Good day to everyone.
Today, after a prolonged period of silence, we will present you the current results of development, but we will also explain why we've had problems and delays and also what we're expecting in the near and not so near future.
Let's begin with discussing the technical side of things:
Optimization and speed of the game are both very important aspects of a multiplayer experience, and we're often emphasizing that in our posts. A lot of work and time has been going into this aspect, and we would like to notify that we have not stopped development and there is still a lot of work to be done. Admittedly, the development isn't going as fast as we would like it to, but there are many factors involved. Taking into account that a lot of people are working on the project, a lack in resources and time is always noticeable, but we're still trying to progress, using all available time, driven only by our enthusiasm. Of course, material help is always welcome, but even without it, the work is progressing forward, slowly - but surely. Anyhow, we have some good news:
To all the skeptics out there: We are NOT stopping development, regardless of the difficulty and the demanding community. We're close to finishing the build with fully populated areas and first quests.
About the quests, there are a lot of them in the works and are waiting to be added into the game. We tried to make them different, with much more developed mechanical aspects compared to the quests in vanilla games. We are not going to reveal everything related to how quests work, for the same reason we're not revealing other aspects of development - we would like to see your "first impressions" after you actually play the game. The quests will feature decision making which will drastically change the progression of the quest itself and the characters in the Zone as well. The player will be required to choose his/her words carefully, picking the correct answers in order to get the most desired outcome. The majority of the quests are dynamic and "global", but we will talk about that later. Most of the quests will have accompanying voice files, and there will be many conversations among the stalkers, some of which may contain truly useful information.
Half of the SFX in the game have been replaced with more realistic ones. We're trying to achieve a fully dynamic mechanic - pretty much like with the soundtrack.
We're also working on making new mutants, one of which you can see below.
Also, we would like to talk about the graphics. Our team is collaborating with many other modders, and we are able to add more than 300 new textures into the game, which our team is constantly trying to adapt and improve so they can fit that true stalker atmosphere.
The map itself is 85-90% populated in many areas. Basic gaming features have already been implemented, with some new content.
After completing the actual build, we're planning to make a series of videos and showcase streams. We will describe the progress, step by step, in order to show those who are skeptical that we're actually trying to do something worthwile. Also, we're doing this in order to raise the activity of our community and show some basic aspects of our game (without actually showing any spoilers or exclusive features, which will remain a surprise).
Below, as usual, we're giving you some screenshots and other things. In the future, we would like to make the news shorter, showcasing every new location, mutant, model and such. We thing that the player must immerse himself in the main portion of our work, otherwise all the magic of discovering the Zone for yourself is simply gone.
P.S. We've reached a 1000 likes on facebook! Thanks you everyone!
- Infinite Art team
But, what about the people in the western countries?
we wait. we wait for the russian community to touch and test it until its ready. we never really got to play the games multiplayer before, so this isnt a really new thing.
Id love to try it out, been waiting on any news for a while, alas, i wait.
Always good to hear updates
And whats the name of our new mutant friend here?
Plague Bear.
- Big or bigger as pseudogiant, but faster. Very hard to kill. Rare sight on the zone. It kills other mutants and players for food. Stronger than other mutants on the zone.
We try to make the model accurate with the written story about it, and use the concept art as the base. Our modelers are not professionals however. We will change/test these new monsters around before we add them to the game. We don't want the bear to look like zombie version of a bear. We try to make it ugly, hideous and scary.
I like the fact that it kills other mutants too :)
is it gonna have a Special ability? the pseudogiant can make stomps looking at the bear it could realease a toxic cloud that damages you unless your still planning
Honestly I'm not sure if I like this mutant.
It looks more suited for Fallout like the Yao Guai. And the Beefy Torso with its Slender face gives it more of a cartoon look imo.
Stalker mutants, most of them turn out more fat and disfigured when they have strong muscles.
Give the creature a really broken face, where its jaw may be somewhat loose and its skin webbed onto one of its shoulders so it may always has to stare at its victim side on with its milk white eye. Then we are talking freaky.
It looked like Yao Guai before, while we were doing the first versions out of it. The 3D model is not finished yet and takes a lot of time to get that done because we do not have a professionals for the job. But our current modeller is doing his best and learning on the way.
And yeah and we make changes to the bear if we don't like something about it. But we do not want a fantasy zombie bear on the zone. Maybe it has lost its jaw, and its supposed to be on blisters like its carrying a plague. While missing half of its stomach. And spine pushing out, and so on.
Thanks for the update!
F AWESOME !!!
I'm so glad you're still up and working hard at this. There's no need to rush this mod, personally I love watching your progress and I feel like we're getting closer to a release every single time.
rip