Here comes the best Christmas present of all! According to the Left 4 Dead official blog, the authoring tools (SDK) for Left 4 Dead 2 have been released! In addition, the developers have also released an addon support package for players who just want to use custom content.

Players who are only looking to play custom content (including custom maps for L4D1) only need to download the support package. In Steam, open your Tools tab and look for the entry called “Left 4 Dead 2 – Add-on Support”. Click it and install it. After installing it, you don’t need to run anything. Your game client will automatically be able to play custom content thereafter.

Custom content designers should download the aforementioned file and the “Left 4 Dead 2 – Authoring Tools”. This download adds applications, utilities, and example files.
The new authoring tools are similar to Left 4 Dead’s authoring tools, but there are a number of new additions:

Gamemode Logic: Designers can now make a single map that can behave differently depending on the gamemode in which it is being played. This can dramatically reduce the file size of Campaign add-ons, as the same map can be used for Co-op, Versus, Scavenge, and Survival.

Director Logic: Maps can now alter their layout and behavior depending on how “angry” the A.I. director is. The better the Survivors are doing, the angrier the AI Director seems to get. This allows you to base variable paths and other events on the player’s skill and current conditions.

Scavenge Mode Support! All the elements map authors need to support Scavenge in their maps. This includes game props as well as a full example in the form of Deadline 2, an updated tutorial campaign.

Left 4 Dead 1 map designers are encouraged to compile L4D2-specific versions of their maps in the new tool.

We noticed a great guide for Scavenge on the official forums that you might be interested to see. These tips, courtesy of noisy_, may help even an experienced player to get the most out of the Scavenge experience. Reproduced with permission.

The Golden Rules

• Communicate goals and status via mic early and often. Remember that leadership is earned and not demanded. Ask your teammates what they want to do. Volunteer to cover them as they run for cans. Get them involved. Gain their trust.
• Maximize your odds. Jump survivors with cans at point blank. Attack with double the number of infected. Send redundant rescuers to disabled survivors. Never attack all four survivors at once unless it’s to serve as a distraction while someone gets pulled/charged/etc.
• Be likable. I know this will be hard for some of you to grasp, but if you act like a jerk, you’re just another sad little person whose parents beat them a little too much. You’re not funny, aggravating, or interesting. You’re played out. Encourage your teammates when they mess up or hit a rough spot. Practice good sportsmanship. Thank the other team for the game. Do you taunt ragequitters? Guess what? They’re probably quitting because you’re unlikable and they don’t want to waste another minute of their life in your company, not because of any personal defect of their own.

Survivors!

• Run safe, not fast. You have time. Always gain control of your situation first before moving.
• Look up and look behind you. If you have ammo and no horde, you should almost always be firing your weapon at anything suspicious looking. Getting hit by a stray shotgun pellet makes infected stay put. (especially fragile spitters and boomers)
• Expect to get hit hard in the beginning. They spawn 4 in at round start. Expect staggered spawns after. Do not split up in the beginning under any circumstance. You will lose.
• Go for an easy can first. Focus on execution. Build confidence. (See golden rule #3)
• Learn to run backwards. In groups of 4, 3rd man should be running backwards. In groups of 2, do not run in straight lines and frequently (~15 seconds) fire a few rounds behind you.
• Get visibility behind blind corners and walls to prevent infected spawn. Example: mall – behind car, behind plywood walls. This frustrates infected more than you will ever know.
• Do not ration supplies. Pipe out of a boom every time you can. Announce your pipe. Use every pill bottle first, adren second, health third. Use anytime you are yellow. Your concern will generally be to get the first 10 cans, not the last 6. (see golden rule #2)
• Notify your status on disable. Explain where you are in relation to other survivors, because otherwise it takes too long. You know you’re screwed before you auto-vocalize (”smoker’s got me! halp!”). See golden rule #1. Scan the survivors to see who is in the best position to help you. (ex. “Smoker! Hey, Spiderman… I’m smoked directly behind you about 20 feet behind a planter. Help me out? *BANG BANG* Thanks, man.”
• Announce infected cooldowns. Announce every dead spitter, dead boomer, and spitter cooldown. Nothing else is really bad.
• Flatland levels: Never attempt to bring back four cans. 3+1escort. Escort should have a shotgun. Don’t be afraid to drop your can and deal with threats! The only thing that can burns cans is survivor negligence. (friendly fire, letting it sit in spit)
• Vertical levels. 2 up, 2 down. BUT… as soon as one person in a pair gets hit, *everyone* run to break that person out. If they get out, fine, the two people downstairs or upstairs ran for nothing. But if they didn’t, you prevented a round-ending event. Congrats.
• Breaking a survivor disable is your default primary objective, not cans. You must get there before a trap can be set. Do not send 1 guy. Sending 2 leaves one behind. You must send all 3. You cannot get more than another can or two with 3 survivors. Don’t be afraid to pepper a teammate in trouble with friendly fire. Control is more important than health. The only exception is if the next batch of cans running in will win the game.
• Generator tactics: Expect to get hit at the generator. Always. Make a test pour for 1 second and move away if you haven’t recently killed 3+ infected. Immediately look up and try to spot for your escort. You do have an escort, right? Blind fire into the upper floors if you are on a vertical level. If you must drop your can, drop it far from the generator. Dropping it near the generator gives a spitter a two-for-one threat of burning the can and area denial.
• A can that is spit on is priority one. They respawn after the fire goes out, but running back there is time you generally don’t have. Toss the can(s) out of the spit/fire and deal with the threat first. Then carry the can. A single spit should never be able to destroy more than one can at a time.

Infected!

• Always work with a friend. Everyone says it, but who actually does it all the time? Preferably all 3. 1 is generally suicide unless you’ve caught survivors making a grand tactical error/gamble. Don’t try to spawn in on the tail end of a failed attack. Learn good situational awareness and don’t be afraid to wait.
• Hit them when they’re coming back with cans. You have less guns to worry about.
• Setting up your 25 pounce is pointless without a friend. There’s enough health to easier get 10+ cans while constantly healing. Focus on teamwork, not raw damage.
• You must spit the generator/car just before they start pouring. Otherwise, the pour will finish.
• When faced with a 2/2 split, pick a pair and send all 4 at them. (see golden rule #1)
• Disabled survivors make the best traps. When survivor disabled, all infected drop what they are doing (unless there’s 2+ cans incoming) to set up a trap around the disabled.
• Distractions don’t earn points, but they kill teams. Use intimidating, random movement (hunters, especially) to stall and confuse survivors if you are solo, especially ones holding cans running on open ground. You should be able to get them to all be looking in different directions.

Updates to Left 4 Dead have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Left 4 Dead

• Teams that prefer listen servers will no longer be matched with teams that prefer dedicated servers
• Official dedicated servers are now preferred when searching for team matches
• More populous lobbies are now preferred over less populous ones when searching for games
• Players who crash or have failed to load are no longer banned if they have been kicked
• Fixed exploit allowing players to end games prematurely using the ‘outtro_stats_done’ console command
• Reduced Dedicated Server max search ping to 150 ms
• Fixed a common crash

EDIT: A similar patch was applied to Left 4 Dead 2. The only noted additional patches to L4D2 were:

• Update Russian subtitles
• Fixed not being able to interlink teams in team-on-team mode
• Fixed not being able to properly migrate team lobby after team leader would leave the lobby
• Fixed not being able to invite friends if player was not team leader in a team-on-team game

Valve has just announced the first DLC addon for Left 4 Dead 2, “The Passing”. The new DLC, set to be released in early spring 2010 for the PC and Xbox 360, will include a “huge offering” of gameplay content, including a new cooperative campaign and narrative; new Survival, Versus, and Scavenge maps; a new Uncommon Common Infected; and a new melee weapon and firearm. Oh, and there’s one more thing…

The Left 4 Dead Survivors will be in it!

You heard us right! After months of speculation on Valve’s promised “ode” to the original Survivors, the studio has decided to call all the Survivors together in one campaign.

The story will be set just after Dead Center, in a small town in rural Georgia. Players will take the role of the L4D2 Survivors when they encounter and interact with the original ones. So, if you’ve been missing your favorite eye candy, pill-pilferer, geriatric gunman, or leather-clad misomaniac, this spring, Valve has just the right medicine for you.

The developers also mention that there will be a brand-spanking-new cooperative “challenge mode” of play. We don’t have any specifics on what this new game mode might be. It could be another difficult campaign-style mode, like Realism, or it could be a competitive game mode that pits two teams of Survivors against each other, much like some on the official forums have been suggesting for months. The latter theory seems particularly plausible, considering that both groups of Survivors will be in it.

We should also mention that this should settle the debates about whether or not the original Survivors died at Last Stand (and thus about its canonicality).

See the official Steam News bulletin, quoted below. ▼

Updates to Left 4 Dead 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. These and all previous fixes will be coming to the 360 later this month. The major changes include:

Left 4 Dead 2

• Changed rules for ghost placement in Scavenge Mode
• Player controlled Special Infected are no longer forced to un-crouch and lock strafe when they crouch attack
• Spitter spit that damages players on a moving elevator will now fizzle quickly
• Allow the survivor and infected to rotate the camera yaw while being attacked by a Charger or Smoker
• Smoker that has dragged a survivor to the end now gets the same cinematic flashlight as the Hunter and Charger
• Fixed a crash in physics
• Updated the Charger’s hit boxes
• Updated the Jockey’s hit boxes
• Updated the Spitter’s hit boxes
• Fixed player health on being revived after a Charger slam over a high ledge
• Fixed versus scores not resetting after a vote to change campaigns
• Fixed being able to use defibrillator on dead players who were far above or below you
• Fixed pink glow on dead survivors
• Fixed being able to hold crouch while incapped to get better weapon accuracy
• Fixed players pushing against some props causing them to accumulate downward velocity and then take falling damage when they let go of the forward key
• Fixed a case where an incapped survivor inside a rescue vehicle would trigger both the escape sequence and a round restart
• Fixed the helping hand from getting stuck when extended

I ever tell you about the time my buddy Keith replaced Rochelle? You wouldn’t think it could happen cause Rochelle’s a girl and all, but some folks down at Facepunch right done gone and made their own Keith that you can put right in here to be my buddy. Sure, he ain’t got no lady parts to look at, but he sure does do a good impression of Rochelle.

I ever tell you about the time my buddy Keith got rolled by a ‘gator in a swamp? Man he didn’t agonize it or nothin’, we were just tryin’ to grab two so we could piss ‘em off and get ‘em into a fight. Well anyway, the third time Keith started yellin’ “Gentlemen, I need some help!” and “Girl, you shoulda stayed at home…”–

Some folks down at FPSBanana have come up with a way for modders to create custom melee weapons for Left 4 Dead 2! The new weapons can use custom models, though the author notes that there are some caveats involved.

The melee weapons have no effect on normal online play, but they might be an interesting addition to your next locally hosted or offline game.

First, open up your config folder. By default, it’s C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\left 4 dead 2\left4dead2\cfg\ (or remove the ‘2′ for L4D1).

To get a feel for how the config files work, you may wish to find config.cfg and open it with your text editor. If it asks what program you wish to use, just choose Notepad or Notepad++ from the list. This file includes all your keybindings and user settings. Each line stores a separate console command. Essentially, the game reads these files, one line at a time, and puts them through the console (what you open up when you press ~ in-game).

Now, let’s get hacking.

The Performance Tracker

The first hack we’re going to talk about is the performance tracker. This useful tool overlays performance information over your team status UI. Take a look below.

We’re going to be editing a file called autoexec.cfg. The autoexec file is automatically executed when you start the game. If you’ve never created or downloaded an autoexec file, you can start off by downloading the one below and putting it into that cfg folder. If you already have one, tack this onto the end of the existing one.

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bind "TAB" "+sb";
alias "+sb" "+showscores; net1; net_graph 5";
alias "-sb" "-showscores; net0; net_graph 0";

All this simple script does is tack on the command “sb” onto the TAB button. As long as you keep the TAB button held down, the overlay will show up, simple as that!

Fixing Thirdpersonshoulder

You may have heard of a non-cheat console command, thirdpersonshoulder, that allows you to play the game in third-person. This is great for melee weapons, especially the chainsaw, since your view will be wider and blood-free, but with the default settings, you’ll find that your gun aims way to the right. To fix this, we apply a few simple commands:

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c_thirdpersonshoulderoffset 0;
c_thirdpersonshoulderaimdist 720;
c_thirdpersonshoulderheight 10;
cam_ideallag 0;
bind "p" thirdpersonshoulder;

The last line is optional. It binds the P button to toggle the third person view.

To get this script to work, you can do one of two things. One, you can copy it onto the end of your autoexec.cfg file. Two, you can create a new .cfg file, which we will call thirdperson.cfg, and place it in the config folder. The game won’t know to run it automatically, though, so you can then add this line to your autoexec file:

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exec thirdperson;

The exec command tells the game to execute the config file whose filename follows it. Note that you could also type this into the game console (~) while playing to activate it.

More Configs

If you’re interested in more cool config tweaks, we suggest taking a look at the L4D Community Autoexec.

Updates to Left 4 Dead 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Left 4 Dead 2

• Fixed case where game failed to launch in certain machine configurations
• Fixed bug where a burning witch could get into a state where she’s invincible
• Fixed bug where bots would not shoot at Jockeys and Chargers while approaching to save a teammate

Valve has patched Left 4 Dead 2, fixing errors with the stats page (perhaps including achievement loss) and fixing the issue some users have after being struck by the Charger.

Updates to Left 4 Dead 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Left 4 Dead 2

• Updated stats collection and related steam pages
• Fixed issue where players could be stuck if caught in charger pound
• Updated CPU detection

In other news, Steam’s Black Friday sale is on! A single copy of L4D2 is $37.49, and a 4-pack is $112.49 ($28 and change if you split the cost)!