Tag Archives: crash course

Valve has released a patch fixing a few things that were wonky in the Crash Course bit of Left 4 Dead.

It’s over on Steam.

Looks like you can let the survivors out of the closet in Versus mode now.

The full list:

• Fixed campaign image not updating correctly when creating a lobby
• Increased the reliability of the Steam Group server display
• Made mm_dedicated_search_maxping available to allow users to set the maximum acceptable ping for a dedicated server. The default has also been lowered 150ms, down from 300ms
• Fixed an issue where rescue closet doors could be opened in Crash Course in Versus mode

Update: Wait! MS just confirmed that the content’s incorrectly priced. It’s about to be dropped to 560MSP, so don’t buy it until it’s been adjusted.

Left 4 Dead’s Crash Course DLC campaign is now up on Live, priced 800MSP.

Blurb:

Left 4 Dead’s Crash Course starts with our Survivors right after their rescue helicopter from the No Mercy campaign crash lands on the outskirts of town. This two chapter campaign includes Co-op, Survival and Versus action, and ten new achievements.

Just waiting for the free PC version now.

Valve’s announced that Left 4 Dead add-on Crash Course will be available on September 29 for both PC and 360.

The content’s a new Campaign bridging the gap between the end of No Mercy and the beginning of Death Toll in the original game.

It’s free for PC. Not so much for 360. Full PR after the break.

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When is L4D’s Crash Course DLC hurtling onto our gaming systems? No one knows. But a recent Xbox Live Game with Fame announcement might be dropping hints about the DLC’s drop date.

“If you’re an Xbox LIVE Gold Member, and you want a chance to play the new Crash Course add-on for Left 4 Dead, send a friend request to the following Gamertag and be online half an hour before (5:30 P.M. Central Time) the Game with Fame session starts on Wednesday, September 23, at 6:00 P.M. CT,” says the announcement.

September 23, eh? Granted, “a chance to play” seems to suggest that it might just be a preview event, but the DLC is supposed to be out before September ends, so anything later would be cutting it close.

We should mention, however, that – if you choose to partake of Crash Course as part of this promotion – you’ll be staving off the zombpocalypse with pop-rock group Paramore.

Are we wrong in having our worlds turned upside-down by the idea that there’s apparently audience overlap between teeny-bopper bands and Left 4 Dead? Seems like a bit of an odd mix to us.

Valve’s Chet Faliszek has talked a bit about Left 4 Dead’s upcoming DLC, Crash Course, which was announced yesterday.

This time around, the focus is on Versus Mode.

“It has the co-op Campaign, and also has Survival, but the focus is Versus,” he told Edge. “One of the problems with Versus – well, perhaps it’s not quite a ‘problem’ because there are actually equal player minutes between Versus and co-op – but it’s a two hour game. And we look at our statistics and we see that players ideally want to play between 20 and 30 minutes. So we wanted to create a Versus campaign which you could play through in 30 minutes – a quick competitive thing that slots in between TV shows.

“It’s a two map campaign with a finale, so it’s almost a three map campaign. Obviously if the teams are bad and get wiped quicker then it goes quicker.

“We’ve also added some things – you can now see your teammates’ statuses and their recharge timers. The world also stays exactly the same between team changes, so there are no complaints about it being imbalanced any more. We’ve actually been working on this a bit, but we’re finally close enough that we’re comfortable to talk about it.”

Chet says that Valve is working on how to integrate the DLC with L4D2, and one of the things it has discussed is letting the maps dictate the characters you are playing.

“That’s one of the routes we’ve talked about going, and maybe adding the new creatures, or whatever. There’s a lot of back-and-forth. We haven’t fixed on what we’re doing yet, so we don’t want to talk about it and make people think something is going to happen when we don’t know ourselves.

“We’re still struggling with how interoperability is going to work, right now [with Crash Course]. When we talk about L4D, the story stuff – there’s actually a lot of character dialogue that’s based in each map.”

More through the link.

Valve has announced new DLC coming to Left 4 Dead titled Crash Course, due in September.

The storyline for it takes place between the end of the No Mercy campaign and the beginning of Death Toll.

It’s a new Campaign and new Survival maps, essentially.

As well as new locations and new dialogue from the original cast, a recharge timer for infected teammates has also been added, and item spawn behavior has changed for more balanced gameplay, according to Valve.

A sneak peek of it will debut on GameTrailers TV next week.

It’s going to be free on PC and 560MSP on 360.

Full press release is below.

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