Comments to post-E3 rumours
Following E3 there appeared information on the current state of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. project which we would like to comment on.
Rumour 1. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. had been turned into corridor-like scripted shooter, while A-Life was removed.
Yes. After playing Serious Sam 2 we decided – “why should we bother implementing that A-Life” – let’s add more gore and ‘stiff’ scripts as the player moves alongside the ‘corridor’.
Just kidding. Still though, fluffing through forum posts and secret ‘specialists’ “knowing what’s happening with S.T.A.L.K.E.R.” our optimism subsides – such statements can make any fan frown. On one hand it’s pleasing to see such “no-staying-away” attitude, however on the other one, it’s tiresome. Reacting to every such rumor means wasting valuable time. So.
This rumour is totally wrong.
Indeed, one of the initial S.T.A.L.K.E.R. concepts was a fully life simulation-driven gameplay with unobtrusive storyline. However with the very first tests it got obvious that such game can only be good in theory. Sooner or later the players were lost in the events happening around, they found the links in-between the quests vague and… ‘what shall I do next’ question marks raised. Creating an uncomfortable play-through and confuse the player traditionally accustomed to being ‘led’ is clearly not the best goal to achieve. That is why it was decided to shift the focus during the first playthrough primarily towards storyline, placed, as previously, within the A-life world. How does it work. We created complex “above A-Life” scripted superstructures, A-Life scripts, aka “Gulags” (Hereinafter – Gulags). Gulags are able to control NPC/monsters within the local space of a level. For example – a stalker camp. Gulag can ‘drag’ stalkers out of A-Life, designate each a role: ‘you are in charge of the camp, you are a guard, you are playing guitar at campfire, you are a storyteller, and you will be merely sitting at bonfire silently guzzling vodka’ and so on. Following that Gulag sends on ‘errands’ in accordance to priorities for this place. Should the camp participants be eliminated Gulag will first redistribute the errands, and in case of drastic lack of participants it will return to seeking stalkers/monsters passing by in A-Life to form a new camp, a lair etc (it may be another grouping, another mechanism of work). The initial population of storyline Gulags is planned in advance, the non-story one (monster lairs, ambushes, hostile grouping skirmishes etc) is A-Life-driven.
Once a story quest (Gulag) has been accomplished, the place is filled by A-Life, while the survivors of the story quest either remain under the Gulag or quit into the A-Life. The player, while playing through the game and accomplishing story quests, releases more and more space for the purely A-Life content. I.e. ever greater part of the game becomes fully A-Life-driven. Return to any location complete a couple hours earlier to discover that the content is new there. And also different for each player. And.. a New game to play.
So, attention! All the advantages of A-Life game world and the gameplay have been preserved. You will still be able to observe the world living and breathing around, accomplish random quests. Stalkers accomplish tasks of their own and (similarly to monsters) move around levels. Leaving one level and returning there later the player will find new content, new events and naturally, will be able to participate in those.
Key change is that under the initial advancement through the game the focus is on the story (player-friendly) content. By the time the player will ‘understand’ the laws of the game (and the game is anything but simple), and will get a ‘feel’ of it the A-Life will run full-throttle.
Change 2 – Is it possible, still, for another stalker to solve the puzzle of the Zone? – No. We tried and it makes the player totally confused. He’s been doing everything as proper, but suddenly everything ends. It stumps him to try figuring out where he made a mistake, and hence, loading an old Save file is not an option. Simply because it (mistake) may not have been made, it was due to one of the stalkers gaining a winning card in the simplified ‘off-line’ calculations of A-Life. In other words, the feature turn out absolutely non-playable. Putting it there for the sake of just having it to later find irritation of the players would be silly to do. Our goal is to have the player enjoy the game. All in all, he has been waiting it for so long. Full stop.
Rumour 2. Vehicles have been removed from the game.
Partially correct. The use of vehicles is limited. Why? In a nutshell, back again, to let you have fun of playing the game and not the irritation. Speaking in more detail, point one: ideology- and gameplay-related. Driving around the Zone is not comfortable by its nature. Anomalies. While running you still can react to detector beeping and stop, however driving a car virtually guarantees you certain death. It may be OK to drive into ‘Trampoline’ – you will simply get hurled away, but when stuck in ‘Carousel’ or ‘Gravi’ – be sure there’s no escape. Such an experience, still, may be interesting now and then and it, basically, is not the problem, all is ultimately up to the player. There are greater problems.
Vehicles appear to be dynamic obstacles to AI. The player may drive into any spot or place a car in the middle of any game event. In such a situation AI should be able to adequately react and nicely outskirt the vehicle. The algorithms of calculating dynamic obstacles for AI are rather heavy and consume much of processor time. At the same time with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. computer is pretty much occupied already: A-Life AI, complex universal AI, huge levels, complex geometry, a large number of characters – all that consumes processor time and loads-up video cards. Thus to implement (with acceptable FPS on realistic configurations) dynamic outflanking of obstacles there are very few resources left. The choice has to be made between: constant lags and many vehicles, or no lags, but few vehicles. Make your one. Just kidding. It seems to us the choice is obvious and we made it.
This said, we refused from extensive use of vehicles. But this doesn’t mean you will not drive them in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. at all. We reserved you the possibility to die in a four-wheeled coffin .
Rumour 3. Sleeping is gone.
Gone to… . The voluntary sleep has been removed from the game. The place for sleeping should satisfy many requirements – be remote from story events, no A-Life around, the player not in combat, whether the player is pursued by enemy, is he speaking or not and so on.
Soon enough the sleep has absorbed such a number of special cases and checks that we could find only several spots on level where you could take a sleep, however this didn’t prevent occasional problems.
Ultimately, we skipped the sleep. This didn’t tell upon gameplay, but removed a lot of irritation from the play. Only the story-based sleep for cut-scenes was preserved.
Rumour 4. Eating and hunger are gone.
Still there. Full stop . Moreover, we added drinking to it. Should need be, we’ll add cigarettes . Joking. We haven’t been adding anything for over a year now.
From the team.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has been in production for a long time. Will make it 5 years overall. On S.T.A.L.K.E.R. we made every possible mistake one could make. Every possible fault to do was done. This is why we are not fuming to see indignant threads on forums – we’re to blame after all. Once the project is done we could release a book ‘The ways you don’t want to make your games’. Why so long and what are the reasons? The most correct answer would be – it is very big and complex. 5 years ago nobody on the team had experience to create a project of such level, and “experience is a son of tough mistakes” as the saying goes. After all, however, we are on the finishing line. We want to release S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in a way to bring you fun and justify the long wait. Thanks to everyone genuinely supporting the project. We love S.T.A.L.K.E.R. It’s our child. A problem child . And you will meet it soon.
