Merry upcoming Christmas! It's been almost two months since Zero Investment released. The mod has received quite an active following - to be honest, I didn't expect so much attention, so the last two months I've been making a lot of quick decisions regarding the mod. With this post I'd like to show my gratitude and share some plans for the project.
ZI has been made for me first and foremost - it's a sex letter to STALKER ShoC, modding, internet, Mountain Dew and various other interesting things. I never felt the need to share it to the public, and so I wasn't too interested in the reception. I've always known that the mod would find its players - whether 10 of them, or 1000. That said, I read a lot of what people say about ZI, smiling and smirking. The release has caused a lot of interesting discussions - soo thank you for all the praise and criticism, for your love and your hate. I know for sure that STALKER modding isn't dead, and all the activity around my project proves that.
Last month a discord server for the mod was created (Didn't have any plans for it initially). Managing a community is a dirty job and it's not simple to get the news about your project to people, so it's not surprising that a lot of modders are hiding in their private discords, where they can quickly post news and gather feedback. Still, I'm not going to gatekeep any important content - all the posts like these will be shared to my site and MODDB. The mod has gathered quite a following, and it's hard to manage it all, so I don't have any concrete plans. We'll see.
Fan-content was a really pleasant surprise. Zero Investment is a derivative media, highly dependent on its source material so it never occurred to me that it could inspire people to create their own content. In fact, I've gotten so much of it, that the site now has a gallery. Besides, I see a lot of ideas and suggestions coming in, they're very fun (and sometimes scary) to read. Thank you so much!
As with all the good releases, ZI is not as polished as I wanted it to be. There are quite a few unpleasant crashes and bugs, and the gameplay design has quite a lot of corners cut to get ZI to release. A lot of these corners will be solved by overhauling the systems (for example, why is the pink text in the stat menu inconsistent regarding the stat caps? I have no idea.). Some bugs though I'd like to squash before DLC1. Patching ZI is more of a hassle than it might seem, however. Right now the game has two branches - Legacy (the old engine) and SIMP (the new engine). They've got some minor differences in scripts, which means that changes must be adapted and tested on both versions. Besides, I'm quite deep into the DLC1, scripts and engine of which are already incompatible with the live version. All this means that making a patch requires a lot of time which I'd rather spend working on DLC1. 1.0.1 patch will be a small bugfix - after this, I'm not planning to patch the game before DLC1 releases.
Earlier I've mentioned that I'm planning to support the game on new engine exclusively. However, you, the players, showed me that both versions have value: The Legacy engine is good for people who prefer older renders (ZI was made with them in mind, and I prefer them myself.) The SIMP Edition is great for those who like a smooth modern experience. That's why I'm planning to support both versions - DLC1 will be released for both Legacy and SIMP. Of course, that's going to cost extra dev time, but will make the game comfortable for more players. Wait, what is DLC1 even?..
DLC1: Erotic Hotline is a huge expansion, comparable to TBOI DLC or Terraria updates. The main design goals are expanding on the game's side-content, adding quests for bad karma route, improving the main quest and expanding/overhauling many of the gameplay systems. The exact number of features is still being decided on, but this is what I've got planned for the moment:
-New sidecontent: New NPCs with fresh stories, new sidequests for the old NPCs, sidequests exclusive to the players with bad karma.
-Old quests expansion: new routes and possibilities, quests and decisions aftermaths, expanded character arcs.
-Gameplay systems overhaul and rebalance: Big changes to gunplay, new merchants, overhaul of loot and gear.
-New gameplay content: Guns, artifacts, outfits, new categories of items.
-A lot of fixes, small tweaks and secrets…
Of course, I can't give any concrete time frame for a mod I'm making for fun in my spare time. Right now, the deadline for DLC1 is Summer 2027. I'll try to keep you updated whenever I have something interesting to share regarding the development.
First two pictures of the article made by Meztinos.
1) ZI has gotten more hype than I've expected. I'm grateful, but managing a community can be difficult.
2) 1.0.1 is a small bugfix patch, coming soon. New content will arrive in DLC1.
3) DLC1 “Erotic Hotline” is coming in 2027. It will feature a lot of new sidequests, gameplay content and overhaul of many gameplay systems.