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General discussion (archive)Mod Spotlight: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series(88 posts)(88 posts)
(88 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted February 06, 2014
A few breaths of fresh air in The Zone.

Cheeki Breeki, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.s! We've heard you're planning on some trespassing. With the [url=http://www.gog.com/promo/stalker_series_launch_promo_060214]S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series DRM-Free on GOG.com for only $14.97, who could blame you? After all, The Zone calls out to all of us, promising great loot, lasting friendships, awe-inspiring views, and frequent rushes of adrenaline. The experience with all three of the games, the original Shadow of Chernobyl, the prequel Clear Sky, and the sequel Call of Pripyat is deeply immersive, enthralling, and ultimately fun. Yet, there are no things in this world that couldn't be improved, and for PC games, it's very often a matter of weeks before mods start to show up, enhancing gameplay of even the most spectacular games. Here are the most impressive modifications for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series games, that we find well worth your time (and the little effort it takes to install them).

When a team led by a popular contemporary artist, the painter Paul Dolgov, takes on the task of updating not only the visuals, but also the inner workings of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, good things happen. With his S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Complete set of mods, Paul has earned himself a place on GamingBolt.com's list of Call of Pripyat screenshots, or [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/artistpavel/sets/72157608341111036/" target="_blank]Shadow of Chernobyl[/url] and [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/artistpavel/sets/72157623299360652/" target="_blank]Clear Sky[/url] on Flikr.

Here are just some features these modifications include:

- Complete graphics overhaul with hundreds of modified textures, new high-end rendering options, such as ambient occlusion, motion blur, and depth of focus, a re-designed HUD and menus, and even a new particle system.

- Freeplay mode allowing for endless exploration of The Zone, with random, un-scripted events, after the main campaign ends.

- AI improvements giving the NPCs more realistic behavior, so they avoid dangers on their own and--on the other hand--so they don't notice the player over unrealistic distances.

- Weather and day/night cycles remastered to feature dynamically changing conditions, high-res nightsky, and wet surface simulation.

- New sound and music, including over 80 acoustic guitar arrangements that you can listen to by the campfire.

- New gameplay features, like third-person view mode, faction reset option, field repair kit, a sleeping bag and much more.

Head out to Paul's websites for [url=http://artistpavel.blogspot.no/2009/04/stalker-complete-2009.html" target="_blank]S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Complete 2009 1.4.4[/url], [url=http://artistpavel.blogspot.no/2010/01/mod-clear-sky-complete.html" target="_blank]Clear Sky Complete 1.1.3[/url], and [url=http://artistpavel.blogspot.no/2010/04/mod-call-of-pripyat-complete.html" target="_blank]Call of Pripyat Complete 1.0.2[/url] to learn more and download the mods. Just keep in mind, that those three heavily modify the game, delivering an experience that much differs from the vanilla S.T.A.L.K.E.R. This also means you won't be able to apply the mods to an existing savegame, but start your adventure over after the overhaul. Bothersome as it might be for some, those modifications will award your trouble tenfold.

Admittedly, the mods featured in this editorial, while being excellent impressive work, don't necessarily give you the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. experience that was intended by the game's creators. Luckily, there's a lot of other mods that update the game without much actual alteration. There are also those that change it even further. We invite you to share your own S.T.A.L.K.E.R. modding experiences and recommendations in the forum thread below!
Post edited February 06, 2014 by G-Doc
Posted February 06, 2014
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JudasIscariot: For Call of Pripyat I used the Absolute Nature, Absolute Structures, and Atmosfear 3 (I think it was 3) all at once and it made CoP look awesome but it left the gameplay untouched :)
Is there a handy source for a breakdown of what the various mods do? Mostly I'm interested, like nickaepi, in knowing which ones change aesthetic elements and which ones modify gameplay.
Posted February 06, 2014
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JudasIscariot: For Call of Pripyat I used the Absolute Nature, Absolute Structures, and Atmosfear 3 (I think it was 3) all at once and it made CoP look awesome but it left the gameplay untouched :)
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IAmSinistar: Is there a handy source for a breakdown of what the various mods do? Mostly I'm interested, like nickaepi, in knowing which ones change aesthetic elements and which ones modify gameplay.
This was posted on our FB page :)

http://puu.sh/6Mg7y.jpg

(credit goes to Crudu Alexandru for the post :) )
Post edited February 06, 2014 by JudasIscariot
Posted February 06, 2014
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JudasIscariot: This was posted on our FB page :)

http://puu.sh/6Mg7y.jpg
Ta. I don't use that site, hence I missed it. Appreciate the screengrab, good stuff!
Posted February 06, 2014
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Nirth: I see people saying this and the opposite.

Does anyone have a source of someone that has played versions and an small review of the differences?

I also heavily disagree that they are "very playable" without them but I suppose playable is a subjective state so that doesn't help anyone.
I've played both, however my vanilla playthrough was to long ago for me to be sure that I remember corectly. Here however is a quote from the Zone Manual:


" All weapons have their accuracy increased by 10-20.
- Damage done to everybody is decreased by various percentages.
- Weight limit is increased by 10kg, the maximum being 70kg. In vanilla, the Exo-suit enabled up to 80kg!
- Limits NPC's eye sight distance so they can't spot you from beyond ~100 meters. Said to remove enemies skill to spot you from "unrealistic distances," but really means you always see them first every time.
- Sound radius of the knife and other critical sounds such as death cries, falling dead bodies, night-vision goggles, grass, and footsteps are greatly reduced.
- scientific suits with 90% rad protection now feature an anti-rad injection system.
- Bandages auto-apply at 10% health.

The following features are also available in other mods, but are usually balanced out with other forms of difficulty:

- You can bribe hostile factions to leave you alone.
- A repair kit that lets you service your armor and weapons without the need for a trader can be bought from traders.
- The bar trader and Screw now sell weapons and armor repair services.
- Elite Nightvision, essentially the black & white night vision based on the psy_antenna postprocess effect, replaces the original UV-based blue NV. Perfect vision in the dark is now possible, even without a real light source.

In short, it makes the game a bit easier than vanilla, which may be fine if you are a pure-FPS type of player."



However I can vouch that the games (at least SoC and CoP (only played CS completely un-patched, which was a pain, I might add)) are completely playable. At least to the extent of any other game out there.
Posted February 06, 2014
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cappe3000: The mods HEAVILY alters gameplay, as well as overall atmosphere, and not necessarily in a good way. All of the games are very playable (and extremely fun) vanilla, as long as they are fully patched.
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Nirth: I see people saying this and the opposite.

Does anyone have a source of someone that has played versions and an small review of the differences?

I also heavily disagree that they are "very playable" without them but I suppose playable is a subjective state so that doesn't help anyone.
Well, I would say they're all playable games, but I honestly wouldn't recommend bothering with the vanilla versions, patched or not, when there's mods that fix a number of remaining bugs and adjust the gameplay. So I think it's okay because, although these are great games in their usual state, they're not perfect and in fact are a little annoying. The first game, for instance, can be fairly unwelcoming to new players with its horrible weapons and their crap accuracy early on, which is a shame because the ballistics system is actually well refined, though I think better with mods that adjust them to be more realistic for all guns.

As for Complete specifically, it's a great series of mods. For Clear Sky it's the mod I'd recommend for the bug fixes alone. However, I'd look at some other mods for the other two games. Although I'm using Complete for SoC just now, I kind of wish I'd installed something a bit more like the Misery mod that's available for CoP because the biggest difference the Complete mod makes is making the games easier in a lot of small ways that amount to noticeable ease even on Master difficulty. Certainly, there's nice additions, such as the repair kit you can find, but even that is problematic when such a useful item weighs little to nothing.

Just my two cents.
Posted February 06, 2014
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IAmSinistar: Is there a handy source for a breakdown of what the various mods do? Mostly I'm interested, like nickaepi, in knowing which ones change aesthetic elements and which ones modify gameplay.
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JudasIscariot: This was posted on our FB page :)

http://puu.sh/6Mg7y.jpg

(credit goes to Crudu Alexandru for the post :) )
Very Helpful! Thanks!

BTW: I've been looking through the game files and summary here, How do we verify the game version?
Post edited February 06, 2014 by BACON75
Posted February 06, 2014
I second nickaepi It would be great to initially play the game exactly as intended but, only with aesthetic and graphic enhancements then add the game changing patches.
The great thing about GOG is being able to, without restriction, have several copies of the vanilla game on different machines and then being able to run modded and unmodded versions at the same time for comparison.
Posted February 06, 2014
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JudasIscariot: This was posted on our FB page :)

http://puu.sh/6Mg7y.jpg

(credit goes to Crudu Alexandru for the post :) )
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BACON75: Very Helpful! Thanks!

BTW: I've been looking through the game files and summary here, How do we verify the game version?
You should see the game version in the main menu of the vanilla game :)

SoC on GOG is 1.006, btw :)
Posted February 06, 2014
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BACON75: Very Helpful! Thanks!

BTW: I've been looking through the game files and summary here, How do we verify the game version?
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JudasIscariot: You should see the game version in the main menu of the vanilla game :)

SoC on GOG is 1.006, btw :)
Awesome! You guys ROCK!
Posted February 06, 2014
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IAmSinistar: Is there a handy source for a breakdown of what the various mods do? Mostly I'm interested, like nickaepi, in knowing which ones change aesthetic elements and which ones modify gameplay.
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JudasIscariot: This was posted on our FB page :)

http://puu.sh/6Mg7y.jpg

(credit goes to Crudu Alexandru for the post :) )
Many thanks for the image guide, very handy!
Posted February 06, 2014
I don't know the correct forum/place to make GOG.com a suggestion.
In any case, I'd suggest placing all threads kinda 'Mod Spotlight' inside theirs respective game forums, instead of General Discussion. I think people would first search on game forums, if they're looking for hints on greats mods for a game.
Yes, 'Mod Spotlight' still should have its own headline starred on GOG's home page.

I only mean to contribute with GOG.com community.

Thanks!
Posted February 06, 2014
I own the original STALKER and Clear Sky, but not the Pripyat expansion. I partially played both games a number of years ago, giving up after just a level or two. For some reason, when I original bought the game, I had the impression that it was going to be all spooky and scary, like hunting monsters inside the old Chernobyl nuke plant. The game was nothing like that. I think the early trailers were misleading in that sense, or the ones I saw anyway.

It sure looked great, and this is such a great deal... it would even be worth $15 to buy the entire set just to get the 3rd game I never bought! (That's one of the great "values" of GOG, where the low price includes extras/expansions you don't own yet). But I could never get past the extreme difficulty nor the sense of just wandering aimlessly, killing pigs from towers and watching dogs spin in a vortex. I wonder what I could do/learn to get me back to the game? Some kind of godmode might help. :)
Posted February 06, 2014
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tritone: Some kind of godmode might help. :)
that would utterly kill any gameplay.
and what you were looking for in the game... you just didnt press very far into it.
(no spoilers)
Posted February 06, 2014
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henriquejr: I don't know the correct forum/place to make GOG.com a suggestion.
In any case, I'd suggest placing all threads kinda 'Mod Spotlight' inside theirs respective game forums, instead of General Discussion. I think people would first search on game forums, if they're looking for hints on greats mods for a game.
Yes, 'Mod Spotlight' still should have its own headline starred on GOG's home page.

I only mean to contribute with GOG.com community.

Thanks!
Might be good to also put that here: http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site
And to the support page under feedback here: http://www.gog.com/support/contact
Posted February 06, 2014
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henriquejr: I don't know the correct forum/place to make GOG.com a suggestion.
In any case, I'd suggest placing all threads kinda 'Mod Spotlight' inside theirs respective game forums, instead of General Discussion. I think people would first search on game forums, if they're looking for hints on greats mods for a game.
Yes, 'Mod Spotlight' still should have its own headline starred on GOG's home page.

I only mean to contribute with GOG.com community.

Thanks!
Agreed.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)Mod Spotlight: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series(88 posts)(88 posts)
(88 posts)