Perhaps the difference between you and I is that my friends and I are playing on local hosts (listen servers).

In this regard, Left 4 Dead works flawlessly. We've been playing since release with no issues using only the provided UI for hosting games with friends. Create a lobby, invite your friends in, start game...Voila. The dedicated servers are just a nuisance (you have to wait for the game to find one and they're often shit) and in my experience completely unnecessary since you're getting together to play with friends anyway. I guess if have highly inadequate hardware the listen server could be an issue, but the hardware requirements are significantly less than those of typical games released today, and many have reported no issues hosting servers on what would be relatively inferior hardware.

So silly that it'll take them nearly a year to get this content out. Was it worth it Microsoft?

In my experience in the demo you get a pop-up window prompting you to input a password (this occurs if you attempt to join a game a friend is in that is passworded).

If you have a friend that is currently playing you can select their names on the main splash screen and view the various games they're currently playing in to join.

Additionally, there is a server browser (as another option) that you can open by typing "openserverbrowser" @ console.

Blue didn't post it (I sent it to him), but the Steam Store page is now offering L4D @ effectively 25% off; there's a 4-pack for $149.99.

I'm hosting a LAN this weekend, and some of the guys are taking advantage of it. It beats the 10% off that pre-orderers got.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/500/

Can't wait until Tuesday

We're breaking this one in next weekend at a LAN party I'm hosting at my place...should be enough of us to get a full 4 vs 4 versus game going.

Still waiting on the tool set before I pick this one up.

I can't see anything useful coming out of this

It might force Valve to make their pricing more competitive?

This comment was edited on Nov 13, 2008, 01:01.

I'm fairly certain everyone who is "expert is the only way to go" will change their tune when the full game comes out and you have to survive for more than just 1.5 to 2/5's of a campaign...especially considering it's the last part of the campaign that really drains your resources.

You can't please everyone. They'll get over it or they'll move on.

I was entertained, but in retrospect it feels very generic and repetitive, and I'm not sure I can stomach a 2nd playthrough.

Was playing it tonight with my roommate with absolutely no problems at all with matchmaking. I setup a private game, and once we were both in I opened it to public so that it would fill up. One thing I don't like is that it defaults to looking for a dedicated server, and doesn't give you the outright decision to host the game on your own. Luckily, in our case, it couldn't find a dedicated server and allowed me to host it as I preferred.

Lots of fun...just wish it was longer. I can understand why they didn't, but I wish they had given us the whole 'No Mercy' campaign. to try it out.

Um, no, it's actually infinitely possible to play with friends. There's an explicit area to play with "only friends." I have the steam version, so I don't know how it works for others, but only your steam friends can come into your lobby.

I've found you can use this to your advantage to become the host of a public game, too. If you go to create a friend (private) game you can still change the settings before you start the game to make it public, and you'll be host (and not have to deal with slow connection hosts).

Yeah, my game is definately crashing any time I join a server with a game already in progress. Anyone else having any issues? I can start a game with others fine.

Edit: FUCK. It's crashing all the time once I load in now. I've tried dropping the graphical details to a bare minimum and it's still crashing no matter what -- I don't understand it. I played half of the single player campaign fine, and now it's completely fubared.

Edit2: A reboot fixed my problems. The demo's real short...not going to be anything that can keep me entertained until the release on the 18th.

This comment was edited on Nov 6, 2008, 12:07.

I've played a few minutes in single player, and a friend just got on -- I'm trying to join his game and it's crashing every time I load in (Vista said the video drivers are doing it). I've got the latest video drivers from nVidia.

However, I did crank up the video settings 100% (16x AA and filtering) and I was getting no performance issues while playing in single player.

Also, I can confirm that I am unable to find a place to input an IP and connect to a server directly.

He's just a troll. Don't waste your energy.

Not that I'm big on rentals (I couldn't tell you the last thing I rented), but how exactly is that "awesome?" At least...how is that "awesome" for the consumer?

Sounds like the Battlefield series all over to me.

I can't seem to find anywhere that is selling it?

There'll likely be free weekends later. Valve's never supported an extended demo before now, so I'm not surprised. At least they're offering it at all; there were no free demos for CSS, DoD:S, or TF2. L4D seems like one of those games where you could be completely content playing the demo endlessly.

Honestly, I do think it should run until 1 week after it's release though.

This comment was edited on Oct 29, 2008, 00:15.

Why don't you go have a beer, relax, and realize that sometime between now and 11/6/08 Valve can make an announcement that those who pre-ordered on steam will also have access? Mkay?