Kyle_K_ski

One of the things that I noticed in a number of the images on your portfolio site is that you featured modular work that was so expertly done, one would have a hard time discerning that the entirety of the structure wasn't custom-made, meaning, that every cm. of it was original, and not copied/pasted and linked together. To pull something like that off already impressed me, but to now read that you're also breaking modularity into textures takes it to a whole new level. That you'll be able to stack upwards and stamp side-by-side building modules is very impressive because there's no doubt that it'll make your operations more efficient on a multitude of different levels, while also boosting in-game performance. What I like about the structure that you've presented here is that it truly stands out from other structures we've already seen on other islands, and it looks like the level of geometry is something that the ArmA II engine can handle nicely, and the spots for the AI are numerous, so - that image is packed with a ton of things that I like seeing! GREAT work Marc! :bounce3:

Yup, I'm back AGAIN, and boy do I NOT want to be here over something that seems "so trivial," but it is driving me up a wall nonetheless, and any detailed help would be greatly appreciated. As I shut my system down last night, Windows Update informed me that it was going to install new updates as it shutdown. Now, this morning, whenever I try to right-click and "save image as" an image from the internet, the GUI-window first displays categories of images on my hard drive, primarily organized by that image's/directory's file size (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Unspecified, etc., etc."). This now means that I have to do a TON of very annoying scrolling just to specify in which folder I want to save the image to. This auto-categorizing applies to EVERY browser I've tried, Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer 64-bit, so I'm assuming that this new auto-sorting-by-size issue is due solely to the operating system's settings. Changes that I make to how I sort/categorize/arrange my data has ZERO effect on what is displayed in the "save image as" GUI. I want it set back to what I had last night, before the update was applied - which was that whenever I saved an image, the GUI window would only display the directories in an alphabetized list. Here's a link to an image I made showing exactly what I see: http://www.mediafire.com/view/?x7p6m5lambhia39 Any advice on this will be warmly welcomed. And thank you, by the way, to Xeno on the SSD drives list. I received my new RAM, and ArmA 2 is working MUCH more smoothly now (till several aircraft appear, and then the framerates drop significantly). I've yet to check the BIOS to see what speed the RAM is running at. My old RAM was set to 1600, and I intend to set my new sticks to the same setting if they're not there already.

Thanks for posting the earlier "underwater" endeavor. Pretty neat to see!

ANOTHER keeper. What a fitting way to honor those who contributed to Lingor, especially, of course, IceBreakr, one of the most generous and hard-working community members the ArmA 2 community has. Thank you for another terrific base and template.

It's been far too looooong a time for me, since I last checked out this thread, but I loved what I saw in the last two screenshots. The different screens for the diving device were very well done, with the "Low battery" image being brilliant. It's clear that you're trying to push this as hard as you can. Thank you for that, and I can't wait till it's released.

Xeno wrote: Yeah, I picked up on this as I read through one customer's comment after another. I'm happy that you're backing up my choice. I've learned some important lessons doing this, that's for sure. Thank you again for your patient and detailed advice. And Vilas, no need to explain the level of English grammatical skill that you have - I admire your capabilities, for your second-language English skills are FAR better than my second-language Polish skills. The only Polish I ever learned was from hearing my Grandpa and other relatives swearing in it! :) It's too bad that my family didn't train me to use it in a broader way. A couple of years before my Grandpa died I was the first to discover that not only could he fluently speak English and Polish, but also Russian and German too! Not bad for a man who only had a third grade education (but he was a master farmer and builder, which is all one really needs to survive in life, anything else goes to primarily serve the elite who ensnare the majority of the resulting profits, and use it to rule the world).

In spite of being exhausted to the bone last night after all of the turkey roasting (and eating!), I dropped a few of your units into the Editor, and...oh my! SPLENDID work! WOW! The units that I spawned all had the same M4, but oh, I'm in love with it! I kissed my monitor several times last night, and my prints from my lips are still on the screen! I am SO impressed by the realistic range of aiming options that you gave it: THREE! If this is the level of devotion that you have towards simulating reality, then I cannot wait to see what else you have in store for us with the rest of the assault weapons that you're planning on making. The work is so good, that I would like you to cook up for me a M67 fragmentation grenade that has iron, holo, and magnification sights attached to it! THANK YOU again for your hard work. Part of the brilliance is how thoughtful it was for the player's concerns. Topnotch stuff. Solid.

I'm always excited to see new factions being created for ArmA. These look really superb. In regards to designing your island, please, if it's at all possible, try to maximize the use of enterable structures. There are some fairly decent AI scripts available now that do a pretty good job of getting the AI to garrison buildings (such as zorilya's Garrison script, and then the AI modules from Group Link 4). While the completely solid and completely unenterable buildings look nice, they really reduce the range of tactical options, whereas the enterable buildings extend them. If one's tired of seeing the same enterable buildings, perhaps they could be retextured in brighter colors, both inside and outside of the structures? In any case, I'm fired up after seeing this project. Thank you for the previews!

Alright, my choice has been made... 16GB' worth of G.SKILL Ripsaw RAM http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231429 I triple-checked on ASRock's listings. My eyes have been crossing like crazy with checking this stuff out. If a person's off by even 1 character, one's going to be getting a different product (and one most likely not listed as being "verified"). I'm going to wait on getting a SSD. From the articles that I read, the 4th generation is just around the corner. They'll be cheaper, and even more importantly, have a longer lifespan (this worries me a bit in regards to what's currently available).

Meatball, I've combed through ALL of the M4's listed in LEA (and there are a TON of them), and not a single one of them showed up displaying "mars..." at the start of their classnames. I was aware of what to look for, but I'm not finding it. Later tonight, once the kids are in bed, I'll try scrolling through and clicking on every single M4 (not fun) again, and hopefully a couple of classnames listing will show up in LEA's GUI as "mar..." And yes, I twice ran LEA to find your M4's - it found the PBO and imported them, it's now a frustrating hunt to find those two M4s through LEA's overloaded-with-other-M4s GUI. I'm very happy to hear that you plan on updating this tremendous release. I urge you to strongly consider supplying icons for the M4s that distinguish them from the enormous range of others. A few weapon packs did this nicely, the Australian and Austrian packs, for example. Scrolling through LEA's huge offerings, one can instantly recognize those weapons from those particular packs from all of the others. You do splendid work, and LEA is used by a ton of people for creating their complex loadouts (especially when ACE 2 is being used), with your devotion to perfection, I certainly wouldn't hesitate to ensure that LEA users note your work so that they can more easily use it. Thank you again for all of your hard work. And please...don't let a couple of misguided comments want to make you stop working on this, or any other endeavor. I've participated in a lot of modding efforts over the years, and one thing I learned from each of them is that there will always be people who won't be satisfied. Other than a gentle reminder to them of their proper place in the enterprise (which is almost always nothing since they are very rarely contributors in any sense of the word), ignore them. Keep modding for your own sense of self-satisfaction, otherwise, there's no point in doing it. For myself, I know that I'm extremely grateful for your generosity of then sharing your hard work with others for free. I think it's safe for me to say that many of us deeply appreciate your efforts, stay focused on that and don't let one or two individuals keep you from your passion.

Hah! I love it! Ahh, I hate to break it to you, but that's where you're wrong my friend. Y'see, just like Capt. Kirk's rigging of the Kobayashi Maru exercise, I'm going to do a bit of data dabbling, and I'm going to code the rounds to be...chubby. Let's see those fat boys get through those cracks now! ;) Having had Thanksgiving here at my house, my nephew just left , and he was, to say the least, VERY impressed by your portfolio, and what you're generating here. He's a smart kid, but he thinks that Call of Duty's "the bomb," so I'm still working on him about that. ;) He challenged me to play it again, but I told him that before I can do that someone's going to have to buy me a ticket for its rails. Oh yeah, that one stung him a bit. Great work again Marc!

Hey vilas! It's been a while since I last saw one of your posts. Thanks for your input. I'm a little confused by this portion of what you wrote me: I've had my old XP system badly infected twice. The first time, I don't know how it happened. The second time was from my wife browsing a site featuring/selling Disney products (I kid you not). That was the first time that I learned that virus/worms can inbed themselves into links that people click on. Are there certain sites that are "high traffic" for virus placement, and if so, what types of sites are they?

Doing so now. Boy, am I happy that I posted here to get your reply BEFORE I purchased the RAM. Whew! What are the advantages of going with x4 4GB in RAM, versus having x2 8GB in RAM? Does the RAM run cooler with 4 sticks versus 2? Which would be more energy efficient? Less stressful on the CPU? Etc., ect. ...? ---------- Post added at 15:45 ---------- Previous post was at 15:22 ---------- Looking through the 8GB RAM. Most are out of my price range. I found this x2 16GB one though http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231489&Tpk=16GB%20%282%20x%208GB%29%20240-Pin%20DDR3%20SDRAM%20DDR3%201600%20%28PC3%201 , with a lifetime guarantee, but it's not on ASRock's official compatibility list. And I found this x2 4GB (I'd buy two sets of these for 16GB total) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314, but it too is not on ASRock's compatibility list. Does that mean that they "for sure" won't work at all, or that they WILL have issues, or...? I've checked into almost 3 dozens' worth of the "officially checked" RAM that ASRock lists on their site, and most of the time people are still having issues with that RAM (and usually at a higher cost to the RAM that I'm finding when I'm just doing a RAM search using the specs), so how religiously should one follow that list's recommendations? This is so frustrating...

My wife just informed me that we're quickly running out of time on our Norton subscriptions. Buying new anti-virus and anti-malware programs is going to take a sizable bite out of my potential pool to upgrade my computer's hardware. I've heard of some free anti-virus/anti-malware programs, but to say that I'm more than a little nervous about using these is an understatement. Do any of you have experience with these, and if so, are there programs out there that you would swear by, and, of course swear against? I'd like a list of both suggestions, "You MUST use this...!" and "NEVER use that...!" Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I had a small amount of time between getting the holiday meal preparations to load up LEA, and try to edit some of my units' loadouts. The problem? I can't tell what your M4s look like from all of the other ones? Could you clue me in as to what to look for? "Yes," I could click on a suspect M4's GUI icon to reveal its class name (anything with "mar" would be yours), BUT that would still take an enormous amount of time of hunting and pecking to find the ones I want. Would your M4s show up with special cast shadows, colored marker, etc., etc.? If there are any visual indicators to make your M4s standout in LEA, please let me know. Now, back to cooking food and not missions! :(

Ugh! I'm SO sorry to hear that! Well then, it's probably safe to make a connection then between the black boxes I'm seeing when shooting at the backside of the apartment complexes on Lingor, and the way those weapons were built. It's not raining at any point in the mission that I'm testing on. What a strange bug!

What AWESOME timing - an enormous release on Thanksgiving! But ooooh noooooooooooooooo (as Gumby would say)! I'm having family over for dinner! :eek: Which means (*gasp*)... I won't be able to try these out till late tonight! :crazy_o: And even then, I'll be exhausted to the bone! :k: Here I thought you were being a generous saint, but now...now I'm forced to wonder if you're some kind of...evil...GENIUS! :) Thank you again! Even if I'm on the verge of snoring, I'm firing up that Editor!

Been trying ACE for a couple of weeks now. LOVE it. THANK YOU! :D I've used the latest build of LEA to customize my squad's loadouts. I've noticed that the HK416 CCO, and the M4A1 Micro produce muzzleflashes that have a hard-edged black box that surrounds them, as if the transperencies are failing. This isn't always visible, however. If I'm aiming at the backside of the multistory apartment buildings ported over from Operation Flashpoint, they appear, and it doesn't matter how far away I am at the time that I squeeze the trigger, the black box appears. If I shoot at the said structure from any other sides, no black box. These buildings are situated on Lingor. Is this a known issue with those buildings, with Lingor, with the weapons, or...?

First, let me state again how EXTREMELY grateful I am for all of the generous help I'm receiving here. I'm pretty sure that I'm near the "ultimate decision point" in regards to what I'm going to purchase in regards to upgrading my system. Just in case it's needed, here are the specs to the motherboard I have installed: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157198 Money's tight for my family right now, so I can't treat myself with as big an annual reward as I used to. That said, here's what I'm looking at... OCZ Vertex 4 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227791 I'm a bit nervous at the number of the negative reviews found at Newegg, but Amazon.com has fewer negatives listed (that said, Amazon's been known "fluff" products to be more positive than they really are, so...). I compared the OCZ Vertex 4 to this comparable Samsung one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147188 which tends to have a better rating in terms of not failing, BUT there are also far fewer ratings given to it than those written for the OCZ. Right now, especially with its 5 year warranty, I'm leaning quite heavily on purchasing the OCZ Vertex 4. If I do go this route, is there a (hopefully free) data migration program that you would advise using? I've looked into some of them, but honestly, it's a bit bewildering which one would be better than another. And in regards to RAM, I'm looking at getting the very nicely priced G.SKILL Ares Series http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231560&cm_mmc=BlkFri2012-_-147-_-N82E16820231560-_-na&nm_mc=BlkFri2012 . It's gotten near-flawless reviews. What I like about it, is that if I purchase the set of x2 8GB sticks, that'll leave my other slots open for further expansion. I intend on removing my old RAM altogether, and just using the new RAM. My only concern in regards to it are some of its details, which don't seem to exactly match my motherboard's specifications. For example, the Memory Standards for my ASRock 870 are: DDR3 1800(OC)/1600(OC)/1333/1066/800 but the G.SKILL RAM is stated to be DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) I've already got my motherboard set to OC the RAM I do have to 1600, and the manufacturer's documentation states that it can handle up to 1800, so what's likely to happen if the G.SKILL RAM is beyond that, at 1866? Is it a serious issue if in my BIOS settings I set it to 1600, or 1800? Also, what's the significance of the (PC3 14900) figure? Is this compatible with my motherboard, or...? If there's anything else that you think would be useful for me to know, please don't hesitate to inform me. Again, thank you for your generous patience in educating me! :)

Xeno436 wrote: Sounds like I should skip the graphics card for now, and that my best investment is in simply more RAM. You made it sound like it would be ideal for ALL of the RAM to be of the same quantity - is there a reason for that? What are the downsides if I purchase 8GB in RAM (x2 sticks of 4GB) and add that to the x2 sticks of 2GB RAM (for a total of 12GB) versus adding x2 more sticks of 2GB (for a total of 8GB)? Do my x2 sticks of 2GB reduce the effectiveness of the x2 sticks of 4GB, or...? Thanks again for your patience and advice! :)

Broadsword wrote: I hope that you get the opportunity to tour Chernobyl before Fukushima takes us all out. I'm not joking about that either. Our never-honest mainstream media is not covering what's really happening over there (which is VERY terrifying), and over us (likewise, very terrifying). A site that I go to at least every other day to try and stay atop of what's happening there is Fukushima Diary ( http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/11/column-what-is-going-to-happen-for-the-next-stage-of-fukushima-accident/ ). My heart goes out to the Japanese people, and to all of the biosphere's being irreversibly poisoned for many thousands of years. I also consult YouTube postings from my Canadian friends, who have setup a sophisticated network of monitoring the radiation levels that they're receiving. I pay particular attention to what's being metered in Ottawa, as it's at the same longitude as where I live in Michigan (only more eastward, of course). The radiation spikes after rainfalls are mind-numbingly scary - I don't let my children outside in the rain anymore. They're too young to understand right now, but someday... well, how does one go about explaining something so tragic? :( Marc, I've mentioned a few times in the past, in our PMs, about including material dealing with Fukushima, even if it's only in an indirect way. To me, it seems natural to make a connection between the tragedies of Chernobyl and Fukushima. I mentioned that I have a creature design in my head entitled a "Fukushima Flyer," but even if an avian mutant isn't a tie-in, why not have some kind of hard to find portal, perhaps right at the site of another Monolith, and it gives access to a small portion of territory related to Fukushima? None of it even has to be above-ground. It could all be underground - the lower levels of one of the failed nuclear sites in Japan. Japanese writing could be on the walls, on the radiation warning barriers, and the like. If an above-ground portion could be crafted, to me it would be the most chilling to set it at an abandoned Japanese farm, one that has a lonely view of the Fukushima facilities way in the distance. If moveable and makeshift barricades could be randomly generated inside of structures (other items that would do are tipped-over desks, curios, china cabinets, etc.), if they're used, there should be a realistic penalty for moving them. The player/AI wouldn't be holding their weapon ready, and there would be a span of time for the mover to finish sliding the object into place. During this time, the mover would be VERY vulnerable to attacks of any nature. Also, perhaps doors could be quickly barricaded with boards, nails and hammers (if this was tied into ACE's system that would be great). One visage from The Road that I would love to see featured on the island, are the waterfalls that dump ash-mud. That would be sight to see, wouldn't it? For that matter, why not include a couple of normal waterfalls elsewhere in the Zone? Perhaps Mondkalb, the author of the stunning MBG Nam map ( http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=12402&highlight=VIETNAM ), would cue us in as to how the Waterfall module was designed for the said map? I also tried out a waterfall mod for one of the dam's on Chernarus, and to see and hear its powerful roaring waters, it was enough to raise the hair on my forearms. In the big picture of building this island, I certainly hope that it's possible to include elaborate underground facilities. From what I've read on it in the past, one has to provide a big hole before building anything underground, but the AI tend to perform pretty horribly. Perhaps the Namalsk team has ironed out some additional kinks since I last explored an underground region? One can hope! :)

Xeno - thank you for your detailed help. A few more questions, if you don't mind. I just looked into my power demand on my system if I added an additional HIS Radeon HD 6850 graphics card using the Crossfire system. I used the eXtreme Power Supply Calculator Lite website ( http://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine ), and I came up with a figure of 502 W. I was gifted a 600 W Cool Master 600W Green Power Prod. No.: RS-600-ASAA. I don't have a clue as to its age, so there's no way for me to even get a rough idea of the impact of the capacitor's aging. I know that the previous owner is a devoted fanatic to supplying a lot of cooling, and low energy consumption, so that's probably in the favor of the performance of this already-used PSU. But let's pretend that I have a miracle PSU, and it's still fully providing 600 W ~ if my system is demanding 502 W, isn't that running the system hard, and should be avoided, or...? Is there a "safety buffer" of just how much power's drawn versus what's provided? Also, a little bit more clarity in regards to the RAM. You state that they must all be the same size, 240-pin DDR3, up to the limits of my processor and operating system. I purchased/installed Windows 7 Professional Upgrade 64-bit, so I'm assuming that my maximum limit of RAM is an astounding 192GB! Oh, if I only had the $. Earlier tonight, I had a conversation with a neighbor who said that buying more RAM won't do much more for me other than speed up loading times, and that its impact on framerates in the game are minimal. Is this true? I would think that going from 4GB of RAM to 12GB would do "more" than boost loading times, yes? RAM was always explained to me as being a mechanism to help speed up your system's performance, but honestly, when I think about that statement, it is rather vague. If I'm mistaken on this, or if you have some words that would add greater clarity and accuracy to how I think about what RAM can and can't do. My neighbor said that I would be much better off either adding another HIS Radeon HD 6850 graphics card, or, better yet, getting a newer and better graphics card (of course, this is if my power supply can handle it). I guess that my bottom-line concern right now with this upgrade is to achieve silky smooth framerates in ArmA 2 at maximum settings (I'm already fairly close to that now - framerates get a bit choppy if I have 50+ AI units using a sophisticated urban combat script on Lingor, for example), and I'd like this upgrade to set me up to be in a pleasant (not perfect) position for when ArmA 3's released. Again, any detailed advice will be most warmly accepted. :)

Hello Folks! A little over a year ago, I built my very first computer, and it didn't blow up and is still working fine (*knock on wood - hard*). I'm still very much a newbie when it comes to these things, and I'm hoping to have my confidence boosted in regards to what I should do next to best update my system. I'm seeking to take advantage of the upcoming Christmas sales and rebates, and I'd like to be ready to jump on some deals, but I want to ensure that they're The Best deals for my system, so I'm here for some sound advice. What's the most economical means to get better performance? Is it by purchasing more RAM? By adding an additional graphics card of the same design using Crossfire, or...? Right now, I'm mostly leaning towards buying a couple of more sticks of RAM. Here's what I already have in my tower: A-DATA XPG Gaming Series v2.0 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model AX3U1600GB2G9-DG2 If I purchse more RAM, am I correct that it MUST HAVE the following specifications: 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 ? If the above is true, I can still purchase RAM that's been designed by a company other than A-DATA, right? Would I be better off purchasing RAM made by the same company, or...? And that new RAM can be a higher rating than 2 x 2GB, correct? If I wanted to buy 2 sticks of 4 GB RAM (8GB total), that should work well with my current setup, correct? Altogether then, if I made such a purchase, I'd have my 4GB of old RAM + 8GB of new RAM = a grand total of 12GB. I seem to recall reading somewhere that the AMD Phenom II X4 840 Edition Deneb 3.2 GHz 4x512 KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Processor has a RAM "choke point" of 12 GB ~ am I correct on this, or is the choke point different? Needless to say, I don't want to purchase more RAM than my system can efficiently handle. The other way that I could go is to purchase another HIS Radeon graphics card to combine with my old card with the Catalyst system. MUST the graphics cards be identical, or can I buy a newer/better AMD card that's Catalyst ready, and use that combination of older/newer designs instead? The card that I'm currently using is a HIS Radeon HD 6850 1 GB (256bit) GDDR5 Eyefinity Display Port HDMI 2x DVI (HDCP) Retail (RoHS) PCI Express X16 2.1 Video Card. If there's anything else that you think might be useful for me to consider, please feel free to recommend it.

Yeah, that's what I've been "getting" from you, without you having been so explicit in the past. This is a good and solid plan. As much as I've loved the STALKER series, I was always disappointed with its limitations in regards to village and town sizes. Honestly, I can't recall entering a single region that felt like an entire town, and the villages were oftentimes just 5-6 homes in a cluster. I can remember the first time that I went to Pripyat, I thought, "Finally! I'll be able to do some massive urban combat..." And then lo and behold, nearly every building is a solid block - completely unenterable. This felt all the more shocking because so much of the rest of the game was spent fighting inside/outside of somewhat porous structures. To finally make it to Pripyat, a location that you know is loaded with buildings, only to discover that they're solid? The contrast between the two basic types of urban encounters was far too severe, especially after experiencing so much of the "open" type of structures. There was a part of me that wondered if this wasn't so much a game engine limitation, as it was a game design decision. Honestly, urban combat in ArmA 2's larger urban areas is far more difficult if most of the structures are of the open variety. You have more angles to divide one's focus, and a great deal more of shadowy nooks and crannies for the AI to hide in. By limiting structures to 4-7 units, the player is better able to evaluate his setting, and thus have a better survival rate. Before I go, I finally got a chance to check out Podagorsk Island. It's beautiful, with the urban centers well laid out, but...far too many of the buildings are unenterable, so I'm not planning on using it for my mission making. See what I mean? STALKER spoiled us in the sense of showing us how terrifying urban combat from inside/outside open structures can be. Those are the kinds of experiences that I want, so the fewer the solid buildings, the better. Which brings me around to zorilya's latest advancements with his AI coding... He's setting up the doors on buildings to be breachable with explosives. If you go visit his Garrison thread at Armaholic's forums, you'll see a great video he's done illustrating what he's doing, how, and why. It would be great if somewhere down the road, we could have non-door items act as "doors," even though they'd look like common barriers, stuff such as crates, a Jerry-rigged slab barrier, etc., etc. Perhaps a module could be supplied entitled "Barrier Potential in Structures," and what it would do is that buildings would have moveable objects randomly generated inside a building that could be moved by the Player/randomly by the AI. So, let's pretend an AI opponent is inside a structure, and he decides to move a couple of heavy items in front of the doorway, to act as a barrier: certain pieces of equipment, such as shotguns, grenades and strips of C4 could take care of those, moving them aside for more unhindered combat. There's more that could be said on this topic, but my mind's mush!

Grimwald wrote: I don't want to sound like I'm talking explicitly on Marc's behalf here, and Marc, never hesitate to let me know if you feel like I am, but from the PMs that I've had with him, I think it's safe for me to say that this island, while definitely inspired by the STALKER series, will be a beast unto itself. We've discussed at length some of our favorite novels and films, and aspects of those will be brought into the map. Some of these things are quite unlike anything we've ever seen in the STALKER series. For example, if Marc did an even half-hearted translation of the text/film visuals from The Road, well, that's still a lot of material that can't be found in the STALKER games, nor found in the novel that STALKER is based on, Roadside Picnic. Note too that a good deal of words have been exchanged just discussing bringing in more content from Roadside Picnic into STALKER. Believe me when I say that if he bent the island more towards Roadside Picnic's contents than the default material found in the games, that the island would be noticeably different than what GSC presented to us. The worlds of Roadside Picnic and STALKER are quite a ways apart. After having read the book, there was a large part of me that wished that GSC's developers would've done more to make the game world more like the book, but they didn't, so... Having scrutinized Marc's portfolio, and his behind-the-scenes screen captures, I'm totally confident that his hammering together of The Book of Eli, The Road, Roadside Picnic, STALKER, and others, will be as haunting as it will be unforgettable.