S.T.A.L.K.E.R. patch renders old game saves useless
by John Bardinelli 
{ Mar 27th 2007 at 8:42PM }
A new patch released for the long-delayed S.T.A.L.K.E.R. addresses a whopping 68 bugs ranging from minor typos to serious multiplayer blunders. But just like the wonder drugs advertised on TV, the side effects are pretty nasty. After installing the patch your instructions are to delete all files from the save game folder. Every. Single. One. Game saves created before the patch was installed will not work afterwards.And so begins the great debate: do you install now, or try to finish the game and hope it doesn't crash?
[Via CVG]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Poisoned Al @ Mar 27th 2007 8:57PM
Shhhiit! On one hand I have a belt full of cool artefacts, and on the other I have a PDA full of broken missions.
I know someone from THQ, and she said that they only get a week to beta test the gold version these days (to stop leaks to the web, and apparently EA don't even do that), but god dammit, after 6 years I wanted a bit more polish!
Dasutin @ Mar 27th 2007 9:44PM
Supreme Commander does this when you patch the game. It really pissed me off that I lost 2 hours in a mission but it took me half the time to get back because I used a better strategy, but in S.T.A.L.K.E.R, I guess it would be a pain in the ass to get back where you were.
csc @ Mar 27th 2007 9:18PM
SONOFABITCH!
I started the game this morning but I'm already far enough that I dont want to retrack......
shiiiiiiiiiit
Jason @ Mar 27th 2007 9:19PM
Been hearing these reports all day and this is absolutely unacceptable. Devs are getting so lazy these days. Sad.
samfish @ Mar 27th 2007 9:24PM
Remember how back in the day when they made games, they had to be at LEAST 97% complete before being released?
I'm starting to think that being able to update games over the net (and consoles) has made everyone lazy. What a load of bullshit it is to release an essentially unfinished game.
hvnlysoldr @ Mar 27th 2007 9:34PM
Obviously the pirates wore patches on perfectly good eyes for night vision. With an eye patch on one eye accustomed to the dark you would have an advantage at night and in the dark. In dark the patch would be switched and the patched eye will be ready for daylight. Precious minutes or hours of being able to see your opponents in the dark saved.
PiNPOiNT @ Mar 27th 2007 9:40PM
to follow up on comment #5's posting, they also wore the patch for night vision for when they went into the hull of the ship, as well as at night :)
Hellsing @ Mar 27th 2007 9:41PM
Worst. Patch. EVER!
Kankles @ Mar 27th 2007 9:56PM
FOr those of you who are complaining about how they put out an unfinnished game, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. runs fine on XP without the patch.
AzaMcWazza @ Mar 27th 2007 11:28PM
Now that's lazy development, not providing a save game upgrade path.
LaughingTarget @ Mar 27th 2007 10:01PM
Eh, fairly typical for PC games.
Sedeas @ Mar 27th 2007 10:56PM
Damn, Im glad I burned through it and beat it Sunday night. And I had time to do plenty side stuff too. Now the patch just gives me a better reason to replay it at my own leisure. Hooray for marathon sessions between work and school hours.
Smasandian @ Mar 27th 2007 11:15PM
For comment #9
Your kidding me?
STALKER does not run fine on XP. That's a load of crap. Just look at the forums at the developers site....
Anybody dont listen to him/her.
Philonious @ Mar 27th 2007 10:56PM
Patches are common for PC games... And now consoles to boot. The breaking of save games is fairly unacceptable and is only a rare occurrence.
Grant @ Mar 27th 2007 11:19PM
lol,
love the pirate patch info tidbits.
thanks guys!
karmaghost @ Mar 28th 2007 10:10AM
So, someone remind me why exactly this game was in development for so long if this patch fixes so much.
GaryM @ Mar 28th 2007 12:28AM
Never buy a PC game before the first patch is out.
Jay @ Mar 28th 2007 12:11AM
I've been playing it on XP without any major problems. Given what I'd been hearing about the game, it's been a lot less buggy than what I expected.
A huge chunk of the fixes in the patch affect mulitplayer and non-XP issues, and the single-player fixes are largely minor. I'd say that if you're pretty far along and you're sticking pretty to single-player only, it might be a good idea to wait on the patch.
Diskoboy @ Mar 28th 2007 12:43AM
Lucky I held out on buying it. No loss for me!
chenry @ Mar 28th 2007 12:49AM
I already had to restart once before because the auto-save wouldn't load.
Smasandian @ Mar 28th 2007 3:35AM
Comment #16
You dont have problems, good for you.
Mostly anybody with ATI x1600 and above are having huge amounts of game freezes and hard lock ups.
Direct 9 videocards, the majority of them cannot use dynamic lighting without suffering massive amounts of slow down.
Cant quickload your game if your computer name has a space in between it.
This game is extremely buggy as hell. I havnt heared one account on where somebody has played the game without any problems like freezing or buggy missions.
It's one of the worst offenders out there.
Somehow, also, my difficulty level goes from novice to master occasionally.
And to top it off, majority of computers cannot play the game at any good settings at all. I can play FEAR, CoH, Supreme Commander and C&C3 at medium or higher settings, but in Stalker, I was playing it at 800x600, minimum settings and I still get slowdown whenver I move three inches.
This game is horribly buggy. Check out GSC forums to see how bad it is. Something is wrong when the company releases an patch 7 days after release and it fixes major problems.
Noxat @ Mar 28th 2007 4:00AM
Old save files don't work?? WTF did I just buy Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall? Is this 1994??
SeriousKriss @ Mar 28th 2007 4:07AM
Don't use dynamic lighting at all, it really doesn't add much to the experience and the performance boost is very noticeable (I almost tripled my fps count when using static lighting instead).
Poisoned Al @ Mar 28th 2007 4:51AM
@SeriousKriss WHAT? Ether you're an idiot or you're trying to run it on a Pentium II!
Rob @ Mar 28th 2007 8:31AM
@GaryM: "Never buy a PC game before the first patch is out."
Yeah, right. Many years ago, I preordered Diablo 2. I had patch in hand before the game arrived.
csc @ Mar 28th 2007 10:36AM
Alright chaps, we know its broken, and im pissed off that im too far to replay through the first parts again.
BUT
You get to shoot mutants and looters in an irradiated mystery zone in eastern europe.
the whole game is really atmospheric, and interesting in the freeroaming fps style.
If it werent for the bug issues this game would be amazing. So why dont we just ignore the bugs for now and enjoy a good game.
(As a sidenote, I'm on Xp with a radeon X850, runs okay, noticed a few glitches with the missions but my saves are all fine, it doesnt lag much, I only get about on or two seconds of freezing now and again, far enough in between to not bother me.)
Adrien @ Mar 28th 2007 4:50PM
I've been playing this game with no problems on XP Pro on the absolute highest settings. The only problems I do get are "Task Failed" statements, but usually I am able to complete the failed task and turn it in for a reward.
It runs perfect and looks incredible but I also have an AMD 4200 Dual Core, 8800GTS graphics card, and plenty of RAM. My friend has an 1900XTX and he can't play the game at all due to lockups.
Camperton @ Mar 28th 2007 5:49PM
not. cool.
Shawn D @ Mar 29th 2007 11:20AM
This is a real shame, STALKER has to be one of the best FPS games to come out since HL2, and yet it's full of bugs, mostly performance bugs as the in-game bugs aren't that bad. I have to say though, if you haven't installed the patch, do it. As it does fix a lot of problems associated with the game, the majority addressing the multiplayer. I'm about halfway through the game and I was contemplating installing the patch or not, but needless to say, since I have a X1950, it's pretty much essential. Not to mention, the game is much more stable after the patch. There is just so much stuff to do in the game, I decided to play it a bit differently by going off and doing side quests and joining a faction, instead of jumping right into the main plot.
The one thing you have to respect is that the Devs worked hard on this game, and they are a small company, not like an in-house EA shop or UBI. I would honestly give STALKER GOTY for the PC if it wasn't for all the performance bugs, as the universe and plot is extremely good, and I find myself getting sucked into the world very easily.
It's just a real shame that us ATI users are having such problems, although, I am confident that the game will be stabilized in the near future, and I hope this game does well, as I would love to see expansions in the future, not to mention mods galore....
Ratcat @ May 10th 2007 7:02AM
Great game that gets you in. OK so it has the occasional bug I`ve just gotten the family rifle and its only crashed twice. This game has many more features than I have ever seen b4 on any game. XP plays it ok. 256 MB video ram and a good 3.0 CPU or more helps. Seriously I had one GB of ram, I put another GB in of the best (Corsiar) and I didnt see any improvement. I was trying to get F.E.A.R First encounter running better at the time. The learning curve was a bigger issue for me being only used to FPS games apart from Deus ex. I found that turning off your modem be it ADSL or cable, the game loads quicker No active TSRs turn everything off b4 loading and have fun. Stop wining guys, you arent the ones who sat in front of a monitor for 12 years designing this thing! I think its well thought out and has kept me busy for a few days now. Its definetly longer than any other recent release.
meme @ May 16th 2007 8:23PM
I'm kinda ticked cause i'm at pripryt and whenever I try to load a game saved there it crashes. if I walk into it it's ok, but CTD's once I'm done watching the cutscene at the stadium.
None4you @ May 17th 2007 6:23PM
It Looks That ATi Users are affected X2 4200+ 4Gb/800mhz X1950Pro 256 2x250GBRAID1 SWAP FILE is on Third HDD Separate From Game And I still get Performance Issues and occasional lockups Especially when lots of New maps need to be shown (walking in buildings and then quickly look at windows, dang 2-4sec lockup and all is ok then until I do similar thing Again).