Talk:Left 4 Dead 2

Images

It is ridiculous that someone thought that adding pictures to the article constituted vandalism. I'm glad someone has cleaned them up but it is irresponsible to assume that adding screen shots somehow counts as malicious intent. (Die Snack 2.0 (talk) 10:10, 21 July 2010 (UTC))

Weapons

Does anyone know what the weapons available are called. Would be good if they were listed.--English Bobby (talk) 23:55, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.88.223.78 (talk) 18:20, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Lists of weapons are strongly discouraged in game articles. We're not Gamefaqs. --MASEM (t) 18:25, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Australian A-G Atkinson retires the same time L4D2 is on Steam for 50% off

Valve celebrating in their own way before they resubmit the game (after April hopefully sees the R18 rating come in)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.178.224.34 (talk) 15:07, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Before we can mention this in the article, I think we'd need a reliable source that explicitly ties the sale with Atkinson's resignation, and then we'd need to establish that this is a notable event. —LOL ^T/_C 18:58, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Artificial Intelligence link in the 1st paragraph

Artificial intelligence link in the first paragraph points to Artificial intelligence: since the so called "Director" is more an AI surrogate, wouldn't it be more accurate to point to Game artificial intelligence? 79.22.129.199 (talk) 22:12, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

DLC : the Passing

"The Passing is the first Downloadable Content (DLC) campaign for Left 4 Dead 2. It was released on April 22, 2010[1][2]. It includes a new campaign and "new co-operative challenge modes of play." It also introduces a new firearm, the M60; the Golf Club, and a new Uncommon Common Infected called the Fallen Survivor.

The Passing takes place between Dead Center and Dark Carnival, in the suburban town of Rayford, Georgia. One of the main features of this campaign is a meet-up between the Left 4 Dead 2 Survivors and three of the Survivors from Left 4 Dead. Note that the original Survivors are not playable. The original Survivors appear in the campaign's first chapter, where they meet up with the new Survivors. They appear once again near the end, to help Coach, Nick, Rochelle, and Ellis escape. The campaign is playable in all of the current game modes, as well as the newly featured ones. It is free for PC, and 560MSP on the Xbox 360[3].

The DLC is called "The Passing," which could be interpreted in several ways. It may simply be referring to the passing of the two parties. It could also refer to the idiom "The passing of the torch", which is referenced in the achievement unlocked upon completing the campaign. But it may refer to the passing on, or death, of Bill, who gave up his life to save the others. The death of Bill and the appearance of the Fallen Survivors are also why the tagline is "Nobody survives forever." To explain how this happened, Valve will be releasing DLC for Left 4 Dead, in which the players play through a new campaign, leading up to the event, ending with one player giving up their life to let the other three Survivors escape. A digital comic book will also come out to show what happens to the original Survivors after the events of Left 4 Dead. " http://left4dead.wikia.com/wiki/The_Passing

Vmaldia (talk) 16:37, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Mod Community

I felt it was time that a mod community section be added to the game, due to the heavy nature of popular mods and servers to the game. Specifically my reasoning for citing the ZombieCC server as an example of a popular modded server / 20 player server is due to it's worldwide ranking in the top 10 more traffic'ed servers. If anyone feels it would be more proper/impartial to include a list of modded servers (as there are hundreds), that'd be fine too, but it really was inaccurate to specifically state "4v4" as the cap for the title when that isn't the case for the PC version. Given thousands of people traffic the "large scale" and modded game servers I thought it was a big enough of a detail to be mentioned.

Likewise, I avoided citing examples of specific campaigns that have reached popularity such as Death Aboard and City 17 as I'm unsure how people here would feel about listing specific well known campaigns. But I did think it was at least notable that there is new, independent content for this game out there so that a reader might decide to google it up or make an informed choice between the PC/360 version.

In short if the article's purpose is to inform people, including the wealth of 3rd party content available should be considered.

EDIT: I'd like to ask that people stop undoing these revisions based on a "bad source." The previous source (the updated one is far more clear about this fact) simply display the most popular current Left4Dead 2 servers, with IPs, and player count. I have no affiliation with ZombieCC, but used it as a point of reference as the #1 L4D2 server, which is 24 players (10v10 + 4 Spectators). As for not being notable, the wide majority of servers in the top 50 are modified to support over 8 players with similar mods. At any given point in the day, almost a third of the player base can be found on these servers, not the standard 4v4 ones. I think that qualifies as definitely notable. This is also a major difference between the PC and 360 version of the game.

Feel free to connect to any of the servers on the list, I have no idea how you could get more clear, provable and reliable than that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BlazingOwnager (talk • contribs) 11:00, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Mod communities exist for most games, so there's no special need to call it out here, unless the mod itself is subject of notable coverage (otherwise, we run into everyone putting in their self-created mod). There may be a few maps/campaigns between LFD 1/2 that meet this but not to the point where they have to be called out. As for servers with larger numbers of players, we need reliable sources to say that such serves exists. A server browser is not reliable because that information is transient - today there may be 50 servers, tomorrow there may be none. We need a source like IGN or Gamespot - not a forum post but an article - to discuss that there are >4 player servers out there for L4D for us to properly include this information. --MASEM (t) 13:02, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Previously, the reference linked to specific servers, but that was too narrow; so the major list was referenced, and that also doesn't seem good enough? Also I believe the fact that, at any point during the day, a full third of the active player base of the game will be found on servers OVER 8 players is major enough to warrant this - something that has been the case for multiple months now, this isn't a recent thing. Saying the top is 8 players in this article is flat out wrong and I'm beginning to think you only have the 360 version, and are thus heavily biased in this regard.

The bottom line is citations exist to prove information being said is true. From the current reference you can press one button and see hundreds of servers support exactly what I said they can. Hundreds. Among those hundreds, the vast majority are in the top 50. You can join them, and see them with your own eyes and to be entirely honest if suddenly the community STOPPED playing on the top servers, the overall server list would still show a huge number of them. Anyone hosting a PC server can configure one of these servers very easily. It verges on not being considered a mod at all for the simple player count aspect.

Regardless, I added several more citations now, including a Destructoid article WITH a video, so I don't know what else I could provide at this point.

Are they going to be there a year from now? 5 years? 10 years? Highly unlikely. The server list showing this is happening is not a reliable source, a requirement for sourcing on Wikipedia. We need an article from a reliable source that says this is occurring, not the presence of such servers. --MASEM (t) 02:10, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Sources were included, for one. As for their endurance, given this is a simple change to the settings file that can allow this, yes, they will exist until the end of the game's existence. I could set one up, right now, without downloading anything at all (and thus is NOT A MOD, despite your edit) in about one minute. That's also why they are popular.

Again, you do NOT need to modify the game in any way, shape or form to start a server with more players outside of having an already standard set of hosting tools that nearly any server admin will have. Adjusting a settings file with standard admin tools is hardly an "unofficial mod." End users need not download anything at all - merely open your server browser and double click, or choose an IP. This shows on the official server list. You can connect to any one of these from the in game server browser, if you choose to open it (rather than the lobby system).

I highly suspect you own the 360 version of the game and don't understand what's going on here.BlazingOwnager (talk) 02:21, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I have both, I know exactly what it is. However, the game officially is only designed for 4 survivors and 4 infected, regardless of what cvars you can change. We don't include unofficial hacks or similar types of information inside the info box which is basic needs to remain the equivalent of the box specifications.

Now, I did see the destructoid ref to it, that's a reasonable valid source. Because of that I've put in a "Modding community" section at the end of the article to mention custom maps, etc. including the 16 player mode since we can source that. But that's all we can say about it. Any more and its undue weight on a fan-created aspect. --MASEM (t) 02:31, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I will say adding the information to a secondary category is an acceptable compromise, if it'll provide the information and end this tug-of-war. Honestly the only reason I never felt it worthwhile to put this information in before is, previously, this WAS a niche part of the game. It's expanded to become one of the most enduring parts of the current player base in recent months, however, which is why I've been so determined about it now. BlazingOwnager (talk) 04:00, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Just because it may be the most popular way to play L4D2 now, doesn't mean it is the type of thing we can document through reliable sources. The server listing is only a temporarily source that has no permanence, something we need in sourcing. The server instructions is also not from a reliable source so we cannot include them. The Destructiod source *is* reliable to establish that more than 8 people can play on servers, but without any more coverage from reliable sourcess, that's all we can say about this fact. We cannot document what we know to be true, only what reliable sources say are true. --MASEM (t) 04:34, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Please stop trying to add more to justify this point. The sources you are using are not reliable - please see WP:V, WP:RS, WP:SPS, and so on, and understand that we are looking for high quality sources that have editorial control. And while you may feel that saying 24 players can play, the point is that we can establish more than 4-on-4 can be done by players, and that is all that matters to this article. This doesn't prelude if there is more coverage of the extended player mode in future sources, but right now we cannot say anything else without engaing in original research and biased viewpoints. --MASEM (t) 04:42, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

There's no way to bias this. You're basically saying that something that is real, that you and I both can see is real, that is unquestionably tangible (the existence of a large number of servers that support between 9 and 24 players) cannot be so much as mentioned here without first getting someone in a game industry website to write an article on it. I'd completely understand this minor point and agree that some of the extra citations are unnecessary, but the fact is you are basically stating that an incorrect bit of information should be here instead of a correct one - a minor point as you mentioned, but a valid point none the less - on the sole fact noone happened to have written an article about 24 player servers, while they did write one about a 16 player server. I'd even give you this if these were some rare, niche thing, but they're quickly becoming a key issue to longevity in this game as witnessed by the number of people playing on them.

Honestly it just boils down to that, arguing that unless an article on the internet states it's true, it has to be stated false, even though anyone can see it's unquestionably true (more so with the citations - some of which are informative, if not merely just evidence) and there's no real arguing against it being true. That's rapidly approaching some spiraled dogma on what is, as you said, a pretty small issue. BlazingOwnager (talk) 09:41, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

As it states in WP:V, "[t]he threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth" (emphasis in quote). The section on sources additionally stresses that claims must be referenced by "reliable, third-party (independent), published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". So ideally we should not mention these capabilities unless we can provide a top-notch source to back up the claim. And yes, this could stray into mistruth/lie territory, even if we know the truth. In practice, however, editors change articles all the time without citing their sources, which is fine until someone challenges, reverts, or removes the information. At that point, per WP:BURDEN, the editor who wants the information included must provide a reliable source or we don't include it, period. I think that WP:UNDUE also applies here, because it appears that only a handful of reliable sources (out of hundreds or thousands) are mentioning this capability. Since we should report details in proportion to the available sources, a mention could probably be justified but any extensive coverage should probably wait until more sources appear. Just my $0.02. Wyatt Riot (talk) 11:21, 9 July 2010 (UTC)