Like we said on our Twitter feed a few days ago, we recently decided to restrain ourselves to a few deadlines. The work is nearly over (I know we’re always saying that), the first deadline was 4 days ago, and we only missed it by a few days. Unfortunately, we still can’t give any release date yet because we’re waiting for Valve to fix the game (else we can’t even play the campaign properly), but we’re definitely seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
What’s left to do you may ask? Well, it kinda depends on our regular playtests (we always find a few things to tweak), but I’d say there’s still the extraction vehicle to export as a Source engine model, the fourth map (Lumberyard) to polish a bit, a few tweaks to the navigation meshes, a few more particle systems, various small optimizations and then, the coop should be finished. But when I said we missed our last deadline by a few days, it wasn’t really true. Most of our tasks are linked to a particular actor of the project and for some of them, there’s no other way to proceed, it’s not like anyone else could do the job. That why while Nicolas’ still finishing the last tasks, I’ve already started to take care of the Versus side of the campaign.
You read well, we never really decided if we were going to implement a Versus mode or not (mostly because we don’t care about versus), so the question was still on hold until a few days ago. We finally decided that we had to do it for the fans, but I need to warn everyone about something: we’re definitely not going to deeply playtest versus. The campaign is playing good in coop mode, we’re just providing space and paths for the infected to roam around. Basically, every map will have some special infected that won’t play particularily well:
- Forest: Works well for Smokers and Hunters, not really for Boomers
- Manor: Works well for Smokers and Boomers, not really for Hunters
- Underground: Works well for Smokers and Boomers, not really for Hunters
- Lumberyard: Works well for Hunters and Boomers, not really for Smokers
- Lakeside: Works well for the three of them
Finally, I’ll repeat some of the things we already said recently: Why aren’t we planning an open beta? Because that’s not the way we work. Read about Agile software development and its “produce less, iterate more often” guidelines. Why is this taking so long to release? External people can’t really understand how hard it is to come up with something like what we’re doing when there’s already hundreds of campaigns out there. We’re not just building another campaign, we’re building something from the ground up with a different approach. There’s a bunch of other campaigns doing the same, and most of them are in development since shortly before I Hate Mountains. We know what we did, we know what we have to do, we know that the campaign is fully playable since months, but “playable” doesn’t mean “finished” and even less “polished” or “bug-free”.
“Stay positive guys, I have a good feeling about this!”
Wow! that's definitely some good news there! I can't wait to play this! Thanks for doing a good job with keeping us up-to-date through the website and twitter!
Woah… Superbe sreenshot ! Ça donne vraiment envie ! Bonne continuation, ça a l'air d'être vraiment d'enfer !
Ps : J'ai tenté la campagne "Dark blood" et je l'ai trouvé très abouti. Je sais que vous aviez fait la promo du très bon "suicide blitz" alors je me permet de vous en parler.
Amicalement !
You guys are one of the main reasons i keep L4D1 installled, even though i play part 2 all the time.
good luck guys und take your time. we know developing a mod in this scale is very demending.
keep them updates coming.
Continuez comme ca !
Okay, that you're almost done (in view how long you already work at this thing) are good news.
Adding Versus… dunno if I would call that "good news" (due the fact I see Versus not as a gamemode rather as a gimmick Valve just threw in – and people are whining about all the time), but well… if you want to add it, add it – nobody forces me to play the campaign in Versus. Espically if it was intended to be played in Coop. Am I right?
@Daniel:
You are right.
What's the ball appearing in the left of the third screen?!
@krateos_29:
It's a bubble coming from the Smoker.
Well i see this is almost finished, we keep looking for your work from l4d.es. Thanks for your developing and polishing efforts!
Krateos => would say that it is a hive (bee or wasp)
Great news guys! I'm excited as hell to play it! :)
This is good news. valve will release a new campaign for the first one soon. this should add interest in the game you are developing for. lets hope this thing is a hit!
if you need playtesters for anything, i'm always free! http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197998163714
cannot wait to finally be able to play this thing!!!!! keep up the good work!
@Nicolas
why don't you guys post in the contact page a link to the IHM steam group page? maybe if alot of ppl joined the group valve will see that ppl are interested in this mod and will try to solve the problems with the SDK.
just a thought… can't hurt
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/ihatemountains
@Anonymous:
That's an idea, but the group is not yet ready for people to join. We just reserved the name to avoid hijacking.
Hey Nicolas, this is Glen from the L4D mailing list. Glad you guys are pushing through the setbacks and getting close. Good luck, and looking forward to it.
allright.. well, see you next update i guess.
Ben que dire, hâte de pouvoir tester vos compétences sur L4D. Mais en vous connaissant même seulement via le net, je ne sais pas pourquoi mais je crois connaître déjà le résultat final, va savoir pourquoi ^_^
"Lumberyard level, I hate you. You ruined my whole weekend but I finally made you my bitch! Dammit!"
i laughed so hard :D
Merci les gars j'ai "hate" d'en voir plus . Vite une release !
Etant donné que Valve vous a enfin aidé, je suppose que la sortie d'une release devient imminente.
En tout cas, bravo à vous pour vous être démener corps et âme pour fournir une campagne avec du contenu de qualité.
Après la prestation Portal Prélude, celle-ci sera j'en suis sure encore meilleure !
A très vite sur cette campagne qui promets :)
I know this comment would be more appropriate on Protal Prelude Forum, but it looks like quiet these days ;)
Do you have any comment on the latest news coming from San Francisco telling us a Portal 2 was coming?
It looks like great according to Gabe Newell.
These are great news, I hate mountains, Portal 2 …
The only missing point is HL ep3 (or even HL3)
Bye Dudes,
Merci et bon courage.
(question perso, sur le site de Valve, ils disent qu'ils embauchent des 'juniors' si les mods leur on été bons, vous n'avez jamais songé a bossé directement chez Valve?)
"mostly because we don't care about versus" … "we're definitely not going to deeply playtest versus"
Thats a very regrettable statement. Tbh, i'm quite dissapointed, since i think VS is the acutal game while coop is just some extra.
Yes we said that in our news, but be sure we will check a minimum how it plays!