hehe, no worries, we'll catch you some other time. Still having issues with my pc.

im downloading this game at the moment. all i know it involves killing zombies.

Awesome Looking forward to playing with you Derfmeister

And basically, all it is about is killing zombies. And surviving. And keeping your friends alive...

sounds cool cant wait. i can see u and satis on it at the mo

Hehehe, yeah, we were having some fun in versus mode, was a good game (ie one with a minimum of retards/dropouts). Satis' team won.


Basically, the game has 2 major parts: campaign, where you play as one of the 4 survivors together with friends and/or bots and need to reach a rescue point. The AI controls and spawns the infected.

Then there's also versus, in which 2 teams of 4 players play alternately as survivor/infected in the campaign. The survivors need to reach the safe room, the infected need to stop them. Sounds simple enough, but it can get extremely hectic.

I see you just started the game - I'm just going to sleep. Have fun and maybe until tomorrow. Oh and J, get better soon (and kill some zombies )!!

Well, today I went all out trying to fix my laggy ass l4d...to the point of wipiing and reinstalling my O/S. To be fair, it needed to be done anyway. But it was still laggy. I then did some internet trolling and, lo and behold, the latest nvidia driver (1.80 series) has issues. 1.78 works fine. Now I'm rolling like a pimp again.

The versus game against Ox was fun. the first few maps our teams were scoring very similarly... for the most part neither of the teams would make it and we'd die pretty near one another. Toward the end, though, it became less balanced. I must say that puking infected bile on Ox is satisfying.

Anyway, we'll be installing the drivers on Shiny's box sometime today or tomorrow and then hopefully we'll be up for some serious gaming. I'm looking forward to it.

Good fun yesterday - Derf's recon ftw - but what happened during versus? If I came accross as if I was gloating or shit, I'm sorry.

Teams were kinda unbalanced with Derf's first time in versus and J not having played in a while, perhaps. And my teammates were pretty cool...2 out of 3 used voice comm but not in a screeching 13-yr old "omg you n44bs" kind of way. Calm, respectful and controlled. And tactically astute.

That's freaking rare in versus man, cool PUG people

I can't speak for Satis, only myself, but I had no issue with how things were played. I can say I am out of practice and your team played well. It always gets a bit frustrating when you get your ass whipped over and over again, but I was not taking it personally. Unfortunately, I do not play with sound on my computer since Satis and I are in the same room. It gets too loud and such. So, we never reinstalled the sound drivers on it. Once he left, I could not hear when the boomers, etc were around. That put me at a serious handicap and it frustrated me very quickly. You do things differently when you hear a boomer or hunter. So... I bailed.

I hope that did not negatively impact everything for everyone. Plus truthfully I had a ton I really needed to get accomplished yesterday. I spent several hours on my homework for my Maya Class. Seriously that class is gonna kick my ass. It has only been one class and I have already shed tears over this first project. And, I have several hours more to spend today probably on the same project.

So, sorry for leaving, I will work on getting sound on my box, so that does not happen again.

yea, no worries, I didn't take anything personally yesterday. I can only get omgwtfpwnt so many times before I need to walk away and do something else. If I hadn't been playing with people I knew it probably would've been sooner, to be honest. That and I had a bunch of other stuff I had to do. I spent several hours working on my Maya homework as well.

So, anyway, I hope I didn't give you all the impression that I was pissed off, because I wasn't. On the other hand, it was time for me to go before I got too frustrated.

no no there wasnt any bitchiness on my part. its just that:

a) we were getting butt-rammed badly
b) i wasnt really understanding how to kill as a zombie

the 'recon' bit was hilarious. sorry about that. at the time I totally forgot about those zombies that grab you. i coulda made it out if i had shouted for help a bit earlier... thanks ox for trying dude.

are there general tactics to use while moving and stuff ... like who covers what? perhaps its more a case of keeping your ass to the wall and try your best

There are some basic rules that'll keep you and your buddies alive

1. Always stay together... never go off on your own.
2. Don't shoot your friends. This becomes key to beating advanced and higher difficulty.
3. When a horde comes, back into a corner with your friends. Same with vomit. And if you can't see, just melee. You got 4 survivors in a corner meleeing and no one will probably even get hit.

Oh well, I guess that's some basics. Stay together is about the most important thing. Hence the lolling at the recon.

This is a good collection of rules of thumb Derf:

http://left4dead.wikia.com/wiki/Tactics

But basically, what Satis said applies. Always make sure you're at least two, but in versus always make that four. Human players are incredibly more dangerous than the CPU (even if he's dangerous enough at expert).

On higher difficulties, always keep on the move. Don't waste time trying to kill special infected lurking in the corners (except for boomers - kill them in sight). Save pipe bombs for panic moments. Always try to set the tank on fire, again especially on higher difficulties. It will always burn out at a certain tempo (30-45 seconds depending on difficulty) which is independent of weapons damage. So often there's no use shooting the tank when it's on fire, unless you have an absolutely safe and clear shot. Don't risk your life by shooting it when it's chasing you.

Always try to melee boomers back. They explode when shot and will spray survivors in the near environment in boomer bile (much like their basic attack). So when one comes up close, DON'T shoot it unless you're already covered in bile. Push it back and then shoot it when it's far away.

Look out for some parked cars. If you shoot them, the alarm can go off and attract the horde. On versus, infected players try to make newbie players shoot them by hanging around the cars...they do the same thing around witches.

Witches: if possible at all, sneak past. Don't come too close to her, don't make sudden movements, put out your flashlight and try to hold your fire (tho you can have quite a gunfight 5 meters from here without her going aggressive). IF you have to kill her then blast her from point blank with shotties or have her run over a great distance to you. The witch only attacks the player who startled her. Have the others pump her with lead while she chases. On normal settings she will incapacitate the player in one hit, on expert she kills with one hit. You don't want to mess with the witch.

Other stuff...uh...not really. Like you said, corners, back to the wall, rooms with only one entrance..those will all do. Except against a tank. And yeah, on advanced and higher, watch your fire religiously...it does serious damage then.


As for playing as an infected...don't worry, it's a very particular playing style but so much fun if you get the hang of it. Basically, here the 'alone you're nothing' adagio applies as well against a good team. Special infected are weak like kittens (barring the tank) except for their special attack. Best you coordinate attacks with the respawn timer etc. For example: if a boomer vomits on 3 out of 4 survivors, try to pounce or grab the 'clean' survivor - the others will be blinded and might not even notice for a while. As a smoker, try pulling survivors out of protected positions, into fires, off roofs, through hordes...and in versus, the boomer is the key. Good booms are the basis of any infected victory.

looking forward to some more play!

Me and Derf teamed up together yesterday, had a ton of fun on dead air advanced with two PUG people (decent enough sorts). We only really struggled at the finale, and that was more because of us fucking up the closet tactic than anything else really. And because Derf didn't realize he had to get in the plane and leave our other incapacitated survivor pal to his death.

Oh and he set off the metal detector alarm, more or less consciously. But he didn't go recon! But seriously, we should tackle expert soon. With Derf, J, you two, me and some others we might call upon we got a serious skillpool going on already.

Works for me. I haven't beat expert yet... I could use the achievement.

To Satis and Shiny: sorry guys...I disconnected while trying to reach the same server as you last night, and as it turns out disconnected from steam and the internet altogether. Seeing as it was 11 PM here I didn't feel much like investigating the cause and instead spent half an hour fixing it this morning.

Weird shit tho: wireless network was visible and had good signal strength, yet all of my pc's refused to connect to it (password was ok too). A cable, otoh, worked just fine. So I went to the modem's 'homepage' with my provider and had it reboot the data on the server. And whaddayaknow, everything works again.

Computers are weird.