Latest Update 25/3/09

[BBloke]

Here's the latest update news for L4D.. Big up for Valve on the decaying melee attack.. woohoo

Updates to Left 4 Dead have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. 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 Left4Dead 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

[Advent]

That's gonna be a big change...

[AngryWolf]

Introduced fatigue to the melee attack in versus mode. You will see a HUD display when your melee swing is cooling down

I hate it, it pissed me off, I don't like Versus mode anymore!

*Edit:* Don't worry, I'm getting used to it.

[LazyEagle]

that's tough going for the survivors!

"Boomer vomit will now pass through common infected"

This is going to be a big deal too!

[Johnimus Prime]

I think the melee slowdiown is a very good idea! I hate it when you do a really good boom and end up doing no damage because everyone backs into a corner. Should make that section of no mercy by the lift a little fairer as the people who go into the cupboard will suffer more damage.

Should make weapon choice more of an issue as well (I'm thinking about the L4D update thread elsewhere) - Shotty will be ideal for clearing hordes, but only as long as not everyone shoots at the same time as epr what BBloke said!

[QuintusEques]

This new update sounds like it would have more of an effect than it really does. At first it seemed to me like a big change, but I don't really notice it that much. It's more a matter of knowing when to shoot, and when to melee.

[Exterminatus]

It's not a big deal unless you like to spam melee like crazy, before you could get vomited on in an open area and just melee while turning 360 without taking any real damage. More of a boomer buff than a survivor nerf if you ask me.

[LazyEagle]

I have to say that last night I was noticing it more when I was trying to run for something, and I couldn't just bat the zombies out of my way!

I also found the Boomer change to be quite significant, as it makes it a lot easier for the bloated one to follow a bunch off zombies in and actually vomit on the survivors before they've torn your cover to shreds!

[Toco]

both changes are great imo now they just needa give the witch a chance i say they give her scream when she is first aggroed a stun aoe or something to give her a chance to act

[LazyEagle]

both changes are great imo now they just needa give the witch a chance i say they give her scream when she is first aggroed a stun aoe or something to give her a chance to act

or make her playable!