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Valve Explains Quick Left 4 Dead Sequel
Valve's announcement that Left 4 Dead 2 would be released only a year after the first game has generated a great deal of controversy among fans of the game. There are concerns that Left 4 Dead will not get any additional content, the community will be divided, and that the quick development cycle won't do justice to the sequel. Now, Valve devs and execs are going out of their way to address those concerns. Left 4 Dead project lead Chet Faliszek said, "It just became very clear that this was a cohesive, singular statement we wanted to make, not a more slow update thing... too much stuff was tied together with too many other things." Developer Tom Leonard was quick to point out that work wouldn't cease for the first game: "We are doing updates across the summer, adding new matchmaking features, and new features to facilitate user maps after the SDK is out. ... Additionally, those maps can be transported into Left 4 Dead 2." Doug Lombardi said simply, "Trust us a little bit," explaining that Gabe Newell is "always talking about providing entertainment as a service — it's not about making a game any more."
"Gabe Newell is "always talking about providing entertainment as a service â" it's not about making a game any more." " Which is why most games suck now.
https://www.speakservers.com/
Just after I've bought^h^h^h^h^h^hlicensed an EA game and am presented with the EULA, I certainly feel like I've been served.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Who's going to explain all the quick Guitar Hero sequels?
Or (forgive the less cynical view point) they just wanted to focus on improving the game and getting it to a very high level of "it's done" before opening it up for modding (since they're still updating L4D as it is, let alone L4D2). I'd also be very surprised if the SDK was L4D2 only (considering they're effectively the same game at heart, I would expect any SDK to let you choose the version being targeted, like the way the SDKs let you target HL2, or Ep1/Ep2 etc. depending on features used)
As it is, I'd much rather have them thinking about the game and its sequel, than making mod tools to some that could still be polished up even more.
This isn't that hard to explain. There is profit to be had. They make more money by selling a new game then by releasing free maps for an old one.
Look, companies only understand one thing: sales. Gamers are notoriously bad at speaking with their wallets. They're a hype driven group. Sure, right now people are all pissed off about this. When L4D 2 comes out, those same people will all be lined up on day 1 forking over money for it and caught up in the hype. That pattern gets repeated over and over again.
When gamers as a whole start acting like intelligent customers and less like drug addicts looking for a quick hit, you'll see companies not do this type of quick sequel. In the mean time, there's no consequences for them to do it, so why wouldn't they?
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Why are games supposedly provided as a service instead of a product? As in, a fully-featured product with the vast majority of the content already there upon release? Seems like each game these days is supplied incomplete and the rest comes through DLCs after release.
Take Tomb Raider: Underworld for example. There have been two DLC chapter addons available for it (and only for the Xbox 360), and these chapters aren't simply side chapters - they're actually a continuation of the story line which was part of the ORIGINAL GAME. In other words, if you didn't have an Xbox 360 and/or didn't purchase these DLCs, you wouldn't actually "finish" the game as it was suppose to be finished. The story would be incomplete. So screw anyone who thought that buying TRU would mean a full game, nah, you have to PAY for the full story line! Now given the DLCs were in part funded by Microsoft, I'm not surprised they're only available for the 360, and it wouldn't have mattered much if they were just side quests that didn't continue the story. But they do.
I don't mind bonus packs that cost a bit but provide extra features, but I do mind cash grabs that seem to emphasize the "release early, finish development later" mentality. Works somewhat for open-source content but shouldn't be tolerated for paid products.
It has been out since a couple of weeks...
Hell, it was even posted on Slashdot.
And even before that, it was possible to create maps with a little tweaking of the Hammer editor.
When you shoot a mime, do you use a silencer?
When bad games are announced, we cringe (rightfully I think). When good games are announced, we cringe again with arguments like "Too Soon!" as if the publishers had made a dead David Carradine joke.
I think the question is not about cringing because the game is good but rather because people fear it's going to be bad due to too short a developing span.
Fans are a crying whinny lot who will never be happy with any concession you make, and the sooner you shut them out, the happier you'll be.
It's just the fans' concern that their favourite franchises are being raped for a quick buck. It's stupid for developers to ignore their fans because the fans are the ones who make them money.
The original game had like 6 guns, 4 levels and about 5 types of enemies.
You could do justice to that in about a month with a mod team, let alone in a year with a full blown dev team.
I was really looking forward to L4D when it was announced, but as games go, L4D was probably the one game I can point to with the most dissapointingly small amount of content I've seen in the last 5 years.
It really did feel like an HL2 mod and nothing more. The idea is fantastic, but the execution of it left a lot to be desired IMO.
I understood why Valve didn't bother with a storyline, but generally if you're not going to bother with that you make it up by making sure there's a ton of levels, game modes, weapons, enemies and so on to deal with. The problem with L4D is that it was devoid of any meaningful amount of any of these things. It had few maps, few enemy types, few weapons, few gameplay modes.
For £30 - £35 I expect a game, not a mod.
Valve intends to support hotly anticipated zombie survival shooter Left 4 Dead post-release with new characters, new maps, new achievements and new weapons in order to grow the community, Gabe Newell has revealed.
Speaking to VideoGamer.com at Leipzig Games Convention, the Valve co-founder and managing director said the developer intended to follow a similar downloadable content policy as it has with Team Fortress 2.
Left 4 Dead, set for release on PC and Xbox 360 on November 21 in Europe, is primarily a four-player cooperative game that sees a group of Survivors battle through four 'Movies' and against 28 Days Later-style zombies called The Infected.
Newell said that Valve's support of the game post-launch will be essential for growing the community.
He said: "One of the things that we're doing is we seem to be in a transition between games as a package product and games more of a service. So if you look at Team Fortress 2, one of things that's really helped grow the community is the continuous updates, where we release new maps, new character classes, new unlockables, new weapons. And we tell the stories about the characters, like the meet the sniper, or meet the sandwich. And that ongoing delivery of content really seems to grow the community.
"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."
Remember, people were buying the game with this in mind. The game shipped incomplete at full price, with only two of the four campaigns available for use in Versus mode (pretty much the main mode). This was only recently corrected.
Besides bugfixes the only thing they added was survival mode and one very small map for it. There were no new weapons, characters, movies or unlockables.
I don't share the outrage that seems to be commonplace right now, but at the same time I'm not particularly enthusiastic about a sequel and I can see why people would be annoyed in light of what Valve promised.
There are concerns that Left 4 Dead will not get any additional content, the community will be divided, and that the quick development cycle won't do justice to the sequel.
If Valve were to add an additional year to the development cycle, would the fans be whining that it was too long to wait?
I'm pretty sure you can mod L4D just like any other Source game. There's even Metamod: Source (lower level) and Sourcemod (higher level) to help you there. Both appear to work on Left 4 Dead.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
No, and I'm not afraid to say it either. Particularly since I paid considerably more for it than I paid for Team Fortress 2, which is, hands-down, a better game.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/41219/Left-4-Dead-DLC-Promised
"Chet Faliszek said that Valve plans to get the DLC rolling much more quickly with Left 4 Dead than it has been able to for Team Fortress 2. Plans already in the works call for new campaigns, weapons, and boss infected (the game's zombie enemies). In addition, there were strong hints at a flamethrower coming not long after launch."
Yes, the valve team promised L4D 1 content, including new special infected AND weapons AND new campaigns. Turns out they saved all that for L4D2 instead. L4D2 will have a new special infected (charger), new weapons, and new campaigns. And no, they didn't add any new campaigns in L4D1, just tweaked versions of the old ones for versus, and a single new mini map for survival (the rest of the survival levels are just portions of the old maps in old campaigns)
That same guy at valve in an interview said they have been working on L4D2 since the launch of L4D1.
http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1138
"Shack: When did development on Left 4 Dead 2 start?
Chet Faliszek: Pretty much after Left 4 Dead launched."