The Official Left 4 Dead Thread

Red Scarlet said:
Does anybody know how to make a regular video (avi I guess) out of a demo? We had a cool vs game where one guy got smokered and the gas station blew up on him, but I just recorded the finale as infected, to show the guys I played with the angry tank thing. I don't know how to convert a demo from the PC version into a regular video file though..any help would be appreciated.

Demo itself is here (5.5mb): http://redscarlet.paragonsigma.com/nm5test.dem
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I believe this might help:
1: Change to window mode
2: Load up demo, type in "host_framerate 30" and "startmovie moviename avi"
3: Select Codec
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Would love to play with you guys..
 
RubxQub said:
Last point on this unless someone else brings it up.

It is not an opinion that adding a microphone to the equation of a good team improves their gameplay. There is no opinion in this statement.

If you take 2 teams of equal skill and have them play each other 1000 times, one team with mics and the other team without mics, the the team with mics will always win more games.

The only reason my above statement can't be called "fact" is because no one's done this exact experiment, but as someone who's played leagues in first person shooters, it's insane to me to hear people say that microphones add no benefit.
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Why do you keep going back and forth?

First you say people without mics should be kicked. Then you say mics aren't necessary but improve the game. Which is it? Make up your fucking mind. Argue one point or the other. They cannot be argued together.

No one has said mics add no benefit. You are an idiot if you think they have.
 
blargh no mics suck!

played death toll last night and we got to the end of level 4. Our team got slaughtered real bad and everybody was limping to the safe room. After level stats indictated we had a retard on our team and sure enough retard is running around while 3 of us stand in the safe room. I say 'fuck I'm healing if we waiting and the two people at the door calmly watch as an entire horde rushes the door, nobody shuts it instead taking potshots with the pistol. Promptly overrun and the zombies murder my ass mid heal.

Of course retard was quickly killed as well way out the middle of nowhere.

Now I join lobbys and if nobodys talking I leave. I hate the silent guy that constantly stirs the witch, when you are screaming 'don't wake the witch, turn off your light she's over there'

*numbnuts has startled the witch!*

...

*help numnuts up!*

I always seem to get smokered or pounced 1 second after giving numnuts my pills or healthpack :lol
 
They really, really need to fix the Blood Harvest finale. It's so boring the way it is right now. Actually, level 4 of No Mercy and Blood Harvest are way too easy and short. They just aren't fun to play as infected.
 
Pop On Arrival said:
They really, really need to fix the Blood Harvest finale. It's so boring the way it is right now. Actually, level 4 of No Mercy and Blood Harvest are way too easy and short. They just aren't fun to play as infected.
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really? i dont know.....

most of my time as infected i get a number of kills on the finales....
 
Dax01 said:
I was trying to get the "Stand Tall" and the "Unbreakable" achievements in one go... Got hit by a tank at the final stand, and the goddamn AI heals me (and I couldn't do anything about it). Got "Stand Tall," though.
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Pro tip: take your health kit out if they start healing you. They'll stop.

I don't really want to weigh in on the mic thing, except to say that while I can see how one could play the game without mics quite efficiently, it would be a hell of a lot easier with a mic. The PC players are being furiously, fiercely stubborn about this. Furthermore, it's a hell of a lot more fun, and more social, to talk to your teammates, particularly if they're people you play with a lot on other games too.
 
Red Scarlet said:
Oh crap, my demos are super skippy and very weird, don't know why. It's certainly not like that in-game. :/
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don't use fraps! use source recorder!

copied and modified the description of one of my videos:

you don't need host_framerate 30 anymore in L4D, it's on by default.

1. start L4D with these launch options set in steam: -w 1280 -h 720 -sw -noborder
2. set graphics as high as they go
3. bind [ "startmovie moviename"
4. bind ] endmovie
5. play your demo to the point you want, close the demoui and hit [ (it will get really really laggy here and sound will skip, don't worry it's fine, just don't alt-tab)
6. press ] when done
7. use virtualdub to sow together the frames and sound file, remember to set framerate to 30!

to do this you go to File -> Open video file, select the first tga file in your left4dead folder. it will add all of them together. Then under Audio select Audio from Other File, and select the .wav file in your L4D folder. Then go to Video -> Frame Rate and Change Framerate to 30. Then go to File -> Save as Avi. This will give you a raw RGB avi to play with.

8. compress in virtualdub orrrrrr use windows movie maker to compress or whatever else you want like vegas or premiere.

WMM can handle the raw RGB avis so you literally just add that to WMM and encode at highest settings, it's what I do to mine. If you prefer you can use Virtualdub. to do that follow the above instructions but before you save go to Video -> Compression and select whatever codec or settings you want. If you want to change resolution it's in the Filters... option somewhere I believe but youtube handles 720p nowadays so the resolution you made the game at would be fine.


NOTE: to record your own voice in a demo you need to enter voice_loopback 1 in the console when you are recording the demo. You can't do it after!

NOTE2: source recorder can technically directly compress a video file. I find however that this is buggy as fuck and will always produce video and audio artifacts. You should also not have source recorder output a raw RGB video file. Just let it dump the tgas like normal. If you are unhappy with what you have got, then delete it. the game wont overwrite old tga files, so rename your movie in that [ bind or just delete the files in L4D folder.
 
RubxQub said:
Absolutely. Using a microphone doesn't mean that you can't play instinctively, but surely it means you can be replan quicker or relay information more efficiently.
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Also even as Infected... I can't tell you how many times I've set up clutch gangbangs using communication. Do you know how fucking retarded it would be to bind some of the complex teamwork that is required to take down the better teams? I mean even if I was playing this on my PC, I'd be staying only with microphone users.

PillowKnight says by the time you set anything up, the window of opportunity is usually gone. I can only say I've managed to use communication to form strategies that have taken down great teams in many different occasions, but it's much rarer in silence. Now if I had the keyboard, the rate would surely go up a lot. Just never as much as I can with a microphone.

Some games microphone is not required. A lot of team games you can get by fine with keyboard, or whatever. But Left 4 Dead is one of the games I've most ever needed a microphone to play. I've never played a game where it's more necessary. So if you don't have one, you're definitely getting kicked. No offense to you - you may find a team that doesn't require microphone for your play. I'm not stopping you from that!

:)
 
You're an idiot. Plain and simple. You sound like some smarmy little twat who gets a twitch of pleasure in his loins each time he kicks someone who doesn't meet the holy Amir0x microphone code. As infected, if you or your teammates lack the reasoning abilities to decipher what your teammates are up to at any given moment and to create those gangbangs, then lord, you're probably too incompetent to handle the intense multitasking of touching a push-to-talk button anyhow. You do not need a microphone - you need a modicum of intuition, some tactical common sense, and the ability to play off your team. Those things you're trying to communicate by voice, filling the void? In a half-decent team, they're second nature.

Sorry friend, but we may both be happier because at the end of the day, I'd rather play with a bunch of voiceless pubbies than the sort of stuck-up prick who can't settle for anything less than live John Madden play-by-plays on every 5 feet a hunter should decide to move.
 
a microphone is most helpful when everyone on your team is boomer'd and you're being pounced or something, as they cannot see you through the vomit or hear you clearly over the choir music.

Shatai said:
You're an idiot. Plain and simple. You sound like some smarmy little twat who gets a twitch of pleasure in his loins each time he kicks someone who doesn't meet the holy Amir0x microphone code. As infected, if you or your teammates lack the reasoning abilities to decipher what your teammates are up to at any given moment and to create those gangbangs, then lord, you're probably too incompetent to handle the intense multitasking of touching a push-to-talk button anyhow. You do not need a microphone - you need a modicum of intuition, some tactical common sense, and the ability to play off your team. Those things you're trying to communicate by voice, filling the void? In a half-decent team, they're second nature.

Sorry friend, but we may both be happier because at the end of the day, I'd rather play with a bunch of voiceless pubbies than the sort of stuck-up prick who can't settle for anything less than live John Madden play-by-plays on every 5 feet a hunter should decide to move.
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just gonna quote all this just in case he has a change of heart
 
Shatai said:
You're an idiot. Plain and simple. You sound like some smarmy little twat who gets a twitch of pleasure in his loins each time he kicks someone who doesn't meet the holy Amir0x microphone code. As infected, if you or your teammates lack the reasoning abilities to decipher what your teammates are up to at any given moment and to create those gangbangs, then lord, you're probably too incompetent to handle the intense multitasking of touching a push-to-talk button anyhow. You do not need a microphone - you need a modicum of intuition, some tactical common sense, and the ability to play off your team. Those things you're trying to communicate by voice, filling the void? In a half-decent team, they're second nature.

Sorry friend, but we may both be happier because at the end of the day, I'd rather play with a bunch of voiceless pubbies than the sort of stuck-up prick who can't settle for anything less than live John Madden play-by-plays on every 5 feet a hunter should decide to move.
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And that's why you'd get kicked if you joined one of my games as well.

It's not just about communicating urgent objectives, it's about the social aspect too. Games where everyone is mic'd up result in more laughing, swearing, camraderie - more fun, in other words.

Don't ya like fun? Huh?
 
Shatai said:
You're an idiot. Plain and simple. You sound like some smarmy little twat who gets a twitch of pleasure in his loins each time he kicks someone who doesn't meet the holy Amir0x microphone code. As infected, if you or your teammates lack the reasoning abilities to decipher what your teammates are up to at any given moment and to create those gangbangs, then lord, you're probably too incompetent to handle the intense multitasking of touching a push-to-talk button anyhow. You do not need a microphone - you need a modicum of intuition, some tactical common sense, and the ability to play off your team. Those things you're trying to communicate by voice, filling the void? In a half-decent team, they're second nature.

Sorry friend, but we may both be happier because at the end of the day, I'd rather play with a bunch of voiceless pubbies than the sort of stuck-up prick who can't settle for anything less than live John Madden play-by-plays on every 5 feet a hunter should decide to move.
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Personal attacks are uneccessary.
 
I'm late to the party here, but I agree Pillow, Red Scarlet and the rest about the mics. We've had some incredible games where not a single person was using a mic. And, quite frankly, if you need a mic to know what to do, you're probably a pretty awful player anyways. Everything is intuitively designed. If you're paying attention and a quality player, you're going to organically know what your next move should be.

Now there's some good players with mics. And it's often beneficial to have ONE person who has a mic and guides general tactics (and everyone else follows it.) But there's also a lot of people who just give stupid/redundant directions. There's that rare occasion when everyone is boomed and you can't see somebody who's being attacked (Type help real quick.) But otherwise, pay attention. I shouldn't have to yell, help me, hunter at 11 o'clock. You should be paying attention and kill the hunter before he gets ANY damage done.
 
Microphones are helpful when instructing people who are new to the game. If your team is capable, they aren't all that useful or necessary. I do prefer playing with people with mics though.
 
timetokill said:
Is it just me or is Red going through avatars like candy in the past 48 hours or so?
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Randomly Rotating Avatar. Keep hitting refresh for more fun! (Also, hit a banner ad while you're at it, for goodness sake.)
 
Man, I wish I had the money for L4D now on Steam. I want to join you guys so bad. :D I'll get it in another month for sure for my birthday, but if anyone ever feels like being generous and has L4D as part of the new Valve pack and they don't need it, I'd be grateful.
 
Shake Appeal said:
Pro tip: take your health kit out if they start healing you. They'll stop.

I don't really want to weigh in on the mic thing, except to say that while I can see how one could play the game without mics quite efficiently, it would be a hell of a lot easier with a mic. The PC players are being furiously, fiercely stubborn about this. Furthermore, it's a hell of a lot more fun, and more social, to talk to your teammates, particularly if they're people you play with a lot on other games too.
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I didn't know that.


*cries*
 
Amir0x said:
...I've never played a game where it's more necessary...
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Ever played a real shooter competitively? Q3 TDM or any other old-school skill-dependent FPS require much, much more communication than L4D. It's not the same ballpark at all.

Not that I care whether or not you kick some guys from your game though.
 
I don't see any point in playing the game with people who don't have and/or use microphones. Good team communication just takes the experience to a higher level.

I'm not saying it can't be enjoyed without microphones, I'm just saying I don't see any point in trying to enjoy it without microphones when I can play with people who can and do use microphones.
 
- Sorry to beat a dead horse -

I can say, that I have seen Red Scarlet throw together some amazing plans based on the rest of our teams intuition alone and she doesn't use a mic. A simple statement such as "Im going to smoker them off the bridge" and the rest of the team instinctively can figure out the most logical thing to do - fuck up the rest of their team.
We finished a match with the other team having 25 points for a level in campaign based on simple thinking from other people and have beaten multiple experts, a mic is nice but definitely not required. Scarlet is proof of that continually.

edit:
Won said:
On a more serious note: I need to play the game more! New content would help with this. Do you hear me Valve?!
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We gotta wait till it clears Xbox Certification, on both versions, and we ALL know how long that takes :p
 
Let's create a different extreme: People with microphones are annoying! Get out of my damn ear! Just want to enjoy my games! Don't need to listen to the stupidity you guys call "teamplay" and I will from now on boot everyone, who uses a mic!


On a more serious note: I need to play the game more! New content would help with this. Do you hear me Valve?!
 
Shake Appeal said:
Pro tip: take your health kit out if they start healing you. They'll stop.

I don't really want to weigh in on the mic thing, except to say that while I can see how one could play the game without mics quite efficiently, it would be a hell of a lot easier with a mic. The PC players are being furiously, fiercely stubborn about this. Furthermore, it's a hell of a lot more fun, and more social, to talk to your teammates, particularly if they're people you play with a lot on other games too.
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Really? Really. Stubborn because GASP we don't think mics are necessary?

Wrong!
xKilltheMx said:
We gotta wait till it clears Xbox Certification, on both versions, and we ALL know how long that takes :p
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):

That alone is enough reason to hate, despise, and further loathe the 360 version's existence.
 
Just picked this up yesterday. I was hesitant for a long time, but I think I'll enjoy it for quite a while. I haven't had time to play Blood Harvest yet, but so far No Mercy is my favorite, sans the sewer segment.
 
Jeeeeesus people.

It seems like at least everyone is admitting microphones are an enhancement over not having microphones. I agree they are necessary, but reiterate that they are an improvement over not having them.

We chose to kick people who don't have mics to increase the likelihood that both our team and theirs will be able to coordinate together as a team. You have to remember that we aren't talking about GAFers here, we're always filling our remaining spots with pubbers, as well as facing an entire other team of pubbers. The only people that know each other would be the 2-3 GAFers who started the game. Could we not kick people and end up with competant players on both sides? Sure. Do we increase the likelihood that these teams will work better together by mandating a microphone? Absolutely.

This really isn't complicated, and I'm sorry so many of you are taking this as some sort of personal attack.
 
RubxQub said:
Jeeeeesus people.

It seems like at least everyone is admitting microphones are an enhancement over not having microphones. I agree they are necessary, but reiterate that they are an improvement over not having them.

We chose to kick people who don't have mics to increase the likelihood that both out team and theirs will be able to coordinate together as a team. You have to remember that we aren't talking about GAFers here, we're always filling our remaining spots with pubbers, as well as facing an entire other team of pubbers. The only people that know each other would be the 2-3 GAFers who started the game. Could we not kick people and end up with competant players on both sides? Sure. Do we increase the likelihood that these teams will work better together by mandating a microphone? Absolutely.

This really isn't complicated, and I'm sorry so many of you are taking this as some sort I personal attack.
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Just drop it please.
 
I'm also on the pro-headset side, but I wouldn't go as far as immediately kicking people who don't have one on. I do deliberately not help people when I notice they're in party chat; obnoxious folk they are...

It does depend from game to game though: Left 4 Dead isn't as bad because there's a voice wheel (which I hope they patch that for the 360 version), but even then there's still a chance that some people (good or bad) are simply oblivious to 'em. More so when things get hectic. I could say the same about the on-screen HUD indications, though the game sometimes forgets to properly notify you.

Joining a server where literally no one is using a headset is frustrating for something like Team Fortress 2 however, despite the fact you can endlessly respawn. I've seen people get killed by a sentry all too often because of this, though on the flipside I've even seen this repeatedly happen when someone had warned him on time with the appropriate voice command. Worst of all are the spy encounters: so many times I've seen a spy without a disguise (after he's been spotted) still mindlessly run up to and backstab someone right before he dies, just because the guy who was already attacking him didn't use his headset nor the voice command as he was too busy shooting. Especially annoying when the spy doesn't hide that he's targeting an aggressive Heavy-Medic combo while the medic's a mute.
 
Are there any tricks to getting the most out of your headset in Steam or L4D in particular? The friend I play L4D with most often only really uses Vent cuz he find the voice chat quality in most Source games pretty poor. We tried both open and PTT settings for L4D, but neither of us sounded really good (he uses a boundary mic for starters). Does voice chat integrate into the game in any other interesting capacities? I'd like to be able to get voice chat working correctly so I can play with others that I know only use the in-game chat.

While I agree that voice-chat is crucial for this game (especially when playing as infected), it seems like only one person really needs to take command and state what they are planning, and everyone else usually instinctively falls into the correct roles.
 
Valkyr Junkie said:
Are there any tricks to getting the most out of your headset in Steam or L4D in particular? The friend I play L4D with most often only really uses Vent cuz he find the voice chat quality in most Source games pretty poor. We tried both open and PTT settings for L4D, but neither of us sounded really good (he uses a boundary mic for starters). Does voice chat integrate into the game in any other interesting capacities? I'd like to be able to get voice chat working correctly so I can play with others that I know only use the in-game chat.

While I agree that voice-chat is crucial for this game (especially when playing as infected), it seems like only one person really needs to take command and state what they are planning, and everyone else usually instinctively falls into the correct roles.
Click to expand...

well it shows who's talking for one, and it also highlights your character to the infected. also use voice_loopback 1 in console to listen to what you sound like.
 
Pop On Arrival said:
The entire mic argument is bad and you should all feel bad.
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I only feel bad for people like you who don't really care. I apologize. To you. :D

Mic elitists are amusing, to say the least.

Also: in-game Source voice chat is perfectly adequate and sounds fine. Ventrilo elitists now, too?!
 
The other day I was in a versus match with a guy who recently got the game. He was straying behind, and I knew that a friend who was on the infected side who we regularly played with had survived as a smoker earlier. I was able to tell the new guy just where the smoker would appear based on my knowledge of the other player's habits, and then I got to hear him say 'Thanks, man, I didn't even know you could get up there'. Is there a .wav I can map for that?
 
Good players without mics could beat good players with mics, it's possible, it'd take some luck and some skill but mostly just common sense. Seperate the group, focus on stragglers, low health, and people without healthpacks, wait for the right opportunity, and use your class to the fullest of it's ability. I've had useless teammates, no mic, and gone up against 4 people who were all in a party and fucked them up singlehandedly by just playing off my team and maximizing my damage potential by picking my spots. We should just have a game of no mic players vs mic players sometime. I call Louis on the no mics team!
 
All I have to say is this:

On the 360, players with mics are hardly ever team players, because they lack communication. The will go any which way they choose and at the speed they choose. I can get attacked right by them with a hunter and they will just keep going besides me telling them a hunter is on me.

PC-wise, you can still communicate without a mic with in-game chat, or mapping alerts or what not. You can't do that on 360.

It is possible to have a good team without mics on 360, but it's very very rare.

For a game that depends so much on working together, the communication is necessary.
 
Pop On Arrival said:
Outbreak, according to Daigoro.
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yeah, this.

Volcynika said:
So guyz, who likes to kill ZOMBEEZ?

I got Zombie Genocidest last night!
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nice.

my zombie kills are split between xbox and PC. its going to take me forever to get there. (probably a good thing! something to look forward to x2.)
 
Amir0x said:
It's definitely an exploit to break down that door... why would they allow you to melee something down only after 67 hits or whatever? Anyway, they patched the PC version so I have to imagine they're working on it for the 360 side...however long that will be. Thankfully we'll get simultaneous DLC, at least.
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It just seems weird. Seems like a door should either be breakable or unbreakable when they build the level, lol.
 
Giganticus said:
don't use fraps! use source recorder!

copied and modified the description of one of my videos:

you don't need host_framerate 30 anymore in L4D, it's on by default.

1. start L4D with these launch options set in steam: -w 1280 -h 720 -sw -noborder
2. set graphics as high as they go
3. bind [ "startmovie moviename"
4. bind ] endmovie
5. play your demo to the point you want, close the demoui and hit [ (it will get really really laggy here and sound will skip, don't worry it's fine, just don't alt-tab)
6. press ] when done
7. use virtualdub to sow together the frames and sound file, remember to set framerate to 30!

to do this you go to File -> Open video file, select the first tga file in your left4dead folder. it will add all of them together. Then under Audio select Audio from Other File, and select the .wav file in your L4D folder. Then go to Video -> Frame Rate and Change Framerate to 30. Then go to File -> Save as Avi. This will give you a raw RGB avi to play with.

8. compress in virtualdub orrrrrr use windows movie maker to compress or whatever else you want like vegas or premiere.

WMM can handle the raw RGB avis so you literally just add that to WMM and encode at highest settings, it's what I do to mine. If you prefer you can use Virtualdub. to do that follow the above instructions but before you save go to Video -> Compression and select whatever codec or settings you want. If you want to change resolution it's in the Filters... option somewhere I believe but youtube handles 720p nowadays so the resolution you made the game at would be fine.


NOTE: to record your own voice in a demo you need to enter voice_loopback 1 in the console when you are recording the demo. You can't do it after!

NOTE2: source recorder can technically directly compress a video file. I find however that this is buggy as fuck and will always produce video and audio artifacts. You should also not have source recorder output a raw RGB video file. Just let it dump the tgas like normal. If you are unhappy with what you have got, then delete it. the game wont overwrite old tga files, so rename your movie in that [ bind or just delete the files in L4D folder.
Click to expand...

Hm, well that allowed me to make a video, but now I'm stuck with the 30gb avi from virtualdub; it gives me an error when I try to compress the raw video and won't let me shrink it down. But the video is still skippy anyway. It has angry tank, though. Oh, I guess it just didn't like the divx codec for that type for some reason, Xvid seems to be working. The video has some pauses from time to time and isn't fluid, though. Thanks for the help, I guess I'll post it. I felt bad for Goreomedy, dmczaf, and the Francis guy. Nabs, not so much.
;)
 
Whoa, drama.

Volcynika said:
So guyz, who likes to kill ZOMBEEZ?

I got Zombie Genocidest last night!
Click to expand...

Showoff. *frowns*

I'll have to join the crew again; outside of 10 minutes of Lumines this morning, I have zero hours logged on Steam over past two weeks.

GODDAMN FALLOUT THREE
 
Davidion said:
Whoa, drama.



Showoff. *frowns*

I'll have to join the crew again; outside of 10 minutes of Lumines this morning, I have zero hours logged on Steam over past two weeks.

GODDAMN FALLOUT THREE
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I have Fallout 3 on Steam. I'M THE WINNER.
 
Volcynika said:
Now I think people hate me when I use my mic.

:(
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:lol I like it when people talk if they're talking about the game or giving a quick description about how something is similar to a movie they saw. But then again, im going to start using a combo of character voice, typed chat, and voice chat.

Anyone who's played with me over the past week knows what I mean.

TheOneGuy said:
I love killing zombies but everyone always plays versus now and I'm sick of versus. ):
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I like playing a mix of the two. Its fun to run through campaign stages every so often, but I could see where that might get old too.

Always good to mix things up.
 
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