   Left 4 Dead 2?
  Valve recently announced Left 4 Dead 2, personally I feel like this is a slap in the face. I enjoyed Left 4 Dead but the content is just starting to be worth the price, I would have preferred a smaller $10 expansion to the original. Also why have they still not began to work on Half Life Episode 3?Tell me your thought?   
  A slap in the face, yeah.I don't like the new cartoony style.I'm surprised Valve would resort to these cow milking tactics. But maybe it will really offer something new that's worthwhile of a sequel. Still, it's kinda too soon.Those are my opinions. But I don't really care that much.   ;  A company releasing new material that you are in no way obligated to buy, in a franchise you were never obligated to buy, is a slap in the face?   ;Quote:Original post by CodaKillerValve recently announced Left 4 Dead 2, personally I feel like this is a slap in the face. I enjoyed Left 4 Dead but the content is just starting to be worth the price, I would have preferred a smaller $10 expansion to the original. Also why have they still not began to work on Half Life Episode 3?Tell me your thought?A slap in the face?  You feel like a company who is making their own product for their own purposes is somehow personally insulting you?  Amazing.  You must have a really inflated ego.I say:  Good for them!  I didn't like the game, but 2.5M people liked it enough to buy it.  So if the company wants to try it again, more power to them.  I hope they continue to employ a boatload of programmers and artists and animators and designers and testers and mocap engineers and audio guys and producers and loc teams and ....As for why they have not started to work on your favorite project, my thoughts are that either they have started on it and didn't bother to tell you (in spite of your significance), or they don't feel it is the best way to spend their money right now (in spite of your intense personal desire for it).  If you feel it is that important, go write them a letter telling them you want to play it, and enclose some money to help urge them down the path.As for my thoughts...  Seeing as they (and not you) own the rights to the products, they can do whatever they feel like, including locking them up on a shelf and never touching them again.   ;  i'm excited.  I liked the game but not enough to buy it.  With a few tweaks I could be a believer.   ;  Valve's really working at the edges of the business model, I think.  They seem to be pushing boundaries all the time about how and when content is developed and released, and for the most part I like it.  Now I'm starting to see their games take on an almost speculative character.  You buy a game that's essentially a demo, counting on them to release the rest of the content and enough bonus material to make it worth the initial investment.  Maybe you'll have to pay again for some of the extra stuff, maybe it'll be worth paying extra, maybe you'll wind up with a product that doesn't really ring or bell, maybe they'll decide to use the game you bought for some other, bizarre purpose, like the unlockable shenanigans in TF2.And you can't just sit on your hands, wait to see what really stands out, then scoop it out of a bargain bin, because by then, they've got a sequel out (as in this case) and most of the multiplayer playerbase has migrated to the newer game.The whole thing feels somewhat savage.   ;Quote:Original post by capn_midnightA company releasing new material that you are in no way obligated to buy, in a franchise you were never obligated to buy, is a slap in the face?Seriously. I've heard so many complaints from people that enjoyed the original L4D and I just don't understand it. The game sold well, has a huge following, and has already had free content released for it. Why would Valve hate money enough to not make a sequel? Are people really that spoiled and delusional that they are shocked when a business is actually run like a business?   ;  There's already a boycott group sprung up on the Steam community site.I don't really have an opinion on this, not having played Left 4 Dead. I am finding the strong reaction from a subset of fans to be interesting though. Valve seems to have set up an extremely high level of expectation for after-sales support which some fans are upset they're not getting.   ;  Its disappointing, yes, I didn't see anything on the trailers that really justifies a sequel, new survivor models, melee weapons, new incendiary ammo and I suppose 4 new campaigns in what seems to be Vice City.I was hoping and expecting to get this in an expansion, even as paid content, after all, Valve did talk about releasing new campaigns.So, I don't really have a problem with the cost, but now you will have 2 games that are basically the same competing for players, servers for one will not do for the other, people with one won't be able to join their friends with the other and so on.I don't really like the new survivor models either.   ;Quote:A slap in the face? You feel like a company who is making their own product for their own purposes is somehow personally insulting you? Amazing. You must have a really inflated ego.There's gonna be a lot of this sentiment going around, both side of the argument, and people are going to misinterpret it all quite a bit. I'll see if I can better explain:There is an expectation that Valve will continue to update and support games for years. They do this all the time. It's incredibly generous of Valve to do this, but that's not the point: The point is that this expectation exists and Valve gave every indication that L4D would be supported continuously in this same fashion as well.Instead we got a super underwhelming update with virtually no new content and the most unimaginative new gameplay mode possible followed by "Oh wait, we made some money on consoles so now we're going to completely blindside you and go against our own business model so we can quick cash in.".I love Valve. I defend them all the time. I just demolished some people real good recently about whining over the latest TF2 update. I'm sure L4D2 will be really awesome and worth the money and I'm sure I'll buy it.But it still feels like a slap at the face that they did such an about-face without giving anyone a heads up and, in fact, did a damn good job misleading us until now. That's the real problem: the community feels mislead and lied too. A lot of people hold Valve to a higher standard than that, and now we're worried that we're going to have to drop that standard.   