By Kieron Gillen on October 14th, 2009 at 3:51 pm.
Walking_Target and Agent Of Chaos, architects of the much discussed Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott have decided to close the group, considering their mission was basically complete. Both make personal statements. Their opening statements sum up the situation as they see it…
Agent of Chaos: We have accomplished everything we can on our manifesto. We’ve been dealing with Valve ever since our group started, then we met them in-person and now we’re at the point of concluding our discussions. Our goal wasn’t to steer people away from L4D2, it was to get Valve’s attention and have them support original L4D. We succeeded and that’s where our mission ends; nothing more or less.
Walking_Target: People have lost sight of why we’re here. The comments are always full of trolls, people bashing Valve and phishers. What is more, people are unwilling or unable to wait for Valve to follow through in any cohesive way. Valve is at least trying to make things right, there will be speed bumps on the way, however we will get there. Even if it is not as quickly as we would like. The boycott has served its purpose and it is now up to you all as individuals to decide what is right for you.
Though there’s lots more to read there.
And all together now…
Good on ‘em I say. It’s nice to know the boycott wasn’t being led by the brain dead crowd who just wanted something for nothing and those intelligent enough to look at the situation diplomatically.
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Eh, I kind of look at it the opposite way. What a shame it *was* led by braindead fools who didn’t know what they wanted or how to get it. They had a chance to do something meaningful, and they didn’t.
I’m pretty much with armlesscorps.
There were, and are, valid reasons to be disappointed in Valve, but these boycotters managed to miss every one of them, and instead create what was never more than a joke. A whiny “manifesto” demanding everything for nothing, and with absolutely no grounding in reality. And then Valve tells them “don’t worry, we’re the good guys”, and they close the group.
I just feel sorry for all those who actually *joined* the group.
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Did we read the same manifesto? It seemed to be the opposite of how you characterise it Jaif.
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Tzk… carebears!
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Finally.
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Have they actually achieved anything or have Valve just showed them what they were doing anyway to get them to quit blubbing?
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Does the difference matter? Whether Valve were never going to abandon L4D1 or whether they made the decision not to abandon it due to the boycott, the fact remains that we now know they’re not going to abandon L4D1. That means that their group’s aims have been accomplished.
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We’ll never know. I, for one, do believe that Valve has been incredibly slack in releasing L4D1 content , and I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that the Crash Course content release (one of only two so far) came almost immediately after the L4D2 announcement and affiliated backlash. That said: who knows what exactly the alleged boycott did or did not do. Only Gabe knows for sure…
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Has everyone been told? In twenty years time will we find feral boycotters in the jungle muttering about valve?
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They’ve achieved bugger all, except maybe raise general awareness of L4D2 for Valve. No publicity is bad publicity.
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Angry internet men are like the hydra, make 2 happy and irritate 600 more.
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But if we use fire…
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Well that one worked, on to the next one; http://www.tibettruth.com/boycottchina.html
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the boycott is not over til you pry it from my cold dead reanimated hands.
In other news. good for them. I was never boycotting l4d2, i was just never going to buy it, and never will. I feel the first product was woefully lacking in content, and they never did provide enough to make up for it.
Thats just my personal opinion, everyone else is welcome to enjoy what they enjoy.
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Thanks!
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Cool! Glad to hear that comment threads have been declared safe and peaceful! That will be a welcome change.
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And who the fuck crowned them kings?
I love it when people assume they speak for everyone else.
What they’re actually doing, irregardless of their lack of authority, is not declaring their Boycott “over”, they’re declaring it “defeated”. If anything they’ve proven that Valve simply does not care – and have lost a good portion of the goodwill they built up with thier previous actions.
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With regard to “who crowned them kings”?
The community that was boycotting. By joining their Steam group (or whatever), they pretty much agreed that those guys were their figureheads. And they kept doing that, until these guys changed their mind :p
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You seem to be under the same impression that many of the people in that comment thread were: that a Steam Group is a democracy. It’s not. Those people joined Walking and Agent’s group and fell in behind their beliefs. If they want to splinter off and form their own little boycotts, go for it. Perhaps they’ll understand better when they close their boycott groups and people start accusing them of having Valve’s cock in their mouths.
Besides, the whole thing was a complete failure at this point regardless. Aren’t L4D2′s pre-orders something like 200% more than original games?
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It’s kind of cute that people think the steam group is the boycott, and if the steam group goes away the boycott goes away.
_
That’s a hell of a lot of angry people. I suspect there are plenty more beyond them that, like me, feel betrayed by Valve but left the boycott because the “angry mob” mentality didn’t really suit us.
_
I’ve no doubt at this point that L4D2 will sell a bajillion copies regardless, I just worry about the lesson Valve will take away from all this and how it will impact their franchises that I still care about.
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Darn them for making sequels to fantastic games.
GOSH DARN THEM ALL TO HECK!!!
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Valve wouldn’t have released Crash Course if it wasn’t for the boycotters. That much is obvious.
So in a sense they achieved something. Crash Course ain’t too bad!
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Actually, it’s not at all obvious.
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Yeah, I actually think it would have been released anyway.
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Maaan, I hate the boycotters who label themselves saviours.
If I predicted that the sun was going to rise tomorrow, and it inevitably did, would that mean I can predict the future?
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Well, technically it does mean you can predict the future … so long as you make extremely predictable predictions.
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Finally, Valve realizing their dream of ten years running, of releasing episodic content in a timely fashion, and people cry boycott.
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“first product was woefully lacking in content”
Just curious, but at what price point would you consider picking it up?
I was a bit disappointed when I bought L4D at first, but have found myself going back to it again and again for one more go, so feel I did eventually get my money’s worth. For L4D2 though, will probably wait a bit for a sale of some type, as I have enough gaming on my plate for a while (I resubbed to WOW, oh dear).
P.
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I pre-ordered L4D at £35 or whatever it was, flush with the massive hours of play I was getting from TF2. I was very excited
I was disappointed in L4D, possibly because I don’t have close gaming mates to play with (literally NO ONE I know in the real world plays PC games except me). I must have played it for about 8 hours or so and during that time, rather than a feeling of cameraderie, mostly it was one of resentment – “you’re doing it wrong”, or “this could be done more efficiently”, or “who the fuck threw that molotov THERE!”. That’s not fun.
So, I won’t be buying L4D 2, but that’s not a political statement (as if anyone cares). I do, though, wish valve would get going on Episode 3.
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I will buy L4D when it hits the 10$ mark (like TF2 did during an special promo). Matbe everyone will be playing L4D 3 by that time, but I think the current price is just too high for this kind of game, even if everyone agree that it’s a great game.
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L4D’s hands down the game I’ve played most over the last year. It’s great, the sequel lokos great. S’all good, innit?
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Its good that they closed it.
It kind of tanked when they took the bait and visited Valve.
At this point congratulations are due to Valve for extremely cunning politics. Their Public relations department should get huge bonus on this one, quit their jobs and join republican party for next election run. Classic case of “Wag the dog”
As for Boycott, it ended on paper. It is hard to fight 25 million dollar marketing campaign…
And even harder to fight generation X that grew brainwashed on TV commercials. Trained to respect the corporation over their own good. They as we know will buy anything if its packed in nice box and advertised. EA learned this long ago, and makes big bucks on selling the same game with minor changes, over and over again. And people buy it – that is the sad thing.
Valve are people too. They have needs. Cars, rent, mortgage, alimony …. It was just mater of time before they started reaching into that greed basket.
But Boycott is not dead. I myself convinced at least 20 people not to buy L4D2. And perhaps some more by my constant posting. If each boycotter , and there were 40.000 did the same. Than maybe we did make a dent. A small burn. Not enough to kill the beast.
But at least a message : We not gonna take it.
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You bring a tear to my eye with your passionate defense of all that’s right and good.
Boycotters, find a real cause next time.
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Yeah man, you channel that revolutionary power! Know that no matter how small, your actions made a difference in the fight to end world hunger, I mean, cause Valve to make a little less money.
PEOPLE THERE ARE REAL CAUSES IN THE WORLD THAT COULD USE YOUR EFFORT AND PASSION! Channel the nerd rage for good next time!
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Yeah man, you channel that revolutionary power! Know that no matter how small, your actions made a difference in the fight to end world hunger, I mean, cause Valve to make a little less money.
PEOPLE THERE ARE REAL CAUSES IN THE WORLD THAT COULD USE YOUR EFFORT AND PASSION! I have a dream that we can channel the nerd rage FOR GOOD!
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Imagine now all the new sales that valve will get because of the publicity around this, and how Valve handled it (eg : far better than any other large company usually does)
Your “small dent” suddenly became a pretty effective viral marketing campaign.
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Yay! Cheer corporate!
Now only if they can figure how to make it work on issues of racism, totalitarianism, discrimination :)
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Imagine group of ethnic citizens publicly protesting discrimination , winning votes for radical party next elections.
Oh wait…It actually happens.
Yay! For human race!
Lets us just buy buy buy , consume consume , watch more TV !!!!!
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Didn’t you read it? Comment threads are safe and peaceful now! You can’t just ignore that! This is insane!
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“And even harder to fight generation X that grew brainwashed on TV commercials. Trained to respect the corporation over their own good. They as we know will buy anything if its packed in nice box and advertised. EA learned this long ago, and makes big bucks on selling the same game with minor changes, over and over again. And people buy it – that is the sad thing.
Valve are people too. They have needs. Cars, rent, mortgage, alimony …. It was just mater of time before they started reaching into that greed basket.”
Translation:”WAKE UP SHEEPLE!”
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$30 seems about right.
They made the ai director really wasnt all that. He didnt make the game harder at all, it was still just random zombie charges throughout the map. weapons and ammo always spawned in the path through the map. we had no reason to move off the only 1 through the map.
Yes the game is fun, i wont deny that, but it wasnt all that. the gunplay could have been way more satisfying.
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To actually succeed they needed to understand the difference between a boycott and a petition…
As a result, this boycott was just full of perpetual crybabies and managed by sellouts – welcome to the internet, please come again.
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Who died and left them king of all idiocy?
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What a pisspoor boycott.
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The war is over!
Get back on your helicopters and get out of there before the Valve-cong get you and shatter glass tubes in your urethra.
No matter what you do, Gordon Freeman will haunt your nightmares forever.
Now it’s time for me to take all the credit.
Thank you, thank you very much. I could of done it without all of you butting in.
WATCH MY NEW TV SHOW ON HULKAVISION.
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Oh dear this won’t end well, you mark my words. I’m gonna take cover before it all flares up, again. You lied Gillen! The comment threads aren’t safe yet!
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Can this please be the last RPS thread where whiners whine about L4D2 and other whiners whine about whiners whining about L4D2? Pretty please?
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… and of course, whiners like me who whine about whiners whining and messing up the comments ;)
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The whole boycott thing was just a funny aside to me, I was always going to buy L4D2.
Valve never needed to take them seriously, so they never did.
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Actually, I think Valve took them quite seriously. More so than most other people on the internet. After the announcement of L4D2, Chet Faliszek from Valve spent the next 2-3 months giving interviews to gaming sites where he had to keep repeating that Valve were not dropping support for the first game. While this was a natural question for anyone to ask of Valve, the fact that Valve went into a PR offensive/damage control mode regarding this query does mean that they were thinking about it. And, of course, the whole deal about flying those 2 people over to Valve HQ. They definitely got more attention than they deserved if you ask me.
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I suppose the only reason they needed to take them seriously was because of the accusations they were making about their reputation, but mentioning they will continue to support L4D1 in interviews and flying a couple of guys to show you your game isn’t that big a deal, although I agree they gave them more attention than they deserved.
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This boycott was stupid from the get-go, anyway. I just knew that eventually all these anti-L4D2 people would be seduced by Valve, as Valve is so fucking good at seducing gamers.
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It must be due to Gabe Newells sexy, sexy dancing. He seduces gamers by stacking the entire Valve catalogue and dancing suggestively around them. It’s simply mesmerizing, in a kind of horrifically sexy geeky way.
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Can we stop all this L4D nonsense and move on to better things like the next Half Life or Portal?
Thank you for your time.
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I’m sure they would, if there was anything to report on HL2:EP3 and Portal 2.
Unfortunately, there isn’t, so they make the best out of what they’ve got.
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Indeed. What a sorry state the world is in. =P I never found L4D all that impressive.
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Hug_dealer: that’s what I feel as well. You can run through the entire game in a couple of hours and while there’s some replay value, there was a distinct feeling that there was not enough variation in the concept. Only half a dozen weapons to choose from in this day and age is pretty weak not to mention that the concept invited so much more creativity and potential that never quite came to fruition.
Take the ridiculously linear design of the maps – it may have worked for Half Life but a zombie game where you can only run forward? Really? To me, that defeats the whole appeal of a zombie game! There’s also far too little interaction with the environment – barricading of doors is not possible, you can’t climb up things like drainpipes (you can use standard ladders and suchlike), etc.
For me, a zombie game would be about survival, beating the odds and using your environment to survive – that’s because every zombie movie has been like this as well – but L4D (and the sequel) isn’t anything like that. It’s a run & gun game, where you got to fend off hordes while running along a pre-determined path. The part where you are waiting for rescue is probably the best part of the whole game because it requires real coordination, a well planned approach and can really make you sit on the edge of your chair. Ah well, there’s still L4D 3.
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I agree that a zombie game based on survival rather than run and gun would be pretty awesome.
But I would also say many of the problems that were present in L4D seem to be getting fixed in 2. From the sounds of things, coordination of the team is going to get quite important. It was never really that necessary to pay that much attention to what was going on with the rest of the team, everyone just keep pushing forward unless you are at a moment where you should sit in a corner. But most of the new special infected seem to be geared towards splitting the team up. I imagine that it is going to become much more important to keep an eye on the rest of the team.
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@Red Avatar
Are you imagining something like a zombie Oregon Trail? You might have to manage supplies and balance the time you go out hunting for food with the danger involved. All the while you and your chums are trying to get the coast (or something like that).
I kinda like that idea. L4D meets Children of Men meets The Road. Hmmmm.
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@Youatemycheeto
Yeah, I had something like that in mind, where you had to work together to get the resources needed. It’s amazing that no company has tried to make a proper zombie game yet despite the countless zombie movies already doing a similar thing.
Heck, even Dead Rising was a disappointment because the game didn’t evolve: the safe house could never be overrun & you could never fight back zombies to regain areas.
What I’d really like, is, for example, for you to be in a town with each of you having to pick a suitable building to use as base while you wait for the military to come pick you up. This could mean that you’d need items gathered around town to make a radio, then get fuel for the generator (which you’d need to defend and if it got broken, you’d have to go out to repair it), food & med kit to recover health, scavenging weapons by exploring houses instead of having them neatly stacked on a table for you to pick up. Add a random element and you got yourself an immensely fun game! Your team mates could cover you by sniping from the HQ’s windows – getting back to the base would mean shaking off zombies so the door can be safely opened, etc. etc.
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@Red Avatar
That kind of sounds similar to kerberos’ upcoming Fort Zombie or at least to what I’ve so far heard about fort Zombie. Not sure about the shooting side of things however since fort zombie is supposed to be more of a hybrid of several genres
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While I am going to buy L4D2, I am glad that the boycotters had some success and I hope that Valve does continue to put some effort into L4D1. I finally convinced one of my super-cheapo gamer friends to get L4D1 in the last $15 sale ($15 being expensive for him, considering that he usually pirates games), so I’m sure I’ll be going bad to L4D1 occasionally to play with him. Also I still really like the original characters.
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For the people who left because they found the game’s versus repetitive, I think it’s worth mentioning that some mods are changing the versus game a lot these last days. I found some of them to be very interesting ideas.
Some mods are mostly balance related, for example, one of the tweaks gives more damage to hunter pounces, so a big one can do up to 50, and another one increases special infected respawn rate.
The most hilarious allows the survivors to crawl while incapped, making for some excellent and futile moments of helplessness while the rest of your dead team shouts encouragement and the inevitable end gets near.
But for me, the most spectacular affects the smoker. First, it makes the smoker’s cloud toxic for the humans, so if they stay inside it after killing this special infected, they lose hit points. With this simple tweak the smoker is now very useful to destroy closet tactics. Survivor teams simply have to leave their closet or perish inside, and that makes a world of difference.
It also gives the smoker a longer tongue, so he can reach from further and move while having a survivor trapped.
All this makes the versus more brutal and more rewarding, now it’s very, very difficult to finish with the survivors even in the easiest versus levels. So every step and every person in the safe room counts, making for a more tense versus.
Oh, and also, nice to see that the boycotter king and queen are getting L4D2, two more people to join the fun. :-)
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The boycott was silly to begin with, as there was no proof that Valve intended to abandon support for L4D1, and in fact, every indication to the opposite: That they would be supported in tandem.
It doesn’t help that the majority of those who joined the boycott misunderstood its intended purpose, don’t get basic economics, and fail to understand the meaning of the word “boycott”.
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I can’t really say it makes much sense to support an “out dated” product. I never saw much proof they planned anything more than technical polish maybe? Also, the new level seemed a bit rushed and small compared to the prior levels. Seems more of a promo tie in than an actual planned release.
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The entire point of Crash Course was to provide a streamlined Vs. experience, so you don’t need to spend upwards of an hour on a single multiplayer match, and it succeeded admirably. Survival mode was also added since release, and according to the boycott leaders themselves, more content is moving down the pipe.
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Now it is, but who’s to say it was in the first place, that’s my point of contention.
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So in other words, “We’re backpedalling; here are some reasons that give us a good excuse to stop doing this.”
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Why are people getting so riled up when consumers make demands of companies? If they want to boycott the game, fine, let them shake their fists at the sky and cry out. I just don’t understand the willingness of some folks to fight tooth and nail against consumers that speak out. Greed used to be a sin, now it’s some sort of virtue or ideal.
I thought it was a little soon for a part two, Valve should have made it an ex-pac to save some grief, but you can’t charge full game price for an ex-pac. Other than that Valve also sort of screwed themselves by supporting TF2 so well after release, they set an expectation that they could not live up to. To be quite honest, I don’t even think they noticed they raised the bar. L4D was fun, me and mine got many hours of amusement from it, I will most likely buy L4D2 soonish after release, depending on what I’m playing at the time.
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I encourage consumer demands against companies, it’s smart for consumers, and usually nets good results for companies that listen. The problem is when consumers get a ridiculous sense of entitlement, and demand the company not charge them for content that, obviously, a lot of time and money has been sunk into. Especially when the company has already released large amounts of free content, and continues to do so. At the worst, it’s no better than piracy.
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I will not agree with you comparing people demanding something to piracy. It’s the assumptions companies are entitled to fleece people that gets me pissed. Those Nike commercials must have worked, it’s like the populace in general is trained to defend corporate interests. The boycott was not about getting L4D2 for free, that wasn’t it’s major concern. And when I speak of boycotts, it’s in general not this one in specific.
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I’m referring to the ridiculously entitled consumers when I say that.
The kind who will demand the world for free, and pirate when you don’t give it to them.
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So we can talk about the actual game now and not that stupid boycott? Hooray.
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so they streamlined crash course, does that mean they streamlined l4d2?
streamlined is code for less work. They came out with a small one because it was easier.
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I can’t comment on Crash Course (still yet to play it – except on Survivor mode, which was probably more thought out than the other levels), but streamlined doesn’t necessarily mean less work. Although the word can mean to simplify, it is generally used when meaning to make something more efficient. If anything, when done properly it would require more work.
Streamlining, when done right, is a good thing and should be done by most games.
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“streamlined is code for less work.”
Let me guess, you also think TF2 is vastly inferior to the original?
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Header image is broken. Comment threads still unsafe.
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The thing I never quite understood (and indeed don’t understand still) is why people assume they’re getting extra content. Not only that by why people think they’re getting it for free (or a few $$’s if you’re an x-boxian).
So valve heavily supported TF2… bully for them. Doesn’t mean they have to do the same for L4D.
And the comparisons regarding number of hours played is garbage. I spent about 25 hours in half-life 2 when all was said and done but I put in about 200 hours in ES4:Oblivion. I think they’re both about as good as each other and both worth the same money I paid for them. Duration in either one doesn’t factor anywhere in my judgement of either game.
If a review of L4D2 says it’s good then I’ll almost certainly get it. That’s what I base my opinion on. If some corporation (in this case one I rather like) makes some money, even more than some people say they should, then great. Well done them. They can have some more the next time they produce a good game.
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When you say you’re going to be released extra free content, people expect you to do so. As simple as that. Since Valve promised more content would follow (which was the initial criticism of a lot of people shortly after release due to the lack of maps & weapons) yet the updates have been meagre at best so far so I’m not surprised people feel cheated when they see Valve will not only charge for the “updates” but will make it a separate title meaning they’ll be two different games. It seems lame for two games that are so similar to be split up – it will divide the community as well.
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At a wild guess, I’d say because Gabe Newell, Chet Faliszek and Doug Lombardi each, in separate interviews, went out and said “Oh, and if you buy L4D, we’ll support it with more content, just like we do with TF2. But with L4D, we’ll offer even *more* content for free, and at a faster schedule!”
Perhaps, just perhaps, that is why.
And perhaps, if they didn’t mean to do that, they shouldn’t have said it. But they did.
Agreed with that one. And to be honest, I got quite a few hours of fun out of L4D. But like you say, it’s garbage to judge a game solely on how much you’ve played it.
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Really episodic content from Valve has been extremely notoriously slow even so that many other episodic games have surpassed Valve look at Sam and max for instance when in comparison to Half life 2′s episodes. My only complaint about Left 4 Dead was that it was over hyped for years, and when it was released I had seen everything already before hand in the previews and was not amazed or wowed at all, in fact the rest of the game played out like the demo. As for the free dlc for TF2 and L4D I don’t like it, I would prefer that us as gamers would pay for stuff like that (micro-transactions) rather than suffer like we are now with stuff like the night of a thousand pyros, etc.
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The shit is really going to hit the fan with this one.
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How damaging this boycott of a product not yet on the market must have been for Valve
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Stalins Ghost:
“Good on ‘em I say. It’s nice to know the boycott wasn’t being led by the brain dead crowd who just wanted something for nothing and those intelligent enough to look at the situation diplomatically.”
Have you read the boycott groups manifesto – they asked for Left4dead2 content for FREE or as an expansion . These guys were at the extreme end of the Boycotting demographic and they DID want something for free. They wanted something probably 100 ppl had worked on for a year for free, which is fantasy land.
This was the reason I didnt join their group, it seemed like the manifesto had been written up by 12 year olds. Why the fuck have they ended the Boycott group now? There is nothing to indicate that Left4dead 1 is gaining anymore support because of them than it was going to anyway…
Surely if your going to form a boycott group full of people who are not going to buy the game, you at least wait until the game is released lol.
These dudes r a bunch of sellout fuckwits in my opinion, they probably closed the group now so that they can go buy the game and maybe not as many people will notice they are sellouts.
Valve did good here, they invited them to their offices and the moment they did this it made the Boycott leaders look like theyd given in in one fell swoop.
I was never going to boycott left4dead 2, but left4dead 1 has pissed me off with how many bugs its got and I wasnt keen on buying the sequel because of this, although i knew I would buy it at some point ( iv pumped insane amounts of hours into the original).
Anyway I hate people with no principles, I hope they get a virus that never lets them play a valve game ever again.
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I paid £22 for L4D from Amazon on release. According to my stats I’ve had over 150 hours play time out of it. I think I got my money’s worth.
I’ve also preordered L4D2, having teamed up with some other people to get the 4 pack, which comes to around £20 each. With luck I should get my money’s worth out of that too.
I just hope they find some way to link the two games together so I can join L4D or L4D2 games from the same lobby system, otherwise the community’s going to get split up.
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I’m going to boycott my local kebab shop, see if they’ll fly me to a farm.
Who’s with me??
The foods great but they’ve started selling more varieties of sauces.
Plus some other shit I need to deal with between me and my mum.
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Did people bitch this much when Q3 came out? Limited SP content, mostly built for online play (same goes for UT for that matter).
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So, in conclusion, we win?
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It pretty much sums up all of my thoughts about the boycott.
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This comic shows one side ideas really well. But it give zero information about how see the issue the other side. Is also poor demagogy.
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What people don’t seem to realize is that the “boycott” group is just that, a group. Most people there just wanted to have the statement in their profiles: “I think L4D sucked, and I’m not buying L4D2″.
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armlesscorps:
“Have you read the boycott groups manifesto – they asked for Left4dead2 content for FREE or as an expansion . These guys were at the extreme end of the Boycotting demographic and they DID want something for free. This was the reason I didnt join their group, it seemed like the manifesto had been written up by 12 year olds. Why the fuck have they ended the Boycott group now? There is nothing to indicate that Left4dead 1 is gaining anymore support because of them than it was going to anyway…”
i think you missed the part where they defined expansion as something to pay for, whether or not it was in that manifesto it was definitely talked about by them repeatedly. even in the final announcement Agent of Chaos says that $33.75 for the 4-pack is a reasonable price. NOT everyone in that group was out to get something for free, many just wanted assurance that L4D1 wasn’t being abandoned. And that’s the point isn’t it? Like Alexander Norris said:
“Whether Valve were never going to abandon L4D1 or whether they made the decision not to abandon it due to the boycott, the fact remains that we now know they’re not going to abandon L4D1. That means that their group’s aims have been accomplished.”
The creators of the group decided to close it because they felt they’d confirmed enough with Valve, and because it’s got loads of trolls and whiners compared to its early days. They never intended it to be that way, but so many people love portraying it as such.
And FYI, I was in the boycott only for that L4D1 assurance. Once I saw the admins’ reports from Valve and I started playing CC, I felt the faith, got the 4-pack of L4D2 and left the boycott. We aren’t all Valve-bashers and haters.
Long winded, whoooooooooops!!!! =D
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So, basically, you pre-ordered a product you were boycotting? :P
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I realise they meant a paid for expansion, thats why i seperated it in the sentence from free ( free OR an expansion ) this was still a dreamlike thing for them to say, an expansion would vastly limit the sales seen as many people found the original left4dead a dissapointment and wouldnt shell out for an expansion. Just the idea of giving the whole of left4dead 2 as free was ridiculous ( this was definitely something they suggested in their manifesto) and it made their argument silly in my opinion.
As for them being surprised that it got jumped on by whiners, well when you start an argument of course it was going to have people involved who you dont like or agree with, all the people whining and going too far in dissing valve may not have even been a part of the boycott group. The guys themselves were kind of the ultimate whiners for starting the group to begin with.
I see your point about getting valves attention, and its kind of valid. I dont think its right to join a group and then go back on what the group stood for tho really, like joining a boycotting group and then pre ordering the game, you should stick by what you committed to when you joined it…
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I feel like what i wrote about deciding to buy the game was completely overlooked. I *was* boycotting L4D2, until MY requirements are met. Not everyone there was adhering to everything that was in the manifesto. if that were the case i’m sure it’d be a much smaller group. Everyone was there for their own reasons. my biggest concerns were the splitting of the community, price point, and valve’s ability to deliver DLC. let’s admit it, they were pretty high and dry on L4D1 DLC for months, with the exception of the SDK (which, in itself, was delayed repeatedly). Once i saw *some* DLC, and a lower price point with the 4-pack, i was able to overlook the splitting of the community because i’ve come to understand that the communities can’t be entirely connected since the games *will* be significantly different. this isn’t something i believed early on, but came to believe as time went on and more info on L4D2 was released.
I was REALLY critical early on because the early trailer released for L4D2 WAY BACK contained entirely recycled zombie sounds, animations, etc – I *always* notice crap like that, and it made it feel like it was gonna be an audiovisual experience identical to L4D1. That’s one of the biggest things for me in a new game. That it looks or sounds extremely different, so I don’t feel like i’m in the same game. i even made my own 28 weeks later soundtrack to spice up L4D1 and it’s totally epic, works perfectly! Anyway, it seemed like they’d made the trailer so early on that there wasn’t enough content to really promote the game properly, so it irked me and I came to think it’d be nothing but an expansion.
And, Yeah the group probably was bound to get full of trolls n stuff, but saying that it makes sense is crap. What, so people are whining about L4D2. Then people come in there to tell us to stop whining about L4D2 – which, in essence, means they’ve joined the boycott group *just* to whine about us whining. Talk about hypocrisy. I don’t consider what I did whining anyway, I was expressing an opinion. Admittedly, some people there did whine. A lot. But if we really want to go into whining, take a look at the bajillion anti-boycott or “boycott boycott” groups that came out lolol. i know they were trying to mock us, but if one of the arguments they have is that it’s stupid to boycott a game, is it not just as (or more) stupid to boycott a boycott? isn’t that just saying “i’ll join the Left 4 Dead 2 official group?” haha
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Erg. A couple of things to say:
A) Why does everyone expect free content for L4D?? Just because Valve have been VERY generous in the past, everyone seems to think that they get a free ride every time now. I don’t hear people moaning that there was no free content for Far Cry 2 (aprat from the bloody animals) or that you have to pay every time Blizzard release a few extra levels for their mind-sucker of game (you know who you are).
2) I’d rather them not realse L4D at all if I could just get my greasy mits on Episode 3 some time this century. L4D’s ok for the console kiddies but we PC Gamers are surely above this now, has no one played TF2?? A much superior game and one with a heart of gold, not the throw away AI masses of this “cash in on the Zombification of every possible media type of our age”.
iii) I wont be buying L4D2, it should be called Left 5 Dead and Borderlands will blow it’s co-op brains out…
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It’s not so much that people EXPECT it, but rather that valve SAID there would be new campaign’s, weapons and I think they said even characters BEFORE the game was released.
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It certainly hasn’t ended for me. I won’t be buying L4D2 unless they whip out some insane show of repentance like offering people who bought the original L4D at full price a 50% price cut on the new game. I never got anywhere near $50 worth of fun or quality out of L4D.
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Then, maybe, Left 4 Dead 2 wouldn’t be the game for you anyway.
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Are you suggesting that L4D2 is also going to come out half assed and with major balancing issues? Because in that case, I agree.
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No, I am suggesting that given the fact that tons of people enjoyed Left 4 Dead a lot, but you apparently didn’t, maybe it’s simply not the kind of game you enjoy playing.
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I didn’t enjoy it because a closet based defense game isn’t fun. I would have like to seen Valve implement the solutions to that game breaking problem in the first game rather than abandoning it like an insect shedding its shell. And no, a short DLC or two doesn’t make up for that inherent closet problem.
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Well, then agree with the rest of your team not to go sit in the closet. Worked for me.
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Did it really? Because I got laughed to hell every time I suggested it. It’s like asking one side of a checkers game to play without kings. It completely imbalances the game and breaks even further what was an already broken system. But I can see you’re an apologist rather than someone seeking discussion, so I’m done.
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oh man that worked for me too actually… if i played with friends, it would be easier.. but even some of them were reluctant. so what i would do is stay OUT of the closet alone so they’d be like “awww DAMNIT it’s worth taking damage rather than letting him die” hahahahaha…
and lo and behold, when ALL 4 of you stay outside in an area to defend, you can actually take almost NO damage!!! who woulda thought!?!?!
i still love taking credit for fighting with my team, backs to the elevator in NM4, side by side like a firing squad, stack-less baby. I was the first to do that with my guys, and they came to realize it worked well if everyone agreed to do it. even when they stacked, i’d still do it and just say “hey, 3 of you are facing me, so save me if i need it” haha
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People that feel their trust was violated won’t be buying it regardless of the actions of a couple of group leaders, but it’s a shame Valve’s been given a public free pass on their errors in handling this situation. I fear the chances of them learning anything positive from it just dropped significantly. Here’s hoping L4D1 was just a blip regarding Valve's usual standards of quality and support (presumably due to being primarily Turtlerock developed), and not the beginning of a genuine across-the-board deterioration.
_
The sooner Ep. 3 shows up, the sooner we’ll know.
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People that joined the Steam group will find their hats mysteriously missing months from now when Gabe Newell is bored.
They will all recieve the tower of hats hat in return.
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I’m in the steam group and I preordered Left4dead 2 on the first day I could! Call me a loyalist ;D
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In other news, after accomplishing my goals I’m ending my boycott of television, gravity, and air.
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dude didn’t you hear they are stopping support for gravity?
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OMG, Newton is *such* a dooshbagge
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In other other news, my boycott on boycotting continues. Also Vinraith is a rich astronmery kind of like a modern day Copernicus. I wish I was the rich that Vinraith is rich, buying new computers and games all the time and funding research of the stars from his own deep pockets ;)
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@Raging Lion, abhishek,
Then you’re both wrong! The timing was peculiarly provident, and the campaign wasn’t the same lengh as the others. It even felt a little unpolished.
@Stupoider
Well, obviously! Congratulations on your minor future-prediction powers.
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I think anyone that paid full price for L4D when it first came out on the basis of Valve’s promises to expand the original has legitimate grounds for feeling hard done by.
Me, I picked it up for £15 retail & definitely got my money’s worth.
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It’s sad that Valve gave these idiots false validation. Absolutely nothing they did changed their plans, and anyone who read or listened to a single interview with Valve on the same day of the E3 announcement knew that they were still going to continue supporting L4D.
Even after L4D2 is out, L4D will see some more stuff coming for it.
Oh well, at least everyone now knows for sure how much of a joke they are, instead of just assuming!
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“Even after L4D2 is out, L4D will see some more stuff coming for it.”
I’m just curious as to what gives you this impression.
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Blind faith, clearly. I’d bet real money we’ll never see another speck of content for L4D1, and I’m pretty sure the only reason we saw that half-assed Crash Course campaign was because they felt they had to do something token to appease the boycott.
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Why, I get that information from the boycotters themselves, what they reported after talking directly with Valve.
http://kotaku.com/5357708/valve-plans-more-left-4-dead-content-post-crash-course
But you’re right, after their embarrassing clusterfuck, I probably shouldn’t believe them.
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No, you probably shouldn’t.
We’ll see more patches, I’m sure, but I doubt strongly we’ll see anything else.
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I’d say you certainly shouldn’t.
I’m largely indifferent to the boycott, and find both sides fairly annoying.
In your case, Valve saying “We will release more content” does not constitute a binding agreement, and it seems unlikely, now, that they will.
In their case, um, well, pretty much the same thing, actually.
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"Our goal wasn’t to steer people away from L4D2, it was to get Valve’s attention and have them support original L4D."
boy⋅cott
–verb (used with object)
1. to combine in abstaining from, or preventing dealings with
2. to abstain from buying or using
The fact that they jumped to conclusions and started their boycott after L4D2 was only ANNOUNCED, makes them pretty ridiculous ignorant fucks. Asking for L4D2 for free makes about as much sense as asking Blizzard to pay your WoW subscription.
"As a collective we have done more than achieve a few goals, we have paved the way for Developer-Community relations in the future. No matter what the press or other gamers say, we have made an indelible mark upon the future of this industry. You should all be proud, we certainly are."
No, you have not paved the way for Developer-Community relations. Valve pretty much ignored you for a large part of the whole thing. Only because of all the press and media coverage did Valve probably decided to do anything, cause honestly it was big publicity. Hell, they probably could've deleted your fucking steam group if they wanted to, but instead they met with you, satisfying your interest in a game that you decided to boycott. But WHY did you even need to see it? You boycotted it just fine when it was announced.
"No matter what the press or other gamers say, we have made an indelible mark upon the future of this industry. You should all be proud, we certainly are."
Yeah, you've made a mark… the people who boycotted L4D2 with their "wonderful" leadership skills. And what does Walking_Target have to say for himself?
"Walking_Target posted on October 14, 2009 @ 1:27pm
I founded this group. Go die in a fire."
What a leader….
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“The fact that they jumped to conclusions and started their boycott after L4D2 was only ANNOUNCED, makes them pretty ridiculous ignorant fucks.”
Why?
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Because they had no information whatsoever. It was not an informed boycott at that point.
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L4D2 was announced ‘before the end of 2009′, which would be a year after the original. Isn’t that enough?
There wasn’t a reasonable chance of it being an expansion pack or a free update with a name like that, I’d say.
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You base that one what, Hybrid? There has no been a single article on RPS, PC Gamer, PC Zone, PC Format et al and etc that has once bothered to avoid misrepresenting the Boycott. There has no been a single argument made against the Boycott that establishes a basis for being against the Boycott, except for the hollow cliche “sick of the whining”.
I can’t remember how many times I’ve heard some ashinine mouth-breather say “Valve always intended to support L4D and they have” and then ignore me when I pointed out that there was absolutely no lower limit at which said mouth-breather would accept Valve’s support as being the token nothingness that it is. How little would the support have had to be for such people to acknowledge that it was barely there at all?
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That seems unfair.
The boycott has clearly (and probably similarly unfairly) been misrepresented by decent gaming sites, but then you go on to call anti-boycotters mouthbreathers, which seems an unecessary accusation.
There’s been some fairly decent anti-boycott arguments, too. Valve did patch the game a couple of times and made some fairly important changes to boss infected, and probably the majority of consumers thought the game was worth what they paid for it.
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Yes, they nerfed the Special Infected without explaining the reasons, when the consensus among every critical-minded member of the forum community was that it was too difficult for the Infected team in Versus to win by attrition and Valve’s own stated view in the Developer’s Commentary was that Survivors should only rarely manage to get anyone to the safe room. Nothing approaching this stated goal has been done, has been discussed publicly by Valve or is expected to be done. Other large outstanding issues which have been present since release are still there and given Valve’s persistent silence on them, no one can expect they will be addressed either.
If you go by increments, like the anti-Boycotters deliberately misleadingly do, then Valve have done lots of patches. If you go by actual content, take account of the duplicate fixes, fixes for problems caused by previous patches and by actual gameplay balancing, Valve have done a piss poor job.
The arguments have been made repeatedly. Accurate information has been repeatedly pointed out. Inaccurate misinformation by anti-Boycotters has been debunked, again and again. They continue to spout the same discredited talking points. Assuming that they are so mentally deficient that their default instinctive method of drawing in oxygen is through their mouth seems quite reasonable given the evidence of their general attention-span and reasoning skills.
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Gorgeras: I bought NWN2 on release – can you believe that? It was a huge steaming pile of shit, like obv. So I didn’t buy the expansions – and I try to avoid anything Atari have their fumbling paw-prints on.
I just didn’t feel the urge to create an internet support group to share my pain.
Isn’t it simpler that way?
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It’s okay. Continue being pissed off about a computer game. Please don’t buy L4D2. No one will miss you.
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“Asking for L4D2 for free makes about as much sense as asking Blizzard to pay your WoW subscription.”
Nope, that would be asking Valve to pay you for owning the game and the many private server owners who run and maintain public servers to pay you for playing on them. Considering that everyone and their grandmother (well, grandmothers who played any other Valve game before) were expecting proper, high-profile updates with full, new 4-chapter campaigns, new guns, characters, infected and sceneries (like they got with TF2 which L4D was compared to all the times), hell yes, you could expect a free update for L4D introducing new characters, infected and full chapters… like L4D2.
If you want to play the “who’s the bigger ignoramus” game then, boy, you boycott-boycotters can easily compete.
I’m sick of this. The boycotters at least were bitching for a reason. Boycott-boycotters are just bitching because they like bitching. “Wuah, wuah,… businesses make money, others are worse so L4D2 is good.” COME ON! You make considerately less sense than “L4D2 was announced before L4D ever even got the kind of support Valve promised”.
Not everyone on the internet who is critical is a troll and needs to be proven wrong. The boycotters have every right in the world to be disappointed with L4D2. What justification is it exactly, you boycott-boycotters are giving for personally insulting and ridiculing them?
This feels like those lunatic health care protests in the US protesting against… their own fucking health care. The boycotters tried to protest for getting what Valve promised. The boycott-boycotters are protesting for their right TO NOT GIVE A SHIT. Oh, the bravery.
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It’s sick, the healthcare “debate”, isn’t it? That there even needs to be a debate, let alone what this has devolved into, is awful. The rich don’t want to lose any of their money, so they yell along with their brainwashed poorer Republican “brethren” until nobody can hear anything. “Maintain the status quo!! Socialism, Nazis, Marx!!” I wish they did have death panels, at these debates, who would “punish” disorderly conduct.
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“The boycott-boycotters are protesting for their right TO NOT GIVE A SHIT. Oh, the bravery.”
Yup. It gives you an idea of just how badly the boycott was run, really. The initial list of demands was an absurdity, and even after that was fixed it never really reached above “angry mob” to become a reasonable, calm voice demanding that Valve simply keep their promises and respect their customers.
Unfortunately, the result has been that those of us who DO want to have a calm discussion on the matter, do feel betrayed by Valve not doing what they said they’d do, and do feel the company may be moving in a bad direction get shouted down by the “Church of Valve” who are so riled up against the angry mob they’re incapable of distinguishing between irrational Valve bashing and reasonable, informed criticism.
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No grounds for a boycott, that’s for sure! I will continue to sit here with more TF2 updates on the way, just being smug. Stick it to ‘em, Valve! Just keep my updates coming.
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I'm still stunned that people are complaining that Valve is making games to fast (after they got done complaining that Valve makes games to slow . . . actually at the SAME time they complain Valve is making games to slow with HL2EP3 and Portal2,sometimes in the same post)
I guess the "comment threads are safe now" comment is totally incorrect :P The boycott is as a hydra, you cutt off its head and it goes 2 more in its place. Just because the prime fools have been removed doesn't mean it is over.
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We need a “way to miss the point/not read the previous two posts” smiley/graphic.
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“I’m still stunned that people are complaining that Valve is making games to fast”
Except that’s not what the problem is at all.
The problem is this:
Valve said L4D would get TF2 level of support.
That is demonstrably, factually a LIE.
Ergo, people are pissed off. What’s so hard to understand about that?
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*stamps foot on the ground*
Reading is hard! :(
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Ah yes, how dare people would want to keep the money they earned with their own hard work. WTF is wrong with these people? How come they don't want to give away all their money to help some random fat person that doesn't have the self control to stop eatting or get a job to pay for their own health care?
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Stunning! To have two ignorant posts one after the other, is there a “multikill” term for that in forum land?
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You are hereby banned from discussion due to a lack of intellect and a severe excess of rhetoric.
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>>Implying socialism rewards, rather than demonizes, the lazy
STRAWMAN ATTACKS STRAWMAN
It’s not very effective…
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Railick:
If the fat person is on Medicare, you ARE ALREADY paying for their health care.
If the fat person is on private insurance, you ARE NOT paying for their health care, nor would you under the new bill.
It’s only if the fat person has no health care whatsoever, which is unlikely as they probably have health problems (and if they don’t they won’t be signing up, see?) that this bill would make it more likely for them to get on Medicare. Which you’re paying for whether they get it or not.
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For anyone outside of the US looking at the US’s perspective on Health Care, try to keep in mind that you’re looking at it with the eyes of someone who’s always had health care provided to you, so of course universal health care seems like a no-brainer to you. From the perspective of a US citizen who does not have universal health care, living in a society where a good portion of our TV and radio commercials are telling us about some new pill that will cure our asthma but give us cancer, and trillions of dollars are being made exploiting this system, things get a bit more muddy.
And mind you, I’m an American who’s in full support of universal health care. But I can see why it’s easy to have worries about it when literally everything you hear about in our media is how if we go to socialized medicine we’ll all be lepers dying in our streets waiting in line for sub-par doctors to take a look at us and then whisk us away to death panels and stuff. It’s all ridiculous, as are the arguments about our system somehow being cheaper (it isn’t, no matter how you look at it), but if you repeat something loud enough, enough times, eventually it starts seeming a lot more compelling.
And us Americans have a long-standing history of lying to ourselves.
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LOL< you guys are funny
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First of all I didn't say I was having trouble understanding anything, I said I was stunned by something totally unrelated to whatever you're saying. You can say all that , that's fine, but there is no reason to quote me when what I said has nothing to do with your follow up.
Also I'm guessing Lilliput's comment is in response to mine, I dunno since I'm using the forum instead of the comment page ;) What I said before is just common sense, not rhetoric, take that as you will.
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What an infuriating person you are.
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After you notice such an obvious pattern, just expect it, and laugh it off. If only things really were as simple and B&W as he thinks they are! Hooray for enormous amounts of oversimplification!
I almost thought for a second you were telling ME I was banned! o.O
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Oh yes, ha ha! Would you imagine it? The pleb thinks it is that easy! Oh ho ho! Get the wine from the cellar, James, for such splendid hilarity has made me quite thirsty!
What the fuck is with that pretentious attitude? Your post marks everything wrong with this commenter base.
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ME? wow I stick my toe in the water and the sharks have ripped off my leg
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Any mention of “Give Peace A Chance” makes me think of an old C64 game which used it as the title music. This one in fact,
and that page which includes the Zzap!64 review that made me get it.
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Man, total English lanquage failure – I’m going for a lie down
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They achieved nothing other than having their ass handed to them by Valve a few weeks ago (and a free plane ride I guess).
Valve said they would continue to support L4D1 and they apparently have. If these guys wanna kid themselves into thinking they somehow championed consumers and pressured Valve into changing their plans at all then good luck to them. The overwhelming majority of the gaming internets have been pro-Valve and anti-Boycott since day one. Valve haven’t shifted position on anything that entire time as far as I can tell.
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Exactly.
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Really? I thought my comment before was kind of general it wasn’t meant to infuriate you (I didn’t even know there was a side debate going on here about healthcare) Just to be clear I’m all for healthcare reform that lowers the price of healthcare for everyone and brings universal coverage to everyone, I’d be happy to pay extra taxes to cover another human being even if they didn’t make good choices (even to cover STD treatment ect)
My comment before was nothing but a sarcasm directed at the one I quoted for expecting rich people to want to part with their money, I wasn’t supporting that position, down boy down!
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If this was directed at me (damned forum vs. comment thing) – sorry about that. Didn’t realize you were being sarcastic.
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The thread was pretty ok on page 1. By page 2, you have idiotic phrases like ‘Church of Valve’ and ‘mouthbreathers’ being thrown about :(
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Case in point.
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Excuse me, I justified my use of the term ‘mouth-breathers’. It’s completely neccessary and appropriate as it relates to the demonstrably evident level of cognitive function in the average anti-Boycotter.
No one who uses the “Valve have support L4D” canard that can’t give a general impression of how small such support would have to be before they acknowledge it’s tokenism could possibly remember to breath safely and hygienicaly through their nostrils.
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The point being that throwing out insults to people who don’t share your position doesn’t make your argument more valid. Less so, in fact. And it doesn’t make for pleasant discussion either.
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“Church of Valve” isn’t an insult, it’s just the best way I know to describe a certain group of Valve fans. The closest analogy I can come up with for a group of people who ignore facts in light of absolute faith and vociferously attack anyone that doesn't share said faith is a religion. If you’ve got a better one I’m happy to consider it.
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If the Church of Valve is incapable of seeing how they are wrong, might I humbly suggest that you have come too close to the debate to see that you are, in fact, using the term as an insult towards those who have done nothing to deserve it?
The opposite side of the coin, as it were.
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I apply it specifically towards those Valve fans that do not acknowledge that a promise was broken, and only to those Valve fans. It’s a convenient deliminator, because it’s based on one of the few hard facts in this morass. The "opposite side of the coin" would be the boycott movement proper, who won't be satisfied by anything Valve does.
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A game company broke a pre-release promise? Shock and horror, new stunning information!
I would think that PC gamers would know better than to hold out for those, at this point. (And be plesantly surprised when they do come through)
Now, based on things that were not Valve’s specific promises, I fully expect them to continue to support L4D1. As doing so can only lead to more sales of L4D2, from those who continue to boycott. They have no reason not to support it, and to those saying the game will die overnight…CS didn’t die with the advent of CSS, Team Fortress Classic still gets a good number of players, etc., etc., etc. It’s not something that’s likely to happen with great speed, though servers will be a bit less populated, I still expect the game to be entirely playable for years to come.
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See, despite the hostility and sarcasm you acknowledge that said promise was broken, so you wouldn’t be considered a member. I’d consider you a lot of other things, of course, but not a member of the Church of Valve. :)
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It’s not so much hositility as passive-aggressive raw LOVE.
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I’m not name-calling because someone disagrees with me. There have been a few who have disagreed with me about the Boycott and they’ve been able to string together something coherent and acknowledge counter-points well enough that they immediately ceased using the obviously terribad arguments and claims like “Valve have supported L4D” or “Valve is a company”.
I chose ‘mouth-breathers’ deliberately; it wasn’t a random insult. It’s an insult tailored to the specific cause I find to use it.
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(this was a response to Aisi)
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What? Goddamnit, how could I not click on Reply?
Well, this is a reference to the above post of mine.
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p.s – this just in :
As I understood. Valve is making old L4D maps playable in L4D2. Thus basically killing even a hope anyone will play on L4D servers once the new one is released.
Thats killing their own ONLINE ONLY game. Less than year after release.
I think not even EA tried to pull such rotten stunt …
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Except for, you know, all those people who aren’t buying left 4 dead 2, those who will prefer l4d1 to 2 (There will be those kinds of people), and those who will play both (Myself, pretty much anybody I’ve spoken with in person who’s getting 2).
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Don’t be ridiculous – the moment L4D2 is out, L4D1 is dead. Mainly because it changes so little there’s no chance of a “they ruined the game, we’ll stay with the old one” as was the case with some parts of the Unreal Tournament series.
This is very much a Starcraft Broodwar type of scenario, but without the massive numbers that make even the 0.1 % that stay with the old worthwhile.
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Well, neither of us has a crystal ball. We’ll just see what happens.
Incidentally, I am writing down a list of people to laugh at when they are proven wrong. (Or to apologize to if I am proven wrong.)
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If he’s right and L4D1 maps are going to be playable in L4D2, I want on that list. There’s no question whatsoever that, if that’s the case, the player base for the original game will shrink into uselessness.
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Sucks to be you, Lobo (in this case). Sucks to be you.
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It’ll be totally awesome if the old maps are imported into L4D2. It’ll be fun to replay them with the new additions & special infected and (preferably) fresh dialogues with the new survivors.
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* looks at the bones of a dead horse *
looks dead to me
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He’s lying, hit it! Hit it with a stick!
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A political party?
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In the US, political affilations are used as insults by those who aren’t moderate or centrist. This includes the usage of moderate as an insult.
Seriously.
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American politics are like a L4D2 comments thread, basically.
I wish I was exaggerating.
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I think that the reverse applies, since American Politics are older.
But basically, yeah. You side with one group or the other, but you try not to be associated too much with either because the most vocal people are idiots.
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I happen to know someone who is an extremely right person I’ve heard some pretty extreme views and be exposed to books ect by very right political people I have to agree with Pyschompomp American Politics is like a L4D2 comment thread or worse :P
One day I read a book that says Liberals are trying to over throw the country and enslave the entire population (Mark Levin) and the next day watch some liberal talk show that makes fun of Rush Limbaugh for 10 minutes about his drug addiction, I like to watch both extremes equally and see what I can figure out in the middle :P
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Well said TMC.
I make one general sarcastic comment and I get personally attacked by like 5 people before I can even reload the thread to see if anyone has posted, mostly from people who probably share some of my views but don’t want to take the time to find out, they’d rather attack me personally and my character instead of addressing what I actaully said or seeing if I was serious, very much like a L4D2 thread. You say something that isn’t against the boycott or for it and both sides blast you equally :P
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Jesus people, this is the internet. It’s just text, no tone, inflection, etc. How the hell is anyone supposed to tell what’s sarcastic and what’s not?
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This is no time for satire, man! There are boycotters to attack!
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Don’t worry I’m sarcastic like 99% of the time so you can just go ahead and not take anything I say seriously :P Also people can call me whatever they like (trust me I’ve been called literally everything in the book over the years for my tendency to rile people up) you’re not going to hurt my feelings. Sometimes I’ll say something counter to what someone else is saying just to get a reaction out of them even if I don’t actaully believe it. I’m like a 24/7 devil’s advocate.
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Doh, I got logged out some how. That last post under Serondal is actually me .
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Well that’s highly confusing. Now you’re sarcastic AND an impersonator?!
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I’m still kind of with the boycotters.
Crash course was pretty pants and I’ve seen nothing drastically different in the gameplay videos for left 4 dead 2 to warrant itself…
New weapons, characters, levels… all of this shit feels like update material.
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See, that’s not boycotting. That’s just saying ‘I’m not particularly interested in this sequel and didn’t like the original that much, so I won’t be buying it’.
Which is the situation I’m in. I like Killing Floor way more than L4D, and would only really consider picking up L4D2 at budget price. Definitely not going to be preordering it or anything. That said, I think the whole boycott thing was mind and soul-crushingly retarded and almost got me to buy the game just to spite them for managing to derail every possible conversation about the game or related properties for months.
That’s how effective a boycott it was. It almost got me to buy the game.
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“only really consider picking up L4D2 at budget price. ”
this could be a good idea, since the servers will be hammered by people for a few weeks, and there will be soon a milllion games to choose from. It will probably be a good idea to wait, if only, to join wen matchmarking works so joining a game is not a nightmare.
I suppose Valve has a great work to show, and the price is interesting, so It will be hard :-)
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http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20091007
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The comic was quite amusing, although I found the accompanying article to be better. It’s already been linked before in the thread, but what the hell
http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/news.php?i=1950
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So self-righteous, uninformed people DO make comics!!
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See, that would apply to Tim Buckley under any situation, not just this specific one.
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B^U
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The comic and the article both, of course, hopelessly miss the point. I was particularly amused by this:
“People nowadays have this notion, and I don’t know where they got it from, that they are entitled to things for free.”
Yeah, where could L4D purchasers have gotten the notion that they were going to receive additional content for free?
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There’s a difference between “being entitled to” and “expecting”. Case in point, no one is entitled to anything when it comes to videogames. Videogames are a privilege, not a right.
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What you ‘purchase’ is a right. Some of us purchased a full-game, on the word that the rest of it would follow with regular content updates and SDK would be available just two weeks after release.
None of this happened. Valve did something very un-Valve with L4D; they betrayed the enormous goodwill they have with their player-base and made claims in such a way that it was just enough to get people to believe something that wasn’t true whilst not being enough to put them in breach of the law.
Legally, they’re in the clear, but morally they trashed the rights of a very loyal player-base to get what they paid for.
At no point has anyone wanted anything for ‘free’ or ‘something for nothing’. I want what I paid for.
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You actually got what you paid for. You want more.
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*belches*
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oh oh oh oh, i know this one vinraith. because the developers said they would support it. they even defended themselves from all the reviews saying the content was to little. they got defensive and starting making all kinds of claims about support and new content.
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I don’t think a level of disappointment with Valve is entirely unreasonable – I grabbed L4D as part of the fourpack on the grounds it’d be supported. I figured it was an investment in Valve Brand Awesome.
I’ve enjoyed it a lot, and I don’t regret the purchase – but I might have waited for one of the later sales.
Which is what I’m likely to do with L4D2. I’m definitely likely to grab it, it’s just less urgent than it might have been.
- The Unshaven
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OK, I notice a lot of people saying that Valve have not held up their end of the bargain. How so? HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT FROM THEM? They gave you another whole campaign and they’ve patched it a bunch, they said that L4D2 will be compatible with the first so you don’t have to switch games, or whatever conclusion that came too, and I can GUARANTEE that there will be continued patching at least, maybe even more, maybe not. Valve isn’t known for forgetting about a game after release.
The thing is, no one is forcing you to buy the game. Valve never said they were going to have 10 campaigns for the original game. They have no obligation to you. Quit acting like they owe you something. Valve has proven themselves to us time and again, if you ask me. Sit it out and give them a chance to prove themselves again. They probably will. If not, don’t buy it. Just drop this entitlement bullshit.
This boycott was completely ridiculous. Really goes to show how incredibly picky gamers can be. OK, I’m ready to see the well-written, pompous comments that are sure to follow. Call me a “mouth-breather.” I noticed it’s popular and find it to probably be the funniest insult you can hurl on the internet.
No matter how nice your spelling is, and how well thought out the post, you can still be wrong. And a douche. Usually both.
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“HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT FROM THEM? ”
Exactly what they promised, or at least a loose approximation of it. Hell, any ONE of the “new campaigns, new weapons, and new characters” they said they’d add post-release would at least be something. So far we’ve gotten 3 maps, total, and we only got the last two under duress.
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Almost forgot, “new infected” were in that list too. So they’re basically 0.5 for 4.
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Everything should be taken in context, and people keep looking at this issue with blinders on. Consider similar products, people! (TF2)
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To be honest?
I’d be happy with them releasing some patches for the half-broken matchmaking and gameplay balance. At this point, I’ve pretty much given up on extra content. Heck, what content we’ve been given still has issues that shouldn’t be there. Invisible walls still everywhere? For crying out loud, we’ve been complaining about them since before April. The crouch glitch has been known for months, and still hasn’t been fixed. People still get stuck falling off of objects two feet tall. Tanks are still pre-lit and wasted before players are given control. It’s still a pain getting a lobby into a decent server. Lobbies still often break and don’t fill, as far as I can know. The list of issues with the game goes on.
The fact that I’m still having fun despite these issues says something about how much I like the game. But seriously, a lot of people were expecting a huge bug-fix patch with Crash Course, and it was non-existent. We haven’t received much in the way of gameplay or balance fixes since April. What, precisely is your definition of “patched it a bunch?”
I know some people have gone overboard (I was never a part of the boycott), but I was disappointed with Valve’s handling of the game. There are some valid reasons for being disappointed. And for you to call us pompous, picky, and soforth, is really aggravating, especially in light of your apparent idea that there isn’t a valid counter-argument.
I almost never buy games new. I’m a cheapskate. Yes. I purchased L4D opening week for almost full price, based on the fact that it was a Valve game, and that it would be supported superbly. At release, there were two FULL versus campaigns that we didn’t get until about 6 months later, despite people playing them before then and realizing that there was, for the most part, no problem with them. Now, we finally get new maps.
On these new maps, there are still invisible walls everywhere. Areas are blocked off for no apparent reason. I can’t go over the bridge to jump on them when they come out of the underpass? I can’t go over the finale building to get to the other side? The only possible reason for that 3 inch wall is so that infected have to go in front of the machine gun to come in behind. On release, there were item spawns EVERYWHERE, Which completely unbalanced the maps in favor of the survivors, as if it wasn’t unbalanced enough already. Rescue closets were glitched. I mean, come on. This wasn’t obvious in testing? It just smacked of being rushed.
These issues with Crash Course have been patched out (aside from a horrid monstrous gamebreaking sound bug). But still, it just seems like their heart isn’t in it. And for that, I am disappointed.
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Dang, that was a bigger wall of text than I expected.
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I probably still won’t buy it. I like L4D but the fact is that I just don’t play it very much. And though the additions to L4D2 look cool, I’m not counting on it drawing me in any more than the first game did.
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Lets just talk about value of L4D(2) compared to value of Borderlands
L4D = 4 hours of gameplay in solo mode
Borderlands = 80 hours of gameplay in solo mode
L4D= 8 weapons
Borderlands= millions of weapons
L4D= no character customization whatsoever
Borderlands= RPG skill tree
L4D= 1 type of normal enemy, and 5 special
Borderlands= (still unconfirmed..but lots)
Both games are 4 players co op …
Both games come normal 50$ price
This is why some people think they got short changed when they bought obviously half-game L4D.
If L4D and L4D2 would be one game. Than maybe, it would be worth 50$
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Been practising on yourself, Lobotomist?
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Uh, what.
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comparing 2 very different types of games does not make your argument correct… especially when you’ve never even seen one of them… noone was comparing L4D to Hellgate london were they? and from what i read hellgate is closer to borderlands than L4D is…
and really, i found the 8 weapons in L4D perfect…. i personally don’t get a stiffy just cos i can use a P-90 semi auto cock extension… the 2 levels of weapons worked perfectly for L4D… IMO of course…
so what you’re complaining about is that L4D isn’t the same as another totally different game… one game did the small scale atmospheric 4 player co-op and did it very well (IMO of course) with excellent easy to use game play mechanics, the other is a huge open world alien blast-fest which, for all we know could totally suck and play like a dog…
your arguments get thinner and thinner…
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You have been…. LOBOTOMIZED !!
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I am not comparing games, but rather how much content you get for full price.
But I think problem is fundamentally different.
There are people that can afford just few games a year. People for who 50$ considerable money
And than there are people that buy several games a month. And for who 50$ is pocket change.
If I was one of them. I would but L4D2,L4D2.1,L4D2 the lame remake and L4D2 expansion “The new Gun!”
But unfortunately 50$ is not pocket change for me.
So its basically argument between spoiled brats who can waste money on any shit like L4D2
and people that must only buy the best and most valuable –
And Valve games just dropped from that category
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Don’t be surprises If you get colorfull responses to your post.
Is like AmazingAvery comparing Age of Conan to L4D
L4D = 4 hours of gameplay in solo mode
AoC = 30 days * 24 hours = 720 hours soloing
….
I will not continue.
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@Lobotomist
If that is really a problem for you, then I would suggest a) not buying games at full price at all and b) buying them based on what you actually get, not what you might hope to receive at a later date. After all, even if Valve had released all the free extra content for L4D that you expected, there’s no guarantee you would have actually liked said content is there?
Me, I
boycottedstill haven’t bought L4D1 since they pulled the demo after a week thus preventing me from trying it.. I found that a much worse move than anything Valve have done or failed to do since.report
Perhaps those people could have tried looking at the L4D preview material, because when I played L4D I got almost exactly what I thought I’d get.
That comparison really doesn’t work on an awful lot of levels.
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Aaaaaah, but Lobotomist you’re failed to consider that in L4D with your side arm you get INFINITY bullets. How does that affect your calculus of worth, how I ask you?!
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the thing is, me and the group of player i play with are all getting a bit bored with l4d…
even if valve released 4 full new campaigns for l4d i’d still want to get l4d2 (not because i’m insanely rich, which i sure as hell aren’t) but because by the looks of it valve have taken everything that was good with l4d and improved it radically…
l4d has been, by far, the game i’ve had the most pleasure from in years.. why? because i’ve got a group of friends who i semi- regluarly meet up with and l4d did it exactly right for us… a well done, 4 player co-op that gets almost everything right and is simply extremely fun, tense, funny and challenging…
if valve to decide to revamp this great gaming experience every year, and bring something new and fun to i’d quite happily spend $50 a year to play it…
and yes, i was a bit disapointed they didn’t release more stuff for l4d, but to accuse them of lieing and cheating and ripping people off… i think its actualy really obvious what happened here… after l4d came out they started putting a small team doing DLC, campaigns etc…. then they realised how much more they could do with the game… they then decided to divert lots of manpower and resources (a ton of money) into pushing the game even further… expanding the AI, improving the engine producing lots of content and yes, the corporate fucks that they are decided to make a whole new game and charge for it.
the utter cads.
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Why on earth did I subject myself to the terrors of this thread?
why why why why why why *walks off mumbling to himself* why why why why…
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Ah…whatever.
Just go and waste your money sheeple
You can force donkey to go to water, but you can not force him to drink.
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…Did you really just use the phrase ‘sheeple’ without a hint of irony? My god. I thought this thread was about how the boycott was over. The same ground is being retread here, the exact same ground that is trod whenever this boycott is mentioned, the same tired arguments being wheeled out before the whole thing devolves into a pathetic slapfight. Hasn’t it already happened on this site once before? Have we learned nothing?
I love RPS too much to have it be buried under all this anti-L4D2/anti-boycott nonsense. Let’s just bury this shit forever and never bring it up again.
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The thing that still bothers me is the fact of releasing L4D2 (which is practically an expansion to L4D – same engine, graphics, a couple of new maps, weapons, characters) as a full release so soon after releasing L4D, splitting the community between 2 games, but saying they will support both.
The deciding factor to whether or not you want to play L4D or L4D2 will simply come down to “which map do you want to play on” and that shouldn’t be the only thing thats the main difference between 2 full games.
People who are playing L4D rather than L4D2 will be playing the slightly outdated game with less interesting weapons. If they are still supporting L4D, then they’re supporting an outdated game while theres a brand spanking new version of the same game out – with a few more weapons and better maps (due to realising any faults with old maps and fixing them).
The broken promises are only a part of this issue.
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If you’ve ever played Warlords Battlecry for example, there is Warlords Battlecry 1, 2, 3 and 4. They used practically identical graphics, same engine, etc but more races, maps, units in each game, though they were released a while later, if you have all 4, there was absolutely NO NEED to ever go back to a previous version, as its the same, with a couple less features/units.
In L4D’s case, its a multiplayer focused game where they have an online community at the heart of it, which they are splitting.
The only reason to go to L4D once L4D2 is released is simply to play on the older maps again.
But the old campaigns will be added to L4D2 by modders, rendering L4D pointless, yet Valve claim they will follow their promises and support it?
L4D2 is basically stamping on their own plans of supporting L4D and thats why I am displeased with this situation.
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This is pretty much my issue.
I got the game early and I loved it, although content was pretty thin on the ground I was happy to wait for a new campaign or something. Then we get last stand, sure, fine. Crash course, ugh, ok. And now what? Months before they effectively kill the game off.
I don’t care anymore though, I was ready to become a Valve fanboy after TF2 was so great, and the OB as well. But with this, I just don’t care enough to get into the debate most of the time, like with the latest updates to TF2, I have no idea what they think they’re doing.
I’ll get L4D2 on sale if I have the dosh and it seems reasonable, but only after I’ve seen the release date for L4D3.
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And good riddance
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If someone calls themself “Agent of Chaos” I simply can’t take them seriously
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In other news, Killing Floor is preparing to release a new DLC with 7 new weapons, 3 maps from Grindhouse Contest (which is kind of moot as servers already run most maps from Grindhouse) and a new specimen. Which will be launched with a free weekend at 22nd.
http://www.killingfloorthegame.com/
In addition which never suffered the same conolitis that L4D suffered (not to mention so far all clips about L4D2 are from Xbox2)…
So…Yeah… I regret buying L4D already for a while…
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Yes the same ground keeps getting tread. mostly because some people cannot accept the fact that people are upset with valve not following through with thier promises.
Considering this is a thread about the end of the boycott. I think most people know what to expect coming in here.
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I already preordered ld42 (26 euros per person thanks to the four pack is a pretty good deal) but I have been enthusiastic about this sequel from the start.
Well to be honest I was enraged at first, because I expected episode 3. But after I read the first previews it was clear to me that it was going to be an interesting and warranted sequel
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Valve sucks.
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