S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series Megathread: The Zone will stop the Russians - Games

Save him. You'll need him. Also, vanilla or modded?

[QUOTE=LoNer1;42843082]Save him. You'll need him. Also, vanilla or modded?[/QUOTE] Misery :V

[QUOTE=VOSK;42843095]Misery :V[/QUOTE] Thought so. Save him. Trust me. Even though he's gonna glitch a bit or like shoot you in the back, he may serve as distraction / bullet sponge for when you reach the dome :v:

[QUOTE=VOSK;42843054]I need to decide. Do i save Strider and his Monolith squad, or do I stay neutral between Duty and Freedom?[/QUOTE] You can be friend of both sides and still stay neutral. Just look for a firefights with Duty/Freedom guys and give them a medkit.

[QUOTE=Hammer7;42843131]You can be friend of both sides and still stay neutral. Just look for a firefights with Duty/Freedom guys and give them a medkit.[/QUOTE] That's not as reliable a way though; they tend to die pretty often instead of getting incapacitated.

I recently watched a short documentary about Spetsnaz in Grozny, Chechnya and by looking at the place, the buildings and everything else, I got that same feeling I got when playing Paranoia mod for Half Life or when I roamed Pripyat in STALKER. Post Soviet enviroments have a special "decay" and desolation touch unique to them. There should be more games based on them.

there should be more games based on them, but they have to be developed by eastern european studios. and they can't keep coming in waves like your typical zombie or nuclear apocalypse game does.s

[video=youtube;ntXbSrH0egc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntXbSrH0egc[/video] Just in case anybody wanted to watch the doc EDIT: Watch out, it has strong material.

[QUOTE=Cutthecrap;42845886]I recently watched a short documentary about Spetsnaz in Grozny, Chechnya and by looking at the place, the buildings and everything else, I got that same feeling I got when playing Paranoia mod for Half Life or when I roamed Pripyat in STALKER. Post Soviet enviroments have a special "decay" and desolation touch unique to them. There should be more games based on them.[/QUOTE] Glad a [url=http://www.moddb.com/mods/paranoia-2-savior]sequel to Paranoia[/url] is being made. Also, you should try to find [url=http://lparchive.org/Marauder-Man-of-Prey/]this game[/url] for lots of such environments. Good luck finding it in English though, cuz I sure as hell can't

Praise the Monolith, there was a such insane drama over the FZ cutscene. Lots of assholes were bitching about it being a premade CG not even in Xray. Welp, the only "not even in Xray" thing is an animation set. They done it in Maya. [t]http://cs424521.vk.me/v424521707/33ba/rO2E7LpPzRg.jpg[/t]

Hey guys, I have some serious info about VincentVega, author of SWTC who's been cooperating with me the last couple of months on creating a version for MISERY, compatible with PPx3 and PRZ3 for CoP. The plan was to create an add-on for MISERY (roughly 2 or 3GB big) that would introduce 'the summer' to MISERY. Beautiful sunsets, dawns, amazing skyboxes and lots of colour combined with dangerous particle effects and increasingly stunning graphics, to give it 'the alternative look' requested by the community. [B]But ...[/B] Here's the story: I send him this PM a couple of days ago (2 iirc) I wrote: [QUOTE]Hey Vincent, The team (MISERY team) and I have been thinking to expand upon the 'sunny' side of MISERY. We were working on our own 'green' textures and we've managed to revamp most of CoP's natural assets. But, seeing as Troj is now mostly working on the scripting part of things, we wanted to ask you for a favour. You won't be asked to drop your own work and come work for us. I know you left TZP for a reason, but I did want to ask; Can we get a working (and prolly latest) version of SWTC for CoP, to finetune it a bit for MISERY 2.1, as addon for the people who want a 'beautiful zone'? I personally have been meaning to ask this because SWTC quickly advances over Atmosfear, lighting wise. Please think this through. I'll be happy to hear what you're thinking. Also, proper credit given where credit is due, plus that you're going to be added to the dev-credit list in both the game as the site. Cheers, Kevin, aka LoNer1[/QUOTE] And he send this back; [QUOTE]I'd love to! But I have big problems with housing . After 3 days, I have to pay money for the rent , and I have no money. I got a job , even at two , but the money would get only 3 weeks . So I am in a terrible situation , I would like to close all the links to SWTC . I'm terribly strongly offended by stalker Community (as in Russian , which is really huge , and on yours :) . Work on the mod took 1.5 years to create, edit textures and skyboxes , then mixing them into a single weather cycles , and of working with config files , settings, and the creation of the concept of lighting, etc. . And this is for all 3 games in the series . I know I was probably naive fool counting on the fact that I can make money on this, but I put too much effort into their work. And do not get in return what expected. It is foolish to work out, I know. During these two years I earned 0.07(!) dollars on donate. Not bad earnings 3.5 per cent a year , do not you think ? ) Now many people want to use my modification , more than 10 (some attempts I ruthlessly suppressed ) , mods have taken it for service and the way it should be , and for that I was doing it , and of course I am aware of the beauty of SWTC. I am ready to give my work in open access for all. In fact I already have more than 50 new absolutely stunning skyboxes, which I planned to release as well, and of course SWTC 3 for SoC is really gift for all . I ask you, as friends and companions in the shop to help me in such a difficult moment! I need to get back on my feet this month, then I can already take care of myself . And it will also check for our Community as well as for your stalkers or not. Oh, by the way , you may know him, I'm talking about d4v33edz, this dude was just incredible from above by a reliable person, he turned to me 1,050 rubles ( $ 35 ) , he is a real man. Maybe if you all skins together we can solve this my ugly situation that caused me to have to grovel and beg money. All I have to pay 13,000 rubles. (About $ 430 ) I've scraped together 3,500 rubles. 3500 rubles is about $ 115 , it turns out I need about another $ 300. Not small money I must say, but what can i do ? My mods is all i have .This is only a request guys , you can help me with any amount, if wou want it!Yours sincerely , Vinc[/QUOTE] I really want to help him. I am discussing with the MISERY team to try and notify people through the misery-images section to donate a bit of money, maybe also on facebook and twitter. I feel quite bad for him as he's been into this position for a long time (he left TZP to be able to get donations, because he felt like his mod and donations wouldn't really fit with TZP for some reason, plus that he also had these problems at the time) So, if any of you want to help, this info might be of use: [QUOTE]Lord, I do not know what to think! Dude, you saved me! Honestly, I was already on the brink, there is hope that I will be able to scrape together the money for 2, maximum 3 days.And so I have only three options, all for transfer money: [U]1. Yandex money service[/U] ([URL="https://money.yandex.ru/"]Money.yandex.ru[/URL]): - account name/mail: [EMAIL="yellowstar228@yandex.ru"]yellowstar228@yandex.ru[/EMAIL] - account number (for transfer, as i think, never used it. sorry): [B]410012017569710 [/B] [U]2. WebMoney:[/U] [B]- R606680914814 (RUB) - Z309124892657 (DOL) - E130601858909 (EUR)[/B] 3. Is my card number(MasterCard) best way i think is to transfer from card to card. Fastest and easiest as i think: [U]- Card number:[/U] [B]5469 0200 1096 9138[/B] Thanks, pal! I hope everything is right.. Best way to use credit card, cause i'm never do it another way, what do you think? which method is most convenient?[/QUOTE] I think that with a community effort, both through these forums as social sites and MISERY's popularity, we'll be able to help him out a bit. I want to do something good for him, really.

Giving money via the internet is never a good idea. Surely Swefox was a good example. :v: If you are intent, you could always send money my way. I'm up shits creak money wise too. No but seriously. I know you wanna help, but it's not really a great idea. I'm not saying DON'T help the dude out, but just be careful.

[QUOTE=Hammer7;42843131]You can be friend of both sides and still stay neutral. Just look for a firefights with Duty/Freedom guys and give them a medkit.[/QUOTE] Oh, so that's how I became neutral with the bandits. Whenever I saw any fighting with stalkers and laying on the ground, I gave them a medikit. Kinda funny how fast they can pickup their guns, or sometimes pull out another, and shoot again. Though I found out that this only works once per NPC, if he gets shot again he's propably dead.

[QUOTE=Torekk;42848753]Oh, so that's how I became neutral with the bandits.[/QUOTE] Nah, Bandits are generally neutral toward the player in CoP, the only hostile-on-sight factions without a few exceptions are Mercenaries and the Monolith. Probably to facilitate the player being able to talk to the bandit leaders for a number of quests. There's a few instances where the game can spawn hostile bandit sim_squads under certain conditions though the other one is kind of rare to get at all because usually at that point players have already went through the entire game. The faction system is kind of bone-headed in the games overall in that it doesn't really implement any subtle or flexible solutions like if you killed enough faction members under a certain time, a price would be put on the player's head for x duration of in-game hours depending on the severity of the misconduct toward them or alter their behavior toward the player, refusing to trade or magic carpet them around the levels because of the relations are sour or anything instead of no-one visibly giving any shit (sans for trader prices going up) until the player hits that magical threshold upon which they will all open fire on you. A nicer solution would've been to allow for solutions like factions hiring outside help, ranging from rookie stalkers trying to earn their wings or professional hired killers to be set upon you and if you keep being a thorn in the faction's ass then they would sic their actual faction members to hunt you down. That'd be nigh-unthinkable in most games but with the STALKER's emphasis on A-Life interaction I think there could be some ways to make navigating between factions more intricate than "best friend" vs "you suck now we kill you". Thankfully though there are a good number of mods that make bandit squads either randomly hostile-on-sight or depend on conditions like the player approaching them with gun drawn and generally add more hostile-on-sight sim_squads to the levels.

So I'm playing Misery and neither Duty or Freedom will take Strider's squad. Even if i offer the Duty founder's PDA or all the items. Is there a way i can edit this bug so i can set my relationship high enough with a certain faction?

[QUOTE=VOSK;42851527]Even if i offer the Duty founder's PDA or all the items.?[/QUOTE] Did you remember to snitch out Magpie to whichever you want to side with ? IIRC it was one of the requirements to get enough favor with the faction along with Morgan / Tachenko PDAs.

[QUOTE=Hammer7;42848195]Praise the Monolith, there was a such insane drama over the FZ cutscene. Lots of assholes were bitching about it being a premade CG not even in Xray. Welp, the only "not even in Xray" thing is an animation set. They done it in Maya. [t]http://cs424521.vk.me/v424521707/33ba/rO2E7LpPzRg.jpg[/t][/QUOTE] I was already tired of telling people that this cut-scene is really on the xray, but it's just a work screenshot. In Maya made only character animation. Sorry for my bad English.

I know we have covered this hundreds of times, But where is Shadow of Chernobyl located compared to the rest of the Zone? Looking at the skybox it almost makes it seem that the CNPP is north of Zaton.

[QUOTE=VOSK;42852754]I know we have covered this hundreds of times, But where is Shadow of Chernobyl located compared to the rest of the Zone? Looking at the skybox it almost makes it seem that the CNPP is north of Zaton.[/QUOTE] But do zaton / jupiter really exist? :v: I never knew this

well jupiter really exists, i've been there ;) that said, the factory is actually basically just on the edge of Pripyat, literally 5 mins walk [t]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7421/10352077103_9f3d544a7b_o.jpg[/t] there's no 'plains' around it like in the game, just the city on one side and then forest all around on the others zaton is an amalgamation of different bits of the Zone, for instance the grounded ships (like Skadovsk) are real, but they're all together on the bank of the river just outside Chernobyl town (went there too). [t]http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3717/10352474965_6eb054a742_o.jpg[/t] [t]http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3674/10352476556_77e393dac3_o.jpg[/t] funnily enough, I had a dream I was back in the Zone last night - but there were a ton of tourists just wandering around, and there was a forest fire a little ways off so I was trying to warn them that the radioactive particles were going airborne and they had to leave but they wouldn't listen :( [editline]14th November 2013[/editline] fuck looking through those photos again has made me all nostalgic, I wanna go back :(

[QUOTE=LoNer1;42859786]But do zaton / jupiter really exist? :v: I never knew this[/QUOTE] Following the GSC school of map design, which is to take one recognisable area then shove a bunch of extra buildings and villages into it so the map isn't too empty.

to be fair, so much of the Zone is just forest with nothing too interesting in it, so you can't blame them that said, a full-scale Zone with everything in its actual place would be incredible, imagine exploring dark forests and discovering some secret hatch in the ground leading to an X-Lab my dreams :(

[QUOTE=Beacon;42859847]to be fair, so much of the Zone is just forest with nothing too interesting in it, so you can't blame them [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Beacon;42859847]forest with nothing too interesting[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Beacon;42859847]forest nothing interesting[/QUOTE] Forests are [I]fascinating[/I]. Stalker's one of the few games I think would be capable of doing a forest properly.

[QUOTE=VOSK;42852754]Looking at the skybox it almost makes it seem that the CNPP is north of Zaton.[/QUOTE] The CNPP has never been in the skybox for the original games(at least to my understanding), it's a touch added by the AtmosFear mod for CoP and CS. Especially the Clear Sky one is p. funny since the CNPP is on the Skybox even in the CNPP level itself making it appear that there are in fact, [I]two[/I] Nuclear Power Plants. [QUOTE=VOSK;42852754]But where is Shadow of Chernobyl located compared to the rest of the Zone?[/QUOTE] I'm a bit confused - do you mean Call of Pripyat ? Well, the Zone as shown in SoC / CS is kind of confirmed to be canon in CoP during the intro cutscene here : [t]http://i.imgur.com/UkNYs.jpg[/t] As to [I]where[/I] in relation to CoP they are, as Beacon said Zaton is supposed to be the slightly fictional dried-up river bend right in the harbor of Chernobyl as seen in this aerial view. Now, this is just unconfirmed speculation but I have a sinking feeling that the in-game Preobrezhansky bridge was made on a basis of this bridge shown in the picture but they modeled the likeness more according to their concepts for the unused "Bridge over the River of Pripyat" level cut from Clear Sky. The structure on the center right seems to be something that could have very well been the inspiration for the Sawmill which is slightly supported by the fact that it has the similar pipe leading up to it. The theater, "Izudrumnoye" or "Emerald" is slightly to the North along the riverbed , between Chernobyl and Kopachy village. [t]http://i.imgur.com/BuHv8.jpg[/t] Anyhow, far away south[I]east[/I] of the town of Chernobyl resides the town of Stari Sokoly which houses a border checkpoint and a very familiar looking granary, with the Vehicle Graveyard being right north of it : [t]http://i.imgur.com/s6QjP.jpg[/t]

[QUOTE=Etcetera;42859864]Forests are [I]fascinating[/I]. Stalker's one of the few games I think would be capable of doing a forest properly.[/QUOTE] This exactly. I personally LOVE forest. Hence why I like L.A's last couple screens so much. So much forest in them :)

[QUOTE=LoNer1;42859916]This exactly. I personally LOVE forest. Hence why I like L.A's last couple screens so much. So much forest in them :)[/QUOTE] CS Red Forest was the most terrifying experience in all of Stalker.

[QUOTE=Muukkis;42859882]The CNPP has never been in the skybox for the original games(at least to my understanding), it's a touch added by the AtmosFear mod for CoP and CS. Especially the Clear Sky one is p. funny since the CNPP is on the Skybox even in the CNPP level itself making it appear that there are in fact, [I]two[/I] Nuclear Power Plants. I'm a bit confused - do you mean Call of Pripyat ? Well, the Zone as shown in SoC / CS is kind of confirmed to be canon in CoP during the intro cutscene here : [t]http://i.imgur.com/UkNYs.jpg[/t] As to [I]where[/I] in relation to CoP they are, as Beacon said Zaton is supposed to be the slightly fictional dried-up river bend right in the harbor of Chernobyl as seen in this aerial view. Now, this is just unconfirmed speculation but I have a sinking feeling that the in-game Preobrezhansky bridge was made on a basis of this bridge shown in the picture but they modeled the likeness more according to their concepts for the unused "Bridge over the River of Pripyat" level cut from Clear Sky. The structure on the center right seems to be something that could have very well been the inspiration for the Sawmill which is slightly supported by the fact that it has the similar pipe leading up to it. The theater, "Izudrumnoye" or "Emerald" is slightly to the North along the riverbed , between Chernobyl and Kopachy village. [t]http://i.imgur.com/BuHv8.jpg[/t] Anyhow, far away south[I]east[/I] of the town of Chernobyl resides the town of Stari Sokoly which houses a border checkpoint and a very familiar looking granary, with the Vehicle Graveyard being right north of it : [t]http://i.imgur.com/s6QjP.jpg[/t][/QUOTE] can we get some translations of the notes on that map? shame it doesn't actually show the CoP levels on it though. that second picture is awesome. where's it from? I remember driving over that bridge a few times on my tours, but it's nothing like preobrezhansky. stari sokoly is definitely the cordon though

I meant CoP not ShoC, Sorry :downs: [editline]14th November 2013[/editline] According to that map it makes it seems Zaton and Yanov are east of the CNPP.

[QUOTE=Beacon;42860187]that second picture is awesome. where's it from?[/QUOTE] Google maps has a function where you can turn on photographs taken from the areas and submitted to the service. Unsurprisingly the Exclusion Zone has attracted a lot of photographers (and if you look somewhere around south of Jupiter Plant someone snuck a smudgy SoC screenshot among the "real" pictures, don't know if it's still there though). Another great resource for pictures from the Chernobyl exclusion Zone is the website "Lost Places" (lplaces.com) which features trip reports to the Zone as well as the Fukushima disaster area. [QUOTE=Beacon;42860187]can we get some translations of the notes on that map?[/QUOTE] I can't read russian at all but given the context the top left corner says "Limansk", "BM" is Brain Scorcher and the circle below the radius of it's influence seems to put emphasis on the Freedom base inside the Army Warehouses level.

The arrow above Yantar says "PSI".