1 Maps Available

09/16/11
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The Missions file has been updated with the addition of Death Toll. Also, here's the download page for GCFScape, a great free tool for opening up vpk (addon) files and seeing their content in directory form. Download or update the required Microsoft .NET Framework components to run this tool. With GCFScape you can open and extract any standard vpk file, as opposed to the VPK.exe file that immediately extracts without letting you see what's inside first. Latest stable version is 1.8.2.

http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?c=169#p169

09/08/11
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You have to also download the "Total Melee Unlocker - Missions" addon, because one won't work properly without the other. Download link below. Dailymotion preview vid coming up shortly.

http://www.l4dmaps.com/details.php?file=12719


This addon is a combination of a couple different ones. It contains the Unused Melee Animations by KillznThrillz, and the Melee Unlocker by Praetor/Dani1341. This was originally my personal copy, where I applied a few tweaks for myself, and wasn't meant for a public release. But I thought what the heck, couldn't hurt. What it does is:

1) Enables the 3rd striking animation for most melee weapons. Example, you can now perform the overhead strike with the fireaxe (as performed by Rochelle in L4D2's cinematic intro). Other melees have a swinging uppercut-like strike, and those include the two bats and the frying pan. Lots more zombies will now have a headache after this!

2) Enables ALL melee weapons in every official campaign, including the golfclub, riotshield and hunting knife. They will spawn regularly throughout the campaigns. Or you can spawn them yourself via the console with the "give riotshield / hunting_knife / golfclub / b_foamfinger / mace / fubar" command (if you have sv_cheats 1 previously entered). I will keep updating it to include the remaining L4D1 ports as they're released.

3) Enables the female boomer in the official campaigns she's previously disabled in for no reason, like Dead Center, Hard Rain, The Passing and the L4D1 ports. Once again, it will be updated to include the remaining ports.

Now it includes 3 new melee weapons. The Mace and Fubar by Lurch, and Suicide Blitz's Bunny FoamFinger by R.T. Frisk and Bunny. To install, put BOTH the Scripts and Missions vpk's in your Addons folder. Full credit and special thanks to KillznThrillz for his Unused Melee animations mod, Dani1341/Praetor for their Melee Unlocker, Lurch for the Fubar and Mace, and R.T.Frisk/Bunny for the Suicide Blitz FoamFinger.


PS: I also thought that the original mace skin was bland, so I thought I'd spice it up. Unfortunately I'm crap at it and it turned out looking much worse. But hey this was just my personal copy, certainly wasn't meant to be released to the public. Feel free to give better ideas for the mace's look.


***IMPORTANT NOTICE***

Reasons why this addon might not work for you, can be a combination of multiple ones:

1) You have a custom campaign or another melee mod in your Addons folder that has its own melee_manifest file, which will override this one.

2) You are using an older version of the Unlocker, in which case trash it and get this one instead.

3) You are playing on a server that has addons disabled or an "official dedicated" one, which are not known to be addon-friendly. Unfortunately that's beyond me.

4) Most custom campaigns I've personally played use a modified version of Dead Center's mission.txt file, which by default disables the Female Boomers. The majority of mappers also like to enter their own selection of melee weapon spawns in their campaigns, so if you never spot a foamfinger or you're unable to spawn a mace via the console, it means that the campaign doesn't allow them.

Only way to fix that is to unpack the campaign's vpk* and edit its mission.txt file in standard Notepad, by removing the "melee weapons" line. Here's an example of a custom campaign that disables certain items. Those lines are completely useless for the campaign itself, but the mapper left them there anyway, because he could. Delete these lines, and repack the campaign.

"allow_cola" "1"
"no_wpn_restore" "1" // on player wipe, don't keep any weapons
"no_female_boomers" "1" // Can't have female Boomers because there's no audio support
"no_cs_weapons" "1" // no Germany / CS weapons, preserve the weapons in the gun shop
"survivor_set" "2" // Which set of survivors should be used. 1=L4D1, 2=L4D2**

"meleeweapons" "fireaxe;cricket_bat;baseball_bat;machete;frying_pan;katana;tonfa;golfclub;crowbar"

* To unpack the campaign, you need to have the L4D2 Authoring Tools installed. Among other things, it places a VPK.exe file in the installation folder that allows you to decompile and REcompile vpk addons. Just drag the vpk file on the VPK.exe to decompile it. That will create the root directory of the addon in folder form, in the same name as the original vpk file (example "suicideblitz2", leaving you free to do whatever you want to it. Remove music files you don't want or, edit the mission.txt file or make a copy of the cool Tank skin that campaign has for yourself.

After you've saved the changes to the mission.txt file, time to recompile the campaign. Just drag the addon's folder onto VPK.exe and let it do its thing. It will create a new vpk file with the same name and will overwrite the old one, so if you want to keep the old one as well, make sure you move it somewhere safe, so it doesn't get overwritten. Best to make a shortcut to it and place it on your desktop for faster and easier access. The standard location of the VPK.exe file is:

for Windows 7 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\left 4 dead 2\bin\vpk.exe"

for XP "C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\left 4 dead 2\bin\vpk.exe"

** The survivor_set line tells the campaign which survivors to use, the L4D1 or L4D2. You don't have to touch that one if you don't want to. If you want the L4D2 survivors, just delete the entire line. The default set is the L4D2 ones anyway.

And on a last note, yes I'm fully aware that the Mace uses the crowbar's icon, and the fubar and foamfinger have no HUD icon. The original makers didn't get around to that. If you think you can come up with decent HUD icons for them, feel free to and you'll receive full credit.