreme amount of explosives - Greatly devalues tactical use and adds a higher risk of detonation due to random fire
  • More open areas - Good contrast to confined spaces yet overused; effective infected attacks are often almost impossible or highly improbable
  • Generic themes - The original maps had one or two unique themes whereas the new ones are longer and thus require multiple which they don't have. They seem to blend together, acting as one long area with no immediately visible change of scenario
  • Number of maps - I'd love a three map campaign, and two maps work out fine - but I would prefer to have a third one as it would allow a division of campaign into multiple themes, partially solving the problem above

So overall I'll say it's hardly acceptable as the only real additional campaign for L4D - Survival being extremely monotone and based on existing maps (with one small exception) and the VS editions of Dead Air and Death Toll almost being direct conversions. The campaign itself is mediocre at best and doesn't introduce any much needed truly innovative changes to eliminate L4D's killing aspect of repetition. As the download also appeared to overload Valve's servers, and connections to all game servers are suddenly extremely poor after the update I'll say I would rather do without it.

Conspiracy theory (almost): I believe Valve found themselves forced to release a fifths campaign for L4D to effectively terminate the L4D2 criticism and boycott.
Thus, they either
1) quickly put together this new, poorly mapped (in my opinion) series of two soulless maps, using the opportunity to experiment with new map layouts for L4D2.
or
2) updated a pre-release map candidate alternating from the released content to work in the current state of the game
and published it with minor changes. This explains the obviously overdone explosives, sparse detailing and lack of originality.

Regarding the connection problems I honestly think it pleases Valve to know that they have killed off L4D1 almost completely; with L4D2 critics now shutting up to play through and complain about the update instead Valve have created the perfect base for the L4D2 launch. If you ask me, every L4D update from Last Stand has been designed to enhance the market for L4D2. I know the industry is bound to be capitalistic, but the slightest amount of idealism from an innovative developer such as Valve would be preferable.

Let the rage commence.
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Re: L4D 'Crash Course' Campaign is now out

Postby source-maps on Mon Oct 05, 2009 2:07 pm

OVRKLL wrote:the infected can actually beat the survivors now


lol.. I hardly ever let the survivors get to the saveroom in any map, map 4 of nomercy they win sometimes
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Re: L4D 'Crash Course' Campaign is now out

Postby stoopdapoop on Mon Oct 05, 2009 2:18 pm

No OVRKLL, I don't think anyone's going to rage about that, What you're saying is pretty reasonable. But maybe "generic themes" could go under poor mapping :D you already listed monotone environments and sparse detailing.

I strongly disagree with your statement about good coordinated infected plays difficult to perform, and the openness of the maps being overused. I think the extreme opposite is true, 2 people working together can get a lot more done than on other maps. This is especially strange considering that you listed the fact that "infected can actually win now" as one of your pros. But in reality, when the two teams are of similar skill, the survivors don't have an easier time winning, even on the old maps.

I seriously doubt that they've been working on these for very long, they probably didn't even start until they realized that the boycott groups were becoming a problem, and this was just an effort to curb additional (warranted) criticism.

and I'm not sure what you mean with your last paragraph.

I'm personally eagerly awaiting L4D 2, but I can totally understand why many people who didn't get their money's worth out of L4D would be upset, and remain upset even after these 2 maps.
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Re: L4D 'Crash Course' Campaign is now out

Postby source-maps on Mon Oct 05, 2009 2:34 pm

the DLC was planned boycot or not... atleast thats what they are saying
and you like l4d or not, if you didnt play l4d so often because its just not your game dont hate l4d2 for it
I mean I'm still playing it since day one and it was well worth my money, so I pre-ordered l4d2 knowing that I will play it untill l4d3 a year later :D
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Re: L4D 'Crash Course' Campaign is now out

Postby stoopdapoop on Mon Oct 05, 2009 2:47 pm

Well, alot of things are planned, but I think it was rushed out of the door, or made in a hurry. Sure they had plans to eventually release some DLC, but I think that they really felt pressured to release it before l4d came out, and that even though the plan was around, they hadn't started work yet. That's obviously all speculation, but I know that I would do the same thing if I were in that situation

I feel I got my money's worth (and stat gathering didn't start until a bit after release either.) But I have a good group of friends that I like playing with, and I get my jollies out of organized vs. matches. If you either play with randoms, or play alot of campaign I can see the experience getting very stale. And if you just don't like the game that much, then there's no helping that.
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Re: L4D 'Crash Course' Campaign is now out

Postby MayheM on Mon Oct 05, 2009 4:25 pm

I played it for the first time last night with some friends. I enjoyed it for the most part. I did think it seemed very bland in some areas. It just did not screen "Valve Quality". I was more excited about the new content than i was about playing the level. I went through it and never died, never got incapacitated and something new for me, I never shot another player...

The best part of this campaign is that it got me playing L4D again, and I will be starting back on the campaign no00dylan and I had been working on. A month off (at least) and now i want to work on it again...
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Re: L4D 'Crash Course' Campaign is now out

Postby krainert on Mon Oct 05, 2009 4:51 pm

Okay, about the balance, my point was from a competitive gamer's perspective. This game in particular scales very unevenly, so for complete newbies the success rate is probably about 50 % (which is great - good job, Valve), typical players most commonly fail to the horde (which was intended and cuts down on the repetitiveness of constantly going through the same map twice with the same result - again, good job, Valve) - but skilled players would often have a win percentage greater than 50 with top clans reaching about 75-90 (supposedly and based on own experience). Logically this makes sense as most top players are actually able to counter any hunter strikes while coordinated teamplay easily eliminates strikes initiated by boomers and smokers leaving a lucky shot the only real option for massive damage.
This is, obviously, all my personal experience so if anyone else has been taking L4D a tad too seriously, please comment.

Oh, and about the open areas, that also depends a lot on gamer behavior. I suppose they can stage an even fight in some cases - although my immediate guess is that they'll pretty much be safe zones for the survivors.
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