News | 7/17/2009 at 9:44 AM
Left 4 Dead PC Patch Released, Includes Server Browser
Valve has announced a new update is available for the PC version of Left 4 Dead. The biggest addition to the update is a new lobby browser which helps you pair down and choose the exact co-op or versus game you are looking for.
Other updates include Steam Group Server support, and various updates for add-on campaigns. There's still no word on the promised DLC announcement, so hopefully we'll see something soon.
It's been a while since I fired up Left 4 Dead for some co-op action, how about you?
Left 4 Dead has been updated to include a lobby browser. The lobby browser (under Play Online) will show you a list of optimal games available for you to join. The browser pares down the thousands of lobbies and games currently being played to show you the best list of games available to you. This list includes official and add-on campaigns, including add-on campaigns you have not yet installed, making it a great way to discover them. You can filter by difficulty, official and/or add-on campaigns and by lobbies and/or games in progress. The specific changes include:
Left 4 Dead
The Play on Steam Group Server screen now displays which Steam group it's searching while updating the list
After calling a vote to change difficulty in game it is now correctly updated in matchmaking
Add-on Campaigns
When downloading a new version of an add-on and installing it (by double clicking the .VPK file), it will now correctly overwrite the previous version, even while Left 4 Dead is currently running
Addressed a crash when two mission files with the same name are installed
Steam Group Servers now will now correctly offer download links when running add-on campaigns
Server
The server will now warn if the public or private tags exceed their limits. Public tags are limited to 63 characters. Private tags used for matchmaking are now limited to 1024 characters. Note that the private tags include the name of each add-on campaign installed on the server, so an excessive number of add-on campaigns can hit this limit
SDK
The VPK tool should be able to handle campaigns larger than 500MB now
You can now drag and drop or pass a VPK file to the vpk.exe tool to have it extract the contents of the add-on to a folder. This mirrors the functionality of passing a folder and having it create a VPK file
Detail.vbsp and lights.rad have been added to the distribution