[Official] Left 4 Dead 2

[Umbrello]

Some people are just never happy. If it's released far too late, people whine and complain.. if it's early you do the same thing.

Edited June 2, 2009 by Umbrello

[Mathachew Veteran]

When i saw this trailer, i was just shocked by how good the graphics are.

Those aren't gameplay graphics, and perhaps you missed the trailer for Left 4 Dead 1? Essentially the same "graphics".

[Ayepecks]

Some people are just never happy. If it's released far too late, people whine and complain.. if it's early you do the same thing.

The time of release is not the issue of debate here, but good try! :)

[The Teej]

Where's Episode 3 ? L4D just came out and already gets a sequel...Could have just released this as a DLC :p

Yeah, Episode 3 is taking way too long. It seems like all they care about now is Team Fortress and Left 4 Dead these days. No love for the franchise that built Valve up in the first place.

[Konstanov]

I was referring to game engine specific updates. :p

I was being sarcastical.

[deletedxyz]

HL 2 Ep 3 now! I just finished playing all the episodes and HL2 a few days ago and can't wait! Well... I'll wait if Half life: Black Mesa comes out soon.

[StealMySoda]

Well I was thinking this through.

And I came up with something that I'd be quite happy with.

-4 Campaigns.

-All with different character sets. (So in todays terms, we'd have Bill, Zoey, Louis and Francis for No Mercy. Bob, Sarah, Winston and Charles for Blood Harvest etc etc.

-All attempting to escape to one point (Seems one campaign is New Orleans, so we could say they are attempting to get to Mexico?)

-Bring it together with the 5th campaign being all 16 survivors working together (possibly only PC version (xbox limitations?)), against 16 infected. To all escape together. Or maybe 8, saying a couple died on the way or something.

-Different weapons for each campaign.

-Some sort of story to go along with it. Possibly a prequel campaign as well.

All I've come up with so far, but I would definitely spend my money on it :p

[Samn9]

Most discussion/debate is useless at this point, there's still quite a bit they could reveal about the game regarding content, price and so on. Let's just wait and see.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

I'm glad Valve plans to add more weapons and maps to Left 4 Dead. Now, they should offer a Left 4 Dead veteran discount for Left 4 Dead 2.

[Hurmoth]

Some Valve Fans Not Happy About Left 4 Dead 2

With the announce of Left 4 Dead 2, the poorly titled sequel to last years zombie hit, a lot of people were made quite happy. It seems that you can't make everyone happy all the time, however, as over 6,000 people from the Steam forums have banded together to form the "L4D2 Boycott" group.

Admittedly, the usual Valve way of going about things is to support their games for free post-launch in spades, a la Team Fortress 2. Gabe Newell even said that such would be the order of business with Left 4 Dead in this interview with VideoGamer. However, the one add-on pack that has come out for the game took a LOOOOONG time in doing so, and it seems the reason for that delay was that the team was working on Left 4 Dead 2 the whole time.

The people who are members of the L4D2 Boycott group have a number of reasons listed on their Steam community page that detail why they're planning on "boycotting" the new game. The most valid complaints center around the fact that significant content for Left 4 Dead was promised, but never delivered, and that the community of the original game will get split. The other complaints are pretty lame and nitpicky ("I don't like the characters, I don't like the lighting, I don't like the music blahblahblah whine whine").

I ventured into the chat room for the L4D2 Boycott group for a little investigative reporting, a horrible place where most people chose to leave their caps lock on and say angry things. I introduced myself, asked a few questions, and found myself presenting the other side of the equation to a quite close-minded crew. "With the economy the way it is right now," I asked, "don't you think it'd be the proper thing to (as a fan) support the developer and buy their new game instead of just expecting another handout? It could be that they're having trouble sustaining that old model because of the present economic situation." This idea was immediately shunned by everyone in the chat. "They arent hurting for money," one user assured me. "They sold many many copies."

While it's true that Left 4 Dead has done well commercially, it's by no means the biggest-selling game on the block. Also, there hasn't been any new Valve games to come out since the release of Left 4 Dead. If it weren't for the release of Left 4 Dead 2, there wouldn't be a single Valve game to come out at all in 2009. In these current economic times, would it really be possible for Valve to survive by relying only on sales of old games?

These questions would have to be answered by Valve themselves, and I plan on getting some quotes from them in the near future. The situation definitely isn't as cut and dry like the L4D2 Boycott members would have you believe, and their could be a totally understandable reason that Valve is pumping out this sequel so quickly. We'll just have to wait and see.

I can't believe people are so confident about how well Valve is or isn't doing. That **** ****es me off. Unless you work for them or you own your own business then how the hell can you possibly know how well they're doing? You can't!

I for one prefer Valve go this route then go the Blizzard way and start charging a monthly fee. Or would some of you complaining out there like that? Sometimes I wonder if people ever think about the company producing the games they love instead of themselves and their own selfish ways.

[Athernar]

Some Valve Fans Not Happy About Left 4 Dead 2

I can't believe people are so confident about how well Valve is or isn't doing. That **** ****es me off. Unless you work for them or you own your own business then how the hell can you possibly know how well they're doing? You can't!

I for one prefer Valve go this route then go the Blizzard way and start charging a monthly fee. Or would some of you complaining out there like that? Sometimes I wonder if people ever think about the company producing the games they love instead of themselves and their own selfish ways.

I guess you never saw http://www.joystiq.com/2009/02/20/steams-l...ection-by-3000/

Or that fact almost two years after release TF2 is still on Steam's Top Sellers list.

[Hurmoth]

Okay, but look at how cheap they sell that and are continuing to update TF2. Imagine how much that costs.

[Athernar]

Okay, but look at how cheap they sell that and are continuing to update TF2. Imagine how much that costs.

Don't forget they get a cut of all sales on Steam too.

Discussing Valve's profits/costs is pointless anyway. I'm sure Valve aren't lying when they say there is more content to come for L4D2, but they're missing the point somewhat.

In my opinion they would be better off doing some form of expansion pack deal, split off the new campaigns/weapons/maps into an expansion pack they could charge some arbitary amount for, with that you get a "deal" of sorts where they bundle L4D1 with the new Pack for free ? la Orange Box.

Give existing L4D1 owners the passive updates from L4D2 such as the AID 2.0, so you create a core game (L4D) that has L4D2 as an optional add-on purchase.

This is a infinitely more intelligent move in my opinion as it:

- Doesn't split the L4D community.

- Gives the Boycott members what they want.

- Makes Valve fans feel like they aren't being backstabbed.

- Still allows Valve to monetise the L4D2 content.

- Also solves Valve's problem of not wanting people to switch between games to play the older content.

If they took the above approach, it would solve ALOT of problems.

[Hurmoth]

^ But again, you're still not looking at cost vs profit. A person creates a company to make profit. They hire people to produce content for said company. Valve has a lot employees for the amount of games they produce and support.

If you take 190 developers at a salary of $80K/yr, that is $15.2 million a year in developer salaries. And that is probably a low ball number too. Then factor in Gabe's salary as well; plus I imagine they don't do inhouse payroll so they're paying someone like ADP to do that for them, which is costly. They have building expenses, taxes, etc.

In 2007, they only made $70 million in profit.

I imagine, like the vast majority of other companies, Valve is not meeting the same margins in 2008/2009 due to the current recession. And in 2008, they only had one new title and that was Left 4 Dead. If there was no Left 4 Dead 2, they'd have nothing new this year.

There is simply no room to complain. But of course, selfishness will always win out. "I want, I want, me, me."

If you don't like this model, again, there is always the paid subscription model that Blizzard uses for WoW. So which would you rather have?

[IceBrewedBeer]

How's about they release the goddamn SDK already. Really this takes no effort from them to at least do that.

[Athernar]

^ But again, you're still not looking at cost vs profit. A person creates a company to make profit. They hire people to produce content for said company. Valve has a lot employees for the amount of games they produce and support.

If you take 190 developers at a salary of $80K/yr, that is $15.2 million a year in developer salaries. And that is probably a low ball number too. Then factor in Gabe's salary as well; plus I imagine they don't do inhouse payroll so they're paying someone like ADP to do that for them, which is costly. They have building expenses, taxes, etc.

In 2007, they only made $70 million in profit.

I imagine, like the vast majority of other companies, Valve is not meeting the same margins in 2008/2009 due to the current recession. And in 2008, they only had one new title and that was Left 4 Dead. If there was no Left 4 Dead 2, they'd have nothing new this year.

There is simply no room to complain. But of course, selfishness will always win out. "I want, I want, me, me."

If you don't like this model, again, there is always the paid subscription model that Blizzard uses for WoW. So which would you rather have?

Did you even read my reply? Because to me it seems you didn't.

Premise of your arguement is not only based on conjecture but countering a point I did not make.

I am not saying they should give away L4D2 for free, infact I'm saying quite the opposite. My point is their descision to make "L4D2" a distinct game in itself is a exceedingly poor choice, and there are much better ways (Such as the one I proposed) to go about releasing this new content.

If Valve need to monetise the content that's fine, I have no problem with that at whatever pricepoint and for the most part, neither does most of the community. (At heart in some cases maybe)

As I mentioned, going ahead with releasing a stand-alone sequel will needlessy split the community by means of content only, L4D1 and L4D2 look identical in base gameplay. So why split them into two entities? Why not unify the two games and offer "L4D1" as a base game at a cheaper pricepoint, "L4D2" at the $50 pricepoint which also bundles "L4D1" if you do not have it.

Valve gets their allegedly much needed cash, the L4D community get an upgrade to the AID and etc, those that want to can buy their new content and those that don't can continue on happily.

Or would you rather see Half-Life 2009, Counter-Strike 2010 and Left 4 Dead 2142?

[Hurmoth]

^ You're not think of the development side though. This isn't like Team Fortress 2 where you can add little tidbits over a period of time though.

Before its time? Valve explains Left 4 Dead sequel to Ars

Sitting across the table from me was Chet Faliszek. He was one of the project leads on Left 4 Dead. I was sitting with my arms crossed, and I told him how much I love Left 4 Dead. He told me how much he enjoys Ars Technica. We have officially gotten the formalities out of the way.

"People are ****ed," I told him.

"Well, some are," he responded.

That's something of an understatement. I've been getting e-mails, texts, phone calls, and tweets from readers and friends enraged over Valve releasing a sequel to Left 4 Dead so quickly. This is a company that has reinvented Team Fortress 2 since its release, and every update was free. Left 4 Dead received the Survival Pack, and now there is a sequel coming to the PC and 360 this year. Faliszek knew that he had to do some damage control; he told Ars he was texting prominent map makers from the community minutes after the announcement to let them know that their work would not be affected negatively by the sequel.

He was eager to address the anger. "Team Fortress gets to do these nice little discrete units of content, they get to do a map, there's an internal consistency and an internal world that happens." He described the content updates as "clean little things." Bite-sized updates that add to the game, and over time change things. It's not nearly that easy with Left 4 Dead, where one change affects nearly everything else.

Besides, why inch along with an update or content pack every now and again? Everyone on the team was excited about working on more Left 4 Dead, and in fact, the team behind the game has increased slightly in size since launch. That's rare: in most cases development teams are scaled back after the product is released.

"We had some meetings about it, and we all talked about our ideas, and everyone was pretty focused and thoughtful, a lot of the same ideas were happening," Faliszek told me. The team wanted better storytelling, they wanted swamps, and they wanted to include New Orleans. "We wanted the Director to be smarter, but to be smarter it needed more special infected in its stable. For example, the Charger that we see today."

I had just gotten done playing the game, and the Charger is indeed a nasty critter. If you're being too defensive, if you're grouped together too tightly, the Director may send the bull-like Charger to bum rush your party, knocking the team apart. Imagine a tank that comes straight at you, but is slightly easier to kill.

"It just became very clear that this was a cohesive, singular statement we wanted to make, not a more slow update thing... too much stuff was tied together with too many other things. The Common Infected?now there is destruction in different parts of their body, to ship all the new Common Infected, even with an update, would be a huge thing."

So the team brought their concepts and ideas to create a sequel to Gabe Newell, and even he was skeptical about the idea. According to Faliszek, he expressed his doubts, and claimed this move was against the character of the company. "To Gabe's credit, and he's a great guy to work for, he said if this is what you want to do, if this is what you're excited about, go do it."

A true sequel

The SDK will be coming out of beta in the next week or so, and Faliszek points to that to prove that Left 4 Dead will still be updated. Also, all the maps created with the SDK will work on the sequel. As for playing old maps with old characters but new creatures and melee? "We have some additional work to do there, we're talking about how to do that. That's what we want to do."

While he claims it's not an insurmountable amount of work, mixing old and new content would require new dialog to be recorded for the situations with the new enemies and weapons, as well as new animations. It's something Valve wants to do, but they're not sure when it will be accomplished.

The game will ship with five new campaigns, new weapons, new characters, new Special Infected, updated Common Infected, melee weapons... and a new game mode. "We're not talking about that yet," I'm told. The point is that this isn't a new coat of paint and a new level or two; this is a full sequel.

Left 4 Dead 2 will also include some more storytelling than what we're used to from the series. "Not only are we telling the story of these characters, but we're telling the story of this world, we're seeing how things fall apart, and a new way of interacting with the infection." Faliszek confirmed that there is a notebook somewhere deep in the bowels of Valve with the story of Left 4 Dead, detailing the world and why things are the way they are. There is even a Left 4 Dead dictionary with different terms for areas and infected that describe how the Director will handle things in that area.

"Having a language to describe these things in makes it a lot easier," he explained. He also hints that the characters from the two Left 4 Dead games may meet in the future. "My dream is to have 16 characters, going through the world, having their experiences and their own views." Valve has piles of concepts for characters; the possibilities are limitless.

A few other tidbits: Microsoft gave Left 4 Dead 2 the codename "Carnation" so the surprise announcement wouldn't be revealed before E3. We talked about how many people enjoy killing TSA employees in the airport areas of Left 4 Dead, and Faliszek detailed a story about being yelled at by an airport official over a can of shaving cream. "He wouldn't stop yelling! I don't know what he thought would happen, but it just got to the point where I was ready for him to arrest me." His dream was to include a no-nonsense lady from the DMV as a character, but she didn't make the cut.

As for the resentment over the timing of the sequel, he's just hoping all of you give it a fair shake. "We want to wait and weed through the comments, I'm already getting e-mails, and I'm responding to them," he said. He talked about the reaction to the Orange Box, how people were angry about "buying" Half-Life 2 again. "And looking back, was the Orange Box a ripoff? Give us a fair shake on this, read more about it, find out about it, we've already let people play it here... After that, if you want to vent, post to the forums. We do read them, we read all the forums, we read [the Ars forums]. You can e-mail me at [email protected], or I'm Chet on Steam. Hit me up, we can play some games and talk about it."

[Athernar]

^ You're not think of the development side though. This isn't like Team Fortress 2 where you can add little tidbits over a period of time though.

You're not thinking about what I'm saying, nor does your article really relate to the point I'm making.

It's understandable you cannot add on little update packs like TF2's with L4D, the games are apples to oranges. That doesn't mean you have to cleave the game in two however, I think what they're working on for this "L4D2" is definately worthy of being monetised, it's outside the realm of DLC, but it's not yet in the realm of sequels by a long shot.

Maybe this would simplify things:

Sequel = Bad.

Expansion Pack = Good.

[Hurmoth]

Sequel = Bad.

Expansion Pack = Good.

And you don't know that L4D2 won't work with L4D1. Valve may be working on integration so that L4D2 players can still play L4D1 campaigns. That hasn't been denounced, so your point is moot. And even if they don't go that route, the question that needs to be asked is who really cares?

This is exactly like Half-Life 2: Episode One, Two, Three. Those are separate games, just a continuation of the same storyline and there wasn't this much outrage over that.

The settings for these two games are different too. These are two different games with the same premise, kill zombies.

I think people should stop whining and wait to see what else Valve has up their sleeve.

[Ayepecks]

I think people have every right to complain with the information given so far. If Valve had some aces, I'm sure they'd have announced them right now -- because they'd have to be dumb not to see the outrage.

(For the record, I'm not boycotting Valve or saying L4D2 is going to suck. I'm just saying it's a big letdown. I'll get it eventually, I'm sure... but I really doubt I'd pay full price for it.)

[Athernar]

And you don't know that L4D2 won't work with L4D1. Valve may be working on integration so that L4D2 players can still play L4D1 campaigns. That hasn't been denounced, so your point is moot. And even if they don't go that route, the question that needs to be asked is who really cares?

Why have it "Work with" when you can just combine it by having L4D2 be a purchasable expansion pack? Everyone wins, new L4D2 customers get more value, the L4D1 community gets a nice upgrade to the AID etc etc, and Valve is happy because they've repaired their reputation in the eyes of alot of people plus they can still market a new product.

Allowing L4D2 players to play L4D1 content? Why not just ban everyone from playing L4D1 while you're at it, since you seemingly don't care at all for the L4D community.

This is exactly like Half-Life 2: Episode One, Two, Three. Those are separate games, just a continuation of the same storyline and there wasn't this much outrage over that.

Are you seriously comparing single player episodic games to a multiplayer game? The whole idea of the episodes was instead of waiting ages for a HL3, you got smaller segments cheaper in less time. Albeit they failed miserable with the latter, especially with EP3.

The settings for these two games are different too. These are two different games with the same premise, kill zombies.

Two games with exactly the same base mechanics, where one set of maps we've seen so far is set in the day rather than night/sunset, with a few new infected thrown in. I'll borrow one of your points somewhat; TF2's Heavy update added a new Alpine theme, it should be Team Fortress 3. Sounds silly no?

I think people should stop whining and wait to see what else Valve has up their sleeve.

I think people should stop whining about people whining. People are perfectly justified to voice their discontent and opinions.

[Windows7even]

first person shooters were never meant to be played on consoles..with all this new motion control technology pushing forward and flooding the console market then i think we will see fps genre retreating back to the pc..which imo is a good thing

[Ricardo Gil]

first person shooters were never meant to be played on consoles..with all this new motion control technology pushing forward and flooding the console market then i think we will see fps genre retreating back to the pc..which imo is a good thing

And how is that related to this thread? :huh:

[ozgeek]

I still haven't bought the first game. I don't like to buy games I haven't tried before. Is there a demo of L4D 1?

[bob_c_b]

I think people have every right to complain with the information given so far. If Valve had some aces, I'm sure they'd have announced them right now -- because they'd have to be dumb not to see the outrage.

(For the record, I'm not boycotting Valve or saying L4D2 is going to suck. I'm just saying it's a big letdown. I'll get it eventually, I'm sure... but I really doubt I'd pay full price for it.)

This, I love L4D and it's the reason I didn't dump my 360 after my 3re RRoD, but this is disappointing. I'll get it, but with so many good games this fall, not at launch and not at full price.