FAT Steam Group

I remember it being linear in that you went through the safe rooms in strict order. But I thought between the rooms, as you traversed the map, you had a lot of choice in the route that you took (obviously a lot less in, say, the sewers, as opposed to in the town). Sounds like my belief is based on inexperience (sigh). Repeat play just to do it more efficiently? Somehow that doesn't appeal terribly.

The friend who introduced me showed me some website that had new maps and character skins, so presumably there's been a dev kit released. New stuff is always good!

Notahandle wrote:

I remember it being linear in that you went through the safe rooms in strict order. But I thought between the rooms, as you traversed the map, you had a lot of choice in the route that you took (obviously a lot less in, say, the sewers, as opposed to in the town). Sounds like my belief is based on inexperience (sigh). Repeat play just to do it more efficiently? Somehow that doesn't appeal terribly.

The friend who introduced me showed me some website that had new maps and character skins, so presumably there's been a dev kit released. New stuff is always good!

"MAPS" mean different things between the 2 games.
L4D is essentially a traditional 1 player game but played with 4 players. The map works like a one player game - you start at the start of the level and must move to the end of the stage, just like single player doom. If we get to the end we win.

With TF2 "MAP" is one area that you fight over, basically like deathmatch levels in doom (though the game dosn't have deathmatch mode.) You are constantly fighting over the same area of ground, rather than moving to new areas.

Because L4D is like a tradional single player game it suffers from lack of replayability - once you have beaten a stage you know what's there so replaying it isn't as fun. To combat this the game developed something they called the 'director', which basically randomises what happens where, so each time you play the level it is different. But this is also bit of a curse because it means everything becomes a lot more bland: in a traditional FPS campaign the game may send me into the sewer where the giant mutant crocodile stage boss is. Because of director L4D can't do that, instead just recycling the same monster types. I actually havn't played all of campaign 3 in L4D, but I don't really feel like I need to - I already saw all of the different monster types in the first campaign. New levels just feel like new scenery.

TF2 is different. The maps actually become more fun the more you know them, because you are fighting other players and not the AI, so terrain knowledge is an advantage. The variety comes from the team combos - defending points on a map plays a lot more different when you are up against a team consisting of heavy & medic combos as opposed to one loaded with spys. Plus the game is just damn chaotic fun.

I'm starting to think that our likes are diametrically opposite. You think L4d's map is very basic; I liked the fact that you had a lot of choice what route you took to get from safehouse to safehouse. That made it feel 'larger' to me. Of course, when I play it more I might feel it gets repetitive real fast, but my initial impression was one of having a lot of map to explore. Your TF2 description of fighting over the same territory sounds worse to me. Thinking about it, it probably means that I like having lots of space, a large playing territory. But from what you've said L4d only gives the illusion of that. So I'm curious how my opinion's going to change over time.

We also differ on the director making it more bland. I prefer the randomisation because I've always hated the traditional 'do A to get item B to defeat monster C' approach. Having the monster croc in the same place in the sewers every time is utterly tedious. I resent having to go through every damn step again just to get back to solving the problem I'm stuck on. That's when it no longer is a game to me, but a mere learning curve. And yes, that's based on the few games I played years ago when you couldn't save whenever you wanted (I've no idea what it's like in that regard these days). EDIT- Just remembered, I bought Stubbs the Zombie last year and quickly got bored of having to do the same thing again and again until I solved the current puzzle.

If you feel you don't need to play L4d because you've seen all the monster types, how does that translate into TF2? Once you've tried all the character types, do you think that will end your interest?

You're convincing me that L4d and TF2 are very different in tone and style, I'm starting to regret not grabbing it when it was half price, in order to see what appeals to me. The only other games that we were shown was a middle east desert war one and a single character in a mall full of zombies. I liked the gritty realism of the former, but the latter was a bog standard shuffling zombie affair which seemed mediocre (L4d appealed because it was dark, fast, and frantic). Those two might have been console games rather than Windows.

Oh yeah, and Grand Theft Auto was great fun for two reasons: me driving the bus and the two of us watching his nine year old daughter playing!

Finally, hoping I'm not premature, it looks like XP has at long last decided to stop giving me contradictory information regarding my wireless connection (OS X was fine the whole time). So tomorrow I'll be downloading the steam and L4d stuff. And praying the bloody thing stays connected, since it looks like it'll take a good few hours even with the fast broadband.

Notahandle wrote:

The friend who introduced me showed me some website that had new maps and character skins, so presumably there's been a dev kit released. New stuff is always good!

Valve released the SDK for Left 4 Dead recently, which has allowed modders to start working on new content and, to be honest, knowing this was gonna happen was the main reason I bought the game. From what I understand of the Director AI, you don't even need to place spawn points or enemies on the map at all, it handles that stuff for ya. Looking forward to some good mods for this though.

Edit: regarding Left 4 Dead and non-linearity, there really is none. you might get the odd choice to go down corridor A or B, but they both meet up again 20 or so meters down the way. A couple of runs through each level and you really will have seen the whole of the map. That's not what Left 4 Dead's about though, it's all about the team working together. For instance, there's 2 special infected that are IMPOSSIBLE to escape from without the aid of another player, and when you "die", you actually fall to the ground and have to be rescued by a player. It's possible to play TF2 solo, just by running round, shooting people and respawning, you can't play that way in Left 4 Dead.

Notahandle wrote:

If you feel you don't need to play L4d because you've seen all the monster types, how does that translate into TF2? Once you've tried all the character types, do you think that will end your interest?

I have tried all of the character types. 3 hours on my lowest (sniper) and about 7 on my highest (engineer). Also I played TF classic years ago.
Normally when I jump on a server I select 'random class'.
Interest wont end. Again, it's because you are playing against other players, so tactics and stuff are always changing.

Joe_Richter wrote:
"From what I understand of the Director AI"
I think that's right, all you create is the map and the director has total control over the zombies.
"...you might get the odd choice to go down corridor A or B, but they both meet up again 20 or so meters down the way...."
My impression of the town and country areas was that you had far more variety than that. But if I'm wrong then the third party mods could be more flexible. There were some screenshots of a 1950s town in bright daylight; that might give a very different feel to the game.
"...2 special infected that are IMPOSSIBLE to escape from without the aid of another player..."
Mutter, grumble... I told the team that I was going back to refresh ammo, they climbed down somewhere, I got Smokered. Then they discover that they can't climb back up! Cue redness and teleport to cupboard.

Mr Skeletor wrote:
"Interest wont end. Again, it's because you are playing against other players, so tactics and stuff are always changing."
Okay and damn: maybe they'll 50% it again soon...

So it turns out, I make a good pyro

Also, my complete and utter lack of direction is not exactly an asset.

Also - thanks Skellie for dragging me around, and showing me what the fuck

Looks like all systems go for me (XP wireless permitting). Anyone interested in L4d please TrashMail me because I won't be flipping over to XP just to check if anyone's online.

Mr Skeletor wrote:

Disagree Dog, TF2 needs teamwork to win too. If one team is aiding each other they will fucking steamroll.
But yeah, since there is no FF one dickhead wont ruin it.

So presumably the maps get repetitive, but the character roles keep it interesting. However, I'm definitely put off by it's cartoon nature, so I can't see my getting this one.

What? How are the maps repetetive? L4D is way more repetetive with only 2 game modes (campaign and vs). And each map is essentially the same, move to safe house with zombie swarms and the 3 super zombies appearing regularly, with the occasional tank and witch appearing. Its a good game but man do I feel like I have seen it all.
TF2 on the other hand just always seems so fresh.

But yeah, if you don't like the cartoony art not much you can do about that. I love it though, very loony tunes. The sniper is even an Aussie who calls people "Wanker".

Don't disagree with you about the need for teamwork on TF2. I really meant that it's more forgiving than L4D on this front. . THough you can have a lousy team, I've found that it's actually kind of hard to for a bunch of people to fuck up a TF2 game by going "Lone Wolf." The hardest bit seems to be convincing enough folks to play as medics [the role I used to play almost exclusively in the Wolfenstein and ET:Quake War games] to make the big push on chokepoints.

Conversely, the thing that gets me with L4D is that even with a fair bit of freedom of movement, the points where you have to defend become painfully obvious almost immediately. It's very much a game-on-rails (though a fun one) at this point. I'm also in the "waiting for the mod community to step up" camp for this one. I probably should have waited until the first round of price-cuts before buying L4D so that it coincided with the inevitable flood of mods and additional content.

Anyone still looking to get Team Fortress 2? This weekend's sale is The Orange Box for $9.99. In TOB, you get Half-Life 2 plus Episodes 1 and 2, plus Portal, plus Team Fortress 2. For $9.99! If you already have a copy of HL2 or Ep. 1, you'll get another copy that you can give to someone as a gift.

Bullwinkle wrote:

Anyone still looking to get Team Fortress 2? This weekend's sale is The Orange Box for $9.99. In TOB, you get Half-Life 2 plus Episodes 1 and 2, plus Portal, plus Team Fortress 2. For $9.99! If you already have a copy of HL2 or Ep. 1, you'll get another copy that you can give to someone as a gift.

Where is this Orange Box (I may not play it but my young lad will try it if I don't) ?

Southernman wrote:

Where is this Orange Box (I may not play it but my young lad will try it if I don't)?

It's offered through Steam. Do you know what that is?

Bullwinkle wrote:

Southernman wrote:

Where is this Orange Box (I may not play it but my young lad will try it if I don't)?

It's offered through Steam. Do you know what that is?

I had a quick look at it when this thread started, but I'm not a 1st-person-shooter gamer unfortunately so didn't follow it to much.
I'm assuming that the deal was just for the US, it being in $$s, anyway so no good for those resident in the UK.

Southernman wrote:

I had a quick look at it when this thread started, but I'm not a 1st-person-shooter gamer unfortunately so didn't follow it to much.
I'm assuming that the deal was just for the US, it being in $$s, anyway so no good for those resident in the UK.

Steam is a digital download service. You buy games through the service and download them to your computer (no physical product). Check it out here: http://store.steampowered.com/ and click on "What is Steam?" at the top.

Despite the fact that Steam is available worldwide, it tis true that not every region gets offered the same deal, nor the same prices. In fact, for reasons of regional distribution, games are generally more expensive in Europe through Steam. So the Orange Box deal may not be offered to you. Check the page above; you should see a box near the top right offering the deal (if any).

It's £5.66 in the UK, which makes it the same 66% off as in the US.
I know you've got horns Bullwinkle, but aren't you taking this temptation thing a little far? You're lucky Mr S isn't around at the moment, you could end up with "Steampimp" under your avatar.
Thanks though, at that price it's going to be hard to refuse.
(By the way, any L4ders might want to hold off with the DLC download as it's screwed some things up.)