If you don't know who I am, I'm part of the team as a general writer guy and proof-reader. I won't pretend to speak for the team or that I'm the big golden cog in the dev team (at best, I've had input on gameplay and story direction), but I've been watching Lost Alpha grow from a mere dream to something tangible. Yes, we were pretty far in development and looking to release soon, but for some time I've felt an unease settle in the team.
"I don't care about Stalker anymore."
I'm paraphrasing here, but I've heard Dez, Lox, and I must assume Griff and Barin, say this with great weariness. These people are the real deal. They're the ones who made PDA chat; spent hundreds of hours with ******-ass tools rebuilding from naught Deadcity and Darkscape along with fixing old build maps; worked on extensive cutscenes, etc... These are the dreamers who wanted to see the Old Stalker that had been crushed rise again. Never doubt that they wanted to bring it to completion. But slowly, their resolve and motivation and interest was gnawed at. I guess Stalker 2 and GSC giving up the ghost let some of us see the inevitable.
Let's make a few things known:
1. We had the source code for SHOC, CS and COP for some time, which helped us a lot. No, we can't give it to you.
2. Because we were using the source code, we couldn't release for free. LA would've have been on Steam for 10-15$ bucks. This meant we removed any code or w/e that wasn't ours.
3. We had a deadline for August. Everyone was rushing.
4. Our lone programmer, who we desperately needed, has RL stuff. Without him, game is bugged and is missing features.
All this on top of badly coordinated game development, rather sketchy gameplay and point A to point B story that didn't offer much for the Stalker community. Honestly, we've stretched ourselves thin, and despite our goodwill we've reenacted the history of Old Stalker's development.
We had it all. We had the Old Stalker and everything we needed to make the dream live again.
Yet we could not do it.
And even if we took away RL and all that, and whatever legal deal GSC wanted or w/e (never had specifics), we simply don't care anymore. I realized (and assume Dez, etc) that betraying that dream with our indifference can only bring disaster.
Like one example, because we were rushing, Lox implemented an old draft for the "final battle" that was months old and didn't fit anymore with the current story. Actually, the story is ridiculous now because we were all over the place with stupid conspiracy secret stuff that was decided to be added very late in development (which I completely opposed but couldn't talk out of using it).
I could say more, but I won't. We ****ed up, I ****ed up, we got ****ed up. At least I've learned some things on the way as everyone else.
But as I said, Lost Alpha only dies if you let it die. We'll give you what we have. What comes next is up to you.
I know you can do it. You better do it.
I just wish you could see the Zone like I've seen it. It's so beautiful, perfect, nostalgic. It deserves a better end than some cadaver to wonder at, or to mourn over.
...We tried. We really tried.
