Comments - your_evil_twin

Hi, excellent work on this mod!

Something I've always considered a flaw in Half-Life... i n Questionable Ethics, when you pick up the tau cannon it is supposed to be a big dramatic moment (you get cool "James Bond" style music)... except that there is actually a possibility that the player might have killed all the enemies in the labs before picking up the tau cannon.

When you come up the stairs there is a fight between bullsquids and hgrunts. Depending on how it goes, other soldiers might come from the far end of the corridor to fight the bullsquids. Also there is a high likelihood of the player pursuing the soldiers and/or bullsquids to finish them off, and encountering the other soldiers in the lab at the other end of the corridor. The is a good chance of the player wiping out all the soldiers, and you end up with noting to use the tau cannon on except a few houndeyes in the last laser lab.

I can think of a couple of solutions to this:

1) The easy option is to spawn in some hgrunts once the player has grabbed the tau cannon, or when the player presses the button to turn on the laser in the room.

This might feel a little cheap (where did they come from?!) but the normal game does stuff like that anyway. For instance in Power Up, when you go down to the bottom level and turn on the power, the upper levels repopulate with soldiers and some come down an elevator, despite there being no obvious place for them to come from. So there's certainly precedent for this. (And, it would only be noticable to the player if the player made a point of going to all the other auxillary laser labs first and making sure there were no enemies.)

Narratively it would make sense that soldiers could arrive due to the explosions caused by the scientist and security guard messing around with the tau cannon. Or the soldiers notice you turning on the auxillary laser (which bounces around the ceiling to the main laser room) and they come to check out who turned it on.

2) Alternatively, there could be some way to "funnel" the player towards the laser lab with the tau cannon before encountering all of the soldiers . Perhaps closed doors in front of the other labs. They could be like the emergency blast doors that close when you activate the electric steriliser machines in the labs below. They don't necessarily need to be locked, they could be openable with a button next to each door, but if the main laser lab and and auxiliary laser labs aren't all immediately open to the corridor with hgrunts running in and out of them then it reduces the liklihood of the player fighting those soldiers before getting the tau cannon.

Once the player picks up the tau cannon (or activates the auxiliary laser) then those blast doors could open, supposedly triggered by the soldiers investigating what the commotion outside is.

Nice work, the perfectly synchronised flags in the mod made me laugh, nice to see that someone went to the effort to do something about it! I found your addon thanks to your comment on one of the developer's articles, I clicked on your name. However I think there might be a way to get your addon onto the actual Field Intensity add-on section, other people have got custom models and sounds there.

I am glad the mod has the Displacer, some players might forget about it but it is one of my favourite Opposing Force weapons, I love the Quake II BFG primary fire and the secondary self-teleport feature as well.

A way to integrate it into the story and gameplay more might be to have some kind of "teleport beacons" that would allow you to change the teleport destination to solve a puzzle.

Presumably the Displacer was invented in order to be a miniaturised personal teleporter, with a way of selecting a destination. (And Shepherd didn't know how to use it, or the resonance cascade made it malfunction.)

So perhaps there could be devices or platforms you could find and activate in some of the maps, and doing so would change the Displacer destination to that platform. So then you can solve a puzzle on Earth, and then use the Displacer self-teleport, and instead of teleporting you to Xen, it would send you to that platform.

Sometimes the teleport platform could be something you walk up to and activate, allowing you to use the Displacer to return there later after completing a task elsewhere in the map. Other times, there could be a platform up on an upper level, or across a chasm, or on the other side of a fence or bullet-proof glass or a pool of acid, but it can be turned on using a computer or switch on your side. Maybe there is a secret or Easter egg there, or maybe it is how you are supposed to progress but normally you would need to do a jumping puzzle to get across.

Give some uranium ammo next to the switch, but not the full 60 ammo needed, so then the player has to decide whether it is worth it, or whether they should save the ammo and do the jumping puzzle instead.

After the teleport platform has been used, it becomes useless (maybe it sparks and breaks, or maybe a screen says "recharge time: 3 hours" or "Displacement Energy: Depleted" or something like that) to justify not being able to teleport back to that platform once you are on another map. If you try to self-teleport before turning on a platform, or after you've already used the platform once, then it takes you to Xen like usual.

This looks like a brilliant mod. I've yet to give it a try, but I was planning to start another playthrough soon, and I'll probably use your mod. For years I've wanted a sort of "vanilla plus" mod and this is almost what I've been looking for.

There's only a few more features I think would be worth adding. You might feel they change the game too much from being vanilla, perhaps they'd make sense in some kind of optional add-on patch. I could probably manually merge these things and add them myself, but I figured I should suggest them in a case you like them too.

1) Random blowouts/emissions, and NPCs running to bunkers to escape them. This was originally intended to be in the game, and most popular SHOC mods add blowouts to the game. And they became a standard part of the game in Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat. So it now just feels weird that there are no random blowouts in original SHOC.

There are small mods that add just blowouts to the game Moddb.com
or this ZRP compatible version Mediafire.com

2) Artifact activation - another feature that was originally meant to be in the game, it's in the vanilla game's multiplayer "capture the artifact" mode, and is a popular feature in various mods like Oblivion Lost and OSGE. Artifacts are supposed to be amazingly valuable magical objects, but in gameplay terms all they do is slightly increase or decrease bleeding or stamina or radiation. The ability to "activate" an artifact and turn it into an anomaly adds a great new element of the strategy - if you are being chased by enemies you can activate an artifact to turn it into a vortex or springboard or electro anomaly, that enemies will blunder into, but at the cost of using up a valuable artifact you could have sold for money.

Here's a great little artifact activation mod: Moddb.com

3) An ability to get the gauss rifle before the NPP - in the vanilla game Monolith snipers shoot at you with gauss rifles from the roofs and balconies in Pripyat, and it is possible to get their guns is if you use a grenade launcher to blow their corpses off the roof. But if you aren't familiar with this trick, then you won't find a gauss rifle until you are already inside the NPP, and only 5 minutes from the end of the game. Since you do previously encounter Monolith soldiers in the Red Forest, if one or two of them had gauss rifles then there would be a non-cheating way to get a gauss rifle before the NPP. (Alternatively, maybe a trader could have it near the end of the game, and it costs an absurdly high amount of money.)

Yeah good point, blowouts are in Lost Alpha as well. In fact, pretty much EVERY big mod has random blowouts, because it's something that was originally supposed to be in the game (and which was made an official feature in Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat).

The same goes for Artifact Activation - it's in the game's official "Capture the Artifact" multiplayer mode, and then mods like Oblivion Lost and OGSE reenabled it in singleplayer.

Although I like Autumn Auorora's invisible artifacts that need a detector, it's also a massive change to how the game works, so perhaps a bit too much for a vanilla plus mod like Memories of the Zone. It would probably mean copying a huge amount of stuff from Autumn Aurora, and changing every map in the game.

Brilliant mod! It really does seem to be the definitive "Vanilla Plus" experience.

I'd like to suggest a couple more "optional" mods to include: Blowouts mod, and Artifact Activation.

Moddb.com
Moddb.com

I tried merging the Blowout mod with MOTZ myself, but I did something wrong and caused crashes.

Both seem perfect for a "vanilla plus" mod like this, as an optional addon. Blowouts and Artifact Activation are popular features in many big mods like OGSE and Oblivion Lost, and they were originally supposed to be in Shadow of Chernobyl. Of course the random blowouts were eventually implemented as a standard game feature in Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat.

Artifact Activation makes artifacts much more interesting - rather than just being loot that you can sell, or something that you can wear to get a small stat boost, you can choose to sacrifice an artifact and use it like a bomb or trap, creating a vortex or springboard or electrical anomaly in the middle of a combat situation.

And artifacts being able to generate these sorts of anomalies would explain why there is a lucrative trade in smuggling artifacts out of the zone - it's hard to imagine the outside world being so interested in them if all they did was reduce bleeding from wounds (at the cost of causing radiation sickness!)

I'd love to be able to play MOTZ with those features. I'm sure there's lots of other people like me that enjoy the blowouts and artifact activation in mods like OGSE or Oblivion Lost, but don't like how those mods massively alter the game's balance and difficulty and quests.

I seem to remember reading that you removed the option to play Firestorm missions because it was causing crashes, do you know what caused the crashes? I'm wondering if a version of rules.ini with original TS/FS units and balance might also allow Firestorm missions to work, or whether the crashes were unrelated.

Brilliant mod, my wife and I have had a great time playing against each other over LAN! It is really explosive and exciting.

I hope that some day you can also get it to work for the Firestorm singleplayer missions as well.

I love the new style and effects for Tiberium, it is the perfect mix between classic Tiberium and C&C3;. (I wish C&C3;'s Tiberium looked like yours!) In multiplayer/skirmish maps some Tiberium fields have a huge green crystal formation at the centre, while other Tiberium fields have a blossom tree, I really like that both are in the game.

It's a shame that in the singleplayer campaign missions all the blossom trees are replaced by the large green crystals, it would be great if you were able to edit the missions so that some Tiberium fields have blossom trees and other have large crystals. Maybe have larger fields have crystal formations, and smaller fields have a blossom tree? Or do it based on the surrounding environment: a blossom tree if there is a forest of trees nearby, but a crystal formation if the field is in an area of barren sand.

I notice that in the latest version, there is no longer a "Warzone Units" option, to let you play with old TS/FS units and balance. You've done a fantastic job with the new units and balance, the game is faster-paced and more exciting than the original, but it would also be cool to have the option to play with old Tiberian Sun balance.

It would be especially great to play the singleplayer campaign with your amazing-looking Tiberium fields and weather effects and cool explosions when units are destroyed, but with original TS units and balance.

If Warzone had an option to just have your new visuals/sounds without the new gameplay, then there'd be no reason for anyone to play old original Tiberian Sun anymore, it would be the definitive Tiberian Sun mod for everyone, for players that want enhanced gameplay and those that simply want better graphics. It would truly be a fan-made Tiberian Sun Remastered.

I'm guessing such an thing might be possible by having an alternative rules.ini file that people could install.

Thank you so much for making this fixed version of the mod! Using artifacts to create anomalies is a really fun feature that makes the less powerful artifacts have a use other than selling them.

When I discovered coldsnake's mod that made artifacts have proper 1st person model I was delighted, until I discovered that fireball artifacts crashed the game, so thank you for solving that problem!

Ah, brilliant! I look forward to it. :)

Hi, it's me! Our original discussions were what got this whole Vanilla+ idea started. :) Sorry for being absent for such a long time, but I am delighted to see that you're still working on Vanilla+! :D

Did you get to implement any of the ideas we talked about, like ability get gauss ammo before the nuclear plant?

I'm excited that you've managed to add lots of new artifacts to the game, have you also been able to put in artifact activation?

Perhaps the idea is that mercenaries tend to shoot everyone on sight, but loners don't. So if you are playing as mercenary, if really want to role-play you should be murdering those neutral loners!

Oh no! Stalkers wandering into anomalies and being torn to pieces of electrocuted is an essential part of the Zone. :( It was real shame how Call of Pripyat made it so anomalies were no danger to anyone but the player, I thought it was great that CoC brought back people getting killed in random anomalies. Will be sad if that feature is gone in the version. :(

Cats would probably be OK as they are essentially a reskin of the dogs, a weak low level enemy.

Burers and chimeras are formidable enemies though, if we introduce them then we will make the game tougher wherever we put them. And I wouldn't want to put them into any of the underground labs - they are wonderfully scary experiences for STALKER newbies and I wouldn't want to change the experience by adding new enemies to them.

I'm not necessarily ruling them out, though! Just saying that it would take careful thought to put them.

Personal opinion: I've never been a fan of burers. When I first encountered them in a mod I assumed that it was something modders had invented themselves. I later learnt they were cut enemies... and to me it made sense that GSC had cut them, because I found them to be silly, laughable-looking enemies. I was disappointed when Call of Pripyat implemented them and made them official canon. (Especially since they were supposedly created by government experiments on criminals... did they have a whole gang of criminal dwarfs?)

Perhaps one burer in the game might be OK, as a one-off mini-boss. I can believe in the existence of a psychic dwarf. But not a gang of them.

This mod isn't intended for STALKER veterans that want a harsh, bleak experience. This mod is for newbies that want to experience the original story and gameplay, but also want the benefit of improved graphics and bug fixes.

Forums are full of newbies asking about STALKER Complete, and veterans tell them "Complete is crap, it makes the game easier and the bug fixes and graphics improvements are 5 years out of date."

So then the newbie asks what they should install instead... and they get given a long list of Zone Reclamation Project + Absolute Nature + Absolute Structures + some shader pack + a weather overhaul mod. A lot of time and hassle downloading and installing everything.

Assuming that the newbie manages to do all this correctly, the result does look and play better than the vanilla game. But then they see screenshots for Autumn Aurora 2, which has much better graphics... but which removes all the green colour from the zone, and changes gameplay mechanics to make the game harder.

And they learn about mods like OGSE and Oblivion Lost, which restore features like random blowouts and artifact activation, interesting features that were originally supposed to be in the game but got cut. (And random blowouts in mods were so popular that they ended up being implemented in Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat.) But those mods add hundreds of features and totally overhaul every aspect of the entire game, they aren't suitable for newbies.

Vanilla+ is a simple a simple click-and-install solution that lets newbies experience original story, style and atmosphere of Shadow of Chernobyl, while giving them the impressive 2014 graphics, every possible bug-fix, and a couple of the most popular features that are common to most big mods. There will never be a need for anyone to play original unmodded STALKER again. After they have experienced Vanilla+, then they can go onto playing more ambitious mods that add hundreds of features and overhaul the experience.

Hah, thanks for answering. Yeah at the time I asked the question I did not yet realise that there were anomaly detectors later in the game.

I am really enjoying the mod! :) The new beginning to the game was very interesting and well-done. Lots of extra dialogue with the STALKERS, having to do tasks to get them to trust you, new stories and jokes... very impressive.

But I am wondering, is there a way to make the anomalies more visible, like in the original game? I know they are almost invisible to make them more dangerous, but I really liked the distortion effects. STALKER just doesn't seem the same without those heat hazes and distortions.

I've removed the compass arrow at the top of the screen, not the map. You do still have a map when you are in the town of Isenstadt. You have to press a button to bring up your map, then you can see where you are, and where you need to go is marked on your map with a star. And if you are a mission, well they are mostly linear, there's not much choice where to go anyway.

The expansion of the crosshair is supposed to be representative of the spread of the weapon, I don't think there is a way to reduce crosshair expansion without reducing weapon spread. (Personally I usually play on the hardest "uber" difficulty setting, where there is no crosshair at all.)

I'm afraid that I was not able to find a way to remove the grenade indicator or the medallion.

That said, enemies like to throw grenades pretty frequently on the high difficulty settings, without the indicator I'm sure it would lead to lots of unexpected deaths, so I do not think it is too big a problem. Similarly, the Thule Medallion is a bit obtrusive on the HUD, but without it you would be unable to see how much energy you had (it would be nice if it was something smaller and less elaborate). Doesn't seem to be any way to change it though.

It is great to see that your Half Life Revisioned is going to include stuff for Sweet Half-Life, one of my all time favourite mods. Making the grey aliens look like the Martians from Mars Attacks is genius!

I've been thinking of replaying Sweet Half-Life, is there any chance you could send me just that Martian alien model, rather than waiting for the full release of Half Life Revisioned?

(Also, in case you didn't realise, Valve have updated Half-Life again, there is now a button in the options menu for enabling or disabling the HD pack, and another button for enabling and disabling custom content.)

Ah, looks like you named that folder "binares" intentionally, since it is the same in the dx10 version as well. :) Dx10 version worked fine first time, but second time it caused game to crash during the intro movies. I've gone back to using the first version of dx10 since that worked OK for me.

I previous used the first Dx10 version, that worked great. I then tried the Dx11 Beta, it worked fine once, but next time the game would crash on startup. Eventually I ended up resinstalling the game from the disc to fix it (I have retail version so at least I don't have to download it).

Then I saw you had released Dx11 Final version, tried that, discovered that the Binaries folder has been misspelt as "binares". I fixed that but the game crashes on startup immediately. I'm now reinstalling it from the disc again.

The bosses remain unchanged for the time being. In theory I might be able to increase the health of the Queen Geist (for the last part of the battle where she is on the ground), but the config files for the bosses are rather complicated and strange.

I've tested the boss fights and the changes I've made to the weapons and powers do not make the fights any easier or any tougher, due to the way that the boss fights are divided into stages, and they have some special rules regarding how much damage you can do to a boss in one-go.

Never mind - when looking left, randomly at some point a section of wall tore itself off. No idea why though, cause I was staring at all the walls for ages and nothing happened before. But it's done now.

I am also stuck at the bit where you are being attacked by manhacks and blocked from going forwards, when you have no weapons only telekinetic powers. Says "Keep looking makes arms" - erm, what the? If I stare at the combine walls, they start sparking, but they don't move or do anything. N_Neko said "Look right, use it. And follow the arrow." Erm, I'm looking right, but there is nothing there to use!