Dia, sorry it took me a while to reply. But as you can imagine for putting up that comment I got in deep for sharing info that's half baked.Originally Posted by Dia
Too late, Axon. For those who're wondering, Axon's now deleted/edited post stated that GSC is currently deliberating whether or not they'll allow the release of the Lost Alpha mod free of charge or whether it's going to be another pay-for-DLC. (The L.A. devs stated that they went to GSC for help when they hit some snags during development.) Though Axon (& the L.A. devs) have stated on another website (as Axon did in his now-edited-to-the-point-of-deletion post) that GSC has been most helpful in assisting them with the mod, my guess is that GSC has taken over, ergo the sudden silence regarding the mod's release.
Sorry if you got in trouble for revealing the truth, Axon, but for those of us who've been eagerly awaiting Lost Alpha's release it was only right that the truth of GSC's involvement be known. If Sergiy handles the release of this mod the way he handled the news of GSC's demise and subsequent cancellation of Stalker2 we may be holding our collective breath for awhile. I only wonder if GSC would've stepped in anyhow, even if the L.A. devs hadn't gone to them for help.
Oh well, looks like GSC's gone rogue, Stalkers.
First of all: I apologize for the comment, I have no real excuse for what I said. But I'm not proud of it. With the whole excitement behind the project it must have gotten the better of me. So to make up for all this I would love to clarify all this for you guys. There are some things I can't touch obviously. But here goes;
1. Lost Alpha will never be a DLC for SHOC.
2. Lost Alpha is stand alone, it won't even work the same way other mods do with SHOC (Copying the gamedata folder will only break the game)
3. As far as I am aware GSC and Dezowave have been working together closely on this project.
3.1. They give us freedom to develop it the way we like.
3.2. They test it, and see how they feel about it. But if there is something they don't like then there's nothing they really can do about it. It is after all a free project and everything new we add is made in-house by us. Not GSC.
I'm not going to comment on whether the project will be released by GSC or us, or whether it will be at a price. This has nothing to do with me and the team shared the info with me on the premise that I'll keep quiet. So I'm keeping quiet.
However us going all dark about the release has nothing to do with GSC. We're just hard at work. We're getting closer and closer to our goal with this mod.
---
Enough ranting from me. Again Dia, I am sorry for this whole misunderstanding.
If anyone has questions, please talk to me. PM me if you want my skype details or something. I shared info with you because I think you guys are a tight knit family of stalker fans who deserve some more personal attention from the team. And because I've always enjoyed this forum. Let's keep this real guys, I'll stick to cold hard facts about our beloved project. And keep the conspiracies to myself.
Imo, you have no reason to apologize, Axom. At this point I rather doubt anything GSC does or decides to do would surprise any of us. Best wishes to the Dezowave guys anyway - we know they've been putting forth a Herculean effort to get this thing finished & released.
Lost Alpha Update!
While I cannot reveal any release dates, or much else really for that matter I can at the least again answer some questions if there are any out there to my best ability.
LA is pushing on, some new features are added, some bugs have been ironed out. We've upgraded the graphics engine. We've added support for Quad cores and more then 4GB memory. We've been updating our maps, and populating them with more details. We've even added some more surprises into the mod. It's really starting to come together!
I've had some really nice experiences, which kept bringing me back to the original Shoc experience. When you got to Bar for the first time, when you entered prypiat for the first time and those snipers killed you. All those experiences are coming back, only now there's just so much more to consider. For one the game is not meant to be easy, and dying will happen. But it keeps pulling me back in, I'm having a hard time but loving every moment.
When I'm not playing I'm thinking about what I'll do next, I'm thinking about what to equip for this mission. I'm thinking about how to approach this next area, or if I should rather just stick underground and find another way in.
That's something I'm really enjoying now. I have to plan ahead for each mission now. Decide on what I'll take with and what's getting left behind. Whether I should just race my car in there or rather just sneak in.
What's the deal with vehicles and changing levels? Could I drive a car from cordon to garbage, for instance?
Short answer: Yes
Long answer: Moving from one map to the next is possible in vehicles, unless the map is too small or it is a underground map. If you've seen the last video we released you'll notice the one car our player is driving, and later you will notice one of those BTR's or whatever they are called, as far as I am aware the APC is also drivable. More then that I cannot say for now.
Well, all I can do is repeat that a) I am very excited, b) I'm really glad progress is happening and impressed with all the work, and c) can it come out soon soon soon please? Thnx!
Even I can only currently speculate when we will release. But we want to release a stable mod, that's why we keep pushing back our deadline. I'd rather work on this for 10 years, and then release it as a super sleek experience. No rushing here, however we are doing all we can to ensure that it does not take 10 years to release.
I recently got a new testing version again, so things are looking better and better with each internal release. Even GSC is excited.
I just stumbled across this thread, and I have to say I can't believe I didn't hear about this project earlier. I'm a big fan of the STALKER series and everything about the game and its modding community continues to impress me deeply.
Looking forward to playing this Lost Alpha mod!
Yay, the more the merrier. This is going to be one tense adventure!
If you want to find out more about the MOD then read our FAQ. http://www.moddb.com/mods/lost-alpha...lost-alpha-faq
And if you have any questions about it then post them here... I will see if I can answer them as accurately as possible.
Excellent, that's exactly what I was looking for. I appreciate it.
Hey Axon: just wanted to check in to see if LA is still a go? I didn't see anything really new about it on the website, but figured you'd know the latest.
Huge update just posted over on the Moddb page: http://www.moddb.com/mods/lost-alpha...-we-heading-to
No release date yet, sadly. Lost Alpha is shaping up to be something special. There's still a chance L.A. might become a commercial release from GSC:
"In the spring of 2013, GSC’s sales representative said that LA can be officially published as a new S.T.A.L.K.E.R. addon if the quality was good enough.
Dez: “This pretty much explains everything. Now people have a bit more insight into why we delayed the game. A quality release is very important."
There was also info from Dezowave that LA will be a standalone game and SoC will not be needed for installation.
Secondly, no one said that Lost Alpha will definitely be a paid product. It might be, but only if we can reach the standard that is required for a commercial product. We can only do as we did before, work in the conditions we have with passion, and mostly in our free time.
Last edited by Mr. Tibbs; 10th Aug 2013 at 18:18.
Excuse the double post.
http://www.moddb.com/mods/lost-alphaSome testers have decided to ruin years of our hard work and have leaked the unfinished Lost Alpha to the public. This leaked version is not finished and not prepared to be released by any means. It contains render bugs that we've been working on since February among the other ones that prevent smooth gameplay.
It is stolen copyrighted material and it is illegal to download it.
Modders are forbidden to use any of its contents until official release.
Links to the leaked files won't be tolerated here nor the discussions about it. Any support for the leaked version won't be given either.
This unfortunate event crosses out any chances to release LA as an official addon to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. LA will be released as any other mod without official support from GSC.
In this situation we've decided to release the official version of Lost Alpha on 26th of April 2014.
On Chernobyl disaster 28th anniversary you will get the most recent version of LA. It won't be completely finished as we wanted it to be but at least stable and finishing the game would be possible.
On this day there will be official presentation of LA in Warsaw during 'Park in The Zone' event.
Oh wow. Why do some people have to ruin things for everyone else? I would have been willing to wait the extra time it took to allow the LA team to completely finish the job, but now we're going to get something that, while it may be fantastic, will suffer just from the knowledge that it could have been so much more. Thanks a lot to those testers who just couldn't wait and had to break the rules (and in this case, even the copyright law) and frak things up for everybody else. (Insert expletives here.)
Um, why?This unfortunate event crosses out any chances to release LA as an official addon to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series.
This MIGHT shed some light, but really it doesn't answer the question. (other than why they've final;y set an official release date.)
Unfinished games have been leaked early in the past but didn't kill their commercial viability. People like to play a polished product (hell, unfinished games too given the success of a number of "Early Access" alpha games recently) and are willing to pay for it.
I just don't get their reasoning.
In none of their examples can I find something supporting their claim about lost sales/lost interest.
Additionaly they do not say why GSC would now be unable/unwilling to consider releasing their mod as an official addon.
Cheers. Yeah, you're right, doesn't really make sense. Makes GSC sound like pricks for dangling that carrot (assuming it was their decision. Sounds like the modders' pride makes up a good portion).
That day one one money isn't so amazing. Get it on steam for five bucks and they'll get more than zero for it, unlike what the current choice nets them.
Probably a stupid question, but who owns the copyright to LA; DezOwave or GSC? Could DezO capitalize on a mod that's based on the Stalker game? Wouldn't GSC nip that attempt (selling LA on Steam for $5) in the bud, just like they stopped the author of a Stalker novel from 'officially' publishing his book because it was based on a game/characters to which GSC owned the copyrights? Was GSC that involved with the LA project that DezO literally can't continue with its development since GSC has decided to distance itself from said project?
I'm as confused as everyone else as to why DezO feels the need to release LA before it's completed in full, but at the same time if that's as far as they want to go with it anymore, then I'll be one of first in line to d/l it.
I still wanna slap whoever released the beta, though.
A game publisher when they make mod tools often put in the license agreement that any and all content produced is automatically property of said publisher. Eg this is the case with mods for Bethesda RPGs.
From what I understand, GSC approached Dezowave with the possibility of making LA a fully blown retail expansion (you probably know more about this an me). There's definitely precedent for it, Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat and Team Fortress 2 started life as Half-Life 1 mods but were bought by Valve and made into official stand-alone games. Other examples include Painkiller Overdose, Painkiller Recurring Evil, the Gothic 3 fan patch, Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods Enhanced Edition and most recently Age of Empires 2: Forgotten Empires.
Thanks for clarifying, Eva.
Well it should be out some time today.
http://www.moddb.com/mods/lost-alpha/downloads
It's out! It's worth mentioning that Lost Alpha's completely standalone. MODDB is swamped, but Dezowave's torrent is pretty fast.
http://www.moddb.com/mods/lost-alpha...alpha-released
Last edited by Mr. Tibbs; 28th Apr 2014 at 02:16.
Tried playing it but it crashed twice within 20 or 30min so I gave up for now.
Man this is such a throwback to early SoC times. And I mean mostly in terms of bugs and crashes :D
That said, the potential is huge and it's already fun times.
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