Recent News

The Final L4Duluth

Today marks the end of development for Left 4 Duluth. I'm very proud of the final release and I'm sure you'll all enjoy it too! Left 4 Duluth is by far the largest project I've ever completed and now I can finally say it is complete once and for all. There will never be another update, so if you experience technical trouble I suggest lowering your graphics settings until you upgrade your computer. For reference this map was tested with the computer described in my 5/30/2011 post which runs best with the settings described in that post. I've also tested with high graphics settings with slightly degraded performance. Those settings are:

Development System Hardware:
CPU: Intel Core2 Duo - 3.0GHz
Memory: 4GB RAM
GPU: ATI Radeon 4500 series
OS: Windows 7

L4D2 Settings:
Options -> Video -> Advanced Settings
Anti-Aliasing Mode: 4x MSAA
Filtering Mode: Anisotropic 4x
Wait for vertical sync: Enabled (Double Buffered)
Shader Detail: Very High
Effect Detail: Medium
Model/Texture Detail: High
Multicore Rendering: Enabled*
Page Pool Memory Available: High

Recommended System Hardware (Yord's Dev Machine):
CPU: Intel Core i7 3820 - 3.6GHz
Memory: 16GB RAM
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7800 series - 4GB RAM
OS: Windows 7


L4D2 Settings:
Options -> Video -> Advanced Settings
Anti-Aliasing Mode: 4x MSAA
Filtering Mode: Anisotropic 8x
Wait for vertical sync: Enabled (Double Buffered)
Shader Detail: Very High
Effect Detail: High
Model/Texture Detail: High
Multicore Rendering: Enabled*
Page Pool Memory Available: High
*enable if you have a multicore CPU, disable for a single core CPU

But, Of Course That's Not What Really Happened...

You, being the clever and gorgeous person you are—you knew we were joking the whole time!! We simply could not resist. After long last and many sleepless nights, here it is: the final release!! You’ll see plenty of new things, as well as a script penned by the mighty Sullie J., brought to life by the suave Walt Dizzo and none other than Duluth Mayor, Don Ness! We took a lot of time looking over feedback and bug reports, and we are eternally grateful for all of the support we have received over the years. We have finally reached a version we are all happy with and proud of. And so with that, we hope you enjoy the mayhem!! Thank you again to everyone involved, we couldn’t have pulled off this massive project without all of your hard work and care. Now, let’s go have fun!!

Higher to Fall: Vaporware

The unthinkable has happened… last night, in our final night of compiling and packing of the VPK, literally the worst thing that could have happened, happened. No amount of backups could have prepared us for a virus of this magnitude. It came in through Outlook Email, with the subject “stinky cheese.” We’ve lost everything, folks. Such a disappointment. It is with a heavy heart that Dave and I must officially declare the project vaporware. There is just no way that we can recoup our losses, years of our lives have just been lost. Thank you to everyone who has supported us throughout the years, and be kind.

Now with more Don Ness!!

Well, now that it is just about done, I can’t think of a better way to spend such a horribly cold winter than developing this project! Dave and I have literally been working around the clock to take care of any leftover bugs, assessing input from all of the beta testers, adding extra content, dealing with Valve’s strange limits on their engine, and getting a last call of art and music as well as the legendary Don Ness and Walt Dizzo’s voice acting debuts all working properly! It has been a long haul, and stressful for not only us on the team but to all of our friends and family and dogs, however we are completely satisfied with the high production value that we’ve set and managed to maintain. Lots of hands have been involved with this project—friends, acquaintances and strangers who are now friends—and every one of them has helped us achieved this level of greatness. We are proud of everyone in our community and hope everyone finds something to enjoy in our giant little mod!! Stay tuned!!

Winter 2013!!

On this fateful day, on our carpool back home from celebrating Christmas, I mentioned to Dave, “Do you think if we worked non-stop that we could finish Left4Duluth before the year is up?” Thus begins our current and final development cycle...

To the people in the streets...

From the people in City Hall: Today Mayor Don Ness declared a State of Emergency in the city of Duluth! Zombies are walking among us and they should NOT BE THERE!!!

Left4Duluth v4.0 Full-Beta-Patch!

Hey All! Check out the latest Full Beta patch now available. It should be much more stable than the last revision. Keep your eye's open for new content throughout all 4 acts and also PLEASE continue to inform us of any issues you are having. Last but not least, we are still open for art and music submissions!!!

FULL BETA IS OUT!

Yes after countless fixes, tweaks, rebuilds, and retests (and not enough sleep)... We've finally got a full beta with all four acts for you to try. Check it out, and let us know what you think! You'll notice some blank spots on the walls. We have plenty of room for more art and music, but you'll have to hurry because the final release is coming fast (should be ready late next month). Head over to our submissions page or point a friend or respected colleague in the right direction. We've got some tasty surprises for the final, but for now, we hope you really enjoy all the hard work we've put into the full beta. Please help out the project by letting us know about any bugs or glitches you find. If you're having trouble in any way let us know. The fastest way to inform us is to take a screen shot (F5 by default, a jpeg should be in Steam\steamapps\common\left 4 dead 2\left4dead2\screenshots or somewhere nearby) and email Yord (Fitger's & Skywalk) or Fanumbike (UMD & Canal Park) a description along with the pic. And above all! Don't let the undead horde eat your brainz~~!!

A Very Long Engagement

We have been devoting all of our spare time and energy to get the Final Beta released, and I can tell you with certainty that you will be able to see every hour we spent in our Skyrim-level detailing. Delays mean bugs, and we had some terrible ones this past week but that's all over and done now. Just a few more sleepless nights and you will be able to download a fresh VPK from our harddrives to yours! Thank you to everyone that has been supporting us over this span of time--you won't be disappointed! Keep submitting, and stay tuned...

Off the Cuff/On the Cusp

To be blunt, we are weeks away from releasing the next version of the Beta, on-course to meet our Homegrown FINAL RELEASE deadline! We still need a lot more art for our walls--prime venues like the Tweed and Fitger's are completely up for grabs! Head over to our submissions page or point a friend or respected colleague in the right direction. Check back for news about the official release party!

New Footage Page Added

Check out the new footage page. We added a bunch of new screenshots and a couple of early fan movies. In other news, the first 2 acts are beginning to look really nice. We'll try and get some footage of the new acts as soon as we feel they're ready.

We're still alive!

Yes, that's right, the Zombie hordes have not gotten to Yord and I (yet). We tirelessly continue to push forward on the first 2 acts! Getting the level of detail we want takes a while! But stay tuned, the best is yet to come!

Graphics Settings

Hey everyone - This post will address the issue of slow game performance that some players experience with Left 4 Duluth. First off, unlike many of Valve's maps which are small and compact, the maps in Left 4 Duluth represent a realistic interpretation of Duluth. To achieve this, the maps have to be huge! This is actually a good thing, because giant epic maps are exactly what we are going for. The downside to giant maps is the sheer quantity of elements that the GPU has to render each frame. This is especially true with ACT 4 - Canal Park which is mostly outside. With a large outside environment, it is easy to see things far off in the distance, since those things can be seen, they need to be rendered by the GPU. For both of these maps, we've taken special care to ensure that things that don't need to be rendered aren't.

If you are experiencing slow performance with either of these maps, I recommend your first course of action be to adjust your graphics settings based on your system's hardware. The listing below indicates the L4D2 gaphics settings along with the hardware used on the development PC for Act 4. Both maps run flawlessly on this PC with the following graphics settings. I recommend adjusting your settings according to how your hardware compares to the following:

Development System Hardware:
CPU: Intel Core2 Duo - 3.0GHz
Memory: 4GB RAM
GPU: ATI Radeon 4500 series
OS: Windows 7

L4D2 Settings:
Options -> Video -> Advanced Settings
Anti-Aliasing Mode: None
Filtering Mode: Trilinear
Wait for vertical sync: Enabled (Double Buffered)
Shader Detail: Medium
Effect Detail: Low
Model/Texture Detail: High
Multicore Rendering: Enabled*
Page Pool Memory Available: High
*enable if you have a multicore CPU, disable for a single core CPU

Hope this helps! We are really doing everything we possibly can to get this to run on older/lower-end hardware without sacrificing any of the beauty of this art project.

Send questions or comments to
fanumbike@left4duluth.com

Campaign Update!

We have finished addressing a slew of bug fixes and upgrades and just uploaded a revision to the Left 4 Duluth Beta. Overwrite your old .VPK file with this shiny new one in the left4dead2/addons folder and enjoy yourself some good old-fashioned fun! Keep sending us any bugs you encounter while we proceed with work on Acts I & II... and maybe a surprise or two in the weeks to come... ;)

One love!

Send questions or comments to
Joe :: Act III
Dave :: Act IV

Art Update

Hey! I made an update to the Gallery, waddaya doin' lookin' here?! Go check out those artists and their websites!

Cheerio!

Send questions or comments to
yord@left4duluth.com

Post Mortem

Well, it's been about a week, and we've had over 1500 downloads, which is pretty amazing! Thanks to all who played and especially those who sent us their feedback. Here's what we all found (known bugs):

Skywalk System:

- Add button delay
- Add glow around pizza luce button
- Light in DECC skywalk floating
- Need way for infected to get to the top of building next to luce
- door_rotate_112.mdl no door_options! check that SKIN is valid (console error)
- Floating car window
- DECC skywalk lights not touching ceiling
- Pizza luce route sometimes crashes game!
- Add rescue closets
- Clip skywalk windows from NSB to Holiday center
- Bots hung up on DECC roof occasionally
- Add survivor dialogue
- Add melee weapons
- Barricade DECC giftshop windows
- Clip backalley area (just before the jump)
- Clip semi in backalley
- Clip doors across from holiday centre
- Fix nodraw at the end of tunnel before the long gallery
- Add cars in DECC parking ramp
- Fix ground texture below DECC skywalk
- Edit NAVs in front of DECC roof ladder (so they hurry up)
- NODRAW issue on skywalk in front of WeilandBlock
- Clip fence in front of MN Power courtyard
- Fix clip behind Electric fetus
- Add no_alpha brush to remove plants from sidewalk
- Open/destroy DECC skywalk tangent door
- General optimization
- Add pointer tips

Canal Park:

- Custom overlays for messages.
- More debris on the canal proper. (at least 128 high, rule of thumb)
- Winds over bridge, storm!
- If a way to force the sound is possible, implement it finale soundscripts
- Fade on light fixture behind duluthpack
- Texture on blue pillar outside of DECC door fixup
- Flash what button to push
- chimney fade on paulucci building
- Switch music from timer to button
- C++ runtime error! (on level change)
- Suicidal Tank
- Add rescue closets
- Tighten escape route//add more direction markers
- Fix fog interior when looking out of broken wall near lift bridge
- Add Survivor dialogue
- Add melee weapons
- General optimization
- Board up DWSC front door
- Ensure arrows don't fade, maybe add some more arrows.
- Fix fog rendering for directional
- Add pointer tips

Thanks again for all the digital love! We should have an update uploaded by next Friday.

Ciao!

Send questions or comments to
yord@left4duluth.com

BETA RELEASED

There we go! The Left 4 Duluth Open Beta is officially released! Download the file and unzip it into your "steam/steamapps/common/left 4 dead 2/left4dead2/addons" folder ("~/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/left 4 dead 2/left4dead2/addons" for Mac users) and then double-click (not Mac users) it to fully install the VPK. Take it for a spin, push the limits, see if you can get where you're not supposed to be. If you get stuck or see something strange, take a screenshot with F5 (default key) and send us an email with what you were doing and what happened. Add the screenshot as an attachment--it saves it into your "steam/steamapps/common/left 4 dead 2/left4dead2/screenshots" folder. We'll be making a list of bugs and then issue and update once a week/month, depending on how things go. At the same time, we'll be starting work on the first two chapters--UMD and the Lakewalk/Fitger's Complex.

If you don't encounter any bugs, let us know how your experience was while playing. We'd love to hear from you!

Dave and I played around in it for a while and noticed/experienced some bugs--I was getting some serious lag and choppiness, however, Dave's computer was able to play through smoothly. So, the better your PC, the better your experience will be. We'll work on that, because I don't want to be LEFT 2 DIE!

Send questions or comments to
yord@left4duluth.com

Hasta luego!

So Close... Part II

Quick update for y'all as real-life sneaks back up on us: Dave and I have been working feverishly with little rest for the past three nights now, stomping out the little bugs that would have prevented you to play our maps successfully, and we have good news. The maps have gone gold!! They are officially ready to be played, but of course there's one last snag we hit before I can post a download link for you. What's happening is that when you install the .VPK file, it installs everything but the custom sound files. As soon as we get over this little technical bump, then it's loose! My Magic 8-Ball says a Tuesday release is "Definite." These things are usually pretty reliable.

Send questions or comments to
yord@left4duluth.com

Do svidaniya!

So Close...

Been enjoying your Homegrown festivities? Us too! So much that we're pulling a VALVe and pushing the release back a day! Been having a few problems getting the custom music working properly--which is one of the main reasons we wanted to make this mod in the first place. Once we get it functioning, it's just a matter of putting it in a .VPK file. In the meantime, get your PC ready for Addon Content by checking out a custom campaign here at l4dmaps.com! First impressions are important, and we want to make sure everyone who tries out gets a great experience. We're just as excited to release this beauty as you are to play it, and we can't wait to play it with you!

Send questions or comments to
yord@left4duluth.com

Au revoir!

Crunch Time

Homegrown has officially begun! As such, the release date looms on the horizon... Dave is doing some AI pathfinding and some tweakage, while I am gleefully adding more and more submitted content and optimizing for VS mode. We're going to do some initial testing once we get the custom .VPK ready to make sure it's all functional when the time comes for everyone to download and run through it. I've been getting a lot of positive reactions, helpful suggestions and great art submissions. Keep them coming and spread the word: DULUTH IS A GHOUL CITY!

Send questions or comments to
yord@left4duluth.com

Adios!

Smooth Sailing

Things are going smoothly! We've been getting a lot of suggestions and hype is building as our Homegrown Open Beta release date looms closer and closer. I just added a bunch of custom images that Laramie and SkatRadioh sent to me, as well as a few Jambox stickers. Next up, more detail work on the Holiday Centre, the DECC, and the Michigan Street area, and then we're moving on to soundscapes and gameplay elements! Tutorials for how to add soundscapes and custom textures will follow our Beta release, for those who have scoured the internet like I and found little help!

Send questions or comments to
yord@left4duluth.com

Adieu!

Submit Game Art

The images and art you submit will line the halls of Left 4 Duluth's venues and landmarks with something interesting and inspiring, while also lending the entire project authenticity. We've spent many hours getting things to feel right, but it just wouldn't look right without you!

When the final version is released online for free this summer, we'll post an online gallery with images of your submissions— individually credited—for people to browse at their leisure. And, if you have one, we'll post a link to your personal website.

This is an entirely free project done in the spare time of local heroes during their busy lives. Help us make it feel real and give Duluth the zombie apocalypse it deserves!

Send JPGs, questions, or comments to
yord@left4duluth.com