Eurogamer Left 4 Dead 2 Interview

[Evo]

There is a new interview with Doug Lombardi over on Eurogamer concerning Left 4 Dead 2. You can read the whole thing here but in the meant time this is a nice little taste of what you can expect to read:

Eurogamer: So at the moment, you have separate teams working on Left 4 Dead 2 and supporting the original game?

Doug Lombardi: There's a couple of different teams, actually. There's guys working on Left 4 Dead 2, guys working on Left 4 Dead 1 stuff, and then guys working on the authoring tools for Left 4 Dead - the mod-making stuff. Regarding the Left 4 Dead 1 content, we'll be announcing stuff in the coming weeks, but there's nothing I can say about it today.

Go read!

[Barnz]

This part is interesting.

Originally Posted by Doug Lombardi on Episode Three

Yes, I think part of the fun is definitely the secret part of it, letting the community find stuff and theorise. There have definitely been people guessing what was going to happen, say, before the episodic games come out. It's funny because a couple of people are really on the money, a couple of people are just totally out there. It's fun for us to watch that, and, of course, it encourages us to be more misleading and mysterious about stuff.

[Samon]

Originally Posted by Doug Lombardi

There wasn't a lot of testing involved in, "Shall we put a frying pan in?" Yes! We don't need to test that.

What? I don't understand. I don't think this makes any sense at all. Perhaps Doug worded it wrong, but as far as I'm concerned, I am fairly sure everything needs playtesting; Valve have never been the type to come up with whimsical, on-the-fly developments and additions to their games - it is so far from their usual standards of game design. Their whole ideology appears to be collapsing with L4D2. Certainly I see no problem in releasing a sequel, and I am the first to call anyone participating in the boycott group an idiot (you're in it? Idiot), but their approach to its development appears to me to be truly arbitrary and whimsical. I do not like it.

"Let's put a frying pan in!" "Yeah, and we don't even need to playtest it!" Didn't anyone put their hand up and suggest that possibly it is a stupid idea?

[Hectic Glenn]

I think the idea of melee weapons would be the overhanging change which needs to be playtested, once they established they would have a significant improvement on the game the choice of models is purely arbitrary and fun based...no matter what it is and that is possibly what Doug was getting at.

I trust Valve on the 'just wait! We'll win you back soon!' approach because I'm sure they've got great things on the way...but they got the announcement orders the wrong way round and have left Ep3 info too long for the people who aren't the DIE HARD fans. Enjoyable interview...but you've got to start spilling the beans soon Doug!

[PimpinPenguin]

Originally Posted by Doug Lombardi

Yes, I think part of the fun is definitely the secret part of it, letting the community find stuff and theorise. There have definitely been people guessing what was going to happen, say, before the episodic games come out. It's funny because a couple of people are really on the money, a couple of people are just totally out there. It's fun for us to watch that, and, of course, it encourages us to be more misleading and mysterious about stuff.

It's stopped being fun a long time ago. How can the community find stuff and theorise when we haven't got any info. All that keeps happening is we keep getting the same half-assed theories over and over again. Give us a trailer or something to get us talking about.

[Hunter-Killer]

Originally Posted by Hectic Glenn

You've got to start spilling the beans soon Doug!

I think a lot of people have almost just given up waiting for EP3 information. They will spring on us when we least expect it and probably no longer care (OK I know we won't stop caring but you know what I mean). I agree that they got these announcements the wrong way round, I can pretty much guarantee that if they released a trailer for EP3 first that the uproar about L4D2 would probably been nonexistent and most fans would still be in shock over the EP3 information. Personally that’s why I feel L4D2 is being boycotted, it’s not just because fans are annoyed about L4D being made “obsolete” (plus all the other reasons) but deep down they are angry because they have no EP3 info and let’s face it, for “episodic gaming” it defiantly is taking its sweet time! (Don’t get me wrong, I’d much rather wait for a master piece than have a piece of shit thrown at me)

[MaximusPM]

Ahh... I didn't understan what the meant by 'no more big scripted scenes in the middle of chapter 3'

There is no such thing in L4D oO

Also, if I understood it right, they are saying characters will have less speech lines? That means they are giving LESS personality to these new characters that already look extremely shallow? I like valve, I like what they do, and I'm trying to see only the positive side of L4D2, but this seems to be a bad point, doesn't it?

[Lobster]

Originally Posted by MaximusPM

Ahh... I didn't understan what the meant by 'no more big scripted scenes in the middle of chapter 3'

There is no such thing in L4D oO

Also, if I understood it right, they are saying characters will have less speech lines? That means they are giving LESS personality to these new characters that already look extremely shallow? I like valve, I like what they do, and I'm trying to see only the positive side of L4D2, but this seems to be a bad point, doesn't it?

You read it wrong, he was refering to the development cycle of L4D1, reasons behind stuff that they changed/removed in regards to plot and to why the game has no real story, in reference to the fact they wanna try more things in L4D2.


As for the less serious nature of the games design, I have always likened L4D to the first two Doom games (Which was a classic example of Cooperative gameplay in its day), in fact valve themselves have referenced Doom (and others) when speaking about the origins of the gameplay. Doom isnt exactly high science when it comes to story or deep philosophy, it was always trashy but it got away with it because of its over the top Arcade nature. They didnt give you a chainsaw because it made sense, they gave you a chainsaw because it was ridiculously satisfying to go slicing through a mob of demons.

They have also referenced movies such as Evil Dead and Return of the Living Dead, everyone knows these movies are cheap and silly, but things like that can be entertaining and funny, you just have to go with it! Of course I dont want them to treat every game like that, but I think we can give them one 'anything goes' franchise.

[tschumann]

Originally Posted by Barnz

This part is interesting.

Yes, I read that and was wondering who these people were.

[David.Seth2]

Regarding the Left 4 Dead 1 content, we'll be announcing stuff in the coming weeks, but there's nothing I can say about it today.

god why cant he even say anything about the original L4D?

[Barnz]

They never say anything about their projects.

[David.Seth2]

Originally Posted by Barnz

They never say anything about their projects.

See that's the thing... they've told us a lot about L4D2... but what could possibly coming down the pipe for L4D1 thats hush hush?

[generaleskimo]

This may be relevant, but I have a good idea of their future plans from a response from an email conversation I had with them:

Originally Posted by General Eskimo

-----Original Message-----
From: ****@gmail.com [mailto:****@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2009 3:06 PM
To: Gabe Newell
Subject: A more moderate opinion regarding Left 4 Dead 2


Now, I took the L4D2 announcement with mixed feelings. From a design perspective, I completely understand why you made the decision to make L4D2 a separate game; it was an ambitious amount of new content, and made major modifications to the gameplay and style. This all I understand, and eventually the rest of the community will understand it as well.

However, many of us have a much more valid concern; we feel as if Left 4 Dead 1 is being left behind. Sure, Valve will continue its tradition of providing engine and SDK updates to support the community, but many of us bought the game under the thinking that Valve would provide official maps later on in the same way that it has down with Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, TF, etc. They fear that this will at best split the L4D team's focus, forcing them to choose which game to develop maps for. Many people at Valve likely recognize this unfortunate predicament, as they are torn between Valve's fantastic history of support and their new gameplay innovations.

Assuming that you do intend to add one or two more campaigns to Left 4 Dead 1 to reassure the community, I'd recommend that you put some of those efforts into high-gear, as well as possibly working with notable custom map designers directly in a collaborative venture, allowing others to generate the content and receive refinement and support from Valve teams. This way, you could pound out a community map pack with maybe 3 campaigns supervised by Valve and released in an update in 1 Valve month (equal to 3-4 calendar months). This kind of support will surely help to ease members of the community.

The Response:

Originally Posted by Chet Faliszek

****,

That work had been started before our announcement and you will see it very soon. As for your choice to be a moderate voice, hasn't cable news taught you anything? There is no place for moderation in this world!

Thanks,

Chet

Apparently they not only read all of the emails they get, but they also have time for witty responses! If this response is to be believed, Valve is in fact working with custom map makers directly right now in order to provide a wave of new custom content, polished and approved by the Valve team, delivered directly through steam. I'm not sure about you guys, but this makes me a lot more confident that I will get for than my money's worth out of L4D1, as per Valve tradition.

[Fiberawptic]

Originally Posted by David.Seth2

See that's the thing... they've told us a lot about L4D2... but what could possibly coming down the pipe for L4D1 thats hush hush?

pardon my french but um... NO SHIT. of course they are gonna spend more time talking about a full-scale upcomming game than just a few new features for a game thats already been out for a while, and god knows, they probably don't have enough new content for l4d1 to show yet...

[Eejit]

Still being cagey and evasive about Ep3. It's going to be big. Revolutionary perhaps.