Let's drink to him once more. He was a good S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

randombattle

Waka Laka wrote: »

STALKER forecast : Clear sky with a chance of mutants.

With a chance of BLOODSUCKERS more like it

ardently

A quick question about the weapon upgrades: Which mechanics can upgrade a rifle with an underslung grenade launcher attachment point? I feel as though I've checked every base except Clear Sky's. Basically I hope it's not Clear Sky's.

Riale

So I'm a huge fan of SoC (played through it like five times) but I didn't have any cash when Clear Sky came out so I went on a media blackout and tried to ignore that I couldn't get my hands on it. Now that it's out: is it any good? Should I bother with it or did they manage to fuck up everything good from SoC?

Professor Phobos

There are things that improved that should have been improved, there are things that were not improved that should have been improved, there are improvements of dubious value and there's a little bit that was lost.

All in all, if you liked SoC, you'll like Clear Sky, but if you liked heavily modded SoC, you might want to wait until Clear Sky is similarly altered by the community.

Ninja Snarl P

With the OL mod going, it's fun to track down an assassination target in the dead of night but ending up watching from a distance as the target and a couple of his buddies get mauled to death by bloodsuckers.

It is much less fun when you see a pair of glowing eyes turn in your direction. Even less fun than that is realizing that the bastard can pretty much see in the dark and he's not done clawing things. Fighting a bloodsucker at midnight is a bit more intense than fighting them in the light; you can't see that Predator wavy-image deal at night. Just the glowing eyes growing larger much, much too fast.

On another topic, I have an important question about NPC deaths. In OL, blowouts and the faction warfare stuff means lots of folks get killed. Will SoC create new NPCs infinitely to replace those losses? I'd kinda hate for the few populated spots to turn into areas overrun with nothing but mutants and enemies because all the good NPCs got killed. I already know that no specific NPCs respawn, but I have no idea about regular Stalkers.

canemaquilus

So uhh... man I restarted the game and DAMN did they fuck up faction wars.

Will this be fixed next patch?

Sorenson

krylon666 wrote: »

what upgrade path did you take? i went all kevlar/armor/durability upgrades on my SEVA (and all the additional artifact slots) and its been pretty nice. can the bulat carry artifacts? i saw one other suit that looked really good for combat, but it said it couldn't hold artifacts. right now i am carrying a +40 bleed, +2 health, +4 endurance, and 2 anti-rad artifacts. my health stays solid as hell

I went with the anomoly resistance path - did an expariment with the combat-related path the first time around but in the end it only added like 10% extra bulletproofing and a crapload of extra durability that I didn't give two shits about - and by the time I was through it had 57 anomoly/rad resistance alongside the standard 40 wound and 60 bullet resistanceplus 10 extra kilos of carrying. Only lets you use two artifacts but I haven't found many situations where I'd need more than two anyway (currently running with a Jellyfish and that +2 endurance one, haven't had much luck artifact hunting)

Ninja Snarl P wrote: »

It is much less fun when you see a pair of glowing eyes turn in your direction. Even less fun than that is realizing that the bastard can pretty much see in the dark and he's not done clawing things. Fighting a bloodsucker at midnight is a bit more intense than fighting them in the light; you can't see that Predator wavy-image deal at night. Just the glowing eyes growing larger much, much too fast.

Really? Crap, I honestly think fighting them at midnight is the best time to be fighting them, because for me it's not the wavy Predator outline I look for but those infernal, blazing eyes - eyes that are far easier to spot, and eyes that indicate where I should be pointing my gun for best effec

Also, I'm not exactly sure if the new Bloodsuckers are better. Sure, the few scripted scenes you see of 'em make 'em seem badass, but because they're so much more pronounced audio-wise this time they actually kind of lose a bit of their oh-shit effect. It's a lot creepier to be hearing this heavy beastial hyperventilating, barely loud enough to hear, getting louder and louder with each passing second, than just some monsterous roar.

On another topic, I have an important question about NPC deaths. In OL, blowouts and the faction warfare stuff means lots of folks get killed. Will SoC create new NPCs infinitely to replace those losses? I'd kinda hate for the few populated spots to turn into areas overrun with nothing but mutants and enemies because all the good NPCs got killed. I already know that no specific NPCs respawn, but I have no idea about regular Stalkers.

Certain specific NPCs won't - these are mainly dudes that are assigned to specific positions that normally don't see a lot of combat, like some of the patrolling Dutyers in the Bar (and poor Zurik, may his killed-by-a-blowout-as-he-madly-tried-to-get-out-of-his-little-room-that-the-door-had-jammed-and-sealed soul rest in peace). Other dudes like Stalkers that're walking about areas doing their Stalkerly business and stationed folks in combat areas like Wild Territory and Garbage will pop up after a bit, though (though whether it's a randomly-generated replacement or one selected from the 980-ish Stalkers the PDA lists on the ranking screen is anyone's guess).

canemaquilus wrote: »

So uhh... man I restarted the game and DAMN did they fuck up faction wars.

Will this be fixed next patch?

:?:

Are you talking about the general neutering we've been discussing for about 20 pages now or did GSC stealth-release another patch on us?

Dr.Oblivious

Sorenson wrote: »

canemaquilus wrote: »

So uhh... man I restarted the game and DAMN did they fuck up faction wars.

Will this be fixed next patch?

:?:

Are you talking about the general neutering we've been discussing for about 20 pages now or did GSC stealth-release another patch on us?

I think he's referring to the continuing discussion we’ve been having, because if they had released a new patch, I'd be the first to know. Anyway, I think a mod team needs to get on board to fix FW for the better ASAP, because I think GSC more worried about the crashes to desktop, self corrupting save files, and the million Russians who bought this game before anyone else.

Sorenson

What's Karnvelos or whomever the Oblivion Lost dude is doing? I mean, surely he knows that people have expectations of him.

Dr.Oblivious

Sorenson wrote: »

What's Karnvelos or whomever the Oblivion Lost dude is doing? I mean, surely he knows that people have expectations of him.

Waiting for his bribe money to arrive at his P.O. box if I had to guess. Dudes got quite the ego if you know what I mean.

CanisAquilus

I didnt notice it till now, it was only after playing through the clear-sky section pre-patch and post patch that I noticed the difference, and its fucking retarded.

Why did they do this?

krylon666

what was FW like pre-patch?

my game crashed when trying to zone from agroprom to the garbage. i remembered seeing that some people w/ a carry mod were crashing so i disabled mine and tried to zone again, then it worked. i reapplied the mod and zoned once more and it continued to work. just wanted to share in case anyone else hit this. so if you crash, remove mod then zone, then add mod again and it should work again (for some period of time at least ha).

Dr.Oblivious

CanisAquilus wrote: »

I didnt notice...

Wait, wait, hold the presses. You mean I've been dropping post after post on my observations (as well as others) on all the nerfs that were done to FW, as long as you’ve been reading this thread...and you’re only NOW noticing?

ROFL, talk about a hit to my pride, I’ve been completely ignored.

Should I pull out all my previous posts on what's been nerfed, and make one big referrence post for people who would like to read them? Because I don't think I could bear with repeating with myself.

Sorenson

No, methinks our conbined internet stares and bewilderness at his own brand of obliviousness will do the job well enough.

Anyway, I was thinking of something: has GSC announced any plans to license Xray for other developers to use for their games? I mean, sure, we give them and their games plenty of flak for one thing or another, but you have to admit that when all's said and done that if people are willing to put in the time and effort and really learn the ins and outs of the system that they can create works that are absolutly spectacular, and it'd be a shame if it wound up only being used for the Stalker games. I'd go so far as to say that it's possibly one of the best engines out there, right up with Unreal, Quake, and Source in terms of potential if not popularity/proliferation.

Dr.Oblivious

Sorenson wrote: »

No, methinks our conbined internet stares and bewilderness at his own brand of obliviousness will do the job well enough.

Anyway, I was thinking of something: has GSC announced any plans to license Xray for other developers to use for their games? I mean, sure, we give them and their games plenty of flak for one thing or another, but you have to admit that when all's said and done that if people are willing to put in the time and effort and really learn the ins and outs of the system that they can create works that are absolutly spectacular, and it'd be a shame if it wound up only being used for the Stalker games. I'd go so far as to say that it's possibly one of the best engines out there, right up with Unreal, Quake, and Source in terms of potential if not popularity/proliferation.

Don't quote me, but I'm pretty sure GSC hasn't (and probably never will) marketed Stalker's game engine because it was never designed to be used extensively beyond their very small development team. The engine itself has been in the works for over eight some odd years while Stalker was in limbo, it has went through several extensive revamps, making the engine somewhat unstable at times in regards to how it functions.

While Stalker is awesome, I've always been under the impression that they never thought it would be such a big hit, propelling their company to the bottom of the big leagues of recognized game companies. Most likely, when they're making Stalker 2, we'll probably see them produce an engine purposely designed to be marketable to other companies, who can’t afford the resources to properly design their own engine.

Prepare to see a huge leap in the number of programmers and designers GSC employs in the next coming years, because Clear Sky and Stalker represent an unprecedented profit for GSC leaving them little to do but to expand their small company into a functional corporation.

Dr.Oblivious

For a reference, this the 2004 build of the game engine (Xray) that Stalker uses.

Ye' Old Stalker

Even though this built was made ages ago, it still looks VERY similar graphically and gameplay wise to the current Stalker of today, that's because they've been constantly building on top a game engine that was never suppose to be modified so extensively beyond the years it was conceived. It's one of the main reasons why GSC has so much trouble fixing problems and glitches in Stalker; they literally have to dive years back into their work to find the problem that may or may not have been caused by something that was programmed years ago.

Now I would love to show you guys as a treat, what the 2001 built of the game looked like, but I think that video has purposely been lost, forever ago.

Edit: Fucking nvm mind! I found it!

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbGlgbw9J18[/url]S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Oblivion Lost trailer 2002[/url]

bobmyknob

Dr.Oblivious wrote: »

For a reference, this the 2004 build of the game engine (Xray) that Stalker uses.

Ye' Old Stalker

Even though this built was made ages ago, it still looks VERY similar graphically and gameplay wise to the current Stalker of today, that's because they've been constantly building on top a game engine that was never suppose to be modified so extensively beyond the years it was conceived. It's one of the main reasons why GSC has so much trouble fixing problems and glitches in Stalker; they literally have to dive years back into their work to find the problem that may or may not have been caused by something that was programmed years ago.

Now I would love to show you guys as a treat, what the 2001 built of the game looked like, but I think that video has purposely lost, forever ago.

Edit: Fucking nvm mind! I found it!

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbGlgbw9J18[/url]S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Oblivion Lost trailer 2002[/url]

Can you guys imagine if that was released back in 2002? It would've been light-years beyond anything else out at the time, of course it would've taken a computer light-years beyond anything else then too.

D-Boy

nice videos

Zxerol

I remember the hype of X-Ray being one of the big hot shit engines way back then. It was pretty much beyond anything else; I remember them getting ingame shots and comparing them with real-life photos in which they were modeled after, and people were gasping on how "photorealistic" it looked.

Eh, a few years later in a world which Crysis and co. exists, no one gives a flip. But it almost mindblowing those years ago.

Rook

Dr.Oblivious wrote: »

Sorenson wrote: »

No, methinks our conbined internet stares and bewilderness at his own brand of obliviousness will do the job well enough.

Anyway, I was thinking of something: has GSC announced any plans to license Xray for other developers to use for their games? I mean, sure, we give them and their games plenty of flak for one thing or another, but you have to admit that when all's said and done that if people are willing to put in the time and effort and really learn the ins and outs of the system that they can create works that are absolutly spectacular, and it'd be a shame if it wound up only being used for the Stalker games. I'd go so far as to say that it's possibly one of the best engines out there, right up with Unreal, Quake, and Source in terms of potential if not popularity/proliferation.

Don't quote me, but I'm pretty sure GSC hasn't (and probably never will) marketed Stalker's game engine because it was never designed to be used extensively beyond their very small development team. The engine itself has been in the works for over eight some odd years while Stalker was in limbo, it has went through several extensive revamps, making the engine somewhat unstable at times in regards to how it functions.

While Stalker is awesome, I've always been under the impression that they never thought it would be such a big hit, propelling their company to the bottom of the big leagues of recognized game companies. Most likely, when they're making Stalker 2, we'll probably see them produce an engine purposely designed to be marketable to other companies, who can’t afford the resources to properly design their own engine.

Prepare to see a huge leap in the number of programmers and designers GSC employs in the next coming years, because Clear Sky and Stalker represent an unprecedented profit for GSC leaving them little to do but to expand their small company into a functional corporation.

People say that, but GSC made the Cossack games which is one of the biggest selling PC series (over 6.5 million sales from two titles alone. allegedly), so it's not like STALKER is their first successful game. It's a very odd company.

Tim James

Zxerol wrote: »

Eh, a few years later in a world which Crysis and co. exists, no one gives a flip.

I do. Not enough to become a fanboy about their engine, but it does some unique and pretty things that other developers really ought to steal.

Dr.Oblivious

Rook wrote: »

Dr.Oblivious wrote: »

Sorenson wrote: »

No, methinks our conbined internet stares and bewilderness at his own brand of obliviousness will do the job well enough.

Anyway, I was thinking of something: has GSC announced any plans to license Xray for other developers to use for their games? I mean, sure, we give them and their games plenty of flak for one thing or another, but you have to admit that when all's said and done that if people are willing to put in the time and effort and really learn the ins and outs of the system that they can create works that are absolutly spectacular, and it'd be a shame if it wound up only being used for the Stalker games. I'd go so far as to say that it's possibly one of the best engines out there, right up with Unreal, Quake, and Source in terms of potential if not popularity/proliferation.

Don't quote me, but I'm pretty sure GSC hasn't (and probably never will) marketed Stalker's game engine because it was never designed to be used extensively beyond their very small development team. The engine itself has been in the works for over eight some odd years while Stalker was in limbo, it has went through several extensive revamps, making the engine somewhat unstable at times in regards to how it functions.

While Stalker is awesome, I've always been under the impression that they never thought it would be such a big hit, propelling their company to the bottom of the big leagues of recognized game companies. Most likely, when they're making Stalker 2, we'll probably see them produce an engine purposely designed to be marketable to other companies, who can’t afford the resources to properly design their own engine.

Prepare to see a huge leap in the number of programmers and designers GSC employs in the next coming years, because Clear Sky and Stalker represent an unprecedented profit for GSC leaving them little to do but to expand their small company into a functional corporation.

People say that, but GSC made the Cossack games which is one of the biggest selling PC series (over 6.5 million sales from two titles alone. allegedly), so it's not like STALKER is their first successful game. It's a very odd company.

That's very true, but during those years before Stalker was released they also had several series of major set-backs of failed games, which nearly killed the company. Beside all that, Cossack and a few other games didn't have major public renown, nor were they original or different enough compared to their competitors at the time to truly carve a name for themselves.

While Stalker series may not be their first success GSC have had, but it will however probably be the one they're remembered for...assuming they don't raise the bar and release something better.

CanisAquilus

Dr.Oblivious wrote: »

CanisAquilus wrote: »

I didnt notice...

Wait, wait, hold the presses. You mean I've been dropping post after post on my observations (as well as others) on all the nerfs that were done to FW, as long as you’ve been reading this thread...and you’re only NOW noticing?

ROFL, talk about a hit to my pride, I’ve been completely ignored.

Should I pull out all my previous posts on what's been nerfed, and make one big referrence post for people who would like to read them? Because I don't think I could bear with repeating with myself.

No man no...

Look. I noticed everyone complaining about the changes.

The changes however wern't quite so obvious to me IN GAME until I did the clear sky section over again post patch. I noticed that things wern't working as well as they were previously in post swamps faction wars, but I figured it was due to it being a bigger map, etc etc.

Once I'd done the same section both pre and post patch the full gravity of the situation hit me.

Also hey a patch is supposed to be out today.

Tim James

Delayed until Monday.

canemaquilus

god DAMNIT.

I'm thinking about unpatching so faction wars comes back.

Dr.Oblivious

CanisAquilus wrote: »

Dr.Oblivious wrote: »

CanisAquilus wrote: »

I didnt notice...

Wait, wait, hold the presses. You mean I've been dropping post after post on my observations (as well as others) on all the nerfs that were done to FW, as long as you’ve been reading this thread...and you’re only NOW noticing?

ROFL, talk about a hit to my pride, I’ve been completely ignored.

Should I pull out all my previous posts on what's been nerfed, and make one big referrence post for people who would like to read them? Because I don't think I could bear with repeating with myself.

No man no...

Look. I noticed everyone complaining about the changes.

The changes however wern't quite so obvious to me IN GAME until I did the clear sky section over again post patch. I noticed that things wern't working as well as they were previously in post swamps faction wars, but I figured it was due to it being a bigger map, etc etc.

Once I'd done the same section both pre and post patch the full gravity of the situation hit me.

Also hey a patch is supposed to be out today.

What do I say to that.

Hmmmmm.

My bad?

Tim James

canemaquilus wrote: »

god DAMNIT.

I'm thinking about unpatching so faction wars comes back.

Have you beaten it already then? If not, just play the damn game. I had my fun with the faction war and moved on when I saw it was broken. It won't hurt you.

If you want to go through a second time, I would definitely be waiting at this point.

CanisAquilus

I might have sortov deleted my game files so I could start fresh and lead the bandits to victory.

Sortov.

GalagaGalaxian

Man, I swept through the Swamps, Cordon, and Garbage with the best detector and was unable to find some anti-radiation artifacts. Found a few misc others, but no antirads.

Guess I'll check Dark Valley, Aggroprom, and Yantar on my next play session.

In other news I'm loving my new rifle, a fully accuracy upgrade SGi 5K. good stopping power, accurate, and a semi-slow RoF which helps conserve ammo while keeping it accurate too.

Daemonion

CanisAquilus wrote: »

I might have sortov deleted my game files so I could start fresh and lead the bandits to victory.

Damn it, I wanted to join the bandits so I could hate and kill everyone I see (except other bandits ...which I still might do ...)

Can this only be done pre-patch?


Also, I really hate being able to kill three whole squads of Clear Sky soldiers without any consequence, besides those squads shooting me. They all have radios ...right? Wouldn't they like, I dunno, call it in?

Dr.Oblivious

Daemonion wrote: »

CanisAquilus wrote: »

I might have sortov deleted my game files so I could start fresh and lead the bandits to victory.

Damn it, I wanted to join the bandits so I could hate and kill everyone I see (except other bandits ...which I still might do ...)

Can this only be done pre-patch?

As far as I know, the Bandits were also glitched before the patches.

Daemonion

Dr.Oblivious wrote: »

Daemonion wrote: »

CanisAquilus wrote: »

I might have sortov deleted my game files so I could start fresh and lead the bandits to victory.

Damn it, I wanted to join the bandits so I could hate and kill everyone I see (except other bandits ...which I still might do ...)

Can this only be done pre-patch?

As far as I know, the Bandits were also glitched before the patches.

Jesus, how fucking lame is that? I love this game, and hate so the devs for so many reasons at the same time. Still, though, this franchise/game is in my top 10. Nothing else like it ...

Dr.Oblivious

Daemonion wrote: »

Dr.Oblivious wrote: »

Daemonion wrote: »

CanisAquilus wrote: »

I might have sortov deleted my game files so I could start fresh and lead the bandits to victory.

Damn it, I wanted to join the bandits so I could hate and kill everyone I see (except other bandits ...which I still might do ...)

Can this only be done pre-patch?

As far as I know, the Bandits were also glitched before the patches.

Jesus, how fucking lame is that? I love this game, and hate so the devs for so many reasons at the same time. Still, though, this franchise/game is in my top 10. Nothing else like it ...

Stalker is like a girl friend, you treat her right and you'll both have fun and really enjoy some great moments together. But sometimes when you’re in the mood and she's not, no matter how hard you try to get her to cooperate with you, her responds is always going to be, "No." You can try to change her mind, but that’s just going to piss her off and make her crash at her friend's place until you patch things up and start over with her. It's really a love/hate relation that's balanced on thin thread of hope, it could easily fall either way.

Is that enough 'play on words' for you, chief?

Ergandar

I can't enter past the door in Sidorovich's trading area.

Also, I still haven't discovered the location of that military commander's stash. :x

CanisAquilus

Dr.Oblivious wrote: »

Here's a map to the cave entrance, please note I've haven't really explored it yet.

There is a break in the barb-wire fence that you can run through at X. Take that route all the way to where the arrow is pointing, you can't miss it.

Warning, that area is heavily radiated, so be careful.

Why would you lie about something like this. You made me waste all my anti-rad you big homo.

Dr.Oblivious

CanisAquilus wrote: »

Dr.Oblivious wrote: »

Here's a map to the cave entrance, please note I've haven't really explored it yet.

There is a break in the barb-wire fence that you can run through at X. Take that route all the way to where the arrow is pointing, you can't miss it.

Warning, that area is heavily radiated, so be careful.

Why would you lie about something like this. You made me waste all my anti-rad you big homo.

Lied about what?

randombattle

Dr.Oblivious wrote: »

CanisAquilus wrote: »

Dr.Oblivious wrote: »

Here's a map to the cave entrance, please note I've haven't really explored it yet.

There is a break in the barb-wire fence that you can run through at X. Take that route all the way to where the arrow is pointing, you can't miss it.

Warning, that area is heavily radiated, so be careful.

Why would you lie about something like this. You made me waste all my anti-rad you big homo.

Lied about what?

There's another cave like that in that big building by the freedom base.

Dr.Oblivious

randombattle wrote: »

Dr.Oblivious wrote: »

CanisAquilus wrote: »

Dr.Oblivious wrote: »

Here's a map to the cave entrance, please note I've haven't really explored it yet.

There is a break in the barb-wire fence that you can run through at X. Take that route all the way to where the arrow is pointing, you can't miss it.

Warning, that area is heavily radiated, so be careful.

Why would you lie about something like this. You made me waste all my anti-rad you big homo.

Lied about what?

There's another cave like that in that big building by the freedom base.

Do tell.

CanisAquilus

Dr.Oblivious wrote: »

CanisAquilus wrote: »

Dr.Oblivious wrote: »

Here's a map to the cave entrance, please note I've haven't really explored it yet.

There is a break in the barb-wire fence that you can run through at X. Take that route all the way to where the arrow is pointing, you can't miss it.

Warning, that area is heavily radiated, so be careful.

Why would you lie about something like this. You made me waste all my anti-rad you big homo.

Lied about what?

I actually found the caves after I made that post. The break in the fence is unbelievably difficult to find, and the map is uhh... pretty innacurate... the break is just to the left of your mouse in the screen cap.

I'm in the caves but cant find the detector you mentioned. You said it was under the mattress? How do you get to it?

Dr.Oblivious

CanisAquilus wrote: »

I actually found the caves after I made that post. The break in the fence is unbelievably difficult to find, and the map is uhh... pretty innacurate... the break is just to the left of your mouse in the screen cap.

I never claimed to be a good cartographer, my map was just meant to give you a vague direction to basically tell you how I got from here'a to there'a.