S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl

[Tacgnol]

What are your opinions on A-Life and the kind of "free roaming, self-motivated entities in a world" concept as a whole?

I ask because I love it.... but I'm not sure if it adds that much to the game.

I think it increases the immersion significantly, even if A-Life did occasionally break and cause issues.

I don't know many games like STALKER where the NPCs and world feel so "alive".

You could have the core gameplay without the A-Life system, but it wouldn't be as interesting. You just never know what you'll come across in the STALKER games when you venture into the world.

Dynamic massive unscripted firefights that break out due to different factions bumping into each other for instance, or even just getting lucky when looting a dead bandit and finding one who has looted a ton of other people and acquired a fuckton of loot.

 

[Perkel]

Fucking better speed up you ukrainian fucks. I want to play stalker 2 before Russia nukes you.


On other hand a lot of ukrainians will finally be able to play stalker RL mod.

 

[ADL]

What are your opinions on A-Life and the kind of "free roaming, self-motivated entities in a world" concept as a whole?

I ask because I love it.... but I'm not sure if it adds that much to the game.

Emergent gameplay is king and is easily the most important thing in a "sandbox" game, especially when it's open world.

 

[Silva]

I think it increases the immersion significantly, even if A-Life did occasionally break and cause issues.

I don't know many games like STALKER where the NPCs and world feel so "alive".

You could have the core gameplay without the A-Life system, but it wouldn't be as interesting. You just never know what you'll come across in the STALKER games when you venture into the world.

Dynamic massive unscripted firefights that break out due to different factions bumping into each other for instance, or even just getting lucky when looting a dead bandit and finding one who has looted a ton of other people and acquired a fuckton of loot.

Emergent gameplay is king and is easily the most important thing in a "sandbox" game, especially when it's open world.

Oh yeah, I'm all for emergent gameplay too. But what's the real, concrete impact of it in the case of Stalker? Seeing people loot corpses before you? Having the target of some quest roam around the map? Seeing random stalkers be killed by random mutants? I mean, don't know. I love the feeling, the sense of a living place that this shit entails, but I don't know if it adds that much in gameplay terms.

I think it would be a more justifiable a feature if they went a step further and coupled it with the faction system from CS/CoP or something else that impacted the game more. Say, if the random stalkers could group themselves, create their own faction name, and take/occupy parts of the zone (say, that gas station in Yanov, or the 100 rads Bar, or etc) becoming a mini-faction, all that dynamically. And from there spawned their own quests, people, change the status quo, etc.

 

[robinox]

The zone is the protagonist and your alter ego, no matter how skilled, revolves around it.
If the relationship is reversed, try to imagine it: would stalker still be so special?
To achieve this, the zone must feel like it has a life and a will of its own (A-life that is), careless about the player and his circumstances.

 

[toro]

 

[Starwars]

Stuff like the A-life system is hugely important I think, even though it felt very much reined in (though I admit I completely fell for the hype before the game was released). Having the gameworld and its various bits and pieces "play on" with or without the player's involvement heavily affects the whole experience I think even though it's not always that dramatic and in your face.

 

[Wunderbar]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is getting NFTs, including one that lets you become an in-game ‘metahuman’

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl is one of the bigger releases of 2022, and for better or worse, it’s going to feature one of the biggest tech trends going into next year: non-fungible tokens (or NFTs).

GSC Game World, which is developing the game, has announced the “S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Metaverse,” which will “use blockchain technology to let the community own a piece of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2.” That includes the opportunity to become the “first-ever metahuman,” which GSC Game World appears to define as a non-player character rendered in very high detail. (Though a spokesperson confirmed a metahuman won’t be made with Epic Games’ MetaHuman Creator tool). GSC Game World is partnering with NFT platform DMarket on the new items.

To become a “metahuman,” players will be able to bid for an NFT offering that prize as part of an auction taking place in January 2022. Whoever “owns” the NFT to become an NPC in the game will be able to buy and sell it up until a specific claim date after the auction.

For whoever does end up with the NFT, here’s how the process of becoming an NPC in the game will work, GSC Game World CEO Evgeniy Grygorovych told me in an emailed statement:

 

[HoboForEternity]

Whatever my existing hype for this game is completely dead. . .
Just another AAA trash it seems.

 

[Silva]

The metahuman talk reminds me of something I always felt would enrich Stalker:

A Souls/rogue-like "no reload". You die, you pay in ammo/rubles/food and go back to the nearest "bonfire". It could be unlimited revivals ala Souls or limited revivals that you cumulate/manage ala Darkwood.

It could be justified supernaturally - maybe protag is a "metahuman" like Scar from Clear Sky, touched by the Zone so it always saves him and sends him to wake up in some shelter, and the more you die the more debilitated you get until you consume humanity find some special artifact - or not, maybe you just pay jink to stalker groups, like Beard and the Skadovsk crew, so they give you a signal emitter and keep an eye on you. The more you pay, the wider the "coverage area" and the less items you lose upon rescue. Or something.

I say this because, frankly, for a game so atmospheric like Stalker, the save-reload-repeat really holds the experience from achieving its full potential. If there's something Souls proved is that nothing generates more tension/immersion than knowing you can't just reload to 3 seconds back if you die, and will have to redo a 5min-10min chunk of play instead. Of course, for this to work the difficulty should be adjusted accordingly, less the game becomes excessively frustrating. The endless waves of monolith in CNPP wouldn't make sense here.

 

[Malamert]

SerGAY Grigorovich does it again. Pay for his Pepsi addiction and his sports cars.

 

[Perkel]

I have an idea for NFT.

You buy game and it is NFT. You literally own your game. Neat idea no ?

 

[Mikeal]

Fuck this gay earth.

 

[Riskbreaker]

Why is you peoples angry? Is only good Eastern European businessman doing some capitalisms!

Silva
That would actually make sence. Both Anomaly and some mods for the original games already experimented with saves being limited to campfires/bonfires.

 

[Malamert]

 

[Ghulgothas]

First batch of Stalker Metahumans was announced. Rest assured, absolutely no expense will be spared integrating them seamlessly into the Zone.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[orcinator]

Hopefully we can have integration with other NFTs like Floydies and Stonetoss.

 

[Silva]

Why is you peoples angry? Is only good Eastern European businessman doing some capitalisms!

Silva
That would actually make sence. Both Anomaly and some mods for the original games already experimented with saves being limited to campfires/bonfires.

Yeah I'm aware of that. But in Anomaly at least it's kinda wonky. Some areas don't have a bonfire nearby, and some set pieces too reliant on "waves of enemies" (Brain Scorcher, CNPP) and so it's an exercite in frustration. A game finetuned for that from the start would be ideal.

First batch of Stalker Metahumans was announced. Rest assured, absolutely no expense will be spared integrating them seamlessly into the Zone.

Spoiler

Metawymyn or not, this shit looks actually cool. Would fit nicely my Bandits faction.

 

[lametta]

dont like the idea of nfts at all. Could it result in stalker 2(sp game) requiring always online?

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

The metahuman talk reminds me of something I always felt would enrich Stalker:

A Souls/rogue-like "no reload". You die, you pay in ammo/rubles/food and go back to the nearest "bonfire". It could be unlimited revivals ala Souls or limited revivals that you cumulate/manage ala Darkwood.

It could be justified supernaturally - maybe protag is a "metahuman" like Scar from Clear Sky, touched by the Zone so it always saves him and sends him to wake up in some shelter, and the more you die the more debilitated you get until you consume humanity find some special artifact - or not, maybe you just pay jink to stalker groups, like Beard and the Skadovsk crew, so they give you a signal emitter and keep an eye on you. The more you pay, the wider the "coverage area" and the less items you lose upon rescue. Or something.

I say this because, frankly, for a game so atmospheric like Stalker, the save-reload-repeat really holds the experience from achieving its full potential. If there's something Souls proved is that nothing generates more tension/immersion than knowing you can't just reload to 3 seconds back if you die, and will have to redo a 5min-10min chunk of play instead. Of course, for this to work the difficulty should be adjusted accordingly, less the game becomes excessively frustrating. The endless waves of monolith in CNPP wouldn't make sense here.

You can play this if you download Anomaly and use bonfire mode and set up permadeath with/without lives

Anomaly is free. It's a huge standalone mod that uses a 64-bit version of the Xray engine and has all the maps from all the STALKER games. It's mainly just the sandbox gameplay, though. But that's fine.

 

[karoliner]

 

[Darth Slaughter]

 

[Wunderbar]

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1643320/discussions/0/3202620277336976577/

Tim Sweeney is rubbing his palms.

 

[Alienman]

Explain this to me as if I was five. I don't understand how it works, except it creates some kind of unique digital link or whatever for ownership?? But how does this translate into gaming? Been reading that UBIsoft want to do it too. How do they expect to earn money from this?

 

[Wunderbar]

Alienman probably some unique content for whales/paypigs. Not particularly different from other microtransactions, they are using blockchain because it's trendy.