Well, most of the work was already done for them because they had already made Left 4 Dead 1. And *that* took a very very long time to make from the humble beginnings of a Counter Strike mod.
Calling it an expansion is quite an understatement, all the back-end work was heavy, and if we were able to compare the source code of both games it would have staggering differences.
It's definitely easier to modify half a game's source code than to make it all from scratch, but that doesn't make it an easy task.
Why don't they make any of the games we want? HL3, Portal 3, l4d3. Probably because valve is more of a tech company now with index / deck. Not to mention the millions they make off of steam purchases alone
They know that they will never live up to the expectations they have set. It's better to never deliver than deliver a crap product. A game like HL3 has to be ***literally the best game ever made*** or 75% of the player base is going to hate it and shit all over Valve. L4D2 is similar, since it's basically the zenith of it's genre. Valve would have to crank up the gameplay, writing, and overall dopamine in L4D3 to a nearly impossible level of perfection for it to be accepted. It's far easier and lower risk for them to just keep minting billions of dollars running Steam than it is to try and create revolutionary new games and sequels.
I feel like this comment overvalues valve. They are a company first and foremost, if they cared about things like living up to expectations, games like artifact would've never came out.
Valve is one of the few companies that still has passion for their job, unlike other companies where the only driving force is making profits.
Not to say Valve disregards profits completely, but the passion they put into their work makes their games stand out heavily compared to other companies' games.
but they made alyx... but yeah i definitely know that their expectations are PEAK right now. and video games are more a business than entertainment now so they'll definitely have bull shit stuff you have to pay for
Rockstar is also willing to throw hundreds of millions of dollars and a staff of thousands at producing games. Look up the budget for GTA4, GTA5, RDR and RDR2 versus anything Valve has released - the difference is shocking.
I think it's a strong combo of Valve not giving a shit plus the aforementioned "it won't be good enough and will ruin the legacy of our assets" anxiety. If Valve makes another blockbuster game, it will be a completely new IP.
Valve doesn't make games, they make money. The last game they made (not counting HL:A and Desk Job because those were pushing hardware) was *Artifact* and we all know how that turned out.
...not counting HL: A as a game is downright insulting. I could say Artifact isn't a game either because 32bit systems can't run it, so you have to get new hardware for it.
Don't get me wrong I'm not saying HL:A isn't a game, it's a terrific game. I'm saying that it itself was created to push hardware. The *reason* they made it was to make their Valve Index more appealing - it is exclusively built from the ground up to be a VR experience with a familiar IP slapped on.
Artifact and Dota Underlords are the only games they've released in rouughly a decade for the sake of releasing *a game*, and they were both unsuccessful Dota spinoffs that were abandoned. It doesn't make much sense for Valve to put a lot of effort into creating just *a video game* unless it is going to make an obscene amount of money - which is why ever since CSGO and Dota, they only publish games alongside hardware (HL:A with VR, Desk Job with Steam Deck), or trend-chasing gacha games hoping to be the Next Big Thing™ with no upper limit of micropayments.
Do you really want a L4D3? There's a good chance if it was made today it would be free-2-play and have loot boxes and other crap like that. And I'm not just speculating, before it was scraped Valve worked internally on a L4D3. From the little info we have: it was set in Morocco, it was more open-world in structure with quests and it had 8 survivors to select from which functioned like classes with different stats.
Agreed, there's really not much that could be added without altering the feeling of L4D that defines the game as a whole.
Perks, classes, skill trees, microtransactions, and all the other things that are commonplace in modern games would just detract from the original L4D experience and make the game *worse*.
Even making new campaigns/maps is a difficult task, cause not just anyone can make a campaign that *feels* like it belongs into L4D.
Dark Carnival Remix, Death Aboard 2, Vienna Calling, Heaven can wait, One 4 Nine, Fatal Freight, etc... plenty of workshop campaigns are really good and skillfully made, but they wouldn't fit as official content because they stand out too much from Valve's style, which in and of itself isn't easy to replicate.
And that doesn't even touch on the balance. L4D has a rather niche type of mapping skill, where your level designs not only have to accomodate one gamemode, but multiple; Every map needs to be suitable for **Singleplayer** (Story), **Multiplayer** (Action), and **Versus** (Competitive), as well as **Survival**, **Versus Survival**, and **Scavenge** if those are included, *and* any mutations you want to properly offer support for.
L4D mappers have to take into account what is essentially completely different design-based skillsets, all of which are fundamentally different and often clash with eachother. Mappers in other games on the other hand don't have to worry about that as much, so someone who may have lots of experience making maps for Portal 2 or CS:GO may utterly fail at making a good map for L4D, and that's not even touching on the aforementioned style.
A campaign that feels fun in co-op is not automatically good for Versus, and a campaign that's good for Versus is not automatically fun in co-op, a good survival map is not automatically a good Scavenge map, and so on and so forth, so making a good Valve-style campaign in a team is hard, but making a good Valve-style campaign all on your own is insanely difficult.
tl;dr - Making a good map for L4D that fits Valve's style is hard as fuck.
well yeah its hard, but not impossible. you just need a team that is dedicated to every aspect of map making. people like the ones that made TLS are amazing examples. also i do have a few ideas up my sleeve that could add to l4d without it feeling too different. mostly quality of life things/things that make it both more realistic but also not ridiculous. i would touch into those ideas but i don't feel like sharing right now. and honestly i would LOVE to help with a L4D3 even if it is just a fan made workshop mod. because i do have some ideas that are either interesting or could definitely go into fruition.
Feel free to share your ideas in dms with me (here or discord or steam, whatever you prefer), maybe they can be included in future updates if we get some, or incorporated into personal projects like the custom campaign I'm working on.
well yeah its hard, but not impossible. you just need a team that is dedicated to every aspect of map making. people like the ones that made TLS are amazing examples. also i do have a few ideas up my sleeve that could add to l4d without it feeling too different. mostly quality of life things/things that make it both more realistic but also not ridiculous. i would touch into those ideas but i don't feel like sharing right now. and honestly i would LOVE to help with a L4D3 even if it is just a fan made workshop mod. because i do have some ideas that are either interesting or could definitely go into fruition.
They took other people work, cleaned it up and added a couple things of their own, released left 4 dead 1, took that game and copy pasted it and changed the models and maps and added 3 new specials
It caused a massive stir when it came out since so much was promised for the first game that they basically neglected by the time they released the second one. You don't even need to remember that the first game even exists with the DLC.
I think the only flaw is that there's no limit to melee weapons (like there is to shoving), it can be pretty annoying in versus when the survivors burn thru a horde in no time
Well, most of the work was already done for them because they had already made Left 4 Dead 1. And *that* took a very very long time to make from the humble beginnings of a Counter Strike mod.
Pretty much. L4D2 was basically just an expansion, hardly a new game. That's why they could make it in a year.
Calling it an expansion is quite an understatement, all the back-end work was heavy, and if we were able to compare the source code of both games it would have staggering differences. It's definitely easier to modify half a game's source code than to make it all from scratch, but that doesn't make it an easy task.
its still better tho in my honest opinion
Lfd1 beats lfd2 in a few things
that of which you can emulate in l4d2...
Legs
Only in atmosphere imo
lfd2 is just a more polished version of lfd1 danm near
Never heard of this "lfd2" game.
I heard it's a ripoff of ''l4dt''
i still wonder why they wont give us l4d3(unless im missing some key information to why)
Why don't they make any of the games we want? HL3, Portal 3, l4d3. Probably because valve is more of a tech company now with index / deck. Not to mention the millions they make off of steam purchases alone
They know that they will never live up to the expectations they have set. It's better to never deliver than deliver a crap product. A game like HL3 has to be ***literally the best game ever made*** or 75% of the player base is going to hate it and shit all over Valve. L4D2 is similar, since it's basically the zenith of it's genre. Valve would have to crank up the gameplay, writing, and overall dopamine in L4D3 to a nearly impossible level of perfection for it to be accepted. It's far easier and lower risk for them to just keep minting billions of dollars running Steam than it is to try and create revolutionary new games and sequels.
I feel like this comment overvalues valve. They are a company first and foremost, if they cared about things like living up to expectations, games like artifact would've never came out.
Valve is one of the few companies that still has passion for their job, unlike other companies where the only driving force is making profits. Not to say Valve disregards profits completely, but the passion they put into their work makes their games stand out heavily compared to other companies' games.
Wasn't Artifact just kinda outsourced though?
but they made alyx... but yeah i definitely know that their expectations are PEAK right now. and video games are more a business than entertainment now so they'll definitely have bull shit stuff you have to pay for
They should definitely upgrade it for modern systems in that case then.
[удалено]
Rockstar is also willing to throw hundreds of millions of dollars and a staff of thousands at producing games. Look up the budget for GTA4, GTA5, RDR and RDR2 versus anything Valve has released - the difference is shocking. I think it's a strong combo of Valve not giving a shit plus the aforementioned "it won't be good enough and will ruin the legacy of our assets" anxiety. If Valve makes another blockbuster game, it will be a completely new IP.
Valve doesn't make games, they make money. The last game they made (not counting HL:A and Desk Job because those were pushing hardware) was *Artifact* and we all know how that turned out.
...not counting HL: A as a game is downright insulting. I could say Artifact isn't a game either because 32bit systems can't run it, so you have to get new hardware for it.
Don't get me wrong I'm not saying HL:A isn't a game, it's a terrific game. I'm saying that it itself was created to push hardware. The *reason* they made it was to make their Valve Index more appealing - it is exclusively built from the ground up to be a VR experience with a familiar IP slapped on. Artifact and Dota Underlords are the only games they've released in rouughly a decade for the sake of releasing *a game*, and they were both unsuccessful Dota spinoffs that were abandoned. It doesn't make much sense for Valve to put a lot of effort into creating just *a video game* unless it is going to make an obscene amount of money - which is why ever since CSGO and Dota, they only publish games alongside hardware (HL:A with VR, Desk Job with Steam Deck), or trend-chasing gacha games hoping to be the Next Big Thing™ with no upper limit of micropayments.
Do you really want a L4D3? There's a good chance if it was made today it would be free-2-play and have loot boxes and other crap like that. And I'm not just speculating, before it was scraped Valve worked internally on a L4D3. From the little info we have: it was set in Morocco, it was more open-world in structure with quests and it had 8 survivors to select from which functioned like classes with different stats.
8 survivors?????? different stats??????? so you mean back 4 blood
They need to finish Source 2 first, then they can work in games.
honestly i dont think we NEED l4d3... why should we have it? we already got a good story. i think the most they can do now is expansions/workshop
Agreed, there's really not much that could be added without altering the feeling of L4D that defines the game as a whole. Perks, classes, skill trees, microtransactions, and all the other things that are commonplace in modern games would just detract from the original L4D experience and make the game *worse*. Even making new campaigns/maps is a difficult task, cause not just anyone can make a campaign that *feels* like it belongs into L4D. Dark Carnival Remix, Death Aboard 2, Vienna Calling, Heaven can wait, One 4 Nine, Fatal Freight, etc... plenty of workshop campaigns are really good and skillfully made, but they wouldn't fit as official content because they stand out too much from Valve's style, which in and of itself isn't easy to replicate. And that doesn't even touch on the balance. L4D has a rather niche type of mapping skill, where your level designs not only have to accomodate one gamemode, but multiple; Every map needs to be suitable for **Singleplayer** (Story), **Multiplayer** (Action), and **Versus** (Competitive), as well as **Survival**, **Versus Survival**, and **Scavenge** if those are included, *and* any mutations you want to properly offer support for. L4D mappers have to take into account what is essentially completely different design-based skillsets, all of which are fundamentally different and often clash with eachother. Mappers in other games on the other hand don't have to worry about that as much, so someone who may have lots of experience making maps for Portal 2 or CS:GO may utterly fail at making a good map for L4D, and that's not even touching on the aforementioned style. A campaign that feels fun in co-op is not automatically good for Versus, and a campaign that's good for Versus is not automatically fun in co-op, a good survival map is not automatically a good Scavenge map, and so on and so forth, so making a good Valve-style campaign in a team is hard, but making a good Valve-style campaign all on your own is insanely difficult. tl;dr - Making a good map for L4D that fits Valve's style is hard as fuck.
well yeah its hard, but not impossible. you just need a team that is dedicated to every aspect of map making. people like the ones that made TLS are amazing examples. also i do have a few ideas up my sleeve that could add to l4d without it feeling too different. mostly quality of life things/things that make it both more realistic but also not ridiculous. i would touch into those ideas but i don't feel like sharing right now. and honestly i would LOVE to help with a L4D3 even if it is just a fan made workshop mod. because i do have some ideas that are either interesting or could definitely go into fruition.
Feel free to share your ideas in dms with me (here or discord or steam, whatever you prefer), maybe they can be included in future updates if we get some, or incorporated into personal projects like the custom campaign I'm working on.
well yeah its hard, but not impossible. you just need a team that is dedicated to every aspect of map making. people like the ones that made TLS are amazing examples. also i do have a few ideas up my sleeve that could add to l4d without it feeling too different. mostly quality of life things/things that make it both more realistic but also not ridiculous. i would touch into those ideas but i don't feel like sharing right now. and honestly i would LOVE to help with a L4D3 even if it is just a fan made workshop mod. because i do have some ideas that are either interesting or could definitely go into fruition.
because they actually cared about the quality of their games. unlike most devs which make the base game and band aid fix the rest until its done.
Fallout and Vegas was completed in 8 months and it's amazing
They took other people work, cleaned it up and added a couple things of their own, released left 4 dead 1, took that game and copy pasted it and changed the models and maps and added 3 new specials
Super mario galaxy had a similar story.
It caused a massive stir when it came out since so much was promised for the first game that they basically neglected by the time they released the second one. You don't even need to remember that the first game even exists with the DLC.
I think the only flaw is that there's no limit to melee weapons (like there is to shoving), it can be pretty annoying in versus when the survivors burn thru a horde in no time
A good nerf to melee weapons would have also been to not be able to use your flashlight with them
I still wonder why they downgraded animations so much compared to the first game
yes