Also seems if you type scripted_userfunc without a function in the console, the game blows up

I had that happen with the beta when it crashed, but always had the right name.

Anyone else having issues with getting the game to start now? I'm getting a message that ownership check failed, unless I start in tools mode and I suspect related, when I try and exit steam, it hangs wanting me to close unknownapp_879 first.

Also, as far as further EMS developments, should we still post here? It seems a lot less "noisy" then the regular l4d2 forum.

A couple things. Mutation HUD font's still don't resize making them unreadable at smaller resolutions.

As far as the workshop in general, tags are being applied terribly. Go to mutations for instance, half of what you would find is sound mods or custom models.

It would be nice if some of this could be handled automatically on upload. For instance, if a vpk contains one or more mode files, automatically assign the tag mutation, otherwise remove it if set. If there is a mission and the vpk contains bsps, perhaps set campign, versus, survival appropriately. This might be trickier with multi part uploads though. So you may have to just "trust" the mission file.

I suppose I should reupload my mutations to the normal l4d2 workshop. Glad to hear it's still a work in progress.

Duh, I just re-read that, this first post, not firing on all cylinders today. Corrected

Thanks man. Do you mean the workshop description? I probably could state it better but it's correct. The witch is visible until you get very close to make crowning tough

Added an update. Witches now respond to alpha. Also they work the opposite, they get less visible, the closer you get. Happy Crowning!

But player_spawn doesn't let you change the special type or anything else, you need to kill it and spawn what you want after. Also doesnt' let you cancel it. You also have to look at multiple events (witch_spawn). As far as ordering, I would think if we got these hooks, they should happen before the game events are fired

Here's two things I'd love to see before the Beta is done, that I feel would add a lot of possibilities. Though if I can only have one, I'd prefer the 2nd as it can solve both problems with, I believe, less work.

1 The ability to have custom populations, particles and actors in both campaign (versus too) and mutation modes.

More or less the equivelant of _level_sounds.txt, working something like this.

modes/<mutation>_population.txt
modes/<mutation>_actors.txt
modes/<mutation>_particles.txt
modes/<mutation>_sounds.txt

maps/<mapname>_population.txt
maps/<mapname>_actors.txt
maps/<mapname>_particles.txt


In the mission/mode files, you could specify Variants (ala TankVariant) for all special infected.

The load order being mutation trumps mission, and mission trumps whatever other vpk is loaded.

2 Proper spawn hooks for both common infected, and special infected.

something like OnSpawnCommon(params), and OnSpawnSpecial(params)

Both would pass in all the appropriate values in a table for manipulation.

For OnSpawnSpecial(), it would allow us to change health, model, zombie type, etc. If #1 is too hard, we can at least accomplish it this way for both mutation and regular campaigns. We have the precache functions now.

OnSpawnCommon() would be very similar, it would pass in health, scale, actortype (crawler, hospital_patient,etc), the model of common about to be spawned etc, and also the population.

This way we could have custom populations in all mutations and custom campaigns simply by transmuting population types with a table (or however works for the situation at hand).

It would allow us to return a model that is not currently in the population file, we would be responsible for precaching it ourselfves.

Returning false, would cancel the spawn entirely.