Left 4 Dead 2's Price Results in Community Backlash

[Shawn Zipay]

Immediately coming on the heels of Valve's announcement of Left 4 Dead 2 and how it will be a "full-priced title", the community began to boycott the game and Valve. The group, L4D2 Boycott, is now sitting at about 6,200 members and growing.

The few people here who defend the decision to make L4D2 seem to not understand what everyone is upset about. I've tried to summarize the most common issues I've heard people having in hopes that it clears things up:

• Significant content for L4D1 was promised, and never delivered
• Valve put little faith in L4D1 since they almost certainly started working on L4D2 right after release
• The fact that L4D2 is nearly identical to L4D1 will decimate the community for both games
• The announced date is not nearly enough time to polish content or make significant gameplay changes
• The new character designs seem bland and unappealing so far
• L4D2 is too bright to fit in with L4D1's visual aesthetic
• The fiddle-based horde music is extremely disliked, though the differently orchestrated music is otherwise welcome
• L4D2's release will result in a drop in quality and frequency for L4D1 content, even compared to before
• The community has lost faith in Valve's former reputation for commitment to their games post-release

An article at ModDB highlights the point that Left 4 Dead 2 will apparently go for full price. This means that the PC version will be in the neighborhood of $49.99 and the Xbox 360 version will probably retail for $59.99. To compare, Team Fortress 2 is currently $19.99 through Steam.

This will certainly be a point of community complaint for many, many months to come.

[Ev!L ErN!E]

Re: Left 4 Dead 2's Price Results in Community Backlash

fuck l4d2, I agree with the boycott... Valve really needs to learn to finish one project before starting another one, plain and simple... and maybe a hurt in sales for L4D2 is just what these dumb ass's need.

[_Shorty]

Re: Left 4 Dead 2's Price Results in Community Backlash

If only we were allowed to choose what we buy. That would be pretty cool.

[aras_se]

Re: Left 4 Dead 2's Price Results in Community Backlash

joined! I dont like the new L4D feel at all.. colorful, bright and textures are all so cartoonish and shiny. Whats up with Valve, they nailed it with L4D1.. and its not like that game's graphic is outdated or anything..and game content like weapons and maps can always be added.

[Joerdgs]

Re: Left 4 Dead 2's Price Results in Community Backlash

I disagree with all of them. Like they said in an earlier interview; the designers still had a lot of ideas laying around, enough to make a sequel out of. I agree that it does come a bit quick, and yeah, I also worry about the support for the first L4D after this game comes. But I fucking TRUST Valve because they ALWAYS make great games and updates.

And for gods sake, stop bitching about the prize! Every year there's a full-priced Call of Duty in stores that adds less than L4D2 will add to L4D, and I'm not hearing anyone bitch because of that. If you're still too poor just wait for a price-drop on Steam.

[Speirs001]

Re: Left 4 Dead 2's Price Results in Community Backlash

you need to understand yhr good valve we know and love doesnt really do left4dead, turtle rock studios does (which is now a part of valve) and even Gabe question doing a sequel to l4d less than a year later.

from interview at http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2...uel-to-ars.ars

"the team brought their concepts and ideas to create a sequel to Gabe Newell, and even he was skeptical about the idea. According to Faliszek, he expressed his doubts, and claimed this move was against the character of the company. "To Gabe's credit, and he's a great guy to work for, he said if this is what you want to do, if this is what you're excited about, go do it."

so i guess the turtle rock fuckers just pestered gabe until they got what they wanted.

it looks like this sequel will be a flop like turtle rocks other work
*cough* Counter-Strike:CZ

[Joerdgs]

Re: Left 4 Dead 2's Price Results in Community Backlash

There is no more Turtle Rock Studios, they're now Valve too. Both ex-Turtle Rock employees and Valve employees are working on this (as said in the interview, the development team even increased after release). Gabe finally approved of this sequel, but he had his doubts because he probably foresaw that the community would bitch about it.

[nemes1s3000]

Re: Left 4 Dead 2's Price Results in Community Backlash

And Gabe's visions are correct, what the fuck were they thinking coming up with this full priced and half assed game. Same shit happened with Condition Zero after Counter-Strike was born, Valve needs to stop taking these weird advices from ex-Turtle Rock employees.

Count me in, I'm joining that group. Hopefully it'll knock some god damn sense into them. I'm over L4D, I need my HL fix now. Been 2 freakin years since we heard anything about Episode 3, and honestly is this the way they want to display EPISODIC CONTENT?!

[Joerdgs]

Re: Left 4 Dead 2's Price Results in Community Backlash

Great to see you guys make more fuss about a quality Valve game than any crappy full-priced game. This community is so short-sighted.

[Linux]

Re: Left 4 Dead 2's Price Results in Community Backlash

I really could careless if I pay full price on the game... Looks like it will be fun and I'm supporting one of my favorite dev. company... If you don't like the idea don't buy it, no one is putting a gun to your head to force you to buy the game. And I believe there will always be support for L4D. I think its a bit too soon to make rash hard views on the game when it isn't coming out for another couple months.
Also I never see anyone complain about CoD line of games that come out almost every year. Just sit back and enjoy the ride and if you don't like it then don't buy the new game simple as that. I'm sure if it will be discounted or half price by the time it comes around...

[Munra]

Re: Left 4 Dead 2's Price Results in Community Backlash

you are short sighted

imo

Its not the fact its l4d2 it the fact they want to charge full price for the same game. I don't think this should be a free DLC. I would pay 20-30 dollars for it no problem.

Do you understand what the source engine is?

l4d1 and 2 both run on the same version of source. The levels are made using the same tools and they pretty much just made new models and maps which any good mod team could do in the same amount of time.

The real big difference is the AI dir 2.0 which will work with l4d one maps. I know this with the simple logic if community maps work for either game then the original maps will work with either game.

So whats the difference in this and a good mod for the game? Nothing

[BicyclMan]

Re: Left 4 Dead 2's Price Results in Community Backlash

I just figured out a plus to all of this:

I mean holy cow. For the first time I noticed that people are ACTUALLY chatting and using VOICE to discuss this in that Steam group.

I counted 43 people chatting and 4 of them USING VOICE. It seems to work well.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/L4D2boycott

[BicyclMan]

Re: Left 4 Dead 2's Price Results in Community Backlash

Just surpassed 8000 members.

[peagle]

Re: Left 4 Dead 2's Price Results in Community Backlash

Been 2 freakin years since we heard anything about Episode 3, and honestly is this the way they want to display EPISODIC CONTENT?!

Have to admit, Gabe's objective (or whomever's, my memory is now foggy on the subject it's been so long) to publish episodes every 6 months or so has been entirely laughable. For the company that successfully launched the new paradigm of a streaming online content delivery system, they surely do have problems realizing some of their other concepts and content.

[kalabalana]

Re: Left 4 Dead 2's Price Results in Community Backlash

Just to clarify this for everyone, this is an issue of Valve South, which is one guy who used to run Turtle Rock Studios, and a shit load of contractors.

These guys fucked up, Valve has no clue how to deal with the situation, and hopefully will be less open to Valve South's "idea's" [cashgrabs] in the future.

I'm hoping they polish the L4D DLC up nice, and stop calling it this "sequel" and give it to us customers. Hell I'll even pay for it, but don't tell me it's worth over $30, and don't fucking even pretend it's a different game from L4D.

I mean FUCK, you haven't even released the L4D SDK, and there's a SEQUEL coming out!?