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

[cretin]

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.

A few mods have featured "fire saves". Most notably in NLC7, where it's a very difficult and dangerous mod, and the sources of fire light not only are often not obvious throughout the maps (such as in the underground, where there are no campfires.... but there are saves for attentive people) but you need to make sure you have enough matches to light them if you want to save. Some people don't appreciate this system, I did however, I think it adds a lot of tension and real difficulty to the game. By technicality, every game becomes "easy" when you can just make a save state before any possible failure state.

 

[JDR13]

Let the overreactions begin...

 

[lametta]

Let the overreactions begin...

nice troll account

 

[Utgard-Loki]

Let the overreactions begin...

quoted user is a day 1 horse armor purchaser.

 

[Belegarsson]

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?

So in other games, the NFT is an item with its own blockchain ID on it, so every item is "unique" in a sense, like if you buy a golden toilet from Betty White's estate, now you have the bragging right of owning not just a random digital toilet, but Betty White's golden toilet.

But in STALKER 2's case, it's even more stupid, because the NFT is apparently a raffle ticket with an expiration date, people can buy or sell it or whatever and the final owner of it will become the NPC in the game, after that whether their 3D model can be put on the marketplace is a mystery. GSC earns money every time it changes owner since they take from each transaction I think.

 

[Black_Willow]

Oh yes, the MetaIvans

 

[R@tmaster]

The person will need to come to our studio for a detailed scanning procedure and after that, we will have everything to make this person appear in the game world as one of the characters.

Is this studio accidentally located in Donbass?

 

[Curratum]

Feel free to go to the "Is gaming officially over" thread and drop a "yes".

 

[Tacgnol]

Sounds like they're getting around the steam rules by not actually offering any future NFTs once the game launches.

All the NFTs seem to be sold/activated pre-launch.

Scummy as fuck either way. Stalker subreddit, /vg/, Anomaly discord and official discord all seem to be in full uproar over it.

Sad thing is, Sergiy probably thinks he'll make more money from NFT whales than any negative impact on sales from bad PR. He may well be correct with how retarded the current NFT market is.

 

[Curratum]

That's exactly it.

At this point devs know that they will make more money from loony whales than they would if they sold a good product to thousands more people, but at just $60. And this is how gaming ends, not with a bang, but with a brainfart.

 

[HoboForEternity]

honestly, i care about a good stalker more than NFT hatewagon. there Is still a big IF the game is actually good i might consider buying it, but the marketing so far just remind me of plethora of troubled AAA release. no real gameplay/screenshot 4 months just before release, tons of bullshots, """gameplay""" trailer, etc.

 

[Riskbreaker]

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?

I don't get it either. Makes me understand just how outta loop I am when these terms pop out almost overnight and all outta sudden everyone uses them with ease that implies understanding.
But mayhaps it's fine being outta loop when others are en route to ditch (not that they won't drag you with them).
I don't even see the difference between this and the tradable items in Valve's games that so enriched Gabe's ample person. And those are already like a maximally distilled commodity fetishism.

 

[Tacgnol]

honestly, i care about a good stalker more than NFT hatewagon. there Is still a big IF the game is actually good i might consider buying it, but the marketing so far just remind me of plethora of troubled AAA release. no real gameplay/screenshot 4 months just before release, tons of bullshots, """gameplay""" trailer, etc.

The fact they're focusing on cash grabs, and not even regular cash grabs but NFT scams, before even releasing real gameplay footage shows their priority.

I dunno what anyone expected with Sergiy being involved. Sergiy who previously bought a Ferrari rather than pay his devs the wages they were owed.

 

[JDR13]

Let the overreactions begin...

nice troll account

Says the guy with 40 posts who joined this year.

 

[lametta]

Says the guy with 40 posts who joined this year.

you dont say....

 

[lycanwarrior]

That's exactly it.

At this point devs know that they will make more money from loony whales than they would if they sold a good product to thousands more people, but at just $60. And this is how gaming ends, not with a bang, but with a brainfart.

When you consider the socio-economic phenomena that's been occurring over the past couple of decades:

-decline of the middle class
-increasing concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer of hands
-massive inflation

I'm not surprised to be quite honest that this is happening. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.

I'm not at all into 'forced redistribution' (aka Communism) but not sure what else can be done at this point.

The above factors are a major reason "free-to-play" games, where "whales" essentially subsidize the players who pay nothing, are hugely popular now.

 

[perfectslumbers]

https://twitter.com/stalker_thegame/status/1471620399997886472

"Based on feedback we received we've made a decision to cancel anything NFT related in S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2"

 

[Dishonoredbr]

we did it reddit

 

[Ghulgothas]

Lmao I think that's the fasted turn-around on an NFT-initiative I've seen.

 

[Ghulgothas]

"Based on feedback we received we've made a decision to cancel anything NFT related in S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2"

There may have been another reason.

TL/DR, No Blacks Allowed.

 

[JDR13]

The game is suddenly good again now.

 

[lametta]

The game is suddenly good again now.

nice troll account

 

[RobotSquirrel]

https://twitter.com/stalker_thegame/status/1471620399997886472

"Based on feedback we received we've made a decision to cancel anything NFT related in S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2"

 

[JDR13]

The game is suddenly good again now.

nice troll account

How cute. I've got my own little stalker now.

 

[Tacgnol]

"Based on feedback we received we've made a decision to cancel anything NFT related in S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2"

There may have been another reason.

TL/DR, No Blacks Allowed.

I know the NFT shit has been cancelled, but this does confirm one thing.

STALKER 2 won't be woke at least.