SHAZBOT!

“Left 4 Dead free trial to enlist hordes this …. Friday

Want to replace the lighthouse screen with Thriller?  Download

Open – Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\left 4 dead\left4dead\media

and replace the l4d_lighthouse_bg01.bik file.

Download –> TV_x2_bonus_pack.exe 287MB

Containing 18 new and “x2-ified” retail quality maps with unique custom skies and new textures, immersive ambient fx and swanky particle emitters created by T:V content creators A L | E N, Aereogramme, dehav, freddan, Ice, killadee, Malox, schlieperich, turkey and VaLeDiCTioN.

Maps

Cerulean, Crusader , Dangerous Crossing , Endor , Erosion , Foregone , Freefall , Galarid , Giza , Mayata , Minotaur , Parallax , Rort , Rort II , Rort III , Simoom , Track Mayhem , Wonderland

Race Mod

Race around new race maps in the Lamborghini, Jet Bike, Quad Bike and ATV. Race will now show up in your Admin panel under game types and can be voted in. These vehicles aren’t rovers so be sure to read “Vehicle control for Race Mod.txt”.

Spectator Mod

A mutator that completely enhances Spectator Mode. Speed up/slow down the cam with your mousewheel, create and save cam points on any place of the map, lock onto player views, lock onto closest player, see player names, their health and more. A menu will appear when in Spectate mode with a list of keybinds.

T:V Server Query

This application will sit in your system tray and with a click you can see who’s online and on what server, add new servers and remove old ones.

x2 Extreme Skin set

The T:V communities master skin maker Malox creates a supurb Mercury inspired skin set exclusive to the x2 pack.

Also includes

- x2 mutator by dehav, schlieperich and turkey. For details check out Basex2.html
- Net Camera by schlieperich (featured in the map Erosion)
- New trees and foliage pkg by VaLeDiCTioN
- Mega texture pkg by killadee
- x2 emitters pkg
- x2 ambient pkg
-RypelCam for T:V

Enjoy
x2 group
_________________

17th April 09

Survival Mode pits your team against never ending waves of infected. Sounds simple. Just trap the survivors in a small part of a map, unleash the hordes, and record the longest time. Survival Mode, which will be released next week, is actually a bit more than that.
 
Our goals for Survival Mode are to deliver a mode of play distinct from Campaign or Versus, have games that regularly last under ten minutes, and emphasize competition with team play through leaderboards.
 
Survival Mode draws on the planning and communication aspects of a successful Finale or Crescendo event, while taking it to another level. It rapidly hits a fever pitch that only a well coordinated team will be able to successfully survive. Everything from simply covering a reviving teammate, to making every shot count to minimize reloads becomes crucial in Survival Mode.
 
Given the importance of pacing in Survival Mode, we need to define as precisely as possible how the difficulty ramps up during the course of a round. We have numerous variables to work with: mob spawn frequency, special infected spawn frequency, number of each type of special infected, total number of special infected, tank spawn frequency, total number of tanks, and so on. We need all of these variables to work together to create a fairly smooth difficulty curve.
 
If the curve ramps up too sharply, we find that teams of all skill levels tend to hit a wall at the same time. There isn’t enough variation in the times to separate great teams from average ones. If the curve is too flat, then average teams will have a good experience, but really good teams can grind on long enough to cross the line from having fun to just getting worn out.
 
It might seem that just gradually increasing spawn rates and numbers of infected will create a nice smooth curve, but it turns out to be much trickier than that. Each type of infected has its own spawn schedule, so even though the individual spawn curves may be designed to be fairly easy at a particular point in time, sometimes they overlap in just such a way that the players find themselves in a really bad situation far earlier than we intend.
 
For example, a tank will be much harder to fight if a mob of common infected spawns at the same time – and nearly impossible if three hunters also show up right at that moment. A similar situation can happen due to variables outside our control – a team may not dispatch a tank or mob quickly enough, causing subsequent waves to start arriving and piling on to an already difficult battle. It’s also hard to anticipate when teams will need to make an ammo run or heal up, both of which can be extremely difficult only a few minutes into the round. In order to help visualize these overlap points and the collapse of each spawn curve, we graphed out the wave behavior of infected over the course of a survival round.
 

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The last variable we added was the “lull” – a short interval of time during which nothing new will spawn. Each lull gets slightly longer as the round progresses, but that’s no guarantee the team will actually see the lull – it just prevents new infected from spawning. It doesn’t help with infected that are already in the arena. Killing mobs and tanks as quickly as possible is the best way to ensure that a team can take advantage of a lull to heal, resupply ammo, or just move to a better location with more supplies.
 
Given the extreme pace of Survival Mode, the number of zombies killed in a single round often outnumbers an entire campaign. Even optimizing towards using pistols to eliminate common hordes, ammunition usually becomes an issue at some point. As ammo piles provide a unique infinite resupply for players, they tend to be in relatively less defensible positions in the Survival arenas. This means making an all important ammo run is rarely a safe proposition and requires good teamwork and planning. Timing your resources correctly to be able to make a run when necessary can make or break a team. The perfect pipebomb or well placed molotov can mean the difference between a cakewalk and catastrophe.
 
The Hospital Elevator, for example, might seem like an easy Crescendo Event to conquer. Hit the elevator button and holdout until the doors open for a quick escape. In Survival Mode, however, the area begins locked down. Areas open as the hordes come in, breaking down the doors to reach the survivors. In each room there are additional caches of vital pills, pipes, and Molotovs. By moving from location to location, using up the plentiful supplies as needed, a team can maximize their time in a game where the elevator never arrives to offer escape. In other maps, items may be less plentiful and require careful planning on their usage. Managing one’s inventory and resources works hand-in-hand with teamwork in Survival Mode.
 
Next week you will be able to see our design in action when the DLC is released for the PC and 360.

Source –> http://www.l4d.com/blog/post.php?id=2417

Originally posted in the steam forums another great guide by Kaizoku. As usual he will be sure to revisit this post and make edits based on comments it receives and his own further testing.  There is one comment by Woden that I have quoted and added myself because I agree with what he has stated regarding melee. 

 

Tank Guide

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As promised, I present the Tank Guide:
 
This guide will explain everything I know about the tank, and will be used as a place to share and update knowledge on the game from this car chucking behemoth’s perspective. Just like any other guide, this is to be used as a compendium, and not a work created by a single author. If you have knowledge, share it, if I give incorrect information, question it, if you don’t understand something, ask for an explanation.
 
This guide, as the others, will be separated into two sections: Knowledge, and tactics. Knowledge being intrinsic properties about the tank, the other being in-game application of said properties.
 
Knowledge
 
–The tank’s punch will hit multiple survivors within roughly 10 degrees of his centre of attack in a cone (centre of attack = cross hair). This means if you are centred on a survivor, and another survivor is in horizontal range of the attack, they have to be within that cone to be hit also.  

Quote Woden

“This is not true. Rather, the tank’s punch hits everyone and everything that his fist/forearm travels through. Because there is no way to anticipate or control which punch animation the tank will play (nor even a way of telling which punch animation he is playing other than tanking in 3rd person), there is no way to predict exactly what area of effect or what range the punch will have.
 
The closer your targets are to the reticle, the better your odds are of hitting more than one. Beyond that, nothing definitive can be said about using the tank’s punch intentionally “

 

–The tanks punch can be used to “stun lock” a survivor. What this means is that once you hit a survivor as long as they don’t go flying away or up the side of a hill, you should be able to hit them again before they can completely recover. Meaning you can do this over and over until they’re incapped.
 
–You can jump and attack at the same time, as an example of it’s range and usefulness, you can hit people crossing the pipes in the No Mercy campaign’s finale from the ground with this.
 
–The tanks punch range is slightly more than the survivors melee range.
 
–The tank slows down considerably when being shot, but *NOT* from being set on fire in VS. Fire does incremental damage to the tank in VS.
 
–When spawning, the tank is still under AI control, and can be lit on fire and decimated during this time.
 
–While any survivor is in the safe room, the tank will *NOT* lose any of his rage meter. Hitting the survivors with a rock or punch will re-fill their rage meter to full. Hitting people with physics objects (trees/cars) will not re-fill the rage meter at all. Staying within visibility range of the survivors will also keep your rage from going down, but this is a bit glitchy.
 
–Rocks have a bigger hit box than the physical rock, you can hit people around trees and other cover by getting the physical rock as close to the cover object as possible, making the hit box go through it ant hit the person. Survivors are stunned for ~3 seconds when hit by a rock.
 
–Rocks go incredibly far, chances are the survivors are in the range of a good rock throw from the second you spawn in as the tank.
 
–If a tank runs out of rage in a situation where the AI can’t take over, the tank will instantly die.
 
–Tactics– (Tanktics?)
 
First off, I want to point out that the tank is NOT a lone killing machine. You need your team to make openings in 90% of the situations that come up in an even-skill game just to not waste the tank.
 
Also, and say this with me in your best Frankenstein voice now: FIRE BAD!!!. *Ahem*, yes, fire indeed bad. If you get lit on fire, you can count on the survivors out running you unless your boomer is spot on with a horde. To avoid said fire, you’re going to have to trick the survivors into wasting molotovs and gas cans. To do this, charge in like you don’t know what you’re doing and you’re going to waste the tank. At this point someone will probably shoot their gas can, or throw a molotov directly at you. If you see a molotov coming, try to dodge to the left or right, since it can be hard to judge if the survivors threw it too far, or are coming up short.
 
Now that we’ve covered not getting bathed in flame, I’ll move on to actual team tactics, and Tank tactics. 
 
The first one, which I love, is the rock to smash combo. This is *very* useful if the survivors are all green and out-running you. Try to get them into a situation where they have to curve around you to get away, and at this point, throw a point blank rock. They’ll probably light you up with whatever guns they have, but it’s very hard to dodge a rock at that distance. Once you hit them, you can usually charge them and “stun lock” them, or at least get them to yellow.
 
Another great rock tactic is rock sniping, though this takes a lot of practice, can make a tank useful in a place where otherwise it would be wasted. Basically the whole strategy is to stay just out of visible clip range, and throw rocks. Since it just takes one hit to re-fill your meter, you can do this for a decent while. This gives your team (specifically your boomer) a chance to cause chaos and give you time to rush in and mess some people up.
 
Camping downed survivors, or killing them if you can, is extremely useful and far too often overlooked. Your team has to help you with this most of the time, but if you incap someone, stay in range of them. Use them as bait, and keep hitting them until someone tries to come to the rescue. Either way you get heave damage on one survivor (sometimes killing them), and damage on the other survivors slowing them down, making an attack for the rest of your team much easier.
 
The boomer is your best friend, but can be dangerous to be around… if your boomer can get a horde to come, it often means game over for the survivors. Rush in with the horde, and start doing damage. The dangerous part comes if your too close to them, they act as propane tanks and wills tun you just like an explosion, giving survivors plenty of time to shoot you, or even light you on fire.
 
Smokers and hunters need your protection, if a hunter pounces someone separated from the group, stand in front of him, take the hits for him and let him do the damage. This way, the survivors will have to get close or move out of cover to save their friend. Smokers you should also treat this way, but there’s much more you can do with them. This takes practice to find the distance, but just like the other infected, you can hit the smokers victim without hitting the smoker. So find the distance, and go nuts on the survivors while blocking for the smoker.
 
You should also always be looking for “home runs”, by this I mean places to hit the survivors off the map, or off a high surface for extra damage and team separation. Any time the survivors are on a higher surface you can do this, just be aware of any lips the surface might have (like the nm5 ammo pile roof) that might prevent them from flying off. Once separated, let your team take care of them, and work on doing the same to another survivor.
 
This is what I have for now, I don’t doubt this guide will evolve just like all others. I hope (as with any guide) this will help people be better tanks, and have more fun playing them with their team. As stated above, additions, correction, questions, and opinions are encouraged.
 
As always, good tank’ing, -Kai.

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source –> http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=836121  

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On Monday, Ubisoft set the gears of the Assassin’s Creed 2 hype machine in motion, launching a teaser site for the sequel to 2007’s well-received multiplatform action adventure. Visitors to the site are greeted with a brief Flash clip panning through the journal of famed Italian inventor Leonardo da Vinci. The short teaser ends with word that a full review of Assassin’s Creed 2 is expected to arrive with the upcoming issue of Game Informer magazine, which is owned by retailer GameStop.

On its Web site today (Apr 10, 2009), Game Informer confirmed that Assassin’s Creed 2 will indeed be the cover story of its upcoming issue. The site also noted in a brief blurb that the title will be set in “Renaissance-era Venice” and will follow the travails of new protagonist Ezio, a young Italian noble. For more on its “world exclusive,” the blurb teases, gamers will have to spring for the May issue of the mag…

…or wait until the Internet gets its collective hands on it a week early. Yesterday, a poster on Ubisoft’s official forums offered a detailed accounting of purported Assassin’s Creed 2 information that will be included in the May issue of Game Informer. (Before the post was deleted by a Ubisoft forums administrator, a GameFAQs user secured a copy of the original message.)

The post offers a litany of alleged details on Assassin’s Creed 2. According to the original message, the game will offer a number of famous Venetian locales, including da Vinci’s workshop, Saint Mark’s Basilica, The Grand Canal, The Little Canal, and the Rialto Bridge. Players will also supposedly be afforded trips through the Tuscan countryside, circa 1476. A number of historical figures will also reportedly be present, including Niccolo Machiavelli, Caterina Sofrza, and Lorenzo de Medici, the latter of which is said to be the subject of an assassination attempt.

Ezio–full name Ezio Auditore de Firenze–will apparently have a number of weapons to choose from, including “an axe, a hammer, a mace, a spear, two different sword types, a [halberd], and two smaller blades.” Each weapon is said to have a special move associated with it, and Ezio will be able to disarm opponents and use their fumbled weaponry against them.

Continuing with the Venice theme, swimming will reportedly be an option in the game. And, as speculated following Ubisoft’s official teaser, the leaked details claim that Ezio will be able to take to the skies using da Vinci’s flying machine. The report also states that a day-and-night cycle has been added to the game.

Moving on to specific gameplay details, the Game Informer reveal will also reportedly say that Assassin’s Creed will sport 16 mission types, a dramatic increase over the original’s four. Two mission types supposedly not included, however, will be eavesdropping and pickpocketing. A number of new enemy types are said to have been added, including archers, “as well as elite enemies, dagger wielders, ‘Brutish’ armored troops with heavy armor and two-handed swords and axes, and an intelligent halberd enemy will probe hiding places with their weapons if they think you’re nearby.”

The post goes on to state that Assassin’s Creed 2 will also include a number of holdover mechanics from the original, including tower climbing and horseback riding, and assassinations can now reportedly be performed while Ezio is concealed in a stack of hay. Hidden objects will also return, though the report indicates that players will gain in-game benefits by hunting them down this time around.

The official story: “I can confirm that the information in the upcoming Game Informer magazine is factually correct,” a word-mincing Ubisoft representative told GameSpot.

Bogus or not bogus?: Looking not bogus. However, it’s impossible to say with certainty whether the forum poster was accurate in his details until Game Informer hits newsstands next week.

Taken from au.gamespot.com

New rumours have found there way into mainstream media that a new PSP will be revealed at E3 in June. It is said to feature 2 analogue thumb sticks and a sliding touch screen and that the UMD drive would be replaced by a drive towards digital distribution, allowing the platform to focus on two sets of games – one for the “hardcore” gamer, and others that use the touch screen for more casual gaming affairs.