Left 4 Dead 2

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Left 4 Dead 2

[Purkake]

Valve sellout confirmed?

[Rosbjerg]

They did manage to create something very special with Left4Dead, just like they did with the original Half-Life.. Valve is the best FPS developer imho, so I'll cut them some slack.. but I am a bit worried about the melee weapons - frying pans and chainsaws? I really like the serious tone of the game and this is more Killing Floor'ish.. Each flavour is good, but I'd rather they didn't mix them.

 

I wish they would've done expansions instead though..

[crakkie]

The melee doesn't concern me too much. Maybe it will be an excuse to tone down the current L4D melee power and reduce the ammo.

 

But for a full on second game, I would hope to see more significant improvements like barricading doors, rpg lite stuff in players or weapons (its The New Thing), new super zombies, permanent injuries (broken bones that only allow assisted movement), players coming back as zombies, events or somesuch splitting up players temporarily, and more playable characters with different strengths and weaknesses.

[Kaftan Barlast]

L4D was so good that I would gladly pay just to get more levels to play. L4D2 I will buy withg a vengeance

[alanschu]

What Kaftan said.

[Rosbjerg]

But for a full on second game, I would hope to see more significant improvements like barricading doors, rpg lite stuff in players or weapons (its The New Thing), new super zombies, permanent injuries (broken bones that only allow assisted movement), players coming back as zombies, events or somesuch splitting up players temporarily, and more playable characters with different strengths and weaknesses.

 

I think the strength of L4D is it's decivingly simple gameplay - introducing rpg elements and/or customizable characters/weapons would take away from the core of the game, which imo is "work together or die" .. if I'm more concerned with unlocking "cool ability n#12" than helping my team, then I would be worried that the basis of the game dissapears - and L4D would be reduced to yet another online shooter, where people aren't working together and just try to get the highest score (like the worst Versus game).. That's what I find so facinating about this game - you are forced to work together with strangers, who seems familiar due to the recognizable avatars of Zoey, Francis, Bill and Louis.. And I would hate for Vavle to compromise that simple, but genius, gameplay element.

 

But the idea of permanent injuries (at least until you get to a safehouse or you find some special medkit) is a very cool idea and so is barricading/fusing doors (even if does rip off Killing Floor a bit).

 

L4D was so good that I would gladly pay just to get more levels to play. L4D2 I will buy withg a vengeance

 

I agree completly!

[Deadly_Nightshade]

I do not know about you, but, after reading the initial descriptions of Left 4 Dead 2, I feel more irritated and disappointed than excited and interested. The “sequel” looks, to me, like the product that should have been released last year – the product that they are expecting us to re-buy to get the new features, features that should have been in the original game or, at a minimum, patched into it at a later time. This is nothing more than an attempt to squeeze monies out of gamers who have already bought the first game, a game that is now going to obsolete is less than one year since its release. Nevertheless, you say, why would you think this? Well, let us examine the press release.

 

“…L4D2 promises to set a new benchmark for co-operative action games and become one of 2009's marquee titles.” Well, considering that Left 4 Dead is considered to be, by many, including myself, inferior to both the older Killing Floor modification and the newer retail release of the aforementioned modification, I doubt that Left 4 Dead 2 will contain anything that will drastically alter cooperative gameplay. As for the other promises, well, I am starting to doubt Valve will actually keep its word as they also promised features in Left 4 Dead that have still not been implemented.

 

“…the title adds melee combat to enable deeper co-operative gameplay, with items such as a chainsaw, frying pan, axe, baseball bat, and more.” Oh Valve, why must you, seemingly, copy other games? Two of the three items that you listed feature prominently in the rival zombie co-op game Killing Floor, while the others are lifted from another competitive title, Zombie Panic – while this does not mean that you are intentionally plagiarizing content, all of the items mentioned are standard in any anti-zed armory, this, coupled with such things are the Left 4 Dead sale that just “happened” to be almost directly on the release of Killing Floor, looks really bad.

 

“Introducing the AI Director 2.0, L4D's dynamic gameplay is taken to the next level by giving the Director the ability to procedurally change weather effects, world objects, and pathways in addition to tailoring the enemy population, effects, and sounds to match the players' performance.” Hummm… Sounds to me like they made a few tweaks and decided to call it “2.0” – besides, I doubt those changes will make paying $50 for a game you have already bought any more appealing. The next point further shows us that this “new” game is, essentially, just DLC for the original: “Featuring new Survivors, boss zombies, weapons, and items, Left 4 Dead 2 offers a much larger game than the original with more co-operative campaigns, more Versus campaigns, and maps for Survival mode available at launch.” In other words, they have taken the minimalistic Left 4 Dead and turned into what it should have been – and they want you to pay $50 -or however much they decide to charge for the update- for the privilege of owning the full version of game you already bought.

 

‘"Left 4 Dead was backed by our most aggressive advertising campaign to date, and resulted in a top 5 showing on two platforms during holiday 2008," said Doug Lombardi, VP of marketing at Valve. "Left 4 Dead 2 is a larger game and will be supported with even more consumer and retail advertising programs than the original."’ Well, judging from the player backlash you will need all of the hype you can get for many people, such as myself, are not planning on buying your so-called “sequel” unless you make some concessions for those who bought the beta version of the product. In other words, Valve has lost the goodwill of the fanbase and will have to work long and hard to get it back.

[Llyranor]

Haha, player backlash.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Haha, player backlash.

 

Looked at the Valve/Steam forums?

[Rosbjerg]

While I agree that it should've been released as DLC at a lower cost I will still argue that L4D in it's current shape, to me, feels like a very polished and thought-out-game.. a rough calculation tells me I've spent about 1$ pr hour I've played so far - and that was more than worth it!

[Deraldin]

Rock Paper Shotgun has a hands on preview up here.

[Maria Caliban]

L4D totally gave players their money's worth.

 

Gamers have bizzare ideas on what should be in a sequal. "Batman 2 has the SAME main character in the SAME city with mostly the SAME abilities and the SAME supporting cast. There's two new characters and the story is still about Batman fighting crime. Rip-off. They should have had this in the original movie or released it as a free DVD."

[Tagaziel]

Haha, player backlash.

 

Looked at the Valve/Steam forums?

 

Official forums always attract whiners.

 

And stupid people, but that's a different matter entirely.

[Llyranor]

Needs more ballroom dancing.

[Pop]

I will likely buy it. Given how sluggish Valve is with DLC a whole new game is probably a better idea. More capital would be invested anyway. What L4D really needed was more and if it takes a whole new packaged game, that's fine. Personally I'd like it if it was priced similarly to Crysis: Warhead, which I remember being relatively cheap coming on the heels of Crysis proper.

 

Also I find it humorous that people are already forgetting the era of quick and dirty sequels that was the 90's, as though "the complete experience" is something that we've come to expect. Suck it up.

[Niten_Ryu]

Probably main problem is that sequel was announced too soon. We have to wait better part of decade for Half-Life sequels so EA style yearly update for anohter Valve game might feel bit rip-off. Then again, I have no interest for Left 4 Dead or it's sequel so what do I know

[Deraldin]

Probably main problem is that sequel was announced too soon. We have to wait better part of decade for Half-Life sequels so EA style yearly update for anohter Valve game might feel bit rip-off. Then again, I have no interest for Left 4 Dead or it's sequel so what do I know

 

No, the problem is all the free updates that have been given to Team Fortress 2. It's created an expectation that future games from Valve will have the same level of commitment to providing content and that doesn't seem to be the case.

[Pop]

There are likely fewer ways to improve upon the baseline experience of playing TF2, at least, there aren't enough to warrant a full-on TF3 (though that will probably happen at some point in a year or two or three) The kind of overhauls they're attempting w/r/t the procedural nature of the L4D engine would be difficult to implement in a patch or DLC pack.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

This is what Newell said to VideoGamer.com at the Leipzig Games Convention before Left 4 Dead came out: "So each time we've released one of those for Team Fortress 2 we've seen about a 20% increase in the number of people who are playing online. And that number is really important because it determines how many community created maps there are, how many servers are running, and so on. So we'll do the same thing with Left 4 Dead where we'll have the initial release and then we'll release more movies, more characters, more weapons, unlockables, achievements, because that's the way you continue to grow a community over time.

Edited June 2, 2009 by Deadly_Nightshade

[Hell Kitty]

^ You should write him a letter and tell him he's doing it wrong. I'm sure he'll appreciate it, unless he's too busy swimming around in his enormous piles of cash.

[Krookie]

^

 

Hahahahahahahahahaa

[Azure79]

I should really play this game.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

A new poster:

 

Gameplay/Video

Frying Pan

Silenced Uzi

Axe + SPAS-12

"Charger" boss infected

Garden Maze

Kitchen Smoker

Incendiary Ammo

Teaser Trailer

[Calax]

I'm kinda in the boat with DN. D don't know why but it feels more like we're getting what we used to call an Expansion pack (and is now DLC) as a full retail game. I admit it's early to tell, but it looks like they're gonna charge us a full games price for what is essentially a mod in the existing engine.

 

Don't get me wrong, L4D is a great game and everything, it's just if the game is similar size to the original (which they've said it's bigger, but you never truly know) I will be very frustrated. L4D was great because it was simple concept done very well, the only problem is that they didn't put together enough maps so that you always were finding something new. I actually stopped playing because it got to the point where I could figure out where and when hordes would trigger, and could call the AI director pretty spot on.