xREL.v3

i couldnt figure it out until last night, thought it might be helpful if someone else is searching for a solution to this, since this game does not have such an optoin listed in the menu.

1, the players have to have hamachi open and in the same hamachi network.

2. open left 4 dead, in the main menu, press button "`" which is just left of you number "1" button on the keyboard; this will open up the console.

3. to host a local game, one of the players has to do this to open a local server:
to enable LAN, type in:
Quote:
sv_lan 0


if no red lines returned from the console then you are doing it right.

and then to set the game difficulty, type in
Quote:
z_difficulty
and you will see in a drop down menu there are Normal, Advanced and such.

and then to pick a map, type in
Quote:
map
and you will see in the dropdown thing you will see a list of map just scroll down and pick one and enter.
upon doing this, your computer will automatically start a game on your LAN interface.

after the host finished loading, to enable people to join without going through a lobby, open up the console again, and type:
Quote:
sv_allow_lobby_connect_only 0


4. Now, for the other players to join, they have to type this in the console:
Quote:
connect (space) (host ip)


and the client will load and join the host.

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when we did this, we had different hamachi ip ranges, we did not use aliases, and it works fine.
apparently it lags for a couple minutes when a new safe house finishes loading but it sually go away within 2 minutes, so just wait in the safe house for a bit until everyone confirms they are not lagging.

to do this not over the internet, but within the actualy lan, you dont need hamachi, just use the ip your router assigned to each of the computer under the router.

end warning: Hamachi on some degree is like setting up VIP highway from one computer over the internet to your house, it is not a safe thing to join some random hamachi network and just leave it idling, recommand to use it only with the buddies you can trust. set the network to public in vista and turn off file sharing.
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the one group we been using just maxed, i made a new group, people can join and play using this above method.
group name: L4D-NonSteam-airoscar
password: free
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a small list of commands you might use in the console:
(value 0 stands for false, 1 stands for true)
Quote:
openserverbrowser //open server browser (it works only after a server browser patch, i think)
sv_lan 0 // Disable LAN
mp_disable_autokick 1 // Disable Autokick
sv_cheats 0 // Disallow Cheats
sv_clearhinthistory 0 //Clear Server Side Hint History
sv_consistency 1 //Enforce file consistency
sv_pausable 0 //Server not pausable
sv_allow_lobby_connect_only 0 // Disable Lobby Connections
sv_unreserve // Don't list publicly