The Gamer's Quarter

dhex · Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 11:10 am Post subject:

i am in the minority that i found stalker very stable for the most part. the only bad thing is the thrashing as you enter a new area that you've stashed.
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Ok, so I guess the last time I posted I was still in the sewers.

When I got to the end of the underground area I thought I was safe for a while. The damn place was crawling with bandits and soldiers. There was a spiral stair case with half a dozen soldiers on it for what seems like no reason. Then I got to a case at the end of a tunnel and I was picked up and thrown across the place. It made me dizzy and I could hear a noise, but I could see a figure at the other end. The above screen is a shot of that figure.

After getting out of that underground area I decided to steal the military documents even though I knew that place would be crawling with reenforcements. It actually wasn't that hard to get to the floor with the documents, but after I got there I set an alarm and everyone swarmed. I killed the guys on the floor and then went up and shot out the speaker system shutting off the alarm. I still heard a lot of noise though, and when I got downstairs there were about a dozen army guys standing at the front door waiting for me. They didn't see me when I snuck down the stairs so I tossed a grenade at them:

All but like two died since they were so close to each other. That took care of almost everyone left in the base that wasn't either at a front post, or in the building. Then I left the complex and tried to head for the bar.

This was on the side of the military complex. Strange, it looks more like it would be an education center. Anyways, you can see the shot out speaker on the top of the building too.

Somewhere outside the complex I found a strange little swamp in the middle of now where. I climbed in and took a picture.

After going to the bar and dropping off a lot of info and finally selling some equipment (ok, I sold a ton of stuff, but like, I still am almost at my max weight limit. What the hell? Can I ever carry more?)

Anyways, while in the bar some guy was crying into his beer about a family rifle so I told him I'd go get it. I had a new rifle with a scope so I took a look at the sign leading to the area the bastard said it would be.

So it turns out that I've wandered into the middle of a battle field and there's snipers at the front gate trying to kill me, but I know this because I can overhear some head commander no my radio. Now, I take out about two waves of "Mercs" and then start poking around. Apparently they have this whole shed just full of... I don't know, like dead pine tree branches. It was really crazy, there's nothing else in there.

In the middle of the gun fight was the happy-go-luck Professor Kruglov who just wanted to get out of there with some info. The fight was quite difficult but I had to extract him from the burner area too. On the other side we fought some... zombies? Awesome.

That's me and him fighting side by side. After we got out he promised me a science suit just like his if I went to his lab. I told him "We'll see." so I may go there later.

Anyways, I went back and scavenged the dead bodies and cleared out the rest of the camp and tried to find that damn family rifle. It's not here, seriously! Where the fuck is that thing? I looked everywhere but it's just not there. I went back to the bar and sold off some stuff to try to get my weight down, but it's just not happening. Oh well, off to get more into the Zone.

[ASIDE: These images are actually like two and a half days worth. I only posted about 1/6th the images I wanted to, but this is just taking way too long.]
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

Redeye · . Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 986 Location: filth

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

I think I'm missing some kind of reference.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

Man, everyone has problems with that rifle!

It's there, trust me! I don't know if you want any hints or not.
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

I do because I looked everywhere I could think of except the roof. You can use white hidden text!
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

ok, I guess I'll just tell you where it is! Right, you know where you found the science guy? And you know the helicopter that crashed? Go back to the helicopter, you should see a ramp that leads to an underground tunnel FULL of electrical anomalies. They are pretty easy to avoid, there are things to jump on all over the place. Anyway, right at the end of the tunnel, in one of those giant storage crate things, is the rifel
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Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

I too have been heading into the Dark Valley. I was a little freaked out at first because the only way into it involves a lot of radiation. This is actually one of the milder sections of it, before I got badly irradiated:

There's all these great Soviet-era monuments around if you poke around. This one is in front of the factory-type building where one of the bandit chiefs is hanging out in:

On the roof, I managed to get a good shot of lightning. I guess it's always going off in a certain portion of the map, so if you sit there long enough and time it right, you'll get it:

I've seen this stuff hanging off of a few things now. This is actually in a radioactive area that wound up irradiating me right after I took this shot. I've seen another growing off of a crane in the area where Lab X18 is supposed to be underneath.

A delightful poster inside the building above the lab entrance:

In a couple rooms over from this, I found a grenade launcher which I cannot carry. There's a stash nearby, so I'm thinking about what I want to keep and what I want to risk putting in the stash. I really should have gone back to the Bar and sold off a bunch of stuff (including a crapload of not-so-great artifacts); I really wanted to check out the building though.

I still can't quite work out a good artifact loadout. Right now I'm carrying around one that boosts endurance and some that make bleeding better/give you more health while reducing a bunch of other attributes. I'm beginning to think that I might be better off with just the endurance one for now as bleeding and life have a relatively trivial effect on whether you die or not when somebody's shooting you (i.e. if somebody's shooting you, especially close up, you're probably going to die regardless).

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Equipment question: should I keep using Strelok's rapid-fire AK74 (I have a scope that I've attached to it) or should I shell out to buy the IL-86 from the barkeep?

The major reason why I'm hesitating is that I'd have to buy virtually all of my IL-86 ammo, whereas I'm swimming in AK74 ammo, since that's what most of the bandits that I'm running into these days seem to be using. I don't want to get stuck in some tunnels low on bullets.

I'm also interested in what people are using for artifact loadouts. Right now I've got two sets: Combat/Exploration and Radiation. The second one is mainly for use when traversing the high-radiation area between The Garbage and the Dark Valley, I have enough anti-rad artifacts that I can book through there without getting radiation poisoning at all. I suppose I could also use it for exploring some of the more radiation-heavy portions of The Garbage as well.

For Combat/Exploration, I use a Sparkler, which boost my endurance, a Soul, which gives me 600% health, two of the artifacts that boost your Bulletproof Cap and a Jellyfish to reduce general radiation, both from artifacts and from the environment.

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Another quick quesion: can you ever carry more gear weight?
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

I'm guessing no, just because it seems like that sort of game.

Shapes, how do you like that IL-86? That is what you're using in the above screenshots, right?

Redeye · . Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 986 Location: filth

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Yeah, when I reloaded the save that was right next to the RPG, it was gone, so it's some sort of random placement.

I haven't seen whether the bug on the bleeding artifacts has been fixed or not. It's hard to tell when the line between getting shot and getting shot dead is so fine.

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

It turns out you can get some pretty good weapons just by jaunting north from the Bar, right when you enter into the Army Warehouses district, there's a firefight between Duty and Freedom and if you don't mind scavenging, there's good stuff to be found.

ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Redeye · . Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 986 Location: filth

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Firstly, a picture of what I'm assuming is one of the dev team that I found in a building in Dark Valley:

And then some pictures from bumming around in the Warehouses. First, there's the entrance to the Red Forest:

Charming place, right? Well, there's more of the same inside:

I made it about 20 feet inside Red Forest before deciding that I hadn't really explored all of the Warehouse area, so I really should go back and check that out first. Well, I found an area full of mines:

I didn't try exploring it though. Rather, I went inside the Freedom base and took some pictures of neat Communist-era stuff that was sitting around:

(I have no idea what that black dot is in the above picture. I only just noticed it, after I'd taken the screenshot, edited in The Gimp and then checked to make sure that it uploaded/embedded correctly. I don't think it's a crow and...I don't really have any explanation for it. Spooky.)

Right now I can't decide between choosing Duty or Freedom. Or neither, I guess.

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

This game sounds great!

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Man, I just went down into the lab that you're supposed to investigate after you get some keys (I farted around doing side stuff for a really long time) and I get in there and something is fucking throwing boxes at me. Either something invisible or something that can move shit with its mind.

I had to quit out of the game and look at pictures of kittens and bunnies for a while.

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Man, I am dying over and over again like nobody's business in Lab x18. If the burners don't get you, the Snorks will. I have to play with my headphones a good foot from my head otherwise it gets a little too intense.

helicopterp · . Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 1435 Location: Philadelphia

Drop on by
don't be scared
come on in
don't cry
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

helicopterp · . Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 1435 Location: Philadelphia

You are in Duty territory.
Do not provoke
and you will continue to live.

Edited for Scratchmonkey's insight.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

The faction that controls that area is named Duty, so I think the literal translation works best. I will continue to post screens of random russian as I run across it. There's tons of it in this game.

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

So, after doing a mission out for the scientists in Lake Yantar, I decided to go across the Wild and back to the Bar so that I could collect on a couple rewards and buy some more ammo for my GP 37. While hoofing it across the Wild, I ran into a dog pack mixing it up with the mercs who sit up in the construction site*. Figuring that I can get some ammo off of the mercs because they use rifles that use the same ammo as the one I'm carrying, I pick off a few dogs and clean out the mercs, including one who topples off of the building and to the ground.

After picking the corpses clean in the building itself, I go back downstairs to get the last of the ammo and then set off for the Bar. Only when I step off of the last staircase, I notice that there's a bloodsucker wandering around on the other side of a nearby fence (I think there's a snork too, only they don't inspire quite as much fear as something that can turn invisible). No problem, I think, he's fairly far away and he hasn't noticed me. I nudge forward, find the body and start to loot it when I hear a rage-filled scream. I pop out of the looting screen just in time to see the bloodsucker turn invisible and race off at high speed and out of sight behind some railway cars. Panicking, I raced back up the staircases and that's where my current save is, sitting at the top of the construction site, gun sighted on the staircase down, caught between hoping that he comes up the stairs so that I won't have to try and leave knowing that fucker might ambush me at any point and hoping that he doesn't.

* - It's basically a concrete frame of a building with multiple levels.

dhex · Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:46 am Post subject:

and that's why stalker was my motherfucking game of the year.
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Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

yeah, man, all these idiots thought tight, clausterphobic halls were the scariest thing but man, fucking WIDE OPEN SPACES in BOARD DAYLIGHT with INVISIBLE MONSTERS is where it's at. they could beanywhere, and it actually forces you to retreat to tight, clausterpphobic halls just so you know where you're at!
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Stalker Prequel (Blue Skies) info
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Clear Skies. They make the same mistake in the RPS story, when they link to the screenshots. It looks fantastic and I'm certainly not too upset that they'll be going Steam-only.

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Considering that Steam has essentially become my one-stop-shop for PC games, I'm pretty happy it's coming there.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

dhex · Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 10:44 am Post subject:

i am looking forward to clear sky. no release date yet, though. sadness.

especially since the pc port of assassin's creed is apparently horrible...
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Redeye · . Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 986 Location: filth

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

dhex · Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 10:59 pm Post subject:

stalker: clear sky
march 2008

according to steam.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

man, stupid steam. JUST GIVE ME A DISK, I DON'T WANT TO WASTE ALL MY BANDWIDTH IN ONE HIT.

DOWN WITH DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION.

well, down with bullshit australian broadband plans, really.

ANYWAY

I'm writing an article about stalker, a look back at it... i've been checking out the IT FIXES EVERYTHING mod, which adds lots of really cool stuff it it also adds so much bullshit, too. but it has random blowouts, freeplay after you finish the game, you can join any faction, new mutants that were cut from the game, better weather effects, portals, etc... it's pretty nifty.

shame about the bullshit!
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Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Man, that's all kinds of good news.

The Clear Sky thing.

Cossix · . Joined: 14 Nov 2007 Posts: 87

I just started playing this the other day. It's really good! I'm still pretty early on so I've been running around killing a lot of Bandits trying to get all this information on the guy I'm supposed to kill. My next real mission involves talking to some Mole guy and going to the Bar and stuff. Lots of radiation in Garbage. I'm glad I picked up so many anti-radiation hypos from the bandits earlier!

Redeye · . Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 986 Location: filth

The portals and crap seem kinda dumb.

Why not just have it be like there are trucks that come by now and then and a bunch of people tag rides?

They don't have to show the truck.

Just use It as an excuse for fast travel.

Ehh, I'm bored of Stalker for now, anyway.

Clear skies looks good.
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I felt sheer anarchic joy when I ran over my first pedestrian.

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Meeting with Mole and the section right after it is where the game really starts doing what it wants to do.

Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

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dhex · Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 8:42 am Post subject:

who the fuck is that?

edit: also, why is your hud reversed?
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Cossix · . Joined: 14 Nov 2007 Posts: 87

Man I wish I had the kind of computer that would make it look all fancy like you guys have. I need to upgrade this machine one of these days.

Stealing the Military Documents was pretty hard! This game makes it pretty goddamn deadly to be even SLIGHTLY outnumbered and I really really like that.

Redeye · . Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 986 Location: filth

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

That's the first time I've ever seen you write more than one sentence without leaving a line! Congrats!

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

dhex: I think he's got it modded six ways from Thursday. Note that he has a radiation bar to go with the health and armor bars. Plus something else.

I do kind of wish you could apply mods to the Steam version, if only so I can add repair weapons/armor.

Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

I have the ABC INFERNO mod installed. It changes the hud and... pretty much everything else about the game. Some things work better than others, but it's fairly well balanced and it's easy to turn off or tweak the things you don't like. It also reinserts enemies that were cut out of the game, such as that guy in the shot you quoted, and the rats which are in another shot. It also lets mutants run around in random locations, which is why that big ugly thing is in Cordon.
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Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Actually the rats are in the regular game, I've run into two of them in the Wild, one was a corpse the other I saw through my rifle sight running around between railway cars.