Blerf. New YeahYeahYeah’s single

wondering a lot about the nature of the modern artist.
but this isn’t a post for waxing philo. sophical. topical?

Just wanted to note some trivial doodles on a scap of paper, so i can throw it away.
ideas for Left4Dead mod:
-Smoker’s death changed to a hanging cloud of maggots, which he can then fire at survivors, until they run out. like a gattling gun. just trying to tie into the grossness of flying maggots, ala FromBeyond, and give the smoker something satisfying to do when he’s blown up.

-Perhaps add “thief” character who steals your weapons? perhaps a human survivor who’s gone nuts? You lost points if you shoot him? or perhaps he hides behind closed doors, and you’ll only get things back if you don’t attack him. ?

– perhaps add “baitor gator” who dangles guns, pills, health, ammo. But it’s a trap. If you try to take it, you’ll find youself snagged.
maybe this would be better served as a modification to the smoker and boomer (and hunter…). that they could target the existing ammo/health drops. Boomer slimes them, so picking them up would call horde just like being barfed on. Smoker will instantly snag whoever picks one up. Hunter will lay waiting and perform a perfect pounce when triggered. (thus you could shoot the hunter and smoker first. but boomer has clearer advantage).
might be an interesting trade-off way to handle some of the annoyance of targeting for Smoker and Hunter. And the annoyance of getting shot before barfing. …

– perhaps the smoker could be modified to take the players weapon if the initial drag is interrupted.
Ie, if you melee the player, or shoot the tongue – this sets the victim free, but their gun is dragged on. you, or the victim, would then need to melee the gun, or shoot the tongue again, to release it.
This would also be a fun way to slow down the survivors, and give them more to do, strategically, than run like hell towards the exit.

(end of notes)

– also need to write out the idea of giving infected more options while waiting for respawn. Currently they have ~20 seconds to watch what others are doing (thus you learn to play by watching others on your team, and/or you can plan what to do on next spawn). Sometimes this seems to add no benefit (all others on your team are dead. or you clearly just need to do whatever you can to stop the survivors from running straight to exit).
Soooo, it’d be nice to have options. perhaps right clicking while you wait. or perhaps a menu pops up with option “zombie” or “worm” :
– one idea is to control zombies near the survivors. Same crappy health, but instead of standing still until being startled, you could run zombies into the trees, and try to sneak up on survivors, just to crank up the pressure. Perhaps a controlled zombie’s eyes could glow red, to let the survivor know it’s a human controlling.
– crazier idea is to let you control a “worm” from your dead corpse. Perhaps it could be an stomach for the boomer. a tongue piece for the smoker. a claw for the hunter? a head for the tank?
.This would be gross fun for the survivors, as part of the exploded corpse is animating and coming after them (fitting into some zombie movie’s tricks).
.If all 4 infected have been killed, there’s a chance for a concerted second attack before they all respawn.
. these “worms” would move quickly along the ground (able to catch up to survivors), and have the ability to jump.
. these worms only appear/can only be killed after they’ve been activated by infected (so you can’t just shoot an infected’s corpse to keep that infected’s worm from ever trying to activate).
. Survivors could kill worms with 2 shots, 2 melees, or by kneeling twice (if already attached to you).

my idea for these worms is some sort of small trivial attack. boomer stomach makes existing environment zombies alert instantly, and attack that character first. Smoker tongue slows down survivor it attaches to. hunter claw knocks your weapon out of your hand. tank head causes shock/stumble-back.
… alternately, maybe one could take control of a survivor’s gun. or cause a survivor to start firing endlessly. or make a survivor run constantly. or survivor can’t use weapon. or survivor can’t melee. or survivor is blind. or survivor can only walk. or survivor can’t talk. etc.