Valve are updating Left 4 Dead 2 servers with infected bots, which isn’t the first stage of an attempt to destroy the world it sounds like.  While death itself doesn’t stop zombies, disconnection does, with millions of enraged undead doomed by the loss of one player.  It’s a great help for versus modes, but - as a hybrid of AI and infected brain-munching - it’s also an incredible combination of two of the greatest video game enemies ever made.

So we got to thinking about which other game servers could co-operate:

The worst thing is, one terrorist with an AWP could still take it.

Day of Complete Total Defeat

Aperture Science is all well and good, but he solves practical problems.

Twenty-ten’s already here and we still haven’t got HAL nine thousands, but that’s probably for the best.  For one thing he was pretty terrible at graphics (outputting only plaintext and embarrassingly limited vector graphics), and for another we prefer our AIs not to kill us in the real world.  Instead it’s time to make New Year’s Resolutions!

Don’t leave!  They may be traditionally terrible self-scourging instructions to enjoy yourself less, which - for not entirely unrelated reasons - rarely survive to see a second month, but they don’t have to be.  Here at Lowpings we actually enjoy life instead of laying guilt-trips on ourselves, so we’re releasing resolutions which will enhance your enjoyment of online game servers.

1.  Try New Classes

The great thing about game server self-improvement is that you’re never digitally deprived: you don’t need to think green when firing plasma weapons, you’re getting exercise by sprinting every second of every day, and no matter how many health kits and hunks of raw meat your character absorbs he’ll never put on any weight (unless you count all the shrapnel).  Instead of giving things up you should take more on, and nowhere is that more evident than the wallpaper while waiting to connect to a TF2 server: the “time spent as class” chart.

Resolve to do better!

Spend some time as those cursed classes at the bottom!  You might not play them because you hate them, because you only play Sniper (in which case you suck), or because of the “Medic Malady” (if a team of twelve people are stupid enough not to have a medic, you don’t want to be the one looking after them.)  But each class is a whole new way to enjoy the game.  You might find you like them after all, and more importantly, you’ll learn how they think (and how to avoid and kill them when you return to your beloved first choice.)  A few days as Spy and Sniper is the most educational experience a Heavy can have.

2.  Try New Modes

Left 4 Dead 2 servers don’t offer many classes (at least until someone unlocks a way for Coach’s mass to count as extra health, or at least as cover), but there are more modes than the average Transformers episode.  Everyone ends up with a favorite - from the movie-style slog of the campaign to the pick up and play instant enemy action of Scavenge - and they’re all awesome.  But why limit yourself?

Whichever you play, pick a different one next time!  The mechanics may be the same, and the chainsaw might always be the best thing ever, but the mood differs with playtime and the bonding experience over the whole campaign.  Spitter goo detonating the racer’s fuel is an annoyance in Scavenge, but an adrenaline-soaked catastrophe after two hours of versus play.  And adrenaline-soaked catastrophes are awesome.

3.  Counter-Strike New Maps

Not every game rewards different modes.  Counter-Strike servers occasionally offer hostage rescue maps, but you can replicate the experiment by playing bomb defuse, randomly turning on your toaster, then declaring that you lost for no reason at all when the stupid machine goes off.  This will save you from smashing the screen when the hostages ‘hide’ inside a hail of terrorist fire.

No dust at all!

But the best playmode isn’t limited to de_dust, as infinitely playable as it may be.  Sites like FPSBanana offer an awesome selection of user-generated map, many polished by thousands of hours of competitive play.  And “competitive” on CS servers is a lot like “murderous” everywhere else.  Set up a selection, and enable an add-on like mapvote to find out what your players like.

4.  New Games

There’s nothing like a new game, even if it’s old (and therefore much cheaper!)  You’ve a fantastic first-person-shooter spectrum to enjoy, from the chunky gibbage of Quake servers to the frankly unlikely DIPRIP destruction derbies.  It’s a real concentration of joy – the first few rounds of a new game are an array of incredible sensations, literally blowing things up like never before.  We live in an incredible world where we can say things like that.

Enjoy more of it in 2010!

We’re mere moments from Left 4 Dead 2 servers going live, and the zombie-killing community hasn’t been so excited since a lumberjack decided strapping a motor to a chain would be a great way to cut things.  We’ve spent more time on the demo servers than asleep over the last fortnight, and now - in the brief window before we disappear from human society for at least five campaigns four hundred times each - it’s time to see what we’ve learned from the trial run.

1.  People Have No Pattern Recognition Whatsoever

People who pre-ordered were promised exclusive early access to the L4D2 demo on October 27th.  This demo was a day late, and if that surprises you then thanks for reading despite never having heard of Valve (or having just arrived from a parallel universe where Hitler won the war, the sky is green, and ‘Valve time’ corresponds to real time).  Valve games haven’t been on time since ever, with Half Life 2 - one of the best games ever - seventeen months behind schedule.  Left4Dead 2’s demo was only a day late, and of course fans reacted with the calm and collected rationality gamers are famous for.

Clearly Tupinambis* subscribes to the Mafia definition of mano-a-mano promises.  Gabe Newell would doubtless have woken facing a horse’s head, had our brave forum hero not been too busy not knowing how to use the word ‘proportions.’  Or ‘perspective’.  Or ‘life’.

*Unlike him we actually have better things to do than screw around with character alt-codes to make him look more interesting.

2.  People Have No Pattern Recognition Whatsoever

People fear even the slightest change, which is especially odd when they’re buying a sequel (and powers past odd into insanity when they also complain if the sequel stays the same).  Within moments of L4D2 servers starting up, survivors were screaming about how the melee weapons broke the game and made it far too easy to survive hordes.  FUN FACT: every single one of them was playing on “Normal.”  LESS FUN FACT: On Expert you could be using directional nuclear blasts as a melee weapon and still lose.

After all, it’s not like Valve tweak and tune games for years after release, and especially for collecting data during limited demo sessions to streamline the experience.  The very second the first draft is out the door, the entire staff sails into the ocean until they find a place free from any access to the outside world.

BONUS COMPLAINT: Some people are complaining about whacking zombies with an electric guitar, and how it releases rocking noise and the undead’s head in one fell blow.  These people are clearly deranged and should be restrained for their own good.

I’m making music by beating up a security guard with a blood-slick guitar.  THIS COULD ONLY BE MORE METAL IF I WAS ON FIRE (also possible)

3.  Things Can Always Get Worse

Left4Dead’s entire deal is that things are screwed the hell up and getting worse.  The survivors are constantly stumbling through nightmare, while the Crash Course campaign revealed that all four corpse-campaigns are actually happening one after the other.  Add the safe room map basically saying “The US of A:Totally Infected”, and you’ve got a situation which would make a man stuck in a bear trap say “At least I get to sit down.”

New Yorkers are finally correct in thinking they’re the entire country

The writers make Left 4 Dead 2 even grimmer almost instantly: carriers.  It seems some survivors can carry the infection to others without falling sick themselves, meaning that the Army - saviors par excellence in the first game - are now actively hunting and killing humans.  Awesome.

I bet they get ice cream!

4.  We Can’t Wait

Desire for undead-damage leaks across even the bounds of reality, jumping from Left 4 Dead to TF2 servers, where pre-orderers are armed with the experienced headgear of a certain Vietnam veteran.

Pictured: an Australian who would last about four seconds in Left 4 Dead

Let’s be honest:  first person shooters live on PC.  They might survive as crippled console versions, thumbsticks turning at the same speed and accuracy as the average wheelchair, hooked up to auto-aiming life support to stave off Terminal Lack Of Mouse, but it’s only on real computers that the ability to aim actually means something.

Second honesty: single player is practice.  That’s all.  It might be the most cinematic practice you’ve ever seen, with incredible set pieces and innovative action scenes allowing to you to indulge in every Hollywood fantasy, but as long as the enemies are AI it’s just a glorified Tutorial.  You played through Modern Warfare for the fun, World at War for access to the Zombie servers, but it’s all sort of pointless unless you’re plugging people so that victory means “You’re better than someone”, not “The computer was programmed to let you have that.”  That’s what game servers are for, and that’s why we’re looking at the most popular multiplayer FPSs:

1.  Counter-Strike

If this is news then please, stop wasting time here and get your ass onto a Counter-Strike server right now.  Right now there are more people playing CS than there are holding hands, which might sound like it says something scary about society until you realise romance never killed any terrorists.  Various versions take up the first, second and seventh positions on the most-played list - and that’s not just shooters, that’s in terms of every game Valve has (to say nothing of the thousands of pirate players out there).  Counter-Strike: Source is now outperforming 1.6 servers (despite the complaints of purists), and even the relatively unpopular Condition Zero servers are stuffed with several thousand players at all times.  Or to put it another way: statistically speaking, Counter Strike is more popular than Shakespeare.

2.  Call of Duty 4

Things can get a little hectic

Modern Warfare servers continue to crush even their own sequel, with World at War servers lagging behind because of “Less impressive weapons”, “Not being made by Infinity Ward” and the all-important “Being yet another World War II game even though the reason we were excited before was because Modern Warfare didn’t do that” factor.  Cod4 is the top FPS on X-fire’s total playtime charts ranking only behind World of Warcraft overall - and ranking below WoW in playtime is like ranking below the universe in size.

3.  Team Fortress 2

It’s all about class balance

Valve’s magnum opus of online play, and proof that a decade of development time pays off.  Team Fortress 2 servers rank second only to Counter-Strike on Valve’s charts, and even outperforms Football Manager 2009, the biggest non-shooting-people-in-the-face title on their service.  For some reason.  The constant addition of new maps, fixes and unlocks keeps the population pumped up, although it’s still a factor of four behind even the closest Counter-Strike game.  But then, many religions have less devout followings than CS.

4.  Left 4 Dead

This game is fun

Multiplying the number of players by the average game bodycount, L4D servers shoot through three million zombie corpses an hour.  It seems those protesting the sequel were an extremely vocal minority, with most players far too busy “actually playing the game” and “enjoying themselves” to waste much time on such silliness.  It also means that at this very second there are at least four kilo-Louii running around with machine guns.

5.  Day of Defeat

There’s a slight learning curve

Ruggedly hanging in at number five are the Day of Defeat servers (both Source and old-school) - guilty of being set in the same time period as 90% of all known games, but at least with the excuse of coming from a time before the problem wasn’t quite so bad.  It also shares the status of being a Half Life modification, meaning that the altered adventures of Gordon Freeman literally have the entire FPS table surrounded.

Gamers dressing up as the gamees is a tradition dating back as far as disposable income, but what about the characters themselves? Can they cackle in costumes for all hallows eve? Since we don’t waste opening paragraphs around here, the answer is “Yes”, and we look at seven skins to spice up your servers:

1. The Creepy Counter-Strike Skull

Counter-Strike servers are already stuffed with Skullz and Killaz [sic], usually embedded in usernames between clan tags and half the number row’s symbols. Modder “Laca” enables the anti-terrorists to become even scarier than “someone with an assault rifle out to kill you” by skulling things up under the creepily human eyes.

2. Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault

Those playing on Medal of Honor servers shouldn’t suffer because of the age or authenticity of their game - so “Vdog777” has built an in-character costume, and is far better at 3D modeling than coming up with a name. The French resistance fighter adds another option when you’re dressing to impress (and shoot several times in the head) those fashionable Nazi chappies.

3. Team Fortress Halloween

Halloween costumes are something fun and awesome, so of course Valve are involved. We’re only talking about this because we enjoy it, anyway, as anyone on any TF2 server has already enjoyed the new koth_harvest_event map, exploding pumpkins, brand-new hats (to pile on top of all the other awesome headgear), and the incomparable ghost costume of Zepheniah Mann.

PS We love our Gibuses, though proper grammer sometimes makes for odd pronunciation.

4. The Classic Spy

Just because you’re ten years behind the times doesn’t mean you can’t dress up - though it can mean you wish you were more advanced. That’s the lesson behind the awkwardly-named |WS|*Nikon’s smooth spy skin, disguising a Team Fortress Classic server’s Spy as: a TF2 spy!

5. The Red vs Blue Crysis

In the most insanely complicated meta disguise outside of Major Smith in Where Eagles Dare, “not so l337” lets Crysis commandos disguise themselves as the staff from Red vs Blue, who in turn are played by Spartans, from Halo. It would be impossible to add more layers to a costume without forming a human pyramid or dressing up as a double-decker bus.

6. Day of Metal Gear Defeat

Dr. Cloud understands exactly how to guarantee an Allied success on Day of Defeat servers: staff the side of the angels with an endless army of Solid Snake clones. With the Axis forces represented by far inferior GRU cannon fodder it’s quite likely the sheer psychological pressure will force them to fold (despite their advantage in heavy machine guns).

7. Left 4 Dead

The most popular costumes over the last week come from the Left 4 Dead pre-order exclusive demo, with our four favorite survivors sporting spanking new skins.

Bill: Everyone’s favorite armed uncle-figure swaps Vietnam flashbacks for a love of candy, and an incredibly convincing Coach fatsuit.
Zoey: The apocalypse’s only female pulls an incredible double reverse-Michael-Jackson, both turning from white to black AND staying alive to play Rochelle.
Louis: The hard-working everyman goes even further than Zoey to become Elllis’s engineering Suthan bo-ay.
Francis: Why hate everything at random, when Nick can hate and distrust everything as a scumbag conman?

The best bit? Game servers can be dressed up every day of the year!

The “Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott” foolishness is finally over, in an astonishing surprise to absolutely no-one.  If you weren’t able to see that this idiocy would fold like an origami master in a poker championship, you were either:

a) Unable to read the original story, in which case wow, how are you doing this now?

b) Actually one of the boycotters, in which case you’re not reading because you’ve already skipped ahead to scream obscenities in the comments.

The founding members of the boycotting group, “Walking_Target” and “Agent of Chaos”, posted to say that they’d achieved everything they’d wanted to with their group - the internationally accepted signal of surrender.  When someone gives up on the only thing that made them notable, and that thing was trying to prevent people from playing a popular videogame, it’s hard to decide if it makes them more or less sad.  Here we study the stages of the L4D2 boycott - with handy Left4Dead server situations analogizing each.

The upper limit of the boycotters wit

1.  NERD RAGE!

Nerd rage!  The most powerful force known to man, assuming that man is actually an anaemic kitten somehow connected to twitter.  While most reacted to news of a sequel to an incredibly popular game by the same uncountable-awards-winning company with “Cool”, some knew that this was a gross betrayal of everything the glorious “Shooting dead things again online” L4D server community stood for.  Something had to be done - and that “something” meant shouting in CAPS AND ITALICS!  (They may also have used exclamation marks.)

The Witch: A calm, collected disputant compared to internet arguments

We’re not saying that theirs was a hysterical list of nonsensical complaints.  We’re just pointing out how they claimed that two new game modes, the ability to play as the special infected and an entire new map is not “significant content”, and that their seventh complaint of nine is “The fiddle-based horde music is extremely disliked.” You can make up your own mind.

Left4Dead Equivalent: Bill saves Francis from a special infected and gives him pain pills.  Francis starts screaming “FAG!” and trying to shoot Bill, but missing every shot at point-blank range.

2.  The Steam Group Petition

Following on the glorious success of every other internet petition, which all have real effects and certainly aren’t the saddest things ever (or advertising spam e-mail collectors), our two brave heroes set up a Steam group “L4D2 Boycott.”  Because nothing says “We are even remotely capable of not buying this product” like setting up an advanced discussion group, based on intense analysis of trailer videos, on the developer’s website.

That zombie had more chance than the average internet petition.  That zombie STILL has more chance than the average internet petition.

This group reached forty thousand members, which would be even remotely impressive if

1. You forget the standard “multiply by zero” rule for translating online petition groups into real effects
2. The pre-orders for Left4Dead 2, an exclusive group which actually requires you to give money instead of bullshit, far outperformed it

Left4Dead Equivalent: All four survivors write “The Special Infected Shouldn’t Hurt Us” in teamchat several times.  They add many exclamation marks!

3.  Infighting!

The most hilarious thing about internet hate groups is that they’re made of internet haters.  The aren’t actually coherently angry, they’re screaming spitballs of keyboard-pounding poor impulse control and after interacting for any length of time they’ll inevitably turn on each other.  Any implication that the members are nothing but keyboard bashing balls of low self-esteem and poor impulse control should be disregarded, despite being true.  Here’s what happened when the group’s founders were flown in to look at L4D2, which is approximately infinity billion times more attention than they deserved.

Agent of Chaos and Walking_Target get to visit Valve.  As you can see, the boycott group rally in support of this dialogue

Their own group made that, as well as an impressive number of invective variations on the themes “sellout”, “betrayal”, and at least one accusation of being physically violated by Valve staff.

Left4Dead Equivalent: Zoey finds the Tier 2 weapons and calls the others.  They shoot her will screaming “FAG!”

4.  Giving Up

Agent of Chaos insists “Our goal wasn’t to steer people away from L4D2″, which is an odd not-goal for a group called “L4D2 boycott”.  But since they didn’t even remotely do that it may be best that he retroactively redefined their goal to “to get Valve’s attention.”  Which is exactly what they did, and is actually pretty impressive for an internet complainer.

Walking_Target, alas, lets this go to his head with “we have paved the way for Developer-Community relations in the future. No matter what the press or other gamers say, we have made an indelible mark upon the future of this industry.”  You can tell someone’s giving a great quote when they include “People are going to take the piss out of us so hard” in the middle of their own statement, and the only indelible mark they made was on each other’s palms when they high-fived each other when they were invited to play Left 4 Dead 2.

Left4Dead Equivalent: Due to a bizarre L4D server bug, when Bill and Francis die we’re left with two Zoeys, two little girls who immediately go the wrong way, and are both smacked through walls by a Tank with “Reality” painted on its chest.

The brand new Crash Course campaign dropped onto Left4Dead servers last week, and as well as utterly crushing the idiotic “abandonment” arguments of Left4Dead 2 boycotters it serves as a lecture on lessons learned from the original. A lecture made by professional gamers and delivered in the form of killing zombies, the way all education should take place.  This is no mere stopgap: it’s a snapshot of development and some things we can look forward to in the next installment.

Versus servers spiked as players try to find the best spot to Smoke Survivors from (Answer: that bit where they pass over the fence on top of the truck - grab the last one when the others have already dropped)

1.  The Length

The reduced length of the Crash Course campaign, with only two chapters instead of the usual four, is sure to fuel the moronic moaning of those who insist they’re somehow being ripped off by continual free updates and extensions.  It also reveals their inability to understand what the developers are doing - the shorter campaign isn’t an attempt to shortchange players, but get pump up the number of people playing L4D servers.

As it stands it’s an excellent zombie-movie experience, but in length as well as mood: a campaign can take up to an hour (with versus easily doubling that) while many players can’t actually cancel their entire evening just to play.  Survival mode, and now the shorter campaign, are obvious attempts to make the game more accessible to people whose day-planners don’t revolve around video-gaming time.

2.  Verticality

We’ve covered left, right, forward, back and down - we’re safe forever!

Crash Course crams more multi-level ledges, overpasses, ridges and apartment roofs into two chapters than the other campaigns have in four.  Instead of narrow alleys or wide open spaces we have considerably more three-dimensional areas, with undead (and especially special infected, repetition on purpose) taking advantage of all angle attacks to eat the un-undead.

Those looking forward to the sequel’s release in November should look forward to two things:

1. Delays.  This is Valve.
2. Enhanced multi-level environments when it finally does come out.

3.  The Plot

The Left4Dead safe rooms are the best examples of videogame writing anywhere, and I’ll stack one wall of Valve graffiti against any ten RPGs you care to mention (Aerith deaths included).  As well as an astonishingly accurate parody of internet commentary, the newly-downoaded content extends on that to paint a wider picture of the world of L4D servers - and it’s not good.

Yep, that looks like the sort of world where you’d need an assault rifle to even look at a map

The game about endless oceans of the undead eating everything else in the world was never exactly optimistic, but that one chart extends the apocalypse almost infinitely.  This isn’t a few potholes of nightmare that need escape - this is an entire world of undead where the entire army gives up on the country and tries to salvage a few isolated pockets, and fails at most of those.  Expect some extremely evil extension on this theme in the sequel.

4.  More Involved Finales

The frantic finales have always been the entire point of Left4Dead servers, and Crash Course tries a few tweaks to the formula (which you just know are experiments the developers are eagerly awaiting results on).  The result isn’t up to previous examples: the truck depot level just doesn’t feel as desperate as the helipads and farmhouses we’ve fought in before, but the increased complexity of the design and the additional events (being forced to run out and restart the generator) speak of attempts to mix up the basic “Hold here while you’re attacked by the entire population of Winsconsin”

We’ll always embrace more Dawn of the Dead references in our survival horror.

“Exploiters” is linguistically impossible: despite having three syllables it sounds exactly like “scum.”  A plague on every game server, exploiters exist only to apply every unfair advantage they can - like playtesters hired by the Grinch to ruin Christmas every day.  Assuming every game is Christmas.  The metaphor doesn’t bear close examination.

But what drives these despicable denizens of dustbowl and No Mercy?  What brings someone to de_dust only to snipe from the skybox?  Here we look at three types of exploiter (in order increasing abomination against everything online games are about.)

1.  The Desperate

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but that’s because they existed in the boring time before games.  They had to read ancient latin texts to get undead characters which went around forgiving people instead of feasting on them.  Nowadays we know the road to hell is actually paved with a trip to Mars colony and/or out of control genetic weapons experiments, but the good intentions problem remains.  Especially in Killing Floor servers where your teammates respawn if you survive the round, the Flesh Pound is bearing down on you like a  - well the fact we’re alive proves there is no real-world analog for a Flesh Pound - and you know that hiding inside that map glitch will get everybody to the next stage.

In fairness, if anything would make you hide inside a wall this is it

It’s a dirty dishonorable trick and the way those words shouldn’t apply to the undead doesn’t matter.  Small studio creations are especially open to exploits as ambitious maps outstrip their testing resources.  Don’t punish them by breaking their game!  Do you really want world where the only levels are perfectly tested, empty, and two feet across?  Get out there and take your death like a man!  Knowing you can hide inside a protective rock whenever you want is fine for Alicia Masters, but in turns a desperate death-struggle into a boring hobby.

2.  Peer Pressure

A unique pressure brought about when you have to work with other players to survive the onslaught.  It’s not the worst form of exploit as you aren’t screwing over other players - you’re just destroying everything the genius game designers worked to create for your enjoyment. Which isn’t that much better.  The problem is when your teammates all jump into the map glitch safe spot, and suddenly you’re the asshole for wanting to “play” the “game.”

As well as hordes of the undead, the virus created horrific trimutated glitchers

Or rather, not play the game because you’re being slaughtered by every single enemy on the map and your anti-fun teammates won’t leave their glitch-haven to come save you.  It affects Killing Floor, but is a particular problem on Left4Dead servers.  At least on Campaign mode it only ruins a set-piece or two, but you’ll always end up with an idiot on Survival (check!) shouting at everyone to glitch themselves onto a ledge where nothing can touch them “because we’ll totally get GOLD you guys!”)

3.  Pure Unadulterated Scum

In the above you’re ruining the game for yourself, but once you’re killing people with glitches instead of guts you’re officially ruining it for everyone.  Counter-Strike servers suffered from serious game-breaking glitches over their history, massively amplified by the incredibly competitive nature of the players, but years of patches have boiled most of them out.  Now the worthless simply install their own hacks, another subject we’ll deal with in due time.  Once the IP-tracking missiles are ready.

Laughing at people trying to play the game, before building a sentry on an unreachable ledge and screeching “If they didn’t want us to it wouldn’t be possible!”

The modern exploiter adventurelands are TF2 servers, where every update and added map (fun free gifts for gaming enjoyment) is immediately broken into and abused (by people who don’t understand a single word in the previous brackets).  The barrage of brilliant new levels and extras has the exact opposite of the intended effect on exploiter scum:  Hiding outside the level, firing new taunts through the gates before the game begins, sentries installed in utterly unreachable locations by jumping on dispensers - truly these masters of modern gaming show their expertise in online entertainment.  At the small cost of turning themselves into mockeries of even the concept of fun.

Fantastic news for fans of fun and enemies of annoying whiners: Left 4 Dead 2 pre-orders are beating the boycott groups!  Beating them up, stealing their lunch money and pulling their pants down in front of the cheerleading squad.  It’s nice to know that the eternal internet battle between “People who actually make or do things” and “Probably spherical inaccurate-criticism machines” sometimes goes to the side of the angels.  Where here “angels” means “People who give us gravity guns and rooftop Tank battles.”

For those not in the know on internet idiocy, over thirty thousand people signed up for a “Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott” when the sequel to one of the best zombie games ever made was announced.  And even in a magical fantasy land where people so involved in the game that they discuss their feelings on it five months before release (on the official developer forum) are actually capable of not getting it, we wouldn’t have to worry: L4D2 pre-orders are twice that of Left 4 Dead.  And both numbers kick the hell out of the whiners.

The interesting aspect is that none of the complaints - sequels instead of downloadable content, cash-extracting minor upgrades, the generally audience-insulting tone of sequels - are actually applicable to Valve.  It’s a cyber-Stockholm syndrome.  After decades of abuse at the hands of EA and other franchise-squeezers, releasing new team lists every year at fifty dollars a pop, many gamers simply can’t believe good things are coming.  Even though they come from a company who only makes good things, and once delayed Half Life 2 for over a year rather than release a game which wasn’t ready.

Valve are even understanding in victory, addressing one or two actually valid points included in the web-whiners demand (possibly by accident).  They’re working out how to integrate Left 4 Dead servers with the sequel, technically letting those who boycott the sequel enjoy it anyway - but most likely making sure they buy it, as you’re unlikely to see a Charger bisected by a Chainsaw and say “I don’t want to do that.”

(And if you don’t think Chainsaw should be capitalized, thanks for reading this despite never understanding anything about zombie movies.)

Valve’s explanation for the early sequel is that their planned improvements aren’t simple tack-ons (exactly what the worriers were wringing their hands over), but fundamental improvements to the engine.  The sort of thing you in fact always want from a sequel.  It remains to be seen whether Left 4 Dead 2 will convince the complainers to come quietly, but only in the same way it remains to be seen if the sun will rise in the East tomorrow.  With the added advantage that the sun will keep quiet about it.

The internet can complain about anything. At E3 Valve, makers of the greatest zombiecidal game in existence and all round Best Company Ever, announced that they were making an even better zombiecidal game WITH CHAINSAWS. While pretty much everyone ever was composing odes on the theme of “Awesome”, a small but extremely vocal minority starting whining like a man having his arms sawed off by a violin. Which just goes to show: some people could get into heaven and start a Homeowner’s Association to complain about the harp music.

In case you’re going for a Guinness record in “Not being aware of cool stuff”, Left 4 Dead servers are the best place to kill zombies until someone connects virtual reality to Army of Darkness. It sold over two and a half million units at retail and, in case you haven’t noticed, Valve don’t sell most of their stuff at retail. That means that even without counting digital downloads, which is kind of Valve’s entire deal, there’s an entire population of Jamaica-worth of people enjoying killing the dead on L4D servers.

Of those, a group of seventeen thousand have threatened to boycott Left 4 Dead 2 for a range of offenses ranging from “How dare you make another game” to, we kid you not, “We don’t like the use of fiddles.” It’s really hard to argue with people like that (but not for the reasons they think.) That’s about zero point zero zero seven per cent of the retail audience, or put another way: if you were in a room with a hundred people this group wouldn’t even count as the mass of dead skin.

Other problems with the protest, which we’re going to call the “We Hate Good Things” movement, include how Valve actually listen to online feedback. There’s the terrible risk they might in any way acknowledge these whiners - the worst thing you can do short of feeding a Gremlin after midnight. These people complain that constant perfecting of the balance, extra game modes, and entire extra levels don’t count as appreciable free content - they should spend some time as XBox users, then they’d really know what a monolithic corporation blocking downloadable content was like.

The best problem with the “boycott” is how it’s impotent as a nervous panda. These are people who spend time organizing online protests about games that haven’t even been released - they’re less likely to resist the actual product than a fat kid in Willy Wonka’s Emergency Donut warehouse. They simply won’t be able to live without the new game, if only so that they can play one of the best things ever and complain about it. (Again.) The only real risk is that they’ll use this perceived insult as hollow justification for piracy, as happened with Spore, but then they’ll only have themselves to blame for being unable to download extra content.

In fact, we kind of hope they’ll live up to their improbable promise of “finding something else to do.” It’ll let the rest of us play Left 4 Dead servers in peace.