L4D2 - Top 10 Concerns

It's nice to see concerns that are well thought out and presented, as opposed to some of the butthurt blurtouts read over here from some (some, not all.)

I'll never quite get peoples problem with the atmosphere change. L4D was set at night time but let's not kid ourselves here, the game is lit up at every point so that the gameplay works, much like 'night' in a film is lit up. In no way, shape or form, at least in my opinion, did the fact No Mercy or Death Toll is set during later hours change the game for me. The sky is dark yeah, but visibility is still pretty much 100%. I'm not trying to speak for everyone here but honestly, does it really bother people, or scare them? I think alot of people seem to be in the mindset that an apocalypse - a viral infectious one, no less - seems to have some sort of effect on the weather. The sun still shines several hours a day, of course, and lets not forget that we've seen one out of five campaigns. They might all be pitch black for all we know.

Hiding a smoker in broad daylight... please, you couldn't even hide a Smoker in the darkest of corners of Death Toll; they let off a cloud of yellow pores for christs sake. Hunters could hide in shadows but even they are rare and few between and there's a four flashlights bouncing in every direction. I'm really scratching my head about these complaints.
 
Not impressed with the article. No im not a fanboy all over Valves dick, and i myself have some skepticism towards L4D2, but that article was complaining about minuscule things or things we can't make the assumption of until after the entire final game has been released.

Like complaining the survivors are boring is stupid, valve has only demoed a fraction of the game and im sure they are gonna develop the characters more in the future. its too early to judge on that. i remember being afraid that the original left 4 dead survivors were gonna be akward like before they turned Francis into a comedic biker who always complains about everything and was just a more cliche biker dude with a beard and fat belly...
 
I'm thinking it will be a good game, keep the same game mechanics and just add on to it and I'll buy it. I have a feeling they will be released over XLA as well and as an extension for L4D on Steam. Hopefully I'll have it in a box though, I don't have Live.

I'm actually really, really excited for L4D2. I find the daylight level we've seen actually creepier than any of the campaigns in L4D (Would it be L4D1 now? Who knows...)
 
700 dumb posts.
 
Get the **** off this forum.
 
I'm with Barnz.

The concerns of the Steampowered forums mean nothing. They are rabid morons.

NOTHING

If this was the direction that L4D had taken, I would be like 'man, this looks a bit weird, I'm not so sure about this'.
 
It's a well written article. Some of the points are a bit dumb, but those are few.

Personally, I enjoy jazz and southern music, so I'll have no problem with the orchestration. I can certainly see why others may dislike it though.

It's just not as scary to be pounced upon by a hunter in broad daylight, in an atmosphere which features far fewer shelters of darkness for such creatures to lie in wait.
L4D is not a scary game. Scariness is for slow games, which isn't Left 4 Dead. For any player who has played FPS's just a little bit, enemies are spotted nearly instantly when they are in visibility, no matter if it's the No Mercy subway or a very bright area.
The biggest concern with this upgrade is that the maps themselves may come to seem much less like real locations. It remains to be seen whether the map randomization feature will be on level with a Hellgate-style f*ck-up with bland repeating corridors and featureless layouts or whether the maps will be as organic and realistic as one created by dedicated map designer.

Beyond the randomization, the daylight atmosphere removes the contrast between light and shadow, and it is feared that the only way for players to navigate through these maps is by being funnelled through an extremely linear map, rather than intuitively running towards lighted, or safe-looking areas in a wide open area.
This is very true. Probably the wisest thing in that article.

EDIT: And I agree, the Steampowered User Forums are filled to the rim with stupidity.
 
I'm thinking it will be a good game, keep the same game mechanics and just add on to it and I'll buy it. I have a feeling they will be released over XLA as well and as an extension for L4D on Steam. Hopefully I'll have it in a box though, I don't have Live.

I'm actually really, really excited for L4D2. I find the daylight level we've seen actually creepier than any of the campaigns in L4D (Would it be L4D1 now? Who knows...)

.....But....wait.....Huh? They are already complaining and sending Valve "How can you do it better" posts when the game was just ANNOUNCED THE OTHER DAY? Oh boy, I hate gamers sometimes.
 
Okay, I just found out what my major concern about the game is.

The wandering witch will make CR0WNING harder.
 
I really dont see the need for a sequel so soon!

All the content that seems to be in L4D2 looks like it could just be in DLC updates for L4D. I mean i'm perfectly fine to pay for a full priced sequel, but when it's released just 12months after the original and looks pretty much just the same.. I start to wonder whether its worth the money. Also, money aside, i'm fairly confident that i'll pick up Modern Warfare 2 in November (even though I have the prequel), but then Infinity Ward will have twice the time to develop the game than Valve will, and correct me if i'm wrong, but im betting that they'll have more people working on it too.

I've also read that Valve have said they'll continue to support L4D after L4D2s release? Not sure if this is true or not, but if it is true, it will mean updates for L4D2 will be slower and it might even affect the time it takes for other Valve products to be released.

Highly doubt i'll be picking this up on release day.
 
I hope that you will be able to play as the original survivors.
You know, mix them up or something. That'd be cool.
 
I feel like I'm the only one who much prefers the setting and characters of Left 4 Dead 2, not that I enjoy the idea of paying another $50 when I feel like the first game never got the attention it deserved.
 
Im still exited about L4D2 and all, And i think the Conman looks pretty cool. but I don't really have the money to pay full price in the. Money will be tight this year. I might wait for a sweet weekend deal or something.
 
Im still exited about L4D2 and all, And i think the Conman looks pretty cool. but I don't really have the money to pay full price in the. Money will be tight this year. I might wait for a sweet weekend deal or something.

The game isn't out til Nov, man. Just put aside like a dollar a week or something. It'll be worth it. :p
 
I feel like I'm the only one who much prefers the setting and characters of Left 4 Dead 2, not that I enjoy the idea of paying another $50 when I feel like the first game never got the attention it deserved.
I'm with you on that one. Although it was nice to have a black guy without a deep voice for once, the characters in L4D2 seem a lot more interesting and... well, characterised. At least at first glance. I can't wait to see what sunny rag-time zombie apocalypses are like.

I don't mind paying another $50 though. I feel like I got my playtime out of L4D at this point, having played all the campaigns in Versus more than a few times. If L4D2 is as well-balanced and varied as it should be, then the price is fine with me.
 
Here's why I'm skeptical on L4D2

1) Characters are ridiculously annoying. Pretty much the only one with a "normal" voice is Uncle Phil. Everyone else has some sort of retarded voice/accent combination that just grates in my head. Seriously, I watched this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMYJ7LakCyE&feature=related and listen to 2:40... I live in Texas and if everyone sounded like that I would kill myself, or them, depending on which is easier.

2) Terrible setting/map design: L4D maps were very nicely detailed and atmospheric. L4D2 looks like a fan-made community project. Barren environments lacking any sort of atmosphere, the graphics look a lot worse too. The darkness of L4D actually made it look better, as it helped hide a lot of the flaws of the Source engine. This new game makes them blatantly evident.

3) New weapons that aren't "new": The silenced SMG is a reskinned UZI, the SPAS is a reskinned autoshotty, yet they call them new weapons. Sure, every other game does this, but Valve was always better than that. The new melee mechanics are pretty bad, for a touted new feature. Re-used TF2 animations/sounds, no new mechanics added. The only cool thing I saw is that zombies lost some limbs when you use the axe.

4) Sounds and Music: Sound plays a major part in games, specially this one. L4D sound was great in all aspects. Then they throw this... thing at us where hordes are accompanied by some sort of mutant hillbilly benny hill song, all the while the main characters are talking about horses and cowboys and eating gumbo.

5) The charger: Overalls? Really? Does anyone even wear overalls anymore?

6) Lack of new content: This is perhaps the biggest reason people are upset about the game. I'm not upset about L4D lacking content or whatever. We bought the game and knew full well what it came with. Yes we sort of expected a little more content from Valve given their track record, but that has nothing to do with L4D2. The problem with L4D2 is that as soon as you slap a "2" at the end of your game, the expectations for what should be in it increase exponentially. You don't just give people more of the same, you have to mix it up with some significantly new features, or at least a new engine/improved graphics.

As it stands, L4D2 just looks like more of the same, and really, what's the point of getting it if the same content could be obtained in the form of community made maps?

You may think "So then just don't buy L4D2 and play your 'community maps', why do you care??".

If the world worked a different way that might be alright. However, Valve announcing a stand-alone sequel does several things: Firstly, it makes mod developers not want to work on the "old game" because they know they'll be wasting their time. A year is not a significant amount of time to work on a mod, and they just released the SDK (not even all of it). Secondly, it splinters the community. You'll either have people who feel like they MUST get the new game because otherwise they won't be able to continue playing with the community, or you'll have people who are adamant about not paying for the expansion pack. This results in two smaller communities, with one doomed to die from lack of updates/attention. Finally, L4D is from now on going to be a stagnant community. No significant amount of new purchases will be made anymore, because really, who wants to buy a game that is essentially doomed to be a wasteland in a year? A multiplayer game at that, where players are an integral part of the game.

These are just some of the reasons why I'm very skeptical about this.
 
Man, let it go now. The original Left 4 Dead was so bare bones, so simple im amazed it took longer than a year. The second one will do fine as long as they balanced it out well.

Thats what mp games really require and it shouldnt be too hard seeing as how they have the original as a template. This is not a dire outlook
 
Talking about atmosphere, I think the daytime Orleans campaign is perfectly fine. It is because zombies do not come out only at night. If a group of survivors has to survive a night time apocalypse, surely they have to survive it in day time. A city can still look like deserted under bright sunlight as long as the map is created with thoughts and details. I'd like to see diversity, rather than stereotyped dark, foggy environment.

Within the passage, 4,3,1 are my only concerns. I believe the game itself must be executed with high quality. It is Valve after all. Quality should not be our concern. Yet, I believe it will be better if there are more play tests before the game's actual release, like what Valve used to do.

Although L4D2 was said to be released on November, it is still Valve, who knows?
 
I am amazed at the tempered responses on the pros and cons for L4D2 here.

If any of you guys pop in at the L4D/L4D2 steam forums it is high emotion/deliberate mis-information/insult anyone with a differing opinion over there. It's actually like a small band of the same people cranking out 90% of the threads and going into other threads not their own and hyjacking them.
 
I think people have always expect Valve sequels to revolutionise the game in some way. Half-Life 2 was a huge improvement over Half-Life in many ways and Team Fortress 2 was radically different to Team-Fortress while Left4Dead 2 isn't. Valve have always tried to make the sequels better in nearly every way yet somehow it doesn't feel that way with L4D2.
 
I think people have always expect Valve sequels to revolutionise the game in some way. Half-Life 2 was a huge improvement over Half-Life in many ways and Team Fortress 2 was radically different to Team-Fortress while Left4Dead 2 isn't. Valve have always tried to make the sequels better in nearly every way yet somehow it doesn't feel that way with L4D2.

Come on. Don't tell me that Counter-Strike: Source, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Day of Defeat: Source, Half-Life: Source and Half-Life 2: Episode One were improvements or radically different. It's not like Valve hasn't done it before.
 
Come on. Don't tell me that Counter-Strike: Source, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Day of Defeat: Source, Half-Life: Source and Half-Life 2: Episode One were improvements or radically different. It's not like Valve hasn't done it before.

I can agree to that, but i don't count those as much more than expansion packs since, as you have said, they're just more of the same. Left 4 Dead has only just recently come out and so far it's done extremely well, however making a new one and slapping a big 2 on the end while barely doing anything but reskinning everything is just pathetic. Look at it this way, Half-Life < Half-Life 2, Team Fortress < Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead = Left 4 Dead 2.
 
I think everyone hates this game because there is only one white person in it and hes a retarded redneck. Everyone is racist and thats why nobody likes this game.
 
I think everyone hates this game because there is only one white person in it and hes a retarded redneck. Everyone is racist and thats why nobody likes this game.

Conman is white, mechanic is white. Two.
 
Careful what you complain about this early on folks. Like map detail is bound to change within the next few months. i remember before l4d1 shipped and the map detail looked terrible, like a half-assed custom zombie mod map for css... but thats called a BETA, they always add detail and 'polish' towards the end. Same goes for how the models and weapons look too. its just beta... hello? a lot of the small things people complain about are bound to change heavily as we still got a few months to go...
 
I think everyone hates this game because there is only one white person in it and hes a retarded redneck. Everyone is racist and thats why nobody likes this game.

Actually i'm just about everything European and North American, along with some African in me, i oppose racism altogether... but that doesn't mean i don't think L4D2 is total bull.
 
I think point #4 is interesting.... Perhaps we should view L4D2 as a parallel to L4D and not a sequel. This way you have two similar games that are slightly different that will attract slightly different types of players. (Now all valve needs to do is to update L4D)
 
Come on. Don't tell me that Counter-Strike: Source, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Day of Defeat: Source, Half-Life: Source and Half-Life 2: Episode One were improvements or radically different. It's not like Valve hasn't done it before.

Consider the price tag of those games when they were released. 20 dollars or so. None of them carried a full retail price (did CS:CZ sell for full retail? I know it was mostly a game made to sell to the console/offline crowd so it could have been).

That's kind of the issue here. A lot of us feel like more content is great, and we don't disagree that we should be paying for it... 5 new campaigns, new specials, and what some people would call new weapons, are quite a lot to ask for free. I'm saying that most of us maybe feel like full retail price may be a bit too much to pay for it, considering the original game came with one less campaign and it felt unfinished. Perhaps it was the fact that two of the versus campaigns were not included in retail release (and the fact that it took so long didn't help. I love L4D but I haven't even played the new campaigns on versus because too much time passed between new content and I got bored of L4D).

Its a matter of how much L4D content is worth to each person. The problem with L4D is that while 5 new campaigns seem massive if you break them down into individual levels, they don't really feel huge when you're playing. Given the nature of the game people will blaze through levels in 3 - 5 minutes tops, that means that those 4 or 5 campaigns got a whole lot shorter.

I don't know really. Valve has been good so far, so I'm still holding out hope that they will make the price tag worth it. It's just that L4D felt so empty after finishing all the campaigns that it makes me think that L4D2 will be more of the same, and part of what made L4D fun in the first place was the novelty of the title, which has been long lost after playing through each campaign a hundred times.
 
My concern with L4D2 is that, ultimately, it is going to be the same shallow and simplistic game it was before – only this time, Valve have over-indulged in their embrace of the B-movie cliché; there is nothing remotely appealing or ‘cool’ about a chainsaw and a frying pan. It is garbage and it is distasteful, and most of all, it is pointless in that it merely layers very thin coats of substance on a game already significantly lacking it, and parades them in a way I would never have expected Valve to ever do.

I think, y’know, if you ever sat down and played L4D, and you thought, hey, it needs a lot of melee weapons! Like, a chainsaw! Then, y’know, I think you’re an idiot.
 
over 6000 valve customers have signed up to the Group L4D2 Boycott.

so you are saying, all those people are stupid ?

Yes.
Don't underestimate the number of stupid gamers out there. The funny thing is a bet some of them will buy it when Valve do one of their great deals.
 
over 6000 valve customers have signed up to the Group L4D2 Boycott.

so you are saying, all those people are stupid ?

Yes, they are. Did you sign up? You're stupid, too!

I am very much looking forward to the day of release. I guarantee the overwhelming majority will be Ingame: L4D2.
 
i agree with all of that except for 5-8. the maps so far seem fine, versus will work itself out, the atmosphere will be different but im sure itll still be alright, and the i like the new characters just as much as the old ones (except for louis, he's the man).
 
It's funny how people are actually saying I AM NOT BUYING THIS GAME NO WAY NO WAI when it's not even out until November. It's Valve - if we take a look at the history of Left 4 Deads development it went through loads of changes. I can guarantee that within a month or two the characters, levels, weapons, sounds, zombies... etv, will all be different and people will be more interested.
 
They should just use the Scout from TF2, the Heavy, the Engineer, and the Demo (just to be racially correct) instead of making new characters. I'd be much more interested in the game if I hear the Scout yelling, "That damn knucklehead almost bit off my arm!"
 
there is nothing remotely appealing or ‘cool’ about a chainsaw and a frying pan.... it is pointless in that it merely layers very thin coats of substance on a game already significantly lacking it! I think you’re an idiot.

I dunno. We don't know all the details of L4D2 yet but maybe these are LV 2 melee weapons? Maybe there is still a cool down on using gun melee like in L4D but once you pick one of these up you don't have cool down?

I would think a chainsaw would come in handy in the new 'rolling panic events'... especially if you run out of ammo on your primary. You are getting a kill instead pushing the same zombie back a couple of times before they finally die.

BTW- you sound incredibly bored with L4D. I don't think L4D2 is going to be worlds different. You might want to check this game off your list and instead be looking forward to Natural Selection 2. ;)

Its a matter of how much L4D content is worth to each person. The problem with L4D is that while 5 new campaigns seem massive if you break them down into individual levels, they don't really feel huge when you're playing. Given the nature of the game people will blaze through levels in 3 - 5 minutes tops, that means that those 4 or 5 campaigns got a whole lot shorter.

I don't know anyone going through each map in 3-5 minutes unless they are doing COOP on easy mode or pubstomping in VS.

Suppose I assume you are exaggerating for effect, which I understand the point you are making, I think you are approaching this from a single player game point of view and not a multiplayer point of view.

You could say Bioshock was 8-12 hours compared to L4D's 4-5 hours of a game.

That may be true. But I have put in 100+ hours into 5 hour L4D game- because from a mutliplayer aspect, it is different everytime with different people and with the AID. If I replayed Bioshock single player over and over again for 100+ hours I would go insane and have to shoot myself. Because it is 100% static. If L4D levels were any longer I wouldn't be able to play VS as much because one match can last 1-2 hours.

It would make more sense to compare L4D maps to Counter-strike maps in this regard. Which is true in CS's case the map only last 3-5 minutes because you defuse/detonate a bomb or kill the other team. Yet people have put in 100's perhaps 1000's of hours into de_dust in the past 10 years and they barely complain.
 
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