S.T.A.L.K.E.R

[Stryder]

I'm considering getting this game, it looks really cool. Graphics a tad dated (compared to Oblivion and such) but if the gameplay delivers what it promises I'm sold. Huge world, very open-ended FPS... sounds familiar http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif. Has anyone tried it yet?

[Messiah]

if anyone has, it would be a touch naughty, given it's released tomorrow http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

[Pathy]

I have a feeling it's going to be good though, really good. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

[Messiah]

Preordered mine now (not much of a pre-order given its 1 day left) but should arrive by tomorrow morning since I'm early in the day)

There goes my weekend http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/whistle.gif

[MessiahUA]

I can tell you, that this game is really nothing special... maybe it is worth to see it yourself, but it is not very open-ended, nothing compared to Armed Assault really. You have straight linear plot and enclosed space, which you can't pass.
AI is also nothing special. Promised "dynamic world" is so simple and it is very primitive in such enclosed space. All events and anomalies happen under you very nose and you don't have to even search for something, you will absolutely see everything, that you should see.
Only one thing, that is really made great is the whole atmosphere. Surrounding (textures), static objects are great, it is really something, that is maybe close to reality.

Nothing more to say. If you want to see it, then buy it, but nothing groundbreaking or special. I think, that one word can explain this - outdated.

[Messiah]

considering it was developed, what, 5 years ago now, calling it outdated isn't so suprising.

graphics don't maketh the game after all

[NSX]

Greetings from Russia. Rushed it a day ago...Really nothing special in all spheres - no RPG parametres, irrational damage system, stupid "life sim. system" you can call an ordinary respawn, no big zones - just a few zones with loadings and NO free normal exploration like it was in Xenus. I always wished to play like a stalker from "Roadside picnic", but this time it's more like an ordinary superhero. Pripyat, which supposed to be a normal dead town is crawling with Monolith fanatics and pretends to be just an atmospheric location for a big massacre. The same goes to NPP.

At the same time I don't like there're stupid locations like zombifiyng station and brain-scorcher - foreign people may think Russia or CIS countries are all like that - built up with "evil soviets vile devices".

[Kronzky]

Oh well...

It sounded like a nice idea originally. Free browsing, independent life system, dynamic story line and all.

But that was a few years ago.
I guess a few "adjustments" had to be made in the meantime...

[4 IN 1]

so is it time to call our in doors almighty modders to help?

[NSX]

@<hidden> 4 IN 1

In my opinion - right. However, I really don&#39;t think modder&#39;s SDK would be the same as for OFP.

[450R]

That&#39;s too bad, I was really looking forward to everything Stalker seemed to offer. I probably idealized it a bit during the 5 year wait, but the unique mix of free exploration and combat appealed to me.

It&#39;s getting decent reviews from the regular places but all the user reviews are disappointing. I think I&#39;ll wait for a patch and see where it ends up ... at the moment it&#39;s alongside ArmA in the it&#39;s-got-potential category.

[Messiah]

I&#39;m getting it anyways - worth the &#163;25 I reckon - not got anything else to spend it on this week http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

[Bonko the Sane]

it may be linear gameplay but as already stated, the athmosphere is excellent, and you do get some freedom of movement, at least you choose the order of the tasks you perform, all in all, if you got money and time to waste, its worth it.

[NSX]

Well, atmosphere is not what I was awaiting too - there&#39;re too many people on too small territory and almost no monsters - it reminds me a kind of small room, where 30 people are in one time.

Industrial atmosphere lost here - it&#39;s more postapocalyptic - don&#39;t like that.

[NeMeSiS]

So..
Can you still walk around freely (even though there are loading times)? http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/huh.gif

[AWDrift]

If you decide to ignore the plot are there still ways of making money in the game?

[MechaStalin]

Theres a small realism mod released on the official forums that increases the damage of all the guns majorly. So they take from 1-3 shots to kill or so.

[NSX]

@<hidden>

Money have no value in game, really. You can&#39;t buy OTs-14 Groza or Abakan even if you have money. However, everything you need you can easily get as a trophy from militaries or other stalkers. also, you can&#39;t fix weaps. So expect you rare G36, Val or FN2000 to be jammed anytime.

[VISTREL]

Don&#39;t get fooled by Messiah2&#39;s comments.

This game is very good but not GOTY.

As a fan of OFP I can tell you that shooting is great, and environments are awesome. If you like urban combat you will love stalker. AI is superb, however, it also tends to be stupid sometimes but every game that tried to make revolutionary AI had this.

Anyway, if you like easy shooters with space and stuff you might not like it. However, as you read this forum you probably like hard stuff so my bet you might like it.

I personally give it 8/10. It&#39;s a solid game with awesome atmosphere and nice shooting moments.

[NeMeSiS]

As a fan of OFP I can tell you that shooting is great, and environments are awesome.
Well i tried it today and i liked everything except for the shooting itself, its nice that we can use iron sights and turn the crosshairs off but it didnt feel as nice as ArmA, way too &#39;static&#39; IMO. And i was quite dissapointed that the maps were very thing and long, it made it more or less impossible to get lost which is a shame. Its also a shame that the maps are way too &#39;filled&#39;, every 5 steps you run into an anomaly or a NPC. I had hoped that the anomalies would be much more scarce and harder to detect, right now all they do is prevent you from sprinting at night (otherwise you run into them without even noticing).

The AI is good though, athmosphere is generally more then OK and its just fun to play. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[5133p39]

I would say its the same as Boiling Point (http://www.atari.com/boilingpoint/index.htm), except it lacks some features (no usable vehicles, no RPG elements at all, world divided by loadings into small levels like HL2).
The factories and scrapyards are nice, Chernobyl is nicely done too, etc.

Playing the main plot is fun, but the sidequests are repetitive and boring.

AI is relatively bad, but not so bad considering the fact that it does not appear to be scripted and that it is often using various obstacles for cover.
What is really BAD, is the forever respawning AI (on your way somewhere, you clear some enemies, and on your way back you encounter them again). Considering how often you need to travel through the same locations while completing various quests, it gets very annoying - again and again you are fighting the same enemies at the same locations, no matter how many times you have defeatet them already.
Especially watch out for enemy bases - the AI there is respawning forever (there are about 15 enemies, but as you are killing them, they are respawning back).

The map/log/journal is bugged - sometimes it wont zoom, often you see everything in your diary as new information (green), the "guiding system" (a little arrow on minimap) is not working with some quest destinations, etc.

But as i wrote earlier, playing the main plot is entertaining.

[USSRsniper]

This game is fun, even without any quests and main plot, you can just and explore the world, yes you can explore the world. So dont be scared that its linear as doom 3 , but this could be even better game if it had larger world so it had more places to explore. I give it 8/10 since earlier screenshots showed larger world and half of locations you see on screnshots earlier dont exist anymore...

[NeMeSiS]

I give it 8/10 since earlier screenshots showed larger world  and half of locations you see on screnshots earlier dont exist anymore...
I did run into several places which were in some old alpha though, although in the full version they seem to be further apart/moved somewhere else, it was quite fun to see how much the graphics where improved in several years. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

[VISTREL]

As a fan of OFP I can tell you that shooting is great, and environments are awesome.

Well i tried it today and i liked everything except for the shooting itself, its nice that we can use iron sights and turn the crosshairs off but it didnt feel as nice as ArmA, way too &#39;static&#39; IMO. And i was quite dissapointed that the maps were very thing and long, it made it more or less impossible to get lost which is a shame. Its also a shame that the maps are way too &#39;filled&#39;, every 5 steps you run into an anomaly or a NPC.
Trust me, shooting gets better as you progress on. You will get upgraded rifles with better accurace, more damage, and sniper scopes. Right now I have 4 rifles and one of them is upgraded one with scope. I can do headshots easily. They put crap weapons in first levels on purpose.

And yeah, there are lots of anomalies but they&#39;re useless. To get the best artifacts you need to explore for them. Same goes for upgraded weapons and suits.

I think this game is very realistic. It encourages you to approach the enemy carefully and not always engage them. For example, in HL2 you can take out the whole building of enemies without much effort but not in Stalker. In STALKER, I prefer to run away rather engage the soldiers.

Also, ARENA fights are simply awesome. One of the few games where I enjoy fighting against bots. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/yay.gif http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/pistols.gif

Graphics are top notch. Environments in DX9 with full shadows own. Luckily, my rig manages to pull off 20-30 stable fps.

btw, I change my opinion. this game is THE GOTY&#33; http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[Dark_vityaz]

I give it 8/10 too and wait for a patch.And I wonder what about any edit tools.They said it would be released in the nearest time.

[Pathy]

I&#39;ve played the game through twice now, and i think its awesome, 9/10.

I&#39;ve seen on other forums alot of people moaning about the ending they&#39;ve gotten/whining that the story is bullshit, the only thing i can say is, if you&#39;re playing this, explore every avenue of the story if you want to get the most out of it, rush and you&#39;ll regret it&#33; Thats why i had to play it through twice, i rushed the 1st time, hence why the story made little sense, the ending was abrupt, etc. Looking back at it with perspective from achieving the proper endings, it&#39;s a good story well told, but obviously is frustrating to the n00b who can&#39;t understand why he gets a crap ending after skipping vital story elements.

[Messiah]

enjoying it immensly - creepy as sin, mainly because unlike Doom 3, the lack of creepy monsters and scare tactics actually make it much scarier, because I honestly never know when I&#39;ll come across them, unlike Doom where I&#39;d expect them to leap through every door.

my only gripe is the sheer number of anomalies - I expected them to be far rarer and harder to spot.. they just litter everywhere.

and for those who thought this was an original and unique game, its amazing what 5 minutes bored on wikipedia can dig up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalker_(film)

[Shadow NX]

The movie is oen of the many things that inspired the makers, also there is a novel by Boris Strugatzki that is often mentioned when the makers were asked for inspiration.

Sadly i only know the german title which is "Picknick am Wegesrand"

German Wkipedia link (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picknick_am_Wegesrand_(Roman))

It already has a zone, artefacts, nature going crazy and a so called "wishbringer" which also is in Stalker i think.

---

My impression of the game, well its very addictive played the whole weekend.
Great atmosphere ( the Thunderstorms at night are just wow ) and overall a nice and sometimes really frightening world ( Lab X18 for example ).

What i dont like is the differences in quality of some things like soem textures look like they were designed for the planned release 2-3 years ago and some look pretty polished and smooth fitting to a 2007 game.

Good example are weapon textures and some characters textures like the Army Stalkers.

And what annoys me most as a gun nut, you can do things that are possible in real life to customize your gun, soem can be fitted with few things while others cant have any upgrades even if its possible in rl.

For example, Pso-1 scope, can be mounted on nearly anything russian in rl, in Stalker it onyl fits to the AKS-74 or the AN-94 ( forgot the fantasy names they got in Stalker ) but not on a AKSU-74, VSS, AS VAl etc etc. even if these have the same mounting rails.

Also you cant remove things from some weapons like you cant remove a Pso-1 scope from the SVU and put it on another weapon.

I know its not important but it would add a lot for me especially in a world like the Stalker world, scavenge things build up your weap to your liking, configure your gear ( can only be done via artefacts or complete suits )...
Just feels weir when you think yay a acope lets mount it on my Ak and beeeeep wont work.
Think all the devs researched was maybe gneral look of the weapons ( and still they gave some fantasy parts which is weird cause on the old promo pics it was all realistic and good looking... like the AKs with wood handguards ) and what ammo they use.

However noone should get me wrong its a great game and i cant wait to play it again but after so many years a few things could be more polished... well lets wait for mods... http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[Messiah]

agreed - I loved the idea of scavenging for parts for your weapon, perhaps paying gunsmiths or something along those lines to bodge/weld whatever a random scope you found onto your AK etc.

the bizarre creations we could have come up with http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif. Enjoying the SA80 at the moment, and also my modded AK.

[NSX]

As I previously stated, game developers confessed, that they took main idea (Zone, stalkers, anomalies, The Wish Granter idea, habar term etc.) from book by Strugatskie brothers (Boris and Arkadiy) called "Roadside picnic". So, the Zone and all the terms are not the inventions, brought to community by GSC. The film also take place in the same Zone, Strugatskie were writing about. However, the main plot and idea, main characters are diffirent from the book&#39;s text. Tarkovsky was thinking about the idea of humans&#39; disbelief in wonders and high feelings, while the book tells more about Zone itself, good sci-fi style.

Take a look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_Picnic

There&#39;re links leading to the book itself, if you want to read it.

[Shadow NX]

"Roadside Picnic" damn that was so obvious that i didnt think of that translation http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

[Kronzky]

It seems somebody has just released an OFP mod (http://www.aesir.h16.ru/proj_chernmod.php) based on STALKER.

http://www.aesir.h16.ru/news/little_pic/dxdshot1172325508%20copy.jpg http://www.aesir.h16.ru/files/screenshots/little_pic/dxdshot1173638313.jpg http://www.aesir.h16.ru/news/little_pic/dxdshot1172325707%20copy.jpg

Google translation:

Quote[/b] ]- the enormous map with size of 512x512. of 30 kilometer ZONE.
- map combining two countries, Belorusiya and the Ukraine.
- a large quantity of known places.
- the realistic objects, made on the photographs, with the application of many textures from the real originals.
- map is executed in the smallest details, with the real cities and the hamlets, 70% of correctly going roads and railway lines.
- some places recreated on game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl.
- realistic relief.
- schools, five-storied khrushchevki, high-rise houses, building, stores, several cemeteries, nuclear tombs and the dump of the infected technology, plants, rural views, railway lines, the park of entertainments, enormous to the unprecedented scales in OFP atomic station, oppressed views vyzzhennykh by the radiation of forest and the romantic spaces of Ukrainian valleys. You will meet all this and much other traveling on THE EXCLUSION AREA.

Special features of realization THE ZONE:
- is improved the graphic part of the game. Are added such chips as pixelshader 1.1, blur effect, etc. (DXDLL v1.0)
- 30 kilometer ZONE to 60% authentic of real.
- the most enormous objects during entire history OFP.
- the USSR itself ZONE during entire history OFP.
- Post-4derye industrial, dead views.
- dynamic spaces populated by thick grass, by trees, etc.
- is changed chapter CONFIG and RESOURCE. Many sounds of technology, infantry, weather effects are substituted and so forth is improved dynamics of weather development. Here to not transfer.
- the renovated interface.
- in the composition ZONE - model of Stalkerov, military S.O.P. UA, new armament and, etc.
- changed shityu gameplay.
- the new animations of motion, etc.
- atmospheric musical compositions and sounds.

Do any of you Russian guys know anything about this?

[Shadow NX]

That indeed looks very promising, tried to dl the stuff but dont even find the DL button on the page that its linked to http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wow_o.gif

[Kronzky]

That indeed looks very promising, tried to dl the stuff but dont even find the DL button on the page that its linked to http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wow_o.gif
I think they only let you download if you&#39;re from Russia.
We&#39;ll probably have to wait for some mirrors.

[Linker Split]

I&#39;ve downloaded it from OFP.info... Cervo uploaded it on the server&#33; http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/notworthy.gif
it&#39;s a huge MOD&#33;

[NSX]

@<hidden>

It&#39;s a pack (well, I won&#39;t call it mod - too loud for just a pack), released on flashpoint.ru by Ed-Kalash (aka Megastalker). Nice object pack, the best ever for OFP IMO.
Thinking about ArmA&#39;s engine possibilities and pack of Chernobyl made specially for it -- it&#39;ll really can make STALKER cry.

[Albert Schweitzer]

Just bought the game and starting playing it. The graphics are rather unspectacular, the athmospherics are good and the gameplay is okay. It doesnt deserve to be hyped, but it is a fun game nevertheless.

I did a mistake though, I accepted several quests without knowing that there is a time limit for them all. So I guess I failed quite a lot of them.

[AWDrift]

I picked up the game and I&#39;m having alot of fun so far. The world is extremly detailed, I spent alot of time just exploring and hanging out with the other stalkers in the game.

One of the things I really liked was how alive the game felt. I mean the story is linear, but your experiences in the game will still be different from everyone elses. It&#39;s one of the best games I&#39;ve played in a while.

My only problem with it is just how much people and animals there are in the game. There&#39;s wild dogs and bandits everywhere and sometimes it feels like half of ukraine decided to move to chernobly.

[Shadow NX]

Just bought the game and starting playing it. The graphics are rather unspectacular, the athmospherics are good and the gameplay is okay. It doesnt deserve to be hyped, but it is a fun game nevertheless.

I did a mistake though, I accepted several quests without knowing that there is a time limit for them all. So I guess I failed quite a lot of them.
On a first look it might look unspectacular but after some playing to me its superb.

Yes few more effectsd on stuff like some more shading and bumpmapping wouldnt be bad but the way the engine plays with shadows and light is simply awesome.
When you fight trough a old factory ruin at a thunderstorm night and every light bolt ( looks best with the multiple ones cause they make the shadows zigzag around ) throws countless shadows of any object on the walls even mesh fences and things then its simply awesome.

It may not be a Crysis but its a damn fine looking game if the settings sliders are up and the lighting is set to full http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[AWDrift]

I think stalker is probably going to get overlooked for awards and become a cult classic, because even though it brings more to the table gameplay wise than just about any FPS out there it&#39;s graphics are lacking.

It&#39;s a shame because a game like crysis is probably going to sweep the awards.

[Albert Schweitzer]

I think stalker is probably going to get overlooked for awards and become a cult classic, because even though it brings more to the table gameplay wise than just about any FPS out there it&#39;s graphics are lacking.

It&#39;s a shame because a game like crysis is probably going to sweep the awards.
but you cannot neglect the fact that crysis has an incredible graphical potential. The previews of this game are breathtaking.

The game is top notch for atmosphere, really everything i expected. I have no complaints. Well except for the AI coming back all the time. Im playing it on the hardest level and im getting pretty frustrated always having to run for my life. 9/10 for a single player game
... dont know about MP

[NeMeSiS]

but you cannot neglect the fact that crysis has an incredible graphical potential. The previews of this game are breathtaking.
But we dont really know how it looks on &#39;mortal&#39; PCs with playable settings (20-30FPS) http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

I would love to travel more in this game but the constantly respawning enemies are a pain in the ass, i hope they fix it in a patch, some area&#39;s are so full of bodies that you can barely walk anywhere without stepping on someones head http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/tounge2.gif

[elected]

I&#39;m having a problem getting that Chernobyl mod to run. If I install it my OFP won&#39;t start. When I remove it everything works just fine.

I haven&#39;t installed other mods than FDFmod but I know you guys have lots of experience =)

[Metal Heart]

Maybe a DXDLL problem, rename the file d3d8.dll in ofp dir to something else and it will be disabled.

[Dark_vityaz]

Just have finished the game.Had a big fun of it.But the end was so dull.Yeah,my last mission was X16 laboratory.So I took things to keep myself from psi-emanation to rich Pripyat and turned out under the sarcophagus And simply killed &#39;em all. So as I see: more comleted missions-more interesting end.

[kavoven]

I just read the article in my gaming magazine and they gave Stalker 90% and were really amazed by the game http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

Still, I guess it&#39;s not a game I could play, regarding all these scary dungeon-like enviroments... I already stopped playing Dark Project, when the first zombie appeared... ^^

[AWDrift]

That makes me think of something.

Early in the game at the garbage area, after I was done fighting the bandits I got a distress signal on my PDA. I went to the general area of the signal and it was coming from a half-destroyed building near the duty outpost. When I read the info about the signal on my PDA it said "probably from a downed stalker" Now I don&#39;t know about you guys, but the whole thing screamed abush or horrible monster to me so I ignored it.

Now though, I&#39;m curious and wondering if anybody here did check it out and what was there.



P.S. The ruined, bloodsucker infested village has to be one of the scariest areas I&#39;ve seen in a game. Mainly because I found out it was bloodsucker infested the hard way http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/sad_o.gif

[Thunnder Bunny]

I like it, and it gets a 9/10 from me.

Reminds me of FALLOUT, with the scavenging ammo and items. True ,you can&#39;t run and gun and win all the time.

AI can be run the entire gambit of intelligence. Think some people forget that, they have different levels of training.

I&#39;ve seen groups split up and flank me screaming all the way, but I can&#39;t understand what their saying http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/sad_o.gif So are they telling each other where to find me?

They also seem to use suppression fire, and you can do the same with them...at a cost of ammo. A quick burst makes them think twice when their undercover. Sometimes pointing the gun at them is enough http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

AI can be tricked If you make them think your in building and you pop out another door ,then flank them....But ,you better grenade them, cause 1 shot from you, and their on your ass.

Vehicles would be cool ,but who knows what the future holds once more mods get involved.


The ZONE, haven&#39;t seen enough to make a a statement but I like what I&#39;ve seen. Not OFP size, but the trade offs seem to work for me.....we can use building with ease...unlike ofp.


All in all it&#39;s good, may not be for the console crowd. As firefights like OFP can go badly quick....not a GEARS OF WAR where you can take 50 rounds in the face.

[Ebud]

I never play many games other than OFP/ARMA, the occasional tank/flight sim, and every couple of year a shooter like Vietcong or GRAW so my overall experience in gaming is becoming very limited as the time I have for them dwindles as the years go by.

That being said, for me this game is one of the best games I&#39;ve ever played. My favorite games years ago were Twilight 2000 and Gammaworld. My favorites movies back then were Road Warrior, Mad Max. The Post Apocalyptic setting will always be a favorite of mine. So for me, this game is a rare gem.

It does feel like an older game, but the environment and "mood" of the game is just friggin&#39; great. The whole time I&#39;m playing it with headphones on I&#39;m always wanting to look over my shoulder, the sounds give me the creeps the entire time I&#39;m playing. I had to turn the music off as it was just too much.

I really enjoy how alien the entire place feels while still grounding you in the familiar. Abandoned buildings always creep me out for some reason in RL so this game just has me by the throat. I played Doom3 for about 15 minutes. It made me jump a few times, but it didn&#39;t make me want to keep playing. This game isn&#39;t as pretty as some, but the overall feeling of dread I get while playing it is what keeps me playing. I have an overactive imagination and love the genre so I can "get into" the game.

I&#39;ve never played a game I have as much "fun" playing as this one. It could be better, but I&#39;ll take it as it is. I just can&#39;t stop playing it.

[HotShot]

Any news on a Demo? It looks great and I am a big fan of Fallout, but am worried about it being able to run on my Laptop. I read on the Developers site it can run on quite low systems due to it being originally for lower spec computers, but would still prefere a demo before shelling out for it.
Sounds like a great action/rpg game.

[USSRsniper]

There will be no single player demo...

[Turkmenbashi]

There will be no single player demo...
Full Demo available always.

[Messiah]

finally on the road to pripyat, but heading back to find the guide and kill strelok or whomever - although the recent flashbacks I&#39;ve had seem to indicate that I&#39;ve been to the power plant before, so I smell a plot twist http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/tounge2.gif

really enjoying it though, although the snorks are a pain in the ass - they just make you bleed so much. The bloodsuckers aren&#39;t too bad to be honest, just a bit of a pain when you have to keep a close eye on the shimmer they produce. Running backwards with the SPAS works well I find,

[[CS]SOBR[1st-I-R]]

Could someone please be so kind and tell me the official system requirements and in addition also your systems that runs stalker fine. (in-official system requiremnts)

Id like to know cause I could get it for 35 € and thus an considering getting it since ArmA is xxxx.

[Messiah]

official:

Min:

XP
P4 2GHZ/AMD XP 2200
512MB RAM
128MB VIDEO
10 GIG HDD Space

Rec:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400/AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
1024 RAM
256MB VIDEO

Me:

Core 2 Duo E6600
2048 RAM
ATI X1950XTS

runs ok on full settings, get the odd slow down when the game appears to &#39;think&#39; about what&#39;s about to be rendered/happen etc. Apparently the game prefers Nvidia to ATI according to tech forums etc. New patch apparently fixes alot of issues, but it also screws up save games, so I haven&#39;t had a chance to test yet seeing as I want to complete my current game first.

[[CS]SOBR[1st-I-R]]

Thx for the good info Messiah. My system just meets the minimum requirements so I&#39;ll give it a try.

Shame there is no SP demo out there.

[Messiah]

not a problem - well worth it I think - I simple haven&#39;t stumbled across any of the bugs that alot of people seem to rant at on a few forums, but then again I didn&#39;t have any issues with ArmA either - perhaps I&#39;m just lucky with games when it comes to them working as they should.

the atmosphere of the game is like nothing I&#39;ve experienced before, and the locations are amazing. I&#39;ve been playing it since its release, taking it slow and steady, and I&#39;m only just at the point where the story begins to make sense and the pieces fall into place (your character suffers from amnesia due to a vehicle crash, thus the story is very patchy at first, which adds to this idea)

about to head to pripyat and the power station itself, can&#39;t wait http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[Heatseeker]

I wouldnt even look at stalker but i might try it since the response to it is rather positive around here. Its too bad that the whole zone is split in levels though.

Atm its a bit hard to think of playing a game other than Arma http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/inlove.gif .

[Messiah]

the zones bit makes for a bit of a linear approach to certain areas, especially as you tend to be forced to walk through ambushes etc because it&#39;s impossible to walk around them.

plus from what I&#39;ve read, pripyat is so heavily swamped with enemies, you dont get much of a chance to explore the city, rather you struggle to fight your way through as quickly as possible.

[Turkmenbashi]

Just for comparison&#39;s sake, I have the same system as Messiah - 2gb ddr2 667 and an Nvidia 7900. I run at 1680x1050, max settings and experience the same occasional &#39;pauses for thought&#39; that he mentions although nothing that affects gameplay.

[Messiah]

normally happen at the very start of entering a new zone for me... perhaps 5 seconds or so where is pauses a little and then fine from then.

[Albert Schweitzer]

Sorry, but I must admit it is quite refreshing after 2 hours of Stalker to go back to ArmA. And I am realy no only-BIS-Fanboy as far as games are concerned. I enjoy games from all sorts of genres (and also tried CSS as well WOW).

My point is, Stalker isnt bad, but ArmA is definetly the most interesting game out there at the moment. I know that not every topic out there has to be about Armed Assault, but that was just the feeling that struck me after playing Stalker.

[Ebud]

Haha, I&#39;m the exact opposite right now. I&#39;m just waiting to get off work so I can go home, walk the dog and jump back to STALKER. I love ARMA as much as the next guy, but it&#39;s refreshing to finally find a game that I enjoy playing without any thoughts of wanting to mod it or wish it were something else such as different location or era (Boiling Point/GTA/GRAW/any WW2 FPS).

I&#39;m going to be very sad when I finally win the game unlike the main ARMA campaign which I could wait to finish. I&#39;m not including custom missions or campaigns into the mix, just straight "out of the box" fun.

To each his own I guess, and I know once I finish it it&#39;ll be back to ARMA, so maybe thats why I&#39;m having so much fun with it as ARMA will end up like OFP for me, more work that play.

[Shadow]

Haha, I&#39;m the exact opposite right now. I&#39;m just waiting to get off work so I can go home, walk the dog and jump back to STALKER. I love ARMA as much as the next guy, but it&#39;s refreshing to finally find a game that I enjoy playing without any thoughts of wanting to mod it or wish it were something else such as different location or era (Boiling Point/GTA/GRAW/any WW2 FPS).
Ditto.

Quote[/b] ]I&#39;m going to be very sad when I finally win the game unlike the main ARMA campaign which I could wait to finish.
Nothing to worry about. I&#39;m on my 3rd round now. It has tons of replay-value. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif
I&#39;m finding new toys (weapons and artifacts) each time. For example; on my first round I got the 92FS pretty early. There is only one NPC in the entire game that carries it and he just happend to die when some bandits attacked the checkpoint to the south of the "town" (where the bar is). The 92FS is is one of the best handguns in the game.
On my second round I found the Desert Eagle and the modified Desert Eagle(unique) next to it in a crate. The modified variant uses 9x39 rifle ammo which makes it the most powerful handgun in the game. The rapid AK-74 (unique) with a scope, MP5SD(unique), MP5 9x18(unique) and the SVD MK2(stronger zoom+higher accuracy)(unique) are also cool toys.
I tend to collect all the unique weapons I find regardless of their working condition because there is only one of each kind in the game http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

[Messiah]

got through pripyat very quickly, mainly because there was no choice in the matter - the outside of chenobyl is the same, I had to run through it because if you try and explore and take your time, you get minced by the Hinds and soldiers... such a waste of a level... inside the power plant now, willl see how i go tomorrow.

[Ebud]

I&#39;ve been putting off going past the Red Forest as I know once that happens I&#39;m getting close to the end, lol. I&#39;m going back to try and do every side job rather than try my usual "breeze through the game as fast as I can" method. I may just do everything I can before heading north, put the game away for a while, then come back to it later just to drag it out http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif I never play games like this more than once since they require a pretty good amount of time. Kind of hard to just sit for 20 min with this one. Once through is about all I can have time for so I better enjoy it the first time around http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[USSRsniper]

New patch will include free roam mode, maybe now we can explore pripyat without getting shot on every corner.  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif SO i think replay value will increase with this mode.

[Messiah]

deffinatly - ebud, I did the same but still have to venture north eventually - will probably try a new go with the patches as well, as I want to find some nice unique weapons - this first time round I&#39;ve only found a supressed/lightened SA80 which is fairly useless.

Gauss Cannon is damn fun though http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

[Shadow]

Gauss Cannon is damn fun though  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif
Can you get it before the final level?

[Messiah]

apparently yes, you can find it in a crate somewhere, sometimes, but I had to wait for pripyat to shoot a guy off a roof with my VSS to get hold of it.

[NeMeSiS]

When i saved a guy he told me where to buy one for a few hundred rubles, never checked it out though... http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[Shadow NX]

Yeah had that too but also never checked it out... got me a VSS in the Freedom camp ( yay finally ) and it rocks, headshot proven http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/tounge2.gif

Btw anyone got a short version of how to do the strelok quest right?
If i understood that right finding Ghost first and afterwards Streloks stash makes me unable to ever see the best ending cause i dont get the quest for the keycode in prypjat?

Somwhere i read you can still get the code by using grenades to flush the codekey to a window and grab it there... anyone tried this?

[Shadow]

After you turn off the antennas go see the barkeep. He will tell you to go see Guide. He in turn will tell you to go and see the doctor (at Strelok&#39;s stash).
Prepare to be surprised when you see the doctor http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/whistle.gif
The story begins to make sense after that.

[Ebud]

There are several good walkthroughs online, this one tells you about all the endings and how to achieve each one.

http://guides.ign.com/guides/480467/index.html

[Shadow NX]

After you turn off the antennas go see the barkeep. He will tell you to go see Guide. He in turn will tell you to go and see the doctor (at Strelok&#39;s stash).
Prepare to be surprised when you see the doctor http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/whistle.gif
The story begins to make sense after that.
Exactly the info i needed, thanks mate

---EDIT---

Headed back to the barkeep and he just told me bit about the wishgranter... seems i really messed up the story by finding Ghost too early... meh

[churnedfortaste]

I just happen to know a ukranian fellow, who is friends with the head of the developing company that made this game.
Haven&#39;t played it though.. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/whistle.gif

[Shadow]

After you turn off the antennas go see the barkeep. He will tell you to go see Guide. He in turn will tell you to go and see the doctor (at Strelok&#39;s stash).
Prepare to be surprised when you see the doctor http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/whistle.gif
The story begins to make sense after that.
Exactly the info i needed, thanks mate

---EDIT---

Headed back to the barkeep and he just told me bit about the wishgranter... seems i really messed up the story by finding Ghost too early... meh
Scratch that. I remembered incorrectly.
I already had the "go see Guide" before I had turned off the antennas.
Try seeing if the trader in Cordon and the scientist at Lake Yantar have a "special mission" for you.

[4 IN 1]

well both ArmA and stalker is great IMO in different ways,
anyway when it start rain i got broken GFX, i dont have time to test it more but it looks like what happen when my old 9500 pro goes crazy http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/confused_o.gif

[USSRsniper]

After you turn off the antennas go see the barkeep. He will tell you to go see Guide. He in turn will tell you to go and see the doctor (at Strelok&#39;s stash).
Prepare to be surprised when you see the doctor http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/whistle.gif
The story begins to make sense after that.
Exactly the info i needed, thanks mate

---EDIT---

Headed back to the barkeep and he just told me bit about the wishgranter... seems i really messed up the story by finding Ghost too early... meh
Finding strelok, you will be surprised to find out who Strelok is, found this quiet amusing hehe http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[Le++]

The I&#39;m most looking forward to in STALKER is the VSS sniper rifle, carried by the guy in the intro. Been drooling over this rifle ever since I saw it here (http://world.guns.ru/sniper/sn20-e.htm).

[Messiah]

it&#39;s a useful toy in the game, nice for some long range, silentish headshots - full auto as well, which can come in handy if the target suddenly appears closer than you may have liked.

[Ebud]

I&#39;ve been carrying one of those it seems like forever. Love that rifle even if it always seems like ammo is scarce at times for it.

I finally said heck with it and went through the northern zones and into the final reactor complex (the Brain Scorcher mission was nice and "trippy"). I&#39;m down to the 5min countdown and getting killed left and right. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/sad_o.gif

I&#39;m looking forward to that "free roam" mod/patch or whatever because I never even really noticed much in Pripyat and I know I can&#39;t stop and enjoy the scenery in Chernobyl. Too bad as the last 2 areas seem like the most interesting.

[Messiah]

exactly what I thought - had to run through both at full pelt, rather than explore... which was a pain - seems rushed

[Thunnder Bunny]

Anyone have a favorite list of mods yet?

http://stalker.filefront.com/files/Stalker/Mods;3785

I&#39;m using a few, but I just tried out the vehicle mod. It works nice for traveling, but it might seem like a cheat to some http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

Needless to say I turned an entire russain squad into a speed bump http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif It was nice to start the story out with some nice weapons, instead of a pistol.

I just hope all future patches and mods will mesh with our older save game files.

[Shadow]

exactly what I thought - had to run through both at full pelt, rather than explore... which was a pain - seems rushed
Noone is forcing you to rush Pripyat, though the first part where you&#39;re covering that patrol is somewhat "on rails". After that you are free to run back to the beginning and explore that map. There are lots of very good loot in that level but they&#39;re hard to find. I agree that the last two levels seems rushed. Maybe its because there are no more "employers" and no jobs to do in those levels.

Quote[/b] ]I&#39;ve been carrying one of those it seems like forever. Love that rifle even if it always seems like ammo is scarce at times for it.
9x39mm Ammo for the Groza OC-14 and VSS Vintorez is everywhere in Pripyat and the level just before it (forgot the name. Dark Valley?). Look for Monolith and Duty soldiers. They tend to use the Groza OC-14.
Now 7.62.54 SVD ammo really are scarce. Make every shot count.


Quote[/b] ]Anyone have a favorite list of mods yet?
I&#39;m using the realism pro mod v.0.08b plus I&#39;ve added all the weapons to the trader&#39;s inventory.
That mod makes the nights darker and longer, bandages only stop bleeding, medkits only heal etc. Most weapons have been adjusted to more reallistic levels and alot more lethal (AI can bleed to death now). New weapon sounds. Weapon names replaced with the real ones + tons more.
Grab the mod here (http://stalker.filefront.com/file/STALKER_Realism_Pro;77828) + the hotfix (http://stalker.filefront.com/file/STALKER_Realism_Pro_Hotfix;77860).

Fav weapons: Beretta 92FS+SD, Browning H-P+SD, USP Compact .45+SD, Toz-34 shotgun, Enfield L85 w/M203 and SD and G36 w/M203 and SD.

[Messiah]

I felt that I was forced through to chenobyl though, whereas the other zones didn&#39;t coerce you any direction in particular.

the SVD ammo is bloody rare, think I&#39;ve only found max 50 or so rounds for it. The VSS ammo is everywhere in the red forest, as well as wharehouses - the silenced weapon (can&#39;t recall its name) uses the same ammo, so there&#39;s a lot about.


Quote[/b] ]Fav weapons: Beretta 92FS+SD, Browning H-P+SD, USP Compact .45+SD, Toz-34 shotgun, Enfield L85 w/M203 and SD and G36 w/M203 and SD.

Didn&#39;t think you could mount the 203 onto the L85 and G36? At least it won&#39;t let me do that. I&#39;ve had to settle for the 5.56 weapon (can&#39;t recall its real world counterpart) as it gives you everything in one nice package.

[Shadow]

Quote[/b] ]Fav weapons: Beretta 92FS+SD, Browning H-P+SD, USP Compact .45+SD, Toz-34 shotgun, Enfield L85 w/M203 and SD and G36 w/M203 and SD.

Didn&#39;t think you could mount the 203 onto the L85 and G36? At least it won&#39;t let me do that. I&#39;ve had to settle for the 5.56 weapon (can&#39;t recall its real world counterpart) as it gives you everything in one nice package.
In real life the 203 launcher doesnt fit, but with the realism mod it works. Sure its not an AG36 on the G36 but atleast it is a grenadelauncher. The silencer fits most weapons too.
Ah you use the LR300. Its a nice weapon too with a very high ROF.

[Messiah]

aaah, its a mod - makes sense now. I prefered the G36 in the other areas, but I had 15 or so 203 rounds and I thought I should really use them for the later stages. Had to leave my spas behind though due to weight issues - gutted http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/confused_o.gif

[Shadow]

Had to leave my spas behind though due to weight issues - gutted  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/confused_o.gif
That is easily fixed by editing actor.ltx in notepad to set the weight limit to whatever you want.
Not that I have done it or anything http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/whistle.gif

[[ZG]BUZZARD]

The I&#39;m most looking forward to in STALKER is the VSS sniper rifle, carried by the guy in the intro. Been drooling over this rifle ever since I saw it here (http://world.guns.ru/sniper/sn20-e.htm).
I don&#39;t know if they exist for ArmA yet but I do know they exist in OFP, even if not in such quantities as M4&#39;s... http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/tounge2.gif

Search OFP.info for it&#33; (http://ofp.gamepark.cz) http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/thumbs-up.gif

[Ebud]

Yeah, after playing STALKER I downloaded the ofp pack with all those nice rus weapons to convert for personal use. I forgot how well done they were.

I think I&#39;ll go back a few save games and start the Red Forest over again and not rush it or Pripwhatever again. Either that or just start the whole thing over with all the mods installed. All I have now is the double dammage mod and the trader mod and started the campaign on the hardest setting. I may just play it the next time on an easier setting as well http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

Right now I made it into Chernobyl interior. Another spooky one. I&#39;m going to try for the loooong path to the ending since I read it&#39;s the best one.

I can&#39;t wait until that Chernobyl map comes to arma.

[4 IN 1]

Yeah, after playing STALKER I downloaded the ofp pack with all those nice rus weapons to convert for personal use. I forgot how well done they were.

I think I&#39;ll go back a few save games and start the Red Forest over again and not rush it or Pripwhatever again. Either that or just start the whole thing over with all the mods installed. All I have now is the double dammage mod and the trader mod and started the campaign on the hardest setting. I may just play it the next time on an easier setting as well http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

Right now I made it into Chernobyl interior. Another spooky one. I&#39;m going to try for the loooong path to the ending since I read it&#39;s the best one.

I can&#39;t wait until that Chernobyl map comes to arma.
just a side question, how large is the quarantine zone the game has drawn? and how large is the total quarantine area IRL?

[Pathy]

Nah it&#39;s not the exact quarantine zone. The zone in STALKER is sort of an alternate reality anyway, it&#39;s a different sort of &#39;zone&#39; to the zone of exclusion that is around Chernobyl in the real world.

And the map in STALKER is fictional too, i mean, some of the areas exist in real life (Pripyat, Red Forest etc), but they arent in thier correct geographical position in relation to the others.

[Messiah]

portions of the junkyard exist too.. well, in terms of that there are large collections of rusting vehicles etc

[4 IN 1]

Nah it&#39;s not the exact quarantine zone. The zone in STALKER is sort of an alternate reality anyway, it&#39;s a different sort of &#39;zone&#39; to the zone of exclusion that is around Chernobyl in the real world.

And the map in STALKER is fictional too, i mean, some of the areas exist in real life (Pripyat, Red Forest etc), but they arent in thier correct geographical position in relation to the others.
yeah i am aware of that(got an old NGM with its map inside, couldnt find it thorugh)

[USSRsniper]

First its not a quarantine zone...... and radius of the zone is 30km

[4 IN 1]

First its not a quarantine zone...... and radius of the zone is 30km
the words quarantine is a bit too much i admin, but till these day if you want to go inside that area the restrictions is still there, and due to the fact that the area is still covered with radioactive waste(faded after years, but still not really good for your health, and atless 100 years b4 it is low enought to call it safe), so i simply call it "quarantine zone", sort of

[Ebud]

Well, I got to try the different endings all in one sitting. I got the "rich" ending first. Kind of a funny look at capitalism. The ending after you use the decoder is the most interesting. I tried both of those as well. I expected a little more for all the endings though, but still, this is the first game I played through to the end in years... YEARS, lol.

Quite enjoyable even if I jumped out of my chair countless times.

[Shadow]

and atless 100 years b4 it is low enought to call it safe), so i simply call it "quarantine zone", sort of
Try 500 years plus/minus 300 years.
Everyone disagree how long it will take but the estimates are mostly around 500 years before its safe to move people back there. It will be a complete wasteland in a few 10 years (there are a few old people still living in the area who refuse to move).

Quote[/b] ]The ending after you use the decoder is the most interesting. I tried both of those as well.
Is that where you join or refuse to join C-concience?
I forgot if I used the decoder or not when I went there.

[4 IN 1]

last night when i go back to the begining area i go through the tunnel with Electro anomalies all over the place, and get 2 high value artifacts, not bad for an begininger

[Messiah]

will have to play this through tonight - work my way through the power plant and finish it.

[4 IN 1]

acturally i always find it strange as when time pass someone would die even he is perfectly good in shape...

[Shadow]

acturally i always find it strange as when time pass someone would die even he is perfectly good in shape...
I believe they starve to death or they get shot.
On a rare occassion I see a fight break out in the bar-area between loners. I&#39;ve also seen bandits try to enter the city from the south (they get killed by the guards there) and I&#39;ve seen Mercs come in from the north and west and have actually managed to get all the way to the entrance to Duty while engaging all Stalkers on their way there.
Every now and then I see dead loners next to campfires who dont have any food on them. I&#39;m just guessing they starved to death.

What I find odd is that after a while alot of dead bodies have been move into the fire. They&#39;re burning and shaking (collision issue).

[Pathy]

Yeah, i found Wolf (the guy who gives you missions at the start) dead and dumped in a campfire up by the freedom base.

I&#39;ve also seen a newbie who i helped out in Cordon later wandering around zombified.

I&#39;m on my 3rd play through now, and it&#39;s been slightly different every time. It&#39;s rather cool.

[da12thMonkey]

I&#39;m slowly getting into this game.

I got it last week but hadn&#39;t had the time or mood to sit down with it for more than about 20 minutes at a time but in the past few days I&#39;ve started spending about an hour or two a session taking things slowly, and I&#39;m starting to get a feel for it now,probably because I&#39;ve got a decent gat or two now.

I&#39;m still at that point where I don&#39;t know if I&#39;ll get around to completing it since I&#39;ve not got sucked-in on a proper gaming-marathon with it yet. One where I&#39;m prepared to play this instead of go down the pub or put some work on hold. Still early days though.

[Ebud]

What I find odd is that after a while alot of dead bodies have been move into the fire. They&#39;re burning and shaking (collision issue).
Yeah, that was weird the first time I saw it. I thought it was something done on purpose for shock value.

And yes, the "join or refuse to join C-concience" was after using the decoder past the Wish Granter section.

I really hope they either make an expansion and don&#39;t let this game die off.

After finishing it, the only real gripe I have is that it turned into a savegame fest and straight "shoot&#39;em up."

[USSRsniper]

What I find odd is that after a while alot of dead bodies have been move into the fire. They&#39;re burning and shaking (collision issue).
Yeah, that was weird the first time I saw it. I thought it was something done on purpose for shock value.

And yes, the  "join or refuse to join C-concience" was after using the decoder past the Wish Granter section.

I really hope they either make an expansion and don&#39;t let this game die off.

After finishing it, the only real gripe I have is that it turned into a savegame fest and straight "shoot&#39;em up."
Just wait for the patch, which will show us real stalker. Going around zone searching for artifacts and walk around areas where you had to run through when playing the main missions.

[Ebud]

So they&#39;re planning a patch that will radically change the gameplay? Rather than having to do all the quests to get into areas or to unlock things/weapons/etc there will for sure be a "free play" mode?

I was going to just go back to my savegame right before Pripyat and use that to just roam around. An actual patch that would allow for this would be sweet.

[Shadow]

I thought it was something done on purpose for shock value.
My first thought was that they burn anything dead because of the radiation http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/rofl.gif

Could it possibly be that the AI for some reason jumps into it and dont jump out so they die? I&#39;ve never seen them jump into the campfires though.

[4 IN 1]

this game became more and more like fallout now, not same in gameplay, but the feeling is similar

[Pathy]

Shadow, i thought perhaps the guys i found in campfires were murdered, i mean, i almost went vigilante on the 3 guys stood around warming thier hands on wolf&#39;s flaming carcass....

[Gunney]

Shadow, i thought perhaps the guys i found in campfires were murdered, i mean, i almost went vigilante on the 3 guys stood around warming thier hands on wolf&#39;s flaming carcass....
I&#39;ve been hearing on the official forums and several fan sites that, the burning bodies in the campfires(including wolf&#39;s) is a spawning bug. I would have to agree honestly but who cares? things spawn to fast anyways =p

[Messiah]

lol, I was on the same line of thought as pathy, that they were killed/died and it was an extra bit of firewood/getting rid of the evidence

[Thunnder Bunny]

Dang , seems all kinds of thing are being unlocked now. Vehicles , sleeping , and now DREAMS???

Seems like theses guys had alot of ideas that got pushed aside in order to complete the game.
Wonder if the game being made for consoles limited what they could save?

[Shadow]

Dang , seems all kinds of thing are being unlocked now.  Vehicles , sleeping , and now DREAMS???
Alot of the features that were originally planned but got scrapped are still partially in the game, just waiting to be completed/activated.
If only coop was one of those features http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/sad_o.gif

[Dark_vityaz]

Exactly 21 years ago the Chernobyl tragedy happened. Many people even didnt know what they would meet with.Please remember them and say them thanks.All of em sacrified their lives for your lives&#33;

[Dwarden]

there is excelent shader mod

http://www.angryemu.org/files./Float32_4247_036a_RELEASE.zip


Quote[/b] ]Here they are&#33;

20% faster, 200% better and just plain badass&#33;

So, I announce the first release of the NEW Float32. Now go have fun and get a towel and some wetnaps.

FLOAT32 RELEASE

Full reflection vector calculations, better bump mapping, real specular effects&#33; All this detail improvement costs nothing in framerate and you will get 20% better framerate than before if not more&#33; Shadows are soft and no longer jagged and the overall graphical quality has been vastly improved. I am not posting screenies as it does no justice. Download it and see for yourself&#33;

IMPORTANT FOR ATI USERS&#33;

There is an error within the shadows. GSC screwed up and did not support hardware shadows with ati hardware. I removed the software shadows from the script to clean it up since nobody who is using full dynamic should be using software shadow. Well, this broke ATI support and I forgot to fix it. So when you install the shaders, delete "shadow.h" and you should be fine. If you have the entire game extracted, then replace "shadow.h" with the stock one after installing my shaders.

I am working on a fix for you ATI folks to enjoy hardware shadows&#33; Expect it within the next few days.

this really suck another TWIMTBP (the way it mean to be played) NVIDIA paid title which "screws up" shadows on ATI cards ...

oh well but the shaders tweak is nice ...

[AWDrift]

As a tip to anyone. You can sprint past the duty guards at the garbage and if you have enough medkits you can sprint through the brain scorcher. Artifacts and energy drinks help too.

[4 IN 1]

which mod is recommend for now?

[MechaStalin]

A guy on a fellow forum I visit managed to unlock two unused enemies. Izlom/Fracture and Burer/Troll.

I havnt tried the fracture yet but heres my encounter with the Troll.

I had an awesome experience fighting the burers and then leading them into the army checkpoint. Their long range psychic attack is fairly easy to dodge if you notice the stuff floating around your character so they&#39;re easy to avoid out in the open but if I remember correctly they used to live in caves and the like so this would have made them insanely dangerous. They also have a telekinesis power as I noticed when the shit I was hiding behind was getting thrown at me, crates floated out of the traincars to fly past my head and dead soldier&#39;s guns were hurled into my face.

BURER ADVENTURE

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a248/Autozam/Burer1.jpg

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a248/Autozam/Burer2.jpg

After this ugly bastard killed me he came over to my body and did some weird chant.

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a248/Autozam/Burer3.jpg

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a248/Autozam/Burer4.jpg

Izlom/Fracture pictures coming soon.


Edit: Also equipment image from an older version.

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a248/Autozam/icon_all_weapons.jpg

[Messiah]

i seem to remember him in the older screenshots

[MechaStalin]

i seem to remember him in the older screenshots
Yeah, I&#39;m not sure why he was cut. He&#39;s pretty much 100% finished as far as I can see. Although he is a super powerful enemy and I cant imagine having to take on more than 2 with even the best equipment.

[orlok]

hello all

brilliant mod here, changes the whole feel of game IMHO.

rgds

LoK

in russ and ENG

http://franticgames.com/portfolio/sergey/forum/bb3portal.php

[Shadow]

I didnt notice any performance increase with that shader-mod. I think some textures were improved but others are worse.
The brick walls stand out more now. But the problem with displacement mapping is that up close they look awefully blurry. Unfortunately this mod adds displacement mapping to the ground  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/confused_o.gif
I&#39;m keeping it in for now.

[Shadow NX]

The Float 32?

Tried it and yes ground for example looked lot better but suddently i had such a terrible framerate ( like 1 fps at times ) that i had to remove it again http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/sad_o.gif

Anyway finally found time to finish it with the best end and well... another awesome game witha super lousy end... bah.

When will the devs finally learn this... the ending is a super important part of a game, something we deserved after all the time and enthusiasm invested... kind of a trophy.

[Messiah]

still need to complete this game - uni work took a turn for the busy, so I&#39;ve not touched anything game releated in a month or so

[Ebud]

It&#39;s worth finishing it just to get it out of the back of your mind. I&#39;ve left too many games unfinished over the years, so I made up my mind to not let that happen to this one. It was well worth it http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[Average Joe]

I hear that, Im at this game until I find out who the Hell Strelok is&#33; http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

[Dwarden]

that shader float32 mod was updated

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve....7074831 (http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/39309975/m/860003693831?r=750007074831#750007074831)

now all these "worse" looking textures are fixed ...

[Shadow NX]

I hear that, Im at this game until I find out who the Hell Strelok is&#33; http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif
Prepare to be pretty surprised when you find out.

Btw if you wanna know all bout Strelok make sure you find his USB stick before you find Ghost in the Lab, otherwise you have to restart the Game cause you wont get the quest for the best ending.

[Average Joe]

Holy Christ, I didnt even find out who he was and not only that, battled all night til&#39; the end which was hands-down, the most fantastically, amazingly, undoubtably the worst letdown ending Ive ever had in the history of my gaming years, IM RICH&#33; crash *death* http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/confused_o.gif

And I missing something?

[NeMeSiS]

Holy Christ, I didnt even find out who he was and not only that, battled all night til&#39; the end which was hands-down, the most fantastically, amazingly, undoubtably the worst letdown ending Ive ever had in the history of my gaming years, IM RICH&#33; crash *death*  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/confused_o.gif

And I missing something?
There are 7 different endings, depending on how well you performed before. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

[Average Joe]

Aaaah hell, now Ive gotta read&#39;n&#39;stuff just to Find out how to play the game properly, because with an Ending as ridiculous as mine...It better be a bloody good&#39;un&#33; cheers for letting me know forum.

[Ebud]

Holy Christ, I didnt even find out who he was and not only that, battled all night til&#39; the end which was hands-down, the most fantastically, amazingly, undoubtably the worst letdown ending Ive ever had in the history of my gaming years, IM RICH&#33; crash *death* http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/confused_o.gif

And I missing something?
If you rush the game and don&#39;t do all the major missions and many of the small side mission, you&#39;ll miss quite a bit of the game and a chance to see the long ending.

[Shadow NX]

And as i said before make sure to follow the strelok quest asap, find his memory stick in his hideout, talk to his former buddies and then find Ghost, later you gotta head back to the hideout to meet Doc who will give you the quest that leads you to the real ending including some explaining who Strelok is and how the zone exists.

Like i said you will be quite surprised especially when you hear the reason why you have to hunt Strelok.

Btw for the real ending also dont enter the room with the Monolith instead walk onward till you spot a turning ligh near a ladder, if you followed the Strelok quest right you can open a door up there and then you will face another choice... if you dont agree to the thing offered you fight trough some more areas outside and finally reach the best ending...

Not really any better though, damn short but at least you arent crazy, blind or dead afterwards http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

[Ebud]

yeah, even after seeing the rich ending and then trying out the other path, the ending was incredibly short for how much work it took to get there.

[Pathy]

I think its hilarious how many people i see who&#39;ve skipped vital bits, reach a false ending then claim the games a letdown, when if they&#39;d played it fully, they&#39;d have the proper ending.

[Average Joe]

I Guess its because I used the Fajakes Mod which kinda turns the game into some jumped up CS, but after getting so damn far, patching only to find out that it kills your saved games before hand I just wanted to get past the tedious stuff. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

Well maybe Ill just play it another day, however


*SPOLIER ALERT&#33;*

When I got inside lab X16 Ghost was dead?

[Shadow]

*SPOLIER ALERT&#33;*

When I got inside lab X16 Ghost was dead?
*SPOILER ALERT&#33;*

He&#39;s always dead

[Average Joe]

OOOk http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/rofl.gif Hmm, I saw all these guys saying find Ghost, Alive would have made more sence but thats cool. Cheers Shad http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

[TheReddog]

This game was such a bloody let down.

Yes I did expect it to be &#39;linearised&#39; after reading the preview material just before release. But it is the other aspects that let me down, like the piss poor accuracy and hitting power of the weapons. Predictability of the enemy AI and extreme scripting of everything. Total lack of open space and exploration, everything is easy to find. It also seemed incredibly dumbed down, like they couldn&#39;t even leave anomalies invisible, and they end up being an easy to see novelty or occasional obstacle rather than a real threat.

Really the game is nothing like the original idea and that is a sad shame. The atmosphere is nice though...

[NeMeSiS]

The atmosphere is nice though...
And thank god for mods... http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

Anyone knows when that new patch gets released? There has been a topic on the official forums called &#39;new patch soon&#39; or something for several weeks now.. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/tounge2.gif
I really want that &#39;free exploration&#39; game mode, and i hope they fix those damn AI respawns every 5 minutes.. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/tounge2.gif

[Zarkan]

I play it a litll now end is a relly nice game boot need somn more time to tray it more http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

[CanadianTerror]

It was fun for almost a week.

I think what kinda of did it in for me was that it seemed a bit on the dumb side. I think it was the characters themselves and the dialogue.

I was the arena champion without trying.

Some of the missions didnt work or were a bit disapointing.

Ive tried to get into the mods a bit but I cant seem to touch it now...its like its done and over with.

[Balschoiw]

I´m playing it from the box with no mods or user-editing and I really like it. I just got sacked by the doctor and I was not really surprised about his welcome message as some other actors in the game also seem to *confuse* some things when talking to you.
I am following the main-plot , have not joined any faction yet and do a lot of sidemissions that can be pretty nasty and hard. (Clearing the village from bloodsuckers at night must have been one of my most frightening gaming experiences ever.)
The first time you have to go underground for searching Streloks hideot I almost peed my pants because of the darkness and the enemies that just popped up in my light. Crazy.
The atmosphere is awesome, the surrounding , the buildings, the sounddesign and the music are topnotch. I play it on full texture detail because I like the surrounding so much and what I also do like very much is that you can explore almost any place you want. I sometimes ended up wandering around a building for a couple of minutes to plan a path on the rooftop and to get to certain spots that are not easy to access. The area where you have to protect the scientist is a good example. You can get almost everywhere here with climbing, jumping and thinking and it gives you a benefit if you do so as you get to better attack positions for the guys who want to kill the scientist.
Seriously, it´s been a while since a game sucked me in that bad.
It´s very spooky at times and the firefights with AI are not easy. I´m playing on hardest level and they serve me plenty.
I like all those little details ingame and the general atmosphere of the locations. I do not think that the spawning of enemies is overdone, infact I like to be afraid when reentering a zone and getting rushed upon by 50 beasts http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif
I have the feeling that some things are not finished yet or are somehow locked but for me this game is definately a blast and I will certainly replay it.
Badly needed: Quicksave
Now on to the antennas &#33;

[Messiah]

Quote[/b] ]Badly needed: Quicksave

F6

[Shadow]

Badly needed: Quicksave
At the top of your keyboard you have one key that reads F5 and another that read F7.
Hit the one in the middle  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/tounge2.gif

[Balschoiw]

Who reads manuals ? http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

[Dark_vityaz]

Thanks God&#33; SDK has appeared. Just for MP.But they promised to make and for singleplayer soon. Stalker the game was released in March and the first version appeared yesterday. So 3 months. Arma was released in December,but can`t see even beta tools. Hope it`s time to correct arma`s tools. But all in all GSC were quickly than BIS http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

[Nephilim]

lol ive just got back from pripyat cause my armor got pretty screwed and i went back all over to the wild territory aiming for yantar to look for a seva suit or anything equal, as when one of those freaky poltergeist dudes hoovers around in the wild territory

that was kinda funny http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

some footsteps away i killed another one right away.

quite funny how you can find new things if you progress in the game and then just get back in some of the previous regions http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

just too bad that some weapons are accessable THAT late ingame :/ like the gauss or the fn2k
by then its pretty useless if you go accustomed to your other fav rifle.

btw whats your current artifact, weapon and suit loadout?

be gots the G36, the pseudo VSS (BC Vintar)
SEVA suit bought from the yantar doc gonna change it tho
artifacts i need to look up cant remeber their names

but there are some that add like +600% for wounds or so
funnily enough that certain artifact isnt that rare and i find it quite often
whilest artifacts like the pelicle are rare but pretty useless :/
(already found it 2 times)
or the battery artfacts if youre carefull you wont need them anyway

cheers

[Average Joe]

Loadout I used was a g36 with a silencer and grenade launcher attachments, secondary weapon was a dragunov with some AP rounds [not cheap&#33;]. I didnt fancy the gauss I guess it was too high tech for my liking I felt like Arnie in Total Recall.

The suit I used was the military suit I think, pretty dear but worth the money as element protection was superb, as for artifacts I found them to be quite a good earner so off Id go into the wilderness saving everyfew minutes before I jumped head first into a bunch of anomalies to claim some raritys.

If you want a more accessable and highspeed version Neph I&#39;d highly recommend the fajakes total conversion mod, more toys more fun

http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[4 IN 1]

i cant play that much as it get very sick over 15 mins
i couldnt get these level of motion sickness in ArmA even with TIR  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/tounge2.gif

i am at the 3rd round and now i am doing it with mods


Thanks God&#33; SDK has appeared. Just for MP.But they promised to make and for singleplayer soon. Stalker the game was released in March and the first version appeared yesterday. So 3 months. Arma was released in December,but can`t see even beta tools. Hope it`s time to correct arma`s tools. But all in all GSC were quickly than BIS http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

well i think GSC have a bigger block of money then BI have

[Xawery]

I have to agree with Bals on this one: S.T.A.L.K.E.R is absolutely fantastic. Yes, the translation is bad, some of the voiceovers are poor, the weapons are underpowered, have fake names etc... But the atmosphere... the setting... Absolutely fantastic.

I was three and a half when the Chernobyl disaster happened. I remember my grandfather taking me to the hospital where all citizens were given vaccins. It&#39;s one of my earliest memories, filled with fear and confusion, so the Chernobyl setting holds a special meaning for me. The game developers did a great job in creating a believable setting. The ferris wheel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pripyat01.jpg) in Pripyat was a nice touch, as well as the lava flows (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pictureofchernobyllavaflow.jpg) or the Red Forest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Red_forest.jpg). If you&#39;ve ever lived in an Eastern Bloc country, you&#39;ll recognise a lot of mundane things too. A certain kind of ubiquitous concrete slabs, familiar fences, enormous housing blocks... Fantastic stuff. The last game to evoke a similar feeling of recognition in me was OFP.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R is much more enjoyable if you know a thing or two about the actual disaster. If you&#39;ve read "A Roadside Picnic" or seen Tarkovsky&#39;s "Stalker" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079944/), well... then it&#39;s a real treat http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

Incidentally, I found a realism mod (http://mods.moddb.com/9071/realism-mod/). I was wondering whether anyone had tried it yet and whether it was worth downloading.

[Balschoiw]

I am not into the STALKER community, so I am not aware of any mods that do enhance the experience.
Can someone post a list of recommended mods/addons, etc with links ?
Googling came up with a confusing amount of mods, but as I´m on a low-bandwidth connection at home, I can´t try them all.
So... anyone got some links to really good STALKER mods ?

[Dark_vityaz]

Incidentally, I found a realism mod (http://mods.moddb.com/9071/realism-mod/). I was wondering whether anyone had tried it yet and whether it was worth downloading.
Don`t like Realism Mod, and so many people have a lot of troubles as I heard. Step by step: 1) AMK Mod the latest version 2) A-Life Mod by Sanexx 3)M_BCCF_Full 1.2.1 Final (new monsters).
This mod`s combination works well together. And there are more changes then in 3 patches taken together http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[USSRsniper]

Incidentally, I found a realism mod (http://mods.moddb.com/9071/realism-mod/). I was wondering whether anyone had tried it yet and whether it was worth downloading.
Don`t like Realism Mod, and so many people have a lot of troubles as I heard. Step by step: 1) AMK Mod the latest version 2) A-Life Mod by Sanexx 3)M_BCCF_Full 1.2.1 Final (new monsters).
This mod`s combination works well together. And there are more changes then in 3 patches taken together  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif
I recomend all of these mods listed, especially A-Life mod by Sanexx, dont get confused with A-Life Alpha mod which screws up games.
What it does? See it yourself.... watch mutants around you  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/nener.gif

[stegman]

Incidentally, I found a realism mod (http://mods.moddb.com/9071/realism-mod/). I was wondering whether anyone had tried it yet and whether it was worth downloading.
Don`t like Realism Mod, and so many people have a lot of troubles as I heard. Step by step: 1) AMK Mod the latest version 2) A-Life Mod by Sanexx 3)M_BCCF_Full 1.2.1 Final (new monsters).
This mod`s combination works well together. And there are more changes then in 3 patches taken together  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif
I recomend all of these mods listed, especially A-Life mod by Sanexx, dont get confused with A-Life Alpha mod which screws up games.
What it does? See it yourself.... watch mutants around you  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/nener.gif
Hi guys, I’m new to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. but love it&#33;
It&#39;s so creepy. And the AI is rather good in the way they stay in cover and try to flank you.

I haven’t got too far into it yet, but have read about some of these mods (including the vehicle mod).

If i install them, will i have to restart?
Also is the vehicle mod any good, or does it make the maps feel smaller?

And finally, where is the best place to get them?

[ShadowY]

Hi guys,  I’m new to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. but love it&#33;
It&#39;s so creepy.  And the AI is rather good in the way they stay in cover and try to flank you.

I haven’t got too far into it yet, but have read about some of these mods (including the vehicle mod).

If i install them, will i have to restart?
Also is the vehicle mod any good, or does it make the maps feel smaller?

And finally, where is the best place to get them?
Here (http://www.gsc-game.com/index.php?t=community&s=forums&s_game_type=xr&lang=en)

http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/whistle.gif

[stegman]

...[I] have read about some of these mods.

... where is the best place to get them?
Here (http://www.gsc-game.com/index.php?t=community&s=forums&s_game_type=xr&lang=en)

http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/whistle.gif
Thanks mate. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/thumbs-up.gif

[kavoven]

Btw

http://www.pcgames.de/aid,640....ear_Sky (http://www.pcgames.de/aid,640665/STALKER_Clear_Sky_Beeindruckendes_Direct-X-10-Video_zu_STALKER_Clear_Sky/)

Really, really great DX10 movie

[Heatseeker]

Btw

http://www.pcgames.de/aid,640....ear_Sky (http://www.pcgames.de/aid,640665/STALKER_Clear_Sky_Beeindruckendes_Direct-X-10-Video_zu_STALKER_Clear_Sky/)

Really, really great DX10 movie
Only thing DX10 specific are probably bad frame rates...

[])rStrangelove]

I paid a visit to the zone again lately - now the mods are getting better and better it&#39;s great to fully re-enjoy the game cause you know where to look for things to find. (just found out about that stalker suit in your start village)

Did you know you can open all locked doors ingame by dropping / throwing a long rifle between the door and its frame? Seems like a bug in the physics engine. (google for youtube vids)

Atm i&#39;m searching for a mod that features free AI roaming (monsters walk around more, higher number of neutral stalkers) and the weapon repair mod.

Best mod i&#39;ve ever played with is the little hack that gets you rid of the head movement while walking - caused my headaches really&#33;

http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[CosmicCastaway]

Best bet for a nice and simple mod would be to go with "Oblivion Lost" (the original game title)

It&#39;s a collection of mods that restore a lot of the original functionality and features that were either incomplete, or removed for some reason. Things like drivable vehicles, randomised anomalies, free-roaming AI (encounter anything and anyone, anywhere), realistic weapons damage (and weapon names), a handy sleeping bag, new mutants and more zombie types, the list goes on and on.

One of the coolest features in my opinion is the re-introduction of randomised "blowouts" from the reactor, get caught in the open when one of those hits and kiss your stalking ass goodnight. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif The AI actually reacts to these as well, running for cover, or getting fried in the open etc. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

Details here: Click this link (http://forums.filefront.com/s-t-l-k-e-r-modding-editing/340033-s-t-l-k-e-r-oblivion-lost-kanyhalos.html)

It&#39;s a totally different (and better) game after using this mod, although of course some of the things are a little rough around the edges.

[Xawery]

The link... it does nothing?&#33;

Googling solved the problem, here&#39;s the download link from megauploads (pretty ok d/l speed): http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Z7TEHTQM.

The mod sounds very promising&#33;

[CosmicCastaway]

The link... it does nothing?&#33;

Googling solved the problem, here&#39;s the download link from megauploads (pretty ok d/l speed): http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Z7TEHTQM.

The mod sounds very promising&#33;
Really? Worked for me. Anyway, the link is http://forums.filefront.com/s-t-l-k....os.html (http://forums.filefront.com/s-t-l-k-e-r-modding-editing/340033-s-t-l-k-e-r-oblivion-lost-kanyhalos.html)

It&#39;s a top notch collection of three main mods, along with some tweaking. It&#39;s the dog&#39;s dangling parts. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/notworthy.gif

I just keep going back for more...

[Xawery]

Just installed it (which is quite a bitch if you bought Stalker on Steam), and I have to say... wow. The sounds are great, the weapons are awesome (finally, a 9 mm pistol actually does anything&#33;&#33; ), the day/night cycles are much longer, the nights look fantastic (i.e. actually dark), the A-Life is really alive... I&#39;m still very early in the game (haven&#39;t even crossed the train viaduct yet), but I&#39;ve already had tons of fun exploring.

Two examples: while looking for the spot where Nimble was ambushed, you come across one of his wounded comrades. It was the middle of the night when I stumbled upon him. I gave him the medkit and he rose to thank me. Suddenly, midsentence, he stops talking and whirls around, just as a shambling zombie emerges from the darkness&#33; The creature is much faster than you&#39;d expect. We pump it full of lead and the damn thing finally goes down. I turn to the Loner to continue our conversation, but I see he still has his pistol drawn. What the... I turn around and watch my torch cast vivid shadows on the bloody corpse getting up&#33; In a frenzy of left mouse clicks we put another two clips in the zombified soldier (while it begs us to kill it in Russian) and the undead finally turns dead. Zombies are nothing new in games, but combined with Stalker&#39;s eerie atmosphere, sounds and dynamic AI (this wasn&#39;t scripted, it was just a zombie drawn to our flashlights&#33; ) it got pretty scary. I loved it http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

I then proceeded to the old farm where Nimble was kept. We cleared out the place (with the added bonus of wild dogs dropping by&#33; ) and freed Nimble. I decided it was too bloody dark to go on so I found a nice, sheltered spot on a second floor, grabbed my sleepingbag and went to sleep. When I woke up (disoriented from the dream http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif ) I heard voices downstairs... Unfriendly voices. The farm had been taken over by the bandits again&#33; They were doing house-to-house searches but hadn&#39;t found me yet. Duking it out in the reddish light of the rising sun was great fun, especially now that low-level weapon actually deal some damage. A well-placed round from an AKM put a stop to my heroics, though http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

All in all: if this isn&#39;t the dogs bollocks, I don&#39;t know what is.

PS: Ah, I knew the name CosmicCastaway sounded familiar&#33; We had a PM discussion about the merits of British comedy back in september 2004. Boy, how time flies...

[CosmicCastaway]

PS: Ah, I knew the name CosmicCastaway sounded familiar&#33; We had a PM discussion about the merits of British comedy back in september 2004. Boy, how time flies...
That&#39;s the one http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif I&#39;ve been doing an excellent job of losing all my money in far flung corners of the globe these past few years, back now due to erm.. financial constraints http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/crazy_o.gif

The mod truly is the business, it adds a lot the the overall atmosphere of the thing, as you said. So much so, that I actually find myself climbing to the top of tall structures and tucking myself away in a secretive corner, just to catch some sleep&#33; It&#39;s entirely possible to go to sleep wherever you like, but to hell with sleeping in the open. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

I&#39;m about to head up to the Red Forest type area, god only knows what &#39;drinkspillingonkeyboard&#39; horrors await. Some of the underground facilities are quite a bit harder now, what with the addition of more (and varied) mutants / zombies.

Returning to a camp fire expecting to find someone you had a conversation with earlier, only to find they&#39;ve been killed by wild dogs and dragged off into the bushes is bloody creepy too.
http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

**NOTE** this might just be with my installation, but when you reach the "Army Warehouses" area and meet up with the Freedom faction, make sure you save your game before befriending them. (If that&#39;s the route you go down of course) I get a crash to desktop when re-loading quicksaves in the Army Warehouses sector, after befriending Freedom; but they work fine in other areas. Just a little heads up http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[USSRsniper]

I also recommends the AMK mod. Its just amazing mod here is features list.. http://board.oblivion-lost.de/showthread.php?t=12558 Dynamic System news actually works, saw message about stalker in need of help, and when i arrived to the area reported, i saw bloodsuckers sucking out blood from them... I was late  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

[Ingram]

I am also rinning with the Oblivion Lost mod right now and I can say that it is amazing.
I have also downloaded the ENB series mod and some other graphics utilities.

I am more afraid to go somewhere at night because now it is too much scary so I am always sleeping and waiting for the day XD

[Alex72]

Is OL mod made by the stalker dev team or a community mod? I dont know much about stalker even though i have it. Played it a bit and wanted it to be more like it seems to be with this addon.

Regards
Alex

[Deadfast]

It&#39;s a community mod.

Basically, it&#39;s a compilation of the best STALKER mods, including AI improvements, gameplay modifications, textures, realism, etc.

[Xawery]

Plus it unlocks content that the devs had considered but didn&#39;t implement in the end, such as driveable vehicles, Burer etc.

Another thing I like is that OL reverts all voice acting to Russian (you can change it back to English if you want, of course). That&#39;s one thing that really, really bothered me about Stalker - the poor translations and the even worse voice acting (although the quality of the latter is directly influenced by the quality of the former...). The grammar was mediocre but the style was horrible. Shoddy punctuation, strange phrases, inconsistent style (do they want American or British English?), ugh... It&#39;s a pity they didn&#39;t hire a professional translator (and if they did, they should ask for their money back). To be fair, I must admit there are some hard to translate words - I don&#39;t think there&#39;s a word in English which would properly convey the contextual meaning of "malchik".

[USSRsniper]

Plus it unlocks content that the devs had considered but didn&#39;t implement in the end, such as driveable vehicles, Burer etc.

Another thing I like is that OL reverts all voice acting to Russian (you can change it back to English if you want, of course). That&#39;s one thing that really, really bothered me about Stalker - the poor translations and the even worse voice acting (although the quality of the latter is directly influenced by the quality of the former...). The grammar was mediocre but the style was horrible. Shoddy punctuation, strange phrases, inconsistent style (do they want American or British English?), ugh... It&#39;s a pity they didn&#39;t hire a professional translator (and if they did, they should ask for their money back). To be fair, I must admit there are some hard to translate words - I don&#39;t think there&#39;s a word in English which would properly convey the contextual meaning of "malchik".
Some hard to translate words? There is alot of them, expecially the words the bandits use http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/tounge2.gif

[CosmicCastaway]

Speaking of hard. Running the Oblivion Lost mod and getting into Chernobyl NPP brings new meaning to the word &#39;hard&#39;. Don&#39;t even get me started on once you get inside. You can see why they hauled some of the stuff out of the release version, that&#39;s for sure. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

Well worth it though.

[Xawery]

What I really hate though are the damn monsters spawning around you when you wake up from the cutscenes. There&#39;s hard and there&#39;s unfair. You&#39;re so disoriented it&#39;s you can&#39;t do anything for a second or two, and that&#39;s plenty of time for two bloodsuckers to do you in.

Incidentally, it wasn&#39;t until much later in the game that I realised I was running Oblivion 1.2 rather than 2.0. With a sigh of resignation I started a new game, not exactly looking forward to trudging through the same sequences. I must say though, the difference is enormous. They&#39;ve really done a massive job on tweaking the engine. Now the days are actually bright&#33; The AI throwing nades is a very nice addition as well http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[CosmicCastaway]

Aye, that bugs me too. Some of the later areas it seems like someone added a zero into the spawn scripts by accident, so instead of one creature you get a pack of ten. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif Nice to look at from a distance, until they start heading over in your direction... http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/crazy_o.gif

[USSRsniper]

Aye, that bugs me too. Some of the later areas it seems like someone added a zero into the spawn scripts by accident, so instead of one creature you get a pack of ten. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif Nice to look at from a distance, until they start heading over in your direction... http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/crazy_o.gif
After a while i got sick of this, when you wake up ten monsters near you, so i got myself minigun and used ammo trainer, now i can easily clear up th area from mutants, and then switch to normal gun http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

[Xawery]

Aye, that bugs me too. Some of the later areas it seems like someone added a zero into the spawn scripts by accident, so instead of one creature you get a pack of ten. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif Nice to look at from a distance, until they start heading over in your direction... http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/crazy_o.gif
Too bloody right&#33; In version 1.2 you only got freakish amounts of enemies after waking up, but 2.0 seems to enjoy throwing humongous packs of mutated creatures at you every chance it gets. Allow me to illustrate http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

When I started this game I took a little detour and went straight to the Dark Valley. I scored some nice weapons there, cleaned out the hideout and went on with the game (and let me tell you, it really doesn&#39;t like it when you take a different route). After the little talk with the barkeep I went back to the hideout to get the second electronic key. The place was still squeaky clean since my last visit so I helped myself to the keycard and went on my merry way. I jumped in the truck and drove to the oh-so-secret lab. As soon as I drove through the gates I heard the tell-tale howl of a bloodsucker. Before me, all sorts of nasty little creatures skittered across the road. I drove like a madman, rushing through anomalies before they could do too much damage. I took a sharp left and planted the truck into a concrete pipe in the courtyard of the second base. I got out, dizzy and bleeding. I turned around, only to witness a pack of seven bloodsuckers, a couple of pseudo-giants and an entire horde of those damn ratlike-creatures run straight at me. Naturally, I was dead in a matter of seconds.

Still, the cacophony those bloody creatures made isn&#39;t very likely to leave my mind soon.

[CosmicCastaway]

You just know you&#39;re boned really:
http://www.arseaboutface.com/stalker/stalker_zombies.jpg

[im]http://www.arseaboutface.com/stalker/stalker_beasts.jpg[/img][/img]>100kb

Radiation from the NPP is currently the least of my worries:
img]http://www.arseaboutface.com/stalker/stalker_npp.jpg[/img]>100kb

[Xawery]

Jesus Christ on a bicycle... You know, I find those images very discouraging. I haver really enjoyed OL because it makes you much more vulnerable: just a few rounds of any weapon will take you down, but a well-aimed shot will take down an enemy as well. It&#39;s kind of like the OFP trade-off: you die quickly but so do the enemies. Of course, you&#39;re usually outnumbered so the game is still challenging and rewarding - you have to use cover and your wits.

But this whole end-boss business... It doesn&#39;t fit the game at all. The first time I came across Burer was in version 1.3. Back than he was still indestructible so you had to use a well-placed artifact to take the bastard out. That was pretty nifty. But then I got gang-raped by two bloodsuckers right after waking up, and I thought: "did the modmaker really want to shaft the player with this or is this just some error in the scripts?" Throwing powerful enemies by the dozen is just plain frustrating. Their strength lies in the fact that they are rare. The first encounter with the bloodsucker in the Agroprom was nothing short of frightening. If cartloads of them are dumped on your head, well... they lose their appeal.

Then version 2.0 came along. Packs of bloodsuckers, pseudogiants and other scum... What&#39;s the fun in that? Burer has been reduced to a heap of flesh that took a number of clips and a grenade or seven before it went down. The whole "use cover, flank" routine had been replaced with "put your most powerful weapon on auto and keep that finger on the &#39;use medkit&#39; button". No fun at all.

And now your screenshots... Jeez, that&#39;s just depressing. In a sudden bout of masochism I read through some of the 600+ pages of the OL thread on the Stalker forums and it appears that the maker of the mod had intended it this way. Apparantly, he thinks that impossible=hard=challanging=fun, rather than impossible=frustrating=uninstall. It&#39;s like the godlike AI in ArmA 1.0: sure, the fact that they can kill you while you&#39;re 1000 m away behind a bush makes the game hard, but fun? No.

[USSRsniper]

Jesus Christ on a bicycle... You know, I find those images very discouraging. I haver really enjoyed OL because it makes you much more vulnerable: just a few rounds of any weapon will take you down, but a well-aimed shot will take down an enemy as well. It&#39;s kind of like the OFP trade-off: you die quickly but so do the enemies. Of course, you&#39;re usually outnumbered so the game is still challenging and rewarding - you have to use cover and your wits.

But this whole end-boss business... It doesn&#39;t fit the game at all. The first time I came across Burer was in version 1.3. Back than he was still indestructible so you had to use a well-placed artifact to take the bastard out. That was pretty nifty. But then I got gang-raped by two bloodsuckers right after waking up, and I thought: "did the modmaker really want to shaft the player with this or is this just some error in the scripts?" Throwing powerful enemies by the dozen is just plain frustrating. Their strength lies in the fact that they are rare. The first encounter with the bloodsucker in the Agroprom was nothing short of frightening. If cartloads of them are dumped on your head, well... they lose their appeal.

Then version 2.0 came along. Packs of bloodsuckers, pseudogiants and other scum... What&#39;s the fun in that? Burer has been reduced to a heap of flesh that took a number of clips and a grenade or seven before it went down. The whole "use cover, flank" routine had been replaced with "put your most powerful weapon on auto and keep that finger on the &#39;use medkit&#39; button". No fun at all.

And now your screenshots... Jeez, that&#39;s just depressing. In a sudden bout of masochism I read through some of the 600+ pages of the OL thread on the Stalker forums and it appears that the maker of the mod had intended it this way. Apparantly, he thinks that impossible=hard=challanging=fun, rather than impossible=frustrating=uninstall. It&#39;s like the godlike AI in ArmA 1.0: sure, the fact that they can kill you while you&#39;re 1000 m away behind a bush makes the game hard, but fun? No.
They got it wrong, jsut by adding mroe enemies not going to make game better and more fun. thats why i stick to AMK.

[OmniMax]

My review of STALKER (note: I only read the first page of replies):

I just finished S.T.A.L.K.E.R. two days ago and I was fairly surprised in that it was a modern game that I enjoyed. It was as if Half-Life, Fallout 2, and System Shock all had a giant orgy and out came STALKER.

I was a bit confused by the first page about the graphics being dated and the game being linear/boring/etc... because mostly in part the claims that the game is sub-par is untrue.

The game uses gracious amounts of bump mapping and other DX9 features and boasts excellent graphics, what is there to bitch about? Not to mention the engine is in-house and not licensed, which these days is pretty impressive upon itself, especially given
STALKER&#39;s graphical beauty. I do admit though, many of the features of the game&#39;s graphics did remind me of Half-Life 2, which doesn&#39;t bother me because I thought Half-Life 2 and the Source looked excellent.

And while we&#39;re on the topic about graphics I should probably make mention of the terrain. Specifically the research that went into making of all the buildings and gates and rails, et cetera, et cetera. Take a look at pictures of real Pripyat and take a look at screen shots from the game. It&#39;s almost as if they went there in radioactive protective suits, took pictures of the buildings and used them as textures&#33; So the game isn&#39;t based on the Unreal 3 engine, so what? You&#39;re all playing ArmA which isn&#39;t quite so aesthetically pleasing so quit your bloody bleating.

In terms of the game play being linear... So what? For the game to have any sort of consistent plot, story, or meaning of what you&#39;re supposed to do, there needs to be a plot and you need to follow the game along. It&#39;s interactive story telling. This isn&#39;t some Will Wright sandbox game where you wave your willy around. There are actually quests that aren&#39;t linear where you can do them ad infinitum until your brain explodes (in the same vein as Oblivion).

And while we&#39;re talking about Oblivion, whoever thinks Oblivion looks better than S.T.A.L.K.E.R. seriously needs their eyes checked. When I bought my new 22" LCD and cranked the settings in Oblivion and went outdoors for a stroll with the 200mb
enhanced visuals mod I was left unimpressed. I then proceeded to uninstall the game from my computer because it was fucking boring. Two words: level scaling. (You know what I&#39;m talking about)

I tend to like the game because it is hard as tits. Nearly all the guns until you reach near the end of the game are inaccurate as holy hell and the way the game makes everyone vulnerable as in two shots you&#39;re dead gives the game a sort of firefight style gameplay reminiscent of ArmA.

The game has its flaws, mainly what I&#39;d like to call Fallout 2 syndrome. What do you do once you&#39;ve found all the weapons, armor, do all the side quests, join Duty, kill Freedom, and beat the game a few times? The replay value is sort of lost but there is a mod out there called Oblivion Lost which makes the game a lot more interesting and more difficult, including having enemies come into the safe zones like the 100 Rads bar and shoot everyone up.

And one last thing: the game is scary. Resident Evil or any of those console games have absolutely nothing on STALKER.
One moment you&#39;re lugging back some artifacts from a zone you cleared in Agronom or whatever the bloody place is called and you hear this low, gutteral growl. You enter one of the derelict buildings and all of a sudden this giant brute of a beast called a bloodsucker jumps out at you from nowhere as you frantically try to empty your AK-74 into it. Gun jams. You die. Baddies will randomly spawn in cleared out areas, making the game even more difficult. Also, the game had an enjoyable story line and plot.

That&#39;s my review, I hope you enjoyed it, otherwise you can piss right off. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

[Deadfast]

Take a look at pictures of real Pripyat and take a look at screen shots from the game. It&#39;s almost as if they went there in radioactive protective suits, took pictures of the buildings and used them as textures&#33;
Actually the developers were there http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif.

The place is not that much radioactive anymore.

[kavoven]

Take a look at pictures of real Pripyat and take a look at screen shots from the game. It&#39;s almost as if they went there in radioactive protective suits, took pictures of the buildings and used them as textures&#33;
Actually the developers were there http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif.

The place is not that much radioactive anymore.
Some background info on that:

A few month ago I saw a docu film about the surrouding area of Chernobyl and the wildlife there is simply amazing. Many species have already returned and are enjoying the completly human-free enviroment. (Wolfs, lynxs, wild living cats...) Many animals settled even close to the reactor and are suprisingly avoiding the still heavyly radioactively contaminated zones. So the area is in ideal observing-place for pure nature http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

The developers of Stalker had a special permission to visit the zone and in the previews there were many comparisons between the game and reality http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[OmniMax]

Take a look at pictures of real Pripyat and take a look at screen shots from the game. It&#39;s almost as if they went there in radioactive protective suits, took pictures of the buildings and used them as textures&#33;
Actually the developers were there http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif.

The place is not that much radioactive anymore.
Yeah, it depends on the plants and soil and stuff. One place can be perfectly safe and you walk a hundred meters and your Geiger counter is off the scale. Different materials absorb different types of radiation differently. I hear being inside houses is particularly dangerous due to the stagnant air but all is safe if you&#39;ve got a good Geiger with you.

STALKER is the best and realistic representation of Chernobyl (in a 3d format) to date, and the entire incident in &#39;86 is quite intriguing. It&#39;s like the fallout area is it&#39;s own little biome or ecosystem or whatever have you.

It was a good game, I plan on playing again on master, maybe try sticking to one gun the entire game or playing the stealth type role. Hard to get headshots with that silenced pistol in the beginning, though. Do you know if different suits/your total weight determine visibility to A.I? http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[OmniMax]

I&#39;m revisiting the Zone with Oblivion Lost 2.0.

New monsters are a treat. I like how vulnerable everyone is now and the pistols actually can hit a target with iron sights. AK-74/SU is accurate to the ranges it is in real life&#33; Without the mod you&#39;d be lucky to get a hit at 100 meters, but I suppose in the original design they didn&#39;t want the game to be a snipe fest because the AI doesn&#39;t deal with that well.

The military is raiding the camp you start out in and they keep fending off well. All this means is a lot more loot for me. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

I&#39;m at the gates of Agropom and last time I checked the military are kicking the loner&#39;s asses. Check it out if Mole dies later on, most of the special dudes have special weapons.

Haven&#39;t checked out this Burer business but it doesn&#39;t sound very fun.

Also if you&#39;re worried about random blowouts and sleeping with 2.0 don&#39;t worry, it&#39;s not so bad. In 2.0 your weight limit is 80 kilos now, too. Not sure about the boss business, though. Doesn&#39;t sound very fun. Where do you encounter him?

[Deadfast]

SPOILER (mark the text to reveal):


Quote[/b] ]You meat the first boss (Burer?)<span style='color:white'>at the first lab (X-18) in the Dark Valley. You have to kill him before you can get the documents. He&#39;s waiting right outside the room.</span>
The best way to kill him <span style='color:white'>are explosives. Shoot him few times to make him follow you, then run to the stairs that are left of the door you came with. He won&#39;t follow you there so just chuck all the explosives you have until he goes down.</span>

[Heatseeker]

Are the patches cumulative and can i just install 1.4?
What version do/did you guys run? I&#39;ve read horrors about 1.5 and 1.6 messing up SP very bad (what i care about).

Im receiving it next monday http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif .

[CameronMcDonald]

1.4 was cool for me, and was the version the mod I ran recommended.

[OmniMax]

Yeah 1.0004 seems cool, originally I wanted to run an older version of Oblivion Lost because I didn&#39;t want to have to deal with the random blowouts and sleeping but actually I&#39;ve done a lot of side quests in the first area and right around when I was looking for Fox/guy across the railroad tracks you have to get a medkit and helped him fend off mutants; the first blowout occured in which you just follow neutral/friendly NPCs for cover from radiation and watch the red blazing sky. Doesn&#39;t happen often, not a big deal.

Sleeping is no big deal either. In game time moves kinda slowly and I have never noticed my character getting drowsy. You can sleep at 1, 3, or 5 hour intervals and if you&#39;re tired and need a safe place to rest you can gulp down an energy drink. I find it convenient for passing time (how many times in the original STALKER did you want to wait for daylight? http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif )

But yeah, 1.0004 seems compatible with a lot of the OL mods, but 1.0005 isn&#39;t, but OL 2.0 works with it though. Apparently .5 up is just multiplayer crap for STALKER (and MP in stalker is bad http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif )

[Heatseeker]

Hmm, thanks but let me try again..
Can i just install 1.4 or do i have to install 1.1 + 1.3 first?

Im quite looking forward to it http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif .

[Xawery]

IIRC all the patches are incremental, so you&#39;ll have to install one after another.

Where are you getting the game from? Chances are it&#39;s already patched to a certain degree.

[Heatseeker]

IIRC all the patches are incremental, so you&#39;ll have to install one after another.

Where are you getting the game from? Chances are it&#39;s already patched to a certain degree.
Amazon but i already downloaded all the patches, they are small.
From the bits i&#39;ve seen on YT i think im going to crap ma pants playing this http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/whistle.gif .

And clear sky is looking nice.
http://au.media.pc.ign.com/media/945/945039/imgs_1.html

[kavoven]

Amazon sells it for 9 Euros atm, but I think its 1.0

[Heatseeker]

Oki, i like it but i dont get it yet.

How deep of an impact do my actions have? Trader has this quest to kill some rookie for not much of a reason and its an easy task but.. if i do it will it impact bad on my rep?

Also i noticed other experienced stalkers are easy prey for dogs and bandits, if i trade bandages and medpacks with them will this increase their chances of survival?

The game is very nice but its a bit confusing http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/help.gif .

[WhoCares]

I bought the game about two weeks ago. By now I am three to four weeks in-game and just yesterday crossed the border to the Army Warehouse, so I am playing rather slow.

I played quite a number of side missions, also a few of these killer missions. In one case I found the victim at a camp fire with a couple of other stalkers. I walked up and killed him with a headshot out of a silenced weapon. The bystanders reacted by a kind of standard procedure to a nearby threat or firefight, but other than pulling their weapons and scanning the surroundings they didn&#39;t react and did not engage me. So in this case it does not seem to affect your reputation. But I played just about five such &#39;kill the stalker&#39; missions and also did not cause other friendly fire casualties, so I am not sure what happens if your character evolves just around these missions (they will repeat eventually).

Yesterday I had the chance for a &#39;serious&#39; check of this relation mechanism, when I could have supported a Duty squad in the attack on some Freedom base. But I did not engage in the actual firefight and so I stayed neutral to both sides.

Quote[/b] ]Minor spoiler: <span style='color:white'>(Completing the side mission to kill one Freedom sniper before the attack has no apparent effect, but gives you quite some additional &#39;income&#39; in the form of weapons and other equipment collected from the dead bodies after the fight)</span>
Not sure if I would have become an enemy to Freedom if I killed a number of them - I thought I&#39;d better not try, as I might have to pass through some more Freedom territory...
So I suffer a little bit by the same confusion, but I actually like it that way. Even if it does not affect your relation if you kill thousands of neutral or faction (e.g. Duty) Stalkers I&#39;d still &#39;roleplay&#39; it that way and would do it just with a pretty rogue character.

Regarding your second question, I regulary sell spare bandages and Medkits to other Stalkers and quite a few times when I visited the region again I collected the very same stuff from their dead bodies and sold it to the next   http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/tounge2.gif
Quote[/b] ]Minor spoiler: <span style='color:white'>A good example for this is in my game the &#39;Garbage Hangar Garrison&#39;; though one might consider this an exploit, especially if you do it to get their money with some expensive artifacts</span>
So I don&#39;t think they use them, at least not very often. But i still keep selling them the stuff - again a kind of a roleplaying thingy...  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/icon_rolleyes.gif

[ShadowY]

It`s been a while for me but I don`t think you will come anywhere playing like that as you do whocares http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/whistle.gif

http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/pistols.gif just go along in the attack on the Armybase...you`ll find some nice weapons and ammo overthere when you go search all the bodies or marked secret stashes and the armory http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

[Heatseeker]

OK, i also thought about selling loot to the other stalkers, since i can loot their corpses later but that doesnt generate much money and money doesnt seem important/usefull.

From my understanding killing one single duty or freedom guy turns them all against us, being friend with Duty and neutral with freedom sounds smart.

Im also taking it slow, exploring and doing side quests, its a nice game even with a fair share of problems/bugs http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif .

[ShadowY]

When you don`t start to kill or keep searching for better weapons and gear/suits you will be busy for a while  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/tounge2.gif

You found out already what a skeleton suit costs or the better weapons you need for the end missions(s)? http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

Anyway have fun http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/whistle.gif  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/pistols.gif
This is done with a mod. but when I first played it I also looted and sold alot, the rest like perfect weapons and suits I kept for myself ...so I sold almost everything I found and kept all of this to myself http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wow_o.gif
The money I made is on the top right...and I still bought stuff, the rest I found etc...
The guitar I could bought from one of my victims...but I needed to do it in a special way...can`t remeber how http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif
http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/5797/itemweaponsandstuffxx2.jpg

[Heatseeker]

http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/huh.gif

Wow, i didnt even knew stalker had all that stuff, im still wandering around the garbage in a crappy bandit suit with an AKS74U or MP5.

No mods though.

[Deadfast]

A lil trick.


Quote[/b] ]
Minor spoiler:
You can find yourself a mercenary suit in first 5 minute of playing the game. <span style='color:white'>As soon as you get out of traders house go to Wolf and talk to him. Then climb up the ladder behind him and carefully get up the houses roof. Jump over to the building that you see right in front of you. Walk to the other side of the roof and turn around. You should see a crate under the roof. Shoot/smash it and a cool suit will fall out http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif</span>

[ShadowY]

The first time I really played the game I went as fast as I could to make it to the end(ings).
I went back to previous saves and started collecting, I could not find those screenshot, just later on I looked for mods.
Need to make screenshots of my last higher level collections also again without mods then it looks different again.

btw. did you see all the special stones and artifacts? those are nice to collect for money or some jobs, although they lay sometimes in places that can kill you http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif
The stones are usefull for your character but some are radio active or whatever those will cause, but some are usefull so you can use it to run longer with big loads of stuff in your backpack or it gives better protection.
You can use 5 of it in your backback read what they do and what they cause. if your constantly get the warning radio active then don`t use the stone/artifact when you wandering around.

The collection seen on the screenie indicateds how many I sold or used for jobs already http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

You probably found out that you can destroy wooden crates and thos small metal boxes with your knife(saves bullets) http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

Check rooms/labs good, Lockers, desks, boxes etc...especially the ones where you need to go to for the missions http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/whistle.gif
Last hint is check that PDA for the secret stashes from dead stalkers bandits or whomever and your jobs and mission(s)

I talk so much about it that I went back ingame to do some collecting/shoting again cya http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/pistols.gif

[WhoCares]

When you don`t start to kill or keep searching for better weapons and gear/suits you will be busy for a while  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/tounge2.gif
You misunderstood me.
It is not like I don&#39;t kill or scoop in every stash, corpse, pipe, crate or locker. I have quite a number of stashes across all the territories I already visited to store weapons, ammo and equipment I looted from the various sources...

Regarding the attack of the Duties against the Freedoms, you can just look at my first &#39;spoiler&#39; to see that I still looted their corpses, but as the Freedoms won I have no access to the armory (yet).

Looking at your screenshot I already found most artifacts, just yesterday bought me my first Exosceleton Suit, and also with the weapons I am not that far behind (9x39 and 7.62 sniper rifles, GP37(G36), Pumpaction shotgun, RPG, revolving grenade launcher),...

Last but not least, just yesterday I helped Freedom against Monolith and now I am going to cross the border into the Monolith territory - going to be interesting... http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/pistols.gif

[ShadowY]

my bad...and I never check spoilers but most of the hints later were for heatseeker anyway http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/pistols.gif

[HxCxFxL]

Have you heard the new Oblivion Lost mod 2.0 is out you have to give it a try, it&#39;s like a complete new game
here is the readme

Quote[/b] ]
What is the purpose of this mod?

The purpose of this mod is to get closer to the old Oblivion Lost, and give the best performance possible, while implementing the best mod features:

Total Freeplay, Modified A-Life, and Reality Enhancement.

It is recommended to play in HELL difficulty&#33;
This mod works properly only with 1.0004 or 1.0005 patch&#33; The default is 1.0005&#33;
The default version working with the 1.0006 patch aswell, but that is just an MP Patch.
If you want to play with the 1.0004 patch, then you must install the OL1.0004 compatible patch.

FEATURES:

FREEPLAY
- Although you can follow the storyline, it is not necessary, you can explore all levels without completing them, but you must have the decoder to be able to get to Monolith Control and NPP Stancia2.
- Removed the scripted blowout from Stancia1 and the dead zone from Stancia2, so you can explorate the whole Power Plant.
- The last portal teleports the actor to the court, so the game is open-ended, you can make your way back to the previous levels.
- New level changers (NPP Stancia2 to Control Room, Control Room to Sarcophagus, Sarcophagus to NPP Stancia1, NPP Stancia1 to Pripyat, Cordon&#39;to Dark Valley).

A-LIFE
- Now almost everything can happen, there&#39;s a chance to meet any NPC on any level.
- Sometimes the army raids, sometimes they don&#39;t, this is totally random, too.
- The mutants are making their way through the Zone in big hordes.
- The mutants are entering places where they could not enter before, so there&#39;s an increased chance to meet them in npc populated areas.
- Sometimes you may happen upon unique situations, it can be very hard or even funny.
- You will not have the same situations 2 times on the same level.
- The respawn can be very random, there&#39;s a chance to meet different types of mutants then before.
- The bugs of the older versions and the vanilla bugs have been corrected, now you won&#39;t see any failed quests and Quest NPC&#39;s who die before you can complete their quests, also the vanilla respawn is working properly and balanced.

FACTION WARS
- There&#39;s a chance to meet any faction in any level, also it&#39;s totally random.
- A message will give you notice about the random events.
- The Military attacks the bandits in the carpark.
- The Military attacks the loners and the bandits in the Hangar.
- You can meet Mercenaries in Agroprom.
- The Duty and the Military attacks Borov&#39;s base.
- The Freedom attacks the Duty base.
- The Military sometimes attacks Rostok Wild Territory.
- The Duty attacks the Freedom base.
- All factions try to reach the center of the Zone, and there&#39;s a chance to some of them become zombified by the Psy Emission.

REALISM
- All weapons are stronger and well-balanced.
- Almost to all weapons are able to attach addons.
- Added realistic sounds to the weapons, rounds, ammos, materials and environment.
- NPC&#39;s can bleed, if they are hurt they fall down to the ground and if they don&#39;t receive any medkits within a minute, then they die.
- Bandages and foods don&#39;t heal the actor.
- The average bleeding doesn&#39;t stop by itself, only the minor.
- Added realistic head-bobbing to the actor when he is heavily wounded.
- Well-balanced armor degradation.
- The crosshair is reduced to a dot.
- New sniper weapon scopes.
-There is a huge difference between day and night, you can sneak in the pitch black, but it&#39;s not very easy, I had to make a compromise between a good stealth and bugfree npc behaviour.
- If the actor turns on the flashlight at night, then his enemies spot him immediately.
- Reduced the sound volume of the Knife, now it&#39;s a dangerous and invisible weapon during night, presumably the NPC&#39;s won&#39;t notice the actor if he is smart enough.
- The quality of the weapons which are looted from corpses is generally very bad.

NEW WEAPONS
- BM16 Long Rifle
- M-134 Minigun
- AK-47

REWORKED AI
- The npc&#39;s can avoid anomalies.
- The npc&#39;s can throw grenades.
- The npc&#39;s can use medkits, heal themselves and each other.
- The npc&#39;s can upgrade and replace their armor and they will collect suits and weapons found laying about.
- There are no dead npc&#39;s around campfires, but if someone dies near one, the campers will drag the corpse away.

RE-ENABLED CONTROLLER AI
- The controller can take control on the npc&#39;s and lead them against his enemies.
- If an npc is inside the controller&#39;s aura, then he will immediately become zombified.
- When the controller dies, then "controlled" npc&#39;s will return to normal.

WEATHER
- There are 24 hour cycle weathers in all levels.
- The night is dark and scary.
- Restored the Sun and the Moon.
- Atmospheric sky textures.
- In NPP Stancia2 the weather is always rainy and cloudy, it fits in to the atmosphere of the Nuclear Plant.

BLOWOUT
- The blowout is totally random, you never know when it will happen.
- So there are many hideouts in each level, but carrying antirad is very important.
- The npc&#39;s are running to hideouts, while being attacked - they fire back, at the end of blowout - they return to usual places. They protect the hideouts from enemies.
- The strength of the blowout is always stronger and stronger if you are closer to the NPP. In the NPP blowouts are deadly, you must runn down to the Sarcophagus as soon as you can.
- The mutants lie on the ground during the high radiation sequence of blowouts, they feel pain from that.
- More mutants will appear after blowout and give madness to the environment.
- Artifacts will birth from anomalies after blowout.
- The blowout will continue if you save and load the game or move to an other level, you can&#39;t bypass it.

DYNAMIC ANOMALIES
- The anomalies change their positions after blowouts.
- Stronger anomalies can appear and they will be very deadly.
- Be careful of them if you are driving cars, now the routine which you learn in the vanilla game is useless.

DYNAMIC HUD
- Player&#39;s field of view lowers when you wear suits with masks, condensation effect (glass becomes covered with moisture)

ARTIFACT TRANSMUTATION
- It&#39;s a kind of alchemy, as you can see in other rpg games. You can modify artifacts by placing them in the proper anomaly, but be careful, you can ruin them too. There are "recipts" hidden in the zone, and you need to find them, or get them with completing quests. These papers contain the solution for creating unique items, so you should carefully read them. There are different levels for artifacts, each with new features. If you are lucky, you will be able to create a new artifact with unique properties.

SLEEPING
- Now Marked One gets tired after 30 hours of action: it begins to double your vision, etc. If you continue to play and will not sleep, Marked One will fall asleep approximately after 6 hours.
- You can&#39;t sleep for a while if you had an energy drink.
- You can&#39;t sleep during blowout.
- To sleep, use the sleeping bag in your inventory..

MUTANTS
- Added all cutout mutants (Dwarf, Chimera, Cat, Zombie, Izlom)
- Theyhave many different types of skins.
- Added the Psy Dog as a new mutant (with attack effector).
- Two boss enemy characters (Burer and Koshei) - they are tougher and have stronger attacks then the usual mutants.

VEHICLES
- Added all drivable vehicles (Niva, Zaz, Kamaz, Tractor, UAZ, BTR, Moskvich).
- The vehicles don&#39;t float.
- Well-balanced driving properties.
- Added realistic engine and gear sounds to the UAZ.

MISCELLANEOUS
- Replaced main menu music.
- Main menu from the 2215 beta.
- Added the "Turn on the engine" to the options/controls.
- Added the AMK Options menu, you can disable the Suit HUD visors.
- NPC&#39;s can buy anything from the actor but in very low prices.
- All traders can repair.
- New stalker and weapon textures.
- Additional skins for stalkers and bandits.
- Traders sell their supplies at very high prices, but they pay very low prices for everything, now they are well-balanced.
- Finding a medkit is not so easy, also it&#39;s very expensive to purchase them.
- Shootable crows.
- You can place markers on the pda map with GPS.
- Reworked the helicopter AI. Now they use rockets and will sometimes use evasive maneuvers. If the pilot loses the player from it&#39;s FOV (Field of Vision), then it will halt it&#39;s attack and fly away.
- Antigas armors enabled.
- The npc&#39;s can play the harmonica.
- Alcolholism, don&#39;t drink too much vodka.
- Replaced some dialog sounds to russian.
- Added some songs to the camping stalkers.
- Sidequests and autoquests have no time limit.
- You can obtain the quests again after 1 day.
- In standard task of the "Kill stalker" type, now, there are several ways to end task - victim can pay for its life.
- A lot of vanilla bugfixes.

And here is the DL link http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif
http://stalker.filefront.com/file/Oblivion_Lost;89584

[Heatseeker]

Last night i decided to go back to Ogropron facility to see what i could scavenge there, i left a stash of artifacts there previously before going underground (Mole) and i was desperate for a new/better suit.
I received a task to help the stalkers who were being atacked by bandits, i could hear the gunfire and when i got there the stalkers were all dead but the bandits were still opening fire..

A bandit saw me, fired at me and while i was taking cover he was killed by a bloodsucker that came after me but was dealt with a very fortunate AK74 burst.
Pressed crouch, lights off and quietly climbed to the tallest part of the structure while the few remaining bandits got killed, it was dark, raining and i could hear something feeding of the corpses a bit after, nhac.. nhac.. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/crazy_o.gif .
I camped up there and waited for day light, i had plenty of food http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif .

Sweet game&#33;&#33;

[Second]

I just ordered it. You guys do better pr-job than several gaming magazines combined. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/thumbs-up.gif

[ShadowY]

You can trade the artifacts with the stalkers there...the ones you want to keep/use for urself or can use for the jobs the barkeeper or trader have you take back offcourse http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

It`ll saves backpack space and weight for suit(s) and weapons/ammo http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

[Heatseeker]

You can trade the artifacts with the stalkers there...the ones you want to keep/use for urself or can use for the jobs the barkeeper or trader have you take back offcourse http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

It`ll saves backpack space and weight for suit(s) and weapons/ammo http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif
I sold quite a few to the barkeep but im keeping atleast 1 of each to myself, maybe some other trader will pay well for them http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif .

Going back to Ogropron underground payed off, there was a bandit with a obokan + grenade launcher in there, i also missed the stalker suit at strelok&#39;s old hideout when i went there the first time.

[ShadowY]

Today I could had buy the guitar again but saw it to late http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/banghead.gif ...I hit leave reloaded the save and there is no guitar in his backpack http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/confused_o.gif http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/crazy_o.gif

[SaS TrooP]

Good game, finished 2 times, one of the best I have ever played and (sic&#33http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif one of most fucked up I have ever seen. Its just micro scape percent of that what they have been promising.

BTW, my favourite mods are ABC Inferno and Oblivion Lost, how its with yours?

[LeChuckle]

its a shame that the game is split up into different map zones. when i first heard about it i imagined something like oblivion/ofp areas, go wherever you want, dont be forced to follow the main quest(side-quests are worthless in stlkr), realistic environments like big forests etc..

i think i read that finding equipment would be hard in the big zone( big, open area as i had imagined), but advance through some areas and you&#39;ll find loads .its not like youre going to go "WHOAH, i found a G36 :O :O :O&#33;&#33;&#33;.

despite this, it is still a good game, especially with the mod oblivion lost, the game gets much more interesting

[Placebo]

Have only played this vanilla and on a fairly weak PC to about 50% completion so looking forward to installing it again fully mod-loaded and on a better PC, is this new mod compatible with other mods? What else should I use for gameplay/visual improvements?

[Mr Burns]

visual improvements?
Float32 (http://www.thefloatingpoint.org/main/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?7780) makes everything nice & shiny http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[jono_retard]

Hmm personally i use and would recommend
Oblivion lost 2
Skyace skygraphics mod 2
stalker weather overhauled 2

check them out on filefront, none of these should conflict and overall you are left with a fun,pretty yet challenging game. Right now im on my 4th time through the game and still loving it.

[Placebo]

Thanks lads I&#39;ll be sure to check them out http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[Heatseeker]

I havent made it very far yet but i found two guitars wich are only worth 35 RU and are 100% useless (the armonica too), i really expected to use the guitar as a melee weapon http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/mad_o.gif .

I also expected a more interesting survival and resource management system, i can always find ammo, med kits and bandages, food, weapons, antirads or vodka, etc and i find money to be useless so far, and the side missions keep repeating over and over with the npc&#39;s spawning in the same places and doing the same stuff over and over..

I hope CS will have a more interesting balance and logic but i still like SOC quite a bit http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif .

[Placebo]

How typical, yet another game that freezes with Vista, my wife&#39;s new laptop has Vista on it and Stalker freezes all the time, after only like 10 mins of gameplay, she only has 2gb ram and the only fixes I&#39;ve found are for people with more than 2gb ram http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/sad_o.gif

[HxCxFxL]

Quote[/b] ]How typical, yet another game that freezes with Vista, my wife&#39;s new laptop has Vista on it and Stalker freezes all the time, after only like 10 mins of gameplay, she only has 2gb ram and the only fixes I&#39;ve found are for people with more than 2gb ram http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/sad_o.gif
Play it with xp and the new oblivion lost mod (when you&#39;ve got the possibility) it is the best solution, and it works absolut solid on my computer.

And I say THQ released an Alpha version with this game and no full game http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/mad_o.gif

[Placebo]

Well it&#39;s not feasible to uninstall Vista on the PC which it&#39;s fully licensed to use and then install some version of XP just because they haven&#39;t supported Vista properly.

[Messiah]

And I say THQ released an Alpha version with this game and no full game  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/mad_o.gif
I&#39;d rather say that THQ spent 6 years trying to make their insanely unique and exciting idea a reality, realised it was taking too long, and had to get something released... thus culling a lot of the features I drooled over when I first read about STALKER.

still a fun game, and I immensely enjoyed it. Need to play it through again with this new fangled mod.

[Placebo]

THQ were just the publisher, the credit for the game has to go to developer GSC http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

[JdB]

Well it&#39;s not feasible to uninstall Vista on the PC which it&#39;s fully licensed to use and then install some version of XP just because they haven&#39;t supported Vista properly.
Have you ever been informed about the wonders of a dual-boot system? http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

Win XP only takes like 1,5GB to install (less if you remove a lot of the non-essential parts), and 99% of all major applications are compatible with it unlike Vista.

[Heatseeker]

Well it&#39;s not feasible to uninstall Vista on the PC which it&#39;s fully licensed to use and then install some version of XP just because they haven&#39;t supported Vista properly.
2 gigs of ram with Vista uh? Make sure you have a large page file then cuz stalker&#39;s ram usage is nuts.
I read many bad things about 1.5 and 1.6 was actually pulled out, 1.4 seems the best one and the one im using.
And tried to disable prefetching yet? Add to your shortcut -noprefetch, for me this fixed some weird triangles caused by the rain.

I read people saying they got it to work with Vista, you should be able to make it work too.

Im at lab x16 now, in Yantar.. damn snorks are dangerous http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/mad_o.gif .

[Messiah]

THQ were just the publisher, the credit for the game has to go to developer GSC http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif
I get confused... the Scandinavian air isn&#39;t quite suited to the gentile Brit.

[USSRsniper]

Vista support? Aost all games run much slower on windows VIsta, if the gme doesn&#39;t crash before you could notice any FPS drop...

[Placebo]

THQ were just the publisher, the credit for the game has to go to developer GSC http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif
I get confused... the Scandinavian air isn&#39;t quite suited to the gentile Brit.
You understand the irony of your comment being that I&#39;m English and living in Sweden? http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

And, why do you have a pic of me in your profile? http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif


Have you ever been informed about the wonders of a dual-boot system? http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif
Of course I know about dual booting, but setting one up on what is primarily a work machine just because 1 game happens to be poorly supported is to me a waste of time, energy and resources http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif


2 gigs of ram with Vista uh? Make sure you have a large page file then cuz stalker&#39;s ram usage is nuts.
I read many bad things about 1.5 and 1.6 was actually pulled out, 1.4 seems the best one and the one im using.
And tried to disable prefetching yet? Add to your shortcut -noprefetch, for me this fixed some weird triangles caused by the rain.

I read people saying they got it to work with Vista, you should be able to make it work too.

Im at lab x16 now, in Yantar.. damn snorks are dangerous http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/mad_o.gif .
Yeah I read about the noprefetch thing, and also patching the EXE yourself to add the largeaddressflag and then a change to how Vista boots up with BCDedit and all that, I did the EXE patching thing but not the BCDEDIT thingy yet as I heard it slows down the PC as a whole http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/sad_o.gif

Pagefile is currently set up at 2gb min 4gb max which I assumed would be large enough, even for stalker http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif


Vista support? Aost all games run much slower on windows VIsta, if the gme doesn&#39;t crash before you could notice any FPS drop...
Didn&#39;t you hear? Vista is the future of PC Gaming, Vista will revitalise the PC Gaming Industry http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

[Messiah]

THQ were just the publisher, the credit for the game has to go to developer GSC http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif
I get confused... the Scandinavian air isn&#39;t quite suited to the gentile Brit.
You understand the irony of your comment being that I&#39;m English and living in Sweden? http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

And, why do you have a pic of me in your profile? http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif
well, then I&#39;ll put it down to something in the drinking water here in Copenhagen... which is quite likely. Better than the Swedish Nanny state http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/whistle.gif

I seem to recall that you&#39;d mentioned something or someone was ugly once, and in rebuttal I think I asked if you&#39;d looked at your profile picture recently, and to which you changed my profile picture to yours and said if I&#39;d looked at mine.

Never bothered taking it down. Not to worry, its not a shrine to Placebo or anything creepy like that.

And vista is only the future of PC gaming once M&#036; fix the problems, or we pass on a few years and wait till those games that don&#39;t run are long forgotten. I&#39;m still on XP, even with a PC I built only back in february, because I knew stuff like this would happen. Until a game comes out that I truely want, and forces me to use Vista, I&#39;m staying put (likely to be Mafia 2 I think)

[Placebo]

Doh I&#39;m vaguely remembering something now yes, funny to see my old smoking pic, I quit smoking October 2004, then 1 month later my future wife walked into the office, and she&#39;d never have looked at me twice if I were still a smoker, weird how fate kicks in sometimes http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

I do agree about Vista, I have XP 64 on my own desktop PC and don&#39;t really plan to change it, but the new laptop we bought for Nat, it&#39;s pre-installed with Vista, it&#39;s licensed for Vista, not really keen on the idea of ripping that out, or adding the extra hassles of a dual boot.......

[VictorTroska]

THQ were just the publisher, the credit for the game has to go to developer GSC http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif
I get confused... the Scandinavian air isn&#39;t quite suited to the gentile Brit.
You understand the irony of your comment being that I&#39;m English and living in Sweden? http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

And, why do you have a pic of me in your profile? http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif


Never bothered taking it down. Not to worry, its not a shrine to Placebo or anything creepy like that.  
http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/rofl.gif



Anyhow, Stalker was a great fun for me, liked it very much, now im gonna try new oblivion lost mod+red75 mod. It must be much better then vanilla SOC.

[Second]

Im at lab x16 now, in Yantar.. damn snorks are dangerous http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/mad_o.gif
Yup. Yantar is worst area when it comes to snorks. But personally i hate bloodsuckers more. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/crazy_o.gif had "fun" with one of those in small village at night in &#39;Warehouse&#39;-district, i had NVGs and shotgun but that didn&#39;t give me much comfort, bloodsucker has nasty way of roaring now and then. It really actually wasn&#39;t much fun, it was freaking horrible&#33; (my character is already alcoholic, i myself will soon be aswell) ... And those are harder to snipe at distance than snorks. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/banghead.gif

Well Controllers and all kinds geists are even worse but luckly they are rare.

Game is quite good, worst thing i can think of are too small areas. Two times more space for each area would have been quite okay. Now they feel too much compressed, awfully lot of action packed into small area. Then again no &#39;fast travel&#39;-option and each trip across two areas costed much in ammo and healthing supplies + the time it took on foot is already an issue (in vanilla Stalker). If trying to play with hasty way, like i didn&#39;t play the first playthru time. My 2nd try is much more relaxed and i do enjoy traveling in game, well i can spent half an hour to turn my Jeep on it&#39;s wheels after slight accident on road which turned my jeep upside down. Oblivion lost mod in use right now. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[Heatseeker]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VIL3rd5p_k

Clear Sky is looking quite good too, im sold http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/notworthy.gif .

[HxCxFxL]

Quote[/b] ]I&#39;d rather say that THQ spent 6 years trying to make their insanely unique and exciting idea a reality, realised it was taking too long, and had to get something released... thus culling a lot of the features I drooled over when I first read about STALKER.

still a fun game, and I immensely enjoyed it. Need to play it through again with this new fangled mod.
I read in german pc magazin that gsc had a lot of great ideas but THQ wanted the game released and cutted out many monsters and features (most of them are in the Oblivion lost mod) I have bought the game direct after the release I played it 5 mins and it freezed every time after patch 1.0001 came out it works a little better (20 min play time till the game freezed) and it was not only on my pc look at some stalker forums and you will see, and the best of all is that an russian (I think, or Ukraine ) mod team , without use of the modtools and sdk (still not released), brings Stalker back to his roots. Because all the monsters and cars are in the files but have no config and they did it and thats why I think THQ did a stupid job to release the game so early it&#39;s all about the money I think
But of course it&#39;s a great game with a lot of atmosphere

[Salvatore_Lee]

Just started playing with the newest Oblivion Mod and its hella kick-ass http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

[ShadowY]

Yesterday I saw 3 endings again it was nice again in vanilla SoC.

Today:
After trying oblivion lost I had to let it go for (imho)crappyness....the whole atmoshphere is gone.
I also can`t stand wandering controlers whom are busy with its thingy while I`m miles away and eternal shockwaves where you get the feeling it`ll never stops pff.
It has nice thingies and weapons but that doesn`t make the game better.

I check/downloading the priboi story for now, lets see if they did a nicer job.

Else I`ll simply go back to the old freeplay modifaction(must be somewhere on my HD`s) and latest weathermod http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/pistols.gif

I don`t care `bout cars and btrs anyway http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/whistle.gif

[Heatseeker]

Yesterday I saw 3 endings again it was nice again in vanilla SoC.

Today:
After trying oblivion lost I had to let it go for (imho)crappyness....the whole atmoshphere is gone.
I also can`t stand wandering controlers whom are busy with its thingy while I`m miles away and eternal shockwaves where you get the feeling it`ll never stops pff.
It has nice thingies and weapons but that doesn`t make the game better.

I check/downloading the priboi story for now, lets see if they did a nicer job.

Else I`ll simply go back to the old freeplay modifaction(must be somewhere on my HD`s) and latest weathermod http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/pistols.gif

I don`t care `bout cars and btrs anyway http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/whistle.gif
Thats why im playing vanilla, the zone feels crowded enough as it is and i dont want intense FPS action all the time.
Im taking it slow, still exploring Dark Valley, Agropron, wild territories and Yantar, but not for long now http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif .

[ShadowY]

Thats why im playing vanilla, the zone feels crowded enough as it is and i dont want intense FPS action all the time.
Im taking it slow, still exploring Dark Valley, Agropron, wild territories and Yantar, but not for long now http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif .
When you make it to the door of The C-Consciousness Project I dropped this infront of the entrance of the control room http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif
The problem is that I could not take it all with me for another(ending)battle http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/pistols.gif
Only with a freeplay mod. I can go back and store it in my own personal collection stash.
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/5405/wpngrstnr5.jpg

[ShadowY]

The Priboi Story mod. looks nice so far...it`s where you start as one of the military guys as Lt. Priboi at the Cordon military post http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/pistols.gif

My games frooze but that`s because I used a weatherthingy before that was made for that mod. I readed and it crashed like 4 times.
I should had try rebooting when I re-installed The Priboi Story I think.

Now I`m going back and hope it plays a bit better with all the extra`s on the map like vegatation, housing, crosses, cars and so on http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/whistle.gif

[Heatseeker]

Army warehouses is going to keep me busy for a while, im not jumping for red forest and Prypiat yet http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/whistle.gif .

I want to remain friend with Duty and atleast neutral with freedom so i have to pick my tasks carefully and ensure important characters dont get wacked.

[ShadowY]

It`s quiet inhere....is noone waiting for Stalker Clear Sky?

Still 4 days of waiting ... http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif
Atleast something to play with while waiting for 2 games somewhere in the 1stQ of 2009

@<hidden> are you done already with Shadow of Chernobyl?

[Blackhawk]

Stalker Clear sky looks Immense, It really does, More Mutants, Better AI, Better Graphics, How much better can it get?

Anyhoo, I&#39;ve recently Started up Stalker again on the Highest graphics and it still freaks me out, In X-16 in the Dark Valley I was so freaked I had to turn the music off. In the Warehouses I&#39;m friends with Duty but I also did the 2 missions for Freedom, I just try and get them to fight each other.

Favourite place in Stalker is the Village outside the Freedom base, I try and sneak up on Bloodsuckers and blow their heads off with a Shotgun,But it always fails.

[Second]

Somehow Stalker lost it&#39;s shine to me quite fast. I dont&#39; get feeling of reward in anything i do, economic system, artifacts, collecting stuff from killed enemies etc. I wait what new they get into clear sky, as in my bpóoks it needs bit of everything improved.

If it&#39;s qoing to be improve just in FPS aspect... Then naah, it&#39;s not game for me.

[Baff1]

I&#39;m very intrested in the DX10 FX.
I&#39;d love to see what they have done with the extra power.

I&#39;m keen to see new mutants. I really wasn&#39;t very inspired by the whole mutant part of the scenario, but it surprised me by turning out to be the best part of the game.

Great atmosphere, great theme, but an easy game to put down.
Tacticless mush.

Will Clear sky have a co-op mode? And vehicles?
I&#39;d buy it for a co-op.

[Heatseeker]

It`s quiet inhere....is noone waiting for Stalker Clear Sky?

Still 4 days of waiting ... http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif
Atleast something to play with while waiting for 2 games somewhere in the 1stQ of 2009
CS is out in Russia already but most of what i&#39;ve read about it so far is complains about crashes, performance, bugged features, bugged missions, bad a.i. spawns.. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/confused_o.gif .

I dont know if its going to be that good anymore but im not going to rush for it, think they should have aimed for the hollidays.

Quote[/b] ]
@<hidden> are you done already with Shadow of Chernobyl?

I made a break at Pripyat and havent played it since, i have lots of stashes but going thru the levels and killing the same bots over and over got a little boring.

[Blackhawk]

You Must be thinking of the Leaked Clear Sky Demo Heatseeker.

[ShadowY]

I check the forums coming days and after release before I buy Clear Sky.

All I saw was some vids and screenies ...and the new site.

[MadRussian]

There are reviews of Clear Sky on ign and on eurogamer.

From the reviews, sounds like the dynamic faction system has been overdone, at least in terms of encounters all the time. I will probably wait for some mods. Plus I&#39;m only part-way through the first game, anyhow&#33;

[NeMeSiS]

Somehow Stalker lost it&#39;s shine to me quite fast. I dont&#39; get feeling of reward in anything i do, economic system, artifacts, collecting stuff from killed enemies etc. I wait what new they get into clear sky, as in my bpóoks it needs bit of everything improved.

If it&#39;s qoing to be improve just in FPS aspect... Then naah, it&#39;s not game for me.
In my opinion everything i did felt pointless because the world was so small, you could literally see from on end of the map to the other most of the time, there were a few awesome locations but once you stepped outside them you could feel the bounderaries which kinda broke the game for me. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/confused_o.gif