Poll time: Is KF a horror-themed game?

[C_Gibby]

I think this is a no brainer, but do YOU think that KF is a horror themed game?

Lets look at the facts:

• In 2005, the mod tried to look as ****ed up, gross, dark, and violent as possible. It wanted everything to look fierce and nasty. The game back then was more about zombies and the undead, following the beginning texts of the campaign.
• The later versions of the mod followed the same suit, and they seemed to introduce more of a sci-fi angle. They continued with the very clear horror theme, but liked the "biological experiments" thing a lot more.
• KF retail came out! It was advertised with metal music, gore, brutal zed-time sequences, and came with the slogan, "CO-OP SURVIVAL HORROR." I can't imagine anyone buying the game of KF and expecting anything different for any reason.
• The devs decided to entertain wacky crossovers as what looked very much like business endeavours, introduced completely out-of-place ideas such as hopping onto the Steampunk fad (Since when was KF Bioshock Infinite!?!?), and maps/characters based on christmas fantasy lands became permanent year-round parts of the map rotation and character roster.
• The game spontaneously decided to set itself in the US all of a sudden, despite the very clear backdrop of London and a band of cockney crusaders.
• The game decided it would now go into space. Crazy bizarre weapons were introduced to the game, the theme was utterly broken. The art direction was a total and utter mess, as if the devs couldn't decide what they wanted to do with the game.
• People who enjoyed the mod and the game in 2009 dropped in numbers as active KF players. People who actually like the cluster**** decided to stay.
• Even the balance was thrown into instability. A lot of errors corrected in 2010/11 were reintroduced. Sharpie and Zerk being the worst.
• KF2 is announced.

I love KF. Or rather, did. It was a game I could happily say was my favourite, and I was extremely disappointed to see how dramatically the game changed due to decisions in the art department. That's because I bought a game that had a very clear horror theme that was advertised as such. I find it no coincidence that the people who enjoy this content have very recent join dates to this forum.


I'm highly convinced that KF is meant to be a horror game, and KF2 should stick to this. TWI should have some self-respect towards their game and try to preserve its integrity and sincerity, just as they do with Red Orchestra. As someone who is looking forward to buying a game that has a very clear, brutal, gory theme in a modern urban environment, I will be extremely let down to see the same mistakes repeat themselves in this new iteration.


The devs are convinced that KF2 is a brilliant game - and so am I. This is why I think that KF2 should stick to its guns and stay within a consistent theme and stand out by being the best it possibly can be at its own thing, rather than attempting to bait others by pretending to be other things at the same time.



To see how dramatically the retail release has changed, see the Level Up trailer compared to whatever recent trailer has been released. This is a disappointment.



I am also convinced that the people who enjoy the bizarre nonsensical mishmash of content have both the attention span of a goldfish, and the design sense of a chimpanzee.

 

[Splatpope]

i want gun shoot bullet in zombie head

pls .

 

[Shadoo]

What that guy said, who gives a damn if it's horror or silly, shoot **** like the gameplay always was even from release.


Plus, why make a poll if you're going to try and prove one end right and outright insult people who vote on the other end? You're accomplishing nothing but flamebait.

 

[Angry Hillbilly]

I most definitely agree it did become rather silly towards the end of the 5 years.

The Christmas and Summer slideshows were something that did mix it up with a bit of ammusing fun and were a lot of fun but they sort of lost their magic in the end becoming just a part of the Killing Floor cycle.

But most definitely in 2009 KF really did have that fantastically gritty horror feel that the series deserved and KF2 should definitely maintain that in every way and with the way it looks i can definitely see it will have that.

However once in a blue moon silly bit of fun never hurt anyone. I would have said perhaps a Christmas event or a Summer Event or maybe something completely different but make them few and far between enough that they really do feel like something special.

As for characters I think Goldeneye 64's big heads mode is in order

 

[Chimpster]

I'll grant you that the game did add some whacky stuff, but the game already had some silly British voice overs, which I think would break any serious gritty feeling of immersion anyway. But, you do have the option of disabling them. The female characters added were a better direction though in terms of voice acting.

 

[Chimpster]

I don't think holiday and special event zeds/maps are a bad thing, BUT I do think the zeds should only be on those special maps. For all the regular KF maps, regular KF zeds. It gets tiresome having to wait for the season to end and get back to the regular game.

While it doesn't bother me really one way or the other, I think it would be in the best interest to try and make the game creepy and horror themed. It makes things a bit more tense and unnerving which can add to the fun. We can always have player made maps for the whacky stuff.

 

[Azukki]

I hope they moderately go between gritty survival horror and whatever seems fun at the time.
I'd say the santa/chicken/etc costumes were the line. Still okay, but kind of pushing it.
Hopefully in KF2 they don't pass that line again, with robots, steampunk lasers, vomit sprayers, the grim reaper, etc.


But, I think maps are kind of a separate thing entirely. The gritty survival horror atmosphere can be enjoyed in Paris and other regular canon maps, even if people on another server are frolicking about on the moon.
It's also fine, I think, to have temporary events as breaks from reality.


I didn't vote in the poll because it's a false dichotomy.

 

[C_Gibby]

I'll grant you that the game did add some whacky stuff, but the game already had some silly British voice overs, which I think would break any serious gritty feeling of immersion anyway. But, you do have the option of disabling them. The female characters added were a better direction though in terms of voice acting.

The thing about KF 2009 was that it had that PERFECT tiny little touch of humour. KF has always had a little comedy. Even games like Amnesia have ways of being hilarious.

What the devs did was overblow the hell out of it to a point where it became tragic.

 

[Arblarg]

I just want to have

Spoiler!

fun

Killing Floor as it is now is

Spoiler!

fun

and thats all I care about.

Whichever way the wind blows, I'll follow it because it has a scent of blood and death in the air. If I wanted super hard core gerdy hurr, I would play a game like Amnesia or Outlast.

 

[C_Gibby]

So if KF goes back to the "gerdy hurr" as you like to call it, do you believe that it won't be fun?

 

[Broski270]

I miss the horror feel of KFmod 1.0 and 2.5. The intimidating looking zeds, the atmosphere of the maps, the realistic weapons, the mysterious trader, the much better fitting music. ahh ... those were the days. Then I got KF retail. An annoying trader, horrible voice acting, a much worse atmosphere on all tthe default maps, zeds that aren't at all scary, much more powerful weapons, and a lot easier. Then came whacky characters, op scifi and steampunk guns, more annoying voices (cough cough robot and Reggie), tons of Dlc, and ridiculous maps (steamland and moonbase). KF1 is NOT survival horror and I wish it was. I hope kf2 goes back to survival horror.

 

[C_Gibby]

KF1 is NOT survival horror and I wish it was. I hope kf2 goes back to survival horror.

I shoulda worded the poll a bit better I guess. Should KF be a horror game etc etc.

Plus, why make a poll if you're going to try and prove one end right and outright insult people who vote on the other end? You're accomplishing nothing but flamebait.

Missed this part --

The people who don't want "gerdy hurr" aren't exactly nice towards their opposition either, are they? Yes, it's very much my strong opinion that someone who doesn't want some consistent theme has a very poor sense of design. Consistency is considered very important in many many games. It's also a very questionable sense of taste to, say, want boiled chicken with ice cream and mints on top, don't you think? You'd have to be insane.

 

[Chimpster]

They could provide the option to run a server in "realism" mode or whatever you want to call it, disabling the whacky content for players who want more immersion. The servers would have to be specifically labeled for running this mode though, because people would be seriously annoyed hopping into games only to find out they can't buy certain guns, etc. Even have an option to filter the server list by mode.

I guess that has the potential to fragment the player base though, so maybe that's not a good idea.

 

[C_Gibby]

I really don't have much against the wacky ideas themselves, they're in fact the best possible candidates for mods. Like UT2004's toilet cars.

There's plenty of room to officially add mutators that are plain wacky be they from the devs or fans. But I think the vanilla game should maintain a consistent horror theme.

KF-MoonBase was legit fun. It was FUN. But does it fit into the vanilla game and the game's original premise that had been advertised time and time again since it's release? Hell no!

 

[Fedorov]

+1 Gibby

 

[Broski270]

I really don't have much against the wacky ideas themselves, they're in fact the best possible candidates for mods. Like UT2004's toilet cars.

There's plenty of room to officially add mutators that are plain wacky be they from the devs or fans. But I think the vanilla game should maintain a consistent horror theme.

KF-MoonBase was legit fun. It was FUN. But does it fit into the vanilla game and the game's original premise that had been advertised time and time again since it's release? Hell no!

Agreed. It should have all been mods. Instead the vanilla game atmosphere was ruined by all this "fun" stuff that was added.

 

[Skell]

I shoulda worded the poll a bit better I guess. Should KF be a horror game etc etc.

Worded the poll better? You mean worded the entire post better, right? I love this, I actually enjoyed reading this and looking to see which lines contain which bias.

Your 2 most popular ones:

Leading question bias
Reporting bias

Bottom to top, lets go! How much is wrong with this poll, go!

I am also convinced that the people who enjoy the bizarre nonsensical mishmash of content have both the attention span of a goldfish, and the design sense of a chimpanzee.

Nice closer telling everyone who voted against you that they're stupid and don't know what they're talking about. 10/10, brilliant execution.

The devs are convinced that KF2 is a brilliant game - and so am I. This is why I think that KF2 should stick to its guns and stay within a consistent theme and stand out by being the best it possibly can be at its own thing, rather than attempting to bait others by pretending to be other things at the same time.

You don't know what KF2's theme will be. You haven't played it. You're assuming it's the theme you want because, well, it's the theme you want.

I'm highly convinced that KF is meant to be a horror game, and KF2 should stick to this. TWI should have some self-respect towards their game and try to preserve its integrity and sincerity, just as they do with Red Orchestra. As someone who is looking forward to buying a game that has a very clear, brutal, gory theme in a modern urban environment, I will be extremely let down to see the same mistakes repeat themselves in this new iteration.

Basing information over a side of what this poll is about is noooo good, buddy. You can't make an argument assuming one side is right, that's a strawman argument.

I love KF. Or rather, did. It was a game I could happily say was my favourite, and I was extremely disappointed to see how dramatically the game changed due to decisions in the art department. That's because I bought a game that had a very clear horror theme that was advertised as such. I find it no coincidence that the people who enjoy this content have very recent join dates to this forum.

This one is interesting. I think that this is report bias because of the usage "Survival-Horror". This same category is given to RE6 and other games which aren't gritty horror. I'm not using the term gritty horror facetiously here; you want that kind of art style/design direction. Core maps and weaponry released in the retail version of KF were already not gritty. It's very easy to see that.

Now onto your "facts", which, if we're going to be at all factual, should be renamed "my opinions" for clarification to people who don't want your bias already preinstalled in their head.

• In 2005, the mod tried to look as ****ed up, gross, dark, and violent as possible. It wanted everything to look fierce and nasty. The game back then was more about zombies and the undead, following the beginning texts of the campaign.

• • The retail version of the game took a dramatic and significant step away from the mod's design and art choices. The people involved in making the retail version were not the same as the ones working on the mod. It's expected it would change signification, and it did. Taking one look to compare the core maps in both is an easy way to see this.

  [*]The later versions of the mod followed the same suit, and they seemed to introduce more of a sci-fi angle. They continued with the very clear horror theme, but liked the "biological experiments" thing a lot more.

  • You're talking about the mod, which isn't relevant for the reasons mentioned above.

  [*]KF retail came out! It was advertised with metal music, gore, brutal zed-time sequences, and came with the slogan, "CO-OP SURVIVAL HORROR." I can't imagine anyone buying the game of KF and expecting anything different for any reason.

  • As I pointed out earlier, Survival-Horror is labeled over a lot of games that don't have gritty art styles/designs

  [*]The devs decided to entertain wacky crossovers as what looked very much like business endeavours, introduced completely out-of-place ideas such as hopping onto the Steampunk fad (Since when was KF Bioshock Infinite!?!?), and maps/characters based on christmas fantasy lands became permanent year-round parts of the map rotation and character roster.

  • Easily spot-able subjective point here. Subjective points aren't facts (see: objective).

  [*]The game spontaneously decided to set itself in the US all of a sudden, despite the very clear backdrop of London and a band of cockney crusaders.

  • I don't see an issue here. The game never said it wasn't allowed to leave the UK.

  [*]The game decided it would now go into space. Crazy bizarre weapons were introduced to the game, the theme was utterly broken. The art direction was a total and utter mess, as if the devs couldn't decide what they wanted to do with the game.

  • Space thing is somewhat ridiculous, but fine as a one time thing in a comical game.

  [*]People who enjoyed the mod and the game in 2009 dropped in numbers as active KF players. People who actually like the cluster**** decided to stay.

  • Obvious bias. People who disagree with you are dumb (people who stay and enjoy the game)and lower than you, people who left are smart and have higher understanding than those who stayed. Also the mention of the mod is comical at this point.

  [*]Even the balance was thrown into instability. A lot of errors corrected in 2010/11 were reintroduced. Sharpie and Zerk being the worst.

  • Worse times seen when the M14 was added at first.

  [*]KF2 is announced.

  • This is a thing that has happened. It doesn't impact this survey.

Anyways, now that's done...

Also, I think the game's direction is fine, thanks for asking.

 

[BearFrog]

So yeah, wut

So yeah, wut

There are a couple of people in the TF2 community aswell who say the "art direction" is a complete mess, and that it has lost integrity/not serious/a joke/the real game is broken.
I don't want to come off like an asshole but... Games are made/designed by people, and these people are the "art direction". You imply TW makes things because everyone else is doing them, but its more likely they like steampunk.
My life is going toward "game art" atm, and what I produce in art is in a sense "me". This is why artists have different styles.
If someone commented that I do not know what I am doing, and that I should get my **** together and fix my utterly broken art.
I would be offended.

 

[Chimpster]

I think KF2 would need a better system for sorting servers and mods so you can find one running something you want to play easier. There's always the server name, but if you have various mutators that may or may not be active, a server name isn't going to cut it necessarily.

 

[C_Gibby]

"Wah Wah, you're biased!"

Of course I'm biased, Skell. if I'm biased, then what are you with the way you behave in threads?

It's like you expect people to either accept your personal viewpoint, or be neutral. I'd address your "arguments" if it weren't a waste of time. You have nothing else to say but "No! No u," and claim someone's arguments as invalid without providing a halfway convincing counterpoint. It's all ad hominem with you. So I may as well do the same.