Via PAX, there’s some Dark Carnival footage below. And man, is that jockey infected looking a bit nasty. Personally I’ve always preferred playing infected in L4D, so I’ll enjoy making the worst out of that fella. For the survivors there’s some skull-splattering melee action. Eugh, zombies are icky.
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Oh, as for the game itself, regardless of the whole boycott thing, I’m not really hooked.
It seems too much like they’re taking L4D, which was fun, and then throwing all the ideas that were discarded for the first game into it. Quantity over quality. One of the things I really liked about L4D is how tight and stylish it was. It had a theme, and it stuck to it. You didn’t randomly find incendiary ammo in people’s kitchen, you didn’t run around with cricket bats because it’d be bloody stupid. The infected didn’t stop to dress up as clowns before attacking you.
The original game made sense in a way L4D2 doesn’t seem to do. L4D2 is 100% “wouldn’t it be cool if…?” The same line of thought that gave Fallout 3 the bloody nuke catapult.
So while yes, I think Valve screwed us by making a sequel instead of delivering the L4D content they’d already promised, that’s not the reason I haven’t preordered L4D2. That’s simply because I’m not convinced L4D2 will be as good as the first game.
@ Jalf:
Call it integrity or being dedicated to making good games and pleasing fans at the same time or just generally being ‘nice’, but examples? Offering free DLC for most of their games (in various degrees, with TF2 obviously taking the cake) where other major respected developers like Bethesda are charging for every singly piece of DLC for their games, giving you the option to ‘gift’ games you already have to friends from the Orange Box (imagine EA doing that – hah), being very respectful towards the modding community and at various points hiring individuals and entire teams…Valve may not be an altruistic and near-perfect, but fair and integer? Overall, I would rank them way above most of the games industry, the more because they’re not some little indie company that you could love to love (and forgive some minor flaws in their games).
For the record, I still don’t think that they broke their promise entirely. I didn’t see the making available of the two other campaigns in versus as DLC, but the Last Stand game mode definitely was and Crash Course will be too. It’s not huge and pretty slow, but hell, Bioware took ages to release DLC for Mass Effect (and is now charging for the second one). The entire L4D-L4D2 thing may not be perfect, but at this point I’d rather stick with Valve and see where this goes. Also, I’d be a fool to pass up on more, bigger and better of the game that has given me so much fun! :-)
Well, ok, I don’t know if you could call something like The Lost Coast for HL2 DLC, but still. HL2 has gotten some serious technical boosts and updates since its release.
@Catastrophe, yes there is a reason behind the boycott, but that doesn’t mean le biscuit total can’t disagree with those reasons and attempt to provide better reasons for not having a boycott. By disputing their reasons he *can* argue with a “fact”.
Definately a prepurchase for me, when I get around to remembering to do it. What with more of that Zombie based terror that I liked from the first combined with new locations, people, funny lines, zombies, guns, ammo, hitty stuff and gameplay. One thing I keep on thinking of is just how awesome a spitter would be if you came across a closet full of campers, it makes me buttery in my happy place, as closet camping was such a huge annoyance in the original for me in versus (fuck you No Mercy elevator, fuck youuuuuuu).
Also I’ve no problem with the ideas of “wouldn’t it be cool if…?”, as that seems to be the point of L4D2, L4D with a lot of cool ideas thrown in, and to me it so far makes as much sense (possibly better sense in some ways, what with hitty weapons and such). Finding incendiary ammo in a kitchen makes as much sense as finding pipe bombs in the bathroom and miniguns on the balcony, so I don’t have any problems with that.
@Malagate
Yes but TB -is- arguing that the issue does not exist.
The issue exists. And you cannot argue with that fact. You can choose/feel you want L4D2 because you still enjoy L4D and want some extra maps and goodies, and money is no object, but L4D2 falls short of expectations/hopes/promises.
@Castrophe – Wrong, I am not arguing that there is no reason behind the boycott, I am arguing that the reason is a bad one and is nonsensical.
Until someone can explain away the fact that Valve has done this before in the form of ‘Half Life 3′ (aka, episodes 1 and 2.. and 3 when it eventually comes out), then all the screaming about ‘why would Valve do this to this, they set a precedent with TF2!’ is meaningless.
I am aware that they made promises. I am also aware that they did not give a specific timeframe for the fulfilment of those promises nor did they promise an exact number of updates. There has been a free content update and there is another one in the works. I understand the scepticism behind statements that they would continue to support and update L4D even after the release of L4D2, however I do not support the notion that L4D2 is somehow not a sequel and Valve are wrong for calling it that/developing it/selling it for normal price. I also don’t support the shitstorm surrounding it, nor do I believe that the expectations/hopes of the majority of vocal complainers are in any way realistic or conducive to the reality of the industry at this point in time.
The only games I can think of to get this treatment are TF2 and L4D. I’m not aware of any DLC for Hl2, CSS or any of their other games. Where’s the DLC for Portal? For HL2? Hl1? Or any of their other games. Yes, CSS and other online games get regular patches, butnot DLC as in significant new content.
And not giving you that option in other circumstances, like if you buy one of the big package deals on Steam, you *don’t* get to gift away games you already have. ;)
If Valve consistently allowed this, I’d agree it was nice, but they don’t. They’ve done it *once*. It doesn’t really count on the integrity-meter unless it’s something you can rely on them to *keep* doing. You don’t get integrity for having done something nice once upon a time. You get it for being *consistently* nice. (or at least for being consistent)
Which company isn’t? Everyone likes it if fans create new reasons to buy their games. Bethesda is respectful towards the modding community too. So is Epic, or iD.
Honestly, I don’t think any of the above has much to do with integrity. What you’ve shown is that they have, on several individual occasions, done nice things for their customers, but it’s not integrity unless you can *rely* on that behavior.
I don’t think it’s a sign of integrity to bump up prices by 40-120% for Europe overnight. I don’t think it’s a sign of integrity to be silent on the issue even when tens of thousands of your customers complain about it.
I don’t think it’s a sign of integrity to promise features you never deliver. I don’t think it’s a sign of integrity to close forum threads asking about Steam’s policy.
For that matter, as TotalBiscuit brought up, where’s the integrity when it comes to HL2? Where’s the integrity in saying “we’re switching to an episodic model so we can deliver games faster”, and then take what, two years to produce a single “episode”?
Valve generally makes good games, no doubt about that, but I don’t think they have done anything to earn more trust than the rest of the games industry. For them to have integrity, they’d have to consistently deliver on what they promise. They’d have to deliver HL2 episodes in an episodic format, with an episodic schedule, when they say they’ll make it episodic. They’d have to deliver the content they said they’d deliver in L4D. And answering or responding to customer complaints would be nice too.
Valve has done some nice things for their customers on occasion, no doubt about that. But they’ve also ripped their customers off on a few occasions. What that sums up to is not “a company that deserves my trust, or the benefit of the doubt”, but simply “a company out to make money, like the rest of the games industry”. They’re not evil, and they’re not saints. When they make good games I’ll buy them for the games’ sake. But when they don’t, I have no incentive to “support them” in any way. And if they make a game that doesn’t interest me in its current form, and *promise* that it’ll get better, I have no reason to trust that it is going to be the case.
They promised campaigns (plural), weapons, new special infected. Of those, you could make a case that they’ve delivered on the first one.
However, they also promised that these updates would be *more frequent* and *delivered faster* than TF2’s updates.
Have they delivered on that?
The comparison to Mass Effect is obviously irrelevant. Bioware never made the above promises about Mass Effect, so they can do as they like DLC-wise.
@TotalBiscuit:
Yes, it is meaningless. Which is why that isn’t the issue. TF2 and HL2 do not matter. What matters is that people bought L4D because they were promised content they did not get.
Not aware enough then. :)
They did give a specific timeframe. They said these updates would be delivered on a faster schedule than TF2 updates.
@TotalBiscuit
No, you’re wrong.
You’re arguing that thousands of people who feel L4D2 has many shortcomings are all silly and make no sense, yet you then say you understand the scepticism. You also say you are aware they made promises. You are clearly choosing to overlook all these issues and making silly excuses for them. Thats called being a “Fanboi”.
There are issues, which you have pointed out, and that already makes the thousands of people who think them reasons are reasons enough not to purchase the game validated and thus Sensical.
Personally, in my mind, I would not define L4D2 as a sequel. Its identical to a game I bought earlier this year with a couple of maps added, a few guns and enemies. Its going to split L4D community in half with many playing L4D2, which is already counter inuititive to a multiplayer game thats been around for a year.
The choice for someone who owns both, which one to play will come down to a trivial “Which map do you want to play on?”.
“Blood harvest”
“Oh cool, lets log into L4D and kick some zombie ass”
“Now which map?”
“Ermm carnival?”
“Oh ok, lets log out of L4D, into L4D2 and pwn some zombieclowns”
A sequel should not be trivialised into which map you fansy playing on.
@ Jalf:
I didn’t know they said they’d deliver more frequent and faster updates than for TF2…fair enough. I do believe Bioware promised DLC for ME, but they certainly didn’t make such a selling point of it, true.
As for your other points, they’re fair. I don want to point out that I’d never buy a game to “support” a company, no matter how much I like them. I only buy games because I like them. It’s only in a toss-up between 2 games that I might equally like that I buy the one developed/produced by a company I respect. :-) So while I concede a good few of your points (on which I may have been a bit cavalier), I still like Valve more than most other developers and definitely producers in the industry. Maybe it’s subjective, but hey.
typos…gah.
I’m boycotting this thread.