Left 4 Dead 2
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What's the deal with Rochelle?
Автор: Steakchelle
What's the deal with Rochelle? Why was she hated on by the community for so long? Did anything about her change?
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[Introduction]
Hello! My name is Steakchelle I've planned to make this a video rather than a Steam guide with the help of my friend Dead Shidai, but decided not to, to make things less difficult for the both of us. In this guide I'll be explaining how underrated Rochelle is.
She's better than what the community thinks, the problem with her is how rushed the game ended up being, causing her to miss out on unique animations like Zoey or lines showing in the game.


If you find small things like her laughter annoying, you could install this!



[Step 1 : Beta release]
- During the Beta, Rochelle went trought a lot of redesigns before the retail design we have to this day was chosen, from overweight mom vibes, to a skinny afro girl!


- Valve chose to go with a blood stained orange shirt, a natural face, no jewelry, and a cute hair-do with 3 strands of hair. Before the game was released, they decided to change her design one final time to give her spiky dreads, a band t-shirt called Depeche Mode, gave her bracelets and earrings, and her belt changed colors and got dirtier. No one knows why Valve changed her design so heavily before the final release and many are unhappy with the final touches given.

There's something that all of Rochelle's design shared and those were her thick lips[cdn.discordapp.com], Shanola's lips were actually smaller but Valve decided to make them bigger for whatever reason.
There's a mod that gives you an idea of how they should've looked, made by it's respective Author.


1 * One of her designs showed Rochelle without her strands of hair of jewelry.



2 * Since the game was rushed (releasing only an exact year after L4D1), Valve got rid of most of Rochelle's unique animations, adding Bill's and scaling them down to match Rochelle's smaller skeleton. As of The Last stand update's release, these animations have been given to her!

3* There's a concept shown where Rochelle has black bracelets and an Afro. Her portrait is also outdated, missing her spiky dreads, earrings, and the color of her shirt being a toned down pink

[Step 2 : Over the few couple years]
- Over the few couple years, the community's opinion on Rochelle was very harsh compared to the rest of the survivors, some blamed it on racism despite Coach and Louis being very popular characters, and the real reason why is because of the little amount of lines Rochelle would say other than "Axe me a question" or "Blarg" because of the Talker (The file in charge of conversations, vocalizers, etc..) was rushed and broken. As of The Last stand update, her lines, and the rest of the survivors, were brought back.

People began making videos, gifs, or images, that involved Rochelle being hurt, killed, or being treated harsh by her friends



[Step 3 : Rochelle's golden era]
- When the The Last stand update finally came out, people were super excited and eager to listen to all the lines added back to the game thanks to Xanaguy <3.




- At this moment, you'll still find a small portion of the community who still dislikes her, this portion is the side of the racist, mysoginistic people, and the other side of the people are the ones who haven't stopped to listen to the lines brought back. They'll still call her boring and bland despite not wanting to listen to her. But as I said, it's only a small portion! Even if the majority of the community might prefer other Survivors to Rochelle, that doesn't mean they don't respect her.

[Step 4 : Hate fuel]
- I tried to do some research as to why do people hate Rochelle so much. There's 4 reasons :

* Her looks
* The Director (Her Ai)
* Her Voicelines
* Getting compared to other Survivors


Looks : Rochelle's design is pretty curious in my opinion as she's the only person with a job and not looking like they actually work as a Producer. She actually looks cassual, not fancy like Nick. People say including me, that she should've looked something like this instead!

- Variant 1
- Variant 2

The Director : The Director is the system that controls everybody except for the players, everybody as in Bots and the Infected. People thought that her Ai was dumber than the rest. So she would behave terribly and screw up the player. However this isn't her fault either because they all have the same script, Nick is like Rochelle's Ai to me. TERRIBLE, He's screwed me and my friends plenty of times but none of us hate him because it's not the character's real identity.

Voicelines : Voicelines are an interesting topic when it comes to Rochelle since she was a victim of the Talker not working as it should. Later on I'll be talking further about her lines.

Comparison to other Survivors : Rochelle was compared to Zoey a lot, even comparing her to Bill when they didn't have anything to do with each other at all. People hated her so much that they made these kind of videos or would completely replace her as a whole with Zoey! (Credits to Jerry for pointing this out! The one thing I'll let you all know, is to never compare characters to each other. Because it's only gonna be a broken balance between each other. One is funnier than the other and you expect to like the one that's not the funniest more? It's not how it works for you right? Alright. Just because Rochelle is very mature when it's the right time doesn't mean that she's boring.



Fun fact : A player being toxic while playing as Rochelle isn't an excuse to hate her.



[Step 5 : Rochelle's Backstory]
- Rochelle used to be a desk manager. She was promoted to a Producer to explain on the news about the outbreak that was currently going on. But of course this didn't end well at all as her and her fellow Staff members were swarmed by the Infected and all she could do is run away to safety. It's not explained how she met her teammates, but I do know that at the beginning of the game, she canonically introduces her new friends to the Special Infected except for the Tank which she didn't knew about at that time.


- She used to have a special someone before she encountered her new friends named Jacob. He's only mentioned once in one of her voicelines but it would of been a better
move if Valve introduced us as to who Jacob was to Rochelle.People even made threads about this certain person but to this day we don't know any further other than she wished she would've stayed with him.

- TheApostle7 a SFM artist made a flashback of Rochelle which might actually be super accurate as to what happend before the outbreak.



J A C O B
[Step 6 : Voicelines]
Despite one of Rochelle's major problems is her being compared to "Hot icon" Zoey. She has lines that hold her up very well, if you don't want to spend hours finding her lines, you can check out this list with lines I've attached.

The better thing to do is play as her when you get the chance!

Dead center :

* Streets : Find the Whitaker gunshop and start picking up guns slowly

After the cola has been retrieved, headshot special infecteds.

* Mall : Ok! So for this to happen Coach has to pray to God to have kept the food safe.
as Rochelle and Ellis say Amen after his prayer ends

Swamp Fever :

* Plank country : Get near the "Don't swim" signs as Rochelle as she triggers a silly line

Smack dab in the middle of the bayou. You can get a line if you run to the other side of the ferry and look across said bayou

* Swamp : After the fallen plane crescendo you'll find a bathtub, there's a chance a conversation between Rochelle and Ellis happens, she teases him about if he's ever seen a bathtub in his life because of his smell.

Lines list :

* My aunt lived here with the swam- the people (Swamp Fever)
* All bark no bite! (Tank's death)
* Ahah! Who's barking now? (Tank's death)
* Don't make me get ugly with you! (FF)
* Give it to me straight Doc, am I gonna make it? (Standing up)
* Blah blah blah, just get me up (Standing up)
* Does my hair look good? (Standing up)
* Son of a Beasting this hurts! / By the beards of Zeus this hurts! / Nights of kolombus this hurts (Third strike movie references)
* One of you fellas wanna carry the cute girl? (Injured)
* Hey guys! Unlike Ellis, I'm not a complainer. But I'm about to die. (Sarcastic third srike)
* (Giggles) Mhm! I'm with Coach, I hate Smokers. (Heard a Smoker too)
* I'm going to give that Witch something to cry about! (Heard a Witch)
* (This is a rare line that happens when Coach calls The Witch a b1tch) - Coach be nice! Witch.. we call her.. a Witch!
* Ellis, that was me! (Ellis thinks he got the kill)
* Well I am the best looking girl hanging on this ledge! I wish I wasn't... hanging.. on the ledge.. I mean! (Ledge hanging)
* Damsel on distress over here! (Downed)
* You want us to cover you from zombie attacks while you wash your hands Nick? (The Passing saferoom convo)
* Sweet Lincolns mullet! (Movie reference, vocalizer line)
* If I didn't knew any better I would have thought you were trying to kill yourself, damn now. (Helping somebody up)
* Look! The big guy from upstairs isn't ready to take you yet! Let's get you up on your feet! (Reviving)
* Do you think Coach was his first or last name? (Mourning Coach)
* Thanks m' brotha! (Thanking Coach)
* Look at you Nick you do have a heart, a heart of gold! (Thanking Nick)
* Yeah with our luck that's just a bridge monster (The Parish Waterfront convo)
* We're here! Crescent city. I'll tell you now.. I'm not showing anyone my tits! (The Parish Waterfront intro convo)
* Does anyone know how to make a Hurricane? A zombie? They're drinks seriously! (The Parish - You can trigger this near the jukebox bar in Waterfront)
* Zombies! Holy sh1t they're real... (Dead Center Hotel line)
* I want them all! Seriously, I want every gun in this store! (Whitaker shop)
* Jeez, Ellis, is it supposed to feel this good to see this many guns? (Whitaker shop)
* Okay I regret EVERY joke I made about gun owners (Whitaker shop)
* I don't know if it's the feel or the weight or the thousand Zombies trying to kill me but I'm really starting to like these guns (After the cola has been retrieved)
* Boom! Headshot! ( Headshotting a Special infected after retreving cola )
* You people eat the strangest sh1t.. (Whitaker cola talk)
* Sh1t! I think I accidentally grabbed diet cola, we should go.. Hey thanks Whitaker! (After the barrier is explodes)
* Dang! That mans knows how to clear a path (After the barrier explodes)
* Jimmy... Gibbs... Junior? Southeners make the strangest people famous ( Jimmy Gibbs poster at the Atrium's saferoom)
* Take that Jimmy gibbs! (Rochelle kills JG)
* Hey I had that idea first! (After Ellis talks about filling up Jimmy gibb's car)
* Dibs on Gibbs! (Rochelle finds JG)
* Stock cars can't drive over traffic right? (Dark carnival intro)
* You do realize that if this Jimmy Gibb's guy has driven a monster truck, we'd be home free right now.. (Dark Carnival intro)
* Wow look at all these cars, poor dumb bastards, they thought they could escape on foot.. Wait. That's what we're doing? (Dark carnival's Highway)
* The Midnight riders, yeah I think my dad liked them back in the 18th century (Fairgrounds second chapter convo)
* The Midnight riders, so they ride midnight or ride at midnight? I'm not sure.. I hate classic rock (Dark carnival's Fairgrounds second chapter convo)
* Every lady present is getting a headache... (Dark carnival Fairgrounds chapter 2 convo)
* Midnight Riders? Yeah they gotta be a big deal if they're playing at a fairgrounds. (Dark carnival chapter 2 beginning)
* Look at that, his eyes follow you... (Points out the carnival's Lil' Peanut)
* "Coach if we make it to new orleans, I'm buying everyone a fully automatic sniper rifle with a laser scope and a whole box of piercing ammo (The Passing Convo)
* Coach you're making me hungry just listening to you.. (Coach talking about food)
* Ah, the hell with it. Woooh Kiddie Land!
* Gee my bedroom was painted like this when I was a kid, baby blue, I think my dad wanted a boy (Tunnel of love convo)
* Dang Coach sounds like you used to be in a diet of Cheerleaders! (Reference: Nick, I was on the football team. Coach did just fine…)
* I never liked the tunnel of love, sitting in a big plastic Swan and half foot of water, that ain't romantic, that's just stupid (Tunnel of love)
* So when you came here Nick, did they gave you the smallest Swan to ride on by yourself? (Tunnel of love)
* Coach's crazy idea worked! (Pilot arrives at the Concert)
* It worked! God bless your bad taste in music Coach! (Pilot arrives at the Concert)
* Ya think the Zombies left the lights on for us? (Dark carnival's Motel voiceline)
* I sure as hell ain't going into a Haunted house (Made for custom campaigns)
* Oh! Popcorn, popcorn! I LOVE popcorn, you Coach? (Fairgrounds voiceline)
* Ellis, are you even tall enough to get into these rides? (Despite Ellis being taller than her)
* Climbing back up this hill is not near as fun as sliding down.. (Climbing the hill to the fairgrounds entrance)
* Ellis, I bet you won all the girl's teddybears (Fairgrounds)
* They actually have to put a sign to stop people from swimming in the gator park? Alright..(Swamp Fever, ferry)
* Yeah let's just the cut trought the gator park, and visit the crazy militants in the swamp! Sound good? (Swamp fever)
* Agh, the swamp's buggy, who would've guessed that? (Swamp Fever)
* So what do you think is gonna kill us? Zombies, gators, snakes, bugs, or swamp people? (Ferry conversation)
* Hey Ellis, that's a bathtub.. you've ever seen one before?
Ellis : Have you smelled yourself recently?
Rochelle : Fair Enough (Full convo)

* I am SICK to death of this mud (Swamp Fever)
* I've always wanted to do this.. (Opening the fallen plane's door in Swamp fever)
* This place makes Cleveland look nice.. (Swamp fever, probably the shacks)
* Oh I still wanted to make friends with the swamp people.. (Swamp fever)
* I never thought I'd miss a gun so much (Hard rain intro, she picks a weapon on the table of Burgertank)
Ellis : I almost wanna cry with all of these Witches
* Hah you wanna cry? Let's give these b1tches something to cry about (Hard rain, Sugar Mill)









[Step 7 : Voicelines 2]
* Okay, we just ran up here covered in blood getting chased by Zombies, do you think we haven't encountered Infected? Let us trought the damn bridge! (The Parish bridge convo with the Military )
* Hey, kill all sons of b1tches right? (The Parish bridge line)
* I'm glad I can't Tweet, 'cause I could never fit today in a 140 characters.. (Dead center, chapter 2 intro, Twitter Reference)
* Dang a gun like this even if you miss, the Zombies die out of respect (Deagle voiceline)

The Passing DLC Folder voicelines :

* If you lower the bridge I'll tell you how old I am! (Rochelle towards Francis, first chapter intro)
* If you lower the bridge.. I uh... I'll give you.. a kiss..! (Rochelle towards Francis, first chapter intro)
* Wow even the convinient stores in the south have guns. (The store you have to go trought in the first chapter)
* (Giggles) They even had guns at weddings? (Wedding voiceline while checking the tents)
* I don't know what she's crying about, but atleast she got married. (Infected Bride)
* This is one time where I don't mind being the Bride's maid. (Wedding voiceline)
* Something old, something new, something about to rip your guts out.. (Wedding voiceline)
* Ahhhh! I pissed off ANOTHER bride! (She pisses off the Bride)
* That's a waste of a nice dress.. (Bride's death)
* Stay up the dirt, it's historical! (During The Passing's tour on the walkway)
* Hey Nick, splash fight? (During the tour after jumping down the stairs to the sewer water)

* Special convo during the beginning of chapter 2 :

* We need to stay motivated... yeah, we need to stay motivated.

* Hey Coach, if we make it to New Orleans, there's a cheese burger museum!

* Hey Ellis, I heard there's a stock car museum in New orleans!

Rochelle tries to boost Nick's mood but he cuts her off

* Ellis honey I've been thinking, somewhere down the road do you think we could trade it for a car with let's say, working doors in the back seat? (Saferoom convo chapter 2, Jimmy Gibbs's car)

Convo :

* Ellis, ask yourself, what would Keith do? (Saferoom convo chapter 2)
Coach : Girl what are you doing!?
Rochelle : Ahh, I wasn't thinking!


* Hey, is this your suitcase Nick? (Suitcase with money in one of the bar's bedrooms)
* After a few hours in the car with you guys it's nice to hear some new voices ( Port elevator line)

There's a convo between Francis & Rochelle in the game exactly like this one.


* Rochelle will always boost Ellis mood when he talks about Zoey, when Nick only
jokes around with it (In a good way)
* Nick, you have to find a woman who hates herself, and she'll love you! (Port saferoom convo)
* Nick, being one of the last two woman in the world alive I can safely say, atleast half of the women in this world hates you (Port saferoom convo)

You can also check out this video even if it has a lot of outdated information since it's 5 years old :

End
End of the essay

If there's missing details you would like added to the guide, don't be shy to let us know in the comment section! If this guide helped you changed your point of view on her, I'm glad! If it didn't, then I'll pretend I don't mind, at least you know what she's about. Thank you so much for reading everything.
XOXO - Steakchelle


Коментарів: 136
Steakchelle  [автор] 2 берез. о 7:46 
Yeah you're definitely right. Also Sheva is such a queen we need her to come back, Capcom made her flop when they forced you to play Chris first therefore making people think her AI specifically was bad compared to his despite them having the same one
fya 1 берез. о 17:21 
(Not saying that everyone who hated/hates Rochelle is a racist) Coach and Louis being black men, doesn't mean that there weren't people who hated her because she was black. There are a lot of people who don't have problems with women, or black men but do with black women.
Final Badguy 6 лют. о 3:47 
the deal was that there wasn't an extremely rich selection of mods to replace rochelle with back when the game came out
Steakchelle  [автор] 16 листоп. 2023 о 1:50 
Awe you’re so sweet thank you! Yeah I also agree a lot of hate towards her was definitely a hive mind, but keep in mind the people who started playing L4D2 were often teens so it’s no wonder that would happen. Rochelle isn’t the only character affected by hive minds, Zoey also
Kris 19 жовт. 2023 о 21:00 
In my opinion Rochelle is a very cool character in general, just as the others. I think it was just a hive mentality or a very popular opinion about 'hating her' some years ago just because it was funny or because everyone else would say that a lot, rinse and repeat.
By the way, all survivors bots have the same awful AI.
Also as you pointed out, she has plenty of funny/interesting quotes just as Coach, Ellis or Nick, recently I have been playing as her more often and it's refreshing to see more quotes; maybe most people prefer the others than her, which is totally fine.
Each survivor has its own personality and uniqueness that makes them different from each other, that's why they are great and remarkable, and this is shown in game almost at any moment.
It could be worse but at least most or some of her current 'hate' is just for the meme. At this point people are more chill about Rochelle.
Great guide, I enjoyed reading this, you did a very nice investigation overall, keep it up.
Lemmestrokeyoshit25 13 черв. 2023 о 15:50 
try unlocking the battlepass
Steakchelle  [автор] 1 квіт. 2023 о 21:06 
The line goes "Yeah you wanna cry? Let's give these bitches something to cry about!" and it's in the list, I forgot to add the aunt's one, thank you for helping <3
Veikko 1 квіт. 2023 о 20:52 
So in Swamp Fever, she also has a line referencing her aunt living with the swamp people.
It's a very rare line to hear, but it give a little more incite on her family.
"My aunt lived here with the swam- the people"

(Some lines may be a little incorrect considering these lines are rare to hear)

In Hard Rain if you go into the locker room recuse closet, on chapter 2, she'll sometimes say "Yeah, these bitches wanna cry, let's give them something to cry about!"
Steakchelle  [автор] 1 квіт. 2023 о 20:41 
Ohh, I'll make sure to add that and all bark no bite as well, thank you for helping!
spaghetti 29 берез. 2023 о 14:02 
another of my favorite lines from her is when she says "who's barking now" during a tank fight