Hi, L.U.R.K. fans.
You've probably noticed two things by now: firstly, I'm not Holden. Secondly, it's been a very long time since the last news update on L.U.R.K. Allow me to address both these things in order.
Yes, I'm not Holden. I'm Panzerdraco. Hi. I am one of the developers on the L.U.R.K. team, in charge of the general gameplay mechanics. I structured the weapon system, NPC health and damages, economy, looting, flavour text and so on.
As for the lack of updates? Well that's a bit of a story.
Progress on L.U.R.K. 1.2 was going fairly smoothly until about the middle of this year. Several big game titles were released that captivated the attention of Holden, other developers and I. I also had an ongoing diploma course to attend to. It wasn't long until production pretty much ground to a halt.
Anyway, recently college has been winding down for me, and I began to wonder what happened to 1.2. I approached Holden and asked him if he was still interested in finishing what we started. The answer was pretty much a "no". So yes, L.U.R.K is, for all intents and purposes, a dead mod.
That's the bad news. The good news? Holden gave me the last build for 1.2, and gave me his consent to let me polish it up as much as I can and release it. And I intend to do just that - finish what we started, one way or another.
Once my classes are over with, I'm going to knuckle down and get to work on finishing L.U.R.K. 1.2. A lot of features and ambitions we had for the release won't make it. But what we do have is still a massive improvement over 1.1, and it's something definitely releasable. I won't go into detail on what will make the final release, as I'm not even entirely sure what will be in it. Suffice to say though, 1.2 will feature improved graphics, balancing, economy and the much asked reintroduction of a HUD instead of the Call of Duty style screen-jam effect that serves as a vague indicator of health. Bugs like flailing recoil and permanent psi-effects caused by Controllers is also fixed.
If all goes well, L.U.R.K. 1.2 should be out before the end of the year. And after that, in all likelihood, production will officially be over and done with. L.U.R.K. 1.2 will be our final release. There won't be a version for Call of Pripyat like many anticipated. It's unfortunate, but everyone in the team has more or less moved on.
I'm sorry for the lack of content in this news update, but I figured that I should post at least something to tell everyone what's going on. Thank you, all of you, for staying with us despite our total lack of activity. It warms my heart to know that so many people enjoy something I had a hand in producing.
- Panzerdraco
Just out of curiosity will you make the artifacts useful, that and the hud were the only things that bothered me on 1.1.
Agreed.
If I can figure out how to adjust the inventory screen image to include an artifact bar, I might look at reintroducing artifact effects. It isn't high on my list, but it might get done.
Generally though, I'm going to attempt to remove all artifacts found laying around the maps, and make it so that every anomaly has a small chance to spawn artifacts each day, generally making them much rarer and more difficult to find. Then I'll bump the price of them up a few notches to make them the focal point of L.U.R.K's economy.
Please reintroduce the Artifacts. The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, once we get inside it, it's almost impossible to make it through it without using an unholy amount of anti-rad and medkits because of the radiation damage.
And the radiation removing effect some artifacts gave us used to make this part way more easier and much less annoying.
The initial plan for 1.2 was to create a sort of Metro 2033 style gasmask + filters system which would serve as protection against radiation in the place of artifacts, but that kind of fell through. So yeah, artifacts could very well make a comeback. Or alternatively I'll just bump up the number of antirads found in the Sarcophagous.
I'd like to keep that final stretch of the game relatively difficult, but not infuriatingly so.
Why, WHY would you ever want to see artifacts like in vanilla STALKER? That **** makes absolutely no sense. Holden said it best:
"When I work on L.U.R.K., the core concepts that I consider whenever I do anything to change or add any aspect to the game is balance, depth, and immersion. Each play a role in supporting each other and frequently require compromise in order to achieve the best result. When I looked at Artifacts, I simply could not justify Artifact attributes even when looking at any one of those three concepts alone. When I consider balance, it only serves to hurt the way certain gameplay mechanics interact with each other. For example, the fireball artifact decreases the rate in which you intake radiation. When you stack them, it makes you virtually impervious to radiation and thus eliminates it as a gameplay mechanic. Likewise for 'moonlight' making stamina a near nonexistent consideration. It didn't add more depth or increase gameplay mechanics, it compromised them, and for what?
Looking at it from an immersion standpoint, you think, well attaching these artifacts gives me arbitrary combat benefits that don't really have any rhyme or reason to their supposed scientific properties, and are simply something that you are forced to overlook when observed with any level of scrutiny regarding realism or plausibility even. It sacrifices depth, balance, and immersion and to this day I've yet to understand how it would benefits the game as a whole or subsequently it's vision, especially when you consider that the entire reason S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s roam The Zone is to collect them and sell them for profit, but I digress."
Most artifacts effects can be reproduced with medication the only difference is that artifacts are easier to find in the zone, are more effective and they can net a really good price on the black market.
If it really is done, you should make the code available to other modding teams who keep the STALKER community alive. Cedit should be given ofcourse, sorry to see the team move on from a successful mod. I especially liked the arena coding.
I'm delighted to hear it. Good luck and keep up the good work. Fans are looking forward to play it.
Well, thanks at least for taking the time to polish things up and release what you got. Just the fixes you listed in this post fixes most of what I disliked about LURK 1.1! Appreciated, and godspeed.
Your a good man for this. You all are.