Rock, Paper, Shotgun

14/08/2009 at 17:10 Stupoider says:

I enjoyed all of the footage ‘n’ all, but the thing that I was -really- interested in was the talk about a TF2 comic.

I LOVE YOU, VALVE. <3

14/08/2009 at 17:22 Chris R says:

Hope no one has a fear of clowns…. haha. Anyone think Valve is going to have a sale on L4D2 soon? Gogamer.com is having a 24hr sale on L4D2 for 20% off, so $40 US… That’ll probably be the best deal for a long time, yeah?

On a side note, there is a great custom campaign for L4D called “Heaven Can Wait” that is splendid. It’s a full campaign, 5 maps long, has a crazy “gauntlet” style area (hint: just keep moving), and a great finale (5+ tanks in a row, be patient, and don’t fall into the pit). Play it with friends and you’ll have a blast.

14/08/2009 at 17:35 Metal_Circus says:

they’re boycotting L4D2? That’s very sad and depressing both at the same time. I was miffed at the announcement of it also but what the jabbering hell are these people thinking? Of all the things you can protest about in our world they’re chosing the release of a video game (something invented to help people have fun)?

I despair at the human race sometimes. Good thing we have zombies to shoot to help ease our anger.

14/08/2009 at 18:01 Itchy and Scrotum says:

I’m not sure how it is on the other side of the pond, but most of my nerd friends can’t stand anything to do with sports, or just plain have no interest. I am the exception, being interested in MMA, kickboxing etc but not the less combaty sports. So it drove me nuts and baffled me a bit the way the single interview that I wanted to see was constantly interrupted with ads for sports games. Do they really not understand that people who sit on computers all the time probably don’t care about sports? Is there really that big a cross-section of those who play L4d and TF2 etc and those who play Madden 200x? I am both confused and annoyed.

14/08/2009 at 18:04 Alex says:

It’ll be interesting to see how much this game changes between E3 and release. If you look at the shipped version of L4D1 and the preview footage it got, there are a lot of differences.

14/08/2009 at 18:08 Corion says:

“Me, I’m just hoping TF2’s recent haberdashery indulgence spreads to L4D1/2. Zombies in hats would be wonderful.”

Only if there’s a stick-of-butter hat!

14/08/2009 at 18:15 Chris R says:

I just pre-ordered two copies of L4D2 from the gogamer site… couldn’t pass up the 20% deal. I really hope the “free L4D if your buy L4D2″ thing is real, because I’ve been waiting for L4D to go on sale so I could pick it up for the g/f…

14/08/2009 at 18:18 Sobric says:

The enormo hint was CS2? (in the first few minutes of the video).

Actually not sure on that, the end of the video suggests that it’s not actually in development yet.

14/08/2009 at 18:22 Anthony Damiani says:

Honestly, do you not feel L4D was worth the money?

14/08/2009 at 18:33 Xercies says:

A TF2 Movie or TV show…why? Its an online shooter with not much story or character. It couldn’t work.

14/08/2009 at 18:35 Jad says:

Ah nice on the weekend deal. I tried putting my Half-Life 1 CD key into Steam once and it told me that my key was already in use. I could have argued it, but I remember that I gave my key to my old college roommate (uh-oh! breaking the law!), and maybe he already registered it. Anyway, for $5 I can get Half-Life 1+expansion packs! Does anyone still play TFC anymore?

Also, if enormo-hint is CS2 or Portal 2, that’s a bit disappointing. I always consider sequels to popular games to be in the queue for development unless stated otherwise.

I assumed they were working on a new post-apocalyptic FPS with open-world driving and RPG elements. Maybe a WWII game. Don’t see too many of those kinds of games around.

14/08/2009 at 18:37 jsutcliffe says:

One thing (one of many) that bugs me about the boycott whingers:

You’ve got L4D and you have presumably been enjoying it since you’re paying attention to news about the sequel — you’ve frankly probably got your money’s worth out of it multiple times in terms of how much time you’ve put into the game. Why are you wailing and gnashing your teeth because Valve had the temerity to like what they made enough to pursue an even better version?

A comparison: I don’t see Internet anger directed at EA’s sports franchises which come out with a new-but-barely-different iteration every year. How is L4D2 different?

Also, Valve seem to have mastered how to market their games. I’d not be surprised to see some kind of incentive/reward for people getting L4D2, whether it’s something like a discount if you already own L4D or, the other way round, a discount for L4D1 when you buy the sequel.

14/08/2009 at 18:38 Lilliput King says:

Anthony – My brothers and I paid ludicrous amounts for three copies so we could play co-op.

We played the four campaigns a couple of times, but the hordes and bosses always spawned in pretty much the same places, and the challenge wasn’t varied enough to keep the game interesting for long.

In the end we decided it wasn’t really all that great and moved on. In my opinion then, probably not worth it.

14/08/2009 at 18:52 TheArmyOfNone says:

I lol@ the people pretending to have reasons to get indignant over one of the best PC development studios to date.

14/08/2009 at 18:57 Eyre says:

L4D is stale. I only enjoyed it when I could get 3 of my friends to play with me, and we stopped playing it months and months ago because of the lack of content (read: before DA and DT vs mode). It got old very quickly. Not worth the money of a full priced retail game for what was essentially a very cool mod. I preordered L4D 1 because of my love for Valve and Zombies. I maintain that I will try L4D2, but not until it hits a 50% off weekend on Steam.

14/08/2009 at 19:06 Wirbelwind says:

Everyone, save L4D2 and boycot Crash Course!

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/l4dcrashcourse

14/08/2009 at 19:24 Kamos says:

@Starky
“if I tell people the (version of) truth (I believe), there won’t be enough bile for angry internet men to cry over.”

Version of truth? Do you often mistake opinions and truth? Must be tough being you.

Anyway, my opinion is as good as yours, except I’m not an idiot, i.e., I’m not telling people to shut up. What would the world be if we weren’t allowed to vote and express thoughts?

Yes, I’m going to “vote with my wallet”, but no, I won’t “shut up”, because as in real life, I want other people to “vote” with me if they believe what I’m saying is reasonable.

14/08/2009 at 19:28 mpuncekar says:

I have such a man crush on valve at this point, it’s just completely ridiculous.

I don’t really care about l4d all that much, the gameplay just isn’t my cup of tea anymore, but it’s a decent game, but the very mention of ep:3 and portal 2… details or not… that excites me.

Also, kudos to gabe for sticking with his opinion on the ps3. He clearly has never been impressed by that hardware.

14/08/2009 at 19:30 jsutcliffe says:

“L4D2 is definitely not “the update that was promised”. It’s much bigger in scope than that.”

Precisely. I remember that point was made by one of the Valve folks when this controversy began, in fact.

I feel dirty for contributinh to (yet another) “Grr L4D2″ thread.

14/08/2009 at 19:49 bildo says:

Speaking of GTTV, what did you think about the “news” GT recived on HL2E3 and Portal 2? Man, I hate GT some times : /

This might be relevant to your interests then. complain here.

14/08/2009 at 19:55 Lobotomist says:

Games quality is dropping every year. And its all because crowd (sheeps) will buy anything that is advertised well enough.

14/08/2009 at 20:01 TCM says:

Can I boycott the comments about the L4D2 boycott?

14/08/2009 at 20:06 Guy says:

If they worked on the “content that was promised” instead of L4D2, we’d have… maybe… one campaign, a gun or two, and a special infected.

And the forums would be full of people complaining about how the campaign is half-assed in these places, the gun sucks, and the special infected breaks these maps. Oh, cruel, vile Valve. How could you have spared us from that?

14/08/2009 at 20:12 JoeDuck says:

Well, the marketing machine is starting to roll…
It’s mid summer, the news trickle about L4D2 is starting to accelerate and it seems awfully soon to me.
It’s interesting that they start so soon, specially now that in christmas the number of games has been greatly reduced.
Does anyone know/remember if this was Valve’s strategy also last year (L4D) or the year before that (O Box)?
And for the sake of the trolls, yes I’m buying L4D2 on release day, just so they know how to tag me. :-)

14/08/2009 at 20:34 Stupoider says:

“Their loss. I will never buy another game from Valve. And many other people feel same way.”

Wow, Lobotomist. I guess you’re going to have to miss out on the delicious HL2:EP3 then.

14/08/2009 at 20:44 Noc says:

@Vinraith: I’d argue that there’s quite a bit of character within the game itself. I mean, people were talking about this before the Meet The videos even came out.

First of all the character classes themselves are designed to be obviously recognizable. This is primarily a gameplay thing (so you can tell who you’re fighting at a glance), but since each class tends to function in certain ways, the basic combination of appearance and action gives the classes quite a bit of character. You’ve got the frantic circle-strafing, rocket-jumping, missile-spamming of the Soldier, the smug, obnoxious acrobatics and shotgun-play of the Scout, the Engineer methodically digging in to his nest and suspiciously unloading his shotgun into anyone who comes close, lest they be a Spy . . .

That’s the basic stuff. Then there’s all the in-game touches Valve’s layered over that. Things like the Heavy breaking into a grin if he’s been firing his gun for long enough. And the voice cues! You’ve got the iconic, memetic ones, like “Gentlemen!” and “Sentry Down!” (And “We need a Dispenser here!”) And you’ve got all the rest, like the rest of the Engineer’s status reports (“Erectin’ a Dispenser!”), and the Pyro’s crazed mumbling, and all of the little auxiliary voice bits from kills and such (The Sniper, after downing a Heavy: “Thanks for being such a bloody big target!”) And the various reactions to being on fire (Ranging from the Scout’s pathetic “Ow ow it burns it burns” to Soldier’s furious “I. AM. ON. FIRE!”

And then you’ve got the layer the taunts provide, that help characterize the classes even more. From “MAGGOTS!” to the Pyro’s triumphant flamethrower-hoist to the Sniper’s friendly wave to the instakills of the Hadoken and the Heavy’s “Bang!” and the Spy’s elegant, silly fencing.

And THEN you’ve got all the various elements of the game itself unattached to specific characters. Like the announcer, or the labels on your gibs.

. . .

Considering that TF2′s an arena shooter, with no plot or exposition to speak of, and the only method characters having to interact with each other involving guns and occasionally shouting things at each other, it’s got a ridiculous amount of character. I’d even argue that it’s got significantly more character than the a not insignificant portion of other games, with their grim space marines and their tiresome cutscenes and their predictable plot twists and all.

14/08/2009 at 20:49 Stupoider says:

Valve have done an amazing job with TF2. Even now, people realise the characters as characters, whereas other games would just recognise them as classes. Anyway, the Meet The Team videos build on each character by adding a bit of backstory and what not.

14/08/2009 at 20:52 Stupoider says:

@Sarble: Haha! Wouldn’t it have a plot similar to Armageddon, or are they going for a top-down action film approach?

14/08/2009 at 21:28 Gorgeras says:

“Honestly, do you not feel L4D was worth the money?”

It was not a full game, it was not worth the price of a full game(it retailed on Steam and in my local GAME at £35 on release) and despite the terribad clairvoyance of some people here; I hardly played the game to death. Issues with bugs, balance, the non-existent matchmaking and a rapidly shrinking number of servers put me off playing it much. I’d been waiting for the fixes.

But they weren’t even working on those fixes because they were working on this sequel(the chronology of events as admitted by Valve does NOT put them in a good light when ever the anti-boycotters mention the size of or quality of the sequel when making the bankrupt “it’s a true sequel” argument). Now because of the sequel, there is zero chance those fixes will ever emerge: the few that will are being put exclusively into the sequel in the form of the new special infected.

14/08/2009 at 21:42 Kamos says:

@airtekh
“I thought people were above that here.”

On topic: yes, we clearly shouldn’t talk about the “boycotters VS valve fanboys” thing on a post where Mr. Newell addresses the boycott.

Also, since TCM now hates me personally and is going to give me a L4D2 copy, this is hardly pointless.

14/08/2009 at 22:35 Wirbelwind says:

“says “OMG! If you don’t buy L4D2, they won’t be able to make Portal 2!”

Why should we care? Isn’t it a business? o_O”

Because we care about the product Portal 2 and want to play it? Not that I think some silly boycotters not buying L4D2 will influence that.

14/08/2009 at 23:40 Y3k-Bug says:

Are you the same MacBeth from Frontline Force?

14/08/2009 at 23:54 Deacon Lowdown says:

I’m not a boycotter, but I am bothered by the chronology of events that valve has given us. From what they’ve said, they released the game after promising the support that TF2 enjoys, were overwhelmed by the sales and public response, and immediately after release began work on a sequel in lieu of substantial DLC.

15/08/2009 at 00:20 Tei says:

Any news about the inventor of the tool to stab people in the face trough internet?

These anti-BC and pro-BC are getting boring, and I am getting angry at then.

15/08/2009 at 01:06 TCM says:

That train just jumped the rails, and landed on a totally different track.

15/08/2009 at 05:42 Deacon Lowdown says:

I’m not trying to be overly negative here, and I acknowledge, Kadayi, that your interpretation of events could be completely accurate, but I’m just a bit more of a cynic.

@melf_himself
I think it says alot about Valve as a company that I find what they’re doing with L4D2 annoying. It shows just how highly I’ve come to think of them. It may be somewhat unfair, but I am going to hold them at the standard they’ve set in the past. I was unsure about Left 4 Dead but what finally pushed me to buy it was the promise of DLC, which we’ve had very little of, and character videos and backstory similar to TF2, which we’ve seen none of.

Again, I’m not trying to be an Angry Internet Man. I may very well buy L4D2. But I am dissapointed in how Valve handled this and I am trying to express my disappointment in an intelligent, constructive manner.

15/08/2009 at 05:45 MD says:

Wait, the meta-whiners are probably the pro-Valve crowd, and they already ARE a problem. I guess I should have tacked an extra meta- on. Anyway, what I meant was that soon we will spend more time complaining aboutL4D threads than complaining in them.

15/08/2009 at 11:14 cowthief skank says:

I think perhaps some people need to get up, move away from their computer, and maybe go for a walk or something. Get some fresh air, feed the ducks.

PS Old words are good words.

15/08/2009 at 14:17 tycho says:

Ah, those Whipsering Oaks – if only they could whisper instead…

15/08/2009 at 15:48 The Fanciest of Pants says:

I just popped in to laugh at L4D2 boycotters. Haha!

Oh and a katana? Hells yes. I can hear people raging about it, but who cares.

15/08/2009 at 22:17 Nick says:

“But they weren’t even working on those fixes because they were working on this sequel”

What, you mean those fixes that they released already? Ok. I was pretty pissed off when I thought they were going to charge for the initial DLC, but they didn’t and after it was released I was at least content with the fact the game was “complete” in a sense. It was not anywhere near as replayable as they made out though, I can only hope L4D 2 will live up to that hype.

15/08/2009 at 23:48 jalf says:

I think it says alot about Valve as a company that I find what they’re doing with L4D2 annoying. It shows just how highly I’ve come to think of them. It may be somewhat unfair, but I am going to hold them at the standard they’ve set in the past.

Which “standard” is this? Wouldn’t they have had to provide good post-launch support in more than one game (TF2) for it to be a *standard*?

Valve has turned out some great games, and TF2′s post-launch support has been amazing (even if some of their updates have done more harm than good, at least they show commitment to the game). But let’s not go overboard here. TF2 is the exception to the norm. It is not Valve’s *standard*. They have never done anything like that before, and so far, they have not done it since either.

Why are you wailing and gnashing your teeth because Valve had the temerity to like what they made enough to pursue an even better version?

A comparison: I don’t see Internet anger directed at EA’s sports franchises which come out with a new-but-barely-different iteration every year. How is L4D2 different?

Ah, since you brought it up, let’s talk about one thing that annoys me about whingers like you. You’ve found something to attack others over, and that is so important to you that you’d never even dream of actually looking into what people are complaining about, because then it might just turn out they have a legitimate complaint, and that would completely ruin your fun, wouldn’t it? Much more fun to play it safe and stay ignorant, and just attack and bash people instead. So far, it has been stated very clearly and calmly in *every* single post on RPS mentioning either L4D or L4D2. But you’d rather be “annoyed” about “boycott whingers” than actually read their *reasons*.

What makes L4D2 different from EA Sports franchises is simple:

EA never had three high-profile employees, in three separate interviews, state that they intended to:

1: Deliver free updates after launch, and
2: That said updates would be delivered at an more frequently than TF2′s updates, and
3: that these updates would contain new types of infected, and
4: that these updates would contain new campaigns for coop and versus, and
5: that these updates would contain new weapons.

The reason why people are upset is that EA has the basic integrity to not promise these things unless they intend to honour that promise.

Valve did not. Gabe Newell, Chet Faliszek and Doug Lombardi all, separately and independently stated that they would do these things after launch.

For your EA comparison to hold, we’d pretty much need John Riccitiello or Peter Moore to go out and make the same promises about one of their upcoming sports games.

EA has not done this. And that is how L4D is different from EA’s sports franchises.

EA doesn’t promise much, so when they don’t deliver much, we’re not surprised. Valve made a very clear business decision of promising some very specific things, which they then threw out the window as soon as they’d taken our money.

16/08/2009 at 12:57 Stupoider says:

@jalf: “2: That said updates would be delivered at an more frequently than TF2’s updates,” source, please.

Also, Valve did deliver updates, they just forgot 1 or two pieces of content. Just because you weren’t satisfied with the updates delivered doesn’t mean others weren’t.

16/08/2009 at 16:50 Lilliput King says:

@ Funky Badger “Un-snarky question: those who’ve disowned it; what are you playing instead?”

TF2, natch.

17/08/2009 at 02:12 invisiblejesus says:

Yes. America bashing is so much smarter and more mature than overreacting to a video game release. It shows a great deal of class, restraint and intellect.