L4D2 Boycott (NO-L4D2) Steam Group

[kai]

WE RECOGNIZE:

-Valve is a company with financial needs and cannot be expected to survive without the release of new games.

-Judgment cannot be passed on the quality of Left 4 Dead 2 until its release.

-Left 4 Dead was, and is, a quality game which deserves the praise of the entire gaming community.

WE ARE COMMITTED:

-To holding Valve to its promise of free, continual updates to Left 4 Dead in order to build and sustain the community.

-To keeping the Left 4 Dead community together in order to improve the quality of online gaming.

-To supporting the model of continual updates Valve has set forth with its staple products like Team Fortress 2.

WE BELIEVE:

-The release of Left 4 Dead 2 as a stand-alone sequel will split the communities and decrease the quality of multiplayer gaming.

-The announced content of Left 4 Dead 2 does not warrant a stand-alone, full-priced sequel and should instead become updates (free or otherwise) for Left 4 Dead.

-Left 4 Dead has not yet received the support and content which Valve has repeatedly stated will be delivered.

-The release of Left 4 Dead 2 will make Left 4 Dead an obsolete purchase and inferior piece of software after only one year since release.

WE REQUEST:

-That Valve honor its commitment to release ongoing periodic content for Left 4 Dead.

-That Left 4 Dead 2 not be released as a stand-alone, full-priced sequel but as either a free update to Left 4 Dead or an expansion with full compatibility with basic Left 4 Dead owners.

-That Left 4 Dead owners be given discounts for Left 4 Dead 2, should it be released as premium content.



Therefore, we - the members of this Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott - promise to abstain from the purchase of Left 4 Dead 2 until our requests are addressed.

L4D2 Boycott (NO-L4D2) Steam Group

[Chase]

The reason L4D2 is probably going to be standalone and wouldn't work as a DLC is because of the sheer number of 'Under the hood' improvements to the game engine.

Also I rarely see people playing the original L4D anyway so...maybe a sequel as a full new game is the way to go to get people interested in the franchise.

[kai]

game engine improvements can be made and distributed through patches too.

and i dont know what you've been seeing but i get invited to l4d matches every night by at least 3 diff groups of players... and that's just from my friends list. true, not as many people are on as when it first came out, but maybe that's because they failed to give us new content.... like they promised.

im sorry, but am i the only one here who feels betrayed? its not impossible to upgrade the AI director without charging another full 50 bucks. the fact of the matter is, valve is stuck on microsoft's nipple and bill gates is one hell of a business man. he saw profit in left 4 dead, and instead of helping valve deliver in its past promise he exploited the franchise.

if your willing to pay another 50 bucks for something that should have AT LEAST been an add on for $20, be my guest. im not though.

and i dont really see why everyone just up and quit playing. there are custom campaigns and maps being finished as we speak, some are more then decent if the original ones got boring to everyone.

[sept]

But... But fire bullets! And Louisiana!

[kai]

....XD. I love you sept.

but ya all of which were supposed to be on 'upcoming' updates. all we got was that shitty survivor mode (total rip offa' CoD5).
probably why they wont release the sdk too, cause they dont want an overflow of community maps that would take away from L4D2.

[Luminaflare]

Kai this is a bit of an extreme example but the stuff their changing is like going from cryengine1 to cryengine2 in one patch (Exagarated i know). Valve wouldn't release the game as a sequel if they could patch it in to the current game.

Besides the release is a year apart from L4D almost exactly, it's way too early to boycott it. They have another 5 months or so to show why it can't be patched in. Also honestly if EA or Activision did this no one would care, also Valve are still adding new content to L4D before L4D2 comes out.

[kai]

Thats because EA has been doing this for years. As for everything else.... time will tell. Untill then, im boycotting L4D2 like i boycotted Christmas.

EDIT: And its never too early. The earlier the movement gets started, the bigger the message to get valve to notice that we dont like the idea of abandoning L4D.

What they do from there is up to them.

oh, and i didnt think Crysis warhead was worth money IMO. That whole same story, different perspective thing pissed me off.

[SlappyMcGee]

Well, I like the idea of abandoning L4D. It is a broken and waytoofuckingsmall game that has so many game exploits that no amount of patching in the world would help. Not to mention the fact that, although it was initially replayable, having a game with essentially only four levels, no matter their awesomeness, will not constitute a very long game.

I would gladly shell out another fifty bucks for a game that has new characters, new maps, tweaks to the engine and a bunch of cool stuff like chainsaws and new infected. That sounds extremely cool. Technically, it's a broken promise, but in actualization, it is too sweet.

[kai]

What?

... you all really fucking sadden me. You dont see absolutly nothing wrong with this?
at all?
in the least? and what the hell do you mean exploits (not like they really matter if your with friends? the only thing i can think of is corner camping but theres ways around that if you work together as infected. and i refuse to believe that its IMPOSSIBLE for the steam updater (or valve) to make a patch that tweaks, adds, and fixes these things.

you dont even AT LEAST agree that it should at least have been an add on?

..

wow.
i just lost a lot of respect for you... all of you with this opinion. but.... thats your opinion i guess.

[PALEMOON]

my only problem in L4D2 is they made new main characters. You kind of grow attached to the original four, you know?

but yeah, slappy said it.

[Luminaflare]

Thats because EA has been doing this for years. As for everything else.... time will tell. Untill then, im boycotting L4D2 like i boycotted Christmas.

EDIT: And its never too early. The earlier the movement gets started, the bigger the message to get valve to notice that we dont like the idea of abandoning L4D.

What they do from there is up to them.

oh, and i didnt think Crysis warhead was worth money IMO. That whole same story, different perspective thing pissed me off.

Um, CryEngine 1 = FarCry

[kai]

i still havnt played farcry, but i heard a lot of my friends say they liked it better then crysis. and farcry 2 is just well.... repetitious.

im sorry LF, i hear ya but at the same time i dont think it warrants another 50 bucks. maybe if valve released some new content for L4D (thats actually worth a damn) then ill change my mind.

[Luminaflare]

Who said it was going to be $50? How do we know it's not going to be priced similarly to a HL2 episode?

You see my point, way too early to boycott. It's like someone announcing a new flavour of ice cream and boycotting it before anything is known apart from that it's a new flavour and it's ice cream.

What I'm trying to say is just roll with it till information on pricing has surfaced. Also devs need to be paid, sure they get money from sales of old games and stuff but they've had to make a lot of content for L4D2: New maps, new character models, A lot of new zombie models (Considering how much more detailed they are now), new items...

I just realised why this was turned in to a sequel. The AI director is having a major overhaul and wouldn't work with old L4D levels and stuff. So rather than remake L4D just to work with this they decided to make a sequel.

[kai]

then dont. thats your stand.

i already had 4 people on my friends list in the group before i joined, one of which from here. so this is a message to other people that feel the same way and want to make a stand against this bs..
if you want to debate it, make a thread in debate.

oh, and believe me LF, i hope your right. i really do.

[Luminaflare]

Eh, Valve are the most community based commercial developer. I honestly think that if they could have patched all the engine upgrades in L4D2 in to L4D they would have. Also knowing Valve and thanks to this boycott I expect there's going to be some sort of deal for people who already own L4D since the release is so close.

Also you -do- realise it's Valve making L4D2 right? As in Valve time. The game probably won't be out till 2011.

[kai]

lol, great. maybe ill be able to play it before the real zombie apocalypse.

Also knowing Valve and thanks to this boycott I expect there's going to be some sort of deal for people who already own L4D since the release is so close.

what happened to 'too early for a boycott'? right now there's 34,133 members and climbing, by the release we should hopefully be in the millions. even if the majority of the group caves and buys it anyways, by then valve will get the point and it will be half priced.

[SlappyMcGee]

The only thing that bugs me about this movement you have going is not the difference of opinion we are having, but rather, with the large scale of people who have your opinion, what it could do to the quality of the game. Financially speaking, Valve can't be expected to put as much effort into something that is half as valuable as they would for something full value. I understand that you feel cheated about L4D, and I understand that you don't think L4D2 is fair, but at the same time, I want to be able to pay fifty dollars for -all- of this new content they've announced. I would be really, really disappointed if they cut back on the content of the game just to make it more price-friendly, which seems like the only financially viable decision right now.


Then again, the idea of implementing it in a way that it is both an expansion and a stand-alone game at a higher cost is pretty good, and I'm sure I've seen examples of that in the past. (Although none come to mind.)

[blue_tetris]

It's weird they'd call it a boycott. You boycott when a bus company forces black people to go to the back seat or when a soda company in Palestine buys bullets for Israelis. You don't really boycott a video game. Seems like they're blowing shizz out of proportion.

[Atilla]

Why wouldn't it be called a boycott? A boycott is when you refuse to buy something in protest. It's not exactly unusual. I mean, I don't know, maybe where you live people only boycott things based on the Great Issues of Our Time, but over here people threaten to boycott on a fairly regular basis. Usually not much comes of it because it's only a small group or because they don't actually follow through.

[a happy song]

How about this:

If Valve released an add-on for L4D that had enough content in it to justify a £50 price tag, would you buy it? If the game justifies itself, then I very much doubt you people will stick to this boycott. Why would you gimp your own enjoyment like that?

We don't know how much the game will be yet,if Vavle will be offering discount to existing L4D owners, we hardly know anything about the game at all. Unfortunatley, with the evolution of online distribution and digital streams of information allowing companies to release titbits and previews so readily, speculation and assumption is so rife that it whips up disappoitnment and aversion before there's any good reason for it.

Petitions and proposed boycotts aren't going to do anything. Valve will still make money, as 90% of the people on this list will continue to buy other products from the service.

As for LFD2, it's being built as a multi platform game and it'll be marketed at people who've never played the original as much as those loyal to the first. I doubt it'll be troubled much by a few thousand steam users who are very likely to have signed up to the boycott on nothing more than a whim, and will be allured by the pretty new engines and brighter lights of the newer product enough to forget their principles.

I'm not saying don't protest, you should always protest if you feel something needs to change, just that chances are, in this situation, you're not going to change a thing.

[kai]

I understand that you feel cheated about L4D, and I understand that you don't think L4D2 is fair, but at the same time, I want to be able to pay fifty dollars for -all- of this new content they've announced. I would be really, really disappointed if they cut back on the content of the game just to make it more price-friendly, which seems like the only financially viable decision right now.

Not everyone can afford that, and even if i could i wouldn't. if anything id wait till the price drops or Again with no one paying attention to the no piracy rule. -LF

and ya, everything might look all bright and shiny, but so did blacksite: area 51 and clive barkers Jericho.... ONE of which i spent 50 bucks on and regretted it, the other i ripped and was happy not to spend money on it. and sure, numbers are our only weapon right now and the chat room is proof that most of these people will buy it anyways... but i don't care. numbers is better then nothing imo. and i don't think that the original L4D is 'absolutely fucking horrid', which is the message i keep getting from slappy. i still play it, a bunch of other people still play it, and i don't think it should be abandoned. sure the AI director needs some work, but like i said... part of that problem (at least the worst parts, which doesn't even have to do with the AI imo) could have been fixed (cost efficiently) thru patches

if you do fine, but like i said, this isn't a god damned debate.

and i couldnt give 2 turds in a rat skin pouch less if you dont get your silly content, because its content that should have been free or sold ass an expansion / add on. in fact, i hope these numbers DO leave you disappointed if that's how you really feel about the whole situation... because that would mean L4D gets its content, and/or L4D2 gets sold at a special price to L4D owners or as an addon / expansion (and if any of that happens, then that doesn't necessarily mean that they would have to cut content to meet their budget... if that's the comeback you choose to hide behind, its awfully weak).

and hell, if they cut content out of L4D2, they could always just promise it in future updates right? still show L4D attention, and please everyone looking forward more to 'the next best thing'?

to put it another way, id rather be paying off $4,000 debts to my grandmother then pay another $50 bucks for L4D2.
hey.... dont you have a lot of debt still kinda like that slappy? you should be worrying more about that... if you want to have the money to throw away on this game by the time its released.

just a thought.

[kai]

double posted because this has nothing to do with debating whether or not this movement is justified.

Podcast Ahoy!
posted by Walking_Target @ 06:14PM on June 14, 2009
Mr. Pancakes and Walking_Target did an inverview via Podcast for the Okatta and Danny show.

http://www.thetotalgamer.com/?tag=left- ... cott-group

It's the June 14th Episode.


We're almost at 30 000, let's keep inviting people! Go pubbing, have some fun games and recruit, Valve cannot ignore us!

Thanks again for the continued support.


The L4D2 Boycott Staff

GOTY Edition? SDK? WTF?
posted by Walking_Target @ 09:13AM on June 17, 2009
Seriously Valve? What the hell is up with this?

Valve added 'Versus' to two of the original campaigns (that should have *shipped* with versus in the first place) and added 'Survival Mode'. Looking at what they added compared to other GOTY editions out there, is it really fair to call this a Game of the Year Edition with exactly one new map?

For those of you late to the party, Survival Mode is an issue because they provided only ONE new map; all 15 other maps were recycled from Finales or the climax events in the 4 campaigns. Considering all the tools were already in the code base for Survival and that the maps took a few hours to make, tops?

There is no excuse for this.


Now... Where's the finished version of the SDK? Didn't Chet promise it would be released 'shortly after E3'? We're coming up on the 2 week mark with absolutely no information from Valve. Valve has not given us anything but an ambiguous promise of 'content and updates' with no information on what exactly they are doing and no timetable for anything. We need to know when to expect things at this point, not 'soon' or 'in a few weeks' or 'in the coming months'.

Information. Now.


Further to this, an SDK which should have been out no more than a month or two after release is not even out of beta. We are 7 months late and had at least 3 promises of 'soon' from Valve. Where's the SDK at? You can make a whole new standalone game in 12 months but can't release an SDK? This stinks of lack of effort.

Sorry, Valve, but publicly asking for trust from the community, promising an SDK, content and updates multiple times, then releasing a GOTY edition while we're still waiting on promises?

That's a dick move.

Valve wants our trust? They have to earn it.


*The opinions above are my own and not necessarily those of the L4D2 Boycott Staff or members of the Community.*

Thanks to the L4D2 boycott community once again for your continued support.

-Walking_Target


*This is NOT an official L4D2 Boycott Staff Announcement. This is Walking_Target, one member of the group staff, bringing the issues of the SDK and GOTY Edition release to the community's attention. An official announcement will be comming between 10pm and 11pm EST this evening. The opinions above are my own and not necessarily those of the L4D2 Boycott Staff or members of the Community.*

Stomach Upset.
posted by Agent of Chaos @ 12:04AM on June 18, 2009
As of 10pm Eastern Standard Time on June 17th 2009, we still have not received a response to our request that Valve provides further details regarding what’s included in upcoming updates, and when we can expect them. While we can understand Valve is reluctant to give all the details, we still expect a response to our inquiries. This does not mean that Valve is ignoring us. We should expect some delays, especially when we ask them to elaborate on updates as it does take time to gather information, and decide what to inform the community. We've not forgotten about this, and we will be trying to work with Valve in this matter.

The next issue we want to talk about tonight is the treatment this boycott has received from main stream media sources. We have received plenty of links from boycott members regarding articles that portray this boycott in a poor manner. While we know a lot of people are rather upset with these sources, they are entitled to their opinions so long as they keep the reports factually accurate, and don't resort to outright slander.

If you find an article from a major gaming media source that is inaccurate or slanderous, bring it to our attention on the forums. We are going to try speaking to some of these folks, or if failing that, to their editors. While we take criticism, we're not going to put up with slander or false reporting.

The last point we would like to discuss this evening is what we can continue to do to keep this movement strong. As most of you have guessed, we're not going to get instant results in this effort. We're in this for the long haul, and we still have almost five months till the planned release day. With that in mind - keep inviting people; keep informing friends and relatives about what's going on. Keep discussing L4D, and what you want to see; most of all, keep positive. .

In 18 short days, we have over 32000 members. I repeat, there are still 140 days to go.

We're not going anywhere, and our voice can only get louder from here on out.

Thanks for your continued support. Now beat it!

- The L4D2 Boycott Staff.

Fair-Play
posted by Mr.Pancakes @ 12:55AM on June 21, 2009
We would first like to applaud Valve on their work with the SDK. As we have maintained, Valve is indeed a good company. With the beta SDK out, we are looking forward to other content Valve will be releasing--such as the upcoming full SDK. New monsters, new weapons, and new maps are some of the ideas Valve has spoken of in the past, and we are very much hoping to see this type of content introduced in the future. Thank you Valve, and keep up the good work.

[Edit: For information on the upcoming full SDK, go here: http://www.l4d.com/blog/post.php?id=2599 ]


On another note, Adam Sessler of G4TV has recently made a statement about the L4D2 petitioners, which can be found here:
http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/69664 ... oners.html

We feel that it is unfortunate that Mr.Sessler holds a negative opinion of the petitioners in general. The boycott staff would like to invite Mr.Sessler to sit down and talk with members of the group in order to better understand our position. To this end, we have prepared a public statement which we have also sent to G4TV in an effort to contact Mr.Sessler.


" Mr.Sessler,

It has come to our attention that you recently spoke about our group on your segment entitled “Sessler's Soapbox”. You brought up some interesting points about those in opposition to Left 4 Dead 2, and we welcome your comments. While there were some over generalizations made during the show, that is understandable. You must be reporting on a lot of different groups that are upset about this release, and have to address a wide community of people. We most definitely do not envy your job.

The Left 4 Dead 2 boycott staff would like to invite you to sit down with some of our community members, many of whom are fans of you and your work, so that we may discuss any questions or misconceptions you may have about us.

Feel free to contact us at the boycott if you are interested and would like to set something up. Our email is [email protected]

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

The L4D2 Boycott Staff
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/L4D2Boycott "

The boycott staff would like to encourage members to write G4TV directly if they feel a meeting between Mr.Sessler and members of the group would be appropriate. G4TV can be contacted at [email protected]

(Unfortunately, we could not find Mr.Sessler's email. If we had his email, we would have recommended that address rather than that of G4TV)

Please try to use your own words when writing an email to G4TV, and keep the email short and civil. Including a copy of our official message somewhere in the body of your email is also encouraged--as it is a show of your support for the meeting.

[blue_tetris]

Have Adam Sessler talk to them in person? Odd. It seems to me that people have the right to criticise this boycott group just as much as the boycotters have the right to criticise Valve. Not every entity has the time and effort to maintain this dialogue ad infinitum. At some point, it's like talking into parallel mirrors.

[kai]

Don't know yet, but I'm trying to find out.

Honestly though, I wouldn't worry about Sessler. That stuttering idiot couldn't string together an intelligible sentence for the life of him. Anyone remember when he was on a crossfire with Jack Thompson and all Sessler did was stutter out of control?

[blue_tetris]

See, I like Sessler. I think he's smart and a nice guy, with pretty on-the-ball opinions. Just mostly zero showmanship. But everything he was on was much better before he was made co-host. Additionally, he was a better ZDTV host than a TechTV host, and a better TechTV host than this G4TV nonsense that he's forced to do now.

Dude coulda gone better places. The industry held him back.