GGL recently got a chance to quiz Frank “Crazy Dutch Bastard” Verhage about his L4D experience while leading Church of Solo to victory in the 13 Fear is Real / Left 4 Dead competition. Frank shared some of his tactics and knowledge about the game with us, so let’s get to the interview!
GGL: How was your experience in the competition? Did you have a good time, or were there any hiccups?
Frank Verhage: Let me start off by thanking GGL for a fun competition! That’s pretty much the answer for your question as well. We really enjoyed getting to see the tactics employed by other teams.
GGL: How is Left 4 Dead in a competitive match?
Verhage: For us Left 4 Dead is never all that serious. Playing in a competitive match was a pretty big change from how we normally play. We usually only save each other if it doesn’t cost us a lot of time! It’s just letting off a bit of steam, and having a laugh. And it’s a pretty effective tactic against hunters, especially before the patch that made blocking hunters more difficult. Matches are more fun by definition. Playing an actual team, with actual tactics is a lot of fun!
GGL: Do you think it has a future as a “true” competitive game, or is it too casual?
Verhage: I can imagine Left 4 Dead sticking around as a competitive game for quite some time. Especially when you consider the fun you could have when you’re in the same room as your teammates. Knowing Valve (the creator of L4D) there are sure to be a lot of pretty heavy patches underway. Read more »
TF2 fans have been feeling a bit left out since Left 4 Dead hit the scene. In the days before L4D, TF2 was Valve’s golden child. Any word about a class update sent bloggers into a frenzy of speculation. Well, the good days are back. On the official TF2 blog, Valve’s Robin Walker discusses when gamers can expect to see a new class upgrade.
According to Walker, the Scout update is only a few patches away. She writes: “We’ve got an update that should be out tomorrow with a bunch of bug & exploit fixes. Later this week we hope to have another update out that changes the way we store your unlockable items. You shouldn’t notice much difference, other than if you play on multiple computers we’ll now propagate your item choices. You can think of that update as the one that moves your inventory into the Steam Cloud. Once that’s out of the way, we’ll be able to ship the Scout pack.”
Recently my L4D crew has been getting a tad tired of the same four campaigns. When this update hits, we should be distracted until some new L4D maps to arrive.
Read: That’s what I’m talking about!
GGL’s Left 4 Dead competition, brought to you by The CW’s Fear is Real, has reached its conclusion! Six squads across two platforms (Xbox 360/PC) have won game packs for their efforts. Each team will get to pick their particular game packs from the GGL library. Here are your winners:
Xbox 360
1) CIBF - 4 games from GGL library
2) Brown Eyed Girlz - 2 games from GGL library
3) T-BAG Genocide - 1 game from GGL library
PC
1) CoS - 4 games from GGL library
2) gauntlet! L4D Alpha Squad - 2 games from GGL library
3) cr0ss w0lves - 1 game from GGL library
Congrats to all participants!
The biggest complaint developers have against the PC as a gaming platform is piracy. There is no doubt about it, PC games get pirated more than console games.
In a speech given at the Game Business Law summit, Valve’s director of business development Jason Holtman discussed how Valve deals with pirates. Holtman stated, “Pirates are underserved customers.”
Valve was having an issue with piracy in the Russian market. Some astute employees at Valve had a theory that people were pirating their games because of their release dates. In most cases, games hit stores first in the U.S. or in Japan, and then are released elsewhere later. Russian gamers were pirating Valve’s games because they were having to wait such a long time to get their hands on it. Read more »
GGL and the CW’s Fear is Real’s Left 4 Dead competition is nearing the end of its ladder stage, with fierce competition on both platforms.
In the Xbox 360 competition, CIBF hold first place with a 12-2 record, 2240 points and a 2W streak. Brown Eyed Girlz (11-3, 2140, 2W) follow closely behind, and Urban Street Fighters (9-2, 1890, 1L) are hanging onto third.
On the PC side of things, a few international teams are duking it out with entrenched Americans. Although the U.S.-based Anomaly hold the lead with a 4-2 record, 1345 points and a 2W streak, they face a strong challenge from Germany’s gauntlet! L4D Alpha Squad (3-0, 1230, 3W).
Only one week remains for this competition, but signups will remain open until the very end. Click here to join the Xbox 360 ladder, and click here to join the PC ladder.
A few days ago Valve announced that Left 4 Dead would be getting a patch this week. Last night Valve made good on their promise for PC gamers. Xbox 360 gamers can expect to see the update “in the coming weeks.”
The update addresses numerous bugs, exploits and balancing issues. One balancing tweak that I’m happy about is the changes made to the Smoker class in Versus mode. The Smoker now does more damage with both his melee and tongue attack.
The list of changes goes something like this:
General
- Fixed Survivors being able to climb surfaces marked for versus infected only.
- Fixed a class of SurvivorBot bugs dealing with rescuing downed players.
- Players can no longer grab ladders while flying through the air after a Tank punch.
- Shooting near a car with an alarm that has already fired the alarm will no longer make chirping noises.
- Improved loading time.
- Fixed mini-gun physics exploit.
- Fixed propane tanks (and other physics objects) causing players to fall through elevators.
- Fixed rare achievement bug issues.
- Fixed several map exploits.
- Fixed various match making issues.
- Fixed NAT traversal issues.
For a Full list of changes hit the jump. Read more »
Infected and Survivors are battling it out on our Left 4 Dead ladders, with Anomaly (PC) and Six Feet Under (Xbox 360) in the lead.
On the 360 side, Team Anomaly sport a 2-1 record with a 2W streak, improving after losing their first match. Meanwhile, 6FU sit at a 5-3 record and 1535 points with the wolves nipping at their heels. Brown Eyed Girlz (5-1, 1500, 1L) are coming up right behind them and CIBF are quickly climing the ranks with a 4-0 record and 1400 points.
A number of other teams are clubbing each other from rank 4-6, with Urban Street Fighters (4-1, 1395, 1L) in position to move into the top three.
Meanwhile, in PC-land, the Germany-based gauntlet! L4D Alpha Squad (2-0) are going to attempt to slap down Anomaly.
We’ll keep you updated on this tournament as it moves forward, but remember, you can still sign up for the competition while the ladders are running.
Our Left 4 Dead ladders end Jan. 25, giving you almost two weeks to join and make your way to the top before the switch over to the brackets. To join, visit http://fearisreal.ggl.com and join our PC ladder or Xbox 360 ladder.
Good luck in the competition and try not to get bitten.
GGL and the CW’s Fear Is Real have teamed up to bring you a Left 4 Dead team competition where you can duke it out for pride and prizes. Want to crush the Survivors? Swap over to the Infected side and hunt them down!
Players can compete on Xbox 360 or PC in 4v4 combat. The competition consists of one ladder per platform, with the top three teams on each ladder earning prizes. Here’s the prize breakdown:
First place: 4 video games per squad. Specific games TBD, but will be recently released games from GGL’s library of new games.
Second place: 2 video games per squad. Again, specific games TBD.
Third place: 1 video game per squad.
Add Left 4 Dead to your GGL collection to begin. You will be prompted to login/register when adding the game, after which you can join the ladder.
Good hunting!
In a recent interview, Valve writer Chet Faliszek revealed some details about Left 4 Dead and downloadable content. According to Faliszek, the first batch of DLC will arrive “shortly.”
While specific details were slim, Faliszek stated that Valve will release new scenarios for both the Xbox 360 and PC which will arrive on both platforms at the same time. Also included in future patches will be the addition of the Dead Air and Death Toll campaigns in versus mode. Faliszek also revealed that PC owners can expect a Left 4 Dead SDK, allowing gamers to create custom maps and modifications.
There was no discussion of DLC price, however it is expected that PC gamers will get the new content for free. Xbox 360 gamers probably won’t be as lucky.
Read: Valve Teases Left 4 Dead DLC Reveal Soon, Simultaneous Xbox 360 Release.
Today EA teamed up with Valve to release some of their PC titles on Steam. The new additions include Spore, Mass Effect and Warhammer Online. Newer EA titles, such as Dead Space and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 are currently listed as “Coming Soon”.
This teaming up shouldn’t comes as a big surprise, Valve and EA have been pretty close for awhile now. EA publishes all box copies of Valve games, including Left 4 Dead, The Orange box and Half-life 2. Also, a few EA games, namely Crysis and Crysis Warhead, have been finding their way on to Steam over the past few months.
Personally I think this is great news. Steam is a great service and I recommend to everyone who games on their PC to download it. I was about to head out and do some Christmas shopping for my brother, but now that Mass Effect is only $29.99 on Steam I can avoid crazy parking lots as well as high prices.
Read: EA Joins Steam with Spore, Mass Effect, and More; Dead Space, Mirror’s Edge Coming Soon.
This week marks the end of the triple-A holiday game flood. You can now rest easy and finally make you way though all of Fallout 3 or get in some good multiplayer action with Left 4 Dead. There might be the occasional good game drifting in over the next couple weeks, but it is safe to say the main blockbuster rush is over. The only really exciting game coming out this week is one we all have played more than ten years ago. Yup, that’s right, Chrono Trigger finally hits the Nintendo DS this week. So sit back, relax, grab some turkey and spend your holiday week making though all the triple-A titles you stockpiled.
The new games this week are:
Xbox 360:
* Sonic Unleashed
* Winter Sports 2 The Ultimate Challenge
* NPPL Championship Paintball 2009
The rest of this week’s new games are after the jump. Read more »
This weeks “Release Roundup” showcases one of the most anticipated titles this year, Left 4 Dead. There’s something so pure and enjoyable about four player co-op and fending off hordes of the undead. Just this past weekend, I spent hours playing the L4D demo with my brother, and let me tell you, I’m hard-pressed to think of a time when I had more fun. If you guys haven’t tried it yet, you still have a few hours until Valve takes the demo down. So that you guys have more time to spend slaying zombies, I’ll just list the new games this week.
Xbox 360:
* Left 4 Dead
* The Last Remnant
* Shaun White Snowboarding
* Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe
* You’re in the Movies with Camera
* Tomb Raider Underworld
* NPPL Championship Paintball 2009
* Rock Revolution
* LIPS
* Karaoke Revolution: American Idol 2
* Disney’s Bolt
* Sonic Unleashed
* Need For Speed: Undercover
For the rest of the new games this week, hit the jump. Read more »
