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

The thing is they literally glued 4 CS locations to see how X-ray will handle it. If we have Jupiter and Zaton then why not to merge old locations into something similar?

really though someone should port all the maps into the arma engine and then make it all into one thing that would be amazing

[QUOTE=Thomo_UK;46911670]The more detail you can pack into a nice level is better than a very large less interesting one that takes eons to load in my opinion. Like, Zaton is fucking massive and so is Jupiter anyway, it's not like Arma where you can get a car to drive the 20KM.[/QUOTE] Yeah, I think the size of Jupiter and Zaton is inherently flawed. They're not big enough to actually not feel like a themepark and warrant the use of cars, but not small enough to be more detailed and charming. Although I do still prefer them over the other levels, to be honest. Personally I'd love gigantic maps warranting a more fleshed out transportation/travel system, but I'm pretty sure that's not doable in Xray.

I've always had issues with zaton and jupiter because they feel so game-y, less like real locales and more like a gamespace to dot the landscape with a bunch of things, wheras ShoC and even the new CS maps feel more like places you are traveling through, and also are much better for combat. If LA had actual A-Life, i feel that would have been the best mix of size from CoP and feeling of actual 'place' ShoC had.

[QUOTE=Bloodshot12;46912068]I've always had issues with zaton and jupiter because they feel so game-y, less like real locales and more like a gamespace to dot the landscape with a bunch of things, wheras ShoC and even the new CS maps feel more like places you are traveling through, and also are much better for combat. If LA had actual A-Life, i feel that would have been the best mix of size from CoP and feeling of actual 'place' ShoC had.[/QUOTE] couldn't agree more.

[QUOTE=Pops;46911856]really though someone should port all the maps into the arma engine and then make it all into one thing that would be amazing[/QUOTE] Indeed. That and some various models. There's a big fucking window for a STALKER mod on ArmA 3.

[QUOTE=Bloodshot12;46912068]I've always had issues with zaton and jupiter because they feel so game-y, less like real locales and more like a gamespace to dot the landscape with a bunch of things, wheras ShoC and even the new CS maps feel more like places you are traveling through, and also are much better for combat. If LA had actual A-Life, i feel that would have been the best mix of size from CoP and feeling of actual 'place' ShoC had.[/QUOTE] Exactly, CoP's levels are basically just 'go between these interesting places with boring nonsensical landscape in between' - SoC's levels were like real locations, and the places within them [I]became[/I] interesting

I think the best way I can describe it is that most of ShoC's locations felt like characters in and of themselves instead of just 'way to get to point A' Pripyat itself is actually the closest to that in CoP, but unfortunately the lack of A-life and building interiors with anything valuable or interesting kind of hurts it a bit. Still, it's the most interesting to travel through in CoP for me.

Of course engine can handle many of the levels glued together, even before the source code leak. There are old videos of Russians doing this years ago. But there are 32-bit limitations. You can only have 4294967294 level vertices and you can only have so many AI graph nodes. Unless someone manages to compile X-Ray as 64-bit. This might be impossible since some of the libraries it uses are compile in 32-bit and do not exist as 64-bit. A lot of code will need re-written. The same goes for lua.jit 2.0. Don't expect that as it will require many, many code changes. But is it really necessary? Loading times are about 10-60 seconds after the first load from a freshly started game.

Does the AO for CoP have any kind of player stashes that you can plant like in SGM? I'd really love to try it out for all the added guns and sounds, but I fear that I'm gonna miss my train home where I horde all the crap that I can find.

[QUOTE=Bloodshot12;46912523]I think the best way I can describe it is that most of ShoC's locations felt like characters in and of themselves instead of just 'way to get to point A'[/QUOTE] It helped that SoC had a linear level-based progression instead of having a smaller number of "self-contained" levels so they could design one level along a single theme (military cordon) (garbage dumb) (industrial area) based on the purpose of the level in terms of how it's going to play out. Moreover, the fact that the levels were designed so that they were connected to the other levels(ie. road leads out of a level, on the next level the road continues from that level) made the levels have a larger degree of "realism" in a sense than if the level was just self-contained.

[QUOTE=Pops;46911856]really though someone should port all the maps into the arma engine and then make it all into one thing that would be amazing[/QUOTE] Two of my favourite games pretty much sliced together? yes please. I would love to operate in the zone, a friend of mine did some trigger based 'anomalies' in A3 that were like the brain scorcher so I wouldn't say it's impossible to put anomalies in.

-wrong thread-

[QUOTE=Beacon;46912423]Exactly, CoP's levels are basically just 'go between these interesting places with boring nonsensical landscape in between' - SoC's levels were like real locations, and the places within them [I]became[/I] interesting[/QUOTE] I think it's okay to have that empty space, you just have to have good A-Life in there to make it work. I also wouldn't mind more heavily forested/overgrown areas; a lot of the reason CoP's areas are dull is because they're all just fairly flat with huge sight-lines. Break that up with buildings, trees, ruins, anomaly fields, etc and it'd be more interesting to roam through. That's actually one of the things I liked about LA, the Cordon felt really overgrown and having cut down sight-lines meant you couldn't just see the whole map while up on the road. CoP's levels did eventually get dull, but it felt like they held up longer than that SoC/CS ones because of their size for things to happen.

I didn't follow any news on Lost Alpha from the last like...ever. So what's the state of it as of now? It has some seriously interesting concepts but I heard it feels...empty or something? With half-baked quests? I'd like some more detail on it, as someone who is very capable of enjoying the heavy Russian-ness of the Soup I'm just curious as to how it's turning out.

[QUOTE=Xion21;46916956]I didn't follow any news on Lost Alpha from the last like...ever. So what's the state of it as of now? It has some seriously interesting concepts but I heard it feels...empty or something? With half-baked quests? I'd like some more detail on it, as someone who is very capable of enjoying the heavy Russian-ness of the Soup I'm just curious as to how it's turning out.[/QUOTE] We're waiting for the 'Developer's Cut' to be released, which might salvage it.

So, I've already played through all three of the games, and I want to play through them again, I know there are enhancement mods out there, just wondering which ones you guys would recommend? I've seen some recommend the complete mods, just wanted your recommendations.

can someone who's finished cop with ao 2.4.1 + all the addons post their save pls

[QUOTE=LuckyLuke;46918988]So, I've already played through all three of the games, and I want to play through them again, I know there are enhancement mods out there, just wondering which ones you guys would recommend? I've seen some recommend the complete mods, just wanted your recommendations.[/QUOTE] Never ever ask for opinions on Complete in this thread, unless you've got nothing to do for the rest of the evening. ZRP + Photo Realistic Zone (PRZ2 is my version of 1) and AF3 for SHoC = Complete without the bullshit. [img]http://www.amk-team.ru/forum/public/style_emoticons/default/offtopic.gif[/img] Seriously, would anyone download something that's called "xxx 2009" or "xxx 2012"? I mean, we're 3 years down the road ... isn't it time for an update or just to leave it be? lol

[QUOTE=Pops;46911856]really though someone should port all the maps into the arma engine and then make it all into one thing that would be amazing[/QUOTE] Someone is attempting to make STALKER in the ARMA 3 engine, but progress and updates are painfully slow. The guy is doing it himself and although people have offered to help, he declines. See below: [video=youtube;EHpyA7NfYMs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHpyA7NfYMs[/video] [video=youtube;AIs60w_jc-c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIs60w_jc-c[/video]

Seems like threads are getting purged, here's a pastebin of the OP (which actually really needs updating) for the next thread if we get locked (minus the images). [url]http://pastebin.com/E6dFyHJw[/url]