Yesterday Valve announced the release of some custom campaign creation tools.  These tools, including the official L4D SDK, will be shared with the community through a Steam update next week.  Below is an excerpt of the news release from the L4D Blog.

[The update] introduces several key features:

Third party campaigns are designed to be installed using a new Add-On framework. Content authors will be able to package up their new maps, along with new posters, models, and textures, into a single .VPK file. To install and activate this content in-game, players need simply download the .VPK and double click on it. Alternatively, they will be able to drop it into a new "addons" folder. The list of installed add-ons will be viewable from a new item on the 'Extras' main menu flyout.

Because Left 4 Dead is all about sharing, we've re-tooled Left 4 Dead's matchmaking system to provide extensive support for custom add-on campaigns. When creating or searching for a lobby, a new option named "Add-on campaign" will let you select from among the add-on campaigns that you have installed. You can then find games or lobbies as well as create a lobby for that campaign. You can invite your friends, too. If they do not have the campaign installed, they will automatically be offered and an option to download it.

We've also made it easier to create lobbies by adding a 'Create Lobby' option directly from the 'Play Online' menu. Once you're ready to go, the new matchmaking system will automatically try to find any dedicated servers nearby that have the custom add-on campaign installed, or you can make your own local server.

We're also officially releasing the Authoring tools/SDK. Thanks to all who provided feedback during the open beta, the authoring tools have been updated with a few fixes and several new additions, including:

• The tutorial_standards map has been expanded into a minimal example campaign add-on called 'Dead Line'
• A new command line utility for creating and extracting from .VPK files
• Source files for all the official campaign maps

Also, look for a new tutorial on how to package up your campaigns into add-ons on the Developer Community wiki.

Join in the discussion of the SDK on our L4D forums and be sure to check out the work of our resident mappers, Duskmourne and Soul, in the Mapping/Modding section of our forums.

Alienware has come out of the blue with the release of a series of gaming events to be called the "Alienware Arena".  These 11 different events will be both online and at LANs, featuring games ranging from Quake Live to CS:S to Left 4 Dead.  The three L4D tournaments will be the PDXLAN in Portland (Oregon), the Survival of the Fittest online tournament hosted by CEVO and iGames, and GXL Unleashed in Millville (New Jersey).  Their official news release is below:

Welcome to Alienware Arena™, a new ongoing series of LAN and online tournaments for your favorite games, sponsored by Alienware®.

Through Alienware Arena events you’ll meet and compete against rival gamers in head-to-head and team challenges for the opportunity to win cash and high-performance Alienware gaming gear. No matter what part of the country you’re from or what type of games you prefer, we’ve got tournaments for you.

We’re kicking off Alienware Arena on June 27th with the Quake Live PC Gaming Season Open, an online tournament featuring Quake Live – the ultimate deathmatch title. Quake Live is free to download and play through your web browser and there’s no entry fee for the event. Register to play now at http://www.alienwarearena.com/event/ql-pcgs-09/.

In July and August we’ve got more tournaments coming for Counter-Strike 1.6, Counter-Strike: Source and Left 4 Dead; details will be posted in the coming weeks. Check back regularly for more event announcements for other games as well, including Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Team Fortress 2, DotA, and new titles yet to be released.

For all the latest information as it becomes available, register a new Alienware Arena account today and follow us on twitter. If you had a Dell College Gaming League (CGL) account, you’re already a member.

Step into the arena…

You can check out the Alienware Arena website by clicking HERE.  Discuss the Alienware events on our L4D forums.

About two weeks ago, VALVe announced the release of Left 4 Dead 2, set for release on November 17th of this year.  There's been a lot of speculation on the impact of this new release on the community, but we've taken the time to gather up the information that is currently available for L4D2 so that people can get a good look at what's coming our way.

A lot of the initial articles on L4D2 were very similar, giving us mostly all of the information that we have at the moment.  Four new Survivors, new multiplayer game mode, melee weapons, new campaigns, AI Director 2.0, wandering witches, new Special Infected, changes in how crescendos work, etc.  You can read about these features in the following articles:

Maximum PC Debut Article
Kotaku L4D2 Extended Impression
IGN: All The Gory Details of L4D2
Rock, Paper, Shotgun L4D2 Preview

E3 also gave VALVe's Doug Lombardi a chance to do a few interviews with some of the news organizations covering the event.  L4D2 was, obviously, the main focus of these articles.  Doug doesn't give a whole lot of [new] information on the game in the Gamespot interview, but in the G4 interview he gives us some insight on why VALVe decided to make a Left 4 Dead 2 instead of expanding on the current game.  You can watch the interviews here:

Gamespot Doug Lombardi Interview
G4 Doug Lombardi L4D2 In-Depth Demo

Chet Faliszek was also available to do an interview with Ausgamers a few days after the game was announced.  The interviewer asks about Chet's opinion on the community's reaction during this interview and Chet does a good job of trying to qwell people's fears.  This interview is less about the game and more about the community, I think this is the must-see video for people who are angry or worried about L4D2.  Chet mentions a ``perks" system in this interview, but cites the Incedary ammo as one of the rewards... wonder if that means there will be a TF2-style reward system?  We can only speculate on that for now.

Ausgamers Chet Interview

As for gameplay videos, the first two on the list will be a ``Developer" walkthrough that gives a little bit of insight on why they decided to include a few things in the new release.  There's no mention on which developer we're following in the videos but it's a fun watch.  The second set of videos are just simple gameplay videos, no commentary or anything but it shows a full run through of the first two maps of the Parish campaign.  This set of videos shows off most of the new content, with no commentator to annoy you.  You can find the videos below.

E3 '09 Developer Walkthrough Part I
E3 '09 Developer Walkthrough Part II

E3 '09 Direct-Feed PC Gameplay Part I
E3 '09 Direct-Feed PC Gameplay Part II
E3 '09 Direct-Feed PC Gameplay Part III
E3 '09 Direct-Feed PC Gameplay Part IV

That's all the information available to us about L4D2 for now, we'll have to wait for some more big events so VALVe can give us some more information about the game.  Until then... go play your CEVO tournament matches!  YEA!

CEVO has decided to change the format of the playoffs in the 4v4 L4D Tournament:

Due to an overwhelming number of requests, we have decided to expand the L4D tournament playoff to 32 teams. The format will remain double elimination with the top team in each group advancing in one of the top 24 seeds, with the last 8 seeds being filled by wildcard teams ranked by the CPI.

EDIT:

Teams have been seeded - http://www.cevo.com/playoffs/bracket.php?id=666

Explanation of seeding - http://commforums.com/cevo-playoff-brackets-up-t1215.html

Check out the original news post HERE.