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

[QUOTE=LoNer1;44796373]I have this one in CoP already. Excuse the bad vid. quality; [url]http://www.moddb.com/members/iloner1/videos/what-the-hell-was-that#imagebox[/url][/QUOTE] Any mods that have that?

[QUOTE=exostalker;44797308]Any mods that have that?[/QUOTE] It was originally planned for MISERY, but cut. I don't know of any other release apart from New Monsters 2.6 for SGM2.1 (thread on GSC)

[QUOTE=LoNer1;44797800]It was originally planned for MISERY, but cut. [/QUOTE] Why was it cut? did it not look good, or something else? I can't really make it out in your very dark video

[QUOTE=exostalker;44797909]Why was it cut? did it not look good, or something else? I can't really make it out in your very dark video[/QUOTE] I honestly don't know. Everyone was like:"Yeah awesome" but in the end I never got a reply, or missed it somewhere on why it was never implanted (really easy to do, btw, as it uses the flesh skeleton and configs. It replaces the current strong flesh in the config so it's a drag and drop install)

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/M4ahgUT.png[/IMG] I take it it's this one? Doesn't look bad at all

[t]http://i.imgur.com/M4ahgUT.png[/t] It's interesting, and would probably be terrifying in the swamp's thickets, but that looks like it belongs in a horror game and not the post-apocalyptic mutantfest we have now. What makes STALKER's mutants creepy to me is the fact that they're mostly believable. Sure, the humanoid ones are a larger stretch, but they're all meaty and grotesque versions of normal animals. It makes them a lot more relatable - knowing that the lumbering chunk of eyes and flesh squealing towards you was once, genealogically, an ordinary pig. Having them meaty also makes the damage inflicted a bit more understandable - a giant stickbug makes question how something slapping/stabbing you with branches is going to inflict any real damage compared to animal bites and charges. I'd sooner like to see the horse, or more actual animals turned into irradiated nightmare versions of themselves. The stick-mutant thing would actually be quite alright if they could make it look a wee bit more biological in some fashion, rather than being wrapped in a bark texture. More akin to the STALKER 2 development art for the Log Mutant: [t]http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121108051512/stalker/images/f/f2/O_5094eed0d500f.jpg[/t] The concept stuff for STALKER 2 just makes me sad it was canceled. [t]http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121108051130/stalker/images/a/a7/O_5094ec050ede3.jpg[/t] [t]http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121108051434/stalker/images/e/e0/O_5094ee2b46db5.jpg[/t] [t]http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121108051054/stalker/images/f/fc/O_5094eb54de871.jpg[/t]

I'd like to see more mutated insects.

Is STALKER 2 never going to happen? I know GSC is still around and shit and Survarium (Altough its nothing like STALKER really). Is there a chance it could happen in the future?

how is LWO? i've never played it until now and i think i'm finally gonna give it a run. its official english translation looks tolerable enough

[video=youtube;C5710DAvhV4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5710DAvhV4[/video]

[QUOTE=Ownederd;44798752]how is LWO? i've never played it until now and i think i'm finally gonna give it a run. its official english translation looks tolerable enough[/QUOTE] It has all the broken gameplay elements of Lost Alpha combined with even less content, even more bullshit in the X-Labs, and even worse graphical effects.

[QUOTE=Doom14;44798391] It's interesting, and would probably be terrifying in the swamp's thickets, but that looks like it belongs in a horror game and not the post-apocalyptic mutantfest we have now. What makes STALKER's mutants creepy to me is the fact that they're mostly believable. Sure, the humanoid ones are a larger stretch, but they're all meaty and grotesque versions of normal animals. It makes them a lot more relatable - knowing that the lumbering chunk of eyes and flesh squealing towards you was once, genealogically, an ordinary pig. Having them meaty also makes the damage inflicted a bit more understandable - a giant stickbug makes question how something slapping/stabbing you with branches is going to inflict any real damage compared to animal bites and charges. I'd sooner like to see the horse, or more actual animals turned into irradiated nightmare versions of themselves. The stick-mutant thing would actually be quite alright if they could make it look a wee bit more biological in some fashion, rather than being wrapped in a bark texture. More akin to the STALKER 2 development art for the Log Mutant: The concept stuff for STALKER 2 just makes me sad it was canceled. ][/QUOTE] I think a lot of the cut mutants had more specific behaviors too, though. The creepy tree guy put people to sleep and fed off them, I think. And Izloms were supposed to not always be hostile, right? If stalkers gave them food then they were usually pretty docile. If anything I'd like the mutations to get worse as you get further in, till you start seeing some really freaky/scary stuff in the center of the Zone where the radiation is at its worst.

[QUOTE=Over-Run;44798627]Is there a chance it could happen in the future?[/QUOTE] It's all up to Sergei deciding that he wants to get back into game development again and finding the right team. It's a big 'if' but nothing sort of impossible. [QUOTE=Ghost101;44799220]And Izloms were supposed to not always be hostile, right? If stalkers gave them food then they were usually pretty docile..[/QUOTE] That's the lore bit, at least. AFAIK Controllers in SoC had similar bits that would've made them more "complex", such as making Stalkers see zombies and friendlies and the other way around, but in the design documents it's flatly stated that this sort of ability isn't going to manifest in the actual game, it's just a lore bit they added to give more "flavor" to the Controller.

[QUOTE=Doom14;44798391] [t]http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121108051434/stalker/images/e/e0/O_5094ee2b46db5.jpg[/t] [t]http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121108051054/stalker/images/f/fc/O_5094eb54de871.jpg[/t][/QUOTE] these two are truly creepy. i bet they'd look great in-game if they had kind of stiff and unstable looking movement animations, especially on that tall humanoid

Yeah, nothing in STALKER right now is really that scary. Bloodsuckers can do jump scares, but I don't really count that as actually being scary.

The concepts look cool but that's what they are, concepts, and as such, it's pretty hard to judge whether they would be as creepy when presented in the actual game. Currently, in Lost Alpha, I think that the Karliks are hella creepy. They're not really [I]dangerous[/I], but they're incredibly unsettling and could be relatively dangerous, if left unchecked.

I can see Mister Tall there working as a rare, stalker-like creature rather than a predator mutant. Come to think of it, the franchise never really elaborated much on the sentience of mutants. Ecologists were never interested in how sentient the Snorks and Bloodsuckers are, nobody brings up the fact that Controllers can talk to people, not even Uncle-fucking-Yar talked to a zombie(even though translating their lines proves that they have some degree of mental capacity present), and I'd have to say that it's a fairly big surprise that Lost Alpha was the only mod that[sp]has a friendly Izlom you can talk to.[/sp]

[QUOTE=Uncle Bourbon;44799309]these two are truly creepy. i bet they'd look great in-game if they had kind of stiff and unstable looking movement animations, especially on that tall humanoid[/QUOTE] The humanoid would have to have some kind of ranged effect be scary though, at least in my opinion. Or go invisible. Something. If there's one thing a lot of mods get wrong when reintroducing the cut zombies - is that an extremely slow creature is extremely not threatening. Infinitely less so when out in open fields.

[QUOTE=Doom14;44799877]If there's one thing a lot of mods get wrong when reintroducing the cut zombies - is that an extremely slow creature is extremely not threatening. Infinitely less so when out in open fields.[/QUOTE] I think the cut zombies are done really well, because they're [I]supposed[/I] to be half-docile, which makes them more believable in the sense that they're brain-dead, they don't have some instant hostility toward you but if they're hungry or feel threatened, they'll attack and claw you to bits. Out in the open they're a waste of ammo so you learn to dodge them instead of killing them on-sight but in the labs you'll have to weigh whether to kill them when they supposedly pose no danger or possibly risk getting attacked by them when you get into a tight spot where there's a lot of them and they're surrounding you. I don't know if that's either well-designed intentional gameplay or just the A.I being retardedly dumb that it [I]seems[/I] like it's working but either way it produces an atmosphere boost to me rather than detracting from it. [QUOTE=croguy;44799873]Ecologists were never interested in how sentient the Snorks are, nobody brings up the fact that Controllers can talk to people, not even Uncle-fucking-Yar talked to a zombie(even though translating their lines proves that they have some degree of mental capacity present)[/QUOTE] It's kind of pointless, considering that everyone can see that they're humans. Not some weird mutant-human hybrids, but actual humans, wearing clothes. Uncle Yar probably knows better than to try and talk to retards with guns that are known to attack people if their attention is attracted too much. With Bloodsuckers, I can sort of see them point but on the other hand they haven't shown any real signs of sentience, seeing as they're both physically and mentally very far removed from actual humans, they might just as well be a primate rather than a human being. [editline]herp[/editline] [QUOTE=croguy;44799873]Why hasn't anyone [B]*SPOILER*[/B][/QUOTE] I think that SGM did that in one quest [sp]with a bloodsucker[/sp] and [sp]ZoA[/sp] is looking to implement that with the same thing as the mod you mentioned did it with.

[QUOTE=Muukkis;44799996]I think the cut zombies are done really well, because they're [I]supposed[/I] to be half-docile, which makes them more believable in the sense that they're brain-dead, they don't have some instant hostility toward you but if they're hungry or feel threatened, they'll attack and claw you to bits. Out in the open they're a waste of ammo so you learn to dodge them instead of killing them on-sight but in the labs you'll have to weigh whether to kill them when they supposedly pose no danger or possibly risk getting attacked by them when you get into a tight spot where there's a lot of them and they're surrounding you. I don't know if that's either well-designed intentional gameplay or just the A.I being retardedly dumb that it [I]seems[/I] like it's working but either way it produces an atmosphere boost to me rather than detracting from it.[/QUOTE] The downside has always been, regardless if it's a comedy mod or grr gritty artificial difficulty tripe - I usually have enough ammo thrice over to kill zombies along the way. Once you get a pattern down, you can even reliably knife them without ever getting hit. I'll bite though - if I was low on ammo and in a lab or tight area; it would pose the excellent question of do I kill them now for my own saftey, or try to avoid them at the cost of potentially getting cornered later.

[QUOTE=Doom14;44800337]The downside has always been, regardless if it's a comedy mod or grr gritty artificial difficulty tripe - I usually have enough ammo thrice over to kill zombies along the way. Once you get a pattern down, you can even reliably knife them without ever getting hit.[/QUOTE] That's unfortunately true, I'm basically arguing from the point of permadeath runs (which Lost Alpha would be damn near fantastic for, if the A-Life driven NPCs would travel around a little bit) where you can't act as a total munchkin or at least if you do, you open yourself up to grave danger. That's the unfortunate balancing of mod / game experiences in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe - on the other hand nothing is dangerous if you save / load a lot, but because of the largely auto / quicksave driven game design (game/mod is designed with quicksaving / permasaving in mind), therefore trying to restrict one's saves would just end up with forced tedium of having to re-do section over and over again. Well, except in CoP where it feels a little more natural to just save inside the safe hubs and rely on autosaves for story missions, it means that death sets you back but I've yet to find as natural of a self-imposed restriction for SoC / CS. Which is why I really like Doom's Mod Merge / Xiani's Freeplay and can't wait for Call of Chernobyl and Lost Alpha's answer to Xiani's (or just some A-Life mod to move the respawners out of the immediate presence of the smart_terrain gulags for planned hostile stalker respawns since Lost Alpha seems really good for permadeath runs because it's not constant death all the time) because I'm tired of quicksave-driven gameplay which takes anyway the atmosphere out of many encounters.

[QUOTE=Muukkis;44799996]With Bloodsuckers, I can sort of see the point but on the other hand they haven't shown any real signs of sentience, seeing as they're both physically and mentally very far removed from actual humans, they might just as well be a primate rather than a human being.[/QUOTE] Concluding that from face value regarding the Bloodsuckers seems a bit of a silly case. Considering that they're invisible outside of(although they are also invisible partially during) combat, you can't really conclude on how a Bloodsucker functions as an individual or as a part of a pack mainly because, y'know, you can't see them doing that :v:. Also, the only time We actually caught a glimpse of their lair the devs made an ass pull by having the sequence turn into "Bloodsucker Nap Hour with Alex and Grouse".

Oh god why. There's this one part in Soup where like 30% of the artifacts in your inventory turn into stones. Good thing I quick saved a few seconds before I hit the trigger for it, I dumped all my artifacts onto a body and then triggered it :v:

[QUOTE=croguy;44800467]Concluding that from face value regarding the Bloodsuckers seems a bit of a silly case. Considering that they're invisible outside of(although they are also invisible partially during) combat, you can't really conclude on how a Bloodsucker functions as an individual or as a part of a pack[/QUOTE] That's true. And the ecologists probably know even less about them because they don't really get out of their bunker much and hire stalkers to go out and do their dirty work. In the lore, Bloodsuckers are supposed to be quasi-rare mutants as well, so that's yet another reason why they aren't really known inside-out. The value and mysteriousness of the elusive Bloodsucker has been diluted over the years because of their sheer numbers in-game, but lore-wise I'd wager them to be slightly rares as they currently are. Regardless, they have many very in-human traits like infamous tentacle-mouth, brain being visible in the outside of the head, the weird paw-like feet so while I guess you could wager a guess that they were human at one point plausibly, but it's hard to nail from their overall outlook that yep, they're definitely human.

I really like the idea of permadeath, but only the idea, because otherwise it puts too much pressure and annoyance on the player. I think just introducing a new difficulty (for example, like metro has ranger difficulty), where you can ONLY save in safe locations, so between your raids/mission completing would accomplish kind-of permadeath, without being too annoying. That's why it should be only a part of a new difficulty, and not forced on all players, only on the "masters" that want more than just run-gun-if-i-fail-roll-back-the-save-and-do-it-properly. It gives that kind of critical thinking, so that once you do a mistake, you are left with it, just like in real life :rolleyes: Of course at first mod needs to be 99% stable, otherwise crashing when you are nearly done would be way too sad.

[QUOTE=nater;44783129]Really now? Have you put so much shit into your s3r1ous pack that you s3r1ously don't know what is there anymore? Good job ignoring the rest of my post as well. Here you can clearly see UI files. [IMG]http://puu.sh/8Irhg.png[/IMG] First is unmodded. [t]http://puu.sh/8Ir3X.jpg[/t] Next we have modded which is clearly different, probably from misery, and includes some icons for bandages, etc. [t]http://puu.sh/8Ir1X.jpg[/t][/QUOTE] You got me there.... Anyways must the files chriotmao sneaked in into his pack since he never mentioned these.... those russians can be sneaky.... i respect all those changes thou.... really cool in comparison Yeah i also got like 20 or more fixes i need to worry about sometimes, to make sure they don't conflict, i get hazy

[QUOTE=Teh Zip File;44800468]Oh god why. There's this one part in Soup where like 30% of the artifacts in your inventory turn into stones. Good thing I quick saved a few seconds before I hit the trigger for it, I dumped all my artifacts onto a body and then triggered it :v:[/QUOTE] X-18 right? Because if so there's an automated message that plays telling you to take off all radioactive artifacts or else they gonna get fucked.

The new Join Pack 2 for soc looks very... Russian :v: [IMG]http://stalkermod.ru/images/stories/imagespost/stalker_obedineny_pak_2_3.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://stalkermod.ru/images/stories/imagespost/stalker_obedineny_pak_2_1.jpg[/IMG]

[QUOTE=WTF Nuke;44802081]X-18 right? Because if so there's an automated message that plays telling you to take off all radioactive artifacts or else they gonna get fucked.[/QUOTE] Nah, this happened in Radar. I just ignored that message, I don't think anything actually happened.

[QUOTE=exostalker;44802681]The new Join Pack 2 for soc looks very... Russian :v: [IMG]http://stalkermod.ru/images/stories/imagespost/stalker_obedineny_pak_2_3.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://stalkermod.ru/images/stories/imagespost/stalker_obedineny_pak_2_1.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE] I, to this day, still never understood why Russians waste such good talent just to mess around.