Does the game use VPKs and Addons for campaigns?

[Thegreenthing16]

I'm wondering from a modders perspective. I plan on making my own campaign and I'm wondering if the game uses vpks and addons for installing mods and playing them in lobbies. How will it work?

[A.M.M.D.]

I dont think so. And I guess vpk is just for Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2.

(L4D and L4D2 dont use Source 15 aka Source 2009 they got thair own engine branch)

I think .gcf is still better then .vpk

[Corion]

Let's hope it uses something better than VPK's. Preferably something that allows people to add things like custom particles without requiring ridiculous hacks to implement.

[Trancetwo]

I dont think so. And I guess vpk is just for Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2.

(L4D and L4D2 dont use Source 15 aka Source 2009 they got thair own engine branch)

I think .gcf is still better then .vpk

GCF's are better if you like longer loading times and fragmentation every update, sure. There's a reason they switched.

[Thegreenthing16]

GCF's are better if you like longer loading times and fragmentation every update, sure. There's a reason they switched.

Exactly.

[Thegreenthing16]

bumped

[funkydude]

I dont think so. And I guess vpk is just for Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2.

(L4D and L4D2 dont use Source 15 aka Source 2009 they got thair own engine branch)

I think .gcf is still better then .vpk

If they were using Source engine 2009 it would be on Mac also, since that's what TF2, CSS, etc has been updated to. I'm willing to bet it's the same engine as L4D/2.

[badATchaos]

Please please please be GCF.

[shackanaw]

I'm willing to bet it's the same engine as L4D/2.

Judging from the new features, I think it is more a fork thereof, or a slightly newer version between Left 4 Dead 2 and Portal 2. I'm just being pedantic though.

[DarkRepublica]

If they were using Source engine 2009 it would be on Mac also, since that's what TF2, CSS, etc has been updated to. I'm willing to bet it's the same engine as L4D/2.

they're moved to source 2010

[Leaf Runner]

I really hope they don't use some ♥♥♥♥ system like VPKs. VPKs was a disgrace to Source games. It utterly killed the modding community in L4D/L4D2. Because of it, custom maps were dead due to the extremely ♥♥♥♥ty system. It was a huge hassle, and due to it, not only did nobody host custom games, but nobody would be assed to go through such a hassle to download a few maps. It would be much better if you could join a server and just download it from there.

And the skin modding system is worse. All skins are disabled outside of singleplayer and campaign. For a system that was meant to prevent "wallhackers", it caused a lot more harm to the community then the little (if any) good it did.

Please Valve, don't let us down. Imagine what a good game Alien swarm could be with a decent addon system. Custom maps, weapons, and fun addons. There would be custom gamemodes and more fun things. TF2 is doing so good with GCFs.

And damnit, put in a good server system too. L4D/L4D2's system was terrible. The whole lobby and matchmaking was screwed up in so many ways. It could be so much more enjoyable with the simple server browser.

[AkFuttySeben]

GCF's are better if you like longer loading times and fragmentation every update, sure. There's a reason they switched.

That's funny, L4D2 and L4D1 always have problems being out of sync + have huge loading times.

[Thegreenthing16]

That's funny, L4D2 and L4D1 always have problems being out of sync + have huge loading times.

Are you kidding me? L4D2 takes my computer 2 seconds to load, while TF2 takes 30 seconds.

[AntiFritz]

While the vpk system might be faster to load, i still prefer gcfs far more due to the ease of modding. Vpk games are annoying if you want to delete a skin because you would have to restore the file it replaced or verify gamecache in steam. Gcf files dont get altered at all with any type of mods.

[KeRupTion]

VPKs still seem to have a ways to go to be perfect for the modding community. There are a lot of problems and annoyances that come with them.

[Sw00f]

Are you kidding me? L4D2 takes my computer 2 seconds to load, while TF2 takes 30 seconds.

Extract all content of the GCF files into the actual folder and it's faster. NCF files are just a blueprint of the needed folder structure, they don't contain any actual game data.

That's why you wreck the whole game if you delete a file in the L4D folder. GCF files are for modding friendly games, NCF files for console ports.

[Bindal]

Due the fact how mapping works in Alien Swarm (with tiles, not with normal maps), it would say, it's going to be .vpk for addons.
From what I understood, you create sub-maps in Hammer (the tiles), safe them and then puzzle them together in the tile-tool as a full map - or just draw a line how the players should run through and the tile-tool tries to create a map on it's own as close as possible to the line.

So, that's a given fact. And from that, I presume, the tiles are .bsps and the maps itself a new type of file or a .txt - so, creating a .vpk would make it a lot easier.


also, it was already said the .vpk load A LOT faster and are more stable than .gcf

[spencer102]

Why not compromise and hope they use something better then either of them, thats fast and makes modding easy?

[shackanaw]

Extract all content of the GCF files into the actual folder and it's faster.

Out of curiosity, how would one go about doing that?

[xghX11x]

Out of curiosity, how would one go about doing that?

Use GCFScape (search on google or something) to look through a game's .GCF file, and extract all items into their appropriate folders in Steam's program files