Okay, I don’t know for you and your country, but in France, we just entered Christmas Eve day. For a few days (probably more than two weeks), we’ll keep silent and take a break with family. But before we leave, we wanted to say a few last things about the campaign.
We know it’s taking a bit longer than expected to get this campaign done. In fact, this is taking way longer than expected. At first, we thought we could have a release for the end of the summer, eventually it didn’t happen. Then, we thought we could do it for November, and we worked at a fairly sustained pace to keep up, but eventually it didn’t happen either. Finally, we thought we could finally have a release for Christmas (that would have been awesome), but you guess it, it still won’t happen for a number of reasons.
There was the great debacle of the Left 4 Dead Authoring Tools, that didn’t helped us as soon and as much as expected since most (if not all) of the components Valve initially promised never really showed up. But that’s OK, we didn’t really care anyway. Then, each one of us got back to work or school after summer, and as we’re all at the beginning of our professional life or at the end of our scholar life, it consumes a lot of our time. But that’s OK, we could bare with it. Finally, there was the big disappointment and excitation around the release of Left 4 Dead 2, which sucked up a lot of our time and motivation and brings us to the second point.
To be honest, at that point, we really thought it was time for us to give up. Until a week ago, as a leader I wasn’t really sure if we were still headed somewhere at all. We saw the numbers, we saw Left 4 Dead 1 leaking players faster than ever, we saw it fall behind Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, the Garry’s Mod, and even regularly Day of Defeat: Source, which hasn’t even been supported for years (July 2008). Even us weren’t playing Left 4 Dead 1 anymore, that really frightened us to hell to think that our project was already obsolete before its completion. Valve really didn’t left us enough time to build something serious.
For your information, on the official Left 4 Dead Mailing List a few beta-testers are talking about the upcoming Left 4 Dead 2 SDK. Let’s be honest, for the moment it looks particularly promising, but then again, if we really want to be honest, the SDK of the first one looked promising too and nothing happened. For a while, we considered switching to Left 4 Dead 2, finish our campaign and wait for the SDK to be released (OK damn, the SDK was released while I was writing this news, so… everything might change again, except the following statement). Don’t freak out though, because we made our decision. I Hate Mountains will be released on Left 4 Dead 1 or won’t be.
Okay, now that things are getting clearer, here’s a bit of information about our progress. Basically, it’s finished. Now, when I say “it’s finished” I mean that the whole campaign is complete and playable. That doesn’t mean the campaign is ready to be released, it means that we’re entering the polishing stage. We have this huge folder full of bugshots (screenshots of bugs) to fix, we need to tweak the navigation of bots and infected, we need to throw a few animations here and there, and more importantly, we need to test it full-scale. We know for sure that the gameplay works quite well, but it won’t hurt anyone.
Wooo, that was quite a long news. Now that you’re all bored, you may need some new materials to cheer you up. So here’s one overview and 20 new action screenshots of the last two maps, taken from of our last playtest.
I Hate Mountains Complete Campaign Overview (spoilers ahead, 875 KB). Now you can see how much work has gone into building different paths and ensure good re-playability.
20 brand new action screenshots taken from the Lumberyard and Lakeside level during our last playtest (no spoilers here, don’t worry).
Until next time, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the I Hate Mountains Team!
That overview map looks incredible, as well as the screenshot. Fantastic job guys.
Left 4 Dead 2 SDK plays Left 4 Dead 1 custom maps, so you guys are in the clear.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
This is going to be Epic!
Merry Christmas!
When you release this campaign, i'm sure people will start to play Left 4 Dead again.
Expecting your awesome campaign!
Looks absolutely amazing. Anxiously awaiting! Have a restful holiday!
Well, it's look good for us o/
Joyeux Noel et bonne année, vous l'avez bien mérité ;)
Awesome stuff guys, looks great :)
Almost cant wait to play it but for now, merry christmas and a happy new year.
great work, really lookin' forward to it!
Wouhaou! The campaign looks so huge!
Congratulation for all your work and good luck for what remains to do!
Joyeux noël et bonne année à toute l'équipe!!
No reason to continue imho, the L4D franchise is now juiced out and slowly dying.
@mystrdat
I don't think the whole Left 4 Dead franchise is juiced out, I think the first one is. However, it seems that Valve is implementing that so-called interoperability right now, so there might be a chance it could still be compatible with both games.
I'm rather amused by your motivation to continue. I say you should continue with the campaign development.
From what I've read, it seems you have put alot of effort into this project and I'm really dying to play this campaign…
I haven't played l4d in months, but I will play it again once this campaign is released
Looks like a hell of a lot work on the campaign, the map is absolutely stunning! Thank you for all your hard work amd have a happy new year 2010!
Valve fucked you guys, and now that you went that far into the mod, you'll have to give them reason by releasing it for L4D2. It's very understandable, as you put so much work into it. Just sad, and probably a lesson for the future.
Bonne chance pour la suite !
Still with U, guys.
Happy New Year, to your Team.
Just keep in mind that your custom Campagin, could be in the future, the "One", we'll remember of all the cusstom campaign of L4D1.
Merci pour votre immense travail.
Bon courage
Hi guys. keep on the work! you'll do it! and a bunch of players will love your work. keep on polishing and then… when it's done: lets play!
great campaing overview.. looks very cool ans awsome to play over and over…
Please, make it at least L4D2 Addon Support compatible! :D
Just wanted to say that for any real l4d fans the decline of l4d1 isn't a big problem in my eyes. Sure, i've been playing l4d2 way more than the original, but any time a good campaign for the original comes out, especially one like this where so much effort has been put in (I can almost smell the sweat and blood…or maybe that's just all the zombies), i'm glad to load up l4d1 again to give this the playtime it deserves. Besides, there's a distinct lack of (good) l4d2 campaigns out there atm, so I still really look forward to releases like this (hence why I check back every so often). So to sum a horribly long grammatically disastrous post, don't lose heart, and better still get it working on the sequel too =D
Ι wish this campaign be better that the Dead before dawn!!! I saw the map and i really like it!! Keep going we will w8… and i have l4d2..i play it…but i love l4d..its better!
Shadow from greece
Glad to know you are helped by Valve concerning the SDK problems you encountered. And what you write on Twitter about the ambiance on lakeside makes me drooling ;) arghhhh….
From the looks of it, this will surely be the one campaign that defines L4D. You guys are doing an awesome job. Keep with it and who knows, you may be asked to work on a Valve mod team someday?
Fuck it guys, change it to L4D2 if it doesn't take more then 6 months, totally would increase longevity of what seems to be an awesome campaign by a team that proved itself by creating a quality mod in the portal vein.