I want a story... an actual story

[Mutley]

I've played L4D religiously for the last couple of weeks.

But something makes me a little sad inside... I've actual got to 'like' the characters as people but they are still nobodys.

I would really like a proper story, to background the characters, who are they? How did they meet? What's the story about the whole zombie apocalypse? How did the government and civilians respond?... is it worldwide? How many survivors?... I NEED MORE.

Anyone else feel the same? I just think they've got a really good base for an awesome real story mode (especially with the guys at Valve behind them).

 

[Jintor]

Yes.

I feel what you feel in relation to L4D and its lack of true story.

 

[hool10]

There was roughly an hour of intro quality videos through the entire game! The reason it vanished was that Valve said they like to do the Portal theme or lazy writers (that's the real reason). They actually said that after you leave No Mercy hospital your pilot turns infected and the helicopter crashes. This starts off Death Toll and all these campaigns had a video starting and ending to link the levels together. I think it goes like No Mercy>DeathToll>Blood Harvest>Dead Air. It's also the reason why you see No Mercy on fire from the other side of the lake because the Air Force bombed it. They said they were going to tell more of the stories through DLC but it's still not enough story. People can't understand why there isn't an option in the menu to disable/enable the videos. Also the playtesters got sad for the characters when they didn't make it which again is the retarded playtesters partially ruining a Valve game.

 

[Jintor]

Sauce plz.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

I read most of those things Hool did from loads of places, I don't think you can put your finger on a single source. Gabe talked about the helicopter crashing in a lot of the playtesting videos prior to launch, I really would have liked those videos interlacing the campaigns together. I completely agree that the lack of substance with regard to story does make the zombie slaughter slightly empty. I have no affinity to any of the characters at the moment. Maybe we will see changes in the upcoming update.

 

[hool10]

Sauce plz.

I can't find it but they said as much as 40+ min of CGI videos. This is in the dev commentary:

?Doug Wood: We experimented with a variety of different introductions for each campaign. For "No Mercy", we tried a 40-second fly-in of the helicopter to give the player a more movie-like introduction to the game. Ultimately, we found that such elaborate cut scenes are hard to watch over and over in a game that's built for replayability. Playtesters wanted to get into the game and start playing right away, so we ended up going with a much more streamlined game intro.?

Why could'nt they do it like TF2 and their cut scenes? :hmph: They cater to the ADHD kids who just want to rush like Rambo of course. Also the merit/demerit system?

A persistent merit/demerit system was envisioned to provide positive feedback for good behavior, such as aiding a fallen teammate; and negative feedback for poor behavior, such as shooting a teammate. This would provide a score to rank a player's effectiveness as a teammate,[34] but this system was removed late in the development of the game in favor of immediate, non-persistent feedback displayed in-game.

For more on that system, go here: http://www.left4dead411.com/left-4-dead-preview-pg7 So now we got Tk'ers, etc. Oh yeah there was a ton of stuff cut out just like Hunters going invisible but that was a good cut. *Ah here is some people on L4D411 talking about those cut scenes: http://www.left4dead411.com/forums/index.php?action=vthread&forum=2&topic=7835

 

[CyberPitz]

Sauce plz.

Open up L4D, select Extras, click "Developer Commentary".
*EDIT* Damn you Hool, you little shit.

 

[alehm]

There has to be a happy medium. I agree with Valve that people don't want to see the same long cutscene over and over when starting a campaign from the begining but obviously a lot of us want more story.

 

[knut]

I think they should release a collection of Meet The... style videos of each character, showing a montage of their life in the 2/3 weeks from Infection until where you would start playing from. It could show Louis (for example) at work, then his first contact with zombies, his early survival mishaps with other, perhaps more people. His run in with a special infected, some more scenarios, his encounter with one, or all, of the other main survivors, and then the video could end at say, the start of Dead Air, because I'm pretty sure each campaign is meant to be standalone so it might be kind of cool to give each character a different 'day', as it were.

That's what I think would be pretty awesome, anyway. Change the character for each one, the settings, the theme (Louis in his workplace to start, Zoey in college/uni, etc) and then throw in a mangled story into the midst much like they have with the writings on the wall.

 

[Mutley]

But every game I play you can just skip the cutscenes if you don't want to watch them. Sounds like they already did a lot of work on this, why scrap it?

I never knew the Storys interlinked, that sounds awesome. I want it more now!

 

[knut]

I'm not sure I like the idea of the stories being linked. Seems a bit predictable to have a case of bad luck happen after each campaign. Helicopter pick up, oh noes we're crashing, zombie slaughter, boat rescue, or noez we're sinking... I much prefer each campaign being a new day and one day only, as if the other campaigns didn't exist to the characters. That said, I like the idea of seeing No Mercy from across the lake in Death Toll. Is that actually in the game, or is it cut? I've not played the finale of DT in a long time.

I'm sure Valve could of wrote up a reasonable explanation for each one and maybe make it a little more interesting than that, so I guess I'm easy for either, really.

 

[Omnomnick]

there should be an option to skip them or turn them off.

Press Space bar to Skip. [_] [_] [_] [_]

 

[hool10]

Ya at the end of the level, you get the rolling credits with the stats. It blatantly says "Press Spacebar to skip". They can do that with the credits but not the cut scenes? There was also supposed to be "Meet the.." videos for the Survivors as well! Well only that they put it as the intro but Evo put the source in his blog: http://evo-gamer.com/2008/07/11/meet-the-left-4-dead-survivors/ Zoey is actually a college student but you can find out the bios on the XBOX 360 manual ONLY: http://www.scribd.com/doc/7999985/Left-4-Dead-Xbox-360-Manual It's page 6 and the PC version gets the HL2 reference card. *People say that Francis is a Hells Angels biker and it makes sense that the other 3 treat him like trash because of that.

 

[Fiberawptic]

Ya know, ive always thought it would be pretty sweet if they gave the game not so much an intense and complex story, but just some kinda backdrop that we can only learn about if we read whats written on the walls, or what the characters say to each other. Rather than just find out "The military isnt coming to save us!", we should learn why the infection happend, whose responsible, why we have to escape. Again, this wouldnt be fed to our face, we would have to learn about it on our own, but if they gave us like the name of a corporation, a date of the outbreak, and historical stuff like that, it would make the game more meaningful and interesting.

I resepct the George Romero take on the story and keep it simple and unknown, but give the fans a little something to create fan-fiction to.

 

[ríomhaire]

I love writing on the wall storytelling.

 

[Fiberawptic]

I love writing on the wall storytelling.

I know rite? Me too, but i hope they take a step further, and actually tell what the hell happend to the damn world, not just say "dont go to chicago" (where i live uh oh ).

Anyone notice how at the bottom of all those flyers in the safe room that say like "Biohazard" or "warning, infected area" have a logo at the bottom with the acrinim CEDA. That could be our Umbrella corp right there! Stuff like that ya know?

 

[Mutley]

Francis
Cocky, loud, and pretty sure he?s indestructible, Francis acts like the zombie apocalypse is the world?s biggest bar fi ght. When the virus hit, everybody else stockpiled food and looked for a place to hide. Francis found a gun and had some fun. No cops, no laws, no order?if it wasn?t for all the zombies, he could almost get used to life like this.

Bill
It took two eventful tours in Vietnam, a handful of medals, a knee full of shrapnel, and an honorable discharge before the unthinkable happened: Bill ran out of wars. But now an army of infected undead has declared war on humanity. After decades of aimless drifting and dead-end jobs, Bill?s finally gotten back the only thing he ever wanted: An enemy to fight.

Louis
Louis had been working up the courage to quit his job as Junior Systems Analyst at hiscompany?s IT department when a virus showed up and downsized the world. Now Louis has a new set of goals (live long enough to succeed) and a new set of tools (guns, sharp objects) to help him achieve them. With any luck, he?ll fi gure out how the new management operates before they get a chance to murder him.

Zoey
After spending her fi rst semester holed up in a dorm room watching old horror movies, Zoey was given a choice: Stop fooling around and get her grades up, or drop out. Now that the planet?s overrun with murderous zombies, and all of her professors are dead, Zoey at least has the cold comfort that she?s been studying up on the right subject after all.

From 360 Manual, interesting but I still want more... MORE!

 

[Jintor]

I want a manual for my Steam version. ;__;

Maybe with enough fan pressure we can bug Valve enough to stick all that stuff back in. : >

 

[Gordon-Shepherd]

I want a manual for my Steam version. ;__;

http://www.l4d.com/survivors.htm
Same stuff.
As close as you're gonna get.

But every game I play you can just skip the cutscenes if you don't want to watch them. Sounds like they already did a lot of work on this, why scrap it?

exactly! I blame stupid, stupid testers.
I don't see why the cutscenes can't be brought back as DLC. The general consensus seems to be that it would be awesome to have them and all those cut lines (I have a list of lines that were cut from the game because of the extra story being cut, if you guys want me to copypaste them)

Also this is the definitive thread for the l4d story. there are still clues as to how the campaigns interlinked, and this gathers and explains them well.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=759074

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=754726
various fluff, but quite fun.

 

[Fiberawptic]

http://www.l4d.com/survivors.htm
Same stuff.
As close as you're gonna get.



exactly! I blame stupid, stupid testers.
I don't see why the cutscenes can't be brought back as DLC. The general consensus seems to be that it would be awesome to have them and all those cut lines (I have a list of lines that were cut from the game because of the extra story being cut, if you guys want me to copypaste them)

Also this is the definitive thread for the l4d story. there are still clues as to how the campaigns interlinked, and this gathers and explains them well.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=759074

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=754726
various fluff, but quite fun.

Since when did they have actual cutscenes besides the intro? never. They only had really long intro sequences for each campaign. But nothing interesting. They were basically the same thing we have now except longer and more tedious. They just shortened them down. I.E, the No merci intro originally was following the helicoper for a good 60 seconds into the city setting, and then zoom away towards the survivors... they never had extra cutscenes like the intro scene when you boot up the game, and if they did, they were in the first stage and they just quit.

 

[bbson john]

Since there is so much time showing the cast at the ending of the campaigns, why not putting the intro of the next campaign at the end of the other campaign?

 

[Paulaner]

A nasty virus spreaded throughout the nation. Everyone got sick and, after a few days, turned into a zombie. Someone is immune to the disease.
End of the story

 

[ríomhaire]

I know rite? Me too, but i hope they take a step further, and actually tell what the hell happend to the damn world, not just say "dont go to chicago" (where i live uh oh ).

Anyone notice how at the bottom of all those flyers in the safe room that say like "Biohazard" or "warning, infected area" have a logo at the bottom with the acrinim CEDA. That could be our Umbrella corp right there! Stuff like that ya know?

I think I saw a poster with what CEDA actually stands for on it, but it's been a while since I got to play the game so I don't remember what it actually stands for, but I think it's just L4D's version of FEMA.

 

[Gordon-Shepherd]

Since when did they have actual cutscenes besides the intro? never. They only had really long intro sequences for each campaign. But nothing interesting. They were basically the same thing we have now except longer and more tedious. They just shortened them down. I.E, the No merci intro originally was following the helicoper for a good 60 seconds into the city setting, and then zoom away towards the survivors... they never had extra cutscenes like the intro scene when you boot up the game, and if they did, they were in the first stage and they just quit.

source?

 

[Eejit]

I think cutting big opening scenes was a good decision. Even if they are skippable it'd be a pita to have a couple of randoms on your team who just -have- to watch them the whole way through every time.

 

[Sheepo]

I love writing on the wall storytelling.

I remember the first time I saw "Better safe then sorry" and was all D:

I always imagined the campaigns connected up until the game was released. But when you think about it, it would be pretty ridiculous to have crashed or stopped three times before you actually get to safety.

 

[Pesmerga]

Read a book.

 

[V-Man339]

Are you a bad enough dude(t) to survive the zombie apoclypse?

How's that?

 

[Fiberawptic]

source?

One of the first commentary nodes on No Merci. Explains that they had long intro sequences which were just boring and long versions of what we alreayd get with each campaign.

But the idea that they had lots of cutscenes for the game all done and everything but just didnt release them is utter bs until i get a GOOD source :dork:

 

[Jintor]

Central... (Environmental?) Disaster Agency?

Another way to make it more realisitc would be to have different surivors, but that might just make more problems. xD

 

[ríomhaire]

Civil Emergency and Disaster Agency or something. I don't remember.

 

[DerbyDriver1985]

There was roughly an hour of intro quality videos through the entire game! The reason it vanished was that Valve said they like to do the Portal theme or lazy writers (that's the real reason). They actually said that after you leave No Mercy hospital your pilot turns infected and the helicopter crashes. This starts off Death Toll and all these campaigns had a video starting and ending to link the levels together. I think it goes like No Mercy>DeathToll>Blood Harvest>Dead Air. It's also the reason why you see No Mercy on fire from the other side of the lake because the Air Force bombed it. They said they were going to tell more of the stories through DLC but it's still not enough story. People can't understand why there isn't an option in the menu to disable/enable the videos. Also the playtesters got sad for the characters when they didn't make it which again is the retarded playtesters partially ruining a Valve game.

Hey, here's a tip:

Your opinion isn't fact just because you feel strongly about it.

Lazy writers? Maybe you've missed the gallons of atmospheric story telling throughout the game. The warnings in the airport about wearing your masks... the burnt out buildings elsewhere in the city skyline.. of course all of the graffiti.. various signs and messages detailing the progression of the infection, like the sign at Burger Tank saying "Closed Due to Sickness".

That's a hell of a lot of story here, you're just not putting the pieces together to understand it.

As far as intro videos, sure I'd be happy if they were brought back, but ONLY included in Single player mode. I do not want to be forced to sit through an intro video in co-op or VS just because 1 lame teammate decided not to cancel it out.

 

[Pesmerga]

Holy shit, it's a zombie apocalypse. Not that much to go into depth with. If they even tried exposing the characters any more, they'd automatically lose all appeal. Their character design and their voice actions are supposed to tell you everything you need to know about them. Seriously, do you want like, flash backs or dialogue between characters or something?

It's not a story driven game, it's a gameplay driven game. hurf durf about an actual narrative all you want but you'll never, ever get it because Valve isn't composed of retards.

 

[the cow says moo]

^he's right. The employees at Valve are all wonderful geniuses.

 

[Reginald]

In the church, there is a huge list of the dead. The earliest death on the wall is something like October 2008. The latest death on there is November 2009.

With No Mercy being two weeks since the outbreak, how come it's suddenly November 2009 or later only two campaigns later? :x

 

[ChiliFan]

I think they're all October 2009.

 

[Reginald]

*goes to check*

You are correct. But isn't there a reference to 2008 at some other point in the game? No?