Neb on 14/5/2008 at 05:28
I bought this game randomly yesterday after seeing it for £10. Looked like a bargain to me considering how many good things I've heard about it along with Roadside Picnic being one of my favourite science fiction books and Stalker being my favourite film of all time.
I knew about there being plenty of bugs in-game, but wow, it's hard to tell where they all start overlapping with the mechanics to become badly designed features. I'm about to patch it all up and hopefully it'll be greatly improved but I've got this horrible feeling that not a lot will change how I feel about the gameplay. Besides getting my first mission from a set of clothes with no skin - who suddenly cuts off his sentences with the next - and two men around a campfire who take it in turns to stand up and walk into each other while an invisible guitar plays itself, I found a sense of not enjoying myself even after completing my objective and retrieving the PDA.
I have to keep reminding myself not to bother jumping unless I have to and leaning is a horrible waste of time. Controlling my character in general feels like a chore along with needing to move my mouse over the mat many times to get from one side of the inventory to the next and I'm dreading having to bother with venturing into The Zone, but so far I've enjoyed the difficulty of a relatively inaccurate pistol along with being highly vulnerable. It's just the moving to avoid death which gets to me.
I'll need to get myself that mod which makes all of the anomalies invisible and it would be nice to be able to turn off that bleeping when you're near one. When you can spot them from a distance it defeats the point of using nuts and being careful. Also, are there any other types hiding around which aren't documented? It'd be nice if there were non-lethal varieties which cause hallucinations or subtle portals to different areas.
Gahh, loads of gripes here. I have many more but I don't want to come across as whinging. I want to like the game and a bit of positive encouragement would be nice from those here who are engrossed.
Muzman on 14/5/2008 at 05:37
I have actually never seen any of the bugs you describe and find turning up my mouse sensitivity works wonders for getting around the screen. You might be playing on a 50" plasma, I don't know. The leaning is a little short, but it's ok. I can't fathom why you'd want to jump unless you had to anyway.
This will probably be of no help what so ever.
Neb on 14/5/2008 at 07:19
My monitor is 19 inch, flat and widescreen. Upping the mouse sensitivity does nothing to help the cursor.
I've just patched up to 1.0004. The guy who you start with has his skin back, except there's a texture problem and his hands are black and so is his face when he leans forwards. I couldn't talk to him but restarting the game helped that, but now I don't hear his voice at all. Leaving that little bunker and I talked to a random loner and then became glued to the spot, so I restarted the game again.
Those two around the campfire are still playing 'push-o-war' with each other. One will walk into the other guy who is sat down, pushing him along a few feet, stop, sit down as the guy on the floor stands up, brushes himself off and returns the favour. This loops indefinitely.
When I take out my pistol in front of someone who doesn't quite trust me they sometimes aim 90 degrees to their left instead of directly at me.
I'm also getting crashes to desktop when I try to quicksave which leaves all of the colours in Windows XP inverted or something. It's quite psychedelic but I then need to restart my system.
Quote Posted by Muzman
This will probably be of no help what so ever.
It's all good. If you really want to help then motivate me into giving it a proper chance by telling me of the fun you've had playing it. I'm really close to just uninstalling it and leaving it for another day, but as I said, I want to get into it.
Muzman on 14/5/2008 at 09:14
This sounds like a lot of driver problems, similar to when it first came out. I wonder if your video drivers are too old, or maybe too new.
I can't really tell you how much fun it is really, since if it had screwed up this much for me I'd probably be annoyed too (the mouse thing I don't get at all; I've got a 15cm mousing radius for everything and it works fine. Not a weirdness Ive had to face). It has its quirks but it's always looked good and sounded good, damn good actually. By and large it all held together and made perhaps the most atmospheric game I've played since Thief or system shock 2. And with mods it just keeps on giving.
However there is probably no other game I've seen that has such a variety of, shall we say, performance experiences; from perfect to utterly disasterous almost at random.
Rogue Keeper on 14/5/2008 at 09:45
It had original potential to be something even better... but it's still interesting.
If I miss something badly in the game, it's complex dialogue system for better adventuring and at least some stats, then it would be like early Fallout 3 precursor, something that The Fall : Last Days of Gaia failed to be (even with stats).
Gosh, I feel urge replay it third time but I don't want to until the 1.1 patch comes out and polishes the gameplay significantly (I hope). Most of all I hope the A-Life will be improved to be closer to what it originally meant to be.
242 on 14/5/2008 at 10:28
Quote Posted by Neb
I'll need to get myself that mod which makes all of the anomalies invisible and it would be nice to be able to turn off that bleeping when you're near one. When you can spot them from a distance it defeats the point of using nuts and being careful.
Believe me, you won't want invisible anomalies further in the game, at least first time through. There will be much more dangerous things you'll need to worry about, you won't like to distract your attention to things like invisible anomalies. And you should patch to 1.0004 the sooner the better because I believe you need to restart when you patch the game from 1.0000, and also use bardak's mod which 100% fixes bugs with stashes (marks will disappear from the map properly, no content loss, only one use of a stash per game), and does some other small fixes here and there.
PS: What videocard do you have, how much RAM, are directX and drivers up to date?
Uninstall the whole thing, including Documents and settings/All users/Documents/STALKER-SHOC folder, reinstall, patch, and start a new game.
Quote:
Those two around the campfire are still playing 'push-o-war' with each other. One will walk into the other guy who is sat down, pushing him along a few feet, stop, sit down as the guy on the floor stands up, brushes himself off and returns the favour. This loops indefinitely.
Such things happen but not often, it's hard to eliminate them at all in games with complex virtually not scripted AIs. The compensation for all its roughness is a unique topnotch atmosphere you start to feel (along with fear sometimes) more the deeper you enter the Zone, just don't be hasty, explore all, take side quests, collect artifacts, learn what weapon/armor/artifacts combo better work for you, and enjoy.
steo on 14/5/2008 at 10:36
Whoa. Sounds like you've got a lot of bugs, no wonder you're not enjoying it. What spec are you using?
Rogue Keeper on 14/5/2008 at 11:10
I enjoyed invisible anomalies mod in early parts of the game, but pathfinding was a pain in later areas where are more of them, so I uninstalled it.
mothra on 15/5/2008 at 11:08
well, you won't find any encouragement from me. If YOU don't like a game YOU should stick to that opinion, maybe rethink your reasons if they are foolproof and valid but don't go somewhere else: i think this game sucks, please convince me otherwise.....
play longer than an hour. I would say the "real" game kicks in once you are at the rostock bar, got your first real armor and a nice decent weapon. (at least ak). if you don't have the patience, this game is NOT for you.
And I would not recommend any mods on the first playthru, because if you take e.g. OL2.0, AMK or Run&Gun for your first playthrus you will be even more convinced this game sucks.
just remember, it's NOT a railshooter. you have to PLAN and THINK. no halo, no strippers. patience pays off, especially on HELL difficulty.
if you don't see good things after 1hour play (i did see them immediately) then you won't find them later. if you do like me find everything missing from other games which should have been there since DECADES and don't get offended by some bugs, moreso see them as a comic relief now and then this game will stay with you FOREVER.
I usualy replay DeusEx every year once just to remind me what a good game is like. STALKER i never STOPPED playing since day1.
Volitions Advocate on 15/5/2008 at 13:20
THQ and GSC made a big mistake when they released it as far as it was unplayable and you needed to install a patch just to get it running.
now they're at 1.00007 ... if you've just installed the game without patching it.. its gonna suck and theres going to be glitches.
With that said. Stalker is one of the greatest games I've ever played. Its a little knee-jerk at a couple spots but for the most part.. the more you play it the more into it you get. Trust us on this one.
also i 2nd mothra. If you dont like it at all.. then... oh well.. stop playing it.
