Late as hell but there was an update to the TF2 beta that modifies a lot of weapons and adds a few. The pyro can also flarejump in that beta. Betcha that’ll get you playing.

Edit: Man where that title at?

The guys over at L4Dmods have started cracking on custom Melee weapons, which the game supports surprisingly well. This only works with Melee weapons.

Very simple and temporary tutorial.

Riot Shield Mod, using scrapped melee weapon models, when Locally Hosting or Playing as Singelplayer, it has a chance to show up in all games.

Note: While looking through the models myself I found an unused w_didgeridoo.mdl, currently working on a weapon mod to see what that is.

Well apparently, looking through files in the L4D2 Demo to find references to both a “Miracle Pack” and “Apocalyptic Pack” to be downloaded from Xbox LIVE’s marketplace system. It looks like DLC may not be far down the road after release, which will be good, considering how frequent the previous Left4Dead was updated.

Owners of the PC version will have nothing to worry about, as Valve has stated time and time again, any DLC pricing is strictly done by Microsoft.

“On the consoles, they want us to charge money for [DLC], because that’s in their model, and our model is very much more to grow the community by giving out free updates,” said Valve president Gabe Newell last year. “That’s harder for us.”

There is also mention of the original Left 4 Dead maps, as well as mugshots of the original four survivors for character selection. Left over files from the first, or a possible clue to L4D2 supporting the original maps and characters, under the new engine?

Thanks to FPSBanana and G4 for bringing the story to my attention.

The original story can be found here, posted by Cordl3ssPen on the Rage3D forums.

Some russian dudes apparently leaked a video of them. Either they’re testers and they don’t mind getting on valve’s bad side or they managed to summon a beta version somehow using their cyrillic sorcery.

The most obvious unlock is the PDQ. Looks like something real nice to start the round with. The next part of the video shows the gloves of running urgently, though you can’t get a proper feel for their speed as the player keeps wobbling his damn view around. You’ll also notice a few subtler changes such as the heavy being able to toss his sandviches and a new respawning/spec hud that shows teammate health, class, and charge. Backpack changes, a fireproof spysuit replacing the revolver, whatever.

There’s also a change to the medic, the blutsaughter having a passive -3hp/s, while the medic’s self-heal ramp got changed from 1-3hp to 3-6hp. This means that you can trade active healing for passive healing.  I’m not quite sure if this nullifies being on fire though.

So Valve, in response to various pressures, (especially the feedback from the most recent update) has created a closed beta with “competitive” players to evaluate and test various game-balance ideas they have, seperately from their normal game testers.

There is a forum thread now discussing many of the changes that have been heard about from some of the beta testers. Included in the post’s “confirmed”changes currently under testing are:

-The Sandman with some stun tweaks (not detailed) that gives back the Scouts double-jump but reduces his health to 95.

-A new Spy suit that gives him “90% damage reduction from flames” but removes his revolver.

-Heavy gloves that let him run faster while he’s wielding them (the drawback is unknown currently).

The forum post is being updated as new information becomes available, and includes many interesting tweaks and weapons that have a good chance of eventually making it into the game.