Rumour 1. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. had been turned into corridor-like scripted shooter, while A-Life was removed.

Yes. After playing Serious Sam 2 we decided - "why should we bother implementing that A-Life" - let's add more gore and 'stiff' scripts as the player moves alongside the 'corridor'.

Just kidding. Still though, flicking through forum posts and secret 'specialists' "knowing what's happening with S.T.A.L.K.E.R." our optimism subsides - such statements can make any fan frown. On one hand it's pleasing to see such "no-staying-away" attitude, however on the other one, it's tiresome. Reacting to every such rumor means wasting valuable time. So.

This rumour is totally wrong.
Indeed, one of the initial S.T.A.L.K.E.R. concepts was a fully life simulation-driven gameplay with unobtrusive storyline. However with the very first tests it got obvious that such game can only be good in theory. Sooner or later the players were lost in the events happening around, they found the links in-between the quests vague and… 'what shall I do next' question marks raised. Creating an uncomfortable play-through and confuse the player traditionally accustomed to being 'led' is clearly not the best goal to achieve. That is why it was decided to shift the focus during the first playthrough primarily towards storyline, placed, as previously, within the A-life world. How does it work. We created complex "above A-Life" scripted superstructures, A-Life scripts, aka "Gulags" (Hereinafter - Gulags). Gulags are able to control NPC/monsters within the local space of a level. For example - a stalker camp. Gulag can 'drag' stalkers out of A-Life, designate each a role: 'you are in charge of the camp, you are a guard, you are playing guitar at campfire, you are a storyteller, and you will be merely sitting at bonfire silently guzzling vodka' and so on. Following that Gulag sends on 'errands' in accordance to priorities for this place. Should the camp participants be eliminated Gulag will first redistribute the errands, and in case of drastic lack of participants it will return to seeking stalkers/monsters passing by in A-Life to form a new camp, a lair etc (it may be another grouping, another mechanism of work). The initial population of storyline Gulags is planned in advance, the non-story one (monster lairs, ambushes, hostile grouping skirmishes etc) is A-Life-driven.

Once a story quest (Gulag) has been accomplished, the place is filled by A-Life, while the survivors of the story quest either remain under the Gulag or quit into the A-Life. The player, while playing through the game and accomplishing story quests, releases more and more space for the purely A-Life content. I.e. ever greater part of the game becomes fully A-Life-driven. Return to any location complete a couple hours earlier to discover that the content is new there. And also different for each player. And.. a New game to play.
So, attention! All the advantages of A-Life game world and the gameplay have been preserved. You will still be able to observe the world living and breathing around, accomplish random quests. Stalkers accomplish tasks of their own and (similarly to monsters) move around levels. Leaving one level and returning there later the player will find new content, new events and naturally, will be able to participate in those.

Key change is that under the initial advancement through the game the focus is on the story (player-friendly) content. By the time the player will 'understand' the laws of the game (and the game is anything but simple), and will get a 'feel' of it the A-Life will run full-throttle.

Change 2 - Is it possible, still, for another stalker to solve the puzzle of the Zone? - No. We tried and it makes the player totally confused. He's been doing everything as proper, but suddenly everything ends. It stumps him to try figuring out where he made a mistake, and hence, loading an old Save file is not an option. Simply because it (mistake) may not have been made, it was due to one of the stalkers gaining a winning card in the simplified 'off-line' calculations of A-Life. In other words, the feature turn out absolutely non-playable. Putting it there for the sake of just having it to later find irritation of the players would be silly to do. Our goal is to have the player enjoy the game. All in all, he has been waiting it for so long. Full stop.