S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Stalker) Thread

[Most Wanted Banana]

For whatever reason I was able to finish both SoC and Clear Sky but Call of Pripyat wont hold my interest. I'm playing the ABR mod but that hasn't done much to retain my interest.

The Zone and the story of Call of Pripyat are objectively the lowest point on the original trilogy.

CoP's Zone was neutered, making it considerably safer and less interesting in comparison to both SoC and CS despite the fact that the game takes place closer to the center.

• Anomalies are (almost) exclusively limited to anomalous fields despite the fact that it was canonically established that they change positions after emissions.
• The mutant selection is the same as the previous games with the exception of one (1) new inclusion, and it's quite apparent that there are less of them roaming around. The fact that these previously unexplored areas don't feature a wider variety of new, more dangerous mutants was also a huge wasted opportunity.
• Making both the Bandits and the Military neutral was a mistake, one that could have been fixed if a new faction had been introduced, if the Renegades were brought back or if the Mercenaries had been given a bigger role. The fact that the Monolith was pretty much wiped out on the previous games didn't help either.
• There are very few human NPC's roaming around, making encountering both scripted and random events painfully rare. This only gets worse if you choose not to make the Bandits or Loners hostile, as you'll only have mutants and Zombies to shoot at for most of the game.

I don't want to give too many details on the story since I don't know whether you're going to finish it or not, but I can confidently say that it is considerably worse than both SoC and CS.

I do appreciate the fact that CoP 's stability could be used as the base that allowed the creation of a bunch of great mods, but that doesn't really alleviate or forgive the game's weaknesses.

 

[BingBongDingDong]

Finaly beat S2, game is okay. Story was allright, seeing old characters was a nostalgia trip. The biggest glaring problems are the missing game mechanics the old games had along with the performance being absolute dogshit. Ill end up playing through it again after modders/developers hopefully get the game sorted out.

Gripe about the final section of the game:
The fact i ahd to use teh x7 suit and not my exosuit i had just hours before dropped ~200k upgrading is insane and led to some infuriating moments in the underground section fighting monolith. I went from mostly impervious tank to wet tissue paper, trying to hit enemies in the dark that were sometimes impossible to see.
I got the skiff ending and watched the others. I like the skiff ending the most but it feels like its trying to set it up to be another fallout clone instead of its unique self. The ward ending seems like it makes the most sense for a canon ending.

 

[Sneefy]

The Zone and the story of Call of Pripyat are objectively the lowest point on the original trilogy.

CoP's Zone was neutered, making it considerably safer and less interesting in comparison to both SoC and CS despite the fact that the game takes place closer to the center.

• Anomalies are (almost) exclusively limited to anomalous fields despite the fact that it was canonically established that they change positions after emissions.
• The mutant selection is the same as the previous games with the exception of one (1) new inclusion, and it's quite apparent that there are less of them roaming around. The fact that these previously unexplored areas don't feature a wider variety of new, more dangerous mutants was also a huge wasted opportunity.
• Making both the Bandits and the Military neutral was a mistake, one that could have been fixed if a new faction had been introduced, if the Renegades were brought back or if the Mercenaries had been given a bigger role. The fact that the Monolith was pretty much wiped out on the previous games didn't help either.
• There are very few human NPC's roaming around, making encountering both scripted and random events painfully rare. This only gets worse if you choose not to make the Bandits or Loners hostile, as you'll only have mutants and Zombies to shoot at for most of the game.

I don't want to give too many details on the story since I don't know whether you're going to finish it or not, but I can confidently say that it is considerably worse than both SoC and CS.

I do appreciate the fact that CoP 's stability could be used as the base that allowed the creation of a bunch of great mods, but that doesn't really alleviate or forgive the game's weaknesses.

Thank you for going into such detail. I agree it feels quite empty, I will eventually return but right now I'm taking a break. I will definitely endeavour to finish it before the new graphics cards release and I'm able to play Stalker 2.

 

[Battlefield2142EU]

Is it just me or the M860 cracker looks off in Stalker 2? If they wanted a gritty looking model shotgun. Mossberg would’ve been a better fit than Remington M870.

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

A lot of people call Stalker 2 too easy, but I'm thinking that's because Gayma and Analameme poisoned peoples' brains.
Anyway, if you are tired of Stalker 2's BS, try Old Good Stalker Revolution Gunslinger Addon (OGSR:GA). You might like it better.
For newbs, it's a pain in the ass to install because you gotta join the discord. A lot of mods are doing that these days sadly.
So, here's the google link and the patch to avoid that.

You'll need to set it to English (if non-Russian) using the OGSR_Configurator.exe. Although, I'd advise against it because it can be a bit buggy. The other way of doing it is removing gamedata.db_xxlocalei in the root folder, and replacing it with the one in the localization/en-US folder. You only have to change the language to "eng." in the /gamedata/config/tuning/ogse_config.ltx file. Leave the font_prefix alone. It's very specific about that.

 

[SomeSpook]

A lot of people call Stalker 2 too easy, but I'm thinking that's because Gayma and Analameme poisoned peoples' brains.
Anyway, if you are tired of Stalker 2's BS, try Old Good Stalker Revolution Gunslinger Addon (OGSR:GA).

I’ve been wanting to look into the gunslinger addon for OGSR. I haven’t been playing STALKER for that long. My first introduction to the series was stock Shadow of Chernobyl and then I decided to continue my journey through the zone with OGSR. I greatly enjoy the challenge it brings. Like the AI killing you in a couple shots or the ammo being sparse. It’s fun.

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

I’ve been wanting to look into the gunslinger addon for OGSR.

IMO it looks and plays really good. I prefer OGSR's gunplay and looks compared to Stalker 2. SoC's engine has so much soul.

 

[W00T122122]

IMO it looks and plays really good. I prefer OGSR's gunplay and looks compared to Stalker 2. SoC's engine has so much soul.

View attachment 6746571

Cheburashka my beloved

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

Cheburashka my beloved

I'm mad it's not in STALKER 2. It's so cute.

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

Stalker 2 got a bunch of updates recently.
Any noticeable improvements?

 

[Seija Kijin]

Stalker 2 convinced me to replay the series, been having a nostalgic trip through SoC.

 

[woduqu]

I'm mad it's not in STALKER 2. It's so cute.

He's Russian, and the devs being the ultranationalists they are (and also hiding in Czech Republic and avoiding the war entirely), are hellbent on minimizing any Russian influence in the game.

 

[Sargon's wife's son]

Uh oh, somebody is getting in trouble
View attachment 6701049

what do you expect from a game made by eastern Europeans telling them not to put Nazi stuff into it it's like telling a Serbian not to commit war crimes

 

[Nameless One]

He's Russian, and the devs being the ultranationalists they are (and also hiding in Czech Republic and avoiding the war entirely), are hellbent on minimizing any Russian influence in the game.

Colossal mistake imo. Was it not the Russian audience who brought their games into Western attention back then? I can understand the war shit, I don't understand dehumanizing an audience and assuming they are all just Ziggers. It also sucks more that the Russian government are retarded and also banned Stalker 2 due to the developers likely making comments and being too patriotic. Oh well, the Russian audience will always find a way to pirate and bootleg it.

 

[woduqu]

Colossal mistake imo. Was it not the Russian audience who brought their games into Western attention back then? I can understand the war shit, I don't understand dehumanizing an audience and assuming they are all just Ziggers. It also sucks more that the Russian government are retarded and also banned Stalker 2 due to the developers likely making comments and being too patriotic. Oh well, the Russian audience will always find a way to pirate and bootleg it.

What I read in passing was that there was simply a fear that Russian laws against supporting Ukraine could theoretically apply to Stalker 2. I think some part of the proceeds from the game were stated to be donated to the Ukrainian military or government. So, it would be like Americans donating to Hamas or whatever else along those lines (i.e. illegal funding of a sanctioned group). And I'm sure, for that matter, that Ukrainians are equally prohibited from funding Russia's military, so it's not actually this Reddit-tier "Gotcha!" talking point that people think it is. Anyways, I haven't seen any further mention of it since release and I don't believe anyone in Russia has actually had issues playing the game.

 

[The tired cat]

Colossal mistake imo. Was it not the Russian audience who brought their games into Western attention back then? I can understand the war shit, I don't understand dehumanizing an audience and assuming they are all just Ziggers. It also sucks more that the Russian government are retarded and also banned Stalker 2 due to the developers likely making comments and being too patriotic. Oh well, the Russian audience will always find a way to pirate and bootleg it.

Sort of, basically the game did indeed get popularity thanks to mostly Eastern European audience (So think Baltic States, along with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine), but in the West it never really achieved the level of Fallout popularity. Realistically speaking if this war never happened, the game wouldn't really get as popular in the West, and the devs weren't above milking the conflict to their benefit with every moment they had (even when the game's release got pushed back more and more), which ofcourse in term made shitting on the audience as they could score more browny points with Western idiots. With the Russian gov, it's kinda skippy really, like seems most of the "problematic" stuff was removed by the devs themselves with further updates and the government really doesn't have much interest in the game (in reality it was like talking points by two Russian duma officials and most they worded as potential scenarios, but the yellow press didn't waste time blowing this shit out of proportions) and even said shit like "Well, so far we haven't seen any ACTUAL problematic stuff in the game and it's material that's easily removable, not really an issue". AN hell, Russian audience already wound ways to obtain this game in actual legal ways.

 

[Nameless One]

I dunno, the popularity was ramping up prior to the war from what I remember, like in the late 2010s it was already further than it used to be but maybe it got even more attention due to the war which is kinda sad.

 

[The tired cat]

I dunno, the popularity was ramping up prior to the war from what I remember, like in the late 2010s it was already further than it used to be but maybe it got even more attention due to the war which is kinda sad.

The war def gave the game more attention, prior to this the game actually had more controversies surrounding it, like the NFT thing, how there won't be mod support, plus some of the trailers showed how they were using the script from STALKER2 that was supposed to get made after CoP, but that was scrapped.

 

[Nameless One]

I feel like they have nowhere else to go seeing how COP ended the zone in a pretty dull way. Unless they make games that take place elsewhere in the timeline or reboot it I don't see a lot of things being done to the story that modders haven't already tried.

 

[The tired cat]

I feel like they have nowhere else to go seeing how COP ended the zone in a pretty dull way. Unless they make games that take place elsewhere in the timeline or reboot it I don't see a lot of things being done to the story that modders haven't already tried.

What I recall from the leaked script (which I think you can still find online), the STALKER2 after CoP was gonna involve Strelok going to the Zone, which made him immortal along with some new device being hidden in one of the labs.