Calling all Left 4 Dead 2 fans: Left 4 Dead 2 Workshop has moved completely out of beta! No more scrounging around rouge websites to find sweet Left 4 Dead mods. Read on to find out how to submit your own!
Fans of Valve games are some of the most passionate ones we know, and for years have been creating new content on their own. With Valves newly accessable L4D2 Steam Workshop, gamers and content creators can now go through this single source instead of going through round-about ways to retrieve top notch L4D2 mods or post their own work. PC players can all go to the Valve licensed Workshop website and upload them for free gamer access and download. User made content, such as custom campaigns, weapons, items, character skins, and a lot more will be featured here, so it’s definitely the place a L4D fan should check out.
Lots of mods have already been out there for some time (over 1,000 so far), so give some time for the more popular ones to arrive on the Workshop page. Valve has kindly asked everyone to restrain themselves from uploading anyone else’s work. Many fans have put a lot of effort into making these mods, so don’t take credit for their hard work and politely ask their creators to upload them instead.
If interested, here’s a quick rundown of how do go about posting your own content to Workshop:
To add content to L4D2:
Load up Left 4 Dead 2 (or browse to it here). In game, click on the add-ons section from the main menu. There you can see add-ons once they are downloaded or choose browse the Workshop. Go into the Workshop, find a something you like – let’s say a skin for Francis where he is in a cop outfit. Click the subscribe button and it will automatically download and appear in the list. If you are doing this through the web browser, it will appear next time you start the game.
Please note – the Workshop has increased its file size limit to 200MB. But this still means some of the larger campaigns will be broken up into sub-200mb chunks. Those campaigns will be in collections and you will need to subscribe to the collection to get all the files.
To create and share content in L4D2:
You will need to update your Authoring Tools and run the Workshop Manager in the tools to upload your content to the Workshop.
A great tip from GShock:
If your campaign is over 200MB you will need to split your vpk into parts with content in each part.
This will also allow you to update your content a lot faster and in turn users do not have to download a much larger file when you release an update to a part.
*Example:
Part 1 Sounds and Scripts
Part 2 Map 1
Part 3 Map 2
Part 4 Materials
Part 5 Models
*Include your missions folder in each part along with your addoninfo.txt file
Once this is done add all your items into a collection and mark it as a "items that work together (will show a 'subscribe to all' button)"
Finally, Valve has established a new forum for Workshop community discussions. Use it to report bugs, request changes to content, or even leave feedback for the user; it’s there for everyone’s convenience! Every item you’ll find on the Workshop will have its own discussion area to begin or join in the conversation. Selected submissions will also be featured on L4D.com, so make sure to rate and comment ones that you’ve experienced to help it make their page and gain viewership.
Leave us a comment below telling us some of the best user-created, L4D2 content out there!