14 DAY TRIAL // Valve's been known for being friendly with its fans, especially with the mod community. And, with the Christmas and the holiday season in full bloom, the company was even more generous than usually. First, Team Fortress 2 got a huge amount of attention, mainly through the War update. When this was over, the game received another treat, in the form of beta bots, so we no longer have to wait for someone to fill the server, or at least have someone to practice on when we're getting our butts kicked online. Now, Valve has acted as Santa for another chunk of its fan community, and, this time, it's for those zombie slayers out there.
Left 4 Dead 2 received its SDK, and the modding community can go crazy and plan a special Survive New Year's Eve event, or anything else they can think of. For casual players, the base installation of the source developer kit will be needed to be able to play any custom content, but modders will need to download the Left 4 Dead 2 Authoring Tools as well. These will allow a lot of new, user-made additions to the game, but the biggest thing we've all been waiting for is the original L4D campaign.
The previous content will have to be re-compiled to work with the L4D2 game, but at least we now have the option do to it ourselves. As for the other things enabled by the Authoring Tools, Valve revealed them on the L4D2, and customization is the name of the game. You can find them listed and detailed below.
Gamemode Logic: Designers can now make a single map that can behave differently depending on the gamemode in which it is being played. This can dramatically reduce the file size of Campaign add-ons, as the same map can be used for Co-op, Versus, Scavenge, and Survival.
Director Logic: Maps can now alter their layout and behavior depending on how "angry" the A.I. director is. The better the Survivors are doing, the angrier the AI Director seems to get. This allows you to base variable paths and other events on the player's skill and current conditions.
Scavenge Mode Support! All the elements map authors need to support Scavenge in their maps. This includes game props as well as a full example in the form of Deadline 2, an updated tutorial campaign.