Posts by Sentura

  • Another successful boycott! (L4D2)

    Quote from Rick_D

    I'm defending it because it's not a shit game and in various posts several people seem to be saying that L4D2 is not a real sequel. And I am saying: yes it is, you are wrong, here are the reasons why.

    all reasons herein are purely subjective and only count as opinions. there is no wrong or right here, and you can't prove anything logically. you can't prove that l4d2 is or isn't a "real" or "proper" or "good" sequel; you can only say what your opinion about l4d2 is. any attempt to find logical fallacies in any opinion is rendered futile, because an opinion is a stand and not an argument. so really, why are you trying so hard?

  • Another successful boycott! (L4D2)

    again, i'm not sure why you're trying so hard to defend this game - is it to justify your own purchase of it? like i said before, our opinions only matter insofar they help us decide whether to buy a game or not.

    Quote

    If you don't want to buy it, then don't buy it. But don't try and force your opinion (not experience, just an opinion) onto others just because you've made a choice not to buy it.

    yes, but (with reference to what you call a red herring) neither should you try and force your opinion on others because you've made the choice to buy the game. i don't need persuasion for when i've made a decision, nor i am sure most other people don't either.

  • Another successful boycott! (L4D2)

    there are a few things that sprang to mind reading your wall of text ricky.

    a) you say that the boycott is 99% groundless. obviously there are reasons for why people would want to boycott companies, in the same way there are people that would wage wars for profit. however, in the same sense, valve doesn't need people defending them. i am sure that a prominent company such as valve would have their own arguments for why exactly they went the way that they did. or, even if they don't (which i think is highly unlikely), it's still their business to defend it - not yours.

    b)

    Quote

    And it IS a sequel, not a glorified expansion, just because they "only" made new weapons, maps, sounds, characters, special infected and new modes, doesn't mean they are cheating. A game doesn't have to reinvent itself every time it has a sequal.

    i don't know if i agree with this. i think that a game should at least introduce major changes in story, atmosphere, gameplay, technology as well as have the correct timing to warrant itself a sequel. i personally believe that anything which doesn't have these significant changes in quality isn't enough to be considered a sequel; it is just glorification. however, my opinion isn't really what matters here. like i said before, companies themselves have their own reasons for marketing games or updates or even glorified expansion packs as sequels. while i don't believe that each and every one of these reasons is justified for the creation of said sequel, my only choice as a consumer lies in whether i choose to purchase the game or not - just like everybody else.

    everyone has their reasons for buying or not buying a game; and these do not have to be logical at all. you forget that some people even bond emotionally with video games in the sense that they feel more involved because of a certain narrative or characters they can relate to. what i personally dislike is being pushed around because of my opinion of a game after i've decided not to purchase it. games of this caliber don't need the extra free marketing or wannabe salespeople trying to shove down personal advertisements down people's throats. it is unnecessary in the same way trying to defend a company such a valve is unnecessary.

  • Another successful boycott! (L4D2)

    Quote from Rick_D

    "Why wasn't the L4D2 content in L4D?"Because Turtle Rock spent a long time developing the game's mechanics and features. Once acquired, they and Valve started to polish and build upon what was there.

    L4D had 4 great campaigns, that took me and my friends a long time to play through. And we replayed the campaigns multiple times. Unfortunatly the game got stale quite quickly once you figured out how to "break" the game.

    When Valve started to make L4D2, it started out as an expansion, a large patch perhaps; an interview with the lead of the project says so, he even had to break it to gabe that they wanted to release a sequel, instead of free content.

    The reason for this? If you, or anyone who was against L4D2, had played the game you would instantly know why; I can imagine the realisation dawning on Valve as they added new features to prevent the kind of stagnant gameplay that emerged in L4D, the spitter and the charger and the jockey - the L4D maps simply didn't fit their gameplay, yet they were a perfect counter to the clost-camping tactics used by players in the original game. How heartbreaking to realise that you have the perfect fix for a problem that would make your game longer lasting, more fun and more of a challenge - yet you can't just release these as an update because they won't work in the maps you originally made; and the reason they don't work is because you designed the maps around very specific enemy types.

    The story and new characters wouldn't have worked either. People already feel like they know the original 4, but with the story that was being told in L4D2 it would not have been possible with those characters. It would have felt all too much like a map pack, rather than a journey.

    strangely enough i'm not asking this. i am asking why l4d2 wasn't the game released instead of the original l4d? i would assume it is a much more balanced game since they have had reflections from the first game. i am just saying that all of this - all the reflections they got from the first game - should have been identified through testing. they should have made l4d the game that they made l4d2. and making people pay extra for that, well, i find that a bit unethical. they should pay for their own failures, not require people to pay them. this is also a reason why i don't like turtle rock (apart from their horrendous counter strike condition zero - raven gets full props for making the deleted scenes, those were awesome).

    as for the mw2 problematique: i'm predicting a bi-yearly sequel. the difference made is that the primary part of the game (the multiplayer) has had a much longer time to cool down (as opposed to l4d2). over the course of 2 years, people's interest in a game will decline, leaving only a small percentage of people still playing it. by introducing a sequel at the right time, you can manage to garner sales from the core players (who are in need of a fresh breath), as well as players that stopped playing the game before that. i would go so far as to say that if l4d2 was released a year later, there would be much less fuss about it than there is now.

    as you might have noticed, i haven't answered the question of when it is accepted for a sequel to be marketed for a game. i didn't because the question isn't really up for debate; i am not the judge of said sequel. the vast populations of gamers are, and whether you like it or not their opinions matter in numbers. if enough people start disliking your first game, there won't be any reason to create a sequel. if they do, however, you have made a successful product (not to be confused with a good game). sequels aren't decided by the amount of new content or other qualities of any game or piece of media. they are decided solely on how well a game sells in the first place (or in the case of a planned prequel-sequel/trilogy strategy, how much each game can bring in).

  • Another successful boycott! (L4D2)

    l4d2 to me has always begged the question, "why didn't they make the first game this instead of releasing a sequel a year later?"

    note that i'm not saying they should implement all they have done into l4d, i'm just wondering why they didn't start out with this instead. either way, i'm not getting this because i'm biased against turtle rock studios.

    Quote from Lord Ned

    Because... completely new content, new characters, new materials, models, maps, settings, gameplay, ai, director, techniques, effects, shaders, etc don't count as a sequel? What do you call a sequel then?

    First off all I didn't say it wasn't a sequel, I said it was the least updated. And what I consider a good sequel, a sequel that adds enough to justify a full price tag would be TF2, HL2, MW, MW2, BF2, BF:BC. L4D2 amounts to barely more then new maps, and models, it's as many said more how the first should have been then something that go's beyond. It is in no way in the same league as the aforementioned games, they added a lot more to the previous games, and took more then a year to make. And teams like IW and dice have a lot of experience making games on tight schedules, when has valve ever made something in less then a year?

    So you're okay with paying $60 for MW2, and that's a "Full" Sequel, while you don't want to pay just over half that ($35) for L4D2?

    Also if you listen to the developer commentary in L4D2, they've put a ton of work into it. There's something like 20k zombie combinations now, which is *I THINK* ^5 more than the first game.

    i think what he means is the grade of the content. essentially l4d2 is l4d in a new setting, with more weapons. there simply isn't enough change to justify a sequel. if you look into other game sequels, they will often provide more content than just this - therefore consumers are more likely to think of it as an expansion pack rather than a sequel.

    also, people couldn't care less of how much work is put into a game. people want visible results; they want a new, enhanced experience - not something they have essentially seen before (see above statement). not everyone is aspiring to get into the game industry and looking at it through our eyes. i don't even think most people care to watch the developer commentary, much less analyse and reflect upon them.

  • Company leaks game on purpose for pirating

    Quote from Defrag

    Skjalg's argument of laziness may sound ridiculous, but it rings true. Companies should do their utmost to remove all of the barriers between the customer and their product. It doesn't matter if it's a small or a large barrier. You can't impulse purchase something very effectively if you have to think too much about it.

    ...actually that was my argument...

  • Dragon Age: Origins [BioWare]

    Quote from Steppenwolf

    I think it finaly "clicked" for me. Started all over again as a mage. The combat frustrated me at my first try but now i get the hang of it and that makes it much more fun. I pause very often and adjust tactics, do a lot of micromanagement. Imo thats the best part of the game.Also start to see more similarities to Mass Effect now that i'm further in the game.

    Have to say tho if this game wasn't by the same guys who made Mass Effect i would have given up already. Actualy had to give this game 6-7 hours to grow on me. Don't think i ever was so patient with a game that i didnt liked initialy.

    what made you keep playing?

  • Timothy Langdell is at it again

    Quote from Jetsetlemming

    Who cares what "people visit mapcore for" compared to "people post on mapcore feel like posting about this in the sub-forum in which it fits"? I mean, the biggest thread in Off-topic is about "things you bought". Do people visit mapcore to read what other people have purchased? I would think most of the forums outside the "Employment" and "Creative" sections don't really serve a purpose of attracting visitors compared to entertaining and interacting with current users.

    I think legal/copyright issues regarding games and game IP are really interesting topics, ones worth discussing.

    basically this. i like these kinds of topics, because mapcore isn't just all about level design and props. it's about the larger things such as the industry as a whole, and where to watch out for potential threats if you start up a new company. just because it doesn't interest you doesn't mean it's in the general interest of the forums.