Comments on: Crash Course: New DLC For Left 4 Dead

By: Guido

Guido — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:26:21 +0000

You might be interested to see that the prediction you made about people being pissed about getting free stuff for free came true:

http://fidgit.com/archives/2009/08/left_4_dead_loses_its_touch_fo.php

That guy is pissed about the campaign’s name and will sign Valve boycotts because of that.

I don’t have words :P

By: Gorgeras

Gorgeras — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 23:12:51 +0000

I never said that bad games don’t get ‘stomped’ on a show floor; I qualified this statement with “unless they look awful” and I’m going to go out on a limb and say those that are receive criticism at shows mostly do so based on aesthetics rather than content. The situation changes when a person plays something on their own in a hum-drum location.

By: Psychopomp

Psychopomp — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:54:37 +0000

@Kieron

THEY MAKE THAT?

By: Kieron Gillen

Kieron Gillen — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:43:03 +0000

What you mean “it wasn’t shown to an audience of people who are just like me in some manner of play-at-home beta”. You should have said that, man, and I’d have never had jumped you.

The idea that bad games don’t get stomped on a show floor is ludicrous. If your argument held any water whatsoever, all anyone would hear from any show where games are shown is that all games are, in fact, awesome. Considering the amount of XYZ looks like shit you *do* get, we can assume it’s not true.

You have made me hungry for Caramel Shortcake.

By: Gorgeras

Gorgeras — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:26:44 +0000

I believe my ‘lecture’ started in response to John Walker’s claim that ‘the public’ has had access to the same content as journalists do in private and that nice things are being said about it because it is really good.

I’m fairly sure that if I played a new game at a large gathering with noise, pretty stage management, huddled masses and mini-celebrities(and major-celebrities), I would have a very distorted view of what I experience compared to a sober saturday morning at home with my pyjamas still on.

Maybe it was a mistake to suggest the public at events are not the same as the public in general, but I’ll stand by it for now because there are people that like their happy natural highs too much and viewing everything through the rainbow prism of big shows means they will not be representative.

Left4Dead was Valve’s weakest game, coincidently their best commercial success on consoles and I expect the sequel will be very much the same. A not-small number of people that were anticipating the release expressed such disappointment. I doubt show-goers would do the same and in that show environment even fairly pessimistic players like myself would not have noticed the issues.

I’m at the Great Yorkshire Show every year. I have no interest in agriculture and only go for the bargains on clothes, cakes and caramel shortcake. But they sure know how to get you as excited about agriculture as the non-representative ‘public’ that are like that most of the time.

By: Kieron Gillen

Kieron Gillen — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:20:28 +0000

Gorgeas: When you can explain how the public isn’t the public, feel free to come back and lecture me.

By: Gorgeras

Gorgeras — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:47:54 +0000

Again Kieron, you’ve neither pointed out something inaccurate in what I said nor managed to explain how your description of Comic-Con in terms that imply I don’t know what it is means those who attend are in fact representative of the public.

If Valve want to do EA-esque franchise games and cater to the kind of masochists fighting against their own interests as consumers on the Steam forums right now, they are welcome. They should at least stop pretending they are something better though and games journalists should too and actually start showing some teeth. Yahtzee seems to be on his own.

By: Noc

Noc — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:47:32 +0000

[Ack, I meant "NICHE PC strategy title." Which makes a little more sense.]

By: Noc

Noc — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:45:58 +0000

Also, I assume SD Comiccon has a pretty wide international audience, as well. Since it’s by no means a small event, and it’s not like half of the Americans going to it don’t have to fly in from the East coast.

I’m trying to find numbers on international attendance at the moment, but a cursory Google isn’t coming up with anything useful.

By: Noc

Noc — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:41:32 +0000

@DK: I’m not sure how the point that a given sample of the public has a “strong console slant” is supposed to invalidate a favorable impression of a PC game.

I mean, if we were talking about, say, why a nice PC strategy title didn’t show too well at Comiccon? That’d make sense, because it’d be catering to a market that wasn’t necessarily in attendance.

But the argument that “Well of COURSE people liked the game at Comiccon, it’s in a country where . . . people . . . like . . . games” doesn’t make a terrible amount of sense.

By: CMaster

CMaster — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:28:29 +0000

@gutter, @Jalf:
The sound files for the cutscene between No Mercy and Death Toll are in the L4D paks, you can listen to it if you like. Personally however, I prefer to think of the 4 different campaigns as 4 different “what if”s – depending on where the survivors lived. The idea of being rescued then dropped back in, then rescued, then dropped back in and having to start over and over again (in terms of difficulty and armament) just seems pretty damn silly.

Then again, I also think “boycotting” L4D2 is pretty silly. While I am a little dissapointed in Valve, I’ll choose whether or not to buy L4D2 on it’s own merits (and on my opinion of how well it will be supported) at the time. It also depends of course on if friends get it – and to be honest, already having L4D, Borderlands looks like something we are far more likley to all go out and buy. Assuming it’s actually fun to play that is.

By: DK

DK — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:27:04 +0000

“You said calling the public at Comicon the public is disingenuous. It’s not. They’re just the public. The public is simply more forgiving than you are, which is shown in things like the surveys showing L4Dead is the new-franchise game where people say they’re most likely to buy the sequel.”
They’re hardly a good representation of the public.
It’s a US event, which not only gives it a strong console slant but also by defintion means it’s a small subsection of the general playerbase.