Welcome to the modern era of gaming

[FiftySixTTT]

You get to pay for an unfinished product and then test it for the developers because they clearly didn't. Too many obvious issues for this to be excusable. Whether it's the Ai, the economy, optimization and whats with the patch sizes

[Zoopy]

Originally posted by Nulman:

lol so return your copy. If that's all you cared about, go back to Stalker GAMMA.

What a great argument to use when you've run out of real arguments.

"If you don't like that the devs were dishonest about an advertised feature that isn't working at all, then go play the old games!"

[Vaudevillain]

Originally posted by Belmont:

Originally posted by Toyboat:

Perhaps I used the wrong terminology, then. That's fair, thank you for correcting me.

What I meant by that is that I don't see them fulfilling the same service role as, say, the one I have to. The difference is in the way technology is interfaced with. For example, if the technology in my place of work is down, me and my coworkers can rely on communication. I can get a manager to help me, and if those managers need to call an external source to help us, it usually doesn't take more than a month.

Game developers exist around technology and would not have a place in this world without it. When I see comments like, "well, I'm not a charity worker," they come off as either willfully or unintentionally ignorant of that fact.

It doesn't change the fact though that GSC deliberately mislead many on these very forums for a year plus prior to launch.

We were told of features that would be present, that aren't.

We were told the delays were for optimization, the MULTIPLE delays. Sure doesn't feel like it to the majority of the end users here.

It's a slopfest of a launch. I'm tired of people trying to sugar coat it, is all. The game that's underneath all these problems IS a good game. People aren't raging at GSC because they hate Stalker. It's because they want the product to succeed and work as originally advertised.

Especially since they paid money for said product.

When did I say that?

If I did by mistake, oh well, I'll own up to that. But from where I'm standing, my perspective is that the marketing team did this game dirty. External forces pushed them to release the game sooner than they should have, which could have been mitigated if they chose to start the development process by reducing the scope of their project. In the meantime, the marketing team was ready to claim that the game was ready in spite of that.

Allow me to make something explicit: I agree with you. It is really ♥♥♥♥♥♥ that the game is as half-baked as it is. In my case, I can't play the thing without it stuttering every five seconds. And that's without the cool, emergent AI systems I was expecting.

I apologize if I've come off as combative in my attempt to add to this discussion.

[Cenotaph]

After SIRCAA this game breaks down in terms of scripting way too much that it becomes unplayable following the side quests and main story. This is still not fixed in the latest `1.0.3 patch either.

It will take several months to have all of these things ironed out and then the ALife optimization to make it really good.

[vamirez]

Originally posted by Zoopy:

Originally posted by Nulman:

Okay but A-Life 2.0 isn't the focus of the game. It's not a sandbox do-whatever you want forever kind of thing. It's a supplemental feature to a story-driven game.

A-Life was the soul of the OG Stalker games. It was one of its major selling points. People weren't playing those games because of the fantastic story, lmao.

There's a reason why so many of the most popular overhaul mods for the OG games are sandbox mods, not story mods.

Both of these statements are disingenious. Lmao.

[Belmont]

Originally posted by Nulman:

Originally posted by Belmont:

Incorrect.

It was a major selling point. It was advertised as a major selling point. It was discussed in developer interviews because it is a CORE PART of the Stalker franchise.

It 100% IS a focus of the game.

And it's not present.

It was removed from the store page.

They told us it was implemented and working on these very forums prior to launch.

They lied. Full stop. End of discussion.

lol so return your copy. If that's all you cared about, go back to Stalker GAMMA.

Irrelevant point that doesn't add anything to your argument or the discussion.

Now you're just trying to toss out a smug little tantrum because you have no counter.

Also, if you bother to go through my post history, you'll know that I absolutely despise Gamma. I've been one of the most vocal people on these forums for the last two years about people coming into Stalker 2 expecting Anomaly/Gamma/EFP experiences. So don't quote that Gamma nonsense to me.

You don't have a retort about the A-Life situation because you're wrong. It was a major selling point, it's a core part of the Stalker series, and we were *told* by developers multiple times that it was in the game and functioning prior to launch.

GSC lied. Again, no rebuttal.

[Nulman]

Originally posted by Zoopy:

Originally posted by Nulman:

lol so return your copy. If that's all you cared about, go back to Stalker GAMMA.

What a great argument to use when you've run out of real arguments.

"If you don't like that the devs were dishonest about an advertised feature that isn't working at all, then go play the old games!"

You must have missed my initial post to this thread, I won't bother summarizing it for you. I'm sure if you went back to Stalker GAMMA and paid $0, you'd find something to complain about that too.

[vamirez]

Originally posted by Cenotaph:

After SIRCAA this game breaks down in terms of scripting way too much that it becomes unplayable following the side quests and main story. This is still not fixed in the latest `1.0.3 patch either.

It will take several months to have all of these things ironed out and then the ALife optimization to make it really good.

I am at that point in the game (and way after) and that is not true - everything still works the same as before.

[Cenotaph]

Originally posted by vamirez:

Originally posted by Zoopy:

A-Life was the soul of the OG Stalker games. It was one of its major selling points. People weren't playing those games because of the fantastic story, lmao.

There's a reason why so many of the most popular overhaul mods for the OG games are sandbox mods, not story mods.

Both of these statements are disingenious. Lmao.

I agree, everyone that played the Stalker games on launch, and there were many, did so without mods. I only played with mods many years after release.

The games' appeal comes from the story and open world at the same time imo

[Zoopy]

Originally posted by vamirez:

Both of these statements are disingenious. Lmao.

Great argument. Tell me that my arguments are disingenuous, but can't elaborate on why.

Why is Gamma, which barely has a story and focuses mainly on sandbox gameplay, the most popular OG Stalker overhaul, when there are many overhauls that add new stories?

[Cenotaph]

Originally posted by vamirez:

Originally posted by Cenotaph:

After SIRCAA this game breaks down in terms of scripting way too much that it becomes unplayable following the side quests and main story. This is still not fixed in the latest `1.0.3 patch either.

It will take several months to have all of these things ironed out and then the ALife optimization to make it really good.

I am at that point in the game (and way after) and that is not true - everything still works the same as before.

Well it is true, because im experiencing them. You may be lucky because of choices you made, circumstances that are different. To me ♥♥♥♥ breaks a lot!

[Zoopy]

Originally posted by Nulman:

You must have missed my initial post to this thread, I won't bother summarizing it for you. I'm sure if you went back to Stalker GAMMA and paid $0, you'd find something to complain about that too.

Do you think that just like monkeys on typewriters eventually writing Shakespeare, if you just keep throwing out strawmen arguments, you will right eventually?

Because that's a helluva strawman, kid.

[vamirez]

Originally posted by Zoopy:

Originally posted by vamirez:

Both of these statements are disingenious. Lmao.

Great argument. Tell me that my arguments are disingenuous, but can't elaborate on why.

Why is Gamma, which barely has a story and focuses mainly on sandbox gameplay, the most popular OG Stalker overhaul, when there are many overhauls that add new stories?

Why do I need to elaborate?

The story of the Stalker games has always been a very important part. And Anomaly has a major story mode, too. Everyone knows that.

[Belmont]

Originally posted by Toyboat:

Originally posted by Belmont:

It doesn't change the fact though that GSC deliberately mislead many on these very forums for a year plus prior to launch.

We were told of features that would be present, that aren't.

We were told the delays were for optimization, the MULTIPLE delays. Sure doesn't feel like it to the majority of the end users here.

It's a slopfest of a launch. I'm tired of people trying to sugar coat it, is all. The game that's underneath all these problems IS a good game. People aren't raging at GSC because they hate Stalker. It's because they want the product to succeed and work as originally advertised.

Especially since they paid money for said product.

When did I say that?

If I did my mistake, oh well, I'll own up to that. But from where I'm standing, my perspective is that the marketing team did this game dirty. External forces pushed them to release the game sooner than they should have, which could have been mitigated if they chose to start the development process by reducing the scope of their project. In the meantime, the marketing team was ready to claim that the game was ready in spite of that.

Allow me to make something explicit clear: I agree with you. It is really ♥♥♥♥♥♥ that the game is as half-baked as it is. In my case, I can't play the thing without it stuttering every five seconds. And that's without the cool, emergent AI systems I was expecting.

I apologize if I've come off as combative in my attempt to add to this discussion.

Apologies if I seem combative to you. I agree, it's primarily the marketing team, though I'm not sure the line between the only GSC representative we've had on these forums and the developers is.

We also had developer interviews where they talked about features and optimization that didn't make it in at launch, as well. I don't leave the devs blameless in this.

It's just getting irritating seeing so much carte blanche defending across the forums for what is essentially terrible business practice, false advertisement, and just scummy lying behavior on GSC's part. So apologies if I seemed to come off too harsh with my reply to you.

[Alias]

Originally posted by Belmont:

Originally posted by Alias:

But.....it works.

In what way?

You're arguing semantics. It was nowhere ready to release and we all know it.

A-Life isn't there, which was promised and removed from the store page description. 3 patches in a row now, they've mentioned fixing memory leaks. Some systems are crushed under the mess that is the optimization issues.

Those of us with better rigs don't feel it as much. Those that are skirting that line of minimum system specs are having constant issues.

You can't blame every issue on end users, or potato PC's. The game wasn't ready. They delayed multiple times for "optimization" and its as if they did nothing.

Customers who paid money have a right to voice their displeasure at this. GSC dropped the ball, really really hard. Even those of us who defended them for going on two years have been critical of them.

Underneath all the problems, the core game itself is enjoyable. They *made* a good game, they just couldn't actually get it to *work* properly.

Stop defending crappy practices. They should've taken more time. Everyone that was here prior to launch knew this was going to happen. The lack of non-edited footage pre-release was the biggest red flag and now we all know why.

It runs like garbage for the majority of the customer base. A-Life is missing. Enemy spawns are borked. There are bugs on top of bugs. There's memory leaks. It's not optimized. Welcome to reality.

Plays fine for most people. The devs have fulfilled all legal criteria and practises, crappy or not. Bring evidence of legal proceedings based on them not delivering all that is legally required of them, then we will talk.

If you have ever bought a new car, you know you test drive. If you like you buy. With new cars they more often then not have teething problems. If they can be fixed, they will do so free of charge. If not, new car. The game runs. The devs are fixing. What can I say.

[Zoopy]

Originally posted by Cenotaph:

I agree, everyone that played the Stalker games on launch, and there were many, did so without mods. I only played with mods many years after release.

The games' appeal comes from the story and open world at the same time imo

On release, all 3 OG Stalker games had working A-Life systems that led to emergent sandbox gameplay in an open world. This emergent sandbox gameplay was the inspiration for the most popular overhaul mods that are being played today.