Custom Campaign for Left 4 Dead - Death Aboard

[BlueWolf72]

In Death Aboard you start out in a prison and work your way out to the nearest docks area. From here, you board a stranded ship and finally to an island where there will be a lighthouse as a finale​

This is an awesome campaign which everyone should play, you can get Death Aboard here.[br]I absolutely love this campaign, polished very well and amazingly well thought out.?I and all the 51 pages of comments love this campaign's attention to detail and I figured you may as well.?Try it out and post your thoughts!​

 

[Great Grizzly]

The maps where pretty good last I played it, except for the boat map. The collision meshes where all messed up so players where falling into the floors and special infected players spawned inside shipping containers accidentally. 2 of the survivors got stuck and couldn't get out.

The rest of the campaign was flawless, so I dont know what happened there. Would still recommend this campaign

 

[Barnz]

I absolutely love this campaign, polished very well and amazingly well thought out

You say this for every mod/level you post.

Oh well, I'll download it.

Edit: Here's a trailer i found on site (also wth, there's a baloon?!). there's also a review on a channel called "kilplixism".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsR8dx-hmI0

 

[MaximusPM]

This campaign is really awesome... The best addon campaign out there for sure. Many parts look better then even some official maps, it's really amazing. If I had half the skill Diputs has my campaign would probably look much much better then it looks right now -.-

The maps where pretty good last I played it, except for the boat map. The collision meshes where all messed up so players where falling into the floors and special infected players spawned inside shipping containers accidentally. 2 of the survivors got stuck and couldn't get out.

This was fixed already, check Death Aboard 6.1 All problems seem to have been fixed. I guess that the only thing that might bother is that the map ain't fully optimized. Some parts make my FPS go down a bit. Also, the Bot AI is not very smart when walking around the roof of the lighthouse in the finale, but those aren't such a problem.

 

[hool10]

Yeah it's a pretty cool map. The only thing I hate about is the rescue part.

Spoiler

I survived the finale on the roof and I'm happy a hot air balloon comes to rescue me. Unfortunately it goes all the way to the ground, very far from where I was and I quit.

Other than that though, it's a great map.

 

[Uriel]

Very snazzing looking poster art. I'll give it a whirl.

 

[Warped]

i'll give it a whirl

 

[Uriel]

Quite the campaign! Highly impressed by the level design and atmosphere. Must have for any L4D fan.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

It's crap.

As in, it's really not very good.

 

[Zephos]

MY DECISION TO DOWNLOAD THIS CUSTOM CAMPAIGN IS NOW CONFLICTED

 

[Barnz]

It's indeed crap. Some parts are really small, and not suitable for zombie AI/their movement.

 

[Omnomnick]

I've played this campaign a few times, I really enjoy it. I haven't played the latest version though, with the lighthouse at the end - Only the first 4 maps until after the boat.

I'll go play it now. And to all those people who commented saying it was rubbish etc. Please go and make your own L4D full custom campaign and then come back and comment.

 

[Naph]

Please go and make your own L4D full custom campaign and then come back and comment.

Say that to the numerous reviewers at IGN.

 

[Asknoone]

And to all those people who commented saying it was rubbish etc. Please go and make your own L4D full custom campaign and then come back and comment.

In what way would that change the content or meaning of their comments?

 

[Yorick]

I'll go play it now. And to all those people who commented saying it was rubbish etc. Please go and make your own L4D full custom campaign and then come back and comment.

The "If you can't do better then shut up" method of thinking is flawed at best. Especially since the person you're directing that comment at is a level designer with years of experience.

As Samon once said, "I can't act any better than Keanu Reeves but what the ****"

 

[Lobster]

Aww man, the one I am working on has a lighthouse, I am afraid its gonna be the cliche of L4D maps by the time I have anything to show, lol!

Gratz to the guy for releasing somthing though, I havnt had a chance to play it yet, It is always good to see new work, however it turns out.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

I was actually going to write a review of Death Aboard, but that would require me playing it again, and I really don't want to. So, I'll just put down a few of my impressions here:

1) First thing you see when the map loads is a flare on the helipad. Inoffensive, scene-setting, yes? Except it's shaped like a brick. Ever seen a brick-shaped flare? No, me neither. It's not a big thing, but it does kind of set off a few warning lights when it's the first damn thing you see.

2) The initial spawn area is set up in such a way that the normal and Special Infected can spawn and attack you before you can get to the weapons. Great idea.

3) Horrendous, confusing layout. There's multiple paths that lead to the same point all over the place. Why? At best, this means that there's twice as many bland, unfinished-looking corridors to wander round in. At worst, it means that you get split up and two of you die. There's one point in the second map (I think) where you're outside and there's a truck in the street. We opted to go down the sewer which involved a 5 minute trek that brought us out at the truck - a journey that would have taken mere seconds if we'd picked that route. So why does the sewer exist at all?

4) Total ignorance of style guides. In Valve's maps, it's always obvious where you have to go. The maps are cleverly linear - they look open, but you pretty much only have one path. You know where you have to be because the next destination is usually specifically illuminated. Death Aboard dispenses with this convenience and instead uses sporadic "safe house" graffiti sprays, sometimes from the very start of the map.

5) The boat level. The entire map is tilted at an angle. With no external visual references to remind you of the datum, this can be quite disorientating, and it serves no good purpose at all. Oh, and it also contains an instant-incapacitation trap. Isn't that a fun idea?

6) Bad pathing. Zombies get stuck. A lot.

7) The finale. Oh dear. So you go up to the lighthouse, past what seems to be a ridiculous number of ammo and weapon caches. You set off the radio and then more or less sit round talking amongst yourselves whilst occasionally shooting the odd zombie that wanders by. We actually had to kill one of the Tanks, after it declined to fall off the edge like its predecessor. So is that it? Aha, no. Remember those ammo caches? You've got to go all the way back down and across the map to get to the escape point. Through endless hordes and more Special Infected, plus Tanks!

8) I touched on it in point 3) but the maps are bland. It's like the author started off but then got bored and didn't bother to add the final levels of detail. There's so many areas that are just walls, floor and ceiling, and it really destroys any immersion that may have existed.

I realise that these opinions are worthless, having not made my own full L4D campaign and everything, but there you go.

 

[Kyorisu]

polished very well and amazingly well thought out.

Having played through this campaign a few times it dumbfounds me you could even begin to think of using the world polished. It's has a few things going for it but the overwhelming amount of problems such as Pi lists just make it a bad playing experience. No I'm not in the business of making public maps but I do know my way around hammer so it's fairly easy for me to criticise bad level design.

 

[Paulaner]

And to all those people who commented saying it was rubbish etc. Please go and make your own L4D full custom campaign and then come back and comment.

Pardon me, but that's not a good point. I'm not a movie director nor a professional writer, but I can judge a movie or a book. I'm going to play the new custom map and I'll let you know my impressions.

 

[Nemon]

I liked the campaign, although some flaws here and there it's still entertaining. I never found it to be difficult to navigate, but I guess the guys I played with had done it before.

In the middle of the ship, as you step out into the open storage area I got stuck beside the grating, unable to get loose. Guess I could have let the AI take over but I didn't think of that then... Also, initiating the final is kinda weird. You press a button, the dramatic music starts and you wait forever for zombies to appear

 

[Apocalypse89]

Heh, I find points 5 and 7 of Pi Mu Rho's list to actually help the campaign. The tilted, disorienting ship adds to the atmosphere of that map(and IMO is where the campaign picks up), and keeping the fortified positions and vehicle landing zone far away from each other makes the escape much more exciting than in the original campaigns, where you can easily park yourself a 5 seconds' walk away from the vehicle long before it arrives. Other pluses are the increased challenge(medical supplies seem to spawn a lot less, and hordes more often), and the "container car" in the fourth map.

Most of the rest of those points are valid though, the first three levels at least are incredibly bland and seem like a vaguely urban-themed maze, and for some reason hordes and tanks like to spawn ten miles away in wide open areas where the survivors can easily chip away at them as they make their way towards you.

Overall, it's a half-decent effort at creating one of the first major custom campaigns, but from what seems to be one of the most-played and praised(outside of hl2.net anyway) custom maps I was expecting more.

 

[Opium]

I actually really enjoyed the campaign. It's probably my favourite custom campaign.

 

[scotland1]

I quite liked the map. Me and a friend played through it twice. The car really surprised us and we had a good laugh about it. You can get around it by going up the ladder then jumping off.

It was indeed confusing at times with all the dead ends, and the tilted boat is dizzying, but it's a long action packed map and we liked it.

 

[Uriel]

Play it for yourself and then decide! Simple as that.
Of course it's not perfect, but it's still fun and enjoyable.

 

[Sheepo]

Who wants to bet that Nicky doesn't post again in this thread?

 

[ian1]

I played this once. The computer-controlled Louis walked off a ledge. I left the safehouse to help him up, and he proceeded to walk right off again.

Yeah, that was kind of annoying.

 

[ChiliFan]

Who wants to bet that Nicky doesn't post again in this thread?

$10 says he posts again just to spite you.

 

[Uriel]

I really didn't have these pathway issues that everyone else did.

 

[Omnomnick]

Who wants to bet that Nicky doesn't post again in this thread?

Hello

What I meant was that the developer of this custom campaign is obviously NOT a professional game developer but has tried their best to create a fun and interested campaign, it isn't right to shun his level design without knowing how long he has been mapping etc, etc. And Pi, your second post was much better than the first because you actually gave constructive criticism as to why you thought this campaign is flawed. Criticism like that was probably quite useful to the developer (if he actually knows this thread exists)

And personally I thought the developer has done very well to create their own campaign, it's clearly not as detailed or as finished as Valve's campaigns - Clearly not. Maybe the guy who made this will listen to what we've said and upgrade his campaign or just make a brand new one with these thoughts in mind.

$10 please, could you convert that to pounds for me? There's a good chap.

 

[Cornerstone]

Why does it sound like everyone just played it once on versus and them made up their mind?