Let's try real hard to think about this. If you don't live in the US or ordered it from the US, I'm going to go out on a HUGE limb here and say you have the WorldWide version.


Yes well some retailers online buy from the cheapest source and sell, they dont care what version they have. So it is a valid question, yes most likely I have the worldwide binary, but there is no reason they cant have a unified patch (full and partial).

I really dont see why game engines dont have a built in way to deploy updates. In a service orientated world this is a must, I see gaming as a service not a "product", just as I see my internet as a "service" not a product.

This comment was edited on Mar 28, 02:27.

Or even better, why should I have to get off my ass to hunt for a patch?

It's unlikely you'll find the patch in your garden or anywhere else which requires you to get off your ass.

Let's try real hard to think about this. If you don't live in the US or ordered it from the US, I'm going to go out on a HUGE limb here and say you have the WorldWide version.

Not everything is STEAM.

Or even better, You don't actually have to get up you can sit your fat ass in your chair and with a few flicks of the wrist and clicks of the mouse have it downloaded.

How do I know which version I have? US or WorldWide?

Why can they have a single universal patch.

Or even better, why should I have to get off my ass to hunt for a patch? They should deploy the patch direct to my machine via the game itself.

This comment was edited on Mar 27, 05:27.

Weird, wonder why the incompatibility? 75% of those "fixes" seem to be MP related ones. Very few of the SP bugs seem to be fixed.

Btw everyone knows that patch 1.0001 is out right?

US
http://stalker.filefront.com/file/STALKER_Patch_US_ONLY;77220

World
http://stalker.filefront.com/file/STALKER_Patch_World_Wide;77221

BUT the biggest dissapointment with this patch is...you cannot use your old save games and play after patching....wow just wow. Now thing of people who are mid way or farther through the game but did not beat it yet. They have a choice of playing a more tweaked and fixed up version of the game but having to start all over, or not patch and suffer...

Heres an idea, go take it up with Valve and be constructive about it.

Do you even do that? Everytime I have a suggestion or an issue I mail Valve with it.

Ranting on here wont solve the problems unless you get up off your asshole and do something about it.

This comment was edited on Mar 26, 02:26.

What have you done ?

Apparently he decided he needed me to kick his ass. Either that or he is a clueless newbie who didn't bother to actually read my posts.

This comment was edited on Mar 25, 20:38.

I'm sick of people STILL saying Steam sucks. Steam sucked when it was in beta in 2004. Guess what? It's really slick and works perfectly now

LOL! The main things that were wrong with Steam in 2004 are still the main things which are wrong with it in 2007. Steam is fundamentally flawed, and Valve has never done anything to correct those fundamental flaws because it doesn't want them fixed. Valve wants control of when and if its customers can play their games and doesn't want to relinquish that control to the customer. Valve also doesn't want to pay for sufficient capacity and redundancy in the Steam network so rather than spend the money it simply doesn't guarantee the availability of Steam. So, with Steam the customer is at the mercy of Valve to be able to play the games for which he paid with no assurances that he can play them. With Steam the customer is no longer purchasing a game to play in virtual perpetuity anywhere and anytime he wants. He is essentially only renting a game service and a tenuous one at that given Valve's history and policies. If Steam is offline or unavailable (as has happened many times in the past and will no doubt happen again for at least some customers) or Valve decides to stop offering a game or wants the customer to pay more to be able to keep playing a game, or decides to require advertising to keep playing a game (as it is doing with Counterstrike), the customer is shit out of luck.

If you want to know what's wrong with Steam and can't figure it out on your own, simply read the Steam subscriber agreement and Valve privacy policy. Valve guarantees you nothing about being able to play the games for which you spent your hard-earned money, and it spies on you when it does allow you to play. If you want to know more, simply search my post history for Steam-related posts.

This comment was edited on Mar 25, 23:32.

Oh, come on, Riley Pizt. I'm sick of people STILL saying Steam sucks. Steam sucked when it was in beta in 2004. Guess what? It's really slick and works perfectly now, so get off it. Seriously. I know it's trendy to say it, just like it's fun to say Windows bluescreens and crashes every 2 minutes, but guess what? NEITHER ARE STILL TRUE, you just look like an idiot when you keep up the bashing years later when it's irrelevant.

...

What have you done ?

Who here still thinks were gonna get bug free PC games out of the box? I should bop you one for thinking that. but whats the use?

Sigh. Once again, the biggest problem with STALKER ISN'T bugs. The biggest problem is that the developers made some retarded design choices. Conscious design choices, not bugs. I repeat, RETARDED DESIGN CHOICES, not bugs.

Oh, come on, Riley Pizt. I'm sick of people STILL saying Steam sucks. Steam sucked when it was in beta in 2004. Guess what? It's really slick and works perfectly now, so get off it. Seriously. I know it's trendy to say it, just like it's fun to say Windows bluescreens and crashes every 2 minutes, but guess what? NEITHER ARE STILL TRUE, you just look like an idiot when you keep up the bashing years later when it's irrelevant.

There you have it, Steam is better than Direct2Drive.

Thanks for backing up Steam.

Btw, which version of Windows do you run?

This comment was edited on Mar 25, 08:56.

You just give another advantage to Steam over Direct2Drive Thanks for the ammo

Yes, Steam is better than Direct2Drive just like lethal injection is better than the electric chair.

I dont really care anyway as they limit themselves to North Amerika

You just give another advantage to Steam over Direct2Drive Thanks for the ammo

I see our grammer nazi is back picking appart usaage of words in sentences. Slow day?

Im curious which version of Windows do you run?


This comment was edited on Mar 25, 08:33.

Nice, thanks for the link but they basically deploy the Disc DRM too dont they?

No, fool, it (Direct2Drive is a single company not a "they") doesn't because there is no disc.

That said I wouldn't purchase anything from Direct2Drive because it is essentially a rental not a real purchase. You only get a limited number of activations before you must purchase the game again, and those activations are tied to your PC's hardware. So, each time you change hardware or replace your PC, a new activation is required. Direct2Drive's prices are also higher than U.S. retailers'.

This comment was edited on Mar 25, 08:20.

this was almost vapor, however someone kept this orphan alive for 5 years incubating, what did you expect after going thru all the tech upgrades we all went thru the last 5 years, for this to come out bug free? broken missions? bad level design? bahhh i say this, your lucky this game made it out at all, it was delayed 10million times. and it was bound to fail, suprised it turned out as good as it did.

you want games that dont need patches? then go play some console stuff, most ppl like the fact that we get broken products that are right on the cutting edge of either greatness or complete failer lol, sometimes because of the nature of PCs our games have to be made for the future in mind. you cant really make console games that way, console has really no option to take advantage of future tech like PC games do. and thats some PC games not all.

Example take a look at the latest FREESPACE 2 MOD lol it will blow your collective socks off, its good enough graphics to compete with todays graphic powerhouse games, and its like 5 to 7 years old already, take another look at morrowind, with the right mods it looks almost better than oblivion.

try doing that with bug free console games.

kisses his PC and thanks god for it even though its a convoluted mess, at least its expandable lol.

oh Stalker, yeah for now I give it a 8, but expect to give it higher when mods and patches come out.

Who here still thinks were gonna get bug free PC games out of the box? I should bop you one for thinking that. but whats the use?

This comment was edited on Mar 25, 06:26.

Riiiight, welcome to your own twilight zone.

Well, given that I presumably have much more experience with piracy than you, I think I'm more qualified to judge the reliability of pirated games. Let me break it down.

The pirating community is called "the scene." There are numerous groups who compete with one another in order to crack games first. Prestige and all. Now, in order to ensure some level of quality in these releases, there are rules and standards that have to be followed. All games must be retail source and live up to their label. A cloned image of a disc doesn't need to be cracked, but it must be playable through drive emulation or other means. A cracked game must be playable without any emulation or disc, but must also retain the exact same functionality of the uncracked game. If a group fails to meet these requirements, they are officially "nuked" until they release a fix or another group releases a proper.

Needless to say, I only get official scene releases. Now, if you are some newb who downloads games off BT or Kazaa, you may not be downloading these scene releases. As such, you may encounter faulty cracks. But that's due to your own inexperience more than anything else.

So yeah, properly cracked games are always as stable as the retail releases and sometimes more stable if the crack removes the obnoxious copy protection.

So why are you so bent out of shape about the broken quests and the other quirks?

How I obtained the game is completely irrelevant. It greatly annoys me when an otherwise good/great game is marred by some blatantly terrible design choices. I can only think "wtf were they thinking?" If I had actually paid for this game, I'd be even more annoyed.

And how do you know some of your issues have nothing to do with the pirated version?

Because these are design issues, not bugs triggered by sloppy cracking.

Since you're putting so many hours into this train wreck of a FPS and nothing but negative has come from you for days what is driving you on?

Nothing but negativity? I've complimented the game's atmosphere and AI within this topic. However, the game's mission structure is really flawed and that has detracted from the experience greatly. What was once an inevitable purchase is now a "maybe purchase if they release some substantial patches."

Even so I have had ten times more amazing things happen which made me what to tell a friend how great the game is.

Then we have different priorities. I've experienced all the bugs you've mentioned but I can tolerate those. However, I take level design and mission structure very seriously. When these things are inherently flawed, I am greatly annoyed.

Naturally, I'm not saying STALKER is a trainwreck. It still has many good qualities. However, the time limited/unachievable quests really, really bother me. Those things alone tip the scale significantly against all the good things.

I need to find time to play this!