Why does JonnyMaverick's post take up so much space?

Give this game good script and voice; give this game environmental decay; make this game violently realistic. Valve needs to aim for a parental warning from watchdogs.

I missed the first game so now i can jump in without feeling left behind

looks exciting. though it's strange seeing the zombie infestation on my beloved New Orleans landmarks.

Left 4 Dead: Back 4 More?

Sounds awesomely B-movieish.

But still. No one said we won't see any more updates for L4D1. I like to think of this as an expansion more than anything.

You know, I kind of got the feeling that when Valve was making the original L4D, it was just a way to blow off steam in between Half-life episodes, you know? Like, "well, we've got this huge, sweeping epic on our hands, but fuck it, let's just have a stupid good time killing some zombies too, because we can." Valve is clever-- they presented the original L4D as a self-aware, tongue-in-cheek jab at the zombie genre, heavy on action and light on everything else. And the original L4D is just that--stupid giddy fun, not to be taken as anything deeper than perhaps a loving homage to pulp fiction.

So... when they start treating L4D as a headlining franchise, releasing a me-too sequel before making the next Half-life episode, I get a weeeeee bit nervous. Surely a sequel for a series as well-known as Half-Life has got to be a reasonable financial bet, right? No need to play it safe with low-cost sequels just yet, right? Now, I know developers work on multiple games at a time, so if they're working on another Half Life episode and don't want to show it yet at E3, then I'm okay with that. I'm also okay with the idea that L4D2 is a way of making some easy money to put towards HL3. Okay, cool. I'm on board.

Valve's got a good track record for delivering the good stuff in time, so I think it's too early to be calling them names. Still, in light of the 2009 E3 philosophy of "moar big sequels plz," it's easy to understand why Valve fans like myself aren't totally ecstatic about L4D2.

How about you idiots stop and think, valve must have a reason for making a whole new game instead of DLC. They must think that whatever they have planned is worthy of a whole new installment, like changes too radical for DLC. And although this game was originally made with co-op arcadey style in mind, Valve might try to make an actual story line of this game judging by the fact that they said they are going to make the campaigns link together better.

*sigh* Thought about this for a long time. I do wish they had worked on more stuff for the first one, this does seem just too quick. I mean I'm sure I'll play it and enjoy it but...I'm probably going to refer to it as Left 4 Dead 2-soon for a while.

this isnt ecactly a new game more like a fresh coat of paint for l4d im not exactly sure that i want to shell out another 60 dollars for what pretty much looks like the same game this really should just be like a maybe 20 dollar add on to the old game

I mentioned in another post how I felt about L4D2. To summarize, I don't feel jipped about them working on L4D2 when they could have been patching 1. Let me ask this...How many other companies work on a sequel after the first game is released?...Many. L4D was a cheap but fun game that I bought for 19.99, for that price tag, I definately got my use out of the game. Valve even added free DLC after a while, which was a nice bonus. For the price, I think the amount of content was good.

Now, seperating that from L4D2...my only concern is that their full price tag will "jip" people. I am hoping that the content is much more than what was in L4D. Adding a few more weapons or special infected doesn't warrant a $30 increase in price in my opinion. As new/more information is released, I hope to hear that there will be MANY more maps, MANY more weapons, MANY more features, MANY more game types, etc to warrant a $30 hike.

Okay, that wasn't a summary like a promised, but there you go.

hey, ill still play l4d1 a bunch as well as l4d2.

I am actually upset about l4d2... When l4d came out with only 4 campaigns and m-player on 2 of them we forgave them for that because we figured
"Its valve, they just continually release stuff... the game will get bigger"

And it kinda did... We now have survival mode - which is a fun diversion and we also can do m-player on all 4 maps. But now with l4d2 coming out more resources are going that way and we are left with a game that is honestly only 4 to 5 hours long (if your not including multiplayer... which just uses the SAME maps!)

This is a giant rip off... The content we have is good... but the quantity is seriously lacking - Make l4d2 a Add-on for like $10 or $20 and intergrate some of the changes into the old maps and I am back on board.

It is entirely possible, given the short amount of time between the entries, that these changes were something that Valve had in mind the second they released the game. In that respect, they may have mulled over releasing multiple patches, but decided that (a) they wanted to fix these problems all at once, not separately, and (b) that some problems (like minimal story) would be difficult to create in a patch. But DeadGirls is right. They could've easily made this an expansion, and everyone would benefit. Not a single one of the changes here have appeared to be so complex that they needed another game. The truth of the matter is that Valve is becoming money hungry, and that worries me, because Valve was one of those few remaining companies that cared about the games, not the money, and now I fear they'll become another Activision or Ubisoft. I swear, if Left 4 Dead 3, or some sort of spin-off comes out any time less than 2 years after L4D2, Valve is offixcially screwed

It seems like such a weird move. Why bother with a distinct sequel when they could just keep building on the original forever? If it's about money, i'm sure any L4D fan would be perfectly happy to pay for all the new stuff in DLC form, as an addon to the existing game.

And i'm super disappointed that we won't be able to play Francis, Zoey, Bill and Louis in the new campaigns. I'm glad they're adding new survivors, but I was hoping we'd be able to play any of the survivors in any combination in any campaign.

I'm mad as hell that I spent $60.00 plus tax on L4D1, thinking it would really blow my mind and continue to do so with DLC (which it really hasn't done, period [-Xbox 360-]). While L4D2 is undeniably awesome, L4D1 had a lot more potential. Instead of following up on a good game released less than a year ago, VALVe should finish what they fucking started 10-11 years with Half-Life, or at least tease at it. All the VALVe fanboys (myself included) have to show for the wait on HL2:3 are -2- pieces of concept art and a handful of less-than-positive interviews.

Keep in mind, the dev teams for HL2 and L4D are completely different. Portal too, I think. Yeah, L4D2 should really just be an expansion. This seems like a way to make some quick cash since Ep.3 keeps getting delayed, but it's not going to work. As someone else said, everyone who wants to play this sort of game already has L4D1, and most aren't going to buy L4D2 until it drops to $30 or even $20. As for Ep.3, I fear they may have run into DNF-like issues: the game gets delayed enough for some reason or another that a completely new engine is deemed necessary. Personally, I think VALVe's incomparable texture artists and animators make up for the age of Source as far as immersion and realism go, but this may be a minority opinion.

I was peeved at first because I was so enamored with the original L4D crew, but I have come around after hearing more details about the game, and the reasons why they chose to go for a full sequel,rather then add more add ons. The original is one of the most scary/enjoyable games to play online ever. And the modifications to level structure, panic events, AI director, weapons, etc, in the sequel will make it a must buy for me on day 1.

Let me sum up those last few long comments:
"Not bad"

they should have just taken all the new content on lfd2 and just made it patches, updates for lfd. AND WHERE IS HALF LIFE EP3???????

Well, frankly it looks like the same game with improvements, mainly the addition of melee weapons, but looking at the new cast of characters (even though I'm glad I now share a name with Nick), I can't help but like the old group more, obviously the game hasn't come out yet and little to nothing is known about them, but at first glance I prefer Bill, Francis, Louis and Zoey. To be honest, I think they should have both games parallell one another, it's obvious some people will prefer the setting or characters to the first one over the second, so patch in melee weapons and all the other improvements so people can choose which one they want to play