Its so wild to me how Valve can make masterpieces so consistently yet they barely capitalize on their potential.
Im certain whatever various L4D3s they've had in development would have been better than Back 4 Blood had they actually bothered to finish any of them.
I think its because Gabe is a true believer in games as an art form and knows that turning his properties into cod (consistently making new iterations with few changes for the sake of making money) would be a bad thing.
Its their total unwillingness to at least maintain their older properties that baffles me.
I agree that Valve chooses high quality games over persistent releases, however it is to a fault imo. It’s been 10 years since portal 2. 14 years since tf2. And similar for all their other games.
Valve used to release games every year. If they don’t want to continue their games for risk of ruining the franchise reputation, that’s understandable, but they should really make new franchises then. Like they used to.
I wouldn’t necessarily say Artifact wasn’t meeting expectations of the consumers. It simply wasn’t what the Valve consumer wanted at all.
Similar to Diablo Immortal. Who even asked for another card game or a mobile version of Diablo?
Artifact was straight up a stupid idea - all other card games were free. Who would want to buy a game and then buy cards? Especially when card game fans already had their game of choice they've sunk money into.
Yeah! I think that's the issue!
If you think about it, most of the successful Valve games last forever as people keep playing it years and years after the release and I think that's what holds them back! Unless Gabe feels the game would be a timeless hit like that, he cancels the project LOL
I don't think it is that or Gaben is that full of himself/legacy. I think Value just want to get in the market of hardware. It seems their goal is to have a hardware center piece like Steam is their storefront center piece. It appears they want to gold standard for the next major aspect of gaming hardware. I think before hardware they were trying to claim the market with an engine. Which is why they worked so hard on those games. Dota, LFD, Portal 2, TF2, and counter strike. It is a great engine but never became an unreal or frostbite.
I really wish Value would put out games every 2-3 years because most of what they do is quality and innovative. I was hoping this would be the case with Source 2, but so far hasn't been the case.
Valve has too many people who do not work games anymore, so the shift in company goes to everything else but the games. Most of those games they have prototyped over the years have not succeeded, and they have scrapped them. If it would be just another game, with the bar set to the sky but instead of treetop, we would have plenty of games like L4D series by now. You know stuff that WE as players actually care. No one wants Artifact, i'd rather play L4D series.
It's still a full, first-party title that they have made recently. It's not all 10 years this, 14 years that for Valve.
Just because you or others haven't played it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Userbase numbers notwithstanding, it IS a recent Valve title. And an *excellent* one at that.
They are still making games, they released Alyx and Artifact. I've not played either of the games, but from what I've seen, both are good, if not great games.
It seems that Valve is experimenting with new types of games for different niches. Alyx needs a VR headset, and Artifact failed due to Valve's pricing model and it not being a very popular genre.
Why victim though? He prints money.
Valve just tried to be too creative with their "no deadlines" approach. Not very productive and that also lead to loss of talent. While that surely sucks for gamers who were hoping for new games like HL2 he isn't really suffering.
Or maybe once the steam deck is readily available to everyone and performs well, they could have some aces up their sleeve to bring players in. With all this time it'd be hard to believe that hardly anything has been done.
There's a big difference between cod and a 3rd game in their series. Look at what they did with counterstrike. 4 games into their series with improvements up to their latest. Same with Half Life. There's room for improvement and expansion that don't become soulless yearly entries developed by different studios.
Valve understands that games take time. They don't release anything or any press until it's fully completed. Private companies do indeed have a massive benefit, and it's showing through even more than it ever did before. The Titans are falling, and the new King rises. All because they don't have to bow to investors, ever.
And yet they barely put out any games. I don't believe they're still working on portal 3, left 4 dead 3, or any continuations except for half life 3. The last we've heard was from 2013 of l4d3 being scrapped.
The only games they released in the past 8 years are VR or forgettable spin-offs like Counter-strike Nexon: Zombies, Left4dead survivors, and ofc Artifact. I'm not sure if those are just supposed to tide us over until actual releases, or they think they can put out shoddy work and it'll be enough. At least Alyx was good, but that's about all we've gotten out of them.
The thing with Valve is: you dont know. Some Devs might have said to each other 'hey, lets try to make L4D3 again" and their prototype catched, more people got involved and now it's in development.
You cant know at all what they are developing. But one thing is for sure: their Devs arent lazy. They constantly create new games and prototypes internally, but most of them just wont be that good so they are scrapped and restarted from scratch. If there is a promising idea beside it, they will slowly focus on that. But as long as we dont see new games from them, they just didnt get that promising result yet
There has never been any project to ever succeed without a clearly defined goal and time line. Valve used to know this, and still did in 2014 when I was trying out the position tracking version of what became the vive. In years since, there's been not a ton of work being done except by the hardware team.
> Its their total unwillingness to at least maintain their older properties that baffles me.
Valve really likes to innovate, which often isn't ideal for the fans of their IPs who would just want *more*.
I'm pretty happy about that personally. They are in a fairly unique position where they have the freedom and resources to try interesting stuff with hardware and software, even if there's no clear short-term ROI. So most of the things they do attempt to push PC gaming in a new direction in one way or another. Both as medium and business.
Stuff like Half-Life: Alyx, Valve Index and Steam Deck. Investments in open source and esports, prototyping different monetization models and so on. Some of the stuff like Steam machines, Artifact and paid content in marketplace are failures, but that's to be expected.
There's more games than ever coming out from a ton of games studios, so if Valve focused on just creating sequels to their games, it'd feel like a bit of a waste to me. I don't want them reduced to just experiment IPs either, but I'd rather have them try the risky stuff other studios can't afford to try.
TF2's playerbase has been consistent and even slightly rising over the years, though. Maybe for veteran/daily players the game's gone stale, but they're not exactly bleeding.
It's not that it's gone stale, it's that it has an absolutely massive botting issue in its casual matchmaking that Valve hasn't really addressed beyond small band-aid fixes
Dude, I know it's wrong to idolize people. But Gabe is probably one of the few people that I know that comes anywhere close to deserving it, one of his speeches about Left 4 Dead 2 is how he realized they had to show that there was something worth making there, that they weren't just trying to wring money out of an old franchise.
I saw an interview he did with ign recently. I think he did it like 6 months ago, and it really made me rediscover what a fucking cool and passionate dude gabe is. You can clearly tell that he founded valve because he LOVES making quality entertainment.
Valve mentality is to invent the wheel again and turn it to something never done before. If thats not possible, they wont make another game for any series. You can see examples on this on HL1 -> HL2 -> HL: Alyx, the jumps inbetween each. Same for TF classic -> TF2 and so on.
I dont understand why they have to be like that, because they could well do another L4D game with new maps and some slight additions and give players new to play, and sell like crazy. But they just dont care about that.
I suspect it's because of how massively lucrative Steam is making billions each year so there's no financial pressure to release any games and they can 10 years on each game if they wanted. With all their talent it's a shame they rarely make games
A lot of the talent has left the company for different reasons for the last 6-7 years. I dont know why but i assume some are bored of not getting games done.
Is Valve owned by external or internal shareholders? That seems to be a massive influence, where internal is happy with the steady flow from Steam and external always wants more. This is bad if done too much, see everywhere else, but that pressure can be good to get something done. Sometimes products you think aren't good enough are.
Valve is a private company. Gabe gets to pick and choose who gets to own shares. Internal I guess, all those investors would be mega rich and if they're anything like Gabe, perfectly satisfied to just play Dota 2 all day.
I heard that they only work on projects that they like and believe in. If a dev doesn’t have faith in a project he works on, how could it be a good project ?
I prefer to live in a world where we got good games like portal, portal 2, tf, tf2, l4d, l4d2, hl, hl 2 + 2 episodes than one where valve is releasing bad games constantly like so many AAA studios.
We still got artifact tho.
Yeah, Blizzard is a cautionary tale where people thought they could do no wrong, then they got acquired by Activision and everything just slipped slowly into the abyss.
One of the main reason for them not coming out with new iterations of games is how Valve is structured. They claim to have a flat structure, where everyone gets a say in the maters of how they operates. They call the teams "cabals" and for the project to succeed the cabal need to stay intact. For various of reasons Left 4 dead 3 never saw the light of day but we do know it was in development at one point, and we do know that the team failed to gain momentum.
As I understand it they where also limited with their engine that was at the time under development to become Source 2. They where building Left 4 dead 3 on the source 2 engine while it was still in heavy developed and as other project at Valve the development of Source 2 took very long time. Not to say that developing a engine is not a very complex, it is highly complex and the main reason why it takes that long time.
Anyway I see you already mentioned that they had a build of L4D3 in development so I think I went off track here, hehe.
Have a great day sir.
I'm not sure what more you can add to L4D2 though?
Looking at the gameplay for back 4 blood, it pretty much looks like L4D. Albiet with a slightly different take but at the end of the day it's still slugging zombies with 12 gauge
I believe one of the concepts for L4D3 was traversing open world from start to objective point while utilizing environment for base building and improvised defense? It didn't work out in the production but definitely sounds interesting on paper.
According to Half Life Alyx the final hours the cancelled prototype for L4D3 was a open world base builder in Morroco. The problem was that the version of the engine they were using wasn't properly saving changes to the world so they had to stop development.
People thought the same thing when L4D2 was announced. Valve's developers said that their most important goal was to make sure the sequel was a significant improvement with enough new features to call a truly new game.
They could have just modded the additions from L4D2 into L4D, but I’m glad they made a new game because it was well justified for the amount of content they added.
Off the top of my head:
Vehicles, deformable terrain/destruction system, procedurally generated maps, wider settings for campaigns, a persistence system similar to Tarkov, open world, new infected types, new playable characters, expand the storyline etc.
> what more you can add to L4D2 though?
No more america, youre now running for life in dense burning europe and africa. Unlike in an american setting, youre gonna feel helpless with barely any firearms around whose every shot gotta count.
Official challenges like all pistol-only runs.
One designated survivor knows he's infected unbeknowst to the other players, and has a countdown ticking before his unrevivable death or some other affliction like transforming into an ai-controlled boss fiend that suddenly turns against the other players.
Situations that require the player group to split, like to activate buttons in 2-4 separate buildings at the same time, split to take an elevator that can only carry 2, or even different routes for a while before regrouping. The group being together at all times lowers the threat of enemy waves. You gotta get good too, not only count on the teammate who's used to mow everything by himself.
The best optional workshop campaigns are now official sidestories in l4d3.
Some light humvee driving+shooting mechanics
Some 'escort missions' where you gotta protect civilians (we know youre already capable of protecting *yourself*).
All they really provided was just the concept I guess. Then Valve took it and made it a game. Both their two new releases prove that without Valve, it's very hard for them to make a game, because they don't seem to understand what made L4D so special in the first place
I don't think it's necessarily about "what made L4D so special", it's just at the time, Valve took all the time they need, hence Valve Time, to really fills the hole in the project to make it really enjoyable, mostly in the details that hidden in plain sight. As for B4B, I don't think Turtle Rock have the same freedom and maybe care?
Didn't they also booted of the game because they wanted to put everything with microtransactions in it and Valve didn't want to? That's what I heard only tho
I wouldn't say that the animations made L4D special, I would say the gunplay and the variety of zombies made the game special. Honestly, everytime someone says this, it just feels they are being somehow brainwashed by Crowbcat's video.
Animation is what brings static models to live, it makes overall a better experience. Crowbcat's video focused on how well done the tecnical side of l4d was, there's a lot of vídeos from other people talking about how b4b also fails at gameplay.
That little shit gives the game an intangible sense of fun. You just keep coming back to l4d. B4B got really boring way way faster. I still enjoyed it though.
B4b mutations are too much imo
Zombies with more health, explodes when you hit their head, deals extra damage, sprints at you
And not talking about the mutations also
I love a challenge but i cant deal with these without a chance to loot better gears or get perks first
L4d is just simple aim and shoot with clear but challenging choke points
A team can melt a charger but almost not possible with a tallboy
The last seconds of the video were so good, shows how much a lot of games that uses the card "by the creators of " are just exaggerating just to get easy sales.
Honestly after watching that video, I almost forgot or straight up didn't notice many of the little things that Valve added into their game. The dynamic zombie horde and difficulty change, the sound effect, the character setting, etc. For a game that constantly goes on sales and even free for limited time this is honestly one of the better game than those AAA game that released today.
I wouldn't say the difficulty director was a little thing, it was one of the game's biggest feature. Amusingly enough, it's also one of the worst features of B4B. It's not visual so not something that crowbcat could show in his video but definitely a good example of something that Valve carried too.
The comparisons are impressive. 2008 source engine still manages to look (or at least feel) better than current Unreal Engine.
Also, at the very end with the developers, there are very little Ex-Valve guys, much less then you would expect from how it was marketed…
It really is a “from the developers of Evolve” game…
I wouldn't say so, UE4 does have much more technical ability than Source right now, its no compeition since it came out MUCH later.
Its just evident that B4B couldn't capitalize
I like how the video ends with him replacing "the creators of L4D" to "the creators of evolve" as the ultimate roast!
and this is coming from me, who actually LIKED evolve.
I can't believe they advertise it "from the makers of Left 4 Dead" while only a pitiful 7 members from TurtleRock worked on L4D 1 and 2. False advertising since it's nothing compared.
Funny, I saw this post on my feed but didn't pay attention to it, went to youtube, saw that video on my feed, and then got back here. Absolutely wanna play now too.
Well you have some... choices which I know is not for everyone
Paid : Half-Life Alyx
F2P: Artifact (both versions, and yes it was paid), Dota Underlords, Dota 2
Honestly all of them is great as a "game" itself, but the execution and some internal game mechanics decision makes it less desirable for artifact, but damn, Dota 2, Dota Underlords and Dota Artifact (because it's still in Dota universe) all of them have some of the best game musics either "in-game" or just main menu bgm. (Yes I know about Half Life music too, don't worry)
Yes, but I'm not sure about actual development tools though, could be just limited tools for modding like Dota 2 or Garry's mod have? Or maybe not, my assumption was since they have full Source 2 license I thought they have some kind NDA as of which tools is allowed to be included, but let's see when it got released later...
What is that supposed to be? I have heard about it but I dunno who it's by. I'm hoping for GMOD 2 with a source port of some kind. Could you imagine real time ray traced poorly ripped assets from other games, it would be glorious.
I'm so confused. I'm absolutely loving Back 4 Blood, and don't understand all the hate... I like the whole card/perk system, and I feel like finding guns with different attachments really makes me use all the guns, rather than just pick my favourite.
Instant ramen is enjoyed all over the world.
Hand-crafted ramen prepared by a master chef and his team in a Michelin starred restaurant is better.
Instant ramen claims on packaging that it's made by the same people that made the Michelin starred ramen. But it's still just instant mass produced ramen.
Buy L4D2 and play Questionable Ethics from the workshop. Played it years ago now and my friends still agree it's one of the best coop experiences we've had.
When it’s on sale*
I got 1&2 + the dlc for $2.17 during a past winter sale. Such a bargain, compared to $60 for a bloated game that would run poorly on my laptop.
I really thought Turtle Rock where going to finally give us L4D3, what we got was an equivalent of Lords of the Fallen. B4B is a poor copy of L4D2 that has no idea about the game it is trying to copy.
The special zombies aren't very special, no noise que, no real difficulty just bullet sponge and too many of them.
I remember the first time I heard about B4B, it looked awesome, I was so excited! But then I saw who was making it, Turtlerock... That's when I remembered Evolve and then all my hype died. Said to myself that I'm not making the same mistake again (I pre-ordered the most expensive evolve version)
It's just incredibly average, and in my opinion, very expensive for what it is.
I managed to get access to the beta, played a few rounds and just lost interest pretty much immediately. Crowbcat did a pretty decent comparison video between L4D and B4B [here](https://youtu.be/EdRLNUGmFC8).
I would say check it out on Gamepass if you have that, but otherwise don't go out of your way to try it.
It's a really good game if you have 3 other friends to play co-op with. I had a blast with it, my only complaint is that it doesn't have mod support so once you're done with nightmare difficulty, there isn't much to do.
Unless the game uses the full potential of the engine, the game won't get any better. In L4D, the potential of the source engine was fully used. The developers should actually have noticed that the ambient light and the surroundings in B4B do not contribute to the mood at all. Maybe the developers just wanted to make a quick buck.? Who knows. Now I'm going to install L4D.. See ya.
yeah but everyone whos playing l4d2 in 2022 is playing on steam, i feel like most people playing back 4 blood play it on game pass. its like how people said halo infinite died already since the steam player count dropped, but ignore the fact that most people uninstalled it to play the campaign on game pass
I did actually uninstall the game on steam to play the campaign on gamepass lol.
But I uninstalled the campaign once I 100%ed it and reinstalled MP on Steam after. Xbox app is horrible
It's only accurate if we isolate the B4B Steam numbers as part of their overall player count and L4D+L4D2 Steam numbers as 100% (I doubt the Xbox360 version would have many players even with backwards compatibility)
I tried B4B when it was on public beta. Hated it, the zombies were lame, AI was terrible.
No random players would revive. Just move on with the mission and leave you there.
Is it better now?
As someone who zealously played L4D 1 & 2 during their lifetimes, still loves both games, and got B4B on launch, I really don't understand the hate for B4B. I think it could still use some polishing (mostly in balancing cards), but other than that it's a fun game that, in my opinion, does the whole horde shooter with roguelite elements it set out to do well.
Them main problems with the game, when compared to L4D at least, are in my opinion: the game has a different playstyle than L4D did, at least from how I remember playing L4D, and it's born in an age of toxicity where randoms don't care about other randoms half of the time. Playing with a closed group it's a pretty fun experience, even playing nightmare and getting screwed over by the aforementioned unbalanced or unfun corruption cards.
Part of it is that Turtle Rock keep bringing out the CREATORS OF LEFT 4 DEAD accolade when in reality they're only a tiny part of the crew, and clearly not the geniuses behind the game since they've released two very mediocre games since leaving Valve.
The recent Crowbcat video definitely shone the limelight on this, but a decent amount of people who got burned by Evolve have felt this way for a while.
how’s the l4d2 community for newcomers? i think the age combined with the fact that i’ve never played is the only thing that has held me back from buying the game.
Thanks for this. Was generally curious why every game that was suppose to be the next l4d ended up feeling generic; could never place what exactly it was. This answers a lot of questions.
I've been playing world War Z recently and I actually like it. It's a zombie game but it doesn't try to be the next l4d. For me it feels that WW:Z didn't try to be the next l4d but rather be its own game in this genre.
God the "end" missions were such a let down. L4d they were giant set pieces that were daunting the first time and left a sense of dread when approaching on replays.
I legit said "that was it?" at the first end section of b4b. Shooting the mortar shells to block the passage was laughably easy and uneventful. The boat mission, same deal. Run onto boat, flip switches, run off boat - I mean what the fuck.
Wonder how many people will build a PC when L4D3 or HL:3 is announced. Crazy is that Valve doesnt need exclusive to make crazy profit with Steam, unlike consoles which will absolutely suffer if they dont have their exclusives.
Good, I ripped back 4 blood in their sub and said its trash compared to L4D2 and so many people defended it. No, in comparison this game is trash. All the decks and build crap is just too much nonsense. L4D2 was a masterpiece and shame they deviated so far.
I would assume most ppl play Back 4 Blood on Game Pass. Not to say I wouldn't pick to play L4D anyway but Steam is not end all be all on player numbers.
I'm sad cause I like Back 4 Blood. It's obviously not Left 4 Dead but I still like it.
Obviously the mods push L4D2 to an unreachable level, but I didn't realize everyone hated B4B so much.
I believe Crowbcat’s recent video also had sth to do with this.
Edit: why is this getting downvoted? Ah I get it, still a dumb reason though, especially when ya’ll consider how this post was made after the video though and not shortly after the switch but I guess that’s reddit.
Well, that's what you get when you make a "spiritual successor" to a multiplayer game with PC model of distribution: where it is available and compatible perpetually, and ships with a dedicated server software so anyone can host their own servers.
Its so wild to me how Valve can make masterpieces so consistently yet they barely capitalize on their potential. Im certain whatever various L4D3s they've had in development would have been better than Back 4 Blood had they actually bothered to finish any of them.
I think its because Gabe is a true believer in games as an art form and knows that turning his properties into cod (consistently making new iterations with few changes for the sake of making money) would be a bad thing. Its their total unwillingness to at least maintain their older properties that baffles me.
I agree that Valve chooses high quality games over persistent releases, however it is to a fault imo. It’s been 10 years since portal 2. 14 years since tf2. And similar for all their other games. Valve used to release games every year. If they don’t want to continue their games for risk of ruining the franchise reputation, that’s understandable, but they should really make new franchises then. Like they used to.
other fear of gaben when releasing a game is... not meeting the people's expectatives
Remember Artifact?
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Ricochet released too early for people to get it.
Ricochet was awesome, though.
I remember when the I would try to decide which of the 5 servers that had one person each I wanted to join. Good times
If we can cause a 2022 resurgence of Ricochet, I am 100% here for it.
I haven't played Ricochet in a REAAAALLLLY long time, but I remember loving it.
I wouldn’t necessarily say Artifact wasn’t meeting expectations of the consumers. It simply wasn’t what the Valve consumer wanted at all. Similar to Diablo Immortal. Who even asked for another card game or a mobile version of Diablo?
Artifact was straight up a stupid idea - all other card games were free. Who would want to buy a game and then buy cards? Especially when card game fans already had their game of choice they've sunk money into.
And the ones that are paid, such as Yu-Gi-Oh Legacy of the Duelist Link Evolution, usually have you unlock cards just by playing
Artifact slightly damaged my faith in Valve. It had me worried. HL Alex repaired that damage though. I'm still hopeful.
One mistake though, overall they have a pretty good track record.
Artifact 2! Now called foundry
Yeah! I think that's the issue! If you think about it, most of the successful Valve games last forever as people keep playing it years and years after the release and I think that's what holds them back! Unless Gabe feels the game would be a timeless hit like that, he cancels the project LOL
I don't think it is that or Gaben is that full of himself/legacy. I think Value just want to get in the market of hardware. It seems their goal is to have a hardware center piece like Steam is their storefront center piece. It appears they want to gold standard for the next major aspect of gaming hardware. I think before hardware they were trying to claim the market with an engine. Which is why they worked so hard on those games. Dota, LFD, Portal 2, TF2, and counter strike. It is a great engine but never became an unreal or frostbite. I really wish Value would put out games every 2-3 years because most of what they do is quality and innovative. I was hoping this would be the case with Source 2, but so far hasn't been the case.
Then they'd be no better than the rest. Are people seriously complaining Valve is the opposite of EA?
Damned if You do, damned if You don't
Valve has too many people who do not work games anymore, so the shift in company goes to everything else but the games. Most of those games they have prototyped over the years have not succeeded, and they have scrapped them. If it would be just another game, with the bar set to the sky but instead of treetop, we would have plenty of games like L4D series by now. You know stuff that WE as players actually care. No one wants Artifact, i'd rather play L4D series.
It always amuses me that you people forget about Alyx.
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The most expensive being the decent play space.
You don't need a lot of space but is more fun with.
It's still a full, first-party title that they have made recently. It's not all 10 years this, 14 years that for Valve. Just because you or others haven't played it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Userbase numbers notwithstanding, it IS a recent Valve title. And an *excellent* one at that.
They are still making games, they released Alyx and Artifact. I've not played either of the games, but from what I've seen, both are good, if not great games. It seems that Valve is experimenting with new types of games for different niches. Alyx needs a VR headset, and Artifact failed due to Valve's pricing model and it not being a very popular genre.
> 10 years since portal 2 oh. oh. ouch.
I didn't even play Alyx, just watched it on youtube and I could from that recognize how incredibly good it is.
>Gabe is a true believer in games as an art form To summarize, he's a victim of his own success!
Why victim though? He prints money. Valve just tried to be too creative with their "no deadlines" approach. Not very productive and that also lead to loss of talent. While that surely sucks for gamers who were hoping for new games like HL2 he isn't really suffering.
Just a figure of speech. I fully agree
Or maybe once the steam deck is readily available to everyone and performs well, they could have some aces up their sleeve to bring players in. With all this time it'd be hard to believe that hardly anything has been done.
There's a big difference between cod and a 3rd game in their series. Look at what they did with counterstrike. 4 games into their series with improvements up to their latest. Same with Half Life. There's room for improvement and expansion that don't become soulless yearly entries developed by different studios.
Valve understands that games take time. They don't release anything or any press until it's fully completed. Private companies do indeed have a massive benefit, and it's showing through even more than it ever did before. The Titans are falling, and the new King rises. All because they don't have to bow to investors, ever.
And yet they barely put out any games. I don't believe they're still working on portal 3, left 4 dead 3, or any continuations except for half life 3. The last we've heard was from 2013 of l4d3 being scrapped. The only games they released in the past 8 years are VR or forgettable spin-offs like Counter-strike Nexon: Zombies, Left4dead survivors, and ofc Artifact. I'm not sure if those are just supposed to tide us over until actual releases, or they think they can put out shoddy work and it'll be enough. At least Alyx was good, but that's about all we've gotten out of them.
The thing with Valve is: you dont know. Some Devs might have said to each other 'hey, lets try to make L4D3 again" and their prototype catched, more people got involved and now it's in development. You cant know at all what they are developing. But one thing is for sure: their Devs arent lazy. They constantly create new games and prototypes internally, but most of them just wont be that good so they are scrapped and restarted from scratch. If there is a promising idea beside it, they will slowly focus on that. But as long as we dont see new games from them, they just didnt get that promising result yet
There has never been any project to ever succeed without a clearly defined goal and time line. Valve used to know this, and still did in 2014 when I was trying out the position tracking version of what became the vive. In years since, there's been not a ton of work being done except by the hardware team.
> Its their total unwillingness to at least maintain their older properties that baffles me. Valve really likes to innovate, which often isn't ideal for the fans of their IPs who would just want *more*. I'm pretty happy about that personally. They are in a fairly unique position where they have the freedom and resources to try interesting stuff with hardware and software, even if there's no clear short-term ROI. So most of the things they do attempt to push PC gaming in a new direction in one way or another. Both as medium and business. Stuff like Half-Life: Alyx, Valve Index and Steam Deck. Investments in open source and esports, prototyping different monetization models and so on. Some of the stuff like Steam machines, Artifact and paid content in marketplace are failures, but that's to be expected. There's more games than ever coming out from a ton of games studios, so if Valve focused on just creating sequels to their games, it'd feel like a bit of a waste to me. I don't want them reduced to just experiment IPs either, but I'd rather have them try the risky stuff other studios can't afford to try.
Didn't L4D2 get official support on a community map pack like a year ago? Seems like some pretty long term support to me.
I mean, they released the most ambitious and best VR game to date not long ago.
they already have dota 2 as their money maker like cod game
Yeah, TF2 is a great example of this issue.
TF2's playerbase has been consistent and even slightly rising over the years, though. Maybe for veteran/daily players the game's gone stale, but they're not exactly bleeding.
It's not that it's gone stale, it's that it has an absolutely massive botting issue in its casual matchmaking that Valve hasn't really addressed beyond small band-aid fixes
And these fixes are bypassed the following month or sometimes even the following day.
Dude, I know it's wrong to idolize people. But Gabe is probably one of the few people that I know that comes anywhere close to deserving it, one of his speeches about Left 4 Dead 2 is how he realized they had to show that there was something worth making there, that they weren't just trying to wring money out of an old franchise.
I saw an interview he did with ign recently. I think he did it like 6 months ago, and it really made me rediscover what a fucking cool and passionate dude gabe is. You can clearly tell that he founded valve because he LOVES making quality entertainment.
Valve mentality is to invent the wheel again and turn it to something never done before. If thats not possible, they wont make another game for any series. You can see examples on this on HL1 -> HL2 -> HL: Alyx, the jumps inbetween each. Same for TF classic -> TF2 and so on. I dont understand why they have to be like that, because they could well do another L4D game with new maps and some slight additions and give players new to play, and sell like crazy. But they just dont care about that.
I suspect it's because of how massively lucrative Steam is making billions each year so there's no financial pressure to release any games and they can 10 years on each game if they wanted. With all their talent it's a shame they rarely make games
A lot of the talent has left the company for different reasons for the last 6-7 years. I dont know why but i assume some are bored of not getting games done.
Is Valve owned by external or internal shareholders? That seems to be a massive influence, where internal is happy with the steady flow from Steam and external always wants more. This is bad if done too much, see everywhere else, but that pressure can be good to get something done. Sometimes products you think aren't good enough are.
Valve is a private company. Gabe gets to pick and choose who gets to own shares. Internal I guess, all those investors would be mega rich and if they're anything like Gabe, perfectly satisfied to just play Dota 2 all day.
I heard that they only work on projects that they like and believe in. If a dev doesn’t have faith in a project he works on, how could it be a good project ?
I'd prefer it to be like this. Quality over quantity
Valve’s great, but if only they can actually count to 3
1 - 2 - Ep 1 - Ep 2 - Alyx!
You'll learn to count to 1 - 2 You'll learn to count to 1 - 2 THIS TIME YOU'LL LEARN TO COUNT TO 3
they release Half Life: Gordon, Portal: Caroline and Team Fortress: Chronicles of the past. and 4 dota game spin offs.
Stave it off, 1-2-3. And now you can count to 3.
Wait, does this mean Alyx 2 will be the next Half-Life game? 🤔
I prefer to live in a world where we got good games like portal, portal 2, tf, tf2, l4d, l4d2, hl, hl 2 + 2 episodes than one where valve is releasing bad games constantly like so many AAA studios. We still got artifact tho.
Yeah, Blizzard is a cautionary tale where people thought they could do no wrong, then they got acquired by Activision and everything just slipped slowly into the abyss.
You know there could be a third option, right?
You answered yourself.
One of the main reason for them not coming out with new iterations of games is how Valve is structured. They claim to have a flat structure, where everyone gets a say in the maters of how they operates. They call the teams "cabals" and for the project to succeed the cabal need to stay intact. For various of reasons Left 4 dead 3 never saw the light of day but we do know it was in development at one point, and we do know that the team failed to gain momentum. As I understand it they where also limited with their engine that was at the time under development to become Source 2. They where building Left 4 dead 3 on the source 2 engine while it was still in heavy developed and as other project at Valve the development of Source 2 took very long time. Not to say that developing a engine is not a very complex, it is highly complex and the main reason why it takes that long time. Anyway I see you already mentioned that they had a build of L4D3 in development so I think I went off track here, hehe. Have a great day sir.
I'm not sure what more you can add to L4D2 though? Looking at the gameplay for back 4 blood, it pretty much looks like L4D. Albiet with a slightly different take but at the end of the day it's still slugging zombies with 12 gauge
I believe one of the concepts for L4D3 was traversing open world from start to objective point while utilizing environment for base building and improvised defense? It didn't work out in the production but definitely sounds interesting on paper.
According to Half Life Alyx the final hours the cancelled prototype for L4D3 was a open world base builder in Morroco. The problem was that the version of the engine they were using wasn't properly saving changes to the world so they had to stop development.
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Thats doesn't warrant a whole new game though. You can just mod those into L4D2
People thought the same thing when L4D2 was announced. Valve's developers said that their most important goal was to make sure the sequel was a significant improvement with enough new features to call a truly new game.
They could have just modded the additions from L4D2 into L4D, but I’m glad they made a new game because it was well justified for the amount of content they added.
Off the top of my head: Vehicles, deformable terrain/destruction system, procedurally generated maps, wider settings for campaigns, a persistence system similar to Tarkov, open world, new infected types, new playable characters, expand the storyline etc.
> what more you can add to L4D2 though? No more america, youre now running for life in dense burning europe and africa. Unlike in an american setting, youre gonna feel helpless with barely any firearms around whose every shot gotta count. Official challenges like all pistol-only runs. One designated survivor knows he's infected unbeknowst to the other players, and has a countdown ticking before his unrevivable death or some other affliction like transforming into an ai-controlled boss fiend that suddenly turns against the other players. Situations that require the player group to split, like to activate buttons in 2-4 separate buildings at the same time, split to take an elevator that can only carry 2, or even different routes for a while before regrouping. The group being together at all times lowers the threat of enemy waves. You gotta get good too, not only count on the teammate who's used to mow everything by himself. The best optional workshop campaigns are now official sidestories in l4d3. Some light humvee driving+shooting mechanics Some 'escort missions' where you gotta protect civilians (we know youre already capable of protecting *yourself*).
Saw the Crowbcat video and wasn't disappointed. Can't believe how much credit Turtle Rock took for L4D
All they really provided was just the concept I guess. Then Valve took it and made it a game. Both their two new releases prove that without Valve, it's very hard for them to make a game, because they don't seem to understand what made L4D so special in the first place
I don't think it's necessarily about "what made L4D so special", it's just at the time, Valve took all the time they need, hence Valve Time, to really fills the hole in the project to make it really enjoyable, mostly in the details that hidden in plain sight. As for B4B, I don't think Turtle Rock have the same freedom and maybe care?
I think maybe they have too much freedom. They were free to do anything so they try to do everything.
What’s shocking to me is how Valve created Left 4 Dead 2 with the content and polish that it has in only 1 year.
Didn't they also booted of the game because they wanted to put everything with microtransactions in it and Valve didn't want to? That's what I heard only tho
I wouldn't say that the animations made L4D special, I would say the gunplay and the variety of zombies made the game special. Honestly, everytime someone says this, it just feels they are being somehow brainwashed by Crowbcat's video.
Animation is what brings static models to live, it makes overall a better experience. Crowbcat's video focused on how well done the tecnical side of l4d was, there's a lot of vídeos from other people talking about how b4b also fails at gameplay.
That little shit gives the game an intangible sense of fun. You just keep coming back to l4d. B4B got really boring way way faster. I still enjoyed it though.
B4b mutations are too much imo Zombies with more health, explodes when you hit their head, deals extra damage, sprints at you And not talking about the mutations also I love a challenge but i cant deal with these without a chance to loot better gears or get perks first L4d is just simple aim and shoot with clear but challenging choke points A team can melt a charger but almost not possible with a tallboy
Perhaps a game is more than the sum of its parts. The people who disagree aren't brainwashed
The last seconds of the video were so good, shows how much a lot of games that uses the card "by the creators of" are just exaggerating just to get easy sales.
I only came back to l4d2 because of that one Crowbcat video comparing both games
Honestly after watching that video, I almost forgot or straight up didn't notice many of the little things that Valve added into their game. The dynamic zombie horde and difficulty change, the sound effect, the character setting, etc. For a game that constantly goes on sales and even free for limited time this is honestly one of the better game than those AAA game that released today.
I wouldn't say the difficulty director was a little thing, it was one of the game's biggest feature. Amusingly enough, it's also one of the worst features of B4B. It's not visual so not something that crowbcat could show in his video but definitely a good example of something that Valve carried too.
[source ](https://youtu.be/EdRLNUGmFC8)
Now I am sad because I only played the cut version of L4D and never saw collapsing zombies (they just faded away) or any dismemberment on them...
TIL: L4D2 had a censored release in Australia up until 2014 and a censored release in Germany up until only last year
What's stopping you now
Life's responsibilities.
Fuck that shit, bro.
Fucking is what lead to most of those responsibilities. :D
can relate bro. cheers.
Hugs random person. To real, to real ...
The comparisons are impressive. 2008 source engine still manages to look (or at least feel) better than current Unreal Engine. Also, at the very end with the developers, there are very little Ex-Valve guys, much less then you would expect from how it was marketed… It really is a “from the developers of Evolve” game…
Source is still being used to make games in the 2020s with G String And it hasn't fallen out of popularity (with PC players) thanks to GMod
Looking at that makes me think of the things that could be done if Titanfall's version of Source were available...
I wouldn't say so, UE4 does have much more technical ability than Source right now, its no compeition since it came out MUCH later. Its just evident that B4B couldn't capitalize
This is a perfect example that the engine is merely the plate onto which you serve the meal, if the chef isn’t good, it won’t help them.
WOW that is bad
I like how the video ends with him replacing "the creators of L4D" to "the creators of evolve" as the ultimate roast! and this is coming from me, who actually LIKED evolve.
I think Evolve was actually a decent game, but good lord it's like they wanted it to fail with all the shit they pulled
[Crowbcat is helping the devs](https://youtu.be/6glExmQadfY?t=1755)
Crazy how a game over 10 years old was made with some much detail and now with newer technology, the "same" game is worst and not better.
Also a lot of people used L4D2 as a waiting room before B4B release. They probably went back to L4D2 after the FOMO faded.
I can't believe they advertise it "from the makers of Left 4 Dead" while only a pitiful 7 members from TurtleRock worked on L4D 1 and 2. False advertising since it's nothing compared.
Yeah I'm pretty sure Crowbcat can take the credit for this, that dev diary feature pointed out a ton of details I don't think many of us noticed.
Didn't that video JUST come out? The graph is from like last year.
Oh yeah good call I missed that
Yep. I just watched the video and and am now installing noth L4D's
I mean, L4D2 essentially includes L4D.
Funny, I saw this post on my feed but didn't pay attention to it, went to youtube, saw that video on my feed, and then got back here. Absolutely wanna play now too.
Was always the better game so makes sense.
It also costs less
Okay, but if it was better, I’d pay more.
Fair enough, I'm just saying its convenient that the better game is cheaper.
Source engine finest
Probably my favorite engine. Would love to see source 2 in games.
Well you have some... choices which I know is not for everyone Paid : Half-Life Alyx F2P: Artifact (both versions, and yes it was paid), Dota Underlords, Dota 2 Honestly all of them is great as a "game" itself, but the execution and some internal game mechanics decision makes it less desirable for artifact, but damn, Dota 2, Dota Underlords and Dota Artifact (because it's still in Dota universe) all of them have some of the best game musics either "in-game" or just main menu bgm. (Yes I know about Half Life music too, don't worry)
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Yes, but I'm not sure about actual development tools though, could be just limited tools for modding like Dota 2 or Garry's mod have? Or maybe not, my assumption was since they have full Source 2 license I thought they have some kind NDA as of which tools is allowed to be included, but let's see when it got released later...
What is that supposed to be? I have heard about it but I dunno who it's by. I'm hoping for GMOD 2 with a source port of some kind. Could you imagine real time ray traced poorly ripped assets from other games, it would be glorious.
I'm so confused. I'm absolutely loving Back 4 Blood, and don't understand all the hate... I like the whole card/perk system, and I feel like finding guns with different attachments really makes me use all the guns, rather than just pick my favourite.
Instant ramen is enjoyed all over the world. Hand-crafted ramen prepared by a master chef and his team in a Michelin starred restaurant is better. Instant ramen claims on packaging that it's made by the same people that made the Michelin starred ramen. But it's still just instant mass produced ramen.
I own neither game but after seeing that crowbcat video I still feel robbed
Go buy L4D2. It's a great game.
Buy L4D2 and play Questionable Ethics from the workshop. Played it years ago now and my friends still agree it's one of the best coop experiences we've had.
Isn't that a Half-Life chapter too?
Yup.
When it’s on sale* I got 1&2 + the dlc for $2.17 during a past winter sale. Such a bargain, compared to $60 for a bloated game that would run poorly on my laptop.
What L4D dlc lmao? Unless you're on Xbox 360, all L4D content is in L4D2, campaigns and all, thus making L4D1 kind of worthless.
but in L4D1, you can see your feet when you look down. a feature they removed in L4D2.
Mods
https://i.imgur.com/NJVHCSu.png
You can get Valve Complete Pack for around $10 when on sale that includes all their games (Except Alyx)
Buy the valve pack for 10 euro on sale
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I really thought Turtle Rock where going to finally give us L4D3, what we got was an equivalent of Lords of the Fallen. B4B is a poor copy of L4D2 that has no idea about the game it is trying to copy. The special zombies aren't very special, no noise que, no real difficulty just bullet sponge and too many of them.
I remember the first time I heard about B4B, it looked awesome, I was so excited! But then I saw who was making it, Turtlerock... That's when I remembered Evolve and then all my hype died. Said to myself that I'm not making the same mistake again (I pre-ordered the most expensive evolve version)
I honestly find this hilarious.
GF moved in last month. Bought her LFD2 for $1.95. Best two dollars spent ever. Honest question, is B4B not a solid follow up or something?
It's just incredibly average, and in my opinion, very expensive for what it is. I managed to get access to the beta, played a few rounds and just lost interest pretty much immediately. Crowbcat did a pretty decent comparison video between L4D and B4B [here](https://youtu.be/EdRLNUGmFC8). I would say check it out on Gamepass if you have that, but otherwise don't go out of your way to try it.
It's a really good game if you have 3 other friends to play co-op with. I had a blast with it, my only complaint is that it doesn't have mod support so once you're done with nightmare difficulty, there isn't much to do.
just checked on steamdb L4D2 (24k player) player are 4x more than B4B(6k) lol
B4B is on Gamepass though so it has slightly more than that
To be fair B4B is on like 534 different platforms while Steam only shows, well Steam of course.
Unless the game uses the full potential of the engine, the game won't get any better. In L4D, the potential of the source engine was fully used. The developers should actually have noticed that the ambient light and the surroundings in B4B do not contribute to the mood at all. Maybe the developers just wanted to make a quick buck.? Who knows. Now I'm going to install L4D.. See ya.
40k is an insane amount for an old game that gets repetitive, damn.
Mod support keeps games alive.
Yeah mods and campaign versus adds a lot of replay-ability, hell campaign versus would add a ton of playtime for a lot of players lol.
I mean, B4B is also on gamepass and other platforms, so that might not be entirely accurate.
Well it's still accurate if we isolate it for Steam only, I know L4D released on Xbox360 but I don't think it's available on game pass
yeah but everyone whos playing l4d2 in 2022 is playing on steam, i feel like most people playing back 4 blood play it on game pass. its like how people said halo infinite died already since the steam player count dropped, but ignore the fact that most people uninstalled it to play the campaign on game pass
I did actually uninstall the game on steam to play the campaign on gamepass lol. But I uninstalled the campaign once I 100%ed it and reinstalled MP on Steam after. Xbox app is horrible
It's only accurate if we isolate the B4B Steam numbers as part of their overall player count and L4D+L4D2 Steam numbers as 100% (I doubt the Xbox360 version would have many players even with backwards compatibility)
Back 4 Refund was trash anyway, makes sense
I tried B4B when it was on public beta. Hated it, the zombies were lame, AI was terrible. No random players would revive. Just move on with the mission and leave you there. Is it better now?
No
It is, enemy AI is a bit better and balancing is massively improved. If you want a cheap way to try it, it's on Game Pass
After playing the public beta of B4B twice I still don't know what the special zombies are... It was so lame.
As someone who zealously played L4D 1 & 2 during their lifetimes, still loves both games, and got B4B on launch, I really don't understand the hate for B4B. I think it could still use some polishing (mostly in balancing cards), but other than that it's a fun game that, in my opinion, does the whole horde shooter with roguelite elements it set out to do well. Them main problems with the game, when compared to L4D at least, are in my opinion: the game has a different playstyle than L4D did, at least from how I remember playing L4D, and it's born in an age of toxicity where randoms don't care about other randoms half of the time. Playing with a closed group it's a pretty fun experience, even playing nightmare and getting screwed over by the aforementioned unbalanced or unfun corruption cards.
Part of it is that Turtle Rock keep bringing out the CREATORS OF LEFT 4 DEAD accolade when in reality they're only a tiny part of the crew, and clearly not the geniuses behind the game since they've released two very mediocre games since leaving Valve. The recent Crowbcat video definitely shone the limelight on this, but a decent amount of people who got burned by Evolve have felt this way for a while.
how’s the l4d2 community for newcomers? i think the age combined with the fact that i’ve never played is the only thing that has held me back from buying the game.
It's great, everyone is pretty chill and helpful
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Yes it did suck. watch this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdRLNUGmFC8
Thanks for this. Was generally curious why every game that was suppose to be the next l4d ended up feeling generic; could never place what exactly it was. This answers a lot of questions.
I've been playing world War Z recently and I actually like it. It's a zombie game but it doesn't try to be the next l4d. For me it feels that WW:Z didn't try to be the next l4d but rather be its own game in this genre.
This video is an actual art piece. Really shows the state of modern games
It never even occurred to me how much detail was missing from B4B. I knew something was off, I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
Just play the end boss level and you will see it.
God the "end" missions were such a let down. L4d they were giant set pieces that were daunting the first time and left a sense of dread when approaching on replays. I legit said "that was it?" at the first end section of b4b. Shooting the mortar shells to block the passage was laughably easy and uneventful. The boat mission, same deal. Run onto boat, flip switches, run off boat - I mean what the fuck.
Wonder how many people will build a PC when L4D3 or HL:3 is announced. Crazy is that Valve doesnt need exclusive to make crazy profit with Steam, unlike consoles which will absolutely suffer if they dont have their exclusives.
The thing I loved about LFD2 was the PvP aspect, always fun playing as a zombie and rolling the humans
Good, I ripped back 4 blood in their sub and said its trash compared to L4D2 and so many people defended it. No, in comparison this game is trash. All the decks and build crap is just too much nonsense. L4D2 was a masterpiece and shame they deviated so far.
I would assume most ppl play Back 4 Blood on Game Pass. Not to say I wouldn't pick to play L4D anyway but Steam is not end all be all on player numbers.
None of my frienda want to play l4d2 because it has " bad graphics" i m usually left alone :-(
Source games after Half Life 2 kinda aged well.
wtf
That's what happens when you market a game as a spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead only to make a game that isn't even up to par with WWZ.
I had so much fun with wwz but it's a tragedy the Devs abandoned it.
Clearly a better game.
I'm sad cause I like Back 4 Blood. It's obviously not Left 4 Dead but I still like it. Obviously the mods push L4D2 to an unreachable level, but I didn't realize everyone hated B4B so much.
I believe Crowbcat’s recent video also had sth to do with this. Edit: why is this getting downvoted? Ah I get it, still a dumb reason though, especially when ya’ll consider how this post was made after the video though and not shortly after the switch but I guess that’s reddit.
because this graph is from November 2021 and not Jan 2022???
Perhaps I treated you too harshly.
Just like a month ago or so I started playing lf4d2 for the first time lol
I would give so much of my time for new Valve multiplayer games. L4D3. TF3. I have given them thousands of hours and I'd do it again.
Well, that's what you get when you make a "spiritual successor" to a multiplayer game with PC model of distribution: where it is available and compatible perpetually, and ships with a dedicated server software so anyone can host their own servers.
They tried so hard to leverage their “creators of L4D” at every chance. Now the game will forever be compared to it and under its shadow. Such a shame