79 replies to this topic

[Potatoe]

Blood-Pigggy, on Aug 21 2007, 07:50 PM, said:

gregor, on Aug 21 2007, 02:15 AM, said:

yeah they plan to correct them more. and also the A-life engine should be fully enabled (whatever that means)...

btw i checked and it really is static lighting. for some reason i can not enable dynamic lighting. probably my graphics card is not good enough. although it is 256 MB... maybe you need 512 MB for that. which is kind of stupid to get a new card only to have a darker game. i can always reduce light on my monitor controls... :-P

The amount of MB means jack squat most of the time when it comes to things like Dynamic Lighting. Your card needs to be enabled for this sort of thing, look at the box for the card, or look at the manufacturer's website for your certain model.

There are older cards with the same amount of MB that can't handle stronger effects like HDR or higher settings of anti-aliasing. Dynamic Lighting also taxes your processor heavily, along with stuff like rag doll physics, so you might get a better card but chances are that you might still encounter problems, especially with a game so poorly optimized as S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

@Potato: I'd stay away from SupCom, it's a glorified Total Annihilation with horrid optimization and absolutely no creativity, also the world map thing is a toy that's not much fun (it isn't that easy to use either) I'd skip S.T.A.L.K.E.R. too, maybe Oblivion, if you plan on using mods, but look for the Gothic games instead, try Gothic 3, it's far better than any of those games.

And if you want to get a strategy game look to C&C3 or Company of Heroes.

I already have C&C3, Gothic 3, maybe... just maybe since gothic 2 was *kvetch*in' hard and I really don't like the linear kind of gameplay in it. Or is it like that in Gothic 3?

[Doubler]

Gothic 2 wasn't that hard. At least not without Night of the Raven.

Gothic 3 is a departure in that it's a lot less linear and offers a lot more choices (seriously) then the first two. It's quite different from the older ones, part of why it was badly recieved.
It's easy to completely destroy your chances of finishing though. Think about what you do, and what may be going too far. Most people playing it rashly will eventually trip over something.

Oh, and parts of the gameplay itself haven't improved. The combat system is cool in concept, but... doesn't... work. I've never played another game that did combat this poorly. Ever.

Try the demo. The game's like that, but many, many times larger and with a large number of possibilities and choices thrown in. Complete with epicness (a lot of epicness), revolts, large battles (you and a couple of slaves vs. city and 40 orcs), etc.

[gregor]

well i like Stalker because unpredictable things might happen. also i like the fact you can often get help from others when fighting some enemies. different endings also encourage different game play so it has some replayability value. not to mentin that since different things happen the game also looks totally different. like for the second time i had to find this guy and he was supposed to be attacked byblind dogs. well it turned out a group of bandits was arround and also a group of loners. what happened next was battle of 3 groups where each was fighting for themselves. and since there is a lot of bushes the whole thing got quite confused...

also never had any crashing... except for that one time but it was a minor one - just after walking into an area a made a few steps and it crashed to the dekstop. so i just restarted it loaded the autosave (made in every area entrance) and continue to play.

yeah my card must be old cause it was kind of cheap and is on AGP 8x. I think they now mostly make PCI-E port cards... ugh redux also reduces the weight to carry and i kind of enjoyed picking weapons and droping them off to loaners

[Blood-Pigggy]

I liked Gothic because of its factions and the lack of that "good and evil" decisions trend that's so overrated in the RPG genre.

[Potatoe]

Sorry for the bump, but I just got this game. It's awesome and not too easy. The atmosphere is the best I've seen in a game, or maybe second best, Half Life 2 is still really awesome. The carry limit is pretty annoying, and the lack of quick travel/vehicles is annoying.

[Blood-Pigggy]

Who gives a crap about quick travel, that needs to be cut from games pronto, Unless the place is as big as Daggerfall it's not needed.

[Dave]

I agree with you Potatoe, it's great, but for a better game experience remember to add all the patches you can because the game is really buggy.
They are still working on it and I'm quite optimistic about the continuos developement, a new patch will be released soon.
Well, the 1.1 Beta is already out...but I'll wait the final one.

[Potatoe]

David86, on Feb 16 2008, 07:55 PM, said:

I agree with you Potatoe, it's great, but for a better game experience remember to add all the patches you can because the game is really buggy.
They are still working on it and I'm quite optimistic about the continuos developement, a new patch will be released soon.
Well, the 1.1 Beta is already out...but I'll wait the final one.

1.0005 or something like that is the newest, right?

@BP: It would remove the annoying running back and forth between places, like let's say that you need to finish a quest and you have to run all the way back to the start location. The enemies can take a lot of hits too, which is good, gives the game a fair bit of challenge. And the enemies are really accurate with weapons...

[Dave]

Yes, it is the last one:
http://www.stalker-g...n/?page=patches

Have fun  

[gregor]

two times the danger - going there and going back... i think here in stalker it makes sense. and only the first time you play it weight is the probelm. later on - well i start exploring with 4 medkits, 5 bandages pistol, ammo for pistoll and 3 or 4 grenades. that's all because i know i will always get medikits and bandages antirads etc on different bandits. also getting a weapon is not a problem (a little sneaking and a pop in the head from the back do the trick). sometimes i get some cheap suit, but i have couple of them stashed in various places (so oten i start with no armor).

oh also i carry a couple of artifacts. but all in all everyhting is arround 20 kg when i start adventuring. then i just go arround picking off different enemies and trying to get their stashes. After playing for a while i still didn't turn off the brain scorcher as then everyone will start moving towards it. i have arround 320.000 cash and basically i am not doing much just walking arround trying to get to places i never been before.

anyway i think morrowind has this "fast travel" issue nicelly solved by mark-recall spells.

vehicles owuld be nice addition, but maps would have to be a bit bigger for them. maybe something like in Far cry - where you can drive somewhere, leave the vehicle, explore on foot, kill some enemies and then return to vehicle to drive some more and do the wild ride across the island(s).

[Potatoe]

gregor, on Feb 27 2008, 11:29 AM, said:

two times the danger - going there and going back... i think here in stalker it makes sense. and only the first time you play it weight is the probelm. later on - well i start exploring with 4 medkits, 5 bandages pistol, ammo for pistoll and 3 or 4 grenades. that's all because i know i will always get medikits and bandages antirads etc on different bandits. also getting a weapon is not a problem (a little sneaking and a pop in the head from the back do the trick). sometimes i get some cheap suit, but i have couple of them stashed in various places (so oten i start with no armor).

oh also i carry a couple of artifacts. but all in all everyhting is arround 20 kg when i start adventuring. then i just go arround picking off different enemies and trying to get their stashes. After playing for a while i still didn't turn off the brain scorcher as then everyone will start moving towards it. i have arround 320.000 cash and basically i am not doing much just walking arround trying to get to places i never been before.

anyway i think morrowind has this "fast travel" issue nicelly solved by mark-recall spells.

vehicles owuld be nice addition, but maps would have to be a bit bigger for them. maybe something like in Far cry - where you can drive somewhere, leave the vehicle, explore on foot, kill some enemies and then return to vehicle to drive some more and do the wild ride across the island(s).

I'm using a mod called Oblivion Lost, which adds a lot of nice features to the mix, like vehicles, you can carry more(85 kg) and random blowouts. Also the weapons are stronger so no need to waste a clip on an enemy when one well placed bullet will kill them, and it also makes the pistol and knife useful, here's a link: http://stalker.filef...vion_Lost;86329

[Doubler]

Heh, I never quite got the problem people had with weight. My game is actually modded to make a bigger issue then it was. I really like such considerations, making trade-offs and putting some responsibility onto the player. Stalker is relatively heavy on it vanilla, and all-in-all it seems to be just this that really sets the gameplay apart from shooter X. Redux makes it just a tad more serious and punishing.

I wish I could add in random blowouts, though (just as long as it's severe enough and npc's are affected as well). Various mods have them, but none I like.
It's too bad most mods simply do too much. There's no minimalism in the Stalker modding community, and every mod nears a total overhaul. If you want to find a single or a few features, you're stuck with everything else as well.

[Juni Ori]

Potatoe, on Feb 29 2008, 07:08 PM, said:

you can carry more(85 kg)

Remember who's replying to this: a realism or at least believeability freak. Who the hell can carry 85kg load on him/her and move more than a little and more importantly fight or operate effectively? Combat gear in almost every period and in every army has been around 20-30kg (plus perhaps some special equipment needed immediately after attack) and full load (which is of course dropped before combat or immediately when it begins) hardly ever exceeds 50kg if heavy support weapons are excluded. Even then it hardly ever exceeds 60kg. And those numbers are a little high. 85kg is a lot too much.

[Potatoe]

Juni Ori, on Mar 1 2008, 10:23 AM, said:

Potatoe, on Feb 29 2008, 07:08 PM, said:

you can carry more(85 kg)

Remember who's replying to this: a realism or at least believeability freak. Who the hell can carry 85kg load on him/her and move more than a little and more importantly fight or operate effectively? Combat gear in almost every period and in every army has been around 20-30kg (plus perhaps some special equipment needed immediately after attack) and full load (which is of course dropped before combat or immediately when it begins) hardly ever exceeds 50kg if heavy support weapons are excluded. Even then it hardly ever exceeds 60kg. And those numbers are a little high. 85kg is a lot too much.

I don't mind unrealism. You can change the weight back if you want to. This is nowhere near a simulation, so I don't mind little parts of unrealism(not that the game is realistic, mutants and anomalies? I don't think that they are realistic)


Edit: Also, is there a way to kill "fiend" without making everyone angry at you? He's in Bar right now...

[Doubler]

Only by putting in excruciating effort to make others kill him.

Quote

(not that the game is realistic, mutants and anomalies? I don't think that they are realistic)

I can't say how much this argument annoys me. If a game uses creative liscence in one thing, does that creative liscence suddenly apply everywhere?
When a game consciously deviates from reality in one point, does that automaticly mean all aspirations to realism are thrown overboard entirely? When it features an environment that is not realistic, is it impossible or unwanted for it to go for realism elsewhere?

Of course, no game should be bound by realism in the first place unless it chooses to do so. And everyone should be free to costumize their game as they want it or as they enjoy it most. I just find these generalizations to justify such edits unlikely and completely pointless.