Oh yes you read that right, X-Ray, for once, isn't being a stubborn bastard. Maybe it's just given up fighting with me considering I always win :p Too much to hope for maybe? We'll see I guess.
Anyway, I thought you all might like to know that a story is coming together very nicely and at super efficient speeds! Hats off to the two main people doing this right now, Capt'Host and yeahyeahlgetit. I salute you gentlemen.
To get everyones appetite up a bit heres some teaser snippets from some of the WIP work. A few story snippets up first.
Who am I?
Damn it, it's all a haze now... I remember a truck... They drove me somewhere for a long time, and my whole body hurt... There was darkness... What happened before that? I have no idea... So confused... Now, this fat guy calls me the Marked One, probably because of the strange tattoo on my arm, and then there's this weird mission to kill some guy called Strelok on my PDA… Hell, is it even my PDA? Shit! It hurts to think… I can feel memories, then this blinding pain and nausea, like having a concussion. I’ve half a mind to just leave this place, the danger, the weapons I can only assume I’ve used before… Who knows what I’ve done with them before? Fuck, I can’t think about that. Not like it’s going to do me any good… In any case, leaving this… Zone... would require bribing someone, and I don’t have the cash for that. I have to work for Sidorovich, no matter what. Focus on the task at hand…
I met up with Fox. It's a “bad news, good news” scenario. The bad news is that he knows little about Strelok. The good news is that his brother called Seriy knows more. It seems Seriy is in a hangar about 2 kilometers north of here, in some dump full of radioactive waste. My task is clear: get there before he leaves… or gets killed. With my luck, and considering what I know about the Zone, he may be dead already.
Now, a few snippets from various characters PDA entries
1st Entry:
It’s strange being on the outer side of a warzone. All these poor people suffering from a disaster originated in the hands of careless men. If these lucky ones survived, then they have a purpose and they need to be told about it, which I’ll do. The same was revealed to me when I was the sole survivor of that ambush in Afghanistan. Those were rough times… I am fulfilling my destiny now, just as the Lord wished it, but I don’t quite think this is the end of it.2nd Entry:
Few days ago, I decided to enter the exclusion Zone. What a brave new world. It’s like an alternative dimension of our Earth. It’s just so different. It’s difficult but possible to survive here. Military are all around and some people are still being found and evacuated. Let’s hope I can lay low…
We've been left at the insertion point just over an hour ago, a few klicks away from the city where we are supposed to set up camp. We've seen our first anomalies. You could see a distortion effect caused by it and the leaves floating around it. We cleared a few mags and threw a bunch of bullets at the things so we could sense a safe path. Then, the other Zone attraction, blood thirsty mutants. A pack of dogs just relentlessly charged at us. We just sprayed the damned suckers with lead. Then a pair of boars ran towards us. Damn, were these tough! One of the guys still got tossed in the air, must’ve hurt, but he’s fine. Still, we reached the town fairly easily and without much trouble.
If anyone has any thoughts or feedback let us know, I'm sure the story guys will be glad of constructive feedback. While the story guys have been working their arses off I've been busy with tweaking visual aspects, working on the 1.0008b engine upgrade patch, and putting in a bunch of little goodies such as reworking quite a bit of the audio for much more immersion.
Overall, things are shaping up well with no delays at this point and currently no anticipated problems that may lead to delays. Just don't expect the story aspect to be ready for release, we want to make sure we get this right, not rush it out the door ;)
If you wouldn't mind waiting until the story is complete and implemented for a more finalised experienced, then let us know that too as I'm sure other things would get finished in that same extended timeframe.
I should just think of NPC pda entries, get some stash info variety in
That would help with making everything feel more organic for sure. We'll get it done, key is getting it done right, not fast ;)