alanschu

It wasn't intended to be a sequel, but as they worked on it they realized it was more of a stand-alone game. I bought L4D because I played the demo and loved it. The unfortunate thing is that I see something like this encouraging Valve to NOT do stuff like they did with TF2, because other games that don't do it will result in a rabid fanbase. It's a PR boondoggle for sure for them, but seriously, if you don't want to buy L4D2 because you don't feel it's worth the money, then don't. I think that the concerns over splitting the user base and the original L4D being left in the dust are overstated. People play games that they own. If lots of people don't feel it's worth the money, I think quietly hitting Valve in their pocketbook, rather than ranting and raving and demonstrating how frothing at the mouth you are by signing petitions and so forth, would be more effective. Because I think this mockery of a Steam group and mountains of people with (IMO) behaving stupidly, you're just going to encourage Valve to tell fans to **** off and not bother releasing free updates because then they set a standard that all their games will have to uphold. I mean seriously, a lot of the **** they are griping about is retarded. The MUSIC! It's like someone said "Hey, we need a bigger list of stuff because if the list is too small it won't look as impressive." So rather than focusing on the real concerns, they widen their argument to include pretty petty things, which defeats the entire purpose. I'm skeptical that half of those people will stick to their guns, especially if L4D2 turns out to be a pretty good improvement and turns out to be ****loads of fun. It's always your choice to decide what to do with your money. I never understood the people that slam EA for releasing the new sports games every year, often with only cosmetic improvements. They do it because people buy them. I like their sports games but I never buy them year after year because I don't feel it's worth the money. I'll do the same thing with L4D franchise.

Wow this and Alpha Protocol will = some awesomeness for sure!

HAHAHA

I love the Steam group's "summary" of their cause: The ones I bolded were ones that actually made me shake my head and laugh. I mean, Valve obviously had so little faith in L4D doing well, that they decided to immediately make a sequel for a game they didn't think would be successful.

I like the idea they have with the AI Director dynamically altering the levels of a game based on how well the survivors have been doing. Sounds pretty ambitious, but that'd be ****ing pimp. The idea is that if, for example, your team is struggling, a run through the graveyard would be a bit more linear, but if you're pwning face, then your graveyard will be more mazelike, complete with dead ends and whatnot.

Based on the read ups that I saw from the game, I'm really looking forward to it. The unfortunate thing is that this petition is probably going to stop Valve and other like minded companies from doing the free updates they've done for games like Team Fortress 2, since apparently it spoils the fans and makes them feel entitled. But hey, if some people think they can get some stuff for free, I'm not at all surprised that they'll sign this petition.

Yes, that's exactly it. It's a European who brought up whether this was a situation where the Death Penalty may be appropriate in this sense. And I'm a Canadian. Cheers

That pretty much settles it. Not really "It's too easy to be misinformed or plain wrong." Is it? I think you give criminals too much credit It's not even that it's too easy to be misinformed or plain wrong. I think you give the law makers, judges, and police officers too much credit. Death Penalty cases are high profile cases that do, in fact, catapult careers (especially of district attorneys). It's not just about the mistaken judge, mistaken cop, or mistaken jury. It's also about the ambitious judge, the corrupt cop, and the prejudiced jury (You can mix and match those adjectives if you like). Given that you're going to take someone's life, you better damn well make sure they are given due process to appeal for the sake of their life. As a result, the death penalty becomes substantially more expensive than life in prison. This in addition to the investigations as to whether or not the death penalty removes hesitation for committing further acts of violence. I've been meaning to look into whether or not the "nothing to lose" situation has any merit but have been rather busy lately. @Kelverin You're not talking about Deterrence, you're talking about eliminating recidivism (the chances that an offender will repeat his crime). The problem with your argument though, is that this applies to anything. That person robbed a store. We should kill them, because there's a 100% chance that he won't rob another store (or commit any other crime for that matter). Penalties to reduce recidivism are ridiculous IMO, because the only one that really has any success is, in fact, the death penalty. And I do not support the death penalty. I don't. Systemic and institutional racism still very much exist. Northwestern Law School analyzed 86 wrongful conviction death row cases and found the such reasons as: eyewitness error - from confusion or faulty memory. government misconduct - by both the police and the prosecution junk science - mishandled evidence or use of unqualified "experts" snitch testimony - often given in exchange for a reduction in sentence false confessions - resulting from mental illness or retardation, as well as from police torture other - hearsay, questionable circumstantial evidence, etc. A host of interesting innocence related investigations can be found here: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/causes-wrongful-convictions In fact, go to http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org in general to find some interesting reading about the death penalty altogether. Another interesting thing is that it takes on average 9.8 years for a person to be convicted of a capital crime to be later exonerated of it. So you can't really expedite the process of shooting people in the head in order to save money, lest your list of innocent victims goes up even faster. There are corrupt people everywhere. I wouldn't want an ambitious police officer looking to do anything to make a name for himself (or with a strong, emotional and personal belief that I commited a crime I did not) to be handling my investigation for a capital crime. EDIT: As for deterrence: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/deterrence...teswithvwithout

EDIT: I'm coming to this way late...

Man I love the ONN.

The thing that really got me was when I learned that much of the vitriol for Starforce had a positive correlation with the length of time it took to crack Chaos Theory.

And this is why you fail. Publishers dropped it because it had negative perception associated with it. Pure and simple. Ironically, the bulk of the ****storm started when Chaos Theory proved to be uncrackable for over a year.

fixed... see it can be said both ways... and both are 100% accurate... No, it can't be said both ways. You stated that allowing software to install in ring 0 I'd be lucky to not have my computer hijacked. You made the claim, and hence, the burden of proof is on you that SecuROM will allow people to hijack my computer, preferably within a year. To refresh your memory, here's what you said: "If you install any type of programs which works in Ring 0 and dont reinstall your PC at least once in a year and have static IP address, you can consider yourself lucky if you dont get your PC hi-jacked few times" I know people such as yourself love to try to turn things around like you just did, but it's a fallacy and exceptionally poor scientific method. You'd be laughed out of research for suggesting your reasoning, because it's quite frankly grasping at straws. So, buckle down and put your money where your mouth is. You stated that if I install programs that work in ring zero and don't reformat my computer at least once a year, I'm lucky that I don't get hijacked. You surely have some sort of proof to substantiate your claim, and none of this bull**** of turning stuff around. But somehow I have a feeling that's all you got, which is why people don't take the crusades you go on seriously. To reiterate: For your claim, THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS ON YOU. I'm not going to buy any of this bull**** pseudoscience that says "well, you don't know either" [with lame ass 'fixed' added to boot]. You might as well be a religious evangelist telling me to believe in God because while he can't prove he does exist, I can't prove that he doesn't. It's a bull**** argument used by people that have no argument. Do you not have a legitimate argument?

Fans are fickle. I suspect a large chunk of those 4,000 fans will be d/l the game at release with me.

I don't know if it'd be interesting to have a character lose someone and not have it be an impact as they just move on. It'd just be something that happened during the course of the game, and because it ultimately had no impact on anything, possibly forgettable.

I don't have a static IP address. Having said that, it's a pretty bold claim that installing SecuROM that does have ring 0 access will result in PC hijacking were I to have a static IP address.

Meh, worrying too much about semantics. It's just a hype trailer. I thought it looked cool. I don't think anyone was expecting the attack on Coruscant anyways.

Who wants to play a game where they decide to avoid all the conflict?

I know. I can't believe I find something so average to be so much fun!

Ah, but SecuROM anything is bad now, right?

Disagree with pretty much everything you said. Cheers!

It gives it an RP type element, because Sam's badassness compenates for my clunky controller haha. Looking forward to this one for sure!

Roflcopter.

then they aren't the target audience for the game. Sucks for people that didn't own CD players when cassette tapes were discontinued.

Yeah they did say that. I suspect there's a Bounty Hunter story, and a Republic Soldier story, and so forth. While they may branch out a bit, I still feel it'll be the same story options for everyone of a particular class.