Hardly. Its been… how long now? since L4D was released and the first bit of true DLC we get is half the size of a normal campaign. While its great that they are releasing something like this, it could have been done in the first few months after release. Just sayin.
Y’know, they did release the whole survival thing…
I don’t really hold this against Valve, but more-so Turtle Rock. Or the Turtle Rock division of Valve.
I think L4D was the first game to be released AS abandon-ware. It was hardly ever updated, and there has only been one “major” update, that was basically stuff that should have been in the final version, even when they said there would be “Updates in the vein of the TF2.”
L4D is a shining example of how NOT to have DLC Support for a game. Way to fail TurtleRock/Valve.
Survival and the 2 Versus Campaigns that were supposed to be in the game from the beginning. :facepalm:
EDIT: Fuck, sorry Double Post. 
Honestly Valve doesn’t give a shit about the boycott group, because they know that most of the people in the group will end up buying left 4 dead 2 one way or another.
Yeah, probly. But at least we tried and DIDNT just sit back and suck it up. And if I ever DO get it, it will be in the form of a .torrent file…
Well, they have had one major update so far and are about to have another which puts them at about the same rate as TF2, so I would wait a while before you state that they are not supporting it, and as to saying that the update should have been in the final, thats like saying all the extra TF2 maps should have been in the original.
EDIT: This just occurred to me: It is really difficult to update it like TF2 as the campaigns are much more than a single map and there are no classes to update.
A campaign is like 5 maps, plus voice recording and what not.
I haven’t made a map in the source engine, but from the looks of it, a L4D map looks a lot more difficult to make then a TF2 map. In every one of their campaigns there are a zillion different triggers to set off different situations, plus each campaign has to be designed for 4 people running through and versus mode.
I’m oversimplifying here, but that’s just how it seems.
I’m not an expert in the least, but I thought it wasn’t handled by triggered events but more the AI director. Zombie rushes, and special infected are created by the AI director, not pre made trigger points are they?
maybe the AI Director places those trigger points.
I believe the AI director does most of the work, but while making the map, the mapper has to put in guidelines of some sort.
In general, single player (or co-op) campaign-type maps are much harder to make than multiplayer maps. Which makes sense, when you think about it: a multiplayer map (ala TF2) is just an arena where players run around and kill each other, while a campaign map has a very specific set of events and non-player enemies, storytelling, etc.
What the fuck…
Those are some seriously dedicated trolls. :rolleyes:
Epic.
LETS MAKE DEM GUIS AT VALVE SUFFAR BY REFUSING TA DOWLOAD THEM FREE UPDATES!!!
Zombies rushes and stuff yes, but cranes moving, calling for rescue, explosions, that plane crash are all hardcoded triggers.
Oh great, they’re adding in something they said they didn’t have originally because it took away the sense of accomplishment from beating a campaign.
Great.
And I thought my group was clever. This is brilliant! Like, the Onion brilliant!
Don’t be ridiculous. This is Valve, remember how much we all joke about how long things take them? Half of people’s reaction to L4D2 stems from utter surprise that they’re putting out a product this quickly, and there’s just no way they could have so many people working on that and still have the resources left over to race out a DLC just because of some largely insignificant boycott. Valve are on record saying they’ve been working on Crash Course longer than the boycott has existed, and I see no reason to disbelieve them.
“Survival and the 2 Versus Campaigns that were supposed to be in the game from the beginning. :facepalm:”
Credible source? I call bullshit. Even Versus itself was a fairly late addition to the planned features of the game ( it wasn’t mentioned at all in any of the earlier previews) as I recall, and necessitated the L4D team borrowing TF2 developers to help them with competitive team based gaming. It’s certainly true that they always intended to add Versus for the other two campaigns after release (which you know, they did), but there’s no way Survival was intended to be in the game from launch, given that no-one had even heard of it before the Survival Pack.
As for accusations of ‘abandonware’* and comparisons to TF2, that’s just ridiculous. TF2 has been out a lot longer than L4D, but I remember very well how people complained about how TF2 only shipped with 6 maps (compared to Left4Dead’s 20), and new ones took an age to come out before they built up a head of steam (pun intended lol) and updates started coming more frequently.
Let’s look at a timeline, shall we?
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TF2 was released in October 2007. The first significantly sized update containing more than just minor fixes and tweaks was the release of cp_badlands along with a bunch of balance/bug fixes and tweaks like the addition of the sizzle sound effect to help Pyro’s with their hit detection. This single map and collection of minor changes came on Valentine’s Day 2008, just over four months after release.
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L4D was released in November 2008. The first significantly sized update containing more than just minor fixes and tweaks was the release of the Survival pack with the new Last Stand map, the new game mode Survival, and at my count 26 e convertions/adjustments of existing for new game modes (Survival/Versus), as well as a bunch of balance/bug fixes and the addition of new achievements. This single new map, new game mode, collection of converted maps, new achievements and minor fixes (a much larger update than TF2’s) came out on April 21st 2009, just over five months after release.
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The next significant update for TF2 was the Goldrush/Medic pack. This came with one new map once again, although this time also with a new game mode (like L4D had already released by this point), thee new weapons for the Medic (plus the necessary groundwork for new items in general) and the new Medic achievements, plus once again assorted fixes. Also Goldrush was the first TF2 map to feature cinematic physics, and this pack came with the bonus content of the Meet the Scout video. This was still a very small pack compared to the more recent ones we’ve become used to. It came out 2 and a half months after the Badlands release.
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The next significant update for L4D is to be the Crash Course DLC, with a new (albeit shorter than the originals) campaign made up of two maps each with versions playable in three different game modes. (This also includes new story and dialogue content, just as the Goldrush update came with a new video. TF2 didn’t receive any new in-game dialogue recordings 'till much later after release, as I recall.) Again, minor fixes and gameplay tweaks (one addition announced is the ability of Infected Versus players to monitor the recharge level of each other’s special ability) will come with it, and the full details of what’s included aren’t yet known, but it is reasonable to assume new achievements will be included. This should come out about 5 months after the Survival Pack, though obviously significant work on the SDK and Add-On infrastructure has taken up some of the time in between.
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By the time the Crash Course DLC will be out the Pyro update had just been released as well in the TF2 timeline. This included the Pyro weapons and achievements as well as the new airblast ability and some fixes and tweaks, the Meet the Sniper video, and two community maps but no Valve made maps at all, meaning that at this point in it’s life cycle TF2 had received only two new Valve maps, whereas the Crash Course DLC will bring L4D up to three, despite the maps taking longer (as said by Valve themselves in commentary as well as anyone with any mapping knowledge).
L4D is taking somewhat longer to receive updates than TF2, but not massively so, and those updates so far have been as big or bigger in terms of content than the equivalent for TF2. The TF2 devs were able (apart form the time when TF2 went six months between major updates because the devs were borrowed to work on L4D) to focus on TF2 without having to simultaneously work on a sequel game. All in all, I don’t see how the evidence supports L4D being significantly less supported than TF2 was after similar timeframe, and I fully expect when it approaches its second birthday as TF2 is now we will have seen much more content and support for it. For instance, Valve has expressed in correspondence a desire to carry on in the same vein as Crash Course and create more ‘connecting’ campaigns between the existing ones, as well as the long planned release of the 4 vs 4 lobby system and general matchmaking update.
*anyone using the term ‘abandonware’ in context of L4D is completely ignorant of what the term actually means, unless Valve are allowing L4D to be downloaded and played for free somewhere and I just hadn’t noticed.