Lately I just can’t seem to believe,
Discard my friends to change the scenery,
It meant the world to hold a bruising faith,
But now it’s just a matter of grace

– Smashing Pumpkins, ‘To Sheila’

Our mythical, punk-geek heroin PixelVixen707 commented via Twitter that the experience of the Left 4 Dead zombie-pocalypse is heightened when playing with a group of previously unmet human survivors online. This revelation came following complaints on my behalf that other players are generally half-wits who run off from the protection of the pack and get themselves pounced by Hunters. Truth being — it’s a slim chance that when the zombie-pocalypse falls upon us that you’re going to stumble into three other survivors you’ve met before (unless you live in Adelaide, Australia where there’s only two degrees of separation), especially if your motley crew includes an old war-vet, some chick in pink (what’s her story, anyway?), a buggin’ office worker and a tattooed redneck.

Then it dawned on me — half of the challenge playing Left 4 Dead is getting players to coordinate, understand each other’s playing style, and finding a groove that works. Left 4 Dead is, in fact, a social learning environment and its procedurally generated narrative structure is most exciting when the other players are unknown quantities before play, as opposed to friends whose play-style you’re already familiar with.

This is in direct contrast to many other team-based competitive online multiplayer games, such as Counter-Strike and Call of Duty 4, where the object is not to experience an interesting narrative but rather to simply win. You head into these other games wanting to know your team is experienced, skilled and capable of scoring big points.

After having played Left 4 Dead with both random players and friends, I’ve come to the following conclusion; For a more interesting narrative experience play with those you don’t know online, yet if you simply wish to beat the campaign on harder difficulties and survive then play with friends.

These promotional screenshots are PERFECT.

Let me demonstrate my point using the following example.

On Friday, I entered an advanced game on No Mercy with an extremely varied group of players (the names of two I can’t remember and will instead refer to as their character names, Louis and Zoey).

Louis was a naïve and cowardly office worker. Happy to pick-off zombies from a distance, and seek out individuals to put down. He would hang at the back and often detour without the group’s knowledge, drawing attention to himself and getting sprung by Hunters. We were always turning back, losing hundreds of metres progress, to rescue him. He panicked during horde assaults, had a tendency to waste munitions and med-kits. His favourite weapon was the sniper-rifle. Oh, he had also never seen a witch, until he startled one and got himself killed. A n00b.

Zoey favoured the shotgun, often took point at doors and was a rather solid shot. She took the highest damage as she never ducked at the doorway and thus the rest of the team had a hard time protecting her when she was overwhelmed for fear we’d shoot her in the back of the head. She shared health packs and pills with teammates but had a tendency to forget to heal herself. Usually the first to fall, always the first to share.

MadDog slipped right into the role of the old green beret and Vietnam war vet, Bill; he was an expert and spent the entire match providing insightful observations here and there, tutoring us in the art of the zombie killing. Often running to the aid of a downed comrade, diverting attention from great hordes to prevent another player’s death, while remaining calm when overwhelmed and surviving against the worst odds. Favouring the assault rifle, he had a solid aim, never ran out of ammunition, was happy turning back for stragglers, had an intuition for the whereabouts of useful items and how to setup the best defences for the final assault.

Then there was me, playing as the over-zealous redneck, Francis. While I’m not all that experienced playing games in online multiplayer situations (even though a massive fan of Call of Duty 4), I have good reflexes, true aim and, as a friend said last night, “an intuitive feel for the flow of things” — I slot nicely into teams. I’m happy to lead when necessary, at other times satisfied to follow the more knowledgeable and strengthen the weakest areas of the team rather than force my round bulk into a triangular hole. I’m also a Smoker magnet. In this game, I took hold of the assault rifle and, together with MadDog, took the less knowledgeable Louis and Zoey under our wing.

Together, our group felt like a natural assortment of personalities; the naive, the intuitive though inexperienced, the veteran and the Selley’s No Gaps yes-man (me).

And, though we often struggled with players becoming incapacitated — usually Louis or Zoey — over the course of the 59-minute No Mercy campaign we each grew and began to gel as a team. Louis was nagged into sitting in the centre of the group and not to straggle, Zoey learned to duck at point, MadDog played baby-sitter and got us through alive, and I often stayed at the back of the pack providing covering fire and launching pipe-bombs when I could see everyone getting overwhelmed.

It wasn’t until the final act, however, that the true nature of each player came to surface and the great stories would be born.

On top of the hospital, we defeated waves of enemies efficiently, including two tanks, before Zoey took on a wave of zombies by herself at point-blank range, against the advice of MadDog, and was trapped downstairs out of our line of fire. She died valiantly.Hundreds of zombies later and the helicopter had arrived. Following another Tank battle, I was left on the minigun overlooking the stretch of the rooftop, barrel pointed at the landing pad, just as the howl of the final horde filled the air. Louis had wigged out during the previous tank battle and was already sitting on the helipad, not in preparation for the rescue but because that was the only zombie-less space on the rooftop. MadDog was half way between the minigun and the helipad, incapacitated by the Tank we’d brought down previously, and patiently waiting for rescue by Louis, who had all the time in the world to move but not the cajoles to twitch.

As the hordes raced in to claim us, I made the difficult decision and became a martyr, taking firm grip of the turret and opening fire on the flood of undead to protect the two I knew would survive in my sacrifice. MadDog drew zombies like flies to a bug-zapper. I provided support, clearing enough room around him for Louis to move in and save him. Except, Louis didn’t. He bugged again.

With screams of MadDog coming over voice-chat to help him up, as I frantically smashed out “Fukn pick him up!” on the keyboard, we heard Louis just barely whimper — the first time he’d communicated all game via headset — “s-sorry.” He turned and boarded the helicopter. I was taken by a Hunter at the minigun. MadDog screamed “Fuck you Louis!” as he was consumed by the horde I could no longer protect him from.

Impassioned, filled with hatred and feelings of betrayal, I noted MadDog disconnecting before the credits rolled. I typed obscenities into the chat box, directed at Louis, and Zoey, who’d stuck around to watch the conclusion, simply said “dude, that was weak.”

We had, against better judgment perhaps, overestimated Louis’ growth over the course of the game. His true, selfish — or rather cowardly — nature had boiled to the surface in those final minutes. I was filled with anger and frustration, as was MadDog, who had dared share his knowledge with all of us, expecting we’d help him return.

I’ve yet to experience such impassioned feelings, a sensation of knowledge sharing, such an exceptionally interesting narrative when playing with friends as I have with randoms.

Playing with 10rdBen and psy-med, we already gel. We’re already loyal. We don’t want to betray each other. We’re a pre-built and efficient killing machine that doesn’t suffer the same strains, unpredictability and unreliability as a random casting of players.

There’s less passion, less “what the fuck are you doing?! Get back here?!” or “HELP you dick!” or “crouch or I will shoot you, seriously” because the stupid situations that lead to such communications are non-existent.

While I’ll continue playing with my mates online, I’m now of firm belief that it is the random grouping of players online that will lead to the most interesting stories, even if they don’t always have a happy ending.

In memory of

MadDog
Zoey
purvis.daniel

Tags: left4dead, narrative

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 at 8:45 pm and is filed under Feature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.