First Impressions

[RedRaven]

Yeah, me too but it took my frame rate down to an average of 12fps so dropped it for smoother game, need to upgrade my CPU when I can to deal with it all.

[JRD]

I know what you mean...
But after seeing shadows like in Far Cry 2 or Assassins Creed I just can`t be without good shadows... they add a lot to a game.
I spent a whole afternoon testing the right settings on my laptop to have FC2 with decent shadows and frame rate... I get poor textures, but great light and shadow effects (and fire as well)

[Art Blade]

one tip, guys: find out and use the native resolution of your monitor.

For example, my widescreen 26'' monitor uses 1920*1200 native.

Why is this important?

Because if you change it to anything different, the graphics will undergo an extra bit of processing. Could involve either the monitor itself, the vid card, or both. It will result in different unwanted changes of the game experience: It may cause the picture you see to be less crisp, perhaps slightly blurry. It may cause stutter. Extra power use. Heating. All kinds of effects you don't really want.

The most intense effects on your vid card are indeed shadows. Also HDR, then bloom effects, of course dynamic lights. Those are processor intensive. The depth of the area you see is also affecting your vid card's performance. Remember ArmA2? Lowest settings would almost wrap you up in mist... Highest settings would allow you to see details on the horizon.

Alright, hope it helps :)

[RedRaven]

Cheers Art, my monitor default and recommended resolution is 1400x900 with 60 Hz, and in my naivety I had set the game to play at 1280x800 (still a ratio of 8:5 or 16:10), thinking it would be less w@&k for my CPU & GPU. It was ok, but after resetting it to its larger default my average fps is a little higher. :-X


As for the game itself, I have now near enough done as much as possible in the first map, Zaton, and now am ready to relocate to Jupiter which is sure to hold a host of new surprises and horrors for me to deal with ;D .

[Art Blade]

 ;D nice, keep it up man  :-X :)

[RedRaven]

Just been reading about the actual incident at Chernobyl and it's effects and learned something new.
The large ferris wheel in Pripyat was never used. The wheel, and the fair ground it was part of was due to open on 1st May 1986. Just 5 days after the Chernobyl disaster. Sad really.  :(

[Art Blade]

My first impression: The big metal box which contains a lighter (zippo style), two patches (like those pilots or astronauts stick to their jackets), two big maps, a bandana, and the game disk, looks nice. 45€  :) About to install now  ;D

[Art Blade]

Installed. I nearly got a cardiac arrest when the game wouldn't start but instead present me with an error, caused by SecuRom, telling me I was trying to start the game with an image of the original CD (which was of course nonsense). After clicking the desktop icon, it worked as I had hoped. Unfortunately, there are no language options, but I thought heck, it's a Russian game anyway, might as well play the German version.  :) Looks somehow familiar, the sounds are familiar, the inventory is quite familiar... now I'm a Stalker again  ;D


Edit: car-i-dac is not the same as car-di-ac lol, typo.

[Art Blade]

My first impression

Alright, I feel like Cast Away. I'm alien in an alien world. No idea where I am, I walk around and meet two stalkers. They tell me to holster my weapon, so I hit some keys and the weapon disappears. Now I am able to talk to them. I find myself asking the same questions, "where are those helos" and "have you got a job for me," no matter whom I meet. I walk down a valley on whose ground there is some kind of rotten water left over, no swamp though, and I think it was a little corroding. I guess it's a good idea to whip out my rifle, but I haven't got a rifle any more. Probably threw it away when trying to holster it, so time for a first reload. I walk back to where I had been before the reload.

There is a symbol on my monitor now showing something that looks like my body armour, and it's lit green. Then there is something else glowing, probably meaning I got exposed to radiation. I hear gunshots up the hill where I am headed, and see dogs. They see me, and we have a little dance. I do it torrero style, letting them run at me while I turn and they run past me. Then I try to shoot them in the back, or when they run at me, well, basically I shoot at them from every possible angle with my pistol. Takes a lot of shots to kill those things, but I manage. On top of the hill, four dead stalkers, so I loot them. Nothing particularly useful, some weapons, some food, some ammo. A little further up is a road, I decide to follow it. I killed three I don't know what, like big hairy pigs of sorts, with my "AK47-light" sort of assault toy rifle.

I find a compound, some kind of factory, the rooms are not interesting, so I walk around outside. I see a group of stalkers, have a chat with them, "do you know where the helos are and have you got a job for me." I see some bridge with huge pipes on top and decide to walk along there when I get a radio message with a friendly voice telling me "you are about to die." (basically.) Well, that bad weather forecast suggested I sought out some hiding place if I didn't want to get toasted. Alright, back to the stupid factory, into the room I had already seen when deciding it was boring there. I can't run, have to find out (read the manual, perhaps, or the keyboard layout/setting). I nearly jump when I see some dark figure next to me, wearing a gas mask, but he's not appearing to be after my life, and all of a sudden there are more of them popping up in that small room. Aha, the fellows I met outside needed to seek shelter, too, but they can teleport here. Or the game engine is funny. Probably the latter one. :) The emission is over, I guess it's a good idea to chat with the people I've just met: "Do you know where the helos are and, by the way, do you have a job for me?"

Back on the bridge, it looks like ripples on water, only in the air, got to be anomalies. I throw screws at them, and they pop like corn and buzz away glowing. Nice. I try to find a way through those unfriendly air bubbles and after one third of the way I can't find a gap. Well, hot-headed I dive into the anomalies, get whirled around, everything turns red, and I fight myself through until the bubble spits me out, half chewed-up. I do that a couple of times until I reach the other end of the bridge, wondering what wonders will await me there. Another compound, different looks though, and I trudge on. Until I hear "Hey, stalker, this is no place for you to be, go away as long as you're able to." Unimpressed, I walk around innocently but the guy loses his temper and starts shooting. I kill him, but he has got some friends with "revenge" written across their foreheads. So I dwadle along the wall, outside, and find a sewer entrance. A maze, and I am stuck in a tube now, waiting for my followers so I can preach some lead to them.

[deadman1]

Just ordered my copy of the game so my first impressions will come by the end of next week hopefully  :)

Edit: The game arrived today and it´s the special edition which contains some art cards, a zone map and a soundtrack CD :-X

[PZ]

Looking forward to your screen captures, Art!  :-X

[Art Blade]

 :) cool, deadman, now we have a whole bunch of us playing that game :)

Alright, PZ  :)

continued first impressions

As I sit in the tube, in the sewer, trapped, I realise it has been an idea that might deserve a second thought. Some blokes storm the sewer, with monstruous armour, throw hand grenades at me and use automatic rifles. I reply to that chitchat with a jammed weapon. So weapons jam here, too. It went "poing-click" rather than "ratatatatat" which really didn't impress the attackers. So I died the first time. With my spirit floating around my dead body, I see through its eyes how the ba$t@rd who killed me now dared to loot me. That can't go unpunished and I opt for a reincarnation: Reload.

This time no more Mr Niceguy. I sneak into the compound, now able to use my PDA I know it's somewhere NE of the third crash site I am supposed to examine. Well. I sneak past the guard who, in my last life, had warned me. I decide not to warn him. I find some concrete columns that look promising because one of them has metal bars to climb on it, so I climb up and enter a pipe. The pipe ascends, another metal ladder, and I am closer to the building. Now someone shouts something unintelligible and the music starts. Hey, they play my tune! I can see through a big gap in the pipe what is outside, and some guys run around. I shoot the first one. After probably 15 minutes I can't find more people to shoot, I have used up my first aid packs and bandages, and I exit the pipe through the gap, prone. There are guys around the corner and behind me, but I have developed unearthly skills and kill them all. The last three with my pistol, in their faces, and while I think of RedRaven I shout "that's for a faceful of buckshot, you bastards." Funny armour they have, leaving their faces unprotected... I wipe "revenge" off of my forehead and start looting the bodies. I can't believe I killed so many, I reckon it were 10 mercs (they actually were mercs, it read so on their inventory). Now I am overencumbered, 63kg is a little heavy for my fragile bones. I start sorting out not-so-good weapons and drop them until I have around 60kg which allows me to walk again. My finest finds is a pistol with a suppressor, which I can dismount, and something like a professional rifle, with a scope mounted on top. I slap the suppressor on it and think it was worth the efforts :)

I try to find crash site #3 and it gets dark, plus it rains. This must be RedRaven's territory. And indeed, I find the location with two fire balls that circle a crater in opposite directions, and I remember how Red thought something evil might be down there. So I walk down there. Nothing but flames that shoot out of the grounds, and those two fire balls that hit me once. I meet some stalkers close to that spot, and I try to be a good conversationalist: "Do you know something about those helos? Can I get a job?"

Pitch black night, rain, and hungry, I chomp some bread, gulp down some tinned corned beef and down a dry but greasy sausage, which leaves a taste in my mouth as if something had died in there, so I wash it down with two bottles of vodka. I go away from the fireplace and the stalkers. I don't want to be responsible for some people killed in a gaseous accident involving burnt-to-the-bones bodies, and the risk of a blood test the staff of an entire police department could party on simply is too high. I start seeing things, there is a huge boat in the middle of the night, lit by lightning. The safe haven... I cross the dark plain, hoping not to bump into some creatures as my body armour is worn down so badly the threads are dangling from it like a tinsel christmas decoration. It is almost midnight, and on the boat no one wants to talk to me. They are asleep, even as they sit.

The fire balls

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[Art Blade]

Alright, no one talks to me because it isn't the safe haven. It's just another boat... good if one is able to read one's PDA. Walked over there, not too far, and was presented with Stalker's version of Mike's bar:

Mikhail's Bar

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On that boat, everything I need (so far) is present. A medic who sells drugs, a mechanic who repairs and upgrades weapons and armour, a bar keeper who sells food and beverages, some information broker who also sells weapons and other gear, and more stalkers.

The loot I brought with me from the revenge trip also contained two PDAs and a laptop, total 4,000 credits, and a lot of weapons. I had like 18,000 after selling my stuff and spent most of it on repairs and a few upgrades. Now I'll take a nap :)

[PZ]

Cool - kind of reminds me of a merge between Moriarity's in FO3 and Mike's in FC2

[RedRaven]

Good write up Art.
There IS something evil in the middle of the two fireballs at the circus anomoly, but it dies easily :-X .
Good to see you got a decent rifle too, it is one of the few rifles you can mount a silencer, scope and grenade launcher on, that is providing you can find them! (can direct you to a grenade launcher if you like?).

Also make sure you always have a couple bottles of vodka spare everytime you get Cardan to fix your gear, 1 bottle usually reduces cost a little, 2 bottles reduces it more, but a third just puts him to sleep!I always keep 2 - 4 bottles in locker on the ice breaker (saves carrying them everywhere).

[Art Blade]

Hey Red :) Probably a good idea to post some hints in an appropriate topic where to find stashes so a beginner like myself can look up places for some basic gear to loot.

By the way, I sold that rifle because if it is anything like it used to be in CS then it's crap. I found those silverish AKsomething rifles though, which were just as customisable but much more reliable. By the way, any chance we could get a weapon guide somehow?

The vodka greases the mechanic, I noticed, he even talks more if you want, but I didn't realise his prices went down. But he can only w@&k on certain parts if he has had one or two bottles to calm his hands lol -- good tip about stashing bottles for him on the ship  :-X

[RedRaven]

Will get back into taking screen shots and making notes on Stashes and put them up in the "Stashes, Tips and Secrets" thread. (kinda got absorbed into the actual playing of the game and completing my missions, forgetting to keep track of a lot of things).

Will also w@&k on some form of comprehensive weapon, armour and helmet guide with relevant stats and upgrade potentials / bonuses. Though that may take a while, not seen one anywhere else on the net even from those who got the earlier release from Oct '09).

One thing I have been doing is keeping a record of all the survival tips shown as the game is loading. There is a total of 100 and so far have collected 88 of them, my aim being to post a complete list when I have them all.
So if anyone playing CoP can help me complete it I need the following 12 tips -

7, 10, 15, 32, 41, 63, 66, 69, 73, 76, 82, 88, 91

Have been taking a screen shot everytime they come up, re-naming them to the corresponding number and marking them off the list. If you happen to catch any of those last 12 then either write down or screen capture the info and send it me through private message. Cheers :-X .

[Art Blade]

what might be really useful: Where are those tool boxes you need for the mechanics so he can upgrade your gear.

Edit: (looked it up)

I found one, some fine-tuning tools, west of those two circling fire balls site. On my PDA there it is the white circle marking areas of interests. Unfortunately I don't have the English version so my location names might differ, but those landmarks are the same, anyway. Well, you enter that small compound, go to the end of the path, go inside the building and leave it on the opposite side of the path that led you in, and there are some crates. On one of them you'll find the tool box.

There were mercs, you could give them food (I believe it were tin cans, bread and sausages, 9x each) so they let you in and find the box, or you kill them (what I did  ;D)

[Art Blade]

Well, now I'm quite a bit into the game (still a beginner, though) and it's got me hooked  :-X

Somehow I manage to survive without needing to resort to savegames. Died a second time due to stupidity... I was so keen on getting an artefact I didn't realise my health got eaten away by the claw anomaly.  ;D

They even show humor (if you want). I had to investigate a strange light on a shipwreck, it was an artefact. Once I had it, some stalker popped up out of nowhere and tells me how he needed that very artefact because it was the only thing that could help his dying friend. You can chose what to say: Give it away altruistically, tell him you got it but won't give it away, lie to him ("haven't got it"). My first reaction was to tell him I've got it but won't give it away. So that bloke told me I'd regret it, and I get attacked by a couple of bandits, whom I killed. Back on the ship I cashed in 3,000 credits reward. Then I decided to reload and give it away. The guy thanks me, the other bandits show up but leave me alone. I follow that guy with "my" artefact and watch him sell it to my employer. Nice. I'm told I was a bloody idiot. (hehehe) So my instincts w@&k well in that rotten world  :)

I've been upgrading my stuff (last upgrade session costed me 22k) as far as I could, even had a special weapon "scout" ordered to find a sniper rifle for me, and indeed I now have got a decent rifle (20k) but no ammo (yet).

Fun game :)

[RedRaven]

even had a special weapon "scout" ordered to find a sniper rifle for me, and indeed I now have got a decent rifle (20k) but no ammo (yet).

Take it you mean Nimble, upstairs in the ship?. One tip for ordering from him - Save your game before placing the order, order item of choice, sleep downstairs for 24 hours then go see what he has for you, if you don't like or want it just re-load.

So far there is 1 pistol, 3 close assault weapons, 2 assault rifles, 2 sniper rifles, 1 suit of armour with helmet and 1 exoskeleton suit. All items are a little different to the regular version got through traders or looting, differences range from non-standard calibre rounds, improved stats such as handling, fire rate & accuracy, some have larger ammo clip capacity. Though as of yet I have never been offered more than half of what i payed for any of them by anyone.

[Art Blade]

Yeah, Nimble. Well, the sniper rifle was just testing what he could do, didn't know there were different models. I played around with two savegames, sold everything, and got two times (don't ask why I did it two times) a combat suit. Not bad, but I never used it, I reverted to the quicksave, did some more exploring to find more valuable artefacts, and right now I've received my first exo-skeleton for 60k. Even without upgrades, it allows for 80kg cargo load and exceeds the combat suit in almost everything. I used to use those in CS, too :)

[Art Blade]

I'm really enjoying the game now. Cool thing, you can solve riddles without having to pay for hints, all the time. I had to find a way to organise some toxic gas and I accidently found the spot, found two more spots (two keys needed to open a box with the gas canister inside). I've now achieved some respect, and an entry in my stats (detective, it's called here).

And it's not always raining  ;D

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[Art Blade]

So far there is 1 pistol, 3 close assault weapons, 2 assault rifles, 2 sniper rifles, 1 suit of armour with helmet and 1 exoskeleton suit.

This game is interesting because you have really a lot of weapons you can loot or buy, but that Nimble guy adds even more. On top, all weapons are excessively customisable  ;D

I've received three assault rifles so far: Storm, FT-200M, GP37. And two close quarters combat weapons (shotguns): Eliminator (looks cool, somehow reminds me of the MGL of FC2) and Karbonator (which is just some kind of SPAS).

Maybe we can really put up a weapon guide (without listing all those common modification options) and experiences with those weapons... (which weapon is good for which kinds of targets)

Ahhh, choices... :)

Oh, by the way, the pistol you get is not as good as the black kite (Desert Eagle) in comparison.

[Art Blade]

Crazy. "the pistol" I meant was "Alpine SIP-t M200" unique weapon. Now I've got a "Steppe Eagle" which is a modified black kite... lol  ;D And another pistol called "march" which is a modified UDP.

There are loads of individual weapons that guy can get for us, it seems  :)

[Art Blade]

Time for a continuation of my first impression

I spent a couple of hours now in the game, started Thursday evening and then playing from Friday evening to Sunday night (well, I did sleep some, hehe) and Monday afternoon until night. So far, I have completed more than 50 missions, killed around 130 people and about 100 mutants. I survived around 15 emissions and died during one of them. (Alright, I had misread the PDA and thought I was safe inside a building inside the yellow marker, but the marker disappears if you have reached the location -- I was exactly on top of it, one floor above that shelter.) I died once trying to fetch an artefact, ignoring the heat anomalies eating away at my armour. And I got killed early in the game when I tried to hide in a dead end sewer, within a massive merc camp... they got me with grenades, and I had a jammed weapon... they even looted me when I was dead. ;D But ever since... I haven't died any more  :-*

I might add, I didn't have to resort to savegames to avoid death, I mainly use savegames to actually save my game progress, you know, just in case. I reload them sometimes when I experiment with upgrading armour and weapons: Too expensive and irrevocable an error to risk. Also, I use savegames when I play around with different dialogue options, when I want to find out what would have happened if I had chosen otherwise.

My main motivation to advance some sort of quickly is to get to Pripyat, the third and last map, where the upgrade tools are the mechanics need to be able to offer tier3 weapon and armour upgrades. I want to be able to run in my exoskeleton, so I need those tools. Without tier3 modification, I can only walk. Of course, I also want to see how much cooler those weapons and armours I have will be when upgraded to the max  :)

But I can't just walk to some guide and say, "hey, take me to Pripyat." Same goes for Jupiter (second map), from Zaton I can't just go there. So I start in map one, advance to map two, and finally get to map three (I'm close to getting there now). Why can't I just go there? Because there are no doors nor a taxi nor an airport... I need a specific guide. The guide will only be able to lead me to another map if I have incredible amounts of money. Although, when you start the game, a trip to Jupiter is essentially possible, for 3,000 RU a oneway trip, but for you those 3,000 RU are a fortune. You simply can't afford it  :) So I tried to earn some good money. Which requires equipment. And that costs money... so I focus on looting my brains out whenever I see dead bodies or after I killed someone. Usually people aren't hostile, until you make them turn hostile, for example by "accidently" killing a few off a group... And of course that incident when I entered a guarded base where I was not exactly liked the moment I entered. My first death. My first blood-thirsty yet cold-blooded revenge. My first ten kills. HEHE.

The next thing is, I needed to carry the loot to Owl or Beard on the ship, or I tried to sell my stuff to whomever I met (most people seem to have a fair bit of barter money). At the beginning, I couldn't carry everything I found due to weight limitations. Which meant pick what I deemed worthy and leave the rest behind. And then I had to walk (!) back to the ship. Which usually involves a couple of incidents, like mad pigs, boars, dogs and whatnot to be all too happy to see me, they tried to nibble, hug and suck the living daylight out of me. Very much to the dislike of my personal body armour... More often than not, I spent my recently earned money on repairs. Weapons and armour repairs cost a lot... So I learned from that and decided to be a lot more careful, keeping my gear intact as best as I could. Which also means, no senseless shooting of whatever moves (or doesn't) because weapons degrade fast while you use them. Anomalies eat your armour. Bullets eat your armour. Heat eats your armour. Acid eats your armour. In fact, almost everything eats your armour. And the more severe the damage, the more expensive the repairs...

I reckon by now you've got the picture why it isn't just a walk in the park to make money and stay alive. Oh yes, there are artefacts, I heard they are worth lots of money, and they don't weigh much. Good idea to go collect artefacts. But you need a detector. You see, there are four detectors in the game. You start with the cheapest possible, which cannot detect all artefacts there are. Even if you are standing on top of them, you can't see them hence can't collect them, unless you get a better detector. And almost always, artefacts are surrounded by more or less dangerous but still dangerous anomalies, and yes, they eat away at your armour. And your health. So collecting artefacts might lead to sudden death... your own death, that is. By the way, I've watched bandits with a detector inside an anomaly field, fishing for artefacts... you're not the only one out there who knows they are valuable.

Alright, once I got some money, I didn't want to take an ill-fated chance with a guide to a new map whose unknown surprises might kill me on arrival if I wasn't properly equipped. So I spent my money on better gear. Prolonging my departure to Jupiter. Along the path, I happened upon something valuable to the guide, who then told me a trip would cost only 1,000 RU from now on. Tempting... But there were side missions and all, and they are all fun. Not a single mission I didn't like :)

You can imagine it is both a thrill to stand your man in the nasty world there, to gain money, gear and fame, but it is also seeming to slow you down on your intentions to get away from the kindergarten map to the high school part of STALKER world. That's where I'm now, and I have a feeling it's about time to graduate... Pripyat, I'm coming  ;D