Alright, so recently I've been contemplating and reassessing the future of TK. Before I make any final decisions general input is welcomed.
Ok, so this is where TK currently stands; I've almost finished all of the groundwork needed in which to consider a stable platform to further build upon. This is where the mod reaches a crossroads. Initially I started developing TK to provide a much fuller, richer, ultra realistic, complete experience. You all know how I ended up doing this, literally overhauling everything inside and out. However with the crossroads TK now stands at leaves it open to 2 options, which is where your thoughts come in.
Firstly, I can continue development down its current path and hand stitch cut out levels and so forth back in leaving it to others to develop a new story or side story that would bring the new levels into play more, or, with the release of Lost Alpha (which I'm yet to analyse and pass final verdict on) convert TK to LA compatibility as LA, for all intents and purposes, already contains all the levels I would of added manually to TK. The latter of these two options would cut down on TK development time but the question really is; which would you prefer?
Let me know your opinions fellow stalkers.
I'm in favour of the second option, seems like it'll deliver something more solid. The first option sounds good but leaving it to others you run the risk of having a great platform with nothing to do in it. Plus the second one would also take less time to develop while having more things to play with, sounds like a win/win.
second, agreed with 7ty7
What exactly is this mod? Has the latest version still got all the spawn changes and non texture tweaks? If it was just a visual overhaul then it would've been great for vanilla SOC as well as SOC mods with or without more maps, If it was just that it could of been added to any mod pack like what we can do with the Absolute mod's, Unfortunately by adding so many extra's you stopped it from having a chance at becoming the definitive texture addon for SOC. Maybe it would be a good idea to start a new project based on LA and keep it about visuals so it can easily be added to other mods for LA aswell. You've done nice texture work in the past so it should get plenty of use if you stick to textures.
Theres much to TK beyond visuals, but its nothing that would be difficult to port to LA (or shouldn't be) but I would need to dig around in LAs files before I'd know for certain, and if LA uses some kind of franken modded SDK I'd need that too.
Well I for one would like TK to go it's own way, as i really like Shoc as it is, i am not overly keen on the old builds.
Gotta go with the latter of the two options, LA compatibility. I've been making my way thorough the first few levels of LA and while I was blown away by the scope of the mod, as well as content and optimization, I couldn't help thinking there were two missing components.
1) While the shaders have been updated and the textures and models much improved, it still lacks that "wow" factor found in mods like TK2Z and AA2. I think you and Meltac could bring that mod to it's full realized visual state. I was actually about to ask you guys to merge your shader package with LA since I I lack the expertise to do so.
2) While wandering through some the LA maps I found myself a bit underwhelmed with the lack of interaction and encounters. Chests are empty, stashes are insignificant, some areas need a little more population and random encounters, updates to the gulag. Of course Chernobyl isn't supposed to be a densely populated area, but some of the early stages feel incomplete. Improved visuals and rewarding exploration would certainly help with this, but so would unscripted encounters and an enhanced sense of danger. Your mod effectively addresses all these issues.
I will certainly look at the LA compatibility route, but so far downloading has been nothing but a epic fail I've had to download 3 of the 4 parts 2-3 times over already because the archives are always bloody corrupt and this is even with manually selecting a server with the least usage. I'll try again tomorrow at redownloading part 1 (I think I've finally got uncorrupt archive copies of the other parts) and start poking around. If the download fails again though, I'll probably just give up trying to download the damn thing :/
Come on Ket, you're not blowing this whole thing off because of hosting issues :) I downloaded all of them simultaneously without issue, not sure what the problem is. I think I deleted all my rar files otherwise I would upload them to a hosting site so you could grab them, let me know if it comes to that and I'll see what I can do.
Well, it just might come to that. I found a external link and so far managed to get parts 1, 3 and 4 but part 2 won't download :/
Use the torrent, it's far easier. Hell, if you want, I can upload them to dropbox if you'd like? Thus far, I'm loving the size of LA's maps, and their scale reminds me just how big the Zone actually is. On the other hand, I'd hold off merging until the next patch, which is rumoured to be coming next week, apparently.
Either way, try LA out and decide for yourself first, it's your vision as much as it is our dream. Just be warned: While I can speedrun SoC in 2 days, in the same amount of time, I made it to the Bar. That being said, the level-changes are sometimes blocked for stupid reasons like "Tree-felling in progress, you have to turn back" or some nonsense, that made it feel a tad less of a real RPG and more linear. I want to go somewhere I want to go, don't stop me! :'(
Theres a torrent for all parts? If you can point me in the direction of that that would be awesome :D I'll hold off starting work on making TK LA compatible until that new patch comes out. It'll take a fair bit of time setting everything up to start the process anyway theres MANY things in TK that will need to be ported into the new LA files it won't be a simple copy/paste.
Gameupdates.org It was on the main LA Moddb page, just off to the side :)
Imo, if you want to port your mod to another engine, choose Xray 1.0007 (Russians are working on it and it will be more stable than LA engine) or choose CS/CoP Engine.
Sorry, I'm not sure that Dezowave did a good and stable work with C++. Just look their work with LUA script and conclude.
Any idea when X-Ray 1.0007 will be available? If you know of any links with info on X-Ray 1.0007 that would be handy too :)
Look on gameru.net forum.
Here, guys are working on better tools for Soc SDK, they are correcting error in engine..., improving render.
Gameru.net
Gameru.net
Ofc, it's not really legal because resources was leaked, but it's on the internet now. And if it's not for a commercial use, why not.
Thanks, but alas, I can't read russian :( I can understand a little of it spoken but thats it.
Ok, well I got LA at last and started assessing it. After doing some stuff in cordon, and being the clever stalker I am to get some good weapons, I saved Fox and headed for Garbage... which I was not allowed to enter due to a land slide or something... apparently. So I headed for Darkscape... to find I couldn't enter there either due to blowout damage. So I am quite literally, stuck in cordon with **** all to do. Thats just bad, really bad. I also noticed numerous things already that need addressing, so while LA runs silently in the background for some time to pass its time to extract all the databases.
As I said, the level-changes are sometimes blocked for stupid reasons like "Tree-felling in progress, you have to turn back" or some nonsense. It means you have to finish the story missions to progress into the Zone. I think it's the one where you have to help someone in the Garbage before you're actually allowed in. I've not had any issues with that thus far though. Are you using the 1.0013 patch?
Yep, new game with 1.30013 patch. My being stuck in cordon was because cid said I could go back to him or head straight to garbage after rescuing fox, I chose the latter and that really threw me off (and wasted my time) until I actually went and had a chat with cid. I've also already found what appear to be 2 geometry based bugs in the cordon level and at times when I unload 5.45 rifles the ammo shows up for a moment then vanishes... its not getting auto attached as a spare mag or dropped to the ground either. Theres a LOT of other things that need addressing as well I've found.
But on a more related note, as the opinion is pretty much unanimous here is what I have decided to to for TK; I will finish up the current loose ends then release a update and call the mod the definitive SoC completion mod. There doesn't seem much point in spending all that time stitching levels in to SoC when LA has already done that. Instead I will simply use LA to complete the TK project. Expect LA to look, feel, and play entirely differently by the time I'm done with it ;)
Praise the sun, and then praise the sun!!!
Hi,
I also like SOC as it is too. I've tried some other mods and although they are very well made, they are very different from the original game almost unrecognisable, and I couldn't get into them. Your mod however is really cool as it improves massively on the original game without spoiling it. I was wondering if you could merge the maps from STALKER Clear Sky, as this uses most of the maps in SOC anyway, just with slight tweaks to the map entrance markers and other slight differences. Don't know if it would be possible to do this, but it would be pretty cool??
I have a lot of maps for SoC I could put in, the levels in CS are just updated versions of maps that were supposed to be in SoC so theres no issues there. Right now I will finish up the loose ends for the current TK build and release it as a update. I'll then set to work on making a LA mod (which will take MUCH less time than the TK SoC project to complete - talking weeks here not years) then if there is sufficient interest (and only if) I will set to work on adding new levels with AI into TK.