Left 4 Dead, offline, LAN co-op

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Xiro

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 1, 2005
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105
Normally my co-worker and I play a ton of multiplayer/co-op steam games here at work on our laptops. We don't have the ability to online with Steam but it has never been a problem before as we are basicallly connected via a LAN and use Offline mode.

We both grabbed the Left 4 Dead demo today but cannot for the lives of us figure out how the hell to get a game going. Trying to start a multiplayer game basically tells you to connect to steam -_-

Using the developers console and then bringing up "openserverbrowser" gives us a server menu ala every other friggen multiplayer game on steam. But it errors out when trying to connect to him.

Has anyone figured out how to play this game via offline mode over a LAN?
 
hmmm... I will try pulling net and see if i can figure it out - kinda important for a coop game.

edit: I can't even start steam in offline mode, doesn't get past the "Updating - 0%" :(
 
We figured it out. We basically have to run a dedicated server, then both connect to it via the openserverbrowser command. Once opened we had to type "connect xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:(port number) to connect to the server he set up.

We are now in co-op, offline, LAN mode
 
I just read that the game uses a lobby system. players are sent to a lobby, when it fills up with 3 additional players, the game looks for a vacant server to play on.

sounds kinda strange. I am debating on canceling my pre-order if this is how it is going to be.

EDIT:
Xiro said:
We figured it out. We basically have to run a dedicated server, then both connect to it via the openserverbrowser command. Once opened we had to type "connect xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:(port number) to connect to the server he set up.

We are now in co-op, offline, LAN mode
Click to expand...

Cool that you got it working.
 
Yeah, here's your solution

Server admins - please throw this in your server cfg's to allow people to join via the browser. sv_allow_lobby_connect_only "0"

Just put that in the dev console once the server is up, and you shouldn't have problems joining through the browser. It's crappy, I don't like it, but it works.
 
Yeah we did what Frozen said to do as well.

All in all a pain in the ass just to play some simple multiplayer. Hopefully this will be fixed and so forth in the retail game thats coming in a few weeks.

You would have thought BETA testers of the PC game would have been voicing alot of the simple complaints people are stating on teh steam forums....along with my simple issue.
 
Already request to have the sv_allow_lobby_connect_only "0" command put on NFo's pubs for the game so when retail hits it should be good to go.
 
Zepher said:
I just read that the game uses a lobby system. players are sent to a lobby, when it fills up with 3 additional players, the game looks for a vacant server to play on.

sounds kinda strange. I am debating on canceling my pre-order if this is how it is going to be.

EDIT:


Cool that you got it working.
Click to expand...

Yes, it's stupid.

The lobby isn't a lobby of a server thats ready to be played on, it's just seperate area for you to all join then when the leader hits "start server" it actually looks for a dedicated server to play on, this is a big problem... It's already been pointed out that for clans who want clan servers this isn't fair.

But it's dumb on several other levels as well, it doesn't appear to care about location so you might get lumped with somone whos physically a long distance away from you, like in my case (im in the UK) i've connected with americans before. This means one of you is going to have a high ping, and with tight, dark corridoors with friendly fire forced on, it means accidental friendly fire is reasonably common place.

But theres lots of dumb other things like, if theres no dedicated servers spare only the leader can start one on his PC, most people dont have the CPU/RAM to do this, nor the upstream on their internet connection, some of us do, but if we're not leader we can't simply offer to host and get the game rolling, nor can you promote as leader so while we all sit around tonight trying to get into dedicated servers.

Its so awkward and badly designed, it's a good concept in theory but just insanely badly executed. Dedicated servers can have passwords but aren't excluded from the cloud of servers available to lobbies so theres just the same batch of P/W servers coming around again and again, you dont know you're all going to end up at a P/W screen until you do, then you have to repeat the whole lobby waiting experience all over again.
 
Frostex said:
Yes, it's stupid.

The lobby isn't a lobby of a server thats ready to be played on, it's just seperate area for you to all join then when the leader hits "start server" it actually looks for a dedicated server to play on, this is a big problem... It's already been pointed out that for clans who want clan servers this isn't fair.

But it's dumb on several other levels as well, it doesn't appear to care about location so you might get lumped with somone whos physically a long distance away from you, like in my case (im in the UK) i've connected with americans before. This means one of you is going to have a high ping, and with tight, dark corridoors with friendly fire forced on, it means accidental friendly fire is reasonably common place.

But theres lots of dumb other things like, if theres no dedicated servers spare only the leader can start one on his PC, most people dont have the CPU/RAM to do this, nor the upstream on their internet connection, some of us do, but if we're not leader we can't simply offer to host and get the game rolling, nor can you promote as leader so while we all sit around tonight trying to get into dedicated servers.

Its so awkward and badly designed, it's a good concept in theory but just insanely badly executed. Dedicated servers can have passwords but aren't excluded from the cloud of servers available to lobbies so theres just the same batch of P/W servers coming around again and again, you dont know you're all going to end up at a P/W screen until you do, then you have to repeat the whole lobby waiting experience all over again.
Click to expand...

This just screams "laziness" to me.

This system works decently well with Xbox 360s. It's all the same hardware so at least they know that the hardware on the host is no different than any of the other clients, so no point to add the option to switch leaders of course. However, there is still the fact that people still have varying connection speeds and are geographically located in many different places that may provide latency which will result in less-than-stellar gameplay... I just don't see how anyone could think this was a good system to go with for the PC's.

If you want to do that with the console version, that's at least reasonable, and they probably don't care that much anyway. But don't try to do it to the PC version when we already are used to a fairly robust server browser for source games. Just connect me to the lobby when I join the server, and then let me join the game in progress or start a new one there.

FFS.

On the up side, they already put out a patch of sorts it looks like. After that patch the one game I tried went straight ahead without a hitch.

Another bug you can try for yourself. Hop on the minigun at the end of the 2nd level and then turn on your flashlight.
 
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