T w e n t y S i d e d
The latest Stolen Pixels is up, which takes up a position contrary to the one put forth by Blue Oyster Cult in 1976.
I think we’ll take a break from L4Dumb now. After that, we’ll finish up the series.
Shawntionary
Shawn Gaston has abandoned his antique page on Livejournal and got himself a wiz-bang fancy new blog with go-fast strips. It runs on WordPress and everything!
This is the part where I would link our collaborative efforts, just to remind you who Shawn is in case you’re new or forgetful. But as many people repeatedly tell me, Chainmail Bikini has vanished. That was the webcomic Shawn and I worked on for a time.
But! There are plans to get CB back online. There have been for a while now. And by “plans” I mean emails along the lines of: “We should put CB up somewhere.” and “Yeah. Let’s do that”. …which is quickly followed by us not doing anything of the sort. All we need is to turn that intent into action. It’s on the to-do list.
Anyway, Shawn. New blog. Looks slick. Check it out.
Left 4 Dead 2:
Exhuming the Horse for Further Pummeling
I thought everyone would be sick of the whole Left 4 Dead 2 controversy by now, but yesterday Blackbird71* cast wall of text at me. Several people chimed in and asked for my response. So, okay then.
* Looking in the archives, I’m fairly sure that Blackbird1 through Blackbird70 aren’t in use, if you’d like to trade-in for a lower number. (When I see a name like that it makes me think there’s an army of people with the same name who simply numbered themselves, like Harry Mudd’s androids.)
Ok, I have to admit, I've been a little confused these past few days. Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that I don't play L4D (or anything else on Steam, for that matter), so I'm probably missing something. But until I figure out what it is, I have to ask one question:
Uh. No, actually you ask n+1 questions, where n is a ridiculous number. But I shall endeavor to answer them, because they are incisive and cut to the heart of this debate.
Is this site still run by the same Shamus Young? Is this the same Shamus who has often railed against developers for releasing games unfinished, unpolished, ahead of schedule or with incomplete content?
Yes. And while I haven’t talked about it before, I do think leaving the versus content out of half the game was a bad move on the part of Valve. I didn’t bring it up before because it’s just not on my radar. I don’t play versus. I tried it a few times and will save that rant for another time. Still, the point that the game was unfinished due to the lack of versus mode in half the game is a fair one, and Valve took a really long time to roll that out. A lot of people had played the game out and moved on months before Valve provided the ability to play versus on the final two campaigns. This complaint makes sense to me, although it doesn’t seem to be related to the ongoing L4D2 debate…
Who bemoans the incresing ratio of price point to game content?
Yes. And if I paid $50 for L4D and played for ten hours, then I’d be making that point again. But I paid $50 and played for 150+ hours. I would say this is a wonderful turnaround for the industry, a return to the bygone days of yore when games lasted longer than an open pint of milk.
Is this the same Shamus who opted not to buy a sequel of a game on the grounds that the original used “the same formula”?
You’re going to have to refresh my memory? The Doom games used the same formula, and I managed to enjoy those. Same with Serious Sam, both Fallout games, Max Payne, and lots of other titles. The two sides of this debate seem to be talking past each other on what constitutes “game content”, but I’ll get to that in a minute…
The same Shamus who has supported maintaining the longevity of a good game?
Yes, and if Valve is planning to erase Left 4 Dead when the sequel comes out I’ll be one of the first to throw an online tantrum over it. I’m certainly not in favor of getting LESS games because a portion of the fan base is still busy with the old one. (Stipulated: I did mention how dividing the audience of an online game is risky. It’s a fair point, but I’ve covered it twice now.)
Is this the same Shamus who has frequently advocated developers releasing additional downloadable content, and has encouraged game companies to maintain good relations with their players? Because all this seems just a bit backwards from the usual.
I do advocate DLC. I don’t demand it, though. But like I said before: They did give us DLC for L4D. And from now on I’m not going to debate with people who are going to stamp their feet and pretend that isn’t the case. You can say it wasn’t enough. You can say that you feel you were promised more. But if you claim there hasn’t been DLC for L4D then you’re not in the same conversation I am.
I suspect the problem here is that some people bought the game expecting more free stuff. They’ve alluded to Valve promises (a link to those promises in writing would be really helpful) unfulfilled. I bought the game expecting to get the stuff in the box and nothing more. The extra DLC was thus a nice bonus for me, not a down payment on an unspoken promise.
As I mentioned before, I don't have any kind of stake in this issue, as I don't play the games in question. As such, I'm something of an outside observer to the situation. It also means that I'm probably missing something, but just from reading the information on this site, let me tell you what it looks like from my perspective:
From what I can tell, a company (Valve) made and released a game (L4D). It was released early to hit the Christmas rush. As such, it was released minus some content, which was promised would be added later post-release (and it later was). It also seems that many of those who bought the game believe that the company indicated/promised that they would continue to support the game by realeasing even more “substantial” content. Exactly what this was seems to be up for debate, but at least some portion of the customers believes that a new campaign was specifically promised. The promise of future upgrades and content became a big selling point for many of these customers. Again, I can't say how much of these “promises” are true, because I haven't read Valve's official statements, but for the time being, I'll just have to assume this is at least partly correct.
I agree with you here. Certainly if Valve said, “We are giving away a free campaign” then they have yet to make good on that. Was this a real promise made by Gabe Newel or an internet rumor? The critics could greatly bolster their manifesto by giving us a quote, or a link, or something. Of course, even if this is true, it just means Valve hasn’t made good on the promise yet.
Now, with in a year of this first game's release, after only releasing one minor piece of additional content (the portion that was supposed to be included at release), the company announces a sequel (L4D2) to be released in a matter of months. Those customers who were counting on further content for the first game are upset, because typically, once a game sequel comes out, support/development for the original stops. These customers feel they will never see the content they were promised. Since they bought the game in good faith that such content would at some point be delivered, they also feel cheated out of a portion of the price they paid for the first game.
This is a fair assessment, assuming Valve made that promise and assuming they never deliver on it.
Add to this the fact that based on what has been shown thus far, the new game doesn't appear to be all that different from the first. It uses the same mechanics, the same engine, the same graphics, and the same general gameplay. All that has been added is a few avatars, a few more weapons, maps, and maybe a couple of new enemies. All of which would be about what one would expect from an expansion, but which hardly amounts to qualifying as a complete game on its own, yet it is being priced as such.
And this is where the other side stops making sense to me. What is it you need in order for a game to qualify as “new enough” for a sequel? New maps, characters, story, melee combat, weapons, enemies, music. There is almost no reused content at all.
I posed this question before, and I only got one taker. That person suggested Valve add “puzzles”, “or something”. Well, puzzles don’t seem to fit within a game designed for “infinite” replay. The first time they’re a bit of a diversion, and on every subsequent playthrough they are simple busywork with no further entertainment value. What is it this game needs? Dialog trees? A romance sim? Blitzball mini-game? This is a tightly focused and well-polished experience, and I’m not seeing what needs to be added.
Again, look at the jump from Doom to Doom II. Serious Sam to Serious Sam 2. Thief to Thief 2. What makes these games “sequels” besides the new maps, monsters, weapons, characters, dialog, story, and gameplay elements.
And here’s the thing: The critics say that:
A) The games are released too close together and,
B) The second is too expensive.
So… don’t buy it on day one. Valve will have a sale and you can get the game $30 cheaper six months later. Me, I’m willing to pay full price on day one, and I don’t see how that transaction detracts from your game in any way. (Player base division notwithstanding.)
Now, as a frequent and vocal advocate of the consumer's rights in the gaming industry, I would have expected that the Shamus I know would have been among the first to speak out on this issue. I'd have thought he'd be denouncing Valve first for releasing an incomplete game, and then for failing to live up to commitments made to their customers.
I never saw any such promise, and I never bought the game with such expectations in mind.
I'd have expected to see some points about how Valve is failing to handle the bad PR being generated by this situation, and some suggestions on how to quiet the angry customers.
I think Valve should just ask the lot of them what content they expect in a sequel that they aren’t already offering, and let them balkanize and bicker amongst each other when they realize they don’t have a unified answer.
He'd also be attacking them for selling a glorified reskin at a full game's price point. Regardless of how he approached it, Shamus would be the last person I'd expect to see supporting the actions of the game company while mocking the actions of angry customers.
I would not call this game a “reskin”, a term usually reserved for superficial changes. Once you add three new monster types (to the original five) and twenty new weapons (to the original eight or so, depending on how picky you are with your definition of “weapon”) and five new campaigns (to the original four) then you have something that is much larger than its predecessor. This is certainly not a reskin, and I can’t think of a time when someone released an expansion pack that dwarfed the size of the game it was supposedly expanding.
At any rate, I’m not really mocking the angry customers. (Well, the Episode 3 boycott did satirize them a bit, but it was satirizing the “boycott” idea more than their grievances. Boycotting a game because is isn’t for sale is only slightly more silly than boycotting something because it sucks. (A “boycott” is supposed to be a refusal to buy an otherwise desirable product over principles. You don’t boycott crap, you just refuse to buy it.))
As a quick side note: I know that some here (including Shamus himself) have said that they've “gotten their money's worth” out of L4D because they've gotten 60-100 hours of gameplay out of it, but I have to ask (because I honestly don't know), how many hours of actual content are in the game? In my experience, multiplayer games like this get a lot more mileage because you end up replaying all the same content over and over again. Games like this will typically get by with a lot less content, and a lot less development, effort, and resources, yet they still price the same as games with more substance. Personally, when I buy a game, I prefer to pay according to how much material I am actually getting, not how much time I may or may not spend repeating the same material.
This is probably a big difference between the two factions. When I buy a movie, I care about how entertaining it is, not how big the budget was. If someone can keep me entertained for an hour and a half for less than a million bucks, I’m not going to demand they sell the DVD for $5 just because the movie was cheap to make.
Now, if you judge Left 4 Dead as a single-player game (maybe you’re on dial-up and can’t meaningfully play online, or perhaps (like many) you generally shy away from online play) then I’d guess the game is perhaps six hours worth of hard content, and a few more hours of replayability due to the dynamic nature of the game. That’s a fraction of (say) Half-Life 2, but about par for comparable mainstream titles. (Which isn’t very impressive.) If you’re looking for single-player fun, then I would say that neither game is worth full price, but L4D2 will be better than the original because it will have one more campaign. (So I’ve heard.)
Keep in mind that all the details I've gleaned on this issue have come from this site, I haven't read about it anywhere else, not even so far as to follow links on the subject. My details may be incorrect, but most of what I understand of the situation has come from Shamus' own words, with some support from descriptions given in the comments. What this amounts to is my perception of the events as I've read about them here.
With all that in mind, I have to ask: Shamus, what gives? Is there some major detail I'm missing that makes this situation so vastly different than all the others you've tackled? Are you getting softer and less “spicy”? Are you going easy on Valve because you like their games and/or their work as a company? I hope that no disrespect is perceived here, because I really don't mean to be rude or offensive, but I know how meanings and intents can be lost or misconstrued in this medium. I'm asking this from a sense of curiosty born of honest confusion at the turn of events and change in tone here, and I really just don't understand why.
I’m wondering the same thing about the protesters. I don’t think they’re stupid or spoiled or clueless, I just don’t get the whole “this should be an expansion pack” argument.
I’ve made the point before about the rising cost of game development. Games are shorter because geometric content (weapons, models, characters, and levels) is really time consuming to produce for current-gen engines. It’s also the part I’m most interested in. I want to see the levels, learn the story, meet the characters. Complaining that this is a re-skin of the original is (to me) like complaining that Mountain Dew is the same old Pepsi can, just with a different flavor liquid inside.
The sequel is going to offer me five campaigns worth of entertainment. That’s more than the original, and at the same price. Sounds like a good deal to me. The fact that they aren’t taking the polished gameplay I enjoy and grafting a bunch of cruft onto it is a nice bonus. Don’t fix what isn’t broken. I certainly didn’t complain that Fallout 2 was just “re-skinned Fallout”. (Although it was bug soup, alas. And I did berate it for that.)
For the protester’s position to make any sense to me, I would need to see a promise from an actual Valve employee promising an extra campaign for L4D, (or whatever) and a concrete explanation of what the sequel needs to have that it doesn’t already have. Then we’ll have some common ground to begin a conversation.
Half Life 2: Episode 3 BOYCOTT
The Half Life 2: Episode 3 boycott is a group of individuals who have pledged to not buy the still-unreleased final episode in the Half-Life series. We have assembled a manifesto outlining the basic concensus consensus of many members of our community. But probably not everyone. You know how it is with online groups.
 |
| We are so committed to our cause that we made a logo. Don’t mess with us. |
2) We want to hold Valve to their promise of faster release times through “episodic gaming”.
3) We really want to know who the G-Man is.
4) Could we kill one of those adviser / space slug things? That would be sweet.
5) Could we get some screenshots in the meantime? Or video? Concept art? Something? Just, you know, show us you’re working on the game and not playing WoW all day.
In closing, we, the disgruntled fans of Half-Life, vow to continue boycotting the game until such time as Valve makes good on their promise and stops not releasing it.
So say we all.
EDIT: Five months later, I guess I’m tired of red-faced fanboys trying to argue with this post because they’re too thick to get the joke. This entire thing is satire. It’s actually kind of making fun of boycotts in general, and the Left 4 Dead 2 boycott in particular. I can’t help the humor-proof goofs of the internet, but if you dorks could stop raging out in the comments that would be super-great. Thanks.
Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott
Aggrieved fans have risen up, outraged over the announcement of Left 4 Dead 2 and the requisite allotment of E3 gameplay footage. For context, they’re talking about this:
Link (YouTube) |
Aside: This movie makes me crazy. Perhaps it’s the view angle. Perhaps it’s because we’re seeing players explore a map that’s familiar to them and unknown to us. Perhaps it’s the fact that this is being played on a console. Whatever the reason, the movement looks far too fast and random. It’s like watching someone play Serious Sam at double speed. The players run around and don’t seem to make any effort to move together, protect each other, or communicate whatsoever.
After about five minutes I wanted to grab the first-person player by the back of his shirt and yank him away from the controller, “Stop and look. At. Something! Anything. Another player. A zombie. A wall. Just stop running around like a sucrose-boosted child and let me get a look at some of this stuff you wide-eyed, idiotic spaz.”
Over a hundred thousand players have vowed to boycott the game. That’s 100,000 Steam accounts, and given what a tremendous pain in the ass it is to create one, it’s safe to guess that this number is not much inflated. There really are that many people that saw this footage and were so incensed that they foreswore the sequel. Here are their grievances, each followed by my response:
1) Significant content for L4D1 was promised, and never delivered
Earlier this year Valve released an entirely new game mode: Survival. The game throws waves and waves of foes at you, and you simply fight to stay alive as long as possible. I spent a few weeks’ worth of of evenings and weekends with friends, experimenting with the scenarios and trying to reach the magical ten-minute mark. It provided me with well over twenty hours of gameplay. This one game mode – given away for free after release – provided me with more gameplay than the average big-budget game.
It may not have been everyone’s cup of tea, but I don’t think you can claim it wasn’t “significant content”.
2) Valve put little faith in L4D1 since they almost certainly started working on L4D2 right after release
This is backwards. If they had no faith in the game, they certainly wouldn’t have begun making another one.
At any rate, this is true of all sequels. No doubt Valve began work on Half-Life 2: Episode 2 as soon as Episode 1 was complete. I don’t think this says anything bad about Episode 1.
3) The fact that L4D2 is nearly identical to L4D1 will decimate the community for both games.
“Nearly identical”? Different weapons, new maps, new storyline, new characters, new infected, new melee combat, new setting. In what way can anyone claim the two are identical? Is there any aspect of the two games that can be said to be similar?
Although, I do have to side with the malcontents on the second point: I am a bit concerned that a sequel will divide the user base. In a game so heavily dependent on the multiplayer aspect, it’s dangerous to divide the player base like this. If the user base for either title falls below a given threshold, it will become hard to fill games. This will make people less likely to go looking for online games, which can turn into a vicious cycle that renders the game unplayable online. (This is assuming you play with random people online, which is not something I would prescribe.)
It’s worth noting that if this issue arises, Valve could always counter it with offering deep discounts on L4D2 to migrate as many people to the new game as possible. Giving the games a common lobby system might mitigate the problem as well.
4) The announced date is not nearly enough time to polish content or make significant gameplay changes.
This is a prediction that the game will be of low quality. Valve has spent the last five years churning out games of supreme quality. The Half-Life 2 series, Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Left 4 Dead. Not a dud in the bunch. Doubtful, I can understand. But boycotting a game, sight unseen, because you predict it will be low quality even though the publisher has an outstanding track record? This makes little sense to me.
Again, they accuse Valve of not making “significant gameplay changes”. Again, I point to the new infected types, new weapons, and new melee combat. What exactly are you guys looking for?
5) The new character designs seem bland and unappealing so far.
I would say the opposite, that the personalities seem too intense and garish. At one point the first-person character remarks that he’s wearing a $1,000 suit, which – given it’s impractical nature and bright colors – isn’t really sensible garb. These people seem a little more vibrant than the Left 4 Dead cast. We meet Bill, Zoey, Francis, and Louis after the apocalypse has had its way with them. Their personalities are subdued behind the shock of the last few weeks and their bloody struggle to survive. Their previous identities usually peek out only during brief moments of quiet. And they’re dressed sensibly.
These character designs look much more extreme. The ones we saw in the movie were more caricatures than characters. Taking the idea that Left 4 Dead games are presented like classic zombie movies, Left 4 Dead was by David Fincher and Left 4 Dead 2 is by Jerry Bruckheimer. Nobody will be more opposed to this direction than I am, and this is exactly the sort of decision I look forward to eviscerating when the game comes out. But… boycott?
6) L4D2 is too colourful to fit in with L4D1’s visual aesthetic.
So after complaining that the game is “nearly identical” to its predecessor, you’re complaining that its… too different? New Orleans is a colorful place. I actually think setting areas of the game in daytime was a good idea. Empty, ruined cities can be pretty spooky in the light of day. And the night seems more frightening when it’s contrasted against day.
It did find the color surprising, though. In the previous game, colors were carefully managed in order to make key aspects of the scene (safehouses, other players) stand out.
7) The fiddle-based horde music is extremely disliked, though the differently orchestrated music is otherwise welcome.
I’m not crazy about it either. Strikes me as more comical than spooky.
8 ) L4D2’s release will result in a drop in quality and frequency for L4D1 content, even compared to before.
This is basically a repetition of point #4, along with the point that they feel like they’re entitled to more L4D content. While I wouldn’t mind more free stuff, I’ve already logged more than a hundred hours in the game. I’m not going to pretend I’ve been short-changed.
9 ) The community has lost faith in Valve’s former reputation for commitment to their games post-release.
100,000 disillusioned fans is nothing to scoff at. If even half of them made good on their promise to boycott the game, Valve will be $2,500,000 less rich. (Although, keep in mind that threatening to boycott something unless you get it for free isn’t a very effective tactic. If Valve released L4D 2 as a free content pack they would lose all of the sales, from people on both sides of the issue.)
I’m not sure where the rancor is coming from. In their manifesto the group never explains what it is they expect to see in a sequel, what sort of new content they need to see in the original game, or how long there “should” be between sequels. I expect that if you tried to get answers to these questions you’d see this ersatz community Balkanize into squabbling groups. Some just want more (free) Left 4 Dead content. Some Want Left 4 Dead 2 to be (more) different than the original. Some just don’t like some of the art direction. (Colors, music, characters.)
Valve could probably take the wind out of the whole protest by simply insidiously yet earnestly asking for clarification and specifics.
Someday I will return to the earth and become like dust, the way of all mortal men doomed to abide in this cursed sphere for a time. Perhaps after an appropriate interval of mourning, my great-grandchildren will have the opportunity to pre-order Half-Life 2: Episode 3. Looking even further into the uncertainties of the murky beyond, perhaps their children will get to actually play the thing. Valve began this project with the aim of reducing their epic development time to something that might fit within the planning horizon of mortal beings with finite lifespans. Anything that increases the number of quality games I get to play before I get old and drop dead is a good thing in my book.
I’ll be getting the game. I hope they get rid of that music, though.
Attention “a fan”
To the ankle-biting troll who posts here under the moniker of “a fan”:
You are no such thing. You have left a couple dozen comments on this site now, and every. single. one. has been argumentative, personally insulting, or both. Is this some kind of strange social experiment where you try to see how rude you can be to someone as long as you pretend to like them? Or do you just need something to bitch about? I’ve been a good sport about it up until now, but you’ve officially worn out your welcome. You will now have to hate my site at a distance, because you’re not welcome. Go bother someone else.
I’m posting this publicly because this has happened before and I just let the malcontents heap bile on me out of some misguided sense of being a “fair moderator”. I’ve since realized that no good can come from this. I’ll link back to this post if the problem arises again.
Life is too short to spend it reading hate mail.
Stolen Pixels #97: Left 4 Dumb, Part 15
What?!?! ANOTHER ONE!?
Louis’ line in panel #4 is actually something I say from time to time. Whenever I get foggy or tired and I can’t concentrate well enough to code I say this, and I never get anything but strange looks from people. (Except for my wife, who probably assumes this is simply the default state for me.)
Question for those who play: What is your preferred approach for dealing with the tank?
From The Archives:
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Internet News is All Wrong
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This Scene Breaks a Character
Small changes to the animations can have a huge impact on how the audience interprets a scene.
Twelve Years
Even allegedly smart people can make life-changing blunders that seem very, very obvious in retrospect.
Object-Oriented Debate
There are two major schools of thought about how you should write software. Here's what they are and why people argue about it.
Fable II
The plot of this game isn't just dumb, it's actively hostile to the player. This game hates you and thinks you are stupid.
Artless in Alderaan
People were so worried about the boring gameplay of The Old Republic they overlooked just how boring and amateur the art is.
MMO Population Problems
Computers keep getting more powerful. So why do the population caps for massively multiplayer games stay about the same?
Project Octant
A programming project where I set out to make a Minecraft-style world so I can experiment with Octree data.
Netscape 1997
What did web browsers look like 20 years ago, and what kind of crazy features did they have?