The Orange Box 360?

[Zx2963]

Originally Posted by Enigmantic

I agree but it's never going to happen.

It will if Valve had some motivation...

[Mincegamer]

Originally Posted by Rynjin

Just gonna hit this spot here:

Pretty sure the first L4D DLC was $10 when it first came out. They often "free-ify" DLC for older games on XBLM. I KNOW the L4D2 DLC was $10, because I ended up paying for that one.

I think Valve made some kind of special deal with Microsoft for Portal 2.

And the only RDR free DLC I remember is the one that adds like one extra skin or summat. Zombies, the one that give a BUNCH of extra skins, and the one that gives the Tomahawk were all paid for.

Not true. The Survival Pack for L4D1 has been free on PC and Xbox 360 since its release. Random source: http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/new...goes-live.html. All of them state that it is a free DLC for PC and Xbox.

Every other L4D download was 560 points, which equals to $7. 800 points can be bought for $10, 560/800 = $7. Crash Course, The Sacrifice (on L4D1 and L4D2), The Passing, and Cold Stream were all 560 points each. Cold Stream actually contained five campaigns, for a total of 21 maps. All for $7. Who is to say the TF2 team couldn't have done something similar?

RDR had three free DLCs. Granted I know the one you are talking about isn't really much of a DLC, it's just the Hunting and Trading Pack that adds new single player outfits. However, its other two free DLCs, the Outlaws to the End Co-op Pack and Myths and Mavericks, did add a lot of multiplayer content. Source: http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Pr...Addon#LiveZone, just scroll down and you'll see the ones I'm talking about. Granted most of the big content for RDR was in paid DLC, but my point was to show that Rockstar released a lot of worthwhile content for a fee, and also provided some free stuff as well. They not only released each piece of DLC separately, but also put them all in an "Undead Nightmare collection" to be bought at a cheaper price, and released them on a disc (which is what I bought). It is embarrassing that Valve declined to release any form of paid or free DLC, while other developers are able to do both to please their fans. They are also doing something similar with Max Payne 3.

But overall, his (the guy who I quoted at first) statement that Microsoft demands that all DLC must have a price on it is obviously incorrect.

Note 1: I know the TF2 team and L4D team are all under the umbrella of Valve, but they obviously have different business practices and took different paths with their games, so I often refer to them as being different developers. Usually when I say "Valve" in a sentence about TF2 I am referring to the TF2 team.

Note 2: I am a huge fan and follower of every game I've mentioned here, except Max Payne 3

Note 3: Overall though Rynjin, I do appreciate knowing that we have at least one PC Ally in the TF2 forum. I thank you for that .

[Rynjin]

Originally Posted by Mincegamer

Not true. The Survival Pack for L4D1 has been free on PC and Xbox 360 since its release. Random source: http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/new...goes-live.html. All of them state that it is a free DLC for PC and Xbox.

I completely forgot about the Survival Pack actually, it's a game mode I never enjoyed playing.

Originally Posted by Mincegamer

Every other L4D download was 560 points, which equals to $7. 800 points can be bought for $10, 560/800 = $7. Crash Course, The Sacrifice (on L4D1 and L4D2), The Passing, and Cold Stream were all 560 points each. Cold Stream actually contained five campaigns, for a total of 21 maps. All for $7. Who is to say the TF2 team couldn't have done something similar?

Well, the issue with that is that L4D is not competitive multiplayer like TF2 is. If you had something like "Class Update Bundles" for $7 a pop, you can rest assured a lot of people are going to be very angry when they can't get the Pyro weapons because they bought the Soldier and Spy instead and keep getting Flare punched or something.

Originally Posted by Mincegamer

RDR had three free DLCs. Granted I know the one you are talking about isn't really much of a DLC, it's just the Hunting and Trading Pack that adds new single player outfits. However, its other two free DLCs, the Outlaws to the End Co-op Pack and Myths and Mavericks, did add a lot of multiplayer content. Source: http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Pr...Addon#LiveZone, just scroll down and you'll see the ones I'm talking about. Granted most of the big content for RDR was in paid DLC, but my point was to show that Rockstar released a lot of worthwhile content for a fee, and also provided some free stuff as well. They not only released each piece of DLC separately, but also put them all in an "Undead Nightmare collection" to be bought at a cheaper price, and released them on a disc (which is what I bought). It is embarrassing that Valve declined to release any form of paid or free DLC, while other developers are able to do both to please their fans. They are also doing something similar with Max Payne 3.

I got the disc too, but I could've sworn Outlaws to the End was paid for. Hm, guess you're right.

I think I'm getting that one and the one that adds the new areas an the Explosive Rifle confused then.

Originally Posted by Mincegamer

But overall, his (the guy who I quoted at first) statement that Microsoft demands that all DLC must have a price on it is obviously incorrect.

Incorrect in the present tense, but I don't recall seeing anything being free 3-4 years ago on the Marketplace. So maybe if Valve gets it in their head to try again they'll have more success.

Originally Posted by Mincegamer

Note 3: Overall though Rynjin, I do appreciate knowing that we have at least one PC Ally in the TF2 forum. I thank you for that .

I played on the Xbox for...a little over 4 years I think? And moved to the PC August of last year, so I know the feeling of hoping they'll bring SOMETHING to the Xbox.

I would suggest at least attempting TF2 on the computer though. My friend just got it after years of saying his computer was too bad to run it, and with a little tweaking (and the installation of Chris' FPS Config) it runs perfectly smoothly. Not top of the line graphics wise, but not eye searingly bad, and hey, it runs.

Dropped you some rep.

[Mincegamer]

Originally Posted by Rynjin

Well, the issue with that is that L4D is not competitive multiplayer like TF2 is. If you had something like "Class Update Bundles" for $7 a pop, you can rest assured a lot of people are going to be very angry when they can't get the Pyro weapons because they bought the Soldier and Spy instead and keep getting Flare punched or something.

Well I'd say that L4D is "competitive" in the sense that it's primarily a PvP game. Versus was originally the only mode, and all the others have been added in. Even if Mann vs. Machine becomes a very popular game mode years from now, I'd still consider TF2 to be a competitive game.

I think the main reason why it's seen as something different is because the support for L4D has been different than the support for TF2. TF2 received new weapons, new maps, new game modes, new in-game systems like trading, etc. while L4D mostly just received new maps and game modes. I don't count L4D2 as DLC, but I do count it as new content.

After all, the stuff for L4D2 was originally planned as DLC for L4D1. There would have been new weapons for survivors, and new infected to play as, added to L4D1. This would have all been free on PC, although I'm not sure if it was supposed to be unlockable or available immediately in-game. And I don't know what to think about Xbox support. Maybe they would have released the DLC in packs: I.E. $7 for infected and weapons, and $7 for all the new maps. I'd hope they wouldn't have left the Xbox totally in the dust.

As for TF2, even if they wouldn't have provided new weapons for the Xbox 360, notice that I said "21 new maps" and then right after it "they could have done something like this for TF2". I was mostly hinting at maps. I don't see any hardware restrictions in releasing new maps. I have no doubt that they had working versions of some of the new maps on test Xboxes, before they scrapped the updates all together. They could have just released a giant map pack containing all of the official maps. I don't see why Valve's response to "we can't release everything for free" was "sorry guys, you get absolutely nothing!".

Originally Posted by Rynjin

Incorrect in the present tense, but I don't recall seeing anything being free 3-4 years ago on the Marketplace. So maybe if Valve gets it in their head to try again they'll have more success.

That's true, I haven't seen many free DLCs released in the early years of the 360. However I've only had an Xbox since 2010. But the Survival Pack was released as early as April 2009, and it was free. Valve obviously knew about the prospect of limited, small free DLCs while they were working on the TF2 updates. Even just releasing Badlands in a free DLC would have been cool. I do wish they would re-release TF2 on XBLA or on a disc. The profits and overall reception they would receive from totally re-releasing TF2 and giving it tons of new stuff would outweigh the criticism of abandoning the original Orange Box release and making it incompatible with the new version.

Originally Posted by Rynjin

I played on the Xbox for...a little over 4 years I think? And moved to the PC August of last year, so I know the feeling of hoping they'll bring SOMETHING to the Xbox.

I would suggest at least attempting TF2 on the computer though. My friend just got it after years of saying his computer was too bad to run it, and with a little tweaking (and the installation of Chris' FPS Config) it runs perfectly smoothly. Not top of the line graphics wise, but not eye searingly bad, and hey, it runs.

Dropped you some rep.

I tried running L4D1 and TF2 on my old comp, and neither worked. I installed a "Nintendo 64" graphics pack for TF2, and I still got around 10 frames when I was in itemtest -_-.

I have L4D2 on this new comp that I have, and it also runs terribly. It's not a gaming machine at all, but I still need a graphics card to do games (everything else works decently). I could try installing TF2 again.

I have to spread some rep around before I can give it to you again.

[DavyinaToga]

Originally Posted by Rynjin

I would suggest at least attempting TF2 on the computer though.

Just a sidenote - Macbooks with integrated DX8 graphics will not even try loading the game, no matter the number of low-res mods you may have. It was fine until the Engi update, and then everything fell apart.

[Enigmantic]

Originally Posted by Zx2963

It will if Valve had some motivation...

By the way I also agree about the Pyro airblast. If you've ever played tf2 on pc you know how useful a weapon it is to have in the Pyro's arsenal. The ability to break ubers, deflect soldier rockets, push demomens stickys and grenades is a valuable asset to have. I would be happy if Valve would update just that one thing.

[minervx]

Actually, it's not just Valve's opposition to DLC. It's moreso feasability.

Players would need 10 gigabytes to spare and Valve would have to port 5 years worth of updates, to which, probably would have to cost the player a full game price.

It would take a lot of time and it's not economical.

Also, Valve doesn't profit much from people playing TF2 on X360. TF2 on PC is what gets people using Steam and is what gets Valve commission on every game sale.

Believe me, if there were a way to do it, it would have been done

[ShadowSonicZ]

tl;dr big posts. Just wanted to also point out if it hasn't been already:

Companies have to pay MS to have their content hosted on their Xbox Live servers.
Valve also doesn't like the fact that it takse atleast 2 weeks for any updates for a game has to go through a Q&A Approval process.
Making a stand alone version of TF2 with the current TF2 PC version is only a band-aid fix, as this won't solve future update issues as Valve does not agree with MS current business model.

[Mincegamer]

Originally Posted by ShadowSonicZ

tl;dr big posts. Just wanted to also point out if it hasn't been already:

Companies have to pay MS to have their content hosted on their Xbox Live servers.
Valve also doesn't like the fact that it takse atleast 2 weeks for any updates for a game has to go through a Q&A Approval process.

I'll trade lightly here as I'm not too familiar with the specifics. But surely many other developers that have released notably big DLCs in the past (such as Valve themselves, with L4D1 and L4D2) have faced this issue of paying for the content to be hosted? I've seen this argument come up before, but why does it only seem to be an issue here?

I understand that releasing pretty much anything on any console is a troublesome process, but surely this is part of a cycle that developers are used to? They have to pay for stuff, but they get profit back to make up for the expenses. My little brain with its lack of knowledge on business thought that this was something that every developer went through. Why is Valve unable to do this?

As for that last part, yes I understand that it's tough for developers to put out patches to Xbox games. However, Valve has done this for all of their console games in the past. Most developers have done this for their games. And I mentioned in my earlier posts how many game breaking bugs (such as sky walking and shooting through the gates) are still in the game. Why is it that these cannot be fixed? Why do you feel that Valve is to be excused from leaving game-breaking bugs in the game?

Furthermore, we are seeing bigger and bigger updates coming out for console games.. It's obvious that the prospect of being unable to release a constant stream of updates every single day/week does not mean that polar opposite must be true.

Originally Posted by ShadowSonicZ

Making a stand alone version of TF2 with the current TF2 PC version is only a band-aid fix, as this won't solve future update issues as Valve does not agree with MS current business model.

Once again, I see the argument that zero updates > any updates. I never got it the first time I saw it, and I don't know if I ever will get it.