Badie05
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Valve extremely pleased with Left 4 Dead's ReceptionValve boss Gabe Newell says he's "extremely pleased" with the reception zombie shooter Left 4 Dead has received from the public and press.
Speaking in a massive self-penned article on Edge-Online, Newell says that, while he thinks Valve has progressed in the world of FPS story telling, he reckons it's still "very much at the beginning".
L4D got an impressive 93% from PC Gamer, by the way.
"We set out to create a first-person four-player game in which the action changes each time it's played. We wanted to use procedural narrative to simulate stories because, in a multiplayer environment like this, we felt a more linear, scripted approach would not deliver in the same way," he said of Left 4 Dead.
"To come up with a theory for how to do narrative in a multiplayer game we started by looking at the players' different behaviors - exactly how they're playing, what their actions are, where they move.
"We tried to note as many interesting contexts of their actions as possible," Newell added. "Are they moving together as a group or are they splitting up? Is their mouse jerking around a lot, or are they interacting smoothly? Are they agitated or are they relaxed? How much damage are they taking? How accurate is their shooting?
"Then, using all that data we tried to come up with a model to tell us how the player is faring in the game. The data can tell if a player is comfortable or if they are starting to be overwhelmed. Once you have that concept, then you can start to create pacing and events in response to the player." Impressive stuff.
Going forward, says Newell, Valve is "definitely" going to use some of the things its learned "not only in multi-player but also in our single player games in the future."
"We're very much at the beginning, not only of figuring out the shared procedural narrative, but of storytelling in games generally."
Left 4 Dead is out on PC and Xbox 360 from today.
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