I’m playing old GZ again, any recommendations?

I finally broke out my 2019 gen zero disc and I’m about to do a play through on the same version I originally started on 5 years ago, do you guys know any nostalgic locations I should go to, or anything you want me to test? I’m excited to finally play the original version again after so long, wish me luck! It’s gonna be tough getting re-used to only having 2 primary weapons and 1 sidearm equipped at a time lol

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This is what the inventory used to look like when this game was actually a survival game :joy: the inventory system now might be much better, but I still just love the old inventory

Does anyone else remember this old “back” apparel section? They originally planned to have wearable backpacks you could wear on you characters, and they even showed a player wearing one in the trailer. I kind of wish they had implemented this feature, it’s kind of cool

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I was thinking what location I would re-check if I had the chance.


First I would go here where I think was the location of a broken half sunken dock. And make a picture of the dock because it was removed. I’d make a map screenshot too, for it’s exact location.


Next I would check this location where two guys are sitting dead on a rock. I always thought they had a bottle of wine or booze, but I didn’t had a picture of it to show that they removed the bottle. So it would be nice to have a picture of them with a bottle.

If I think of more things to visit and re-check I will post it here.

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Somehow I would have loved to see and feel the old inventory, but I started later. It reminds me of an old Resident Evil part, I think.

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Most of the landscape would be smoother and without all the busted trees everywhere. No tank across the fence south of the airbase. No battlefields either just south and east of the airbase. No Exp weapons, No DLCs, no APOC class, and no reaper.

If you play it on steam/online, doesn’t it try to update it?

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I guess he just plays it offline.
@dogcoffee
I would be interested to see some comparisons of the render distance, especially at places like östervik.

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Yea the old inventory system was pretty cool, and there were no storage boxes either so whatever I can fit in there is all I get lol. Definetly makes it feel much more survival-like, and the combat seems a lot harder too, so I’m actually having to use strategy like traps and items to kill any groups of enemies. Also I’m gonna try to find a bigger scope for my hunting rifle today so I can show you the render distance, it used to be insanely far

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Awesome, if I think of it today while I’m on there I’ll make sure to check those out and put pictures!

I remember there’s a high tier pvg90 in a white car beside the road? Locked trunk that need to blow up the car to pick up the gun. That car removed in later version, i never seen it b4.

I wanted to do this as well but the PC-Steam version needs to download files from Steam and of course those are the latest files.

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I really wish there was a way to do it on pc, I’m doing it with a ps5 and I absolutely suck on controller lol

There is a way to download older versions from steam, but it’s not made simple.

https://www.reddit.com/answers/52b3f8da-315f-46ed-8e37-925565b45707/?q=Playing+older+versions+of+Steam+games&source=PDP

Summary


r/Steam

GMMan_BZFlag

Guide: How to download older versions of a game on Steam

Since it appears that my post yesterday about the command to download older game files was useful, I thought I’d write a full guide on how to find older versions of games and download them.

First, this is all made possible because SteamDB keeps track of updates to all games, so as long as the version you want was available after the game has been publicly released, this should work.

Visuals: https://imgur.com/a/gBLJO

  1. Go to SteamDB, and search up your game.

  2. Click on the app ID of the game you’re looking for to go to its details page.

  3. Take a look at the depots, and click on the depot ID of the one that looks like the one you want to download.

  4. Click on the Manifests tab. Look at the list and find the version that you want to download. Record its manifest ID.

  5. Open the [Steam console] - In run box enter (steam://nav/console).

  6. The syntax to the “download_depot” command is as follows:

download_depot <appid> <depotid> [<target manifestid>] [<delta manifestid>] [<depot flags filter>] : download a single depot

You only need to worry about the first three arguments to it. Type the command, then the app ID, depot ID, and the manifest ID of the depot version you want.

*As an example if you enter the green text in steam console it start to download the july 3rd 2019 update * download_depot 704270 704271 2231261890808866491

  1. Wait for Steam to download the depot. You won’t see any indication of progress, but you can tell it’s downloading by looking at the network usage on your downloads page. The download can pause/resume if your connection goes out, but won’t if you restart the client.

  2. After the download is done, Steam will show you where the files were downloaded to.

  3. Go to the game’s installation directory, and move the files somewhere else. Then go to where the depot files were downloaded to, and move everything over to the game folder.

  4. You may have to rename the game’s EXE file if the dev changed the launch options recently. You can find the current EXE name by going to the game’s SteamDB page and clicking on the Configuration tab.

  5. You should now be able to launch the old version through Steam.

  6. Stop Steam from updating.
    GZ’s App ID is 704270: Find the App Manifest File: Locate the app_manifest_###.acf file (where ### is the App ID) in your Steam folder (usually in Steam\steamapps).
    Set to Read-only: Right-click the app_manifest_###.acf file, go to Properties, and check the “Read-only”. But I don’t know if this actually works, so make a copy of the downloaded version, so you don’t have to do that again, if Steam does update it back to current version.


If you want another version, just copy the manifest-ID (long number) of the version you want from the image above and change the long number in the download syntax.

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Does it crash a lot?
Are there hordes of enemies? (I remember finding lots of them at Farmlands region, it was full of resistance from machines, a lot of tanks).

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I have t had any issues with crashes or lag yet, but to be fair I’m playing on a ps5 so that might help; but I have noticed it seems like there are larger groups of enemies at certain locations. The big groups of enemies is pretty fun to fight though since you actually have to use traps and items instead of just shooting at them

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Hmmm. Might look into this.

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Sorry I haven’t gotten around to checking your guys spots out on the old version, I’m on vacation right now lol, but next time I’m on I’ll make sure to check out those locations, as well as test the render distance!

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The best thing about the first Generation Zero version was that there was no weight limit and it was very scary at the beginning because you didn’t know what was coming next or what had happened and you had to learn everything yourself with little or no help at the beginning.

There was no weight at all, but you still had limited space, due to the grid inventory.

I see they decided to change the inventory because of more and more different items to pick up. Even with a mission item with no weight, in the old system you wouldnt have been able to pick it up with a full inventory, too.

The weights also enabled the devs to introduce an effect on stamina, although it’s hardly used.

But the system failed in my eyes because they didn’t make use of its potential. Almost every item and weapons have the same weights, the weights of ressources even have been lowered to almost zero to make use able to carry much more, because we need much more now.

I personally would have loved the old system with the ability to get more slots or additional grids by skills and different sizes of backpacks.

At least one may dream…

Cool I, thought you forgot. :coffee:

I did completely forget! I’ve had some family over and they just left this morning, but I’m at work right now, hopefully I remember to take a couple videos. Sorry about that

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