Oblivion Lost. Trippy. - by catbarf
catbarf on 7/6/2008 at 03:47
I just installed this mod for my second playthrough, and all I can say is wow. New weapons, redesigned HUD, weapons that are accurate and pack a hell of a punch, sleeping, and that's not even touching the AI ecology. If you haven't tried it, DO SO.
I'm in love with the double-barreled shotgun. Not that ridiculous sawn-off, this monster is an over-and-under assembly that does a ton of damage over a fairly long range. And it looks cool to boot.
I find that I'm really scrounging for supplies and ammo. Every corpse has to be completely looted, nothing is left behind. Money and equipment is really valuable, and I imagine I'll need to fight in the Arena to get money so I can be ready for Yantar. It feels much more like an apocalyptic wasteland than previously- even bandages are rare, and if you don't use one you won't stop bleeding. Very gritty.
Now, since you're wondering what the point is, a quick question for those in the know:
Are the signs for an imminent blowout the same as in vanilla STALKER- rumbling, weird colors? And what will protect me- is the warehouse in Garbage a good refuge, for example?
Microwave Oven on 7/6/2008 at 04:29
The blowout warning in OL is pretty much the same as vanilla, but you go blind for a second when the colors go wacky. Use caution when driving, I was hauling ass across the zone looking for shelter when that happened, drove right into a whirlygig. Also, you take a lot more damage than other mods have, especially psi damage. Shelters are easy enough to find, just follow the human AIs when a blowout happens, they'll find it for you. Usually it'll be any structure that has a solid roof, but I haven't tested everything to make sure.
I like the transmutation system, I've gotten a few nice new artifacts out of it. Of course, I've lost more to the degradation effect, but since cobblestones are worth up to 2800ru it still winds up profitable.
I don't like the trade balance, there's a huge imbalance in prices, 1000% or more, it's really exaggerated. This really makes repairs and new items a real strain on the budget. You could haul in a whole exo-suit full of artifacts and just barely afford repairing the damage to your suit you got from collecting them.
Rogue Keeper on 9/6/2008 at 07:22
I favor AMK over OL. Not just because OL borrows most main features from AMK, but because OL is just too revisionist, in a bad way. In fact I see OL drawing too much undeserved fame from AMK's deeds.
OL features I see as negatives :
-NO AMK DYNAMIC NEWS SYSTEM
-waking up starved to death
-new skins make NPC factions harder to distingish at big distance
-zombies after every blowout, annoying
-patterned, lousy weather (prolly AMK weather mod is compatible?)
-pitch black nights (usually not even stars can be seen)
-new drunken songs of the stalkers
- ... prolly more if I had enthusiasm to go beyond Garbage
Now AMK isn't buggy and recently in latter areas I noticed some really wicked ALife - like hordes of pseudodogs, tushkanos and pseudogiants spawned, who killed a quest important stalker. Luckily there is an AMK compatible minimod which makes quest important NPCs much harder to kill. AMK also has great install options - you can adjust everything important before installation to your liking.
mothra on 9/6/2008 at 09:51
seems you didnt play ol20
most of your claims are wrong
e.g.
night is not pitch-black, there's a moon + stars, lol
not every blowout spawns zombies (but many)
use your minimap if you cant make out friend/foe (which is a feature imo and makes it more interesting)
eat some more, especially b4 going to sleep, I think it's plausible that after 36hours of shooting&looting and only 3 hours sleep you wake up starved.
the mod clearly states what was taken from AMK.
while I like AMK as well you can't play it above 1.004 which has some pretty serious bugs (spawn in military) itself.
ol's sneak mechanics are the best I've seen up today.
you really can confuse a whole enemy camp with a silenced weapon and some patience. but to each his own.
I miss the body looting/News feature as well but then I hated the stash-looting by other STALKERS even if they were hidden in places the AI does not have access to.
Rogue Keeper on 9/6/2008 at 10:01
I did play 2.0 and yes, my points are valid. Wanna argue more, HUH?
mothra on 9/6/2008 at 10:12
i'll provide you with screenshots of my pitch black nights when i get home
your other observations are subjective, I would even say hostile against the mod, especially
the "AMK did it first" which is only partly true if you would read the lists of contributors to both mods
and its paralells. I couldn't see any proof to your claims on my playthrough, so yeah, i wanna argue some more.
Rogue Keeper on 9/6/2008 at 11:06
Love makes people blind... :(
-NO AMK DYNAMIC NEWS SYSTEM: Indeed. Valid point. This is what makes huge portion of impression on player that even offline areas are alive, stalkers there are stalking, fighting, exploring, trading, dying. Could use more tweaking, but it's great addition. They loot actively but it I never got my secret stashes looted.
-waking up starved to death: Ridiculous. I am eating quite often, but having red hunger icon after 5 hours of sleep is ridiculous.
-new skins make NPC factions harder to distinguish at big distance : I have Red Dots on Minimap turned off to increase difficulty. Only in AMK.
-zombies after every blowout, annoying : Whether all or just many, makes little difference. It is annoying to clean up areas of them.
-patterned, lousy weather : Yes. While default AMK weather is bleak, it is very random and with AMK Weather Mod+new torch even more bautiful.
-pitch black nights (usually not even stars can be seen) :Moon doesn't shine every night. If it doesn't, it's pitch black. Truth is default AMK weather doesn't have pitch black nights, only AMK Weather Mod adds them.
-New drunken songs of the stalkers. just crap to listen to. The recordings even have room reverb.
-New HUD : completely redone isn't my personal cup of tea - one of the referrences to revisionism I mentioned before. AMK changes the HUD a bit, but it remains faithful to graphical concept of the original.
mothra on 9/6/2008 at 12:39
Quote:
love makes ppl blind...
could say the same thg of your post, only not using the word love, ;)
and here our preferences/reactions differ.
who has to clear out zombies ? they are ass-slow and are taken care of the other stalkers/enemies/factions....i ignore them IF they are there
no zombie ever got a bullet wasted on him by me (if they are unarmed)
red hunger symbol after waking up ? -
NEVER had it, max a green one
turning red dots off and complaining about "hard2distinguish" - sry, you wanted it that way......
dynamic hud is an AMK mod feature afaik and it's even described so in the OL - menu having its own AMK Mod Feature section.....
so I got from your post that the NEWS system is the one you are missing and the rest seems to be your subjective opinion I won't continue to argue about since you can see we had different experiences, so the "features" you claim that suck just are not there or we would have had the same pitch-black nights and dying from hunger after sleep or getting raped by zombiehords.....
I played OL1, OL133 and new OL2 (had to start anew and made story until Yantar) on hell diff.
Koki on 9/6/2008 at 12:39
So was I the only one who didn't really care about AMK's dynamic news system? I mean it was nice and all, but ultimately had no impact on gameplay whatseover. The Zone was just as dead as it was without it. I've never seen any bodies caused by fighting, be it Stalkers, Bandits or Mutants. And the enemy reports? There's a boar in the Miltary Warehouses... grand, just grand. I'll remember that when I go there. Oh wait, I'll forget it after a minute. Besides, who gives a damn about a BOAR? You'd think no one would care about them outside Cordon.
mothra on 9/6/2008 at 12:43
I care for AMKs A-life, the looting system seemed to work much better than in SOC or OblivionLost (although I had them pick up weapons there as well, just not loot bodies). What DID happen to me is e.g. some of the better stashes were emptied by NPCs which frustrated me very much. having a nice artifact collection there.
