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| News Comments > Left 4 Dead 2 Interview |
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| 33. |
Re: Left 4 Dead 2 Interview |
Jun 5, 2009, 11:49 |
JohnnyRotten |
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The most telling item in the article is this part:
..the team brought their concepts and ideas to create a sequel to Gabe Newell, and even he was skeptical about the idea. According to Faliszek, he expressed his doubts, and claimed this move was against the character of the company.
In my opinion, Gabe should have stuck to his guns. With the horribly mismanaged launch campaign for their new product, they’ve manage to burn down the entire trust ecosystem they’ve built up with their customers almost overnight. That’s not a forest you can regrow overnight. This is pretty high on the scale of business mistakes.
I can certainly understand the dismay of some of the gaming community here as many valid points have been raised:
They’ve made promises with the original product that they haven’t kept to date. This is a problem.
They keep talking about how revolutionary the next game will be, but it appears to me to be an evolutionary step forward. Valve’s previous method of release games – only after long/extensive internal development, testing, and quality control would seem to invalidate the “full sequel” concept that is being pushed. If they’ve already got the L4D2 version of the game up and running with the new bad guys (as indicated by the writer), then how much work was it, really? This is a problem.
One of the justifications for the new game is that “It's not nearly that easy with Left 4 Dead, where one change affects nearly everything else”. This logic would seem to infer that L4D2 will suffer the same problems as it is the same engine, just with more intractable features added. Are we being told that we can look forward to L4D[#] releases on the Madden schedule because of this? This is a problem.
They haven’t acknowledged (to *my* knowledge) to date the impact this will have on the existing game (i.e. everyone flees to the L4D2 servers). This is a problem.
They keep presenting the false dichotomy of it could have only been done as a free update, or as a (potentially full price) game, when in fact there are several other options available. This is a problem.
As others have noted, there is a lot of “want to” and “hope to” as regards to features and functionality of the new game. Given the short time to the release, this is a problem.
It seems pretty obvious to me that they’ve gone into damage control mode here, and don’t really have answers for the community at this time. This goes back to my first point – which is they didn’t really think this through. My guess is that everyone would be ecstatic about the new product (New toons! New maps! New weapons! New bad guys!) without fully considering the history of broken promises on the first game, and possibly worse for Valve, without truly understanding the (potentially former) very high regard the community held for their company. For a lot of people, this still smacks of going over to the side of Evil (all rights reserved), and that alone will start the forest fire.
Last on this ridiculously long post about a game we really still know very little about is that I still agree with the “red box” idea Dagok brought up on another post. It might be a way for Valve to dig themselves out from under this hole (HL2-EP3, Portal 2, L4D2).
As a side note, how come this game was announced at a MS press conference? How is MS involved with Valve and L4D2?
'Nother note: Blue's media link on this subject is priceless. I laughed so hard I almost cried.
This comment was edited on Jun 5, 2009, 11:50. |
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| News Comments > Left 4 Dead 2 Announced |
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| 118. |
Re: Left 4 Dead 2 Announced |
Jun 2, 2009, 12:07 |
JohnnyRotten |
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For all we know this will be bundled in the "Red Box" with Episode 3 or Portal 2, etc, etc.
Valve and Newall have done their best through words and actions to paint themselves as a customer focused company. The problem with this approach is you have to be consistent. Everyone expects EA to be evil(tm), so when they do something evil(c), although there is the usual round of angst, no one is really surprised, and the hate tends to die down rather quickly.
However, if you are on the side of good(rm), and decide to switch teams, which is what appears to be happening here (assuming L4D 2 is a standalone full priced game), you’re really going to get beaten up by your old team (i.e., the customers).
Trying to monetize a franchise so quickly, much like the yearly releases of Madden starting from Madden Jesus (Pontius Pilate on the cover) and ending (possibly) at Madden Armageddon (Strangelove on the cover*) for me, is a real sign of evil(all rights reserved).
I think sticking L4D 2 into a box as part of a value add might calm the waters a bit.
* I was going to go with Dan Marino or the Bills for this one, but it would be cruel to keep kicking those dead horses.
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| News Comments > Left 4 Dead 2 Announced |
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| 117. |
Re: Left 4 Dead 2 Announced |
Jun 2, 2009, 11:49 |
JohnnyRotten |
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I know that I played the demo, thought "cool", and then bought it on release, expecting the "TF2 treatment", only to be disappointed and disillusioned, not by the game itself, but by the lack of updates.
Agree.
Furthermore, the completely screwed up multi-player finally drove my friends and I away from this game. I'm still confused how a company like Valve (with long experience and deep pockets) could have let this issue get out out the door, then let it fester.
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| News Comments > Six Days in Fallujah Dropped |
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| 43. |
Re: Six Days in Fallujah Dropped |
Apr 27, 2009, 19:45 |
JohnnyRotten |
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Press release from Konami:
Six Days in Fallujah has been canceled. We're proud to announce our new title Weekend at Fallujah!
- J
This comment was edited on Apr 27, 2009, 19:56. |
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| News Comments > Ships Ahoy - Theatre of War 2 |
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Re: Ships Ahoy - Theatre of War 2 |
Apr 24, 2009, 20:15 |
JohnnyRotten |
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I pre-ordered TOW1, which was horrible. Then they let the game rot while they developed TOW2.
Checked out the demo, which is a definite step up from TOW1. Multiplayer isn't included in the demo, but they promise it for TOW2. Word of caution - MP never worked correctly in TOW1, and most days they didn't even have the MP servers running.
There was a ton of complaining about TOW1, and I believe there were hints about cutting TOW1 owners a break when TOW2 came out. It turns out however, that the break only applied if you pre-ordered this game as well. The "fool me once" cliche comes to mind.
Regardless of the demo - based on the lack of support given in TOW1, the "we'll only cut TOW1 owners a break if you buy before the release", and their known inability to deliver on multi player, I'll be taking a pass on this one.
- J
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| News Comments > Age of Pirates 2 Announced |
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| 5. |
Re: Age of Pirates 2 Announced |
Apr 20, 2009, 20:15 |
JohnnyRotten |
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How is possible this thread hasn't been hijacked (pirated if you will) by the usual "I'm going to pirate this cause I want to" vs "pirating is bad m'kay" folks that ruin every other thread?
It's a post about pirates. Let's get to work here people.
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| News Comments > OnLive on Skeptics |
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| 75. |
Re: OnLive on Skeptics |
Apr 3, 2009, 23:08 |
JohnnyRotten |
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Let's put it this way, if I can't watch a simplevideo stream from FOX or NBC or Hulu without hitches or stutters or stalls because of the simple workings of the internet, his pretty little server farm isn't going to stream me that game any better either.
Bingo.
I've done enough thin client work over the years to know that even keeping a rdp connection running for at acceptable levels for multiple users across an inconsistent WAN link (i.e., the intertubes) is a challenge. And the RDP solutions I work only use a fraction of the resources that OnLive would require.
Can this work with high end games? Not today. In 10 years, maybe.
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| News Comments > Op Ed |
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| 111. |
Re: Op Ed |
Mar 15, 2009, 12:24 |
JohnnyRotten |
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I go where the good gaming is at...
For the win. Pen & paper, PC, console, arcade cabinet, dart board at the bar.
This comment was edited on Mar 15, 2009, 12:26. |
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| News Comments > MS: Windows 7 to be "Great for Games" |
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| 94. |
Re: MS: Windows 7 to be |
Feb 24, 2009, 13:27 |
JohnnyRotten |
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Okay, let's go with that. For how many more years should Microsoft be expected to add new features to XP? 2? 5? 10? Or do you think Microsoft should never make another OS, but continue to add features to XP that would normally go into a new OS?
Well, they could charge for the new features. It's not like they haven't done that before (R1, R2, Rx anyone)?
- J |
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346 Comments. 18 pages. Viewing page 14.
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