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Blog: Software Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott to End
Stephen Kamizuru (Blog) - October 15, 2009 9:44 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 22 comment(s) - last by MrPoletski.. on Oct 30 at 5:59 AM
"Mission Accomplished" declares boycott founders

The founders of the Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott have decided to end their crusade against the sequel  to Valve's popular zombie blasting game. They declared effective Wednesday October 21, 2009 at 12:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, the Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott group would be closed. As of this writing the Steam Boycott group had grown to 40,743 members

One of the founders of the boycott Agent of Chaos proudly crowed, "We have accomplished everything we can on our manifesto. We’ve been dealing with Valve ever since our group started, then we met them in-person and now we’re at the point of concluding our discussions." He also stated, " Our goal wasn’t to steer people away from L4D2, it was to get Valve’s attention and have them support original L4D. We succeeded and that’s where our mission ends; nothing more or less."

As evidence of their accomplishments he mentioned the recently released level Crash Course, and the upcoming 4v4 matchmaking feature that is confirmed to be coming before the release of Left 4 Dead 2.

With regards to the Boycott founders about face Kotaku observed, "The duo sound more like evangelists at this point." In their announcement they sing the praises about the changes in game play and they devote almost a paragraph to how the discounted pre-order prices are "fair" and that, "You can’t blame them for making this decision."

In their announcement, Walking_Target, one of the boycott co-founders, took the time to send a few jabs at their former supporters stating, " People have lost sight of why we're here. The comments are always full of trolls, people bashing Valve and phishers. What is more, people are unwilling or unable to wait for Valve to follow through in any cohesive way."

He also reiterated the ground breaking nature of their accomplishments, "As a collective we have done more than achieve a few goals, we have paved the way for Developer-Community relations in the future. No matter what the press or other gamers say, we have made an indelible mark upon the future of this industry. You should all be proud, we certainly are."

As debate over what the boycott group has or has not accomplished rages on, Valve seem to have effectively put out a public relations fire by converting the boycott founders.

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STEAM IS AWESOME! L4D is awesome!
By Pastuch on 10/15/2009 10:18:59 AM , Rating: 3
Just want to thank Valve and Blizzard for keeping PC gaming alive. I haven't bought a PC game in a retail store in years.

If you haven't played left 4 dead you need to. I love Crash Course. I think the new 4v4 match making will be great. L4D is the best FPS I have played in years. It's incredibly original gameplay has kept me very busy for the last year. Versus mode is more addictive than heroine. I can't get enough of the team play aspect of the game. Most players are older and have mics. I preordered L4D2 earlier this week.

Steam is the best thing to happen to Canadian gamers in a long time. Canadians can buy games off steam without having to pay any Canadian sales taxes or deal with our awful distrobution networks. I paid $49 Canadian for L4D2 off Steam! If I preorder at Electronics Boutique or Best Buy I'll be paying $59 plus 13% sales taxes. Awful. I have reinstalled Windows 7 Beta, RC and then RTM. Each time Steam reinstalls all my games in minutes with no CDs or hassels. I LOVE STEAM!




By damianrobertjones on 10/15/2009 12:00:45 PM , Rating: 2
Yep, damn good game AND I personally like steam for what it offers PC gamers.


By kattanna on 10/15/2009 12:03:40 PM , Rating: 2
while i wasnt all that excited about left for dead, i have been a long time steam subscriber.


RE: STEAM IS AWESOME! L4D is awesome!
By Yawgm0th on 10/15/2009 12:34:31 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
I love Crash Course.
It's a fun map but c'mon. It needs more than two parts. Play it ten or twenty times and it's as old as the others. We need another five full-length, four- or five-part campaigns.

quote:
Steam is the best thing to happen to Canadian gamers in a long time. Canadians can buy games off steam without having to pay any Canadian sales taxes or deal with our awful distrobution networks. I paid $49 Canadian for L4D2 off Steam!
That's probably bad for your economy. You lose money, tax revenue, and jobs to American companies. :P


RE: STEAM IS AWESOME! L4D is awesome!
By exploderator on 10/15/2009 9:17:30 PM , Rating: 3
Hit the mods. There is NO EXCUSE FOR WHINING about L4D getting tired.

http://www.l4dmaps.com/

There are many GREAT campaigns for free. They play seamlessly across the L4D server networks. Valve has been top notch with giving full dev tools and top notch support to the community, and it shows. It's an important contribution that Valve doesn't get nearly enough credit for, and they deserve major kudos.

Some of my top picks:

Death Aboard
Heaven Can Wait
Night Terror
Coal'd Blood
Escape From Totonto
The Woods
The Mortuary
...and many many more...

Finally, these install very easily, just put the ".vpk" files in the "\Steam\steamapps\common\left 4 dead\left4dead\addons" folder. No messy incompatibility problems.


RE: STEAM IS AWESOME! L4D is awesome!
By G2cool on 10/17/2009 8:39:49 AM , Rating: 3
Considering the install process, should that maybe read "They play steamlessly across..." :P


RE: STEAM IS AWESOME! L4D is awesome!
By Yawgm0th on 10/19/2009 1:27:35 PM , Rating: 2
User-made content is great, no question. But I don't pay $40 or $50 for a game in the hopes that users make it better by modding and adding maps.


By exploderator on 10/19/2009 5:44:53 PM , Rating: 2
That's silly. Only a few other games support user content on this level, and it's a major bonus component in the gaming ecosystem. It's WELL WORTH paying for. If I buy a Valve game, it will get major extra mileage BECAUSE it is both the good game they sold me at first, plus a great platform for a large amount of follow up content from other users. Crytek games too, but valve still has them beat for overall variety and scope of user content.

Look at Garry's Mod (Gmod). $10. It's a whole other world. NO other platform even comes close to the Valve / Source ecosystem.

Valve puts a lot of work into their SDK, and the result is overall about 100 times as much high quality content than any other gaming platform. That ecosystem is worth paying for. There is so much there, and it is so diverse, I don't bother buying anything much other than Valve products.


By Pastuch on 10/20/2009 3:04:03 PM , Rating: 2
Death Aboard is the best campaign in the game. I would rather play it than ANY of the stock campaigns. Coald Blood is fun also but it really doesn't compare to Death Aboard. Escape from Toronto is mediocre and very laggy. If you can complete the final stage of Death Aboard in versus mode against a solid team you are one hell of a good player. I love how difficult that campaign is. They should all be that hard!


By MrPoletski on 10/30/2009 5:56:19 AM , Rating: 2
How about we have l4d auto-download the maps when we try and connect to a server playing one we dont have?

I mean, cmon, it's a pretty standard feature that's been around for ages in other games... made by valve.

I can't be bothered roaming around some website to find a download link then browsing through to my install folder. Sorry, I'm lazy.


By kamel5547 on 10/15/2009 3:28:24 PM , Rating: 2
Funny I find the pricing backwards in many cases. Dragon Age is essentially full retail electronically (49.99) but i can get it for 39.99 if I buy a hard copy.

The re-installation is nice, however many services that require registering the game (to prevent reselling) allow you to do that whether you ahve the electronic download or hard copy originally.


By Kahnivorous on 10/17/2009 10:46:05 PM , Rating: 2
Two things make a game a winner: fun game play and continued support. If one of these features are missing, the game will either burn out quickly and/or flop. We've all seen it many times now in the last 4 years.

L4D is a very, very fun game especially with friends or a decent group of people. That alone makes the game quite popular with little effort. The problem that's continuing to develop is the lack of support. This includes limited campaigns and number of servers.

For one, there are far too many "game trolls" filling up the already limited numbers of servers. They sit there taking up the Leader slot with no way to remove them. Something can quickly and easily be developed that can detect and idle Leader which would remove that status.

There are other issues, but these seem to be the biggest that have arguably held L4D back from being the perfect game of 2008/2009. My advice to Valve is add a couple of substantial campaigns, more servers, and better leader management. If they can implement these things in to L4D2, coming next month, they might be the biggest title in 2009/2010.


By Major HooHaa on 10/20/2009 4:51:09 PM , Rating: 2
After some reservations about the sequel, so soon after the original release, I have just read a piece about L4D2 and I am now looking forward to playing it.

A zombie boss to force the players out of tight defensive locations, zombies with squeaky clown shoes and another zombie boss that can steer a survivor around and send them stumbling over things like cliff edges? Bring it on!

I have recently been playing L4D Crash Course and re-acquainting myself with the utter madness that is versus mode.


Good, but problems remain
By Yawgm0th on 10/15/2009 12:28:36 PM , Rating: 4
I never supported the boycott, because frankly L4D2 looks like it's worth being a second game. Too much free content in L4D wouldn't have been fair for Valve. Still, there are major issues with L4D that Valve really needs to think about, and I almost feel the leaders have acquiesced too soon.

Server performance and availability remains a major issue in online play. There's no good reason it should take more than 60 seconds to get a lobby filled and a game started. Yet, the joining system is inefficient, placing players in lobbies at random rather than finishing off the lobbies that are nearly full.

Starting the game takes just as long, and you're lucky to find a good server at all, never mind how long it takes. I can still go play any version of Battlefield, Counter-Strike, or Call of Duty and get in a low-latency game quickly. Official servers or not, it's a better experience. Is there something about zombies that clogs the great Series of Tubes more than normally?

Also, Crash Course is an okay map, but it doesn't really address the issue. It's a small two-parter, not really on the same level as the other four, and it's going to get old fast. L4D is the sort of game that needs eight to twelve maps to prevent them from getting old. Five campaigns is way too limiting.

I could go on a rant about weapons or zombie variety, but honestly those are nothing. Server and network issues are not acceptable in a 2008 Valve game. There's just no excuse. Even in today's market of releases being glorified public beta tests, it's not okay. A year past release is too long to fix what most games get right out of the box.

Don't get me wrong. L4D is one of the greatest multiplayer shooters of all time -- and definitely the greatest multiplayer zombie survival game of all time. But boycott or not, Valve is going to lose some sales over the current state of L4D.




RE: Good, but problems remain
By AnnihilatorX on 10/15/2009 1:50:29 PM , Rating: 2
I agree.

L4D, while is very addicting and fun, it doesn't seem to me the production budget that has went into it is worth the price the game sells at. The same goes to L4D2.

L4D2 only took a year to develop, yet have a full game price tag stacked on it. They didn't need to make a new engine. They didn't need to improve the graphics. They can pretty much re-use sound effects except voice acting. Net code is not the best. These probably contribute to most of the development cost of a normal game. Yep, they've add new game mode, new enemies, 5 campaign, new melee weapons, new damage model, but so? the core game is still the same.


RE: Good, but problems remain
By Morphine06 on 10/16/2009 5:04:43 AM , Rating: 2
This is all true.

I'm a fan of the game. However, I wouldn't have paid 39.99 for it. I got it on sale from steam for 19.99.

In the end, it's a really good mod worth 20 bucks...


RE: Good, but problems remain
By FITCamaro on 10/16/2009 6:54:41 AM , Rating: 2
So don't buy it.


Missing Coverage
By Morphine06 on 10/20/2009 11:08:39 AM , Rating: 2
Where's the coverage of the CODMW2 boycott?

No dedicated servers announced.
No mod tools.
No custom maps.
Matchmaking MP via P2P.

For those that were "up in arms" over L4D2, CODMW2 is truly boycott worthy.




RE: Missing Coverage
By Yawgm0th on 10/23/2009 2:02:33 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
For those that were "up in arms" over L4D2, CODMW2 is truly boycott worthy.
Why boycott something I won't by in the first place? :-) The online shooter market is so over-saturated that new games rarely take such a market share or offer such a compelling experience that they warrant switching to yet another new game. Left 4 Dead was one of the exceptions. Frankly it would take something very impressive to get me to switch away from L4D.


RE: Missing Coverage
By MrPoletski on 10/30/2009 5:59:10 AM , Rating: 2
*chink*

Here's to Crysis 2...

:O)


Get Real
By zer0das on 10/16/2009 2:01:03 AM , Rating: 3
As someone who bought Left 4 Dead on day 1, I have been thoroughly disappointed by Valve. They didn't have the SDK out at launch, and they promised it would be out shortly. The game launched in November, and it was out in April of the next year or so? The general vibe I got was that it would be out in less than a month. They also made it sound like content would be a lot more forthcoming than it was- that the 4 campaigns were just the beginning, that there would be stuff coming out very quickly.

The first real content update didn't occur until Survivor mode came out in February- and all that did was put a tiny bit of spin on the same tired maps (and only a small portion of the maps at that). Versus mode was added to two campaigns that should have already been available at launch. For around 4 months there were 2 versus campaigns. It got repetitive pretty quickly. It didn't help that Valve didn't seem to want to patch obvious balance issues for the longest time.

By the time they started actually started updating the game, me and the core of my friends who played just stopped caring. They started dropping the price around when the updates started coming out. That's their decision, but personally I feel like they screwed the early adopters of the game over, with promises that were largely empty on a timescale that mattered. There was very little advantage to buying the game in November- they could have just delayed the game another 6 months and released a more complete product. They still haven't made it possible to join a game with a friend at the same time, which makes joining lobbies and games obnoxious.

I've started to play Left 4 Dead every now and then with my friends again, but it just isn't the same anymore. It's really a shame too, because it would have been great to play all the amazing custom campaigns that are coming out with a full complement of friends that really loved the game.

The boycott hasn't achieved any of its aims; they are lying to themselves if they think they have. I still feel like Valve burned me- they hinted that Left 4 Dead would be treated largely like Team Fortress 2, which has received fairly constant updates, and quite frankly, it hasn't. Left 4 Dead 2 was in development before they had the SDK out for Left 4 Dead for crying out loud.

I'm probably just part of a disgruntled minority, but frankly, even though I love Valve, I'm not going to be buying any of their new games at launch anytime soon. If they're just going to make a lot of ethereal promises, waffle around like they did for Left 4 Dead, then drop the price to nothing in <6 months, there's not much point.




Well
By adiposity on 10/19/2009 6:25:41 PM , Rating: 2
As a Valve fan, but not one who ever played L4D , I was not part of the boycott. I understood what it was about, but I didn't really agree with it. Why organize a compaign to boycott something that is sold on its own merits? You don't need to boycott, just don't buy it if you don't like it. The main goal was probably to get Valve to lower the price, but since it was standalone and not an expansion, that wasn't going to happen.

On the other hand, the way Valve dealt with it was pretty smart, but almost makes me more symathetic to the boycotters. It sure seems like they basically paid off the leaders of the movement to say "fvck you" to the rest of the movement...and that's exactly what the leaders did. Clever, but it leaves a sort of stink over the whole thing.

Of course, there wasn't much Valve could do to appease the community without throwing away a chance to make lots of dough, and that was pretty unlikely.

-Dan




"Game reviewers fought each other to write the most glowing coverage possible for the powerhouse Sony, MS systems. Reviewers flipped coins to see who would review the Nintendo Wii. The losers got stuck with the job." -- Andy Marken

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