So unless you’re living under a rock (Hey, now that’s a perfectly good excuse), you probably know about that event called E3. You know THAT event, the one that every single ^%@^&$ website (I refuse to link to gamespot) seems to be covering. Well if you have, you probably have heard of Valve’s little surprise for us (And by little I mean absolutely hu-eg.)
Only 7 months after the release of Left 4 dead One, Left 4 dead Two has been announced for a November release (No published stated as of yet, Digital distribution will obviously be done through steam.)
So just what exactly can you expect from this new game? Well according to some people (With appropriate references backing those claims given below), it contains that which was meant for left 4 dead, mainly free content in terms of campaigns, characters, maps and etc. Obviously the community is currently in an uproar (Relevant pictures and videos attached as well) but before we get to that, below are links to relevant videos and links to bring you people up to date.
Shack News Interview: http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1138 (Relevant video’s including gameplay)
Official Preview from Valve: http://store.steampowered.com/app/5268/
From the interview, it is apparent that valve began to work almost immediately after left 4 dead one launch on the new game creating the second game in record time. It is clear that valve did not intend to fully live up to its promises (It did provide Survivor mode/Four vs Four matchmaking is inbound with an ETA of one month) and would perhaps rely on the community to create content for themselves (So far, there are no complete/fully working maps one can find at L4dmaps.com). If you have been following this blog till date, you will know that I too have written extensively on my own left4dead campaign with another detailed article in the making.
Now down to the main reasoning for this post.
The community is in an uproar.
Fans are demanding the content which they were promised but which was never delivered. Fans are enraged at the fact that left4dead two will be a fully priced sequel (USD $50). Fans are enraged that the left4dead community will be destroyed and the player base split thinly amongst the two games. Modder’s will be expected to drop left4dead one projects knowing that the game will become outdated come November and begin designing campaigns for left 4 dead two leaving the original game behind. In short, Valve, the company that was known to be one of the best when it comes to interacting with gamers and the relevant communities has disappointed all. I won’t go into any more detail for just a simple Google (Or bing, depending on your preference) will turn up more information.
I’ll now leave you folk, with fan made material and relevant quotes.
“Speaking to VideoGamer.com at Leipzig Games Convention, the Valve co-founder and managing director said the developer intended to follow a similar downloadable content policy as it has with Team Fortress 2.
Newell said that Valve’s support of the game post-launch will be essential for growing the community.
He said: “One of the things that we’re doing is we seem to be in a transition between games as a package product and games more of a service. So if you look at Team Fortress 2, one of things that’s really helped grow the community is the continuous updates, where we release new maps, new character classes, new unlockables, new weapons. And we tell the stories about the characters, like the meet the sniper, or meet the sandwich. And that ongoing delivery of content really seems to grow the community.
“So each time we’ve released one of those for Team Fortress 2 we’ve seen about a 20% increase in the number of people who are playing online. And that number is really important because it determines how many community created maps there are, how many servers are running, and so on. So we’ll do the same thing with Left 4 Dead where we’ll have the initial release and then we’ll release more movies, more characters, more weapons, unlockables, achievements, because that’s the way you continue to grow a community over time.”
Gotei Thirteen 
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