Reply With QuoteSO looking forward to this!!!
Looks like Lost Alpha has a release date: 28th September.
http://www.moddb.com/mods/lost-alpha
Really looking forward to checking this out.
SO looking forward to this!!!
I'm looking forward to this too, if it's even half as good as it seems it'll be the best thing I've played in quite a while.
Do you guys have any more questions for me?Originally Posted by Dia
SO looking forward to this!!!
Something interesting to note is that we're trying to do all cinematics in-game. So no post-processed videos. Everything you'll be seeing will be in-game. Turns out people prefer this to nice looking videos. We don't mind at all though, the X-Ray engine has it's quirks when it comes to these things.
Also game contains no QTE's!(Quick Time Events - really hate those demons)
Apparently the release date has been postponed just now. There a new update on the ModDB page saying so.
I don't mind the postponement if it means ironing out bugs and other annoying stuff.
I had never played the Priboi Story mod, so I decided to give it a go now in anticipation of Lost Alpha. I must say that I'm fairly disappointed with it. There are several annoying aspects about the mod that I hope I don't get to see in Lost Alpha.
Yeah I have to agree with you on that. With Lost Alpha I got some bugs that are just plain annoying in the sense that I could not believe people did not pick it up.
Lots of GUI bugs and Weapon alignment bugs. But it's getting better. With the updated graphics engine it's looking better and better each day.
Hi Axon...First of all, I would like to thank you for taking the time to develop this...I'm really looking forward to playing it!...
...and I'm glad you're taking the extra time to get things right.
Let us know when you think you might be finished, as I'm sure that many of us would appreciate an estimated release window.
Are enemies as tough as they were in SoC? I don't mind the rarity of ammunition as long as ammo is powerful enough. For example Makarov was pretty much useless in SoC despite being a deadly firearm in real life.
Ammo is relatively rare in Priboi Story as well. You only get 4-6 bullets from any enemy you kill. But since you get hordes of enemies swarming towards you all the time, you soon find yourself with plenty of ammo to spare. That's the thing I want the most: a quieter Zone. I don't mind if the enemies are powerful and hard to kill, I just hope that there isn't as much respawning as I'm seeing in Priboi Story. Once you clear up an area of enemies, it should remain clear for a reasonable amount of time, allowing me to explore the area.
In Priboi Story (and I keep mentioning it because I understand that the team behind Lost Alpha is the same as Priboi Story's) it got to the idiotic point where I'm at the Bar (which keeps getting constantly swarmed in turns by hordes of Bandits, Freedom, Monolith, Mercs and mutants that magically spawn right in the middle of it - must have parachuted there, thus avoiding the Duty control points at the entries to the Bar area) and if I quick save/load, right after the load I'm somehow surrounded by hordes of enemies that weren't there when I saved, but have suddenly magically spawned. Really, really annoying.
I've experienced the same 'mobbing' effect of enemies in both of the unmodded versions SoC and CoP. It just happened again in CoP with the S.M.R.T.R. mod when I tried leaving the building that houses Lab X8 in Pripyat. I turned a corner and was mobbed by civilian zombies, a controller, and a bunch of mutant rats.
I died.
Last night, after a quick load right in the middle of the Bar (near the entrance to to Duty base) I was rewarded with three chimeras, two pseudodogs, more rats than I could count, a mob of zombies and to top it off, a dwarf.
I didn't die. I ran away and let the Dutyers take care of it. I did die at Yantar though, when the game thought it would be funny to send along three controllers (which we can't stab, unlike what happens in the vanilla game) and more zombies than in Dawn of the Dead.
First off, a new release date for Lost Alpha has not been shared. So I have no clue when they will be releasing now.
Also a fix for most of the bugs found in the latest release has not been shared. So I'm still playing around with spawners and map transitions.
Which to be honest is in a bit of a mess right now. Spawners are fine but the map transitions. For instance: There's one where you can go from Agroprom to Garbage... well if you take it, you don't end up in Garbage. But in a different map.
Luckily things like these are easily fixable.
About enemies, "mobbing" and how tough enemies are in the game:
What I'm currently experiencing is that if you don't plan for each new raid or mission chances are you won't make it out alive unless there's lots of loot along the way. A simple mission like killing zombies becomes very strategic. I scope the place out, look for leverage and where the zombies mostly move. And then plan my attack with relevant weapons. Running into a mob of zombies with a rifle will get you killed, or make you poor very fast.
About the respawning of enemies. I'm not 100% clear on this as of yet. I'll test it asap and let you know. However I've spent a lot of time in Bar and have not experienced any sudden spawning of mutants not npcs in the middle of it. But I'll make double sure about this.
Bar in itself still has about 4 stalkers around most of the fires in the map... but it does feel more desolate. I've walked around for about an hour on certain maps without seeing anyone else.
The nights are very dark, but not overly so. If you use a flashlight you can see what's going on around you if the beam lights it up. Batteries last about 10 minutes in the game. I think that's a bit short but batteries aren't too expensive and not that rare. Though I've been in more then one situation where my flashlight died while in a underground map with no chance of finding any more batteries. It gets VERY tense very fast...
I'll update you guys about the release date when I get answers.
The mod will be easily moddable, so if it becomes a big enough deal I'm sure we'll be getting different versions of the mod soon enough, that'll cater for everyone's needs.
The respawning of enemies is something that I definitely hope is completely different from what we have in Priboi Story (I finished playing it last night). It's not only the situations that I already described; basically the whole respawning seems to be completely out of hand when loading a level. I've had situations when I was coming back from the Radar area to the Army Warehouses, and as soon as the level loads I have seven Freedom enemies waiting for me at the border (expected, so no complaints there), but I also have twenty (I'm not exaggerating, there were really twenty of them) Monolith fighters spawning right behind me. Same thing when going from the Dark Valley to the Garbage: as soon as the Garbage level is loaded, I'd have some twenty bandits on my back shooting at me.
Currently my version of Lost Alpha is completely broken. (My own fault from testing) So I'm waiting on fixes for it before i can do any testing again. I'm tempted to just revert back to the vanilla version we have here somewhere...
Started to replay SotC 1.004+bfa (bug fix attempt), exactly like I played it in the good old days. Don't know if I'll finish it (it's the nth time after all), but it still feels mighty involving even after 4 years.
I should do that too...
In any case I found out that respawning so far has been completely disabled for testing purposes. But we're waiting on the latest build of the game, so it might be activated next time I play. Currently spending most of my time fine tuning weapons. Check each and every gun in the game and how it does against specific enemies... got some interesting results so far.
Eh this message was put up without thinking. Sorry guy but this is me not keeping my mouth shut.
Last edited by Axon1988; 17th Oct 2012 at 00:56.
Wait .... what?!! Because GSC is involved there's a chance we'll have to pay for the Lost Alpha mod? Are you surprised about that? I doubt there's any way GSC will allow you to release it independently since they became involved, let alone allow it to be released for free. Even though the L.A. devs have stated that GSC has been helpful and cooperative, you should have known there would be a price to pay for their 'helpfulness'. And 'if' (tongue-in-cheek here because I think we already know what the outcome will be) Lost Alpha is released as a DLC with a pricetag, you know you guys won't be seeing a dime of that money. Though I know that the money wasn't the motivating factor for you to create the mod in the first place.
I know you guys have been bustin' your asses on this mod, for which I am totally grateful, but suddenly I'm not as thrilled as I was before about its release. Ever since GSC got into money-trouble (and cancelled Stalker 2) and more and more insider information was leaked about how the owners of GSC mishandled their funds I've become increasingly more skeptical of certain GSC CEO's dedication to producing games just for the love of gaming. Yeah, I know, business is business, but I just wish there would have been a way for you to develop L.A. without having to go to GSC for help. Oh well, what's done is done.
After all, Sergiy probably needs more money to support his Ferrari addiction.
Last edited by Dia; 16th Oct 2012 at 10:13.
Oh...
Goody.
Shit, is it bad news? Has GSC torpedoed it or something?
Too late, Axon. For those who're wondering, Axon's now deleted/edited post stated that GSC is currently deliberating whether or not they'll allow the release of the Lost Alpha mod free of charge or whether it's going to be another pay-for-DLC. (The L.A. devs stated that they went to GSC for help when they hit some snags during development.) Though Axon (& the L.A. devs) have stated on another website (as Axon did in his now-edited-to-the-point-of-deletion post) that GSC has been most helpful in assisting them with the mod, my guess is that GSC has taken over, ergo the sudden silence regarding the mod's release.
Sorry if you got in trouble for revealing the truth, Axon, but for those of us who've been eagerly awaiting Lost Alpha's release it was only right that the truth of GSC's involvement be known. If Sergiy handles the release of this mod the way he handled the news of GSC's demise and subsequent cancellation of Stalker2 we may be holding our collective breath for awhile. I only wonder if GSC would've stepped in anyhow, even if the L.A. devs hadn't gone to them for help.
Oh well, looks like GSC's gone rogue, Stalkers.
So, LA is a quite hotly anticipated thing for stalker that GSC could potentially make money on (or C&D into oblivion), GSC are desperate enough for money to start bullying fanfic authors, and putting two and two together things could get pretty annoying. I don't mind paying for LA that much, but like you say, the guys who actually MADE it should get paid as well, not just the guys who own the copyright.
Yeah, the whole fanfic thing was pretty revealing regarding the current mindset of those at GSC. I recently read a post on FB ('Project Stalker' page) wherein another Stalker fan was contemplating writing another Stalker fanfic. I wasn't surprised at how many other Stalkers warned him about GSC's tendency to squash budding Stalker fanfic authors and not surprised that my fellow Stalkers went as far as to reference 'Pataki', a Stalker fan who's being sued by and is suing GSC over the rights to his Stalker fanfic which he allegedly wrote initially with GSC's blessing and no mention of copyrights, etc. Iirc however, Pataki was accused of attempting to sell his fanfic after agreeing not to - but things get hazy at this point, so I'm not sure about the details.
It just pisses me off that GSC mishandled their funds to the point of having to fire the Stalker dev team and is now nickle-and-diming Stalker fanfic and mod authors. GSC killed Stalker 2 and it kinda looks like they might be trying to kill Lost Alpha as well. Curses.
At least we'll have Survarium. Eventually. Maybe.
Survarium sounds more and more like the faction game from Clear Sky, made into and online shooter.
Closer to Planetside, without the full scale WAR theme.
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