I've decided to complain to Valve about the grief I get from trying to connect to my dedicated server from a lobby. Here's the conversation so far. I invite others to send similar support requests at support.steampowered.com if you're annoyed by this as well.
1: Message by
you on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 6:59 pm
How do you connect to a specific game server from a lobby?
2: Message by Miles on Tue, 16th Dec 2008 3:24 pm
Hello Daniel,
Thank you for contacting Steam Support.
Please follow the link below for information:
Title: Setting Game Launch Options
Link:
http://support.steampowered.com/kb_a...1040-JWMT-2947
Please use -serverbrowser to find specific servers while in-game.
If you have any further questions, please let us know.
3: Message by
you on Tue, 16th Dec 2008 3:27 pm
How do I connect to a specific game server FROM A LOBBY?
4: Message by Miles on Tue, 16th Dec 2008 5:18 pm
Daniel,
You will only be able to join friends or group servers from the normal lobby.
If you would like to locate specific servers that no one you know is playing on, you will need to use the server browser.
Thank you for contacting Steam Support.
5 Message by
you on Tue, 16th Dec 2008 9
4 pm
There appear to be some features which are only accessible if you start your game with a lobby, such as setting the game friends-only/public, and choosing to start a versus match or coop game if the server is not already set to that.
Am I supposed to do without those features if I want to connect to a specific server?
6 Message by Miles on Wed, 17th Dec 2008 8:08 pm
Daniel,
You can always setup your own match and then find a Dedicated Server or run a Local server.
If you want to connect to a specific third party server, you will have to use their current setup.
7 Message by
you on Wed, 17th Dec 2008 9:00 pm
There doesn't appear to be any way to toggle a server (Local or otherwise) between friends-only and public without using the lobby. What you seem to be telling me is that feature is simply not available to me unless I allow your software to pick a server at random.
I've always been impressed with the third party server support of Valve games, and that was a major factor in my decision to purchase Left 4 Dead. I'm EXTREMELY disappointed here, and I don't think I'm asking for something unreasonable. I can't be the only customer of yours who wants to play on a server hosted by my clan/group, and people in my situation are being denied a feature that seems pretty elementery and essential.
Can you at least get me an explanation of why such a simple feature was omitted? Is there some technical limitation I'm not seeing that prevented you from just adding a third selection to the local/dedicated pull down menu?
UPDATE:
I just got this one today.
"I am sorry but this is not an option for Left 4 Dead at this time. You would need to connect to this server first and then your friends can join your game in progress."
The answer shows that there still seems to be some difficulty understanding what I'm talking about even though I worded it three different ways :/ Oh well... at least it's finite. I'm going to ask this guy if there's some way to escalate the problem to a bug, or otherwise make sure someone from outside of tech support hears about it.