Dog's Blog

HL2 Zombies and DoDS?

Dog — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 06:46:24 +0000

When I wrote scripts with EventScripts a few years ago, I tried to spawn the HL2 Zombies in a DoDS map, for fun. Well, ES couldn't even do that without crashing, so I thought I'd try again with SourceMod. Reading through their forums, FoxMulder, posted a video showing working HL2 Zombies in TF2 and this intrigued me. He didn't want to share the code (understandable) so I had to start from scratch. I tried spawning all sorts of npc_* entities, cycle* entities, monster_* entities. Most... Read more

Friendly Fire – a blessing and a curse

Dog — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:54:10 +0000

I love playing with Friendly Fire. It's good to know that you aren't just shooting wildly all over the place and that every bullet has to count and every bullet has to find the right target. In L4DoD, it adds a certain level of difficulty to the game, making it harder for the US team to shoot the Zombies. The machine gunner, in particular, has to pay close attention. With FF off, machine gunners tend the spam the crap out of targets and don't pay attention to what is going on in front of t... Read more

Stability :)

Dog — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:47:54 +0000

We got stability! And it wasn't my plugin - which kinda pisses me off because I spent hours rewriting routines in my code! Friendly fire is back on and I have written my own forgive routine which gives players the options of slaying, slapping, forgiving or killing/not forgiving. It is much simpler and uses a point_hurt to kill rather than ForcePlayerSuicide (which doesn't work in spawn in DoDS). With a bit of lightning and some sound, it makes a good slay effect! Those couple of days... Read more

Server resets fixed

Dog — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 20:48:14 +0000

Since May, I have been trying to figure out the reasons for the game crashing. It's so annoying to watch a server get to 16/16 and then for no apparent reason whatsoever, crash and burn. Fortunately due to the overwhelming popularity of the game, the server refills in a flash. But that's not the point. I hate crashes of any kind. It indicates bad code and I'm anally retentive when it comes to clean code. Whole sections of code have been rewritten to improve efficiency and to make sur... Read more

A new mode called Survival

Dog — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 04:35:58 +0000

Well, it's hardly new, but it's new for Left4DoD. I have been bothered about how few humans can play on a Left4DoD server. Annoying that in a 32 player server, only 16 people can play. So I pondered what it would be like to open up the game to 32 players. Of course, the only way was to go back to the old formula that Colster/Andersso and many others have used, in that when an Allied players dies, he joins Zombies. I thought about an army of human zombies against Allies...it would be an... Read more

Damned DoD:S

Dog — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 00:27:59 +0000

I really don't know what VALVe did in the April 28th update. Something really screwed up somewhere, so much so, now the engine is as unstable as BP's reputation in the Deep South. Everything has been double checked. I found some illicit code in the drops routines and fixed that and now the servers stay alive longer than a couple of hours. I tried killing the Zombie models thinking the L4D models converted over by TechKnow and Andi caused instability...it still crashed. I tried all sorts... Read more

Damned env_sprites

Dog — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 17:23:32 +0000

Well, after a month of trying to figure why the damned plugin keeps crashing after an hour or so, I figured it out for myself. Apparently the Source engine crashes when trying to remove env_sprites, also known as the American symbol above The Infected One and the sprites showing the Zombies where the American players are. At first I used RemoveEdict(entity) and it worked for the most part, but usually after an hour or two, the server would crash...perhaps because the Source Engine was try... Read more

Latest update

Dog — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 21:27:23 +0000

Well, I have been ignoring Left4DoD since the beginning of May. Our phpBB2 forums at TheVille were seriously outdated and needed to be renewed and updated to the more secure phpBB3. As a result, Left4DoD took a hit and since the ill-fated VALVe update of 28 April, the plugin has been unstable beyond belief. Random crashes for which I can't pinpoint any reason. I thought it might have been to do with the code that showed the Zombies the location of the Human players - the see through walls... Read more

Too strong?

Dog — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 16:35:55 +0000

I must be playing a different game from many other players. There is a common theme running amongst some L4DoD players, these days, that when there are 4 human Zombies, they are unbeatable. Huh? I've been on Allied teams winning against 20 Zombies. I've lost many rounds as a Zombie. Kinda frustrating. I'm trying to balance the game so that human Zombies don't feel frustrated dying time after time, while the Allies still feel like they can beat the hordes. I've reduced human Zomb... Read more

Exploits and crap

Dog — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 02:51:36 +0000

Hehe! Every time I introduce something new (in this case, players going on fire because of the flaming skulls), someone, somewhere will find a way to get around it! Word quickly spreads as players help each other out. In this case, players quickly learned to go prone to put out the flames. It wasn't planned to do that - it was an exploit. And just as I was about to introduce a new fire extinguisher drop from the Zombies, too! So I canned the fire extinguisher and I also canned the fi... Read more