Despite the uncertain status of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., a demo of the game made a closed-doors appearance at E3. Atomic has an article on the new S.T.A.L.K.E.R. demo and the changes that have been made to the game over the last year.
Behind these changes is Dean Sharpe, who THQ brought in to "transform the game from an undefined mess of potential to a sprawling masterpiece."
<blockquote>The scripted sequence that followed came as a bit of a shock.
'This is an example of a little bit of how the game has changed over the year,' said Sharpe. 'You wouldn't have [this] type of thing in the game before - it was completely open-ended. So now we've added scripted events to make sure you can actually follow the story.' We had to ask at this point about STALKER's much publicised 'A-Life' AI system.
'It's still there, but with scripting elements as well that make sure that you can make it through the game ... It's still very, very open-ended. The only difference is that there are now scripted events throughout the world that will let you progress. But once that scripted event happens that area then opens up to the entire world again,' explained Sharpe.</blockquote>Besides introducing scripted sequences to keep the player on track, Sharpe summarized other changes he has made to the game:
<blockquote>So, what has changed in the game? Sharpe was able to enlighten us.
'There isn't that much that's been cut … I've made some minor changes. There were some types of mutants that I pulled out. I took out sleeping and eating - a couple of the minor RPG elements. I also shortened the amount of dialog in the dialog trees - there [was a lot] of back and forth that wasn't needed.'</blockquote> The game has a more definite future now, at the cost of these features.
Link: E3 2006: The truth behind STALKER at Atomic.
There are a few other articles on the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. E3 demo:
PC Games in German.
GRY OnLine in Polish, and an English translation of the GRY article.
Spotted at Oblivion-Lost.
Behind these changes is Dean Sharpe, who THQ brought in to "transform the game from an undefined mess of potential to a sprawling masterpiece."
<blockquote>The scripted sequence that followed came as a bit of a shock.
'This is an example of a little bit of how the game has changed over the year,' said Sharpe. 'You wouldn't have [this] type of thing in the game before - it was completely open-ended. So now we've added scripted events to make sure you can actually follow the story.' We had to ask at this point about STALKER's much publicised 'A-Life' AI system.
'It's still there, but with scripting elements as well that make sure that you can make it through the game ... It's still very, very open-ended. The only difference is that there are now scripted events throughout the world that will let you progress. But once that scripted event happens that area then opens up to the entire world again,' explained Sharpe.</blockquote>Besides introducing scripted sequences to keep the player on track, Sharpe summarized other changes he has made to the game:
<blockquote>So, what has changed in the game? Sharpe was able to enlighten us.
'There isn't that much that's been cut … I've made some minor changes. There were some types of mutants that I pulled out. I took out sleeping and eating - a couple of the minor RPG elements. I also shortened the amount of dialog in the dialog trees - there [was a lot] of back and forth that wasn't needed.'</blockquote> The game has a more definite future now, at the cost of these features.
Link: E3 2006: The truth behind STALKER at Atomic.
There are a few other articles on the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. E3 demo:
PC Games in German.
GRY OnLine in Polish, and an English translation of the GRY article.
Spotted at Oblivion-Lost.
