Hunter Games

Apologies for the lack of posts and updates. Rest assured, we are still here!

I recently took a very gnarly road trip with my wife and 2 kids – from Phoenix all the way up to Seattle (3500 miles round trip...)! Isn't there some big software company up the Seattle area? One that makes video games or something? Oh that's right, VALVE! I think I've heard of them...

Seattle was amazing. The highlight of the trip was definitely my visit to Valve. We get to the outer doors of their main office, and can see in to the lobby. No one was in there, but I was already star struck by the giant golden crowbar, and giant waist-high iron valve in the middle of the room, going right into the ground. Well, the doors are locked, but there is a phone by the door. While waiting for someone to pick up, an employee coming back from the bathroom asked us if we were meeting someone. I told him “No, we're just tourists”, but I think he could tell from my giant grin that I was pretty excited to be there. He invited us in to the lobby, and went to fetch the HR lady.

With the Hunter Games 1.0.4 release (download), you can have up to 14 hunters in a game.  This is due to the inclusion of Downtown1's "Left 4 Downtown" extension, an excellent piece of work.  I couldn't get it to work right away, and Downtown1 helped me sort it out.  Make sure in your parameters to srcds.exe, you include a +maxplayers 14 argument.  Here's how I start up the hunter games servers:

cd \srcds\l4d
srcds.exe -autoupdate -console -game left4dead -port 27015 -ip 111.222.111.222 -tickrate 100 +exec server.cfg +maxplayers 14 +map l4d_sv_lighthouse

Also, make sure your server has sv_allow_lobby_connect_only set to 0.  The huntergames.cfg file should set that for you, but it's very possible that it gets set back to 1 from some other config file or mod that you have installed.  If you take both of those steps, then with Hunter Games 1.0.4, you should be able to get 14 players on your server at once.  If you rent a public server, you might have to pay for extra slots.

This week I'll be adding spawn points for Death Toll and Dead Air, and hopefully this weekend I'll be able to release 1.0.5, with new maps in the default rotation.

-EVOL

Hunter Games 1.0.4 is now available for download.  Now 14 hunters can play at once!  Enjoy the madness!

-EVOL

As you all know, the DLC update from Valve from last month broke the Hunter Games mod.  I knew the fix would probably be something simple, but haven't had time and motivation to get to it.  I've been busy with school, work, and family.  I finally knuckled down and decided to start active Hunter Games development again.  This includes not only the 1.0.3 release (which you should download immediately to update your servers), which fixes the problems with the DLC, but means that I'll actively be working to fix other bugs, add new features, and add new game modes.

Here's what's in store for upcoming releases:

New "Human Infection" game mode

In this mini-game,  only ONE player will start as a hunter.  All of the other players will start as survivors, at the start of the map.  If any survivors health drops below 80, they will have 10 or 15 seconds to try to bring their health back above 80.  If they fail, they turn into a hunter.  The survivors just have to try to make it to the end of the map.  The start will be pretty rough for the 1 hunter, trying to turn his first victim.  Once he does, the two hunters can work together, and try to bring the whole team down.  Big bonus points for any survivor that makes it to the end of the map.  Oh, and if you make it to the end?  You don't just get points.  You turn into a hunter ANYWAY, and try to stop the remaining survivors from getting the same bonus you got.  Don't work together as survivors.  That's ridiculous, this is HUNTER GAMES!

14 Hunters!

Downtown1 has developed an excellent extension for L4D that allows for more than 8 players to connect and play on a server.  I have done some initial testing, but still get the "Game is full" error when trying to connect a 9th client.  Once I get things sorted out with Downtown1 and his mod, expect hunter games servers with 14 hunters at once!

Spawn points for Death Toll and Dead Air

Now that official versus versions exist for these maps (even though they RUINED Dead Air by blocking all the rooftops), expect spawn points to be set up for hunters, and for survivors for pounce race, hot lava, etc.

More configuration options for servers

I'm going to un-hardcode some of the options for Hunter Games, and put the settings in config files that server moderators can edit to customize how their hunter games servers run.  You'll be able to pick the maps you want in the rotatation, and which games can be played on which maps.  Don't like BH4?  Take it out.  Don't like Hot Lava mode?  Remove it.

Some of these I hope to get done in the next week or 2 (14 hunters, spawn points for Death Toll and Dead Air), and some will take more time, but I'm definitely excited about the continued development of Hunter Games!

Nearly 4000 members of the Hunter Games steam community!  Thank you for your support!

Oh, and a HUGE HUGE HUGE shoutout goes to CUatTHEFINISH, who in my absence released the 1.0.2unofficial to keep HG alive.  Thanks for your hard work!  Add me on steam!

Enjoy!

-EVOL