To all you L4D2 boycotters...

I laughed at the comic.

It's simple: Buy it if you like it. Don't buy it if you don't like it. *shrugs*

I feel like that is said for *everything*. WTF people.
 
But you miss the whole point of gaming.
IT's 2

not a patch or addon( it is but lets call it 2)

so something they spent maybe a few weeks adding some levels is called 2 and is now a NEW GAME
 
But you miss the whole point of gaming.
IT's 2

not a patch or addon( it is but lets call it 2)

so something they spent maybe a few weeks adding some levels is called 2 and is now a NEW GAME

A few weeks?

That is laughable.
 
A few weeks?

That is laughable.

To be fair they did basically have everything in place for them. The only new stuff that needed any work was character/gun models and skins, a few lines of dialogue and the new boss infected. Perhaps a few more statics that were relevant to the new aesthetic, but those won't have taken long at all, only being chairs and tables and the like. I would say he's off, but not by much - a few months, maybe.
 
To be fair they did basically have everything in place for them. The only new stuff that needed any work was character/gun models and skins, a few lines of dialogue and the new boss infected. Perhaps a few more statics that were relevant to the new aesthetic, but those won't have taken long at all, only being chairs and tables and the like. I would say he's off, but not by much - a few months, maybe.

I would disagree. There are new survivor characters, new infected, new sound effects, new textures, new levels, new music. The only things that they would have had in place are the source engine (including graphics, audio, and networking) and a few recyclable sound effects.

I guarantee they've been planning it since before L4D1 shipped, and they likely started production very soon thereafter, maybe before.
 
My main gripe outside of the boycott itself, is that L4D hasn't really innovated in enough ways to call itself a sequel. You can see from movement of the zombies, the way the guns react that it's largely just a re-skin, we've got different models/skins for the zombies, different model/skins for the guns but its all fundamentally the same.

The community can produce more maps and models/textures so what of the core game is actually different, so far I've seen 1 new game mode which if it's anything like survival won't keep the average gamer interested for more than a few days (and it's a spin on survival)

There's 3 more special infected (less than the original 5) and thats about it...oh and melee weapons which is just a re-skin of using your gun for melee, lol.

To be fair they did basically have everything in place for them. The only new stuff that needed any work was character/gun models and skins, a few lines of dialogue and the new boss infected. Perhaps a few more statics that were relevant to the new aesthetic, but those won't have taken long at all, only being chairs and tables and the like. I would say he's off, but not by much - a few months, maybe.
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I agree, its 52 weeks between games, of that they maybe actually worked specifically on the new game for a few months?

Reskinning art assets that already exist doesn't take very long at all, the source maps are pretty basic BSP squares with a lot of pre-made trimmings, of which a great deal will be from all the previous games (HL2, HL2 Ep1 and 2, lost coast, CSS, L4D1)

Even if they worked solid for exactly a year and didn't deviate that still and incredibly small amount of time for a game expecting a full price point, compare it to the differences shown off between CoD MW and CoD MW2 for example which looks like it has tonnes of changes and improvements, thats a proper sequel.
 
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To be fair they did basically have everything in place for them. The only new stuff that needed any work was character/gun models and skins, a few lines of dialogue and the new boss infected. Perhaps a few more statics that were relevant to the new aesthetic, but those won't have taken long at all, only being chairs and tables and the like. I would say he's off, but not by much - a few months, maybe.

Mate there's a lot that needs to be done. The new special infected had to be designed to serve a particular purpose, mostly related to splitting up tight groups of survivors. I would imagine that they are recording more than just 'a few lines of dialogue'. The lines have to be written (which, believe it or not, actually takes time) and then they have to be recorded, and they are being voiced by professional actors this time I believe? This process takes time/scheduling. There are 5 new campaigns and if you have any experience with the Hammer editor, you'll know that it takes a very long time to create good content with it. Add in new artwork, new AI programming, lots of design and iteration, game balancing and Valve's traditionally high standard of polish and you will see how it can take them as long as it will. Also playtesting, QA and handling 2 versions of the game. Sure the engine and core gameplay remain the same, but there is definitely a lot of work that will go into it.
 
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Also Im sure the director was a bit tricky.

I dont get the big deal about the director thing. The zombies seem to come either scripted or every couple minutes. if you sit in one spot like on top the church you can just wait and a wave will come every 2 or 3 minutes. It doesn't seem all that AI.
 
I dont get the big deal about the director thing. The zombies seem to come either scripted or every couple minutes. if you sit in one spot like on top the church you can just wait and a wave will come every 2 or 3 minutes. It doesn't seem all that AI.

The director makes sure you don't get a tank if your team isn't doing so well. A tank you might have gotten if you were breezing through the level. it makes sure that you don't get multiple crescendo events one after the other so that your entire team runs out of ammunition and you get wiped. Something as simple as pathfinding can take a while to test and perfect. I believe the new one will be changing your path depending, again, on how you're doing. Plus, actually controlling the special infected AI. A game developer once told me that creating perfect AI is very simple. Creating AI that is believable/realistic/challenging/still fun is a lot more difficult. I'm sure Valve could program the special infected in such a way that they always attacked at the same instant and targeted different players. That would make life very hard for the players. Bottom line is, AI programming is pretty complex, even though it might seem simplistic to have waves of zombies rush you.

I'll give you an example. Yesterday I was playing a campaign of dead air. There was a witch on the roof of a building next to the one we were standing on. Someone shot her with a rifle, she ran towards us, and instead of crossing on the planks connecting the 2 roofs, she jumped off the roof, ran all the way around the building and climbed up behind us. She was screaming all the while though, and we managed to kill her, but I was left wondering whether that was a pathfinding failure (which I think it was) or whether it was programmed to behave like that. Either way, it turned out to be more fun than having her run straight towards us as we had setup to focus fire on her.
 
I fail to see how your example has anything to do with the "Director".
 
I fail to see how your example has anything to do with the "Director".

The first part of my post was about what the director does. The later half was about the complexity of AI programming in general, which is what the director is. And it ended with what I thought was an amusing anecdote of how great AI programming or an AI bug made a game experience better for me.
 
The first part of my post was about what the director does. The later half was about the complexity of AI programming in general, which is what the director is. And it ended with what I thought was an amusing anecdote of how great AI programming or an AI bug made a game experience better for me.

A good explanation to a good post.

The bottom line with this whole argument is: people keep trying to trivialize the amount of work and time it takes to produce a product. Most people make such assumptions with little to know actual knowledge of the procedure.

Making something is easy. Making something good is more difficult. Making something great and polished with a lot of attention to detail is HARD. Software development takes a lot of time and care. Whether or not you think that the features that are coming to L4D2 are sequel worthy is irrelevant, you can't trivialize the amount of effort required for them.
 
LOL, I thought that too about the zombies. But I guess it wouldn't be very fun or difficult if all the zombies moved at a snail's pace. It'd be funny if you could do like in Shaun of the Dead and move really slow and act like a zombie yourself to try to make it to a safe room.

Difficulty is relative. On veteran, L4D is pretty damn hard, but regardless, the amount of hand holding is second to none; infinite pistol ammo? "Wall hacks" to see your allies? Safe rooms with piles of infinite ammo?

I bet if you were to scale back the hand holding (ie make ammunition scarce) massive hordes of slow zombies shuffling around with occasional spider monkeys would be pretty fun. Or hell, they can get their "crescendo" moments by increasing the tempo to ape shit zombie hordes that we're used to.
 
i guess we will have to wait til its release to make any kind of judgement call on wether or not valve screwed up with releasing this so earlier. It could be big improvement or big flop
we will have to wait and see
 
Taking out Expert and Advanced difficulty VS modes in L4D pretty much killed VS for me, after that it was just a glorified griefing environment.
 
The first part of my post was about what the director does. The later half was about the complexity of AI programming in general, which is what the director is. And it ended with what I thought was an amusing anecdote of how great AI programming or an AI bug made a game experience better for me.

Okay. I was under the impression the Director only decided on when to send out the zombies, tanks, witches, etc and didn't control each creature's individual A.I.
 
Yea they need some flying shit in the game, or crazy little jumping monkeys. I think if you had to point up to the air sometimes that would be crazy. Something like a big bird that picks you up and seperates you, then drops you off into a horde of zombies.
 
Yea they need some flying shit in the game, or crazy little jumping monkeys. I think if you had to point up to the air sometimes that would be crazy. Something like a big bird that picks you up and seperates you, then drops you off into a horde of zombies.

That would be funny as hell :D
 
Maybe I'm different, but I'm not boycotting it per say, I just refuse to be hoodwinked into paying $45 for another half-finished game that will be <$30 during a Steam sale within two months. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me ;). When the game is <$25 I might pick it up.
 
I put in a shitload of hours in to L4D. Why? because its fun. Said it once before and I'll say it again, good friends make this fun.

If you look at repetitive and simple what isn't???

COD4??? Wowcrack??? Bejeweled??? Peggle???

The subtle changes valve has done, updates which included survival and the recent crash course, game tweaks and bug fixes for a year now. I mean come on now, you guys make it sound like you can come up with fun games like it was a weekend project. Between the continual support and updates TF2 gets and what L4D gets, these 2 games are probably the best I've seen in a long time.
 
I was in Target the other day and there was a young mother in front of me in the checkout line. Her daughter kept screaming, "I want a slushie, you said I could have one!" The mother responds back calmly, "I'm sorry but not now." The child goes into turbo-obnoxious mode demanding that she is promised a slushie for next time. The mother just stares at her and shouts, "I don't have to promise you anything!"

Terrible analogy, but it somehow fits. Just a little.

Parent of the fucking year. Hands down. (Yes, I'm serious)
 
Maybe I'm different, but I'm not boycotting it per say, I just refuse to be hoodwinked into paying $45 for another half-finished game that will be <$30 during a Steam sale within two months. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me ;). When the game is <$25 I might pick it up.

what about $33.74 with a steam preorder 4 pack ?
 
i preordered l4d, probably played a total of 4 hours before i got bored.

Ill still be suckered into buying l4d2, but ill definitely be waiting for a 19.99/29.99 deal in the future.
 
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