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

Oh man, that tunnel under Cordon was creepy especially since I didn't know that [sp] zombies[/sp] were among the enemies added to the game

[QUOTE=Dub!;44733071]What does A-Life even mean[/QUOTE] Artificial life. It's the term used when referring to the wildlife and Stalkers' interactions with the world and each other, letting them wander around and go out for loot or hunts instead of just being there for player interaction.

I wish Soup just kept some dialog in Russian instead of machine translating it. I dunno what I did except say two fifty fifty! And then all of a sudden I'm drunk and know the whereabouts of a cache.

[QUOTE=WTF Nuke;44733660]I wish Soup just kept some dialog in Russian instead of machine translating it. I dunno what I did except say two fifty fifty! And then all of a sudden I'm drunk and know the whereabouts of a cache.[/QUOTE] Yeah generally the option that says something like "have we met before?" gets you drunk and gives stash locations sometimes

Uh... does Soup have some easymode option or is it always like this? I did the car park mission and almost every single bandit had exactly 100 rounds of 9x18 on them. Military guys had a ton of ammo on them too. Also the AKS-74u has some goddamn absurd muzzle flash :v: [t]http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/469808806342076205/0BFC694566880568670A90B41F02B91550C7927E/[/t]

Found this stalker gettin loose [video=youtube;C5S2V8HKO_Q]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5S2V8HKO_Q&feature=youtu.be[/video]

[QUOTE=Teh Zip File;44734068]Uh... does Soup have some easymode option or is it always like this? I did the car park mission and almost every single bandit had exactly 100 rounds of 9x18 on them. Military guys had a ton of ammo on them too. Also the AKS-74u has some goddamn absurd muzzle flash :v: [t]http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/469808806342076205/0BFC694566880568670A90B41F02B91550C7927E/[/t][/QUOTE] I had that problem too. It feels like it evens out a bit later, but the beginning has a crazy amount of ammo laying around. I was trying to find that optional file to make ammo scarce, but I think it's for an older version so I wasn't sure if I could just paste it in.

[QUOTE=BananaFoam;44732748]Once again I feel Lost Alpha's failure is the lack of a "sandbox". Despite the massive maps, the game is still somehow [I]more[/I] linear than Shadows of Chernobyl. There isn't any reward for exploring because there is nothing of interest to do. Sure, you can find loot, but you won't fucking need it because the downright retarded AI and high damage bullets means the game is piss easy. I would almost bet all my rubles that you could beat the game with the starter pistol [I]with ease.[/I] I mean, I don't like the downright sadistic shit like Misery, but this is way to easy for a STALKER game. And the lack of an A-Life and sidequests (you can't even join Freedom for fucks sake) just enhance the boredom factor.[/QUOTE] Which is one of the many reasons why I would always be interested in the most dynamic mod possible. Soup's Collector kind of does it, but with all due respect, pure treasure hunting gets boring as shit without anything else. I feel that Shadow of Chernobyl along with the other games could really benefit from the Dwarf Fortress approach, in which an NPC would blurt out randomly generated objectives and make you do them (Bring me 6 meat chunk anomalies while fighting off the military forces), and or have a randomized event system, such as you being jumped by five bloodsuckers while sleeping and having to defend yourself with a specific weapon, or to just generally make the zone an incredibly dangerous place and have you be genuinely concerned with your prolonged survival in it. There simply needs to be a lot more random stuff, the teleporting anomalies could be expanded way more upon, with one anomaly teleporting you from Cordon flat in the middle of some dangerous mutant infested territory and having you survive there, for example.

I know this is a weird example, but Daggerfall did random stuff really well. Despite most things being randomly generated in that game, a lot of the side quests were really well done despite the fact, although some of them were a bit samey. They did a good job of dressing them up and making them interesting, unlike ShoC's barebones random quests. idk, with Alundaio's AI mod and my own tweaks to mutant immunities to bullets I'm finding it quite fun, although I haven't been waiting 6 years for it. I also do not really enjoy Call of Pripyat's maps that much given how close every notable place is to every other place, and how little cover there is for combat on all but pripyat itself (which makes mods that have more encounters while traveling kind of annoying since 9/10 times early on it's just a guaranteed death since there's very little cover) and I like walking around (I actually walked to the next town over in daggerfall from the starter dungeon, which is, like, walking through several ShoC maps alone). I do agree LA's maps need extra stuff, but if that extra stuff was there I'd probably prefer actually playing it for the same reasons I prefer playing SoC over CoP, because traversing Zaton and Jupiter just feel way too boring to me, and there isn't enough interesting scenery and what there is is way too tiny. To me, it feels more like an artificial space for play. Which, oddly enough, causes me to use fast travel more often than not in CoP despite not really liking to. Also yantar's underground actually works really well without a loading screen and so far is probably the first place I didn't mind the lack of a new area, probably because yantar is so much calmer sound-wise and the music fits the tunnels pretty well too.

[QUOTE]I do agree LA's maps need extra stuff, but if that extra stuff was there I'd probably prefer actually playing it for the same reasons I prefer playing SoC over CoP, because traversing Zaton and Jupiter just feel way too boring to me, and there isn't enough interesting scenery and what there is is way too tiny. To me, it feels more like an artificial space for play. Which, oddly enough, causes me to use fast travel more often than not in CoP despite not really liking to. [/QUOTE] The thing is of course , that unless devs fill the place with you know, specific encounters (For example the bloodsucker guys in Dark Valley in ShOC), goodies that you can find, stuff related to lore, etc etc it becomes extremely dull. If it's only enemies and whatefuck that's it then it's boring as hell. That's why you, I, we, find CoP so damn entertaining, because everywhere you go there's something different to discover and see. Quests are more "interactive" with the environment and they are open/have branches which is the best IMHO for a freeplay/open FPS.

I really dislike CoP vanilla, but that's mainly because the FoV makes my head hurt and the ballistics feel awful.

[QUOTE=Cutthecrap;44733025]Welp, it's really sad to read all these comments about LA. I wonder what would have been of the game if the leak didn't occur. Would it be the same or they just didn't put more effort into the quests? Somebody has to make a better Alife and fix the balance and it's all set.[/QUOTE] Maybe I've spent way to much time in and around Russian modding communities, but I think we would've been fed with more calendars and a screenshots of maps for a couple more months and then recieved this very same thing with less bugs. The A-life wouldn't have been changed, or should I say, [b]added[/b], that's for sure. That's honestly something I care about more than... than what they have for a plot. It's magnificent how they had all the means to not do cutscenes, abundance of documents, walls of text in dialogues, working fucking computers with files. And they still wasted time. The way LA was released didn't do a good job proving me wrong, they didn't really care anymore.

[QUOTE=BananaFoam;44732748]-snippidy doo da- I am beginning to see [I]why[/I] so much of this stuff was cut. Not only was it time-consuming to make, but it sure as hell wasn't worth it. GSC understood what Dezowave has not. They knew the cars were finicky bullshit that handled like a pissed off rhino with hemorrhoids. They knew the main story called for too many cutscenes and that X-Ray cannot do them. They knew the game was too linear. They knew that the maps were to big and they were a hassle to trek through. They knew underground areas had to be separate maps for them to have the proper ambiance. They knew the story had to much backtracking. -snip-[/QUOTE] Actually I kinda want to clarify something here: A lot of the features, the storyline, etc in LA is dezowave's work. Honestly, besides the level design and, uh, vehicles, Lost Alpha has [I]very[/I] little to do with the original design docs and storyline. [editline]6th May 2014[/editline] If you want to see something closer to the original design docs, Oblivion Lost Remake is nifty as shit. (But unless you speak Russian a bit hard to play. :v:)

-snip-

LA's levels cannot be ported to CoP. The X-Ray 1.6 SDK can't handle them.

[QUOTE=Beacon;44735840]LA's levels cannot be ported to CoP. The X-Ray 1.6 SDK can't handle them.[/QUOTE] Well that means we probably won't ever see these LA world populated with living things. It'll always be dead.

[video=youtube;qPUUdO_D7us]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPUUdO_D7us[/video] 2:45, helicopters in LA... [editline]6th May 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=gudman;44735918]Well that means we probably won't ever see these LA world populated with living things. It'll always be dead.[/QUOTE] Why so pessimistic? Of course it's a lot of work, but it isn't impossible. Although I do agree, COP did have some interesting moments in AI, like squads leaving to explore, go search for artifacts. I only wish it was more noticeable, and more of them returned to sell what they got, more randomized and all that.

When the LA SDK is released in a few weeks we can easily adjust smart terrains and add new ones, the A-Life will get better I'm sure

[sp]For the love of ... why is the intro to LA SO corny? damn. A remake of the old trailer, but then drawn? Also the narrating ... you guys were right[/sp] lol

[QUOTE=LoNer1;44736045][sp]For the love of ... why is the intro to LA SO corny? damn. A remake of the old trailer, but then drawn? Also the narrating ... you guys were right[/sp] lol[/QUOTE] yeah, it was odd for sure. the narrating especially

[URL]http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/05/06/a-console-gamer-asked-me-what-three-pc-games-he-should-play-heres-what-i-told-him/?mtc=comment-579264#comment-579264[/URL] [U][I][B]F U C K[/B][/I][/U] </mad>

[QUOTE=LoNer1;44736140][URL]http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/05/06/a-console-gamer-asked-me-what-three-pc-games-he-should-play-heres-what-i-told-him/?mtc=comment-579264#comment-579264[/URL] [U][I][B]F U C K[/B][/I][/U] </mad>[/QUOTE] Well, at least he didn't mention any cod game...that's a plus?

[QUOTE=LoNer1;44736140][URL]http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/05/06/a-console-gamer-asked-me-what-three-pc-games-he-should-play-heres-what-i-told-him/?mtc=comment-579264#comment-579264[/URL] [U][I][B]F U C K[/B][/I][/U] </mad>[/QUOTE] ugh PC gamer are idiots anyway

[QUOTE=DEMONSKUL;44736257]Well, at least he didn't mention any cod game...that's a plus?[/QUOTE] Well yeah why would he mention games that are available for consoles. [editline]6th May 2014[/editline] Also guys any recommended weapon mods for CoP?

OWR 2 + addon is good if you want a polished weapon pack with consistent visual quality

[QUOTE=Bloodshot12;44736395]OWR 2 + addon is good if you want a polished weapon pack with consistent visual quality[/QUOTE] You were too quick But STALKER Cop Weapons Pack is also very, very good, but unfortunately only in Russian :v: Also, I've created a sound patch for OWR2. It's on the page, don't forget to install it. (Try it without it first, though). Some sounds are heavily underpowered, which I fixed

[video=youtube;pz8jeZnvtuU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz8jeZnvtuU[/video]

The plain Google translator translation of Stalkersoup makes a lot of its charme to me.

[QUOTE=LoNer1;44736506]You were too quick But STALKER Cop Weapons Pack is also very, very good, but unfortunately only in Russian :v: [/QUOTE] Thankfully it's nice and easy to install, I'll second this though after grabbing it after seeing a video you made of it. I'm also going to go ahead and shill Shoker 2.1 again. While it's not strictly just weapons, it is really well done.

Shit, the [sp]helicopter[/sp] in swamps sees through bushes in the pitch black of night with the LA AI mod apparently. This is going to be Russian levels of infuriating Also fuck yeah got a SEVA suit from [sp] beloved groza bad actor guy[/sp]