New game, new locations, new characters, new weapons, new monsters: John has been to Valve and dragged back the news. [Click on images for full size]
Left 4 Dead who now? No one was expecting Valve’s next game to be a sequel to 2008’s awesome co-op zombie shooter, Left 4 Dead. To answer your immediate question: Yes, this is a completely new game, with new characters, in a new location, with new zombies, new weapons, new twists, and an improved Director, in five completely new campaigns set in the Southern United States. This isn’t more maps for the previous game, it’s a brand new game, and it’s due this November. We snuck into Valve HQ ahead of Monday’s announcement and played a full campaign, and at first glance much appears to have evolved.
It’s still Left 4 Dead: Valve have more sense than to change anything that made the first game so splendid. Rather the focus on L4D2 appears to have been the desire by everyone involved in the first game to make something bigger and better. Coming off the back of the project, we were told by various Valve developers, people we bursting with ideas of where to take the game next. So they went right there.
Left 4 Dead 2 takes place in the South of the USA, beginning in Savannah, eventually reaching New Orleans. There’s four new characters to play, each with back-stories to be hinted at in their conversations. Coach is a high school football coach from the Savannah area, used to leading the kids, comfortable in his life, and perhaps not enamoured by the arrival of a zombie attack. There’s Rochelle, from Cleveland originally, working for a cable news network. She’s producing a segment on this strange story occurring in Savannah, and gets caught up in the events. Ellis is a Southern boy mechanic, an enthusiastic but smart guy with a “Southern flair”. Finally there’s Nick, a gambler and a conman, unsure of his company and cynical about the events.
The plan for the five new campaigns is to bring them together more coherently, so you can more obviously see how the events of one lead to the beginning of the next. Nothing that will enormously impact on jumping right in to a game in a particular stage, but giving a stronger narrative logic to the complete game. And with that, the new cast will also develop their personalities as things progress. Coach looks set to gain bravery as he gets closer to New Orleans, while Nick’s attitude to the others may soften. This will be born out in a more elaborate and involved collection of dialogue barks, once more primarily away from the player’s control. Perhaps one of the most endearing aspects of L4D was the characters’ surprisingly apt and timely remarks about the events, and occasional exchanges. This is to be expanded upon, with many more back-and-forth moments of chatter appropriate to the events happening around you.
Beyond the new cast, nothing else from L4D is being replaced, but rather added to or expanded upon. So the Special Infected we’re already familiar with will appear, joined by a new collection. Of these only one has been revealed so far, The Charger. Looking like a crossbreed between a Tank and a Common Infected (what an unholy union that would be) the beast has one giant mutated arm, which he uses to shoulder-charge the Survivors. He knocks you down, but doesn’t incapacitate you. Rather you’re off balance for a moment. As happened to us as we played with Valve designers, he’s capable of taking out many of you in a single charge, sending us flying like bowling pins. However, should he charge someone on their own, rather than running to hide after, instead he might pick you up with his giant arm and repeatedly smash you face-first into the ground until a teammate comes to rescue you.
While other Specials aren’t yet shown, we have seen some changes to the familiar. Rather cutely, some of the Common Infected have been changed while in hazmat suits. This means laying down walls of Molotov cocktail fire won’t keep everyone away any more, as the fire-proof baddies can run right through. The pay-off for this is exploding their heads and seeing the goo splat against the inside of the perspex visor.
But perhaps most exciting is the Wandering Witch. Another new feature of L4D2 is setting some of the campaigns in the daylight. The campaign we played was such, and it’s oddly frightening to see it all happening while the sun shines. Making our way through the sprawling streets of New Orleans, desperately trying to reach a distant bridge at the other end of which was lay an apparent helicopter rescue, the only time we needed our torches was when making our way through buildings. And it seems in the daytime, the Witch has a bit more pep. Rather than sitting crouched, sobbing, singing, now this most terrifying of gaming enemies methodically paces around, wandering where she sees fit, although still apparently zoned out. She may be on foot, but she’s no more interested in being disturbed. This adds in a whole new aspect to Witch evasion. No longer can you simply take the long way around where she’s squatted. Instead, she may well be walking exactly where you’re headed. Or worse, walking up behind you, singing her haunting song, suddenly infuriated by you when you swing around in terror.
The Witch’s capacity to create anecdotes seems only more powerful now. Sitting down to grab some food with a collection of Valve, stories about their most frightening or plain inconvenient Wandering Witch stories flow freely, each explained in animated terms.
Of the new weapons, perhaps the most exciting reveal are the melee tools. So far we’ve seen the axe and the frying pan. Yes, the frying pan. Feeling like a sneaky bit of TF2 in the game, it’s the perfect comedy weapon, that somehow doesn’t feel irreverent in a way inappropriate to L4D’s more sullen world. Complete with a fantastic KWAPANG noise, it’s extraordinarily effective to bat your way through crowds, and can even be used to knock a Hunter off a pinned Survivor. There’s also a baseball bat, which didn’t appear in the campaign we saw, which we assume will be a little less bonky than TF2’s Scout’s. And the chainsaw, which again we haven’t played with, but hell: there’s going to be a chainsaw. The axe can’t go unexplained either. It’s utterly brutal, and shows off the Infected’s newly regioned vulnerability. Swing it low and you can slice off a zombie’s legs, letting them collapse horribly to the ground, bleeding out of their fresh stumps. Or maybe swipe off either arm. Or most horrendously of all, remove a face.
This same gore is achievable with all the weapons, with new ragdoll deaths for the throngs, to make their entrail-spilling, armpit-dribbling, face-exploding ways all the more entertaining. There were many gasps and cries of “OH GOOD GRIEF!” as we played, the strings of guts slopping wildly into the air, or as mentioned above, the faceless leaking mess suddenly bursting like a blood-filled balloon as the Infected fell to the floor. It’s awesome.
There’s a new shotgun, a new semi-automatic, and a brand new sniper rifle. This last one feels dramatically out of place in a game where you can’t stand still, but it seems extremely likely that this will be the weapon that will be used most skilfully. Obviously powerful, it’s a very useful tool when you find yourself in one of the new “gauntlet” moments.
Gauntlets are one of the new elements that will occur, as one of many moves to attempt to make L4D2 a more consistently thrilling experience. In the final moments of the campaign, finally reaching the bridge, we had to cross it. At the other end lay the potential of rescue. But it was one long, straight, inescapable path down which the Director was able to screw with us as much as ‘he’ liked. Standing still was never and option, but trying to stay high, jumping from roof to roof of the vans and cars, very much was. Someone sniping from the back here proves helpful, while a couple of at the front wielding axes or frying pans was equally effective. These make for interesting moments, an almost unrelenting onslaught from in front, but the peculiar safety of knowing that nothing you didn’t let get past you would be attacking from behind.
Another very smart change is to prevent sneaky players from trying to sit out the triggered events. In those moments in L4D where you had to press a button that began a frantic attack until an elevator arrived, or a door opened, it seems too many were crouching in a corner together and waiting for it to all die down. L4D2 has plans to prevent such treachery. Now some of the events you start can only be stopped by reaching a further target. In an extremely tense sequence, we had to make our way through a labyrinth of alarmed cars to reach a distant point that would finally see the attack fade. Trying desperately to avoid hitting any of the cars, and thus making the situation far worse, while having to make constant forward progress, amped things up significantly.
The Director even has discretion over the layout of certain sections of levels. In New Orleans we reached a graveyard that is different each time you play. As Valve explained to us, if the Director gives you a pretty straight route right through it, it’s an insult to how poorly you’ve been playing that the omnipotent AI thought it needed to make things a little easier for you. If you’ve won his robotic respect, then it’ll be a far more convoluted journey.
While there’s no intention to waste players’ time with dead ends, there is a greater emphasis on rewarding exploration. You may well learn the correct route through most of a level, but heading off down a longer pathway, or going to check out an out of the way room, is more likely to be beneficial. The Director is, we’re told, going to be far smarter this time about placing items, and the selection of these has expanded as well. Which includes the incendiary ammo.
Oh, what a pleasure it is to find these beauties. Like an ammo stash, incendiary bullets can be picked up from tables, etc, and will give you a clip of ammo for your current weapon that will set absolutely everything it hits on fire. Which is spectacular. Right up until you accidentally set a Charger alight and he comes bounding toward you to share it.
Everything seems bigger and better. And this includes the number of Infected to kill. The average number taken down in a campaign in the first game was around 1000. In our play through one of the sequel’s five new chapters we clocked up around 1700.
Due November 17th this year, it’s quite remarkable that it’s so far on already. And frankly, that of all developers Valve have made something this quickly is almost dizzying. While there’s obviously going to be something of a fuss made over people’s expectations that L4D would be constantly expanded for free, following the TF2 model, it’s important to stress that while this is obviously still the same L4D core experience, it’s certainly not a bunch of new maps thrown into the old game. It’s a coherent new imagining of the game, this time bigger, smarter, and far more elaborate. Oh, and gloriously more gory.
To find out even more details, be sure to listen to our world exclusive developer interview with project lead, Chet Faliszek, in the latest podcast.
PRESS RELEASE
VALVE ANNOUNCES LEFT 4 DEAD 2
Sequel to Best-Selling Co-op Thriller Coming This Holiday
June 1, 2009 – Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced Left 4 Dead 2 (L4D2), the sequel to the best-selling and critically-acclaimed co-operative multiplayer thriller.
Coming exclusively to Xbox 360 and PC, L4D2 promises to set a new benchmark for co-operative action games and become one of 2009’s marquee titles.
“A large part of how Left 4 Dead became 2008’s top-selling new IP on Xbox 360 and the PC was the custom-tailored gameplay made possible by the AI Director,” said Gabe Newell, president and co-founder of Valve. “With the knowledge gained from creating the original, new technology, and a passionate team, L4D2 will set a new benchmark for cooperative action games.”
Set for release on November 17, the title adds melee combat to enable deeper co-operative gameplay, with items such as a chainsaw, frying pan, axe, baseball bat, and more.
Introducing the AI Director 2.0, L4D’s dynamic gameplay is taken to the next level by giving the Director the ability to procedurally change weather effects, world objects, and pathways in addition to tailoring the enemy population, effects, and sounds to match the players’ performance. The result is a unique game session custom fitted to provide a satisfying and uniquely challenging experience each time the game is played.
Featuring new Survivors, boss zombies, weapons, and items, Left 4 Dead 2 offers a much larger game than the original with more co-operative campaigns, more Versus campaigns, and maps for Survival mode available at launch.
Supported by a $10+ million marketing campaign, Left 4 Dead has sold over 2.5 million retail copies since it was released in November of 2008. Left 4 Dead 2 is targeted for release on Xbox 360 and the PC on November 17, 2009, and will be launched worldwide with a multi-million dollar marketing campaign across TV, Outdoor, and Online.
“Left 4 Dead was backed by our most aggressive advertising campaign to date, and resulted in a top 5 showing on two platforms during holiday 2008,” said Doug Lombardi, VP of marketing at Valve. “Left 4 Dead 2 is a larger game and will be supported with even more consumer and retail advertising programs than the original.”
Left 4 Dead 2 will be featured as the cover story on PC Gamer and Official Xbox Magazines this month. For more information, please visit www.l4d.com
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@Riboflavin: No, the insistence of fanboys like you to come along, and bash people without actually bothering to learn what said people are upset about is astounding.
If you have nothing better to do than trolling, could you please go somewhere else? If you want to participate in this discussion, could you at least do us the service of reading the posts you are replying to?
Thank you.
Perhaps you should look in the mirror before calling anyone “trashy contemptuous shitbags”.
“and if you know any thing about games you will know that the graphical content is about 50% of the entire game.”
No
“you might get a blank canvas with the bare basic content to “run” and be forced to buy countless DLC for stuff that should have been included anyway like in The Sims”
Yet again, no
““the cost is nothing to me cuz i have a job and everything.”
Yeah, when you work for a living you don’t care about getting ripped off. Wait, what?
You know, if you value your money so little I have this bridge you might be interested in buying…”
The average price for concert tickets are $10-15
The average concert is 1 hour, gets no post release patching, new songs, and once it’s over that’s it.
@people in general
If you think L4D was priced to high because the length of time it would take to play through the whole game…
1.Replay value, do you speak it?
2.I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it until I’m blue in the face
If you think Ico and Shadow of the Colossus aren’t worth $50 because of they’re length, you’re absolutely daft, along with most of the gaming community.
Where did this strange notion come from that length=value?
A story should never be as long it needs to be.
OK everyone who doesn’t think this is gonna be awesome go fuck yourself. so what they want to make another game to the very successful L4D, fuck you guys. If you don’t wanna buy it then don’t i don’t want any of you whiny bitches online anyway
Gosh, the people who are against this are so negative!
“A story should never be as long it needs to be.”
Sentence fail
Read as “A story should bever be longer than it needs to be”
Once people start craving things for free, they no longer find those same things valuable.
Seriously everybody, CALM DOWN! they just started talking about this new game. SHUT UP and give them time to improve. L4D2 is looking great to me and I very much want it (Not everyone is disapointed by improvement) Anyway, this game probably will improve and some of the released things may change or improve. But you gotta give valve time.
im so frakin excioted! all the people who think its too early to launch a sequal can go die in a firey hole. CoD for example, many of them are a year or so apart . So fuck all of you. Anywhoo, special infected time! the witch in L4D was a pain in the ass all together…and now she is walking around? suck on that inexperienced gamers >:D haha!!! and for the Charger, haha he looks funny XD. They should at least put the hunter in L4D2, other than that they should work on creating some new infected.
You know that they are still coming out with DLC for L4D this summer…
This game is too big to just put it out as DLC, people would have to buy new hardrives.
just listen to the dam podcast of l4d THEY WILL CONTINUE TO UPDATE L4D1 so quit Quit making complete fools of yourself saying something you don’t know about.
another thing its still A BETA so it will look a little odd at first i mean l4d preview and pictures looks quiet off yet people still got it its not like they are not breaking a promise if u think they are just click podcast up on the top of the screen then basically listen to the l4d thing and it tells you they will continue to update it so there you go.
http://cdn1.libsyn.com/rps/20_The_RPS_Electronic_Wireless_Show.mp3?nvb=20090608062930&nva=20090609063930&t=0b7bc909618be9b89ba01 this is the link to the podcast.
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/L4D2boycott
16k members @49.99 = $800,000.
Need to make it to about 40k to get attention.
There’s time before November.
I don’t expect free updates or anything of the likes, but I am upset that valve skimped out on the updates we were all promised for L4D. I only even got L4D due to the promise of constant updates. Although this was my first Valve game, I knew their rep as being VERY customer-friendly… This is kind of a low blow. I would happily buy this as a DLC, or even a mid-priced expansion… But an entirely new game separate from my L4D community?
That’s a move that should be thrown into the “This week in Fail-” category… Spells disaster for BOTH games… I would have rather Vavle had gone through with their promise on their FIRSt update (That being to introduce new infected, weapons, characters, campaigns, and acheivements)… instead I got a half-assed GEars 2 Horde knock off (which I do like, just sayin’) and one new map… Not at all what they said.
This is all kind of a let down, I hope for some bright news regarding “L4D2″ in the future.
This looks awesome.. i almost always play with Arctic Scarecrow .. he’s rubbish, and screams like a girl but hopefully with L4D2 he’ll improve..
Frying Pan…. GENIUS!
cant wait, must play game!!!! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH come out sooner. Maybe i can freeze myself like Eric Cartman on south park???? hurry up and come out already!!!!!! :(
L4D is the best online gaming experience I’ve ever had! Can’t wait for the sequel! Why would anyone have anything to complain about? These guys at valve are some smart cookies revolutionizing some aspects of gaming as we know it. Other companies will mimic valve’s gaming formula for years to come!
The one group of people that seems to be missing in most of the comments on the boycott group site and the articles on the web are the server owners.
As a server owner, I support L4D by paying for 4 West Coast servers out of my own pocket that have had in total roughly 17000 players since they were started 4 months ago. As well, I work for a server company that provides numerous servers for TF2, L4D, CS:S and other Valve games.
One disturbing trend I have seen is the daily cancellation of L4D servers. Since the ‘Survival Pack’ the company I work for has seen a 70% increase in server cancellations of servers that service Central North America and the West Coast. That number increases daily.
The biggest drop was right after the ‘Survival Pack’ when people began to realize how minor the changes actually were. Most people played Survival mode until they got the achievements and then moved back to Co-op or Versus. We lost 45% of the servers within days of that release.
The second spike was right after the news about L4D2. That was about 20% of the servers. The other 5% has been just due to attrition since the DLC was released.
Now, obviously there have been new servers started, but the total loss of server coverage totals about 70% in the company I work for, and I work for a shitty little hole in the wall no one even knows about. In actual numbers that means about 110 servers are now shut down in the past couple months with my employer alone. I wonder how this has affected Gameservers or Darkstar.
I should mention that most of the people canceling servers have been very vocal about why they’re canceling them, and I agree with the majority of their reasons, especially about the release of L4D2.
So, I pose this question to you, do you think splitting the games community base will increase or decrease the number of servers for both games?
Secondly, do you think server owners that are canceling their servers will be rushing out to start a L4D2 server after they feel that they’ve been burned by Valve?
The answers are pretty obvious.
All you flame-baiters screaming about the boycott group being a bunch of whining retards might want to think about that, because without the server owners, you’d have no where to play either game.
As for myself, I don’t have any choice but to ‘get’ the game since it’s purchased for me by my employer for troubleshooting and testing. However, I’ll be shutting down my servers the day L4D2 is released unless both games can be serviced by a single server and other significant issues about the release of L4D2 are satisfactorily dealt with by Valve.
This boycott situation is out of control. Most people are just saying that there isn’t enough new content to warrant a sequel but from what I have seen, people are wrong. When Halo 3 came out what was the big difference between that and Halo 2? A new story which guess what L4D 2 has. New weapons which L4D 2 has. New characters which you can say that Halo 3 has if you count those two random elites but guess what L4D 2 has new characters. New maps yup they both have them. So if you don’t think L4D 2 shouldn’t be released because there isn’t enough new content then in that case Halo 3 shouldn’t be out because there isn’t enough new content for you.
What is this Halo you are speaking of?
i agree with KC, think of what they did to L4D with the random spawnings of zombies and if you are doing bad then there are no zombies, if you are kicking some zombie ass a tank just beats the crap out of you! what they have done is incredible! with the director and all that other stuff….. sure there may be bugs but they will fix them in time. stop your complaining! if there was so many bugs you would of gave the game back! plus aren’t Valve allowed to bring out L4D2 to what it seems to me most of you dont want it out because its too early…….WHO CARES! Real fans of valve will get this, play it and not bitch about it. for those who say they wasted money on the first game just for this one to come out… i could say that about the need for speed games why did i bother getting most wanted when carbon came out… wait then pro street, now undercover…. they involve cars that you can upgrade and RACE and invade cops (not pro street you just race on tracks) anything u say about L4D2 you can relate to most games with a secound part to it or 3rd part! like COD WAW why was that out, great game, great gore, realistic but why bother go back in time…. i dont care i think the game is billiant and sometimes better then COD 4 at times! anything u say about L4D 2 i could relate to a game!
I think L4D 2 will rock and i cant wait!! i got L4D on xbox only a few glitches but i dont use them because it spoils the game on campaign, none on verses so L4D2 on xbox… i think i can say money well spent already!
just something i like to add, they have removed some alot of bugs ill give one for example… in the elevator at no mercy you could chuck a pipebomb or object at a character and they would fall through, that got removed.
one more coming out of the sewers of no mercy you could plug the top with a bin, thats been removed, same with the elevator at the top with a generator! SO DONT SAY THEY HAVE NOT REMOVED BUGS! thats all!
Left 4 Dead is boring…. lolz….
The only possible way left 4 dead is boring is when you play with people who type oooorrrr….. Have no mic.
As for those who expected to have Valves same “Awesome storyline” or “Great gameplay” got just that. Just think about it…. Left 4 Dead has a GREAT storyline….. You just have to make it up. I think that was the whole point of not revealing anything. Also I think that L4D2 will be more than just an expansion, but a true sequel. Hell, I am a bit glad that valve is FINALLY releasing a game before the goddamn decade goes by.
As for the bugs….. The jesus room? Come on…. pure, awesome.
I have perfect confidence in valve. The only thing I have any concern about is that they will delay Half-Life: Episode 3!!!! NOT FREEMAN, DEAR GOD NOT FREEMAN!
I will be buying the game, and playing it.
As for the person who laughed at CoD 2. Burn the witch!
VALVE FOOOOOOOOOOREVVVVVVA!
If i were to suggest another special infected, i would share the idea of one that will do a bear hug instead of a claw, and has the ability to hold any weapons for a short period of time.
i know it sounds crazy, but think of the challenges it would pose, especially when it holds a hunting rifle, or a shotgun
Me and my friend played L4D and if this is as spectacuraly gory as the last game or better and longer than the last game I can’t wait to play it, and I can’t wait to try out that axe. lolololololol :)))))))))
Oh, by the way I hope the baseball bat make the “BOOIIINNK!!!” sound lol
haha yeah and then i heard thier going to include a light saber too its going to be awesome!!!!! haha
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hey valve and steam and whatever other companies that are in the making of L4D2, me and my friend thought that there should be a revolver pistol as a choice for your pistol instead of the regular pistol, but instead of dual wielding it u dont dual wield the revolver.
It’s a whole new game, same name, sure, but new AI, new character models, etc, etc.
It’s more than an update, it’s a re-imagining.
Besides, £40/$50 whatever isn’t much to pay, especially if it’s for a year, if you play xbox 360 that’s about a years subscription.
You say you won’t play it, but chances are you’ll get over yourself and buy it.
Maybe Valve could make the game more interesting by including the four characters in L4D1 and show how the four of them meet up with the new characters in L4D2.
This way, we will have a total of 8 different characters to choose from for single player, CO-OP and multiplayer.
Also you can customize your own team like choosing your own teamates which the number of people in a team will remain as 4.
Eg. A team consisting of Bill, Coach, Zoey and Rochelle.
Also it will enhance the game abit by making a new achievement like a ‘all boys team’ by making a team only consisting of boys however all survivors must manage to escape in order to unlock this achievement.
This game is going to be awesome!!!
I KNOW IT !
AND IF ANYBODY DENIES IT I WILL HUNT THEM DOWN, and give them cookies.
i am surprised they made another left 4 dead but out of these characters i would pivk nick to play as
Don’t mind this being a new game, some of the new content looks fun. I just will not purchase it untill I see it offered at reduced cost whether that be a weekend deal soon after release or a year down the line. My L4D ‘friends’ are split on this, half are excited by this the other half refuse to purchase/talk about it/play it….. I can’t forecast the impact this will have on the communities in terms of numbers playing, full versus servers and available servers full stop?
What I do know is gamers aren’t a forgiving bunch, if valve get this wrong they could lose a lot of future sales, I know a lot of people (including myself) who refuse to buy EA games since the awful support & lack of action against the issues we experienced in the once great BF/2142 series… albeit to do with a different set of issues compared to L4D/L4D2.
Fingers crossed the final product will demonstrate its worth.
I am wondering if valve reads any of these comment if so I agree that you should be allowed to use the origanal L4D chracters in the new game
I’m getting really p***ed off at all of this negative stuff.
First of all, Valve never said that they would stop support for L4D. Second, I want an episode 3 as well but I like Zombies more. Third, the dev team said that they want to create a whole new story and would absolutely not use the old characters and shrink the world like that. Forth, how can you say that a game lost it’s fun after a month? Maybe in your opinion, but last time I checked, there were still tens of thousands of people online playing at a given time. And more playing offline. And fifth like I said before, this is a completely new game. New features, new story, new characters, new weapons, new locations, and best of all, new A.I. Director. Sure this might be another “Oblivion with Guns” type of game, but hey! Fallout 3 was fun. And also, there is a team working on L4D2, not all of Valve. They could be working on Episode 3 without us knowing about it. A developer doesn’t have to show all of it’s projects at E3. So stop bitchin’ and read the reviews and ask opinions when the game launches.
Also for the people who need the game to come out now, rather than in November, let me ask you this: Would you rather the game be released with unfinished levels, no voice acting, and the bad kind of glitches? I would rather a game be delayed than come out sooner, if that is what the company needs to do then they should do it.
While the “run and gun” style triggered events will certainly make co-op more interesting does anyone else thing they are going to make vs. pretty much impossible? Its hard enough to move forward at a reasonable pace in vs. against a competent team with normal numbers of infected. With the undead swarm of a triggered event that pace will slow to a crawl which means MORE SWARM because you haven’t hit the end yet.
@rothnarr
> Forth, how can you say that a game lost it’s fun after
> a month?
To be more precise, game loses its fun after 24 hours of gameplay. Which is 2..4 weeks. This happens because all modes up to extreme difficulty are too easy, and very small amount of people plays plays on extreme difficulty – you can wait up to 30 minutes for a good team (and you might run into newbie, idiot or teamkiller after all the waiting), because there is no option to play alone, and bots can’t handle extreme difficulty. That’s not to mention, that it is very hard not to notice that l4d uses engine which is based on Q2. Maps are not detailed enough – many areas still look like bunch of blocks – despite bump and textures. And valve sdk utils have internal limitation on the number of brushes, so it is very hard to create very detailed maps (say, like a city blocks where every house has interior). Weapons were pretty disbalansed – because nothing beats automatic shotgun. And another trouble is that despite director, every map remains same. 3..4 runs, and you will remember every corner of it. 15 runs – and you will begin to understand director tactics, so game will became incredibly boring. If maps were randomly generated, environment was destructable and corpses DIDN’t disappear (it is kinda strange to see clean floor and no bodies in the room where you wasted a hundred of zombies), game would be much better. And of course, it would be very nice if game finally started working in multicore rendering mode, if the tiny pause (1/10th of second) between the time you shot the zombie and the time it starts flying away was removed, if valve hammer started working with any geometry instead of old-fashioned brushes and entites… the list can be easily continued.
> tens of thousands of people online playing at a
> given time.
Number of players doesn’t make game better. Some people like repetitive stuff. Some other people don’t have high standards of games. And there are always tons of newbies which simply haven’t seen anything else. And 10000 players is not enough to prove the game is great. Make it 1000000 at least.
As for L4D2 I suspect it will have same problems as previous L4D:
1) Small number of small maps, not very detailed with Q2 “brushy” feel about them.
2) Despite all new things, same gameplay – you will be able to exactly detect event triggers, figure out director strategy, after few runs there will be no elements of surprise.
3) No ability to play alone, without bots or human team. The problem with bots is that they are too stupid – they even get stuck in the corners sometimes. The problem with people is that it is incredibly hard to find a truly good team.
4) Still no ability to control bots (see #3)
5) Old, barely updated source engine. With all standard artifacts and nearly no proper specular lighting (the one which is not environment mapping).
I will be very happy if my prediction are incorrect. But I believe the quality of the new game most likely will be unsatisfactory.
What i dont get is everybody on this list complaning about paying $50 or £35 on a game when many of us could easily spend that amount on one night out which could be pretty shit, whereas a game which offers many many more than one nights play for your money gets disregarded as shit theres something wrong there. granted the game was short and many of my xbox friends hated me for playing it i thought it was a great game on multiplayer in the right circumstances, this will not be a patch, this will not be a download, this will be a fully priced game, now get on with your lives and stop bitching about a game you say you wont buy
I’m not even gonna comment on all the anger, I’m excited. But what I will say, to all the people who are incredulous about incendiary rounds…they exist. But, due to the fact that they’re usually for larger guns I also point these out: Tracer rounds. Known to be a fire hazard.
i dont understand why people are just going to whine and bitch about a freakin game… if you dont want it, leave and dont slander a game. seriously, everyone is complaining about them leaving l4d when they never said they wouldnt… who knows they might add new infected guns weapons in old l4d after l4d2. why you people dont even know if the game will be full priced! besides why must people waste their time sladnering and yelling about a game? does anyone here know how challenging it is to create a game? think about it how about you try to make l4d remake and put your own bs into it so you wont have to bitch about a game, or better yet, quit thinking of the bad parts of a game and look for the better parts, or just make your own jesus christ! besides, i believe people are overeacting. way too much overeacting to this game. if you dont like it dont get it dont slander it and leave the GOD DAMN GAME ALONE! it;s valves creation and if you dont like it dont play it. all you freakin people want the “perfect game” and want to bitch about it cus l4d or l4d2 arent the perfect game you guys want. how about you quit bothering valve and allow them to do their work. oh and one last thing why was l4d2 not a dlc? well it was originally going to be but if you 60% of your hardrive used up then you do that. they had to make a new game because it would take up large majorities of space on your hardrive so stop your god damn bitching jesus christ!
Come on people. You guys act like your ENTITLED to post release FREE add-ons. So Valve didn’t throw in as much free content as they have in other games. Whoopty freaking doo. What about Halo 3 or CoD: WaW where they ship a new map pack every 6 months for $15 and if you don’t buy it, you lose half of your game types. And the 2 will be integrated, so the old community won’t be left behind, nor is it a minor addition. It’s slightly more than the original for content. So if buying a new one is a concern, apparently the first was enough for you, why not this one? If you disliked the first, just DON’T BUY IT. They also said they will continue with new L4D content. Valve has a VERY strong history of shipping quality games, busting price standards, and supporting many of your sorry whining asses with FREE content long after they should’ve just banned you and moved on. It’s still 5 months away, you sure as hell don’t have enough information to judge the game or Valve as of yet, and considering their history, you’ll see that they will ship another quality game. They treat you fairly, beyond even, but you keep bitching at someone working for nothing and eventually they’re not going to help you anymore.
I don’t know if you guys ever close comment threads, but if so, please consider putting a lid on this one! I would happily ignore it, but it keeps popping up in the ‘latest comments’ box. :-C