Update to left 4 dead has been released, just launch your game and it will update as follows;

The Left 4 Dead Survival Pack is now available for the PC and Xbox 360, free of charge to all owners of the game. The full change list for the PC release is below. In addition, both the retail and Steam versions of the game (PC and 360) are now available for a special price. Check Steam and local retailers for pricing details. For more information about L4D, please visit www.l4d.com

Survival Mode

• New gameplay Mode
• 16 maps including Last Stand
• Leaderboards
• 7 new achievements

Versus Changes

• 2 new versus campaigns
• Fixed a case where versus team score would continue to be recalculated after the score panel was displayed
• Fixed an issue with recalculating the versus score health bonus for a player when they are rescued from being incapacitated
• Fixed being able to start a swing as an infected, then teleport to the survivors and have the claw swing hit a survivor
• Fixed a case where teleporting to the survivors would not reset the ability timer
• Fixed an exploit where you could load the chamber of a weapon with bullets by holding down the melee key
• Fixed a case where it was not possible to join a game while it was in a finale
• Fixed a rare case where listen servers would speed up the game over time
• Removed convars related to melee fatigue
• Fixed a case where infected players would get a respawn time on their initial spawn into a map

Server Changes

• Made ms_force_dedicated_server not require cheats
• Add a message when queuing a heartbeat
• Simplified setting of game mode
• Removed convars director_no_human_zombies and director_holdout_mode
• Added mp_gamemode [coop,versus,survival]

General

• Added lobby join and leave messages

A required update for Left 4 Dead has been released.  Please run hldsupdatetool to receive the update.  The specific changes include:

Game and client changes:
- Introduced fatigue to the melee attack in versus mode. You will see a HUD display when your melee swing is cooling down
- Boomer vomit will now pass through common infected
- Addressed some surround sound detection issues
- Fixed a rare crash when exiting Left 4 Dead on Windows Vista
- Fixed a case where the complete all expert campaigns achievement was not being rewarded

Dedicated server changes:
- Corrected an issue where Windows based dedicated were sending spurious shutdown notifications to the master causing - them to delist temporarily
- Fixed dedicated servers not resetting the versus team swap correctly–you could join a dedicated server that had a - previous game that was swapped and arrive on the other team than what was selected in the lobby
- Renamed the tags for sv_search_key to use “key:” in the server tags instead of “sv_search_key.” This should help with issues of the 63 character limit of server tags
- Fixed an occasional server crash related to voting

Jason

To update your Left 4 Dead game servers please run the update button on your control panel.

There has been a very minor update for Left 4 Dead servers.

Updates to Left 4 Dead have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Left 4 Dead

• Fixed an exploit with melee where swapping weapons ignored the intended delay between swings.
• In Versus mode, the Tanks’ health now reflects the damage he takes from burning.
• Fixed an exploit related to the “joinclass” command

It’s rumoured on the grapevine that a Left 4 Dead server update is imminent. Rumour has it versus mode will be available on Dead Air and Death Toll. We’ll keep you posted if we hear anymore!

And the best news of all….hopefully we should be seeing new maps, because I think we’ve all exhausted the current ones to death!

One of the games that really has grabbed my interest over the past couple of months is Left 4 Dead. The dedicated game server environment introduced match making. Instead of the traditional method of searching steam lists for a Left 4 Dead dedicated server as a player, you can join a lobby, or you can choose to join directly to a Left 4 Dead server based on your settings. The problem is, there’s lots of people hosting the server locally, or in short running a Left 4 Dead dedicated server, on inferior hardware, and on their home connection.

We hate lag on Left 4 Dead servers

I thought lag on CSS was irritating. But on on a Left 4 Dead  dedicated server, it’s deadlier than a being attacked by a Hunter. Have you ever played on a L4D server where you can see that big RED dot next to your name, when you hit tab? That means crappy connection. It usually means someone is hosting the dedicated server from their home PC. Ouch.

With Call of Duty 4, it might ruin your perfect score. With Counterstrike Source, make you look a total noob. On Left 4 Dead, it gets you killed. I seem to find it always happens as horde rushes you. A 10 second lag while the Left 4 Dead dedicated server recovers, and then great…you come back and you are dead on the floor, with the miserable game music ringing in your ears.

Minimum requirements for a Left 4 Dead dedicated server

You really do need at least a Dual Core Xeon, or above to be running a Left 4 Dead game server. Nothing less if you don’t want to repeat the scenario above. For maximum requirements, we recommend:

Quad Core Xeon
At least 4GB RAM
100mbit+ connection

A full, 8 player versus Left 4 Dead dedicated server alone uses around 18% cpu on one core on a Quad Core, so you can imagine how it holds up on an inferior home PC, where don’t forget the owner is going to be playing (more CPU!) and they’ll have their usual array of programs open.

Incidently, I know of a company that hosts Left 4 Dead dedicated servers. Until next time

Another update has arrived over night:

A required update for Left 4 Dead has been released.  Please run hldsupdatetool to receive it.  The specific changes include:

- Fixed Infected Players melee pushing large objects to block the survivors path
- Fixed +lobby exploit
- Fixed exploit of “hugging” the Witch from behind where she can’t hit you
- Fixed players not being kicked from a vote by changing their name before it succeeds
- Disabled difficulty change votes from the console in versus mode

Jason

Please reboot your Zombie Panic Source server to implement these changes.

An update has been released for Left 4 Dead gameservers:

A required update for Left 4 Dead is now available.  Please run hldsupdatetool to receive this update.  The specific changes include:

- Finding a dedicated server when starting the game from a lobby is now faster and more reliable
- Versus mode is now locked to Normal difficulty
- Difficulty on a server is now locked to the one set by the lobby reservation
- Fixed lagouts/spikes after level transition
- Fixed directory issue with spray logs in some cases
- Fixed video settings not saving after closing video options dialog
- Corrected a boomer suicide exploit
- Several minor localization fixes
- Fixed a error were disabling cheats would incorrectly reset data

Jason

It’s here

Early this morning after terrabytes of pre-loading world wide, Left 4 Dead was released to the public.

Unfortunately myself, I purchased the game before the demo….yet Steam wants me to buy it again for some reason. So I’ll have to wait for now

We’ve uploaded all content, and as an existing customer you can switch and install to Left 4 Dead. Left 4 Dead servers are now also available for the full the game on our website at very low slot pricing.

Let’s hope the full game is as successful as the demo was.

The Left 4 Dead Demo has been updated.  Please run hldsupdatetool to receive this update.  The specific changes include:

- Fixed problem with users not being able to connect to dedicated servers
- Fix a bug with the group browser not always showing the list of group servers
- Fixed a bug with the rcon command

This is not a required update, but it is recommended that you update as soon as possible.

Jason

And another one…

A required update for the Left 4 Dead Demo has been released.  Please run hldsupdatetool to receive the update.  The specific changes include:

- Fixed a bug where the connection to a server would get stuck in a looping state
- Made sv_steamgroup_exclusive not connect to matchmaking. Removed sv_unreserve, private servers should sv_steamgroup_exclusive now
- Improved the speed in finding a game lobby
- Fixed a bug that could cause you to search for a game lobby indefinitely

Jason

As above, an updates has been released for Left 4 Dead game servers.

To apply the update, please simply reboot your game server.