User blog:ElessarTheOnly/In case you wondered if Lost Alpha is really dead...

...just have a closer look at what they coded in v1.4007.

I just finished updating the armour articles to v1.4007 and I am still shocked about the mess I have seen.

At first glance it seems the devs have tried to add a bit of structure to the suits by setting up a naming scheme for the internal ID. The pattern  _ _outfit seems to be a good basis, e.g. dolg_medium_outfit for the PS5 "Duty" Suit" or stalker_light_outfit for the "Sunrise-5" suit. But of course, not only didn't they change all the existing suits to that scheme (so the Leather jacket is still the novice_outfit and the Exoskeleton still the exo_outfit), they also introduced new suits not following the scheme (e.g. "Sunrise-4" suit / stalker_suit).

While such cleaning-up changes make at least some sense even to the uninitiated, all the other changes are totally incomprehensible:


 * Some suits were kept pretty identical with just some minor renaming, like the SEVA suit becoming the "SEVA" suit. OK, proper names are quoted, fine with me.
 * Some have been slightly renamed and have changed their internal ID, like the Berill-5M armored suit (specops_outfit) becoming the "Berill-5M" armored suit (military_medium_outfit). OK, the common naming scheme, I buy that.
 * Some have radically changed their name but kept the internal ID, like the Mercenary suit becoming the BP-b "Python" Merc suit. Why that?
 * The Guardian of Freedom suit and Shield of Freedom suit have changed names. WTF?
 * And the most crazy changes: The Stalker suit (and the SKAT-9) have not only changed name (to "Sunrise-3" suit) and internal ID (from stalker_outfit to stalker_medium_outfit), the old internal ID stalker_outfit was even reused for the "Sunrise-4" suit, a heavier variant.
 * The stats have changed for all suits, mostly just by fractions. Nobody can seriously say that a +1 in Burn protection is for "rebalancing"!
 * Also the upgrades have changed for all suits, here the price, there some stats.
 * And, of course, nobody needs any of the nine new suits...

I can only repeat what I already said before:

"Why the heck didn't the developers concentrate on fixing the old bugs instead of redoing the optics and fiddling again with the game properties? v1.4007 introduces even more unnecessary stuff like new ammo, weapons, armor and changes existing stuff like artifacts while keeping the old bugs and introducing some new ones. This didn't work in v1.4005 and equally doesn't work in v1.4007."

- Blog "Oh no, they did it again"

So my point is that v1.4002 was the last "progressing" release of Lost Alpha. v1.4005 and v1.4007 were just a work-creation program for the devs, fixing things that ain't broke and by that making Lost Alpha worse instead of better. You might wonder what the developer's intention was behind that direction of development. I can only think of two reasons, personal vanity or incompetence of the development lead. Whatever it is, it kills (killed?) Lost Alpha.

And yes, there is the announcement that v1.4007 will be the final release. Of course I feel sorry when I think of what Lost Alpha could have become in the meantime, but honestly - better stop the tragedy before someone gets hurt.