June 1st, 2009, the day I lost faith in Valve. Left 4 Dead 2 was announced and I was in utter disbelief. I come home from a hard days work and start reading the rants on my twitter stream about a Left 4 Dead 2 and I could feel the anger that they were feeling. Announced seven months after the original, and to be released one year after the original at full retail price of $50, that’s just not something Valve does.
Historically, Valve takes a long time to do any sequel but they make good games. Take Team Fortress 2 for example, I bought it bundled with the Orange Box only because I wanted episode 2. Everything else was just extras I was willing to pay for. I bought Orange Box for $45 and would have at the time, valued Episode 2 at $25, Portal at $15 and Team Fortress 2 itself at the full $45 because that was how fun and non beta like the game was. Team Fortress 2 felt like everything that needed to be there was there, all the classes felt balanced and there didn’t feel like a need to patch anything.
In the first six months of Team Fortress 2, the Medic unlocks were being released along with the new mode, Payload with the map Gold Rush. There were countless custom maps made, both horrible and good, and communities were founded around the game.
With Left 4 Dead, I have yet to join any custom server with any custom map nor do I intend to. With the server browser hidden away you can’t discover new maps to try out and the Left 4 Dead steam forums only talk about the Valve created maps, not any custom maps or any discussion for the custom maps. With the lobby process, there are no ties to any particular server unless the players know a private one from their own community before playing Left 4 Dead.
I could tell right away in the first week of the game that unless custom maps were released in a few months, people playing the game would be burned out from knowing all the maps inside out, with no important variable change. That’s why I liked the random tank and witch encounters and always playing survivor. You never knew what was waiting around the corner and you were always excited. Once Valve removed the luck variable, the games just started to drag and I started getting frustrated more and more with the minor bugs and glitches that would cause me to die.
By the time the Survival DLC was added in late April, I had already grown tired and burned out with Left 4 Dead. The new survival mode just didn’t draw me in and felt like a cheap add on where they just lock you in a room and turn on panic mode forever. The new Versus maps just felt too limited in spaces for infected to hide or attack from, unfinished in numerous out of bounds walls and ceilings, unbalanced towards the survivors, and today still feature the bug that lets infected players spawn before the survivors even leave the safe room.
It feels like Valve already know they’ve missed the prime time for Left 4 Dead 1. For me, the first six months of a game determines its worth. Left4Dead was not worth the $45 I paid to beta test this game for the past 7 months. Suggestions the players put in, the bugs they’ve found, will of course carry over into the sequel. Left 4 Dead feels more like a $25 game and the Survival pack does not cut it with the two versus maps should have been in since the start.
By saving the content they had planned in the original for a sequel, they can jump start their failed game after spending all these months gathering data from all the beta testers. Plus, it is for the console market which has no understanding of expansion packs. They’ve been exposed only to yearly sequels thanks to EA and apparently enjoy buying the same game over and over every year.
Left To Hang
For PC gamers, we actually remember when extra missions, monsters, characters, weapons were in expansion packs and only recently did games seem to start offering expansion pack content as free updates with the proliferation of broadband connections in households.
If Left 4 Dead 2 were priced as an expansion, I would gladly buy it, but at full retail price as if it were an entirely new game? That’s just shows to me that Valve is turning into the money hogging sequel every year publisher that EA has become.
Valve had initially announced similar update plans for Left 4 Dead as Team Fortress 2 such as new maps, new weapons, and new unlocks but with the Left 4 Dead 2 announcement, we learn that the team immediately focused resources into creating a sequel instead of using the resources to add onto the life of the original. If the new content were planned for the original, and they knew it would be a large increase in content, why not plan for an expansion instead of continually developing content which they knew would never make it into the original game for free.
If I had a choice, I would say keep the new characters, melee, special infected, and locational damage for the common infected to the sequel, but bring over the campaign and other weapon types.
Anyways, knowing Valve/Turtle Rock Studios, either Left 4 Dead 2 will be shipped as a beta like Left 4 Dead 1 or it will be delayed to Summer 2010.
Below is a link to the Boycott Left 4 Dead 2 Steam community and a few videos with player’s reactions to the announcement.
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/L4D2boycott
