• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Alien Swarm |OT| - Free Co-op Multiplayer from Valve

G

gregor7777

Banned
img-1.jpg


Available 7/19 on Steam
Valve time

http://store.steampowered.com/app/630/

Alien Swarm is a game and Source SDK release from a group of talented designers at Valve who were hired from the Mod community. Available free of charge, the game thrusts players into an epic bug hunt featuring a unique blend of co-op play and squad-level tactics. With your friends, form a squad of four distinct IAF Marine classes.
Available: July 19th, 2010

Plan your attack using an unlockable arsenal of weapons with countless loadout configurations against a wide variety of aliens. Blaze your way through an overrun, off-world colony, eradicating the alien infestation in environments ranging from the icy planet's surface, to a subterranean lava-flooded mining facility.

Along with the game get the complete code base for Alien Swarm that features updates to the Source engine as well as the SDK. Alien Swarm adds 3rd person camera, depth of field, improved dynamic shadows and a wide variety of gameplay additions to the Source engine.

It is a remake of the Alien Swarm mod for Unreal Tournament 2004, developed by the original team after they were hired by Valve.

Features
  • Tactical, 4 player co-op action game with a top-down perspective
  • Complete game code and mod tools
  • Unlock persistent items by gaining levels
  • Over 40 weapons and equipment with countless loadout configurations
  • 4 unique classes and 8 unique characters
  • Matchmaking, Steam Cloud, Steam Stats
  • 64 achievements
  • Tile-based map generation tool
  • Powered by Source and Steam

Some more info via Facepunch
http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=23456210&postcount=284
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=22452901&postcount=128

Is this engine version closer to Portal 2's engine than it is L4D2's? Or is it more L4D2?
Much closer to Portal 2. This engine is from about a month before they started working on the E3 demos. Since then Portal 2 has added a bunch of its own new tech, but there's plenty of stuff here that's evolved beyond L4D2.

Does the game use the addon system for custom campaigns (L4D2)
Yes.

Is it improved, possibly the ability to download vpks in game?
I believe there were some improvements, but I'm not sure what they were specifically... Jonathan was handling that work.

Is TileGen realtime?
I'm not quite sure what you mean. You'll be able to host with .layout files. These are a tiny download when clients connect and then the map rebuilds on their machines in about 30 seconds (depending on complexity and CPU power of course).

Is Source SDK being updated along with the seperate SDK for Alien Swarm?
This SDK is a separate SDK.

Does Alien Swarm use the director to spice up the gameplay?
Alien Swarm has a strong tactical planning focus. It's quite a bit less randomized than L4D so that players can observe, learn, and overcome the challenges thrown at them.

Does Alien Swarm have more than just a campaign mode? Maybe a competitive mode such as Survival or Versus. (In the future).
Just Campaign... and for getting used to the controls an "Offline Practice" mode. But really, if you're a real man, you'll want to just jump in at the deep end and play.

only one thing makes me sad and that is you cant see the other players flashlights
The flashlight is equipment that you can choose for your loadout... you have to weigh it tactically against other equipment that you can take instead. In this video only one marine has a flashlight. If multiple marines have flashlights, you will see them all.

is alien swarm using dedicated servers or peer to peer?
It supports dedicated servers and listen servers in the same way as previous Source games.

SDK Info

syllogism said:
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Alien_Swarm
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Alien_Swarm_SDK
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Swarm_TileGen
Click to expand...


In-Game Level Generator
It has an IN-GAME level editor which can also randomly generate missions.

In Steam Tools, install the Alien Swarm SDK.
Run the game as normal.
Activate the console.
Open it.
Type 'SV_Cheats 1'
Type 'ASW_tilegen'

There you go. One level editor. I just tested it. Without hyperbole, it took me three minutes to generate and compile a whole new level from scratch. And then I was playing it. And died really quickly because there were no bots to help me, but whatever, it WORKS.

I repeat: THIS GAME HAS A RANDOM MISSION GENERATOR AND IN-GAME EDITOR. The number of missions is officially infinite.
Click to expand...

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...erid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=17#post379881527

...and getting it to work in multiplayer and some other tricks (thanks to Hazaro):

People getting stuck at the "Generating map..." progress bar in TileGen
You need to install the Alien Swarm - SDK. Go to Steam > Library > Tools and install the Alien Swarm - SDK. Your maps will generate properly now.

Firstperson: bind k "sv_cheats 1;firstperson;asw_hide_marine;asw_controls 0;asw_debug_marine_aim 1;sv_cheats 0"

Thirdperson: bind l "sv_cheats 1;thirdperson;asw_hide_marine;asw_controls 1;asw_debug_marine_aim 0;sv_cheats 0"

Got custom maps working in multiplayer with the ingame editor.

First make a map in the ingame editor, with a start and exit. Setup some objectives.
Now close the client.

Look under X:\Steam\SteamApps\common\alien swarm\swarm\maps
You'll see some files called Output with some extensions.
Feel free to rename all those to something else thats not Output so you don't overwrite your masterpiece later. (Editor only saves maps as Output)


Now start up an online game.
Then open the console and type map Whatever

Everyone must have the SDK installed. Go to Library -> Tools -> Alien Swarm SDK
Click to expand...

Server browser
Wren said:
..typing 'openserverbrowser' into console will bring up the normal steam server list (go figure). Much easier to choose a lag free game and almost always prevents the common connection issues.
Click to expand...

About using a gamepad

Unsupported officially, but supposedly they are working on it. Reports are that it works unofficially.

Also, 360 pad works very well with this game. It works like any Source game, you need to enable it in the dev console and you can't use it in the menu. Apart from a few binding in the offline single player the 360 pad support is rather well done for an "unsupported" feature.
Click to expand...

http://supportwiki.steampowered.com/wiki/Using_an_XBox_360_Controller_with_Source_Games

Example: D:\Steam\steamapps\common\alien swarm\swarm\cfg
Click to expand...

Also,
exec 360controller_xbox
Click to expand...
...in the console may work but I'm not sure if it needs additional tweaking with the methods above.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=22466895&postcount=603

What does TileGen mean?

Stallion Free said:
Tile-gen means we will magically get quality maps that people are expecting to see.
Click to expand...

Screenshots

ss_18f754afc528d82d9c91c52227a3acb2.jpg

ss_1f1d196ebb925cb93caf845e7e352e85.jpg

ss_3ff2a00e1a49ada20e867b9338e6e475.jpg

ss_5ed4a9e439d1a0c8565fccfc0c1517c8.jpg

ss_b39b5cef6ad3176e0f80e7509c227032.jpg

ss_c95b51026c6523796a6d9fe6ddbfd315.jpg


Videos

http://store.steampowered.com/video/630

Classes - more info soon

Medic
Tech
Officer
Special weapons

Characters - more info soon

Requirements

Minimum:

OS: Windows® 7 / Vista / Vista64 / XP
Processor: Pentium 4 3.0GHz
Memory: 1 GB for XP / 2GB for Vista
Graphics: DirectX 9 compatible video card with 128 MB, Shader model 2.0. ATI X800, NVidia 6600 or better
Hard Drive: At least 2.5 GB of free space
Sound: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card

Recommended:

OS: Windows® 7 / Vista / Vista64 / XP
Processor: Intel core 2 duo 2.4GHz
Memory: 1 GB for XP / 2GB for Vista
Graphics: DirectX 9 compatible video card with Shader model 3.0. NVidia 7600, ATI X1600 or better
Hard Drive: At least 2.5 GB of free space
Sound: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card

GAF Steam ID thread

swarmbfdModified.jpg
 
1

1-D_FTW

Member
I didn't know this had Valve involvement. Just saw the other thread and thought it was some generic freeware. Looks pretty sweet. Great surprise.
 
C

crimsonheadGCN

Banned
Good OP.

bdouble said:
OSX? Looks like a lot of fun.
Click to expand...

OSX won't be supported at launch, but it should be coming soon. An OSX release is probably being delayed because of the SDK. Valve still hasn't finish up the port of it.
 
T

Teknopathetic

Member
"The videos look bonkers. I never played the UT mod. Was it as hectic as it looks?"

Yes.

And it cannot be stated enough that it was *hard*. Not in a bad way, but yeah, really unforgiving of poor co-ordination.
 
D

derFeef

Member
Source may add to frantic experience as splosions, physics and stuff are always classy in Source games. I love that the HL1 boss is crawling around there ;)
 
MightyKAC

MightyKAC

Member
This one is looking like the update to Alien Syndrome I've been waiting for since the one for the Wii came out disappointed the shit out me.

The only thing that would make this better is if it were a level up loot whore style game with the same premise and execution.

Hint hint modding community...
 
Subterranean

Subterranean

Member
I hope there will be a good amount of custom maps for this game. I loved downloading custom maps for L4D and running through them with friends, some of them were just insane.
 
E

ezekial45

Banned
My video card died a couple days ago and i won't be able to play it. Just running my comp on my Intel(R) GMA 3100 :(

I'm still dl'ing it though.
 
F

Ferrio

Banned
Teknopathetic said:
"The videos look bonkers. I never played the UT mod. Was it as hectic as it looks?"

Yes.

And it cannot be stated enough that it was *hard*. Not in a bad way, but yeah, really unforgiving of poor co-ordination.
Click to expand...

Oh god... the flamethrower.....it burns

*rocks back and forth in fetal position*
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Ready or Not is switching to Unreal Engine 5
Community
0
2K
Draugoth replied
[PC Gamer] How Cyberpunk 2077 clawed its way back from disaster to complete one of the greatest redemption arcs in gaming history
Opinion News 2
99
8K
EDMIX replied
Inside Infinite: September, Multiplayer
2
78
7K
HeisenbergFX4 replied
Unreal Engine 5 now available in Early Access, new demo "Valley of the Ancient" showcased
5
2K
Myths replied
Project Zomboid |OT2| Still Dying After All These Years
|OT| Indie
32
4K
Doczu replied
Top Bottom