New valve game - Alien Swarm

Downloading now! looking forward to some TOG team-ups for this one.. should be good from the look of things.

 

Hey

I would like to play with some TOGers. I have placed request to join TOG Group on Steam, hopefully this will help locate some more players and games.

If any TOG player would like to join me in a game it seems we need to be on friend lists first. If you would like to do so, send me a request.

My Steam name is Starjack_1970

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197971259869/home/

Edit:
Thanks for including me in Group.

 

I like it so far, but the server browser is absolutely horrible. You cant tell if a game is full or not, so you have to join and hope theres an empty slot. But then, if there is a space for you but the team has already started the mission, you have to wait on spectate until they either complete the level or die. Stupid and very frustrating.

 

Internal map maker:
Swarm TileGen - Valve Developer Community

 

Starjack, look out for us online Steam Id toghoppy

 

Just had my first game then, and like it! and so many items to unlock! weeeeeee

 

Just getting it now

Looks like a good 4 player game

 

1. Use Tesla Cannon
2. Set Ghostbusters theme as battle tune
3. ???
4. Profit

best game ever.

 

!!!

Now I have to check... yes, I have an MP3 of that too - awesome!

Someone's posted a list of "useful console commands" in the Steam users' forum, including some options for switching from top-down view to first-person view; as you can imagine, the game's not really designed for this so not everything you expect is present (eg., there's no skybox, there's no weapon in front of you or hands, etc.) but generally speaking, it kinda-sorta works ... and oh boy, what a close-up view it gives you!

 

pics?

 

Cut and paste/type the following into the console (one line at a time)..

Code:

[COLOR="Blue"]alias [/COLOR]FPS [COLOR="Indigo"][B]"firstperson; asw_hide_marine 1; asw_controls 0"[/B][/COLOR]
[COLOR="blue"]bind [/COLOR][COLOR="Indigo"][B]"v"[/B][/COLOR] FPS

Gives you this:

 

Wow, hadn't imagined that was possible. Definitely playable by the looks and would tend to be harder having lost the constant 360 view of knowing what's really happening behind you.

 

Oh, sorry, that was me behind you...

I cannot seem to get the console up ;o(

Pressing the ` key didn't work??

 

Go into Options --> Keyboard/Mouse and then tick the box "Enable Developer Console"

 

I wonder how long it'll take someone to port the L4D assets over the this engine/format?

Is it just a coincidence that there are 8 L4D characters and 8 character classes in Alien Swarm?

Or perhaps a co-op version of HL2. It's petty awesome of a company to release something like this with mod tools for free. It's like Valve are saying "We're too busy with Portal 2 so we'll just let you finish this one for yourselves".

 

I reckon this may be the intention here:
Zombie Swarm - Official Development Thread - Steam Users' Forums

 

Yeah, although the % of Mod projects that actually get started is pretty small, fewer still ever make it to a release. I thought using L4D content would increase the chance of a mod seeing the light of day as the biggest hurdle, asset creation, is already done in terms of: props, textures, visual & lighting style, effects, animations, audio ect ect.

I wonder how moddable this game is though - I haven't looked at the SDK tools myself yet. I know you can use the base Source Engine SDK to do just about anything as you can link in compiled C++ code, but with Valve's actual "games" you're usually very limited in what's moddable to just Map content. You can't mod gameplay, characters, enemies, weapons ect like you can with other moddable FPS games like UT3, Doom 3, Crysis, Starcraft 2 and so on. Well, apparently you can mod weapons and characters with L4D2, I hope that's available to modders without using strange "hacks" in AS as well.

Is anyone here poking around in the AS SDK? I don't have time to look at it much myself at the moment but would be keen to hear about it.

 

I just hope Valve aren't giving us a glimpse in to the future, that the Alien Swarm lobby system is how we can in future expect Portal 2, L4D and L4D2 lobbies to operate (I'm referring here to the AS approach of connecting to or hosting a server first, then creating the lobby, rather than the other way around as in L4D/L4D2).

Like Synergy?

It is - though I hope Valve complete the (currently missing) fundamental infrastructure elements for dedicated servers before they move on (ie., no Linux dedicated server, Windows dedicated server by default is limited to LAN-only with no Steam connectivity, etc.).

 

Interesting comment. I've seen others post that they see the way AS does it as a positive. Haven't really though about it much myself, but it would enable server camping I suppose if there's no timeout.

 

Want to add MP bots? You can, courtesy of fox Unit 01 over at Black Cat forum.
Adding bots to MP via console - Black Cat Forums

I've copied below the cfg he created to make it convenient, but go read the post if you're interested. Yet to try it out myself.

EDIT: Tested and works pretty well. Use F1, F2 etc (up to the number of bots you've added) to switch control between each one.