The survivors

• Louis, the token black guy. Some IT professional turned hard-rear end in a zombie apocalypse, he loves to scream "ooooh no" in the most attractive way possible. He also has some huge eyes.
  
• Zoey is the angsty college girl who dreamt of killing zombies and, here she is, killing zombies. Her death cry is horrible, so don't let her die.
  
• Bill is a hardened veteran that killed VC while wiping his rear end with poison ivy. He doesn't like Francis.
  
• Francis has tattoos and doesn't like Bill, or Louis.. possibly because he is a black man.
  

The infected

• Boomer, whom I'd like to believe was once a defensive lineman for his city football team, is now suffering from indigestion and likes to vomit on the survivors. He's extremely vulnerable, loud, and ugly, but his vomit attracts regular infected to whomever it lands on. Vomit can be blocked by anything, even as small as that speck of dust floating in front of you that you can't see. Boomers exploding can destroy doors and still slime a survivor directly behind the door.
  
• The Hunter was probably some skateboarder or some jock because he can jump some serious distance and rip someones tits out in a heartbeat. Especially if he's on fire.
  
• The Smoker can and does tend to choke the living poo poo out of anyone he can wrap his tongue around. He coughs and poofs into a magical cloud of green when he's killed.
  
• The Tank was probably the school star wrestler or something, but this guy is huge and can gently caress things up. His weaknesses are fire, autoshotguns, and being alone.
  
• The Witch, she's an emo kid who will go psychoballistic on anyone who gets near her or shoots her. Avoid her unless you're confident enough to put a shell or two in her head quickly.
  

Weapons and items

• Pistol, my favored gun, 15 rounds single, 30 rounds dual.
  
• Shotgun, pump-action, powerful, holds 8 rounds.
  
• Uzi, fast, inaccurate in full spray, 50 rounds.
  
• Rifle, accurate in burst, effective medium to long range, 50 rounds.
  
• Autoshotgun, painful, most effective in tank and witch killing, 10 rounds.
  
• Hunting rifle, powerful, effective medium to long range, 15 rounds.
  
• Pipebomb, some reason regular zombies love these. 6 second fuse. Can also stop a hunter mid-flight if you throw it just right; Maniak made me learn this the hard way.
  
• Molotov cocktail, burns for 15 seconds. Fire on special infected can be put out by water.
  
• Pills, this game turned me into an addict. Temporarily restores 50HP.
  
• Medkits, resets incap counter and restores anywhere from 60-80HP.
  
• Gascan, oxygen tanks and propane tanks: self-explanatory. Oxytanks have a 2 second delay from being shot to explosion.
  
• Minigun, awesome.
  

• For those having issues with getting into high ping servers and oddball players from other countries.
  

  The Gunslinger posted:

  Open Steam, click File->Settings. Go to Download and Download Region, select one appropriate. It had changed mine to loving Thailand, my friend in St. Louis had UK and another friend's was set to China. Apparently the matchmaker uses this in it's search algorithm, once I changed mine back to US I was getting 50ms ping servers and my lobbies filling nearly instantly all the time.
  

  
  
• Protips for newer players
  If a teammates is pulled by a smoker, run and gun towards them. It's often quicker to melee them free if you can't directly see the smoker, but the tongue also takes damage. After enough damage to the tongue it automatically breaks, releasing whomever it's wrapped around. If you're going to save someone who is pounced, and you melee the hunter, make sure you kill the hunter ASAFP because that hunter will be right back on top of someone, possibly you, in a matter of seconds. If you come face to face with a boomer, melee and step back a good distance before you shoot him; you just interrupted their vomit and exploding his rear end won't get you covered. Try to avoid shooting him with teammates around unless you absolutely have to.
  
  
• New players continued...
  If playing co-op, and a tank is ground-pounding one of your teammates you can run up to the tank and melee him in the back; this will turn the attention to you so a teammate can pick up the guy getting slammed on the ground. If you're all healthy enough to run from the tank, the person being chased can keep the tank distracted while the rest of the team chases and fires from behind; if your team falls apart and gets slaughtered on a tank the primary reason is you are not concentrating your fire on the tank. You have a team for a reason.
  
  
• Server browser
  You'd think by now some people would know that opening the console and typing openserverbrowser would bring up the old school server browser function that so many want. Just in case, I mentioned it here.
  

  Lennylightspeed posted:

  You can have the server browser be an option in the main menu...
  1. Open steam
  2. My Games tab
  3. Right click left4dead
  4. Click "Properties"
  5. Click "Set launch options"
  6. Type this in the box (without the quote marks) "-serverbrowser"
  When you start the game you should have an option at the main menu to search like most other valve games.
  

  
  
• Stuttering on a dual-core machine
  I'm honestly unsure if this has been fixed, but if you have a dual-core machine and you experience random stutter and lock-ups, try mat_queue_mode 0 in your console and see if this fixes the problem. If it does, either bind a key or add that to your left 4 dead/left4dead/cfg/autoexec.cfg so you don't have to remember every time you launch L4D. This is mostly geared towards recent buyers. This is also the same as going to Options > Video > Advanced > Disable multicore rendering.
  
  
• Drivers in L4D
  A lot of users using NVidia cards report rolling back to NVidia release 178.24 drivers much better than updating to the latest. Try this if you continue to suffer problems with framerate after the above suggestion and lowering visual settings.
  
  
• Other bugs, glitches or issues not listed or discussed here:
  This site has pretty much any and every issue with L4D listed and a resolution as well. If your problem is more complex than framerate or not listed, check this one.
  
  
• Tired of intro movies every time you launch L4D?
  Easiest fix, go to your Steam games list, right-click Left4Dead, select Properties, Set Launch options and add -novid and click ok, and you're set.
  
  
• Want to make your own spray logo?
  Look at this YouTube link I shamelessly stole from two megathreads ago.
  
  
• IRC
  IRC Server: irc.synirc.net Channel: #Left4Goons
  This poo poo sucks don't do this.
  
  
• When the hell is the SDK coming out with any real semblance of an update?!
  "SDK" was released and by SDK I mean map-making tools and nothing concerning actually modding or creating mods for the actual game. That will be released "later."
  
  
• Host a server? Want SourceMod but having trouble? Want a complete list of cvars, available and hidden?
  Then this place really isn't for you. However, I will suggest you verify whether your host is providing you with a linux or Windows machine, and to use the appropriate .VDF for the system you're on. I can assure you that if you use GameServers.com their listing of what system your server is running on is probably wrong.
  Check http://www.alliedmods.net and http://www.sourcemod.net
  For cvars, check out http://l4d.wtfdie.com.
  
  
• If you plan on hosting a server and want it in the goon group
  This information will have to go in your servers server.cfg file.
  

  quote:

  (required)
  sv_steamgroup 577290
  
  (Pick one)
  sv_steamgroup_exclusive 0 - No exclusivity
  sv_steamgroup_exclusive 1 - Exclusive until community member joins
  sv_steamgroup_exclusive 2 - Always exclusive, no matter what
  

  
  
• Are you infected? Is your rear end on fire?
  If you're in a map with water, haul rear end to it if you can. Being on fire obviously does damage over time, and that damage compiled with being shot will end your reign of terror quick. Average 45-50 seconds of life while on fire and taking no other damage. Hunters are recommended to catch fire before a pounce, as they do increased damage while burning and pounced on a survivor. However, the 25 damage pounce remains the max you can get, flaming or not; survivors, avoid flaming hunters like you'd avoid TRM in San Francisco. Smokers and boomers suck when on fire, don't let it happen.
  
  
• I have a mic to talk, sound goes through speakers. How can I not record survivor deathscreams when I push to talk?
  Edit 0.3 to how low/high you want volume to go during record.
  

  Plecks posted:

  alias +dotalk "volume 0.3;+voicerecord"
  alias -dotalk "volume 1.0;-voicerecord"
  bind X +dotalk
  

  
  
• Lobby hosts wanting to use specific servers without a searchkey
  Because the searchkey thing sucks, really.
  Type this in your console, if you're lobby host, and have the IP of the server you want onhand. Alternatively add it to your autoexec.cfg so every time you start L4D this is run. Note the sv_cheats 1 is local, on your client only, to change ms_force and does nothing in terms of gameplay.
  

  quote:

  ms_force_dedicated_server IP
  

  
  
• Other questions, or problems? Ask away, someone will be happy to answer and if it's a big issue I'll update this post. I'd also recommend joining the Goon 4 Dead Steam group chat room, there's often plenty of acitivity in there.
  

automaticswim fucked around with this message at Jun 26, 2009 around 00:58

mordarch fucked around with this message at Feb 17, 2009 around 17:28