Save issue + solution + lame THQ support

[Arrowbolt]

I bought S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:Shadow of Chernobyl in the recent discount period offered by Steam. After downloading, I started the game and found out that it just did not save at all. When I tried to save, a message showed up in the console saying something like "could not save to the default folder: acess denied". Well, I soon figured out that there was no such folder, since my hard drive is labeled H:\ and not C:\. I asked for help at the THQ customer support, and conducted some research at Google myself.

Some minutes later I was able to find a solution (in this very forum), and was happy that I could play properly. However, two days later I received a somewhat shocking response from THQ and decided to come over here and share it with you so you might know how lame THQ Customer Support really is.

Oh, by the way, the solution for the save issue is described below, should your PC ever present it.

The conversation transcript follows:
:mad:
"Question 10/31/2009 via Website

My game won't save, probably because my Hard Drive is
labeled "H:\" and not "C:\" (C:\ folder is just a
card reader), therefore the game isn't able to find
the correct folder to save. When I try to save, a
message pops in console that says "Unable to save
game to C:\Documents and Settings... [name]:
Permission denied".

I recently purchased the game through Steam and
therefore it is fully updated.

Is there a way to change the save game location? How?
Thank you very much.


Answer 11/2/2009 via Website by Jodie G. (Date Originally Viewed: 11/3/2009 5:50:56 PM)

Thank you, Max, for contacting THQ Customer Support.

Your Windows OS must be located on the C drive in order to save properly.

Best regards,

Jodie G
THQ Customer Support
http://support.thq.com


Question 11/3/2009 via Website

Your answer did not help at all, but I found on
internet forums that opening the file "fsgame.ltx"
with WordPad allows me to actually CHANGE the save
location to the correct folder. Hope you tell about
this to people which game presents the same problem
as mine.

P.S.: Please, try harder next time. THQ games are
great and we fans deserve some respect. It doesn't
matter if I paid only $5 in this game, I still
purchased it in a legitimate way. If I don't even
receive proper feedback from Customer Support, what
is the point? There are plenty of pirated copies of
your games around, you see.

Best regards,

Max M"

[bonoes]

Thank you so much for posting this. I've been banging my head against my desk for the past hour trying to get the settings in the game to save, and a save point to work properly...

Again, thank you.

[Bad_Motha]

If you would've read the sticky thread on here, you would've seen that solution listed in there.
Or just ask on this forum. It's quite a simple fix.

[HorseRotorvator]

Why did you call THQ tech support when the GSC forums are abuzz every minute of any day?

[Dragunovhun]

WHY would you have a card reader as your C drive?

[OJ191]

Why would you even say that is a lame response? They do not have to investigate every little thing to find a "better" solution for you, if you used a normal C drive like most people you wouldn't have this issue.

also what dragunov said

[Decade7]

Firstly, it's good etiquette to blank out the name of the sender when posting publicly, even if you have issues with them. Secondly, not haveing your system drive as C: will cause you problems again and again : stalker wont be the only program to have an issue.
Finally, it's a pretty obscure problem, it's hardly unreasonable that the rep (who must rep all sorts of THQ published games, not just stalker) wouldn't have a fix.

[bonoes]

Some of you are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥s.