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

The new Lost Alpha doesn't appear to work with Steam Overlay, any guesses why?

Lost Alpha gives me insane FPS drops when I enable sun shadows. Changing shadow quality didn't seem to have an effect, but then again perhaps I needed to reset. I crashed soon after at the beginning (I was fucking with the settings a lot, I blame that) and then I went to bed.

So is the new Lost-Alpha patch worth a restart? Compared to the prev 1.30013? I haven't ran into anything gamebreaking, but if it really blows the cheeki off your breeki I'll just fly around with noclip until I get back to where I was... e: i mean the absolute worst thing I see fixed was the broken arena, but eh..

[QUOTE=Tinter;45368351]I've always thought quick saving didn't really complement stalker's gameplay that well. I guess I might do a run with perma death.[/QUOTE] I take the half-measure: hard-saving chapters at the beginning/end of important events.. Helps keep any random crashes down, too! [QUOTE=Snood_1990;45368913]My only gripe so far has been the placement of the bar, you have to walk all away around the entire complex before you can find the entrance.[/QUOTE] That has always been the design.. God damn, I spent 30 minutes clawing at every wall on the perimeter until I accidentally stumbled inside.

Seems that the biggest performance hit came from sun shafts. Aside from sun shadows, the light rays absolutely killed my FPS. I love them, but unfortunately have to disable them. CoP's sunshafts didn't affect my computer nearly as much.

For those still interested the Areal devs did an [url=http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2al8dd/we_are_west_games_a_studio_made_up_of_senior/]AMA[/url] on reddit. However, as usual they sidestep rather than give straightforward answers, even resorting to insulting people with legitimate questions, using copy-pasted answers and creating new accounts to discourage negative discussion. On the bright side after their AMA they lost quite a number of Kickstarter backers. As of right now they have almost 36,000 and ten days to go, so hopefully they won't succeed.

Man that hostage rescue is fucking bullshit in call of pripyat. I went in, gave the fuckers the ransom and then they mug me as I'm leaving and I'm like 'I don't want to fight 20 bandits in my shit gear' but they wanted literally all my stuff. It would have been okay but I had to fight my way out from that shitty warehouse with one exit, took 30 minutes of reloading constantly because I got shot in the face and dropped instantly. Such is life in the zone.

Some great questions from genuine Areal fans, all answered by the devs: [quote][I]"I'm a fan of Arial, and I'm so disappointed, that many people lie about you. I know, you are not a fake, and many people support you! But how will be with those people, who have done everything to destroy a Kickstarter company on a first days? It was evident, that they did everything to put you down, by their lie, provocations and nonsense. How do you plan to finish a kick starter company to make it successful?" "WG, I think you're damn lucky to get Alexey Sytyanov into your team. He's a treasure! Nurture and cherish him and you'll get what you claim - true Stalker successor. My question is personally to him. Was there any storyline or gameplay feature in Stalker that you liked most and would like to add to your new project?" "Why do you have helicopters and other vehicles?" "Fuck, kill, marry? Eugene o. , Eugene t., and Eugene c. . Go."[/I][/quote] All from day-old accounts btw.

[QUOTE=Empty_Shadow;45382520]..I went in, gave the fuckers the ransom and then they mug me as I'm leaving and I'm like 'I don't want to fight 20 bandits in my shit gear' but they wanted literally all my stuff...[/QUOTE] I thought the same thing on my first play of Call of Pripyat, but then I thought again: "Why the hell would I be honest in the Zone? I'll just pretend this 4000RU is all I've got."

[QUOTE=rikimaru6811;45382587]I thought the same thing on my first play of Call of Pripyat, but then I thought again: "Why the hell would I be honest in the Zone? I'll just pretend this 4000RU is all I've got."[/QUOTE] Oh you can specify how much you give? I just shot him in the mouth.

Fuck me, getting those military documents in LA was a pain in the ass. Also, I found out what happens when you shoot at a helicopter. It was a blast.

for a brief synopsis of why Areal looks so shady, you can check out this google docs [url]https://docs.google.com/document/d/15v9jjjm2y_NFlkKjVTTOJtTiAwp7XzEBFA5NmmIljSc/edit[/url]

[QUOTE=zeldar;45382580]Some great questions from genuine Areal fans, all answered by the devs: All from day-old accounts btw.[/QUOTE] Holy shit is that serious

What's new on the block?

Does Lost Alpha have Blowouts? Whenever I crash, among the last lines before Stack Trace is a transition for blowouts. [quote=log]$ LA_DBG:[1041495] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ $ LA_DBG:[1041495] save_storehouse: size=[14]/[1997]bytes : Build=[5529] $ LA_DBG:[1041495] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Game mainsave.sav is successfully saved to file 'c:\program files (x86)\s.t.a.l.k.e.r. - lost alpha\appdata\savedgames\mainsave.sav' $ LA_DBG:[1095668] smart_terrain:smart terrain idle timer [bcr_bandit_terrain2idle] has interval of [2] $ LA_DBG:[1095668] smart_terrain:ST name = [bcr_bandit_terrain2] has population of [nil] and is NOT available $ LA_DBG:[1104524] level_weathers:if next then current = [af_preblowout] and next = [af_preblowout] $ LA_DBG:[1104524] level_weathers:current transition: [af_preblowout]~>[af_preblowout_to_af_preblowout_at_13_00] : 13:03:24 ~> 13:03:24 $ LA_DBG:[1104524] level_weathers:transition = [af_preblowout_to_af_preblowout_at_13_00] stack trace: 0023:5F367DA4 d3d11.dll, D3D11CreateDeviceAndSwapChain() 0023:5F36753C d3d11.dll, D3D11CreateDeviceAndSwapChain() 0023:5F310FAA d3d11.dll, D3D11CreateDeviceAndSwapChain() 0023:5814CFE0 DxtoryCore.dll, DxCore_SetPushTalkState() 0023:58179ACC DxtoryCore.dll, DxCore_FreeKeyboardHook() 0023:5816FF1B DxtoryCore.dll, DxCore_FreeMixerNotifier() 0023:5816DFD8 DxtoryCore.dll, DxCore_FreeMixerNotifier() 0023:5816DF0B DxtoryCore.dll, DxCore_FreeMixerNotifier() 0023:58175545 DxtoryCore.dll, DxCore_FreeMixerNotifier() 0023:5BD240D4 DxtoryMM.dll, QueryExecuteMemory() 0023:5F6F4307 xrRender_R3.dll, SupportsDX10Rendering() 0023:5F6F4307 xrRender_R3.dll, SupportsDX10Rendering()[/quote]

[QUOTE=Daemon White;45388041]Does Lost Alpha have Blowouts?[/QUOTE] The early versions were ones versions of Lost Alpha, which had blowouts happen almost daily, but I haven't encountered any blowouts in the 1.3.0013 version. [editline]herp[/editline] [QUOTE=Doneeh;45388004]What's new on the block?[/QUOTE] Lost Alpha was released, disappointments were abound when it plays more like Far Cry 1 with a metric tonne of crash bugs than the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Jesus with all the good sides from the earlier games with none of the bad sides it was expected to play like. Personally, I'm torn between accepting it as a good stand-alone game that does it's own thing, even though it doesn't really feel like a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. title for some reasons and being wholly disappointed with the things it could've done very easily right, yet it does [B][I]so wrong[/I][/B]. OGSE 0.9.3 is about to be released, the feature list has people getting really hyped. Additions include new maps, some from the beta and companions being able to ride in cars with you and functioning thermal vision. Call of Chernobyl (CoP's first "proper freeplay mod") is about-ish to release, although it's more aimed to be of a "modder resource pack"(with SoC/CS levels and some old build levels converted to CoP engine) than it's "own" mod but it can be played as a freeplay mod as well. Clear Sky's getting Road To Limansk, basically a weapons and balance overhaul mod(I don't really like it's animations because some of them are straight ripped out of CoD but it seems like a reasonably interesting mod for CS).

I'm on the new patch. 1.3002 [editline]14th July 2014[/editline] Oh wait, DXCore. It's some shit related to DXTory.

Apart from the already known stuff, nothing new on the eastern front or russian forums? I would like to know more about Frozen Zone, what those guys are aiming at

[QUOTE=Muukkis;45388080]Lost Alpha was released, disappointments were abound when it plays more like Far Cry 1 with a metric tonne of crash bugs than the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Jesus with all the good sides from the earlier games with none of the bad sides it was expected to play like. Personally, I'm torn between accepting it as a good stand-alone game that does it's own thing, even though it doesn't really feel like a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. title for some reasons and being wholly disappointed with the things it could've done very easily right, yet it does [B][I]so wrong[/I][/B]. OGSE 0.9.3 is about to be released, the feature list has people getting really hyped. Additions include new maps, some from the beta and companions being able to ride in cars with you and functioning thermal vision. Call of Chernobyl (CoP's first "proper freeplay mod") is about-ish to release, although it's more aimed to be of a "modder resource pack"(with SoC/CS levels and some old build levels converted to CoP engine) than it's "own" mod but it can be played as a freeplay mod as well. Clear Sky's getting Road To Limansk, basically a weapons and balance overhaul mod(I don't really like it's animations because some of them are straight ripped out of CoD but it seems like a reasonably interesting mod for CS).[/QUOTE] Yeah, LA was pretty disappointing. Gonna look into all that other shit soon. Thanks.

Dayum, I can't believe I missed patch day, I've been waiting for LA to fix the quickload bug. Yay. [editline]14th July 2014[/editline] Is there still a memory leak or something where the FPS drops over time?

[QUOTE=zeldar;45382501]For those still interested the Areal devs did an [url=http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2al8dd/we_are_west_games_a_studio_made_up_of_senior/]AMA[/url] on reddit. However, as usual they sidestep rather than give straightforward answers, even resorting to insulting people with legitimate questions, using copy-pasted answers and creating new accounts to discourage negative discussion. On the bright side after their AMA they lost quite a number of Kickstarter backers. As of right now they have almost 36,000 and ten days to go, so hopefully they won't succeed.[/QUOTE] Holy shit, all of those accounts defending the Areal team/asking softball questions, brand-new accounts with their ONLY posts in the Areal AMA. This is fucking hilarious.

[QUOTE=Muukkis;45388080]The early versions were ones versions of Lost Alpha, which had blowouts happen almost daily, but I haven't encountered any blowouts in the 1.3.0013 version. [editline]herp[/editline] Clear Sky's getting Road To Limansk, basically a weapons and balance overhaul mod(I don't really like it's animations because some of them are straight ripped out of CoD but it seems like a reasonably interesting mod for CS).[/QUOTE] It's a tiny thing to get upset over, but the kicker for Road to Limansk for me was finding out that the author had replaced the medkit model with Left 4 Dead's, because the original one "looked too much like a donut box." :/ As far as the animations go, are you sure that they're direct rips rather than rip-offs? I wasn't aware that it was even possible to port animations from other engines to X-Ray.

[QUOTE=wat_am_i_doin;45391866]It's a tiny thing to get upset over, but the kicker for Road to Limansk for me was finding out that the author had replaced the medkit model with Left 4 Dead's, because the original one "looked too much like a donut box." :/ As far as the animations go, are you sure that they're direct rips rather than rip-offs? I wasn't aware that it was even possible to port animations from other engines to X-Ray.[/QUOTE] Unless X-Ray handles animations differently than bone rotations and null placements, it's possible to port damn near any animation into X-Ray if all you're doing is rotating bones. Using fancy nulls and IK rigging helps animating a lot, but it's basically using the nulls to animate, then keying the bone rotations (or object translations, like a mag / clip / individual bullet, etc).

[QUOTE=Daemon White;45391947]Unless X-Ray handles animations differently than bone rotations and null placements, it's possible to port damn near any animation into X-Ray if all you're doing is rotating bones. Using fancy nulls and IK rigging helps animating a lot, but it's basically using the nulls to animate, then keying the bone rotations (or object translations, like a mag / clip / individual bullet, etc).[/QUOTE] Thanks. I know nothing about animations, but was under the impression that the engine would use some kind of crazy system.

SOC has the cleanest engine, all future iterations of X-Ray are built on old source code with LUA. They didn't want to destabilize the engine so they just slapped LUA on top of it hoping it will buffer between the code. You got to remember that GSC developed the engine for 2 years (Xcore) before moving on to the game. Its horrible mess but COP managed to fix most of CS engine problems so i guess it works. Thats why Lost Alpha started from 1.0007 RC1 code, its last version of the engine itself that was never used because it was never fixed (until now). Its the last patch for Xcore. Infact Lost Alpha might be the most stable/feature rich version of X-Ray from ground up. This is what i gathered from everything posted on the web about it. I could link you guys the reddit post a developer made when he examined internals of X-Ray but i can't find it dammit.

Stalker games are on sale on Bundlestars.com

SO what happens with the kickstarter and money if they don't meet their goal?

No one loses money, project not funded. Everything goes back to normal.

they dont get jack shit lol

Oh, great. That's really good! I never did understand KS fully.