S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Shadow of Chernobyl

Starwars said:
Some dude e-mailed the PR guy of GSC games and asked about upcoming patches. PR dude responded and said that they were indeed working on a new patch. No details, though he did say that they were working on optimizing the game even more. No ETA as of yet.

Also, this patch would not be compatible with old savegames, just like the first patch. However, they're supposedly working on a tool that will convert the savegames to the new gameversion so people won't have to start over. They said they would release this tool around the time of the new patch.
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Kind of reminds me FO2 affter release. :P
Rumor has it that third patch wil offer open ended ENDING where you can keep playing affter main plot is over, but that remains to be seen. Also some moders are working on Vehicle Mod that enabels them to be driven. You can drive one of BTR in game but its not worth the trouble since at 1st view youl only see cockpit.
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Seems like the patch will be out soon, I read that it was supposed to be out Friday 6th, but was delayed until Monday (tomorrow). It also looks like they're working on a third patch as well like Greyviper said.
Second patch seems to deal with a lot of multiplayer stuff which I don't care for personally. The best thing they've announced is that they're tweaking NPC respawns so that they won't occur as often. Also, if I'm reading the kinda broken English right, they will tweak it so that NPCs won't spawn right on top of you (which is a rather nasty surprise).

Here's the list for the third patch:

Preliminary third patch change list. Subject to change.

AI
- Added avoiding dynamic obstacles for NPCs.
- Added enemy priority function – fixes incorrect NPC reaction on player’s attack.
- Changed the second part of the enemy search algorithm – having lost the player, the NPCs will no longer be baffled.
- Added correct reaction on shots and loud sounds coming from the player (only) on close distances.

Render
- Dual core optimization.
- 10-15% FPS increase.

Gameplay
- Added new game mode – freeplay; activated after the end of the game.
- Added the possibility for any character will be able to go to any smart-terrain.
- Fixed the ultra-intense vibration of the grass.
- All monsters drag now the corpses correctly.

Physics
- Fixed the situations when the physics get stuck in the floor or in the thin walls.
- Fixed the situations when the dead bodies disappear.

Network
- Reduced the traffic and lags.

General
- Fixed problems with OS Vista 64.
- Added saved games converter.
- Added MOD Tools support.
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MOD tools support... I wonder if that means the SDK will get released at the same time?

And speaking of mods, that is a rather interesting idea on the official forums about a "Lore mod". The goal of this will be to add journals, diaries, PDAs, old newspaper stories etc to the world. It's a great idea and something I missed from the original game. Hopefully they're serious about the writing. It would be awesome if done right.
 
Starwars said:
And speaking of mods, that is a rather interesting idea on the official forums about a "Lore mod". The goal of this will be to add journals, diaries, PDAs, old newspaper stories etc to the world. It's a great idea and something I missed from the original game. Hopefully they're serious about the writing. It would be awesome if done right.
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Sounds good. Worked well enough in System Shocks and Alien vs. Predator 2 to completely replace direct two-way NPC interaction.
 
Wooz said:
Third patch? A second one is already out?
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No, but they are all ready planning for/working on the third patch.

Like Starwars mentioned, one of the community moderators relayed that the second patch was supposed to be released this last weekend. Something is holding it up, my guess would be something to do with the allegations of stolen textures. Or perhaps not, and it simply hit trouble in testing.
 
Well I just got stalker and I had a bit of a odd experience, There it was sitting there on the shelf of Morrisons i was thinking over what to buy and stalker won (I needed my fix of Radation ;) ) and when I touched it there was a sticky translucent material covering the box. So I thought this game has to be good if the zone is affecting the box it comes in, when I mentioned this to the dude who works at the games counter I turned out it was shampoo, He remarked this is one hell of a introduction to stalker.
 
Just a small tidbit here. The guy who originally did the whole 'tweaked user.ltx file deal' released some shaders recently. These shaders does change the look of the game slightly (not sure whether I like them more or less than the stock ones), and I got a vast performance increase when using them

http://inanio.net/nivenhbro_shaders/Float32_4247_036a_RELEASE.zip

If you have an ATI card, then you need to delete the file called "shadow.h" in the zip file (ATI cards have to use the stock one). Read the readme for installation.

There is a user.ltx file included, but if you have the previously posted one, you don't need to replace it with this one as far as I know.

And of course, back up the original files if you don't like the changes.
 
I'll have to try it out, hopefully I'll have a little more success than DDD, lighting is worth sacrificing the other graphic options for.

The comments on Blue's News though (and I'm sure its worse elsewhere), at least there are some people who a bit of sense.
JayDeath said:
How about releasing a mod that makes the game good instead of pretty?
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bothersome said:
For me, that would be an instant travel to quest giver mod. I played through the first fire fight only. It was fun and challenging... but then it required me to walk back to hand in my quest killing the high... get your freakin' RPG out of my FPS!
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bothersome after the backlash said:
Now, I do like innovation in my shooters. And I like innovation in my RPGs. I think FEAR rocks and I think BF series/UT is great. They each add their own thing. But somethings that can be added just don't make the genre more fun... at least not for me. I felt it took away from the game.
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I'm also annoyed how the meaning of 'RPG' has been perverted. In this case it seems to be a reference to MMORPGs or Fable-like 'depth.'
Matt said:
Here is the console gamer: he's heard of STALKER and want to try it...

"Help ! The game's incredibly difficult ! I'm shooting and shooting but just get killed every time without hitting a thing ! What's going on ? Do I have to aim or something ?"

Here is the RPG player:

"I'm trying to talk to people, but they just shoot me... Anything related to the red crosshair ? Where can I buy a house ? Someone can repair my socks?"

And finally the FPS player:

"Er... I've killed everyone here... Er... What am I to do now ?"
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At least I found some comparison screenshots.
 
Wooz said:
Still no news about the new patch?
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Nope, though apparently the complaints from Russian gamers is reaching epic proportions.

Last I heard was that it was entering it's second round of QA testing, and that was last week.
 
If you want a semi-free-roam shooter with quests and choices (with a few consequences) and a very excellent post-apocalyptic atmosphere: yes. Otherwise: no.
 
slamelov said:
What's the problem for Russian players?
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The same for everyone else, there still hasn't been another patch. I believe the Russian S.T.A.L.K.E.R. community is simply more active.
 
May be they are developing a big patch and need time to do it. Stalker developers are well known for that :D
 
The 1.0003 patch is out but it doesn't seem to do much more than fix the occasional bug. Disappointing. Fan made tweaks have increased performance and added things that were missing and the official patch does jack shit.
 
Exactly what the Russians have been complaining about, their version has been out for a while.
Patch 1.0003 said:
The patch addresses the following changes:

* Added some textures of certain objects (for technical purposes).
* Added console command 'sv_listmaps' to view the list of maps queue.
* Added the support for additional mouse buttons (now they can be bound to certain actions).
* Fixed bugs with player's character health bar in Multi-player.
* Fixed the crash upon making the screenshot to a saved game.
* Fixed the bug with standing dead bodies upon connecting to the game.
* Fixed inventory items placing system (Free for all and Team play modes).
* Fixed the enumeration of the game's version.
* Fixed the crash with using Numpad in some localizations.
* Fixed the crash on the level "Military warehouse".
* Fixed the crash while idling on the pause menu
* Fixed the crash in dialog with Professor Sakharov on the Yantar level.
* Fixed the storyline task "Meet with the Guide", now you can get it by searching Ghost's corpse.
* Fixed the bug with NPCs spawning in front of the player.
* Fixed the A-life reaction time. Now A-life spawns new NPCs more seldom. Also NPC movement speed is decreased when NPC are on different level then the player.
* Binary files are now compiled with large address aware flag that supports up to 3GB address space (relevant for Windows VistaT users).
* Added the possibility to record/play the camera fly-around ('demo_record'/'demo_play' commands). Now Stalker is ready for benchmarks.
* Fixed aspect ratio 16/9. Now the owners of the widescreen displays will have the benefit from greater viewing radius.
* Fixed various crashes with dedicated server.
* The network packets have been merged. This will make the ping reduce twice or more.
* The correctness of map name is now verified when changing the map using the console.
* Fixed the dragging of dead bodies by monsters.
* Now dumps will be saved upon the game crashes.
* Fixed the in-game patching system for all localizations.
* Fixed the problem with the exceedingly long players' names.
* Fixed textual problems for 16/9 video format.
* Fixed game freezing upon trying to connect to a different version.
* Fixed binocular Spectator crash.
* Fixed non-existent grenade launcher firing.
* Fixed players turning invisible when reduced to a minimal amount of health.
* Fixed pre-selected skin not allowing for player spawn.
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STALKER: first time around.

I finally finished up STALKER today at about 4am with mix feelings. The environment is amazing and it makes you want to explore more into the zone, but I found some of the gameplay to be rather odd. After a few hours into the game I realized that its pretty much pointless to do the side quest since you don’t get Xp out of it and if you do get an item the money spent on ammo and med kits rarely canceled out. Also I found it disappoint that I got the gauss rife about 10 min before I finished the game (I got the false blind ending). Since some of the NMA communities are fans of the game I was hopping you can tell me something I could do when I replay the game to make it more interesting. Can you join a group like Duty or freedom? The most I got was friend status from freedom when I played and what would happen if I go around killing other Stalkers I find in the wilderness? Also what elements determine how you finish up the game?
 
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