Last night, after playing a couple of long rounds of L4D Versus mode with a friend of mine, I started wondering what the hell some people are smoking before they play the game. The afternoon started off well enough - we played a couple of friends-only rounds with people I had added over the last couple of months, the atmosphere was mostly cordial and we had loads of fun.

When most of the group left after a great round of No Mercy, we decided to open our lobby to the public. At the time there were four of us left so we stuck on the same team, while other team was filled with pubbers (i.e. random people). Two of the first pubbers to join were obviously from some kind of clan, while the other two looked to be random non-clan players. On the whole they worked extremely well together, which was fine, as our team was communicating, setting up effective strategies and pulling them off. All in all we were pretty much on par for the first map.

The problems started when two guys on my team disconnected, thus opening spots for two pubbers. My friend and I were simultaneously using TeamSpeak and in-game voice, allowing us to both comment on the game in private and talk tactics to our new team mates. If only they had talked back, that is. Of all the people who joined and left our team for the rest of the campaign, not a single one spoke, and only one took the time to write something in global chat - complaining, after we had lost a round, that no one had come to rescue him when he split up from the group.

Another guy who was briefly on our team consistently left the safe room without his med pack, ignoring our verbal and textual hints to take it. He also had the habit of either racing ahead or just splitting up from the team, getting himself killed in the process. His successor wasn’t much better. Obviously playing with his sound off, this idiot was completely oblivious to the world around him. Either that or he was intentionally letting the rest of us get raped by hunters while he stood with his back to us, trying to pick off distant zombies with his shotgun. While on the infected side, these people could obviously do less damage to the team as a whole, though they still completely ignored our attempts at strategic teamwork.

The question we kept asking ourselves is: why? Is it really more fun to rush off alone and get yourself killed than to stick together and play as a team? The whole concept of Left 4 Dead is centered around teamwork - even versus mode is nothing but coop with player-controlled enemies (counter-coop?). All in all, I’d say that people playing L4D need to remember a set of 10 simple gameplay guidelines for each side:

Survivors

1. Stick to your team.
2. Be aware of your surroundings, especially listen for certain sounds and musical cues.
3. Help downed survivors in any way possible, as fast as possible.
4. Do not rush ahead. Getting to the safe room first does not make you the winner.
5. Do not lag behind or otherwise slow the team down.
6. Pass pills around to those in need.
7. Use med packs conservatively and never outside of cover.
8. Never run after an infected who is running away from you. It’s a trap!
9. Use molotovs and pipe bombs both convervatively and sensibly.
10. Pick your weapon to suit the environment.

Infected

1. Never attack alone. Not even if you’re the tank.
2. Try to anticipate what your team mates are doing and assist them.
3. Concentrate on keeping downed survivors on the ground, however possible.
4. Watch out for survivors running ahead or otherwise leaving the group. They are easy prey.
5. Do anything to slow the survivors down. Smokers should target stragglers.
6. Injured survivors are primary targets. Try to prevent them from healing.
7. If the survivors bunch up in a closet, stay back and wait for them to come out.
8. Try to lure survivors away from the group and into a trap. Hunters are perfect bait.
9. Use fire to your advantage (burning hunter etc.). Tanks should obviously stay away from it.
10. Listen to your team mates.

And that’s about it.

Here’s some in-game footage from the FEAR 2 demo, recorded by moi:

Pretty neat stuff, although there are some minor bugs (some of which are in the video). Still, I look forward to buying this game. And then screaming like a girl while playing it at night with surround sound.

I just discovered a website called nothingforungood.com, describing life in Germany from an american point of view. Although I’m from the UK and more or less grew up here in Germany, I can definitely still relate to a foreigners view of german quirks.

EDIT: British English is “the wrong kind of English“? I beg to differ, sir. When dealing with foreigners from any part of the world, whether they are from an english-speaking country or not, business will most likely be done in english. Germans learn “Oxford English” because it is spoken clearly and easy to understand, unlike most american dialects. Also, using american spelling in school does not get you bad marks. Mixing british and american spelling does.