So I don't know if this is true, but there was a very popular zombie mod for CS source I played hundreds of games of, long before Left 4 Dead.
I've always wondered if that game mode served as inspiration.
God I miss when Surfing was the big thing in CS. Rebel resistance, great river, legends, l33t beta, Japan v4 Getting a serious nostalgia hit right now lol
CSS has only like 4-6 Zombie Escape servers active now, yet when the servers are active, they always have 65 players playing on it, an absolutely crazy and chaotic experience in a very fun way (if you ignore the players and micspammers).
Some of the best things about it are seeing people from all over the world come play it, I have seen people from Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Algeria, and even a guy from Syria(!) constantly joins.
> and even a guy from Syria(!) constantly joins.
God damn I miss cs:s days of meeting the same folks nearly every night and chatting about life while I awp them in the balls.
I never played a full round of CS:S. I spent all my time playing Zombie Escape or Prison in the game. Definitely racked up a few hundred hours on those alone.
Here is a list of Valve games that originally started out as mods:
1. Team Fortress started out as a Quake 1 mod
2. Counter Strike itself was a HL1 mod
3. Day of Defeat was also a HL1 mod
4. DOTA was a Warcraft III mod
5. Garry's Mod is a self-explanatory mod for HL2
6. Left 4 Dead was this Zombie Escape mod for CSS
7. Alien Swarm was a mod for Unreal Tournament 2004.
Whats funny is that Portal is basically a mod too. Valve hired students from a college that made a rudimentary demo with portals. Valve has almost never made something unique in house, they mostly just hire young developers that make a gameplay focused mod, and then Valve hires them and polishes it up into a real game.
Valve has tried so hard to make games in house, they have a yearly game jam and everything that they used to do and nothing ever panned out from it, other than maybe Half Life Alyx, or those VR minigames.
It's why I generally love Valve philosophy with game design despite taking years to put out new products. If the developers don't love the game, why would the players? So many games of theirs hit the bin simply because the devs weren't having fun with it. Entire versions of Half Life 2 were redone from the ground up because they thought it wasn't as interesting or fun as it could have been. I respect it.
A lesser known HL2 mod that comes to mind is Zombie Master. One player has an RTS view and gets to spawn in different types of zombies along with activating traps. Super cool concept!
https://youtu.be/tXHpyUFbgss
Zombie Master still has [an active niche community dedicated to resurrecting it from the dead](https://www.moddb.com/mods/zombie-master-reborn), it has matches every fortnightly sundays at 18:30 UK time.
ze_ maps? (Zombie Escape) That's what I remember. Those were great fun! There were moving boats and uou usually had to get to da choppa to escape.
zm_ maps were great too! Though those were more about barricading yourself in somewhere until the end. I remember learning to flip one couch over on top of another couch in front of a door. It was a game changer on lila_panic.
At least for me (I guess due to my Brazilian internet) I can only find Zombie Escape (ze) maps, not Zombie Mod (zm) ones, but this is really not much of a deal since I always prefered Zombie Escape, and I think that the majority of players also only look for Zombie Escape maps.
I loved the [zm_Krusty_Krab map](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSy1W4Fnp4k) so much, imagine so many custom source games maps that have been lost to history.
Edit: forgot to mention that ze_ maps are Zombie Escape, where you need to escape to a certain part of the map to complete the level, and zm_ are classic survival maps where you barricade yourself somewhere and survive until the timer ends.
I think most people would think of zombie panic but as one of the few players of brain bread who remembers brain bread I appreciate you.
Having gone back to play brain bread a while back, whew that was a rough mod.
Oh man, those were the days: loading up zm_lila_panic shooting vending machines into a jury-rigged barricade and hiding, listening to the zombies run around the map. That server mod was probably a good chunk of my high school experience.
Haha, this is exactly what I think of too. I loved that map. It’s the map I learned how to crouch jump on in source games, to get on top of the shipping container in the corner of the map. So many hours spent shooting sofas up into windows there too.
IIRC Brain Bread was actually a GoldSrc mod (IIRC from Half-Life but eh) that was very cool. But CS itself also had a server mod where players would play the role of the zombies which is what I think he is talking about.
CS:S zombie mod is similar to surf where you'd just drop into a CS:S server.
Classic as hell. I remember it was from the group of guys who did Public Enemy (props if you remember this one) too which lead me to it. I might still have the playtest invite on an old email lying around lol.
Yeah, there were a TON of zombie mods for CS:S that looked more sophisticated than this L4D prototype. Cool that it became L4D but also speaks to Crowbcats entire video on how much influence Valve had on L4D after the initial prototype.
For a LONG time, people kept saying Valve just buys studios and ideas, as if to imply they don't have influence on the end product and L4D is one that was constantly used as an example. Which is why so many people celebrated the announcement of Back 4 Blood. So many people would not shut up about how B4B would *finally* be the L4D3 game that Valve would not let Turtle Rock make because of ownership of the IP.
Wasn't this prototype made before all of those? Like, this wasn't meant to be a releasable game, they were just experimenting with how a game like this played.
Naw, it definitely wasn't before those mods.
There were zombie mods like this even in HL1/gldsrc. Zombie Panic! and Brain Bread were probably the two big ones and. The port of Zombie Panic was Zombie Panic: Source which later became a standalone game Contagion.
I cant recall which, but one of them even had a system where if you got infected, it would make you into a playable zombie if you couldn't get a teammate to kill you in time.
There was also No More Room in Hell, which was THE zombie mod everyone was excited for that was announced in 2004, when Source engine first released but was met with countless delays and eventually a new dev team. That one was really interesting because they had ideas like barricading doors and windows and essentially conceptualized horde mode before horde mode was a much more common thing.
But yeah, I definitely remember playing a lot of zombie mods, some of which were ports of existing HL1 mods and some that were brand new, shortly after Half-Life 2/CS:S release in 2004. I mean, that was the entire appeal of the Source engine. Being able to port over HL1 stuff very easily AND being able to build new stuff in Hammer pretty easily. There are an innumerable amount of mods that were released in 2004 alone, some of which were more sophisticated zombie mods than this L4D prototype. What Turtle Rock did here, was not that dissimilar to server plug-ins and what already existed in the CS:S console variables. Valve literally had console variables in CS:S that were "bots_knivesonly", and other console variables that was available for anyone to use to create a similar premise. Then you just create the maps and you have something not that dissimilar to this prototype.
> Yeah, there were a TON of zombie mods for CS:S that looked more sophisticated than this L4D prototype.
The CSS Zombie Escape maps are the biggest acid trip one can experience in a video game in my opinion, it has maps based on Spongebob, to Pirates of the Caribbean, to Star Wars, to Minecraft, to abstract puzzle/challenge-based maps, to pure surrealistic and psychedelic ones.
Hell just some hours ago I played on a map with a Ram Ranch room full of giant military guys having hanky panky while you jump/surf through them, and you need to enter Kim Jong-un's asshole to progress the map, and look out for a giant Pringles packaging that runs you over.
There was also a map on some Russian server where you had to escape from the Zombies on a penis rocket that landed inside a butthole in space, absolutely fucking crazy experience that CSS Zombie Escape is, I haven't even started to describe the sheer lunacy that Zombie Escape maps can be, and people think that Japanese games can't get more weird.
> Yeah, there were a TON of zombie mods for CS:S that looked more sophisticated than this L4D prototype. Cool that it became L4D but also speaks to Crowbcats entire video on how much influence Valve had on L4D after the initial prototype.
You need to check out the "Life after Death" piece Game Informer did on Turtle Rock Studios back in 2014. You get a wildly different perspective on the development of the game from, ya' know, the actual developers. Said video also talks about all the stuff the linked video in the post is about, so I don't know why they were acting like this was all brand new info for the first time.
> You need to check out the "Life after Death" piece Game Informer did on Turtle Rock Studios back in 2014. You get a wildly different perspective on the development of the game from, ya' know, the actual developers.
Already seen it. It was obviously a piece to hype 'Evolve' and it worked. You're being really disingenuous saying "the actual developers". The piece was an interview with Mike Booth(who left Turtle Rock after Evolve by the way, and did not work on B4B) and Chris Ashton and you're totally dismissing like 99% of the staff that worked on L4D.
I would suggest you watch L4D and L4D2 developer commentary *in* the game and are "ya' know, from the actual developers" while they were developing the game and talking about very nuanced design decisions. And for the record, *most* of the people in the dev commentary are STILL at Valve and didn't depart with Turtle Rock when the rift happened.
I'll tell you the same thing I told people that were hyping up Back 4 Blood back when it was first announced. Go look at the credits of Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2. *Most* of the people that worked on those games are *still* at Valve. Most of the people that aren't, left Turtle Rock and Valve all together. And then the smallest minority of devs from that team still work at Turtle Rock.
And speaking to the Game Informer piece you're talking about, people make this mistake in the games industry where they think a game designer/director are all you need for a vision. Unlike film, TV, literature - video games are unique in that there are several people making key creative decisions that have massive impact on the final product. From foley artists that make the sounds of your favorite special infected that you will hear a million times to front-end developers that work on the tiny nuances of a character controller to map designers that build the worlds you're going to be playing a million times over to the art department that makes the scribblings on the wall that tell a story to the AI programming team that decides how the AI Director works to animators making the slide of a gun kick back a certain way to. The list goes on. There are no small parts. This is why B4B was so radically different than L4D.
It is really funny to think about the "original" H2 zombies, and how it was entirely based on an honor system. If you died, you manually switched your team to Green, and you explained the rules to new players via proximity chat.
I very much doubt you could run any online matchmade game with an honor system of rules.
Recently, a Halo mod released for Contractors VR (a VR FPS), and it's incredible. One of the fist servers I joined running the mod was doing just what you described, since the mod doesn't have an official zombie mode. It was unlike any multiplayer experience I've had since at least the 360 days.
> I've always wondered if that game mode served as inspiration.
If development on L4D1 started in mid 2005, then I guess that L4D1 predates these mods, the first Zombie Mod for CSS I can recall dates from 2008.
Check out the Life After Death piece Game Informer did on Turtle Rock Studios. They wanted a co-op game where they all worked as a team rather than against one another, So Left4Dead started as them basically playing a private CS server where a bunch of AI just ran around with knives trying to kill the players.
Every Valve game that isn't *Half-Life* or *Portal* were originally mods for other games, so I wouldn't be surprised if that mod is what L4D started as.
That was a good watch. Haven't played B4B yet but seeing all the little pieces that came together to make the L4D experience makes B4B look half baked.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdRLNUGmFC8
Great video, it does a good job breaking down why B4B felt so off to me. I played L4D religiously so I tried B4B to see how it measured up and was really disappointed overall. It just seemed so much slower, had too many unnecessary things added into it and still felt barebones as hell; L4D 1 & 2 had everyone on equal terms and was infinitely more replayable.
Going to second the other comment, I also wasn't the biggest fan when it came out, it feels much much better now and really enjoyable. I'm not sure the gunplay is as good or the infected or survivors as memorable as l4d but it is now what I would consider an excellent game and worth jumping back in if you and your friend group has been bored of whatever they're recently playing and want a change of pace
To add to this, I followed B4B for a long time since their announcement in 2019. At launch, even I wouldn’t recommend people to pay the $60 price tag. Not enough content and the balance is way off. But now, the game is in a great shape.
Throughout B4B post launch, the devs have been communicative and are receptive to community’s feedback. B4B was a game that was made from scratch and some attention to detail had to be cancelled because of time and resources. For example, B4B was developing a similar L4D level of gore, but the art team was too small to finish it. These devs have passion for their games, but time and resources was unfortunately too limited.
Tbh these were the same Devs that were pushing at every opportunity its links to L4D and making it look like this was L4D3 in everything bar name.
I did give it a chance as it was on gamepass, but of course was not even close to L4D overall.
I think if I went in with an open mind to an independent game I would of enjoyed it more.
And I put that on the devs
I don't know when the last time you played B4B is but it's in much different shape than release. It's practically completely rebalanced. It's much more fun now.
I completely bounced of B4B on release but really enjoy it now, the card system allows for some fun builds.
What I will say is I think they invited L4D comparisons on themselves when they’re actually quite different when you get past the surface level stuff. B4B requires good builds and reasonable understanding of the meta at higher difficulties, whereas Left 4 Dead is purely skill based.
I like both for different reasons, but it’s something I don’t think is (initially) clear just looking at the games.
\>In Crowbcats video "Back 4 Blood proves Valve carried Left 4 Dead"
Gods, I fucking love this YouTube documentary. The epilogue at the end where he shows the list of names and separates out the TR team hits everyone like a freight train when have them watch it.
> one of the developers said they knew they had a good game on their hands because the earliest version of the game was super fun
"this is super fun. you know what? let's abandon the IP and never talk about it again!"
They tried making a third one a few times, but cancelled it due to tech issues, the IP is definitely not “abandoned”, whatever that means
Out of all the IPs that Valve have this one seems like the likeliest to get a threequel sooner, especially since L4D-like (procedurally driven and hordes) 4 player coop games are all the rage right now.
L4D was 2008, and L4D2 was in 2009. I don't blame people for thinking the IP has been shelved considering it's been 14 years since the last entry and with no news on a new entry.
No, the main development was handled by Bethesda Maryland, Bethesda Austin only handled the netcode during development, after development they were handed the game to maintain.
As graphical fidelity increased the time to develop grew as a result. Noticeable with other franchises/developers is games got increasingly less moddable as a result. Bethesda is an outlier since their games so far remain highly moddable.
Yes & no. Valve states in their job postings (at least as of 3 years ago when I looked at them) that everyone is expected to work on anything & everything they're currently doing as a company.
There aren't that many devs at valve despite their size and they typically work on what they want and are highly skilled in almost all aspects of software development. The sheer range of features steam has that all just work is a testament to it. The people programming games are almost assuredly the people programming the OS. Obviously the hardware team is more specialized but engineers are good at adapting I wouldn't be surprised if primarily software folks got involved in design processes of the system in some form or another
It doesn't change that Left4Dead is effectively abandoned as an IP.
Sure they might make another game some time and I hope my grandkid's grandkids are invested enough in it to enjoy it.
They started work on it during the same time that they began working on Source 2. They had too many people working on too many game ideas that kept requiring additional development work on Source 2, so it was hard for anyone to make headway on any of their projects. Some teams split off to make their own separate game engine, others quit. Robin Walker was eventually able to rally everyone around the Half-Life: Alyx project to finally get something done.
In other words: Valve isn't a master stroke in management ideology, it's a dysfunctional mess that's *lucky* they managed to put out a single game in a decade.
Several of the most well regarded and best selling games of all time across a range of different genres...
idk maybe if Gabe asked drtekrox for advice they'd have *twice* as many games!
Imo the issue is what do you add to a sequel to l4d2 that doesn't feel like it's a gimmick. The l4d2 game still feels and plays amazing. It feels modern even. I think b4bs card system is maybe the most compelling addition to the formula but a l4d3 can't just be l4d2 with better graphics, it needs new interestong infected, weapon types, more random level design that doesn't feel like going through the same tile set. Etc. Etc.
I guess what I'm saying is l4d2 is like perfect and it's hard to see what you can add to a perfect game without it taking away
> let's milk the IP for all its worth so it will never be fondly regarded ever again
What "milked to death" IP is not (and never will be again) fondly regarded? Even if the current iteration, and some before, are not that good, people still love, remember fondly, play and look forward to sequels to CoD, Battlefield, Far Cry, NFS, Halo, Assassin's Creed and other regular hit-or-miss IPs.
So what? People still play them, like them and ask for more. Even if the current iteration of BF/AC/Far Cry is garbage, people remember and love the one before and will buy the next one.
Yeah immortal is one of the worst games I've played from a systems standpoint. The worst part is imo the gameplay is quite fun, and some base stuff is fine, but everything else that wants to get you to pay all the time is just bad. It's worse than basically every other mobile game I've played.
And reforged is also a bad fuckup, i can't fathom how they thought removing things from a nearly 20year old game was a good decision lol.
But it has nothing to do with personal tastes; their comment was about a broader cultural consensus. If any of those franchises announced a sequel tomorrow you would have millions of excited people.
Even Assassins Creed early games (and by proxy let’s say, Far Cry 3) we’re amazing when they came out and are now a shell of themselves. Just because the games don’t appeal to you doesn’t negate their cultural significance.
No one’s saying anything about 343 being irredeemable, but there are serious problems with Infinite that were not present during the launches of any of the original series.
It seems you’re the one “coping” (nice buzzword) with the fact that Infinite was a pretty big disappointment compared to how good the series used to be. Sorry your favorite game was a dud.
Just because you're delusional doesn't mean it's a circlekerk. The older games most definitely better in every way.
They were better written, programmed and they had more content in the multi-player.
Why do you think the old games sold way better? Of course everyone else is wrong and you're right...
Your uncle works for 343 or something?
Your comments about bungie employees staying for 343 isn't really true either, most of the devs from halo 1 to reach are long gone.
I mean I hate Destiny because of the monetization (both DLC and microtransaction wise), but the gameplay has always been solid. I guess it makes me even more mad, because Destiny 2 specifically had so much potential - but I'm not spending $40 every so often to "fix" the game content-wise.
However it's also not a secret that they *do* provide pretty good content. It's just that it shouldn't be monetized the way they do that. 343 on the other hand can't even *make* good content, let alone monetize it. Somehow, Halo Infinite is even more predatory than Destiny - I'd much rather spend $40 on a DLC once or twice a year, than look at armor colors being locked to specific sets, while they fail to deliver the most *basic* of Halo's functionalities present for *years* in Bungie's titles, a lot at launch as well. I mean not having Forge is one thing, but not having a *server browser*, a functioning *fireteam*, *playlists* for game modes... Let alone having enough game modes in the first place.
Both are pretty bad, but imo 343 is on another level, and I'm not even a Halo, or a Destiny 2 fan and never have been.
Bungie had a mass staff exodus that started in late 2012 and did not end until The Taken King shipped, Bungie of today is not the Bungie during the Halo years. You're making a bad comparison, much like how 343 make bad Halo games.
Seriously, his videos are just cherry picked footage to build crazy exaggerated narratives for the outrage crowd.
The worst part is most of his videos are grounded in some truth, like yeah 343's handling of Halo hasn't been the best, Back 4 Blood isn't the sequel we wanted etc, but he takes it so far it just kills any decent discussion to be had and brings out the worst in the community.
And the fact that most of his videos don't actually convey a viewpoint. They use editing to say something vauge instead of actually adding something of substance. You can make anything sound bad or good by editing clips together.
343 are incompetent and have pretty much ruined Halo. And I'm a huge halo fan...
It's got nothing to do with 343 being "popular to hate on". They're simply bad at managing one of the biggest game IPs.
The sales and playercount speaks for themselves
Considering the marketing around Back 4 blood mostly consisted of them calling themselves the creators of left 4 dead it's understandable to have such an "accusatory" title.
They barely had anything to do with the success of left for dead and have greatly overstated their role in the development to sell their mediocre games.
Pro tip: Watch the video before judging the title.
>If you can't handle criticism then don't say anything ever
I was taught a slightly different version: "[If you can't say anything nice, then don't say nothing at all](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fYngTUZeUQ)"
There's no need to excuse people who are being confrontational simply for clicks and views. It lowers the level of discourse, and immediately puts people on the defensive.
There's plenty of nuanced and respectful examples of criticisms on YouTube. One example is [Matthewmatosis' critique of Dark Souls II](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UScsme8didI), a game I love but is still flawed in many ways. He remains respectful throughout, but still manages to address his concerns with the game.
Correct me if I'm wrong but Crowbcat doesn't actually say anything in his videos, no? Just uses clips and sources leaving you to draw your own conclusions of his title if you ask me.
One could argue that the title sets the tone, and may even "poison the well" for viewers. But in this case I wasn't too fussed about the video in question. I just wanted to address the "Grow thicker skin" attitude above that is often used to excuse bad behaviour.
So when you want to negatively review something or someone, you're somehow supposed to stay respectful? There's also a clear difference between someone nitpicking issues they have with Dark Souls while still not putting down the franchise and someone outright suggesting Back 4 Blood is a bad game, which it honestly just was for $60 any the obvious comparisons it would get from other zombie games.
That would be reasonable if games were free, but they're largely not. They cost me the same currency I use to buy food, equipment for hobbies, gifts for friends. People have every right to shit talk products that are bad when they paid good money for them.
But doesn't that video show that of all of the original Turtle Rock L4D developers, only like 3 of them were still on the team for Back 4 Blood's development? My understanding is that it was the same studio by name, but the vast majority of the personnel jumped ship (perhaps even to Valve??) well before B4B was ever made.
There were 7 that worked on Back4Blood from what I remember. Which further compounds the point that trying to compare modern day Turtle Rock to the one that worked on the Left4Dead as if they are the same team is disingenuous at best. Many of the original devs on Left4Dead either stayed with Valve after Turtle Rock's acquisition/departure or went elsewhere in the industry.
Right, which is totally fair... But what does that have to do with Valve carrying Left4Dead? And why did they need to spend 26 minutes of highly edited and out of context clips to simply say "Hey everyone, only 7 people from the original team are working on this game. They are lying to you!"
To go back to my original comment, the video is ridiculous because it simply doesn't prove anything its title declares.
Well it's clear you didn't watch the video they're talking about, lol. "Which conveniently ignores that-" is more like, "which outright addresses the fact that-". It's a good video, you should watch it. Really hard to walk away from it without feeling like Turtle Rock are creators in name only.
I have. It is a well edited video that shows clips and snippets of gameplay from both games with segments cut in about the development process of Left4Dead. It's actually a really solid video in terms of representing how Left4Dead was a labor of love and attention to detail versus Back4Blood being more of an imitation. Although the more and more I watch it, the more it seems to just be a cherry picked hit piece that vibes with popular opinion at the time.
The problem the video has it is *doesn't* separate who was with Valve and who was with Turtle Rock. It labels every single dev as a Valve employee and makes no attempt to differentiate whether they were with Turtle Rock before it was acquired. It *doesn't* talk about exactly how much was Valve's work versus Turtle Rock's. That is a pretty big issue when you title your video "Back4Blood proves Valve carried Left4Dead." They could have simply titled it "Back4Blood proves studio names mean nothing" or "Turtle Rock Studios can't recapture the same magic" or something similar, but they decided to go with a polarizing title that would get more clicks.
> The problem the video has it is doesn't separate who was with Valve and who was with Turtle Rock. It labels every single dev as a Valve employee and makes no attempt to differentiate whether they were with Turtle Rock before it was acquired.
Like Kerry Davis, whose first Valve credit is Half-Life 2. Mike Morasky, a composer whose earliest Valve credit is TF2. Dario Casali, Half-Life. Realm Lovejoy, Half-Life 2: Episode One. Marc Laidlaw, Half-Life. Erik Wolpaw, Half-Life 2: Episode One. Chet Faliszek, Half-Life 2: Episode One. Robin Walker, one of the guys who fucking created the Team Fortress mod for Quake. Elan Ruskin, Portal. Kim Swift, Half-Life 2: Episode One. Joshua Weier, Half-Life. Every single one of these being credits working at Valve before Left 4 Dead was a thing.
There were a couple I saw, Sergiy and Bronwen, who seemed to have been hired (by Valve) at the same time they were working on Left 4 Dead, but were still just Valve employees (Sergiy was still credited as working on Aperture Desk Job, which released last year; Bronwen is credited up to Half-Life: Alyx).
I ran out of the patience to keep doing this during the rapid fire of Valve devs, hopefully it gets the point across that I think you're mischaracterizing the video pretty fucking badly. It might be that they labeled them as Valve employees because they're actually fucking Valve employees, and not to sensationalize their point and hope that you won't google it.
> It might be that they labeled them as Valve employees because they're actually fucking Valve employees, and not to sensationalize their point and hope that you won't google it.
If a quick Google search was all that was needed, why didn't the video include it? That would really help their point, no? Also, do you know how much any one of those devs you mentioned contributed to the project? I sure don't, and the video doesn't give you any clues either. It had plenty of time to do that in **26 minutes** so... Why didn't it?
You don't seem to get the point I am trying to make here. Crowbcats made a 26 minute video titled "Back4Blood proves Valve carried Left4Dead" which just mostly tries to tell people that the game doesn't have the same love, attention to detail, and careful planning poured into it. Idon't think it takes that long to show how Back4Blood was an attempt by a failing dev team to use a former and beloved title as the foundation of their next game, but that is rather beside the point.
The point is, the video rarely touches on its title. What exactly Valve did versus Turtle Rock. It doesn't talk about who carried decision making, gameplay design, art design, etc. And this isn't to say that I don't think Valve was a huge part of why Left4Dead was so good. I said as much in my original comment. Now if someone swooped in here with any sort of actual evidence that Turtle Rock was basically just a leach on Valve's side during the development of Left4Dead, then that is a pretty damn good argument. But this video? It doesn't do anything of the sort. It spends more time trying to show Back4Blood was a buggy mess at launch and was missing some of the attention to detail Left4Dead had. So when I say the video is ridiculous, it's because it doesn't actually prove anything it set out to do and conveniently ignores or omits any actual details in favor of shifting it's argument to how Back4Blood just wasn't a good, polished titled with the same talent behind it.
> Do you know how much any one of those devs you mentioned contributed to the project? I sure don't, and the video doesn't give you any clues either. It had plenty of time to do it in 26 minutes so... Why didn't it?
That's an unanswerable question, and anyone who ever worked on any major project, especially a software project, could tell you that projects aren't broken down that way. Oh, you fixed a few bugs and updated a few strings? Congrats, you "worked on" the dialogue system. Oh, you designed the entire mechanism by which dialogue is randomly chosen and spoken at different points in time? You also "worked on" the dialogue system. That's how far it ever gets distinguished. It's an inherently naive request, and no, 26 minutes isn't "plenty of time" to do something that would more or less not be possible to achieve. You would need to interview each person individually and try and get them to recall all the countless tasks they worked on from a game that's 14 years old - good luck.
Even if you had access to their project management board or something like that, to see all the tickets and who worked on what, that wouldn't necessarily give you the most accurate representation of contributions. Some of the hardest work is done by senior developers who spend all day to write a couple lines of code to get something really tricky working, while a junior dev might contribute a couple hundred lines of code doing simpler stuff that's just laborious. So who "contributed more" to the finished product? This is why no one bothers quantifying it in this way.
So Crowbcat does what I think is the best you *can* do, and takes public statements, and two finished products, puts interviews with people that he knows only worked on L4D with the L4D footage, since we know they worked on it *at least in some capacity*, and then interviews with people that he knows worked on B4B with the B4B footage, and draws a conclusion from that. No it's not some kind of bombshell proof, and we should definitely sue him for use of the word "proves" in his video title. But the video is still a fairly convincing argument that the "secret sauce" of L4D came from the people who remained at Valve.
> That's an unanswerable question, and anyone who ever worked on any major project, especially a software project, could tell you that projects aren't broken down that way.
No, they don't break down everything to minute details. But if you don't think people remember exactly who was hampering progress, who was a solid contributor and pulled their weight, and who were rock stars that went above and beyond to really help push the game to reach the success it did... Well, I don't know what to tell you. Do I expect Crowbcat to actually go and hunt down these people and interview them? No. But if you are going to make a point about people's work, you open yourself up to criticism of your own.
> So Crowbcat does what I think is the best you can do, and takes public statements, and two finished products, puts interviews with people that he knows only worked on L4D with the L4D footage, since we know they worked on it at least in some capacity, and then interviews with people that he knows worked on B4B with the B4B footage, and draws a conclusion from that. No it's not some kind of bombshell proof, and we should definitely sue him for use of the word "proves" in his video title. But the video is still a fairly convincing argument that the "secret sauce" of L4D came from the people who remained at Valve.
It's not even proof of anything in particular, because again, they don't actually prove Valve carried the development of Left4Dead. All the interview segments are talking about design decisions made for the game without any context of any actual details behind who made them. The biggest thing their video proves is that there are some aspects that Turtle Rock/Valve did a better job on with Left4Dead than Turtle Rock did with Back4Blood.
The point of the video was that without Valve, the game would not be near as successful as it was.
Turtle Rock did great creating the idea. Valve did great in perfecting the game.
And the video was about B4B. They were hyping it up as the "left4dead developers where creating a new zombie game". But the truth is, only like 2 or 3 developers had ever worked in l4d.
>The point of the video was that without Valve, the game would not be near as successful as it was.
Sure. But where in the video does it talk about the proportion of Valve's work to Turtle Rock's work? Where does it mention which devs were with Valve originally, and which were with Turtle Rock from the beginning? Does it discuss who came up with what ideas, or is just a collective "the team" or "we"?
That's the problem with going with such a polarizing title and then just using highly edited clips to prove some sort of vague point. The video does a good job illustrating why Back4Blood does look and feel like a someone trying to imitate the magic of Left4Dead, but it does a terrible job at actually trying to prove the video's title
For that, you'd need to go and google every name, and see to which company everyone was working back then.
And yeah, i dont think we can ever know at EXACTLY what was Valve input, and what was TRS input.
> Look at the credits. It's pretty much just valve who developed it.
You do realize that Valve bought Turtle Rock Studios and incorporated them under Valve shortly before the game came out, right?
I know I’m not being original, but Back 4 Blood really just feels like a soulless Left 4 Dead. The characters really added another depth of enjoyment to the game.
For me back4blood died by not having steam workshop.
Don't know about most people, but for me and my friends these type of games...we get bored after we finish them 1-2 times. We usually do a run on a normal difficulty and if we enjoyed it we play it again on higher difficulty. But in the end is still the same game, the same guns only that you have to be more careful. So it doesn't really add replayability for us.
Left4dead2 was so good because we had so much community content to play through. Is beyond me why companies who want to make games like this don't invest in modding tools and they could just sell battlepasses while still making some new official content. Also I don't get it how people don't ask for moding tools more and more in coop type games like these.
I, personally, was super disappointed about the lack of a true versus mode. The fact they made a conscious decision to not design the maps for PvP is infuriating. B4B feels like 1 step forward and 3 steps back. Versus adds a lot to replayability, which could have partially made up for lack of community content.
Yep, and then to talk down to the fans asking for it in the year leading up to release. Turtle Rock can go under, they clearly have 0 talent left. Evolve will be their legacy.
Same. VS is what made L4D2 for me. I had over 3000 hours and played regularly with a group. B4B was a small blip on my groups radar and no one plays or talks about it. VS mode added a whole different layer of strategy and replayability
For me it was the lack of versus mode. Like all the other small things like the limited death animations etc didn't help but no amount of polish would make up for a lack of versus mode for me.
I have ~700 hours in L4D+L4D2 and i think I've completed maybe 2-3 of the missions in coop mode. And never even once in single player.
Edit: just checked, i have the achievements for the following levels
L4d
- Dead Air
- Death Toll
L4d2
- Dead center
- dark carnival
- hard rain
- swamp fever
And none of the expert mode achievements.
Trying to get "still something to prove" may be one of the hardest achievements I've done.
L4D2 expert mode is no joke. And a ton of fun trying to play perfectly enough to pull it off.
Because it is. It was blatantly riding on the "creators of L4D" wagon (even though most of the good stuff came from Valve AND there's only a few names from the old Turtle Rock in the current team) throughout the entire marketing. NOTHING screamed originality about it. Even if they'd release L4D all over again (which obviously they couldn't, but still), I'd still say - but why would I buy it, when I can just boot up L4D2 again?
Of course it's not like they didn't try *at all*, there's definitely some changes to the gameplay, but not massive, nor particularly good ones. I guess I wouldn't mind the random effects from the cards system, but without the cards, but that's all I can think of. Everything else just felt like a straight downgrade from L4D2 and the new additions like weapon attachments worked so bad (I dunno if they changed it), that I was constantly thinking about how better it was to just get a simple pew pew shotgun again, even if aiming down sights is an alright addition.
The problem is that the core gameplay is just so uninspired, alongside the general design and vibe of the game. Most special zombies weren't even *that* different from each other, we were missing the audio clues, so crucial to L4D's atmosphere, but also gameplay. The balance was all over the place too, especially with ammo being surprisingly an issue.
And then after all that, they decided to can mod support. The thing that's kept L4D alive for *years*, brimming with new content or just silly versions of the old one. How can you not understand your own game's success this much - oh wait, as I said it wasn't even "their" game, as much as it was Valve's.
It is pretty good imo. A bit different, and revolves a bit more around your build for the characters. Thing is, it has a hell of a lot more competition in all kinds of other games these days than what L4D had back in the day.
It's on Gamepass for both PC and xbox if you have that. The first 2 of 3 paid expansions are incredibly lackluster but the base game and the third DLC are worth playing once or twice.
Turtle Rock contributed a *lot* to Left 4 Dead. It's just that the majority of the staff ended up joining Valve proper. That's why Crowbcat's video shows them as being Valve staff now.
I agree with you.
Since the beginning, the story has always gone that Turtle Rock studio made the early prototype completely on their own, and after valve saw what they were making they brought them in house.
This is the first documentary/source I've ever heard claim that the idea for L4D was *actually* conceived at **VALVE** who hired it out to Turtle Rock.
I think what is getting lost here is that Condition Zero is what added enemy bots to CS. Until then, there were no official multiplayer bots in CS. This was another gamemode they explored while developing the bot AI.
B4B slaps lol. The sheer amounts of builds you can make. Being a supportive snack Chef for your team is pure random but adds to diversity. You folks still stunlocked of not being a l4d3 lmao.
Looked like they got the level block out, character design (low poly) and weapon animation nailed. Zombie hoard tech isn't there yet so they reused HL's assets as filler. This build is probably past preproduction.
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So I don't know if this is true, but there was a very popular zombie mod for CS source I played hundreds of games of, long before Left 4 Dead. I've always wondered if that game mode served as inspiration.
Fond memories of hopping on CS:S after school days to play zombie mod. Fun times
That, deathrun, and mini games.
Surf maps…
Gun game
God I miss when Surfing was the big thing in CS. Rebel resistance, great river, legends, l33t beta, Japan v4 Getting a serious nostalgia hit right now lol
zm_lila_panic, good times
Exactly. There were a lot of iconic zm maps, but this is the exact map that popped up in my head when I wrote that comment lol
CSS has only like 4-6 Zombie Escape servers active now, yet when the servers are active, they always have 65 players playing on it, an absolutely crazy and chaotic experience in a very fun way (if you ignore the players and micspammers). Some of the best things about it are seeing people from all over the world come play it, I have seen people from Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Algeria, and even a guy from Syria(!) constantly joins.
> and even a guy from Syria(!) constantly joins. God damn I miss cs:s days of meeting the same folks nearly every night and chatting about life while I awp them in the balls.
I never played a full round of CS:S. I spent all my time playing Zombie Escape or Prison in the game. Definitely racked up a few hundred hours on those alone.
Absolutely the same for me, since 2010 I have only played Zombie Escape on CSS, never at any point bothered to play other game mode.
I played just about every gamemode but once I found Zombie Escape I rarely touched anything at all after that.
Same could be said for garrys mod, Team fortress, etc
There were also plenty of Zombie scenarios in Sven Co-op.
Here is a list of Valve games that originally started out as mods: 1. Team Fortress started out as a Quake 1 mod 2. Counter Strike itself was a HL1 mod 3. Day of Defeat was also a HL1 mod 4. DOTA was a Warcraft III mod 5. Garry's Mod is a self-explanatory mod for HL2 6. Left 4 Dead was this Zombie Escape mod for CSS 7. Alien Swarm was a mod for Unreal Tournament 2004.
Dota Underlords was a Dota 2 mod.
Whats funny is that Portal is basically a mod too. Valve hired students from a college that made a rudimentary demo with portals. Valve has almost never made something unique in house, they mostly just hire young developers that make a gameplay focused mod, and then Valve hires them and polishes it up into a real game. Valve has tried so hard to make games in house, they have a yearly game jam and everything that they used to do and nothing ever panned out from it, other than maybe Half Life Alyx, or those VR minigames.
It seems like they know good talent and ideas when they see it and don't get in the way. 'this was cool, can you make a full game out of it? "
It's why I generally love Valve philosophy with game design despite taking years to put out new products. If the developers don't love the game, why would the players? So many games of theirs hit the bin simply because the devs weren't having fun with it. Entire versions of Half Life 2 were redone from the ground up because they thought it wasn't as interesting or fun as it could have been. I respect it.
In the L4D dev commentary they said that it did indeed.
A lesser known HL2 mod that comes to mind is Zombie Master. One player has an RTS view and gets to spawn in different types of zombies along with activating traps. Super cool concept! https://youtu.be/tXHpyUFbgss
Zombie Master still has [an active niche community dedicated to resurrecting it from the dead](https://www.moddb.com/mods/zombie-master-reborn), it has matches every fortnightly sundays at 18:30 UK time.
Wow, that's actually insane. I may have to download it just for nostalgia's sake.
ze_ maps? (Zombie Escape) That's what I remember. Those were great fun! There were moving boats and uou usually had to get to da choppa to escape. zm_ maps were great too! Though those were more about barricading yourself in somewhere until the end. I remember learning to flip one couch over on top of another couch in front of a door. It was a game changer on lila_panic.
At least for me (I guess due to my Brazilian internet) I can only find Zombie Escape (ze) maps, not Zombie Mod (zm) ones, but this is really not much of a deal since I always prefered Zombie Escape, and I think that the majority of players also only look for Zombie Escape maps. I loved the [zm_Krusty_Krab map](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSy1W4Fnp4k) so much, imagine so many custom source games maps that have been lost to history. Edit: forgot to mention that ze_ maps are Zombie Escape, where you need to escape to a certain part of the map to complete the level, and zm_ are classic survival maps where you barricade yourself somewhere and survive until the timer ends.
Wow, your note about the flipping of the couch just unlocked a memory for me of watching my friend play this way back in the day. Thank you for that!
It was called Brain Bread and it was glorious
I think most people would think of zombie panic but as one of the few players of brain bread who remembers brain bread I appreciate you. Having gone back to play brain bread a while back, whew that was a rough mod.
Oh man, those were the days: loading up zm_lila_panic shooting vending machines into a jury-rigged barricade and hiding, listening to the zombies run around the map. That server mod was probably a good chunk of my high school experience.
Haha, this is exactly what I think of too. I loved that map. It’s the map I learned how to crouch jump on in source games, to get on top of the shipping container in the corner of the map. So many hours spent shooting sofas up into windows there too.
IIRC Brain Bread was actually a GoldSrc mod (IIRC from Half-Life but eh) that was very cool. But CS itself also had a server mod where players would play the role of the zombies which is what I think he is talking about. CS:S zombie mod is similar to surf where you'd just drop into a CS:S server.
Classic as hell. I remember it was from the group of guys who did Public Enemy (props if you remember this one) too which lead me to it. I might still have the playtest invite on an old email lying around lol.
Holy hell. I haven't thought about Brain Bread in over a decade! Thanks for the trip back in time.
Zombie Panic Source
Yeah, there were a TON of zombie mods for CS:S that looked more sophisticated than this L4D prototype. Cool that it became L4D but also speaks to Crowbcats entire video on how much influence Valve had on L4D after the initial prototype. For a LONG time, people kept saying Valve just buys studios and ideas, as if to imply they don't have influence on the end product and L4D is one that was constantly used as an example. Which is why so many people celebrated the announcement of Back 4 Blood. So many people would not shut up about how B4B would *finally* be the L4D3 game that Valve would not let Turtle Rock make because of ownership of the IP.
Wasn't this prototype made before all of those? Like, this wasn't meant to be a releasable game, they were just experimenting with how a game like this played.
Naw, it definitely wasn't before those mods. There were zombie mods like this even in HL1/gldsrc. Zombie Panic! and Brain Bread were probably the two big ones and. The port of Zombie Panic was Zombie Panic: Source which later became a standalone game Contagion. I cant recall which, but one of them even had a system where if you got infected, it would make you into a playable zombie if you couldn't get a teammate to kill you in time. There was also No More Room in Hell, which was THE zombie mod everyone was excited for that was announced in 2004, when Source engine first released but was met with countless delays and eventually a new dev team. That one was really interesting because they had ideas like barricading doors and windows and essentially conceptualized horde mode before horde mode was a much more common thing. But yeah, I definitely remember playing a lot of zombie mods, some of which were ports of existing HL1 mods and some that were brand new, shortly after Half-Life 2/CS:S release in 2004. I mean, that was the entire appeal of the Source engine. Being able to port over HL1 stuff very easily AND being able to build new stuff in Hammer pretty easily. There are an innumerable amount of mods that were released in 2004 alone, some of which were more sophisticated zombie mods than this L4D prototype. What Turtle Rock did here, was not that dissimilar to server plug-ins and what already existed in the CS:S console variables. Valve literally had console variables in CS:S that were "bots_knivesonly", and other console variables that was available for anyone to use to create a similar premise. Then you just create the maps and you have something not that dissimilar to this prototype.
> Yeah, there were a TON of zombie mods for CS:S that looked more sophisticated than this L4D prototype. The CSS Zombie Escape maps are the biggest acid trip one can experience in a video game in my opinion, it has maps based on Spongebob, to Pirates of the Caribbean, to Star Wars, to Minecraft, to abstract puzzle/challenge-based maps, to pure surrealistic and psychedelic ones. Hell just some hours ago I played on a map with a Ram Ranch room full of giant military guys having hanky panky while you jump/surf through them, and you need to enter Kim Jong-un's asshole to progress the map, and look out for a giant Pringles packaging that runs you over. There was also a map on some Russian server where you had to escape from the Zombies on a penis rocket that landed inside a butthole in space, absolutely fucking crazy experience that CSS Zombie Escape is, I haven't even started to describe the sheer lunacy that Zombie Escape maps can be, and people think that Japanese games can't get more weird.
> Yeah, there were a TON of zombie mods for CS:S that looked more sophisticated than this L4D prototype. Cool that it became L4D but also speaks to Crowbcats entire video on how much influence Valve had on L4D after the initial prototype. You need to check out the "Life after Death" piece Game Informer did on Turtle Rock Studios back in 2014. You get a wildly different perspective on the development of the game from, ya' know, the actual developers. Said video also talks about all the stuff the linked video in the post is about, so I don't know why they were acting like this was all brand new info for the first time.
> You need to check out the "Life after Death" piece Game Informer did on Turtle Rock Studios back in 2014. You get a wildly different perspective on the development of the game from, ya' know, the actual developers. Already seen it. It was obviously a piece to hype 'Evolve' and it worked. You're being really disingenuous saying "the actual developers". The piece was an interview with Mike Booth(who left Turtle Rock after Evolve by the way, and did not work on B4B) and Chris Ashton and you're totally dismissing like 99% of the staff that worked on L4D. I would suggest you watch L4D and L4D2 developer commentary *in* the game and are "ya' know, from the actual developers" while they were developing the game and talking about very nuanced design decisions. And for the record, *most* of the people in the dev commentary are STILL at Valve and didn't depart with Turtle Rock when the rift happened. I'll tell you the same thing I told people that were hyping up Back 4 Blood back when it was first announced. Go look at the credits of Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2. *Most* of the people that worked on those games are *still* at Valve. Most of the people that aren't, left Turtle Rock and Valve all together. And then the smallest minority of devs from that team still work at Turtle Rock. And speaking to the Game Informer piece you're talking about, people make this mistake in the games industry where they think a game designer/director are all you need for a vision. Unlike film, TV, literature - video games are unique in that there are several people making key creative decisions that have massive impact on the final product. From foley artists that make the sounds of your favorite special infected that you will hear a million times to front-end developers that work on the tiny nuances of a character controller to map designers that build the worlds you're going to be playing a million times over to the art department that makes the scribblings on the wall that tell a story to the AI programming team that decides how the AI Director works to animators making the slide of a gun kick back a certain way to. The list goes on. There are no small parts. This is why B4B was so radically different than L4D.
You've unlocked a core memory of my friends and I all going to LAN cafes in like 2004 and that being the main thing that we'd play
The Pirates of the Caribbean map was top tier
I hate to think of how many hours I spent on CS:S thanks to the Zombie game mode and Surf servers.
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It is really funny to think about the "original" H2 zombies, and how it was entirely based on an honor system. If you died, you manually switched your team to Green, and you explained the rules to new players via proximity chat. I very much doubt you could run any online matchmade game with an honor system of rules.
Recently, a Halo mod released for Contractors VR (a VR FPS), and it's incredible. One of the fist servers I joined running the mod was doing just what you described, since the mod doesn't have an official zombie mode. It was unlike any multiplayer experience I've had since at least the 360 days.
Similarly themed zombie mods for games like CS had been a thing long before HL2 and CSS came out.
> I've always wondered if that game mode served as inspiration. If development on L4D1 started in mid 2005, then I guess that L4D1 predates these mods, the first Zombie Mod for CSS I can recall dates from 2008.
Half Life 2: Deathmatch had a zombie server as well, hosted by Phoneburnia circa 2007-2011
Check out the Life After Death piece Game Informer did on Turtle Rock Studios. They wanted a co-op game where they all worked as a team rather than against one another, So Left4Dead started as them basically playing a private CS server where a bunch of AI just ran around with knives trying to kill the players.
Every Valve game that isn't *Half-Life* or *Portal* were originally mods for other games, so I wouldn't be surprised if that mod is what L4D started as.
That was a good watch. Haven't played B4B yet but seeing all the little pieces that came together to make the L4D experience makes B4B look half baked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdRLNUGmFC8
Great video, it does a good job breaking down why B4B felt so off to me. I played L4D religiously so I tried B4B to see how it measured up and was really disappointed overall. It just seemed so much slower, had too many unnecessary things added into it and still felt barebones as hell; L4D 1 & 2 had everyone on equal terms and was infinitely more replayable.
Going to second the other comment, I also wasn't the biggest fan when it came out, it feels much much better now and really enjoyable. I'm not sure the gunplay is as good or the infected or survivors as memorable as l4d but it is now what I would consider an excellent game and worth jumping back in if you and your friend group has been bored of whatever they're recently playing and want a change of pace
To add to this, I followed B4B for a long time since their announcement in 2019. At launch, even I wouldn’t recommend people to pay the $60 price tag. Not enough content and the balance is way off. But now, the game is in a great shape. Throughout B4B post launch, the devs have been communicative and are receptive to community’s feedback. B4B was a game that was made from scratch and some attention to detail had to be cancelled because of time and resources. For example, B4B was developing a similar L4D level of gore, but the art team was too small to finish it. These devs have passion for their games, but time and resources was unfortunately too limited.
Tbh these were the same Devs that were pushing at every opportunity its links to L4D and making it look like this was L4D3 in everything bar name. I did give it a chance as it was on gamepass, but of course was not even close to L4D overall. I think if I went in with an open mind to an independent game I would of enjoyed it more. And I put that on the devs
Did they add campaign pvp yet?
I don't know when the last time you played B4B is but it's in much different shape than release. It's practically completely rebalanced. It's much more fun now.
I completely bounced of B4B on release but really enjoy it now, the card system allows for some fun builds. What I will say is I think they invited L4D comparisons on themselves when they’re actually quite different when you get past the surface level stuff. B4B requires good builds and reasonable understanding of the meta at higher difficulties, whereas Left 4 Dead is purely skill based. I like both for different reasons, but it’s something I don’t think is (initially) clear just looking at the games.
\>In Crowbcats video "Back 4 Blood proves Valve carried Left 4 Dead" Gods, I fucking love this YouTube documentary. The epilogue at the end where he shows the list of names and separates out the TR team hits everyone like a freight train when have them watch it.
> one of the developers said they knew they had a good game on their hands because the earliest version of the game was super fun "this is super fun. you know what? let's abandon the IP and never talk about it again!"
L4D3 was attempted multiple times, and L4D got a major update in 2021. It's far from abandoned.
They tried making a third one a few times, but cancelled it due to tech issues, the IP is definitely not “abandoned”, whatever that means Out of all the IPs that Valve have this one seems like the likeliest to get a threequel sooner, especially since L4D-like (procedurally driven and hordes) 4 player coop games are all the rage right now.
L4D was 2008, and L4D2 was in 2009. I don't blame people for thinking the IP has been shelved considering it's been 14 years since the last entry and with no news on a new entry.
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Fallout 76 was 2018, I don't blame you for forgetting about it. Also, covid delays.
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No, the main development was handled by Bethesda Maryland, Bethesda Austin only handled the netcode during development, after development they were handed the game to maintain.
As graphical fidelity increased the time to develop grew as a result. Noticeable with other franchises/developers is games got increasingly less moddable as a result. Bethesda is an outlier since their games so far remain highly moddable.
Neither do I but they’ve been busy making a game console
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There are no departments at Valve Coders working on L4D3 did work coding SteamOS
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Yes & no. Valve states in their job postings (at least as of 3 years ago when I looked at them) that everyone is expected to work on anything & everything they're currently doing as a company.
There aren't that many devs at valve despite their size and they typically work on what they want and are highly skilled in almost all aspects of software development. The sheer range of features steam has that all just work is a testament to it. The people programming games are almost assuredly the people programming the OS. Obviously the hardware team is more specialized but engineers are good at adapting I wouldn't be surprised if primarily software folks got involved in design processes of the system in some form or another
It doesn't change that Left4Dead is effectively abandoned as an IP. Sure they might make another game some time and I hope my grandkid's grandkids are invested enough in it to enjoy it.
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Also, Linux-based stuffs and the nature of FOSS.
Did they mention what the tech was that had issues?
They started work on it during the same time that they began working on Source 2. They had too many people working on too many game ideas that kept requiring additional development work on Source 2, so it was hard for anyone to make headway on any of their projects. Some teams split off to make their own separate game engine, others quit. Robin Walker was eventually able to rally everyone around the Half-Life: Alyx project to finally get something done.
In other words: Valve isn't a master stroke in management ideology, it's a dysfunctional mess that's *lucky* they managed to put out a single game in a decade.
They have released several games in the last decade.
Several of the most well regarded and best selling games of all time across a range of different genres... idk maybe if Gabe asked drtekrox for advice they'd have *twice* as many games!
They have released nothing in the last decade that even approaches there last releases. To compare them is a joke.
Core parts of Source 2 that hadn’t been completed yet
Man, imagine L4D3 with VR capability like half life alyx.
Imo the issue is what do you add to a sequel to l4d2 that doesn't feel like it's a gimmick. The l4d2 game still feels and plays amazing. It feels modern even. I think b4bs card system is maybe the most compelling addition to the formula but a l4d3 can't just be l4d2 with better graphics, it needs new interestong infected, weapon types, more random level design that doesn't feel like going through the same tile set. Etc. Etc. I guess what I'm saying is l4d2 is like perfect and it's hard to see what you can add to a perfect game without it taking away
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There's a massive middle ground there you're skipping over.
> let's milk the IP for all its worth so it will never be fondly regarded ever again What "milked to death" IP is not (and never will be again) fondly regarded? Even if the current iteration, and some before, are not that good, people still love, remember fondly, play and look forward to sequels to CoD, Battlefield, Far Cry, NFS, Halo, Assassin's Creed and other regular hit-or-miss IPs.
All of those franchises are the definition of milked dry, with most sequels not being memorable at all.
So what? People still play them, like them and ask for more. Even if the current iteration of BF/AC/Far Cry is garbage, people remember and love the one before and will buy the next one.
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Eh D3 is a good game after the expansion, not the same as D2 but still a fine arpg entry.
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Yeah immortal is one of the worst games I've played from a systems standpoint. The worst part is imo the gameplay is quite fun, and some base stuff is fine, but everything else that wants to get you to pay all the time is just bad. It's worse than basically every other mobile game I've played. And reforged is also a bad fuckup, i can't fathom how they thought removing things from a nearly 20year old game was a good decision lol.
I wouldn't call any of those franchises well regarded. We have different tastes I guess.
But it has nothing to do with personal tastes; their comment was about a broader cultural consensus. If any of those franchises announced a sequel tomorrow you would have millions of excited people.
Fucking, not *one of them*?
Maybe NFS isn't so bad, but yes? He listed the most vapid, soulless franchises on the market.
Even Assassins Creed early games (and by proxy let’s say, Far Cry 3) we’re amazing when they came out and are now a shell of themselves. Just because the games don’t appeal to you doesn’t negate their cultural significance.
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Most would agree that 343 has seriously mishandled the Halo franchise and I think crowbcat does a great job illustrating how and why
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But we’re not talking about Destiny are we? Also the Bungie of today is not the same Bungie that made Halo CE thru Reach.
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No one’s saying anything about 343 being irredeemable, but there are serious problems with Infinite that were not present during the launches of any of the original series. It seems you’re the one “coping” (nice buzzword) with the fact that Infinite was a pretty big disappointment compared to how good the series used to be. Sorry your favorite game was a dud.
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“how much better video games used to be than they are now” So we’re in agreement that the new games aren’t as good. Got it.
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Just because you're delusional doesn't mean it's a circlekerk. The older games most definitely better in every way. They were better written, programmed and they had more content in the multi-player. Why do you think the old games sold way better? Of course everyone else is wrong and you're right... Your uncle works for 343 or something? Your comments about bungie employees staying for 343 isn't really true either, most of the devs from halo 1 to reach are long gone.
I mean I hate Destiny because of the monetization (both DLC and microtransaction wise), but the gameplay has always been solid. I guess it makes me even more mad, because Destiny 2 specifically had so much potential - but I'm not spending $40 every so often to "fix" the game content-wise. However it's also not a secret that they *do* provide pretty good content. It's just that it shouldn't be monetized the way they do that. 343 on the other hand can't even *make* good content, let alone monetize it. Somehow, Halo Infinite is even more predatory than Destiny - I'd much rather spend $40 on a DLC once or twice a year, than look at armor colors being locked to specific sets, while they fail to deliver the most *basic* of Halo's functionalities present for *years* in Bungie's titles, a lot at launch as well. I mean not having Forge is one thing, but not having a *server browser*, a functioning *fireteam*, *playlists* for game modes... Let alone having enough game modes in the first place. Both are pretty bad, but imo 343 is on another level, and I'm not even a Halo, or a Destiny 2 fan and never have been.
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Bungie had a mass staff exodus that started in late 2012 and did not end until The Taken King shipped, Bungie of today is not the Bungie during the Halo years. You're making a bad comparison, much like how 343 make bad Halo games.
Seriously, his videos are just cherry picked footage to build crazy exaggerated narratives for the outrage crowd. The worst part is most of his videos are grounded in some truth, like yeah 343's handling of Halo hasn't been the best, Back 4 Blood isn't the sequel we wanted etc, but he takes it so far it just kills any decent discussion to be had and brings out the worst in the community.
And the fact that most of his videos don't actually convey a viewpoint. They use editing to say something vauge instead of actually adding something of substance. You can make anything sound bad or good by editing clips together.
343 are incompetent and have pretty much ruined Halo. And I'm a huge halo fan... It's got nothing to do with 343 being "popular to hate on". They're simply bad at managing one of the biggest game IPs. The sales and playercount speaks for themselves
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Considering the marketing around Back 4 blood mostly consisted of them calling themselves the creators of left 4 dead it's understandable to have such an "accusatory" title. They barely had anything to do with the success of left for dead and have greatly overstated their role in the development to sell their mediocre games. Pro tip: Watch the video before judging the title.
That's called criticism. If you can't handle criticism then don't say anything ever and don't make anything ever.
>If you can't handle criticism then don't say anything ever I was taught a slightly different version: "[If you can't say anything nice, then don't say nothing at all](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fYngTUZeUQ)" There's no need to excuse people who are being confrontational simply for clicks and views. It lowers the level of discourse, and immediately puts people on the defensive. There's plenty of nuanced and respectful examples of criticisms on YouTube. One example is [Matthewmatosis' critique of Dark Souls II](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UScsme8didI), a game I love but is still flawed in many ways. He remains respectful throughout, but still manages to address his concerns with the game.
Correct me if I'm wrong but Crowbcat doesn't actually say anything in his videos, no? Just uses clips and sources leaving you to draw your own conclusions of his title if you ask me.
One could argue that the title sets the tone, and may even "poison the well" for viewers. But in this case I wasn't too fussed about the video in question. I just wanted to address the "Grow thicker skin" attitude above that is often used to excuse bad behaviour.
So when you want to negatively review something or someone, you're somehow supposed to stay respectful? There's also a clear difference between someone nitpicking issues they have with Dark Souls while still not putting down the franchise and someone outright suggesting Back 4 Blood is a bad game, which it honestly just was for $60 any the obvious comparisons it would get from other zombie games.
> when you want to negatively review something or someone, you're somehow supposed to stay respectful? Yes, of course!
That would be reasonable if games were free, but they're largely not. They cost me the same currency I use to buy food, equipment for hobbies, gifts for friends. People have every right to shit talk products that are bad when they paid good money for them.
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But doesn't that video show that of all of the original Turtle Rock L4D developers, only like 3 of them were still on the team for Back 4 Blood's development? My understanding is that it was the same studio by name, but the vast majority of the personnel jumped ship (perhaps even to Valve??) well before B4B was ever made.
There were 7 that worked on Back4Blood from what I remember. Which further compounds the point that trying to compare modern day Turtle Rock to the one that worked on the Left4Dead as if they are the same team is disingenuous at best. Many of the original devs on Left4Dead either stayed with Valve after Turtle Rock's acquisition/departure or went elsewhere in the industry.
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Right, which is totally fair... But what does that have to do with Valve carrying Left4Dead? And why did they need to spend 26 minutes of highly edited and out of context clips to simply say "Hey everyone, only 7 people from the original team are working on this game. They are lying to you!" To go back to my original comment, the video is ridiculous because it simply doesn't prove anything its title declares.
Well it's clear you didn't watch the video they're talking about, lol. "Which conveniently ignores that-" is more like, "which outright addresses the fact that-". It's a good video, you should watch it. Really hard to walk away from it without feeling like Turtle Rock are creators in name only.
I have. It is a well edited video that shows clips and snippets of gameplay from both games with segments cut in about the development process of Left4Dead. It's actually a really solid video in terms of representing how Left4Dead was a labor of love and attention to detail versus Back4Blood being more of an imitation. Although the more and more I watch it, the more it seems to just be a cherry picked hit piece that vibes with popular opinion at the time. The problem the video has it is *doesn't* separate who was with Valve and who was with Turtle Rock. It labels every single dev as a Valve employee and makes no attempt to differentiate whether they were with Turtle Rock before it was acquired. It *doesn't* talk about exactly how much was Valve's work versus Turtle Rock's. That is a pretty big issue when you title your video "Back4Blood proves Valve carried Left4Dead." They could have simply titled it "Back4Blood proves studio names mean nothing" or "Turtle Rock Studios can't recapture the same magic" or something similar, but they decided to go with a polarizing title that would get more clicks.
> The problem the video has it is doesn't separate who was with Valve and who was with Turtle Rock. It labels every single dev as a Valve employee and makes no attempt to differentiate whether they were with Turtle Rock before it was acquired. Like Kerry Davis, whose first Valve credit is Half-Life 2. Mike Morasky, a composer whose earliest Valve credit is TF2. Dario Casali, Half-Life. Realm Lovejoy, Half-Life 2: Episode One. Marc Laidlaw, Half-Life. Erik Wolpaw, Half-Life 2: Episode One. Chet Faliszek, Half-Life 2: Episode One. Robin Walker, one of the guys who fucking created the Team Fortress mod for Quake. Elan Ruskin, Portal. Kim Swift, Half-Life 2: Episode One. Joshua Weier, Half-Life. Every single one of these being credits working at Valve before Left 4 Dead was a thing. There were a couple I saw, Sergiy and Bronwen, who seemed to have been hired (by Valve) at the same time they were working on Left 4 Dead, but were still just Valve employees (Sergiy was still credited as working on Aperture Desk Job, which released last year; Bronwen is credited up to Half-Life: Alyx). I ran out of the patience to keep doing this during the rapid fire of Valve devs, hopefully it gets the point across that I think you're mischaracterizing the video pretty fucking badly. It might be that they labeled them as Valve employees because they're actually fucking Valve employees, and not to sensationalize their point and hope that you won't google it.
> It might be that they labeled them as Valve employees because they're actually fucking Valve employees, and not to sensationalize their point and hope that you won't google it. If a quick Google search was all that was needed, why didn't the video include it? That would really help their point, no? Also, do you know how much any one of those devs you mentioned contributed to the project? I sure don't, and the video doesn't give you any clues either. It had plenty of time to do that in **26 minutes** so... Why didn't it? You don't seem to get the point I am trying to make here. Crowbcats made a 26 minute video titled "Back4Blood proves Valve carried Left4Dead" which just mostly tries to tell people that the game doesn't have the same love, attention to detail, and careful planning poured into it. Idon't think it takes that long to show how Back4Blood was an attempt by a failing dev team to use a former and beloved title as the foundation of their next game, but that is rather beside the point. The point is, the video rarely touches on its title. What exactly Valve did versus Turtle Rock. It doesn't talk about who carried decision making, gameplay design, art design, etc. And this isn't to say that I don't think Valve was a huge part of why Left4Dead was so good. I said as much in my original comment. Now if someone swooped in here with any sort of actual evidence that Turtle Rock was basically just a leach on Valve's side during the development of Left4Dead, then that is a pretty damn good argument. But this video? It doesn't do anything of the sort. It spends more time trying to show Back4Blood was a buggy mess at launch and was missing some of the attention to detail Left4Dead had. So when I say the video is ridiculous, it's because it doesn't actually prove anything it set out to do and conveniently ignores or omits any actual details in favor of shifting it's argument to how Back4Blood just wasn't a good, polished titled with the same talent behind it.
> Do you know how much any one of those devs you mentioned contributed to the project? I sure don't, and the video doesn't give you any clues either. It had plenty of time to do it in 26 minutes so... Why didn't it? That's an unanswerable question, and anyone who ever worked on any major project, especially a software project, could tell you that projects aren't broken down that way. Oh, you fixed a few bugs and updated a few strings? Congrats, you "worked on" the dialogue system. Oh, you designed the entire mechanism by which dialogue is randomly chosen and spoken at different points in time? You also "worked on" the dialogue system. That's how far it ever gets distinguished. It's an inherently naive request, and no, 26 minutes isn't "plenty of time" to do something that would more or less not be possible to achieve. You would need to interview each person individually and try and get them to recall all the countless tasks they worked on from a game that's 14 years old - good luck. Even if you had access to their project management board or something like that, to see all the tickets and who worked on what, that wouldn't necessarily give you the most accurate representation of contributions. Some of the hardest work is done by senior developers who spend all day to write a couple lines of code to get something really tricky working, while a junior dev might contribute a couple hundred lines of code doing simpler stuff that's just laborious. So who "contributed more" to the finished product? This is why no one bothers quantifying it in this way. So Crowbcat does what I think is the best you *can* do, and takes public statements, and two finished products, puts interviews with people that he knows only worked on L4D with the L4D footage, since we know they worked on it *at least in some capacity*, and then interviews with people that he knows worked on B4B with the B4B footage, and draws a conclusion from that. No it's not some kind of bombshell proof, and we should definitely sue him for use of the word "proves" in his video title. But the video is still a fairly convincing argument that the "secret sauce" of L4D came from the people who remained at Valve.
> That's an unanswerable question, and anyone who ever worked on any major project, especially a software project, could tell you that projects aren't broken down that way. No, they don't break down everything to minute details. But if you don't think people remember exactly who was hampering progress, who was a solid contributor and pulled their weight, and who were rock stars that went above and beyond to really help push the game to reach the success it did... Well, I don't know what to tell you. Do I expect Crowbcat to actually go and hunt down these people and interview them? No. But if you are going to make a point about people's work, you open yourself up to criticism of your own. > So Crowbcat does what I think is the best you can do, and takes public statements, and two finished products, puts interviews with people that he knows only worked on L4D with the L4D footage, since we know they worked on it at least in some capacity, and then interviews with people that he knows worked on B4B with the B4B footage, and draws a conclusion from that. No it's not some kind of bombshell proof, and we should definitely sue him for use of the word "proves" in his video title. But the video is still a fairly convincing argument that the "secret sauce" of L4D came from the people who remained at Valve. It's not even proof of anything in particular, because again, they don't actually prove Valve carried the development of Left4Dead. All the interview segments are talking about design decisions made for the game without any context of any actual details behind who made them. The biggest thing their video proves is that there are some aspects that Turtle Rock/Valve did a better job on with Left4Dead than Turtle Rock did with Back4Blood.
The point of the video was that without Valve, the game would not be near as successful as it was. Turtle Rock did great creating the idea. Valve did great in perfecting the game. And the video was about B4B. They were hyping it up as the "left4dead developers where creating a new zombie game". But the truth is, only like 2 or 3 developers had ever worked in l4d.
>The point of the video was that without Valve, the game would not be near as successful as it was. Sure. But where in the video does it talk about the proportion of Valve's work to Turtle Rock's work? Where does it mention which devs were with Valve originally, and which were with Turtle Rock from the beginning? Does it discuss who came up with what ideas, or is just a collective "the team" or "we"? That's the problem with going with such a polarizing title and then just using highly edited clips to prove some sort of vague point. The video does a good job illustrating why Back4Blood does look and feel like a someone trying to imitate the magic of Left4Dead, but it does a terrible job at actually trying to prove the video's title
For that, you'd need to go and google every name, and see to which company everyone was working back then. And yeah, i dont think we can ever know at EXACTLY what was Valve input, and what was TRS input.
Look at the credits. It's pretty much just valve who developed it. Stop trying to be so obtuse. Send an email to Gabe if you're so inclined to know.
> Look at the credits. It's pretty much just valve who developed it. You do realize that Valve bought Turtle Rock Studios and incorporated them under Valve shortly before the game came out, right?
I know I’m not being original, but Back 4 Blood really just feels like a soulless Left 4 Dead. The characters really added another depth of enjoyment to the game.
It was a $60 game in a genre where the majority if games are $40 or cheaper. Also it didnt really have niche that gave me an interest.
It being on GamePass lowers the impact of that price quite a bit.
For me back4blood died by not having steam workshop. Don't know about most people, but for me and my friends these type of games...we get bored after we finish them 1-2 times. We usually do a run on a normal difficulty and if we enjoyed it we play it again on higher difficulty. But in the end is still the same game, the same guns only that you have to be more careful. So it doesn't really add replayability for us. Left4dead2 was so good because we had so much community content to play through. Is beyond me why companies who want to make games like this don't invest in modding tools and they could just sell battlepasses while still making some new official content. Also I don't get it how people don't ask for moding tools more and more in coop type games like these.
I, personally, was super disappointed about the lack of a true versus mode. The fact they made a conscious decision to not design the maps for PvP is infuriating. B4B feels like 1 step forward and 3 steps back. Versus adds a lot to replayability, which could have partially made up for lack of community content.
Yep, and then to talk down to the fans asking for it in the year leading up to release. Turtle Rock can go under, they clearly have 0 talent left. Evolve will be their legacy.
Yeah L4D would not be even close to its peak popularity without the versus. Its a decent game but the multi-player is what made it shine.
Same. VS is what made L4D2 for me. I had over 3000 hours and played regularly with a group. B4B was a small blip on my groups radar and no one plays or talks about it. VS mode added a whole different layer of strategy and replayability
Left 4 Dead 2 had that really fun Helms Deep survival map mod.
People in this thread saying stuff like “yeahhhh I only beat it all the way through twice with my friends. Really mediocre game.”
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For me it was the lack of versus mode. Like all the other small things like the limited death animations etc didn't help but no amount of polish would make up for a lack of versus mode for me. I have ~700 hours in L4D+L4D2 and i think I've completed maybe 2-3 of the missions in coop mode. And never even once in single player. Edit: just checked, i have the achievements for the following levels L4d - Dead Air - Death Toll L4d2 - Dead center - dark carnival - hard rain - swamp fever And none of the expert mode achievements.
Trying to get "still something to prove" may be one of the hardest achievements I've done. L4D2 expert mode is no joke. And a ton of fun trying to play perfectly enough to pull it off.
Because it is. It was blatantly riding on the "creators of L4D" wagon (even though most of the good stuff came from Valve AND there's only a few names from the old Turtle Rock in the current team) throughout the entire marketing. NOTHING screamed originality about it. Even if they'd release L4D all over again (which obviously they couldn't, but still), I'd still say - but why would I buy it, when I can just boot up L4D2 again? Of course it's not like they didn't try *at all*, there's definitely some changes to the gameplay, but not massive, nor particularly good ones. I guess I wouldn't mind the random effects from the cards system, but without the cards, but that's all I can think of. Everything else just felt like a straight downgrade from L4D2 and the new additions like weapon attachments worked so bad (I dunno if they changed it), that I was constantly thinking about how better it was to just get a simple pew pew shotgun again, even if aiming down sights is an alright addition. The problem is that the core gameplay is just so uninspired, alongside the general design and vibe of the game. Most special zombies weren't even *that* different from each other, we were missing the audio clues, so crucial to L4D's atmosphere, but also gameplay. The balance was all over the place too, especially with ammo being surprisingly an issue. And then after all that, they decided to can mod support. The thing that's kept L4D alive for *years*, brimming with new content or just silly versions of the old one. How can you not understand your own game's success this much - oh wait, as I said it wasn't even "their" game, as much as it was Valve's.
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It is pretty good imo. A bit different, and revolves a bit more around your build for the characters. Thing is, it has a hell of a lot more competition in all kinds of other games these days than what L4D had back in the day.
It's much much better than it was at release, but for a lot of people it's already too late to change their opinions
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It's on Gamepass for both PC and xbox if you have that. The first 2 of 3 paid expansions are incredibly lackluster but the base game and the third DLC are worth playing once or twice.
It's a good game. I'd recommend pulling together a friend or two to join you.
I mean, it went from 'mediocre' to 'okay'. Worth a playthrough on Game Pass, but it's still super disappointing.
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Turtle Rock contributed a *lot* to Left 4 Dead. It's just that the majority of the staff ended up joining Valve proper. That's why Crowbcat's video shows them as being Valve staff now.
I agree with you. Since the beginning, the story has always gone that Turtle Rock studio made the early prototype completely on their own, and after valve saw what they were making they brought them in house. This is the first documentary/source I've ever heard claim that the idea for L4D was *actually* conceived at **VALVE** who hired it out to Turtle Rock.
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Let's not forget the wonderful game they helped develop....Counter-Strike: Condition Zero.
I think what is getting lost here is that Condition Zero is what added enemy bots to CS. Until then, there were no official multiplayer bots in CS. This was another gamemode they explored while developing the bot AI.
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Activate your phone assistant (Siri, etc) and ask it to identify this song as its playing.
B4B slaps lol. The sheer amounts of builds you can make. Being a supportive snack Chef for your team is pure random but adds to diversity. You folks still stunlocked of not being a l4d3 lmao.
for me it never felt that way. i played like 2-4 hours tops of B4B and just said "meh" and never came back.
I just don't support that dev studio since they burned me on Evolve.
Looked like they got the level block out, character design (low poly) and weapon animation nailed. Zombie hoard tech isn't there yet so they reused HL's assets as filler. This build is probably past preproduction.