Left 4 Dead 2 Announced!

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DarkAstraea Posted: 06-03-2009 9:32 AM

Quite surprisingly, Valve has been working on the sequel to Left 4 Dead, the best co-op game of 2008.

"Left 4 Dead 2 has been announced at E3, and a trailer for the game has surfaced. It will be released November 17, 2009, just a year after the first game. Gameplay changes include a new focus on melee weapons, especially the iconic anti-zombie weapon, the chainsaw. The cast of characters is brand new, but the plot appears to take place during the same zombie outbreak."

(Link 1) (Link 2)

New weapons, new characters, new boss zombies, new bullets, new items, new ragdoll death effects...what else could we need? Better game mechanics and gameplay with Valve's new AI Director 2.0 (expected to be much smarter)!! More extreme panic attacks as well!?

Will Left 4 Dead 2 become the best co-op thriller for 2009 as well!? Most likely...Valve certainly has gone over the limit to make this sequel to what it is in such a short amount of time. I would have expected this to be released sometime in 2010, but end of 2009?



Unlike in sports, the game of war has no set time limit and no points are awarded, so how do you determine the winners and the losers? When all your enemies are destroyed? 多分そして。
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The reception to this announcement has been "Haha, good one Valve. Wait, what do you mean you're serious?! *outrage*" and I can't help but agree. If anything, it's an expansion pack. It comes out within the same week as Modern Warfare 2, and it will be decimated in sales. People feel ripped off. They feel like L4D wasn't worth $50.00 and that they were expecting downloadable content for a long time to come, like TF2 has done (even though they pretty much ruined that). It's like Valve took a tip from EA games and just started shoving out mediocre products every year.

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If I have to choose between L4d2 and MW2, MW2 will win hands down... I would be willing to pay for an expansion to L4D, but to drop another $50 (x2 or 3) for L4D2 isn't going to happen. I think the most I would be willing to pay is $25.

Definitely looking forward to MW2!!

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Well for L4D 2 it can't really be DLC because they had changed the engine, but i do agree that it could have been an expansion to decrease the price. But either way, I can assure you that people will still buy it and they'll still make big money off of it; Even if it's not from us pessimists.



Unlike in sports, the game of war has no set time limit and no points are awarded, so how do you determine the winners and the losers? When all your enemies are destroyed? 多分そして。
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From what I've read, most people will not be buying L4D2. They either feel ripped off, didn't enjoy the first game enough, feel like it's all the same old thing (it is...really, one of there greatest innvations was making the witch move around...they made an NPC move. Seriously?). It looks like only fanboys will be buying L4D2. The new characters are pretty goofy. All that required was new models and voices, it doesn't change gameplay at all so it doesn't really phase me. Playing in the day time! Oh my, that's amazing!..They changed the lighting..so what? So what it boils down to is new weapons and new maps. Wasn't that supposed to come in the DLC? Oh, and I almost forgot, the new special zombies. That's actually a real addition that I won't bash.

They changed the engine? Really? Where?...

I mean, not to doubt them, but I don't see anything different about the engine.

Surely they'll make money on it, but I don't think it's going to be the typical sales Valve is used to seeing.

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We were never promised new weapons or anything of the sort via DLC that is all speculation from the public. For TF2 it is different because they promised new achievements and weapons for all the classes so that does not relate to L4D.

Not necessarily the whole engine (it still uses the Source Engine probably), but the small parts of a gaming engine.

Gaming Engine Includes: 3D graphics, a physics engine or collision detection (and collision response), sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence, networking, streaming, memory management, threading, and a scene graph.

They changed the way players interact with the game's environment. They created a new AI director so that it won't be the same thing over and over again which is a big BIG improvement. Although you may not think the weather effects are worthy enough, it changes the mood of the gameplay while gamers are playing psychologically. While L4D 1 was a bit more gloomy and dark this new weather engine can change the feeling of gamers while they are playing (at least that is what i'm assuming).



Unlike in sports, the game of war has no set time limit and no points are awarded, so how do you determine the winners and the losers? When all your enemies are destroyed? 多分そして。
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DarkAstraea:


They created a new AI director so that it won't be the same thing over and over again which is a big BIG improvement.

That's what they said last time too. The AI director will probably change minor things. After a few playthroughs everyone will understand what the changes are and how to deal with them.

DarkAstraea:

Gaming Engine Includes: 3D graphics, a physics engine or collision detection (and collision response), sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence, networking, streaming, memory management, threading, and a scene graph.

Right, so, what did they change? Like I said, everything looks exactly the same (although they did make changes to the AI director).

DarkAstraea:

 

Although you may not think the weather effects are worthy enough, it changes the mood of the gameplay while gamers are playing psychologically. While L4D 1 was a bit more gloomy and dark this new weather engine can change the feeling of gamers while they are playing (at least that is what i'm assuming).

Are you saying the weather in-game will change when the AI director wishes to control the mood? I wasn't aware they were going to do that at all, but I was aware of the change from dark and gloomy to day light, which is nothing but a few number changes as far as they're concerned. All of that can be handled in the original engine.

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The AI director changes the style of gameplay from L4D 1 and yes people will figure out how to deal with them but it is still a change in the engine.

AI, sound, scripting, animation (new ragdoll death events). You are still just looking at the 3D graphics point of view.

I don't know what the weather changes are but I'm assuming the AI director does change the weather as well but it is still considered a change in the engine...



Unlike in sports, the game of war has no set time limit and no points are awarded, so how do you determine the winners and the losers? When all your enemies are destroyed? 多分そして。
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The changes, from what I've heard, are so insignificant as to not constitute the need for a new engine, and therefore are not significant enough to be an excuse for releasing a second L4D at full price. Of course, I believe we all already agreed that it really shouldn't be its own game.

I'm sure the AI and scripting has changed, and I don't doubt that there are new animations (are you sure that is part of the engine? You can always modify the game with new animations without modifying the engine, can't you? Maybe I'm wrong). I'm pretty sure the sounds could be changed seperate from the engine as well. It's not like they're really unique sounds anyways, everything sounds pretty much the same.

People wouldn't be so mad if Half Life: Episode 3 was going to be released first, but they're angry that they've been waiting so long and Valve goes and pumps out L4D2 in one year.

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I never said it was a new engine I just said they changed minor parts of the engine.

By the definition of a gaming engine the animations are considered part of the engine as well as the sounds.

This is all just speculation, apparently the game is more severely bigger than L4D 1 so they may have had graphic changes and such that we don't know about yet.



Unlike in sports, the game of war has no set time limit and no points are awarded, so how do you determine the winners and the losers? When all your enemies are destroyed? 多分そして。
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The animations are part of the content not the engine.... You can change maps, models, textures all kinds of things without changing the engine.

From what you have described it sounds like they have tweaked the existing engine. This does not necessarily make it a "NEW" engine. The "Source" engine has been undergoing changes for all the years since HL2 was released. But it is still the "Source" engine. Even if they call it the "Orange Box" engine, which they do to differentiate the new version of the "Source" engine. But it is still the "Source" Engine.

The differences between HL1 and HL2 (Source) woudl make it a "new" engine. Between source and Orange box, and L4D2, No, I don't think so.

Just my $.02

However I like this discussion so keep 'em coming!

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Hmm...well it looks like they changed the zombies as well, they can now have limbs blown off and still come running at you. This would go under collisions (detections and response) for a game engine.



Unlike in sports, the game of war has no set time limit and no points are awarded, so how do you determine the winners and the losers? When all your enemies are destroyed? 多分そして。
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Ah yes just another thought, this will probably be one of the most pirated games in 2009 if valve doesn't come through properly.



Unlike in sports, the game of war has no set time limit and no points are awarded, so how do you determine the winners and the losers? When all your enemies are destroyed? 多分そして。
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DarkAstraea:

Ah yes just another thought, this will probably be one of the most pirated games in 2009 if valve doesn't come through properly.

Yeah, you're probably right.

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DarkAstraea:
Hmm...well it looks like they changed the zombies as well, they can now have limbs blown off and still come running at you. This would go under collisions (detections and response) for a game engine.

This would again fall under the content section. A Zombie with no limbs is a model without limbs, with new animation sequence for the movement. Collision is an engine feature but it is controlled by variables which can be redefined for a model or environment without changing the engine.

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Hmm i guess so. O well guess we'll just have to wait and see.



Unlike in sports, the game of war has no set time limit and no points are awarded, so how do you determine the winners and the losers? When all your enemies are destroyed? 多分そして。
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I think they are calling it a new engine as a marketing strategy. A new engine does not necessarily mean new game mechanics.

Anarchy Online is getting a New Graphics Engine. But it is going to leave gameplay alone and improve all the world graphics, models and textures. The game is going to be modernized to look as good as Age of Conan, which looked amazing! They just realeased a new Database engine update. They moved the game database to a new database type which is scalable because the previous one had a 2 GB limit. This is necessary to accomodate all the extra space the new engine is going to require to store additional content.

If you haven't played AO in a while, you should check it out. It's a lot of fun.

We are playing on Rubika 2 (Rimor) and join Omni if you want to play with us.

 

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Best approach for valve would have been to make it into an expansion, and have sell both L4D 1 and 2 in a "complete" pack. Have the expansion sell separately at a decent price for those who already have it. They could make more revenue that way by selling both at the same time to those who have yet to get L4D via a complete L4D pack.



Unlike in sports, the game of war has no set time limit and no points are awarded, so how do you determine the winners and the losers? When all your enemies are destroyed? 多分そして。
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ParaDOX:

I think they are calling it a new engine as a marketing strategy. A new engine does not necessarily mean new game mechanics.

Anarchy Online is getting a New Graphics Engine. But it is going to leave gameplay alone and improve all the world graphics, models and textures. The game is going to be modernized to look as good as Age of Conan, which looked amazing! They just realeased a new Database engine update. They moved the game database to a new database type which is scalable because the previous one had a 2 GB limit. This is necessary to accomodate all the extra space the new engine is going to require to store additional content.

If you haven't played AO in a while, you should check it out. It's a lot of fun.

We are playing on Rubika 2 (Rimor) and join Omni if you want to play with us.

Speaking of marketing...*laughs at shameless Anarchy Online promotion*

DarkAstraea:

Best approach for valve would have been to make it into an expansion, and have sell both L4D 1 and 2 in a "complete" pack. Have the expansion sell separately at a decent price for those who already have it. They could make more revenue that way by selling both at the same time to those who have yet to get L4D via a complete L4D pack.

Yeah, I agree, that looks like the best method for them right now.

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Troop:
Speaking of marketing...*laughs at shameless Anarchy Online promotion*

It's not "marketing" because I am not profiting from it in anyway. This falls into the friendly recommendation category.

DarkAstraea:
Best approach for valve would have been to make it into an expansion, and have sell both L4D 1 and 2 in a "complete" pack. Have the expansion sell separately at a decent price for those who already have it. They could make more revenue that way by selling both at the same time to those who have yet to get L4D via a complete L4D pack.

They could have even done it as an expansion that requires the first version so you are required to own the first one in order to play the new one.. Sell it for $20 or so. I think the problem is they made a lot of money on the console version and they couldn't easily use the expansion approach for a console game. Bottom line Valve has changed. It looks like we can't expect them to do what's right for us gamers. Sad...

I have a feeling that they will release HL2 Episode 3 as HL3 instead and charge more money for a new game that way. I hope I'm wrong.

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