"What's happening to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.?", "what's the development stage at the moment?", "when's the release?" are just part of the questions the community have been raising lately. Andrew Prokhorov, Project Lead/Lead Designer, kindly agreed to give a quick interview to
www.oblivion-lost.com regarding those critical questions. Read on.
Where do we stand?
As of today we are working on the game's storyline. After conclusively play-testing the first version, we came to the conclusion that the result was below-par and didn't live up to our own expectations and high standards. As a result we undertook a broad review of the story and key design areas of the game, looking particularly at the interaction of the plot with the life simulation.
Once key areas were identified we were able to work on filling out the content of the game world and being the process of polishing and balancing. At the same time, we are working hard to refine the AI, life simulation, the PDA interactivity, bug fixing and optimising the game to run on lower-spec machines. The 'eye candy' is also getting a major overhaul?
What has been achieved to-date?
Now that the game components have been put together we are pleased to be able to say that we have some thrilling gameplay - the key thing! Once we acknowledged that the project was going to deliver a first person title quite unlike any other, we were able to look towards refining and balancing the gameplay. On top of that we are continuing to receive great support and feedback from our Publisher, and we've been able to use their extensive knowledge and familiarity with the market to ensure that we have a truly unique and compelling gameplay experience.
The game itself is different from anything else out there, in particularly the life simulation and open-world gameplay mechanics. This has proven to be very time-consuming to polish and debug - a major headache for us! We especially wanted newbies to be able to pick up and play the game, meaning that accessibility became paramount in the design. While we have been able to retain the depth and feel of the game, we feel that by making maximum use of the in-game PDA, we will be able to ensure that at no point do people feel that they are lost or directionless.
We have also continued to work on the AI in the game and we're particularly happy with the way our stalkers react to one another and to other stalkers; while they're certainly challenging to attack, they don't actually 'cheat', but react according to their situation and make decisions depending on the player's actions. Once you understand that the underlying AI reflects true-life situations then the combat becomes all the more engaging, realising that a simple mistake could be the end of you brings a real intensity to the action! We have also been working hard to make sure that the life of the other AI stalkers in the game is just as engaging as your own; they talk, tell jokes, drink, sleep, etc. The community has been particularly useful in this context; they have supplied all the jokes and stories that the stalkers tell while relaxing around a campfire.
in the "What games are you looking forward to" thread a couple people put STALKER and this thread is for the hope that someone knows more about what is going on than I do. Gameplay videos make it appear that the game is nearly complete months ago.. what would be the point in cancelling it now.
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