Why I am boycotting L4D2

[WhiteTigerShiro]

It is a common theme in this industry that once the product is out of the door, the developer/publisher washes its hands and moves on. Valve did not follow this formula at all, instead taking an interest in their communities that is rivaled by no other developer and this went some way towards getting them the reputation that they now enjoy.

Wrong. There may not be many, but Valve is far from the only company that pays strong attention to the communities of their games. Heck, I could easily argue that Blizzard far surpasses Valve in community involvement simply based on the fact that there are websites devoted to posting information on a daily basis of Blizzard Employees making direct replies to customer comments, sometimes even re-replying in topic-long conversations on an issue. Meanwhile the only time I see comments coming from Valve employees, it's via news posts like on this site.

So yes, I agree that more developers need to chat with their communities in order to get a true understanding of what the fans want, but Valve is far from unrivaled in community interaction.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

But I should still pay him for [small] (I'm lacking words here, I usually cut my nose hair myself, thank you.)[/small] a full check-up, even if he decides to skip my nose and ears? I expect the best barber in town to have people that sweep the hair up from the floor as it falls, I expect him, for he is the best, to update his repertoire of hair cuttery and trends every half hour.
Otherwise, he isn't the best.
[small](Let's just say that the barbers in my town are very competitive)[/small]
: ]

That's no longer a barber, that's a personal groomer. Only people like 3D Realms / John Romero get those, and look what they created with it.

 

[allyhewitt]

i agree man! games move on, so must people. fans will always be fans, so why not just carry on as your are and let new people try the new things, as peoplle have before

 

[Kevvers]

If the best barber in town used to cut your hair, shave your face, trim your nose and ears and then - with a reason - he stopped trimming your nose/ear hair, he'd still be far better than the rest of the barbers.
Especially when he remembers about the trimming and will do his best while you're in the chair.

Some of these people seem to be complaining that the photos of haircuts are a bit 70's and the floor has hair on it.

But I should still pay him for [small] (I'm lacking words here, I usually cut my nose hair myself, thank you.)[/small] a full check-up, even if he decides to skip my nose and ears? I expect the best barber in town to have people that sweep the hair up from the floor as it falls, I expect him, for he is the best, to update his repertoire of hair cuttery and trends every half hour.
Otherwise, he isn't the best.
[small](Let's just say that the barbers in my town are very competitive)[/small]
: ]

To be the best he only has to be better than all the other barbers. Plus just because he's the best doesn't mean you can stroll in and ask him to give you an afro or a mo-hawk for free just because you paid for the works six months ago. Plus how often do you get a haircut anyway?! I think you should be grateful that you have such a good barber in your town.

 

[theonecookie]

i dont get it your not going to buy a game because it has got a sequal if anything people should complain when games dont get sequals eg: beyond good and evil and i would love a new chrono triger game the last one was on ps1 for goods sake

 

[Bucket0Bones]

You're not going to achieve anything by boycotting the game, but i still wish you good luck.

P.S - I'll be buying the game.

 

[Flishiz]

Personally I played the shit out of L4D, and I can honestly say that it would take more than a chocolate cake served by a playboy bunny to get me to play the game again. It would be like trying to prospect for gold in California.

I completely welcome L4D2, even if I have to pay full, because the first was a great game that I absorbed like a Shamwow, and there's just no more water to hold. Bring on the sequel.

 

[Grayl]

I feel sorry for you, OP. You explained your point quite flawlessly and yet you get flamed by idiots who feel that their point is more important than yours. To the people swearing at the OP: Kindly go away if the post offends you so much as to swear, as you're not wanted here and the OP couldn't possibly have offended you in any way.

I can agree with some points in your post, OP, but I think the main point of the "boycott" is to stop Valve becoming like every other company out there. Yeah, you can say "ah well Valve usually do better than everyone but they're allowed to be money-sucking leeches for once in their lives" but I totally disagree.

It's companies like Valve that keep gaming as an art-form rather than a Call of Duty "same-game with a few new things" waste-of-money that most developers seem to follow. So if we sit back and allow Valve to do what other companies do best rather than make the awesome games they've been known to create, they'll end up falling under the reign of money over everything. And that wouldn't be good for anyone.

I, personally, won't be buying L4D2 until a weekend sale or something. I could accept buying it as an expansion pack (as the OP has stated) but 4 new levels and a few extra bits here and there... I dunno, it doesn't feel like a full game to me. Plus, they completely got rid of the 4 original characters, who I thought were extremely fun to listen to.

L4D is buggy as hell, which the OP also tries to explain. We sort of were playing a beta, because if you know anything about Valve, you'd know that L4D was a shot out of no-where. They had no idea it was going to be a massively fun game, so we sort of were paying for a beta. One that still isn't fixed.

So I say bravo to you, OP, for explaining why you are boycotting L4D2, and I'm sorry that a lot of posters here have no manners/brain. I wouldn't boycott it from where I stand, but to those that do, they're just sending Valve a message saying "Please don't become like every other rubbish gaming company out there". And to some extent, it's worked; haven't they said they'd integrate L4D with L4D2 or something?

 

[garfoldsomeoneelse]

Snippity.

Whatever your reasons or motivations, you've been extremely well-mannered and rational.

I do hope you decide to stay. We can use more people like you around here.

 

[SomeLameStuff]

Like I said before, Valve has given us great games and free dlc for years. Why can't we give them a free pass just this once?

 

[Da_Schwartz]

1- I do not care, I have more important things to worry about in my life.

2- You said that you feel like L4D is some sort of beta for L4D2? Well guess what..that happens alot. Usually not within a year mind you. But companies do release games on younger engines or fresh concepts, new styles of gameplay, as almost tests then next go around push it to its limits. See what the public responds to what works what doesn't. The thing about L4D is that so many people love it cause it's "valve", it's "zombies" and its an online fps. Without the Valve name i don't know if the game would have gotten as big as it had. Not because im anti-or pro-vavle, but because really there isn't anything to the game.

It is what it is, grab gunsk, kill zombies, get to the saferoom THATS it. And somehow in all its limited weapons, few enemy types, no real story, 4 playable characters IT WORKS. To me L4d got lucky. I think this game is bigger then anyone would of expected it to be. It's just one of those lil gems with a fun factor and replay value. Even if it is 20 minutes or so every other week. Thats more then i can say for 2/3rds of my collection. I think people like you feel cheated because there really isn't much to fix in l4d, it's not broken. it is what it is.

But for godsakes man, give it a shot. It was a sleeper hit that brought valve games into a few more homes. So an overhaul and possibly the game the devs always wanted to make or now can make isn't really a bad thing. So what if it's coming out in a year. Sometimes DLC only goes so far. If they're changing the AI or how sombies move and react instead of just CHARGE!!! then that alone gives me enough reason to check out a sequel. Maybe an engine improvement, some new gameplay mechanics. Give it a shot. And don't worry about your precious valve selling out. It's called business.

 

[Caliostro]

Correction: none of these "boycotters" are at all educated or mature.

Each and every one of you are just bitter and pissed off because Valve scrapped the idea of DLC in favour of developing a new game and you don't want to cough up the cash. News flash, geniuses: NO ONE IS FORCING YOU TO BUY L4D2.

This is what we call a stupid and uneducated opinion. Just picked this one randomly out of the group.

See, I'm in the boycott group too, and I, like many others there, don't have much of an issue with pricing (perhaps that I won't be able to play it right away, but c'est la vie, they're a business company not a charity).

My issue with L4D2 is the exact reason I stopped buying games by EA and didn't even look into Activision's CoD:World at War (except the Beta, but that was free). Everytime a new game of the same "series" comes out, something happens that changes the last game. There is an inevitable segregation of the community. Instantly, the old game will stop getting new players. After all if you're going to buy a game, why not the latest? So all you're left with is whatever userbase you have at that point. After that comes the inevitable "death" of the game. Once the sequel comes down, the "old" game will wither and die, with very few exceptions . Off the top of my head, only the original Counter-Strike and Call of Duty 4 seem like a decent exception. And CoD: WaW is hardly a sequel considering it's by a different company and commits the cardinal sin of returning to WWII... And it's shit... Even so, both of these games took a huge hit when the "sequel" came out.

Day of Defeat registered a 1.8k people playing peak today. Day of Defeat: Source registered a 6.7K peak.

Team Fortress Classic registered a measly 320 people peak today. TF2 registered a 21.8k peak.

Even the original Counter-Strike, easily one of the most iconic online games of ALL times, registered a 59k peak today, which is quite impressive, until you realize it's Source counterpart registered 84.8k.

All in all, my point is, once the sequel comes out, a lot of the community moves on. This is especially painful for a game that promised to be big on user-made content and that only a few months ago got it's SDK so people could start developing said content!

This is all especially aggravating if we consider this game is barely a year old. It didn't have the time to nurture the sort of community that will stick around despite a sequel.

Counter Strike had a 5 year reign before a sequel came around. Day of Defeat had equally 5 years. Team Fortress had over 9 years. Left4Dead had, arguably, less content at release than all of those, it cost almost twice (or more) than any of them, promised to live up to Valve standards, and had a 1 year reign before the sequel came out... Less before the sequel was announced.

Now, you can argue that Activision and EA do the same. Guess what, I haven't bought a game from either in a while. I own every Valve game made so far. Take a hint.

 

[Count_de_Monet]

My god I wish people would stop complaining about L4D2... Valve gives an unprecedented amount of support to it's games, it created it's own patch/content delivery system, it LISTENS to the community and even solicits it's opinion, and it creates great games. Sure, they aren't all wondrous glowing gems of gamedom which will forever change the landscape of leisure activities, however, they are solid games which actually work and when they don't work Valve is quick to patch.

They aren't going to provide free content to the gamer base because they want to make money. They aren't making this an expansion pack to L4D because they are changing the game, and they are going to charge whatever they are going to charge. I feel better about paying $50 for L4D2 than I do about almost any other game purchase I've made including my recent purchase of Red Alert 3 which I enjoy but I feel L4D had more content and more replayability.

 

[Caliostro]

If nothing else, your uninformed argument stating EA as "the greedy, money-making developers" when they are in fact PUBLISHERS and, in case you didn't know, we live in a CAPITALIST SOCIETY, where corporations want to MAKE MONEY.

Once again, allow me to point out that what you're offering is merely an ignorant and uneducated opinion [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ea_games]. EA are, in fact, a developer, as well as a publisher, marketer and distributor.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

HL2 is prob my fave game of all time and I am a huge Valve fan, but I have admit I felt ripped off by L4D.

I played through the campaigns once or twice with buddies and it then lost a lot of its appeal as there were so few maps and so little variety in the weapons/combat styles/zombie types.

The guns also felt a little clunky and unsatisfying compared to most modern shooters, and I hate to say it but Source is showing its age with some low resolutions and bad framerate drops in scenes that shouldn't really be all that taxing for this generation's hardware.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

I was excited at first to see L4D2, then I started watching the game play videos... Well, I don't feel like paying $50 for a game I already have, only this one has stupid over powered ammo, reskinned weapons and "melee weapons"... oh, and can't forget the crappy looking characters... So, I'll waste my money on something else...

 

[Gladion]

This is what we call a stupid and uneducated opinion. Just picked this one randomly out of the group.

See, I'm in the boycott group too, and I, like many others there, don't have much of an issue with pricing (perhaps that I won't be able to play it right away, but c'est la vie, they're a business company not a charity).

My issue with L4D2 is the exact reason I stopped buying games by EA and didn't even look into Activision's CoD:World at War (except the Beta, but that was free). Everytime a new game of the same "series" comes out, something happens that changes the last game. There is an inevitable segregation of the community. Instantly, the old game will stop getting new players. After all if you're going to buy a game, why not the latest? So all you're left with is whatever userbase you have at that point. After that comes the inevitable "death" of the game. Once the sequel comes down, the "old" game will wither and die, with very few exceptions . Off the top of my head, only the original Counter-Strike and Call of Duty 4 seem like a decent exception. And CoD: WaW is hardly a sequel considering it's by a different company and commits the cardinal sin of returning to WWII... And it's shit... Even so, both of these games took a huge hit when the "sequel" came out.

Day of Defeat registered a 1.8k people playing peak today. Day of Defeat: Source registered a 6.7K peak.

Team Fortress Classic registered a measly 320 people peak today. TF2 registered a 21.8k peak.

Even the original Counter-Strike, easily one of the most iconic online games of ALL times, registered a 59k peak today, which is quite impressive, until you realize it's Source counterpart registered 84.8k.

All in all, my point is, once the sequel comes out, a lot of the community moves on. This is especially painful for a game that promised to be big on user-made content and that only a few months ago got it's SDK so people could start developing said content!

This is all especially aggravating if we consider this game is barely a year old. It didn't have the time to nurture the sort of community that will stick around despite a sequel.

Counter Strike had a 5 year reign before a sequel came around. Day of Defeat had equally 5 years. Team Fortress had over 9 years. Left4Dead had, arguably, less content at release than all of those, it cost almost twice (or more) than any of them, promised to live up to Valve standards, and had a 1 year reign before the sequel came out... Less before the sequel was announced.

Now, you can argue that Activision and EA do the same. Guess what, I haven't bought a game from either in a while. I own every Valve game made so far. Take a hint.

My hint: You're a Valve fanboy who cannot accept the fact that they are a company and need to make money in order to survive. YES, they "promised" to bring new DLC for Left4Dead. To be honest, I cannot even recall that, and I've been following the game's development pretty much from the beginning, because I thought it was a great concept - but that is not the point now. The point, and I've said it earlier before, is that so many people are just so in love with Valve that they were living in a weird kind of world in which Valve was the white knight of the industry fighting the evil wizards like EA and Activision, who do not try to make great but to ruin your life with bad ones. You said it yourself. "Valve standards".

The comparisons between Counter-Strike and CS:S also lack, because there are most definetly other reasons for people to quit playing a game. You can't just assume less people play the original Counter-Strike because they've moved on to Source.

Edit: Your argument isn't any more valid because of your grammar and vocabulary, no need to feel better than others.