Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
from Dezowave
Without going into details, we are still alive, and kickin'. However, just like last year, we were silently working on the Developers Cut we announced back in Q4, 2014. Since then a lot had happened, if you are following us here on Moddb or on Facebook, you surely know about the 'changes log' which we usually update, when something special / significant happens. For those, who aren't aware of that log, here is a qucik link to access it: Dezowave.com
So let's see what we did so far, and what we are up to at the moment If you read through the log, you can see we re-implemented the skill module, which we had in Lost Alpha back from 2012 till early 2014. It had to go, because we did not have the time to finish it back then. Now it's here once again to give a bit more RPG feel to the game. We carefully selected the most important perks, just to name one, the endurance. The basic carry-weight limit was reduced to 35 kg, and you can raise it up to 75 kg in the end. The barter skill will help you to get better prices at traders, or unlock special merchants who sell only unique items. You will gain points as you make progress in the game, but you won't be able to max all your skills, so you'll have to choose wisely. We don't want to spoil it more, so let's move on. We implemented HUD system from Call of Pripyat, which was a long requested feature. However we had more items and weapons in Lost Alpha, so we had to create the missing huds, textures for each. Not to mention this all collapsed the old upgrade system, which we trashed, and moved the one from Call of Pripyat, just changed it a bit to fit more to the universe of Lost Alpha. All traders, artefacts and upgrades were rebalanced, and AI is more aware now of the surroundings due to the removed restrictions we added back in 2013 to make a failsafe storyline. Have to add, the alife is still not unscripted, because either you make a freeplay game, or do a storyline, and let the player wander freely after the story ends. As we chose the 2nd one during the design planning back in 2012, we had to keep the balance and playability. I guess we all know it's real hard to find the golden mean, but we are all trying to do that. We recompiled many levels, not just to update the vegetation, but also to fix some old bugs which our players reported since 2014.
We created many new smart terrains on almost all levels, which means we have a lot more alife we had previously, but it's still not ruining the design plan. We created tons of new tasks, even if some are simple, others are a bit longer, they will definitely make the game a bit more worth to play or re-play. Could tell a lot more, but it's faster to run thru the log to see the full list of changes we made since 1.3003. What we still need to do? We need to finish the translation of new dialogs and task descriptions, we need to play through the game several times from different aspects to find the new bugs, which we would like to fix before the release. Why are we so slow? Because we are humans, and this is our hobby. How many active members we have? Only 6 active devs, and maybe 5 active testers, so it's not that much we had in 2013-4, but it's enough to finish the developer's cut. When do we plan to ship it? As soon as our testers can finish the game several times without serious story-breaking issues. This shouldn't be much, so we should have a real good spring next year! If you have more questions, feel free to ask, we will try to answer as soon as we can.
As the New Years is coming, with greetings of peace and prosperity, the whole dezowave group wishes the very best for you during this special time. May You enjoy all the best now and throughout the coming year. 2017 will be a cool year, from now it's not a secret we are working on our next project as well, which will be announced soon. We are also hiring for new members, such as coders, modelers, game designers, shader programmers, artists! Feel free to contact us via e-mail info<=at=>dezowave<=dot=>com, or on Facebook (search for dezowave)!
A little status update for the holidays!
Here is a small update and summary about our current tasks with LA:DC!
Posted by dezodor on
Yeah~Thanks~This is I want to hear that! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. XD
Nice
Have any changes been made to the overall storyline?
Merry Christmas!
Nice, I'm happy to hear about the progress. I hope things go smoothly as I'm excited to try the Director's cut.
YEAH!!!!
Very good news, but only 5 testers? there should be at least 20 or so that pay attention to detail and im willing to volunteer. Keep up the good work and i hope everyone has a happy new year!!
I've yet to play Lost Alpha as after the initial release I put playing it on hold until the directors cut so if that's happening in 2017 that's great news. Happy holidays.
Me too! I've been holding out since the Dev's Cut was first mentioned. :D
What was released was pretty lackluster. Hopefully the DC will be the truly complete game.
Speak for yourself.
I've been playing the first Lost Alpha release and having lots of fun with it, much more so than the original game.
Nice keep it up :D
Glad to hear it's still alive and kicking! All the best to you guys for the New Year, and thanks for the update!
Why don't you just make story-relatd npcs immortal like in Fallout? That way you wouldn't have to bother with having to worry if they jump in a pool of radioactive water or not and could keep the "unscripted feeling" you talked about.
There are no immportal NPCs in Fallout. What the heck have you played?
I'm pretty sure throwing nukes at childrens and companions doesn't kill them, unless playing HC difficulty or with mods. There's a toggleable flag called "essential", have you been living under a rock?
I think he means fallout4, they have immortal NPC's.
Not really as I haven't played FO4. But I do know for certain that immortal npcs are in FO3 and FNV aswell, childrens and companions can't possibly die via normal gameplay unless you use mods or play at hardcore difficulty in the case of companions.
When you say "Fallout", 1 and 2 are assumed. Those are real Fallouts. "Bethesda's Fallouts" are completely different games which unfortunately have the same title.
I don't remember immortal NPCs in FO1&2, just occasionally very hard to kill.
they are already immortal in LA, but that is simply not enough.
I thought it was just a matter of preventing them to break the game by dying or something.
If left completely unchained by any form of scripting, could a random npc potentially decide to go on an adventure of his own?
Exciting news, everything sounds great.
Happy holidays, everyone :)
Meeeeery christmas !
merry christmas stalker!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.
Thanks for the update. Lots have happened to the team over the years and it's better than great that you are still working on it.
Thank You
(buried)
You guys should give up developing this mess. Just release everything you have and let other hard-working modders use the resources you've made. You guys missed the target long ago and theres no chance of you making this "game" successful.
You shouldn't be a d**k, but you are.
OooooYeeeaahhh .... Good hunting Dezowave ...
Happy Holidays, and thanks for sticking with it!
Thanks for news stalker
Thanks guys for keeping this game alive.
Keep up the good work and happy new year :D
Good to hear this good new. Thanks alot for your effort.
spring? Great stuff. More than just the nicer weather to look forward too.
Happy new year S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Gtreat! Thanks for your work!
"...so we should have a real good spring next year!" - Dezowave
If I'm not mistaken, you will release 1.4000 Developer's Cut in Q2 2017!
Merry Xmas
Nice to hear you're still working so hard on the DCut. The Screenshots look awesome and I look forward to get hands on the game again. Just take the time you need. Thanks for making this happen!
Hope you guys had a nice Christmas and get out of this **** year safely.
u are the best !
i'm ******* happy to see that this is not dead, that's for all your work guys
Köszönjük szépen előre is! :)
Hello Dezowave!
Congratulations for you effort! S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has very special place in my life... And you made it best! I cannot wait for DC!
I just had a look through the impressive list of fixes on your site.
Is there any chance the binocular zoom could be fixed so it starts zoomed out instead of zoomed in?
Love your work, looking forward to DC!