GSC closed and Stalker 2 is cancelled

ShadowHearth

ah, now its a perfect mod. energy is more realistic.

i just raided all anomalities in starting area, got a full box of weaponary and ammo, got artifacts for all situations,30k++ cash. fine tools( still no basic ones :eek: ), f2000 ( collecting more ammo for that baby! ), medkits and supplies.


its easy again

magick

New Stalker


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t08LMIu-P8

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

no it isnt
it's a mod

http://www.moddb.com/mods/lost-alpha

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

so I finally got around to installing misery

i really didn't like it at first, being so used to stalker complete mod.. the movement and a few other little things are pretty different and it took ages for me to get used to it.
played a good bit now and I'm loving it.
few bugs here and there, i'm the sniper class.. upgraded my initial rifle to the 6x scope but I think because i had a 4x scope attached it never added the upgraded scope so that's an entire upgrade tree denied to me which is a pain in the ass. It also seems to be the only sniper rifle in the game? in zaton at least, just got into yanov so maybe I'll see one or two there.

it's quite a bit harder when it comes to fights.. ****ing running away from dogs as soon as I hear the hint of a bark and that bit early on where you have to get info from the mercs at the waste processing plant for owl? jesus christ. I was being flushed out with grenades, flanked, attacked from 2-3 different angles.. and it was pretty much one shot kill.. took me *ages*

the main thing I like about it though is how it forces you to play the game different. in original pripyat I pretty much killed everyone and everything that got in my way but now with the scarcity of medkits, their time-delayed healing and how bloody easy it is to die I'm actually avoiding more fights than I'm taking part in. It feels "realer", I feel more like a Stalker rather than a walking killing machine.
im not looking forward to getting into pripyat at the end... that **** was tricky enough in vanilla, it's going to be next to impossible in misery.

ShadowHearth

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

so I finally got around to installing misery

i really didn't like it at first, being so used to stalker complete mod.. the movement and a few other little things are pretty different and it took ages for me to get used to it.
played a good bit now and I'm loving it.
few bugs here and there, i'm the sniper class.. upgraded my initial rifle to the 6x scope but I think because i had a 4x scope attached it never added the upgraded scope so that's an entire upgrade tree denied to me which is a pain in the ass. It also seems to be the only sniper rifle in the game? in zaton at least, just got into yanov so maybe I'll see one or two there.

it's quite a bit harder when it comes to fights.. ****ing running away from dogs as soon as I hear the hint of a bark and that bit early on where you have to get info from the mercs at the waste processing plant for owl? jesus christ. I was being flushed out with grenades, flanked, attacked from 2-3 different angles.. and it was pretty much one shot kill.. took me *ages*

the main thing I like about it though is how it forces you to play the game different. in original pripyat I pretty much killed everyone and everything that got in my way but now with the scarcity of medkits, their time-delayed healing and how bloody easy it is to die I'm actually avoiding more fights than I'm taking part in. It feels "realer", I feel more like a Stalker rather than a walking killing machine.
im not looking forward to getting into pripyat at the end... that **** was tricky enough in vanilla, it's going to be next to impossible in misery.

wait untill you start getting artifacts.

kalabok for health regen is just OP. i got like 15 medkits laying around, i dont need them anymore as i just use artifacts to heal wounds, health etc.

i like this stalker mod. really makes it better then original. the one thing that makes it really hard for me - food. the only place to get it is in shops and those respawn very slowly!

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

yeah i have a koloblock, but garry wants it to get out of his contract with the scientists

gona try find a second, or just wait until i absolutely have to go to jupiter plant before I give it to him

ShadowHearth

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

yeah i have a koloblock, but garry wants it to get out of his contract with the scientists

gona try find a second, or just wait until i absolutely have to go to jupiter plant before I give it to him

well that is the thing. i think there is only 1 kolobok in game. i was back in to that anomality and there are no more artifacts respawning.
i just came back from jupiter and i need to start making up a team.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

actually there are two koloblocks beard had one for sale towards the end of my time in the jupiter area
but i have a night star now +6 health regen, so fo koloblock
just raging I sold my +12kg carry weight now that I have -6 radiation and 3 artifact slots


it still has the same problem that pripyat had, not a huge one to be fair but once you entire pripyat the game kinda feels.. over. I know the game was big enough before that, and they probably couldn't have made the pripyat area much bigger without adding way more time (and possibly bugs) but once I enter that tunnel I kinda switch off.
I still enjoy it a lot, and I imagine with misery it's going to be pretty damn hard to take on the monolith soldiers but it just feels like an extended final level as opposed to a final third chapter when compared to the first two areas. and there's not really any point to bringing cardan/nitro the tools for calibration, by the time you get to pripyat you're pretty much able to kill anything and everything pretty easily.

I was out walking near the anomolous grove last night, got attacked by a chimera.. I just emptied my upgraded shotgun into his face and he was down in 5-6 shots.

still, misery was a fantastic experience. made pripyat into more of an rpg style game, having to choose when to fight, running away being a legit option not just an "Im too lazy to do this" and really h ammering home the isolation of the zone. just wandering around I'm noticing far less stalkers/bandits/freedom/duty whereas in pripyat complete I couldn't walk for 2 minutes without running into a firefight happening somewhere on the map.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

how zulu survived this long in the zone i do not know
he doesnt understand the meaning of the term friendly fire, keeps littering me in the back with that bloody machine gun as i'm running forward to headshot zombies
and the only reason I have to run so far forward to kill them is because if he gets close enough he just runs at them and stands 2 feet away firing at them in the chest until he gets shot

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

i played pripyat to completion twice before, had a steam combined total of 88 hours played
1 playthrough of Misery i'm at 171 hours so one run through of misery (which i'd imagine i'm 5-10 hours away from finishing) is as long as two playthroughs of vanilla

this mod is incredible

Tar.Aldarion

So what are the mods and sequels I should be playing? I only ever played the amazing original and got to some **** ending that pissed me off, with no save file old enough to go another way.

AlmightyCushion

I played with the complete mod and thought it was a good mod. It doesn't change much like misery but misery sounds like torture.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

it's torture for the first 10-15 hours, once you get going it's great... and firefights are bloody hard, it's almost one shot kill

tar for chernobyl.. stalker complete
http://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-complete-2009

i havent tried any other chernobyl mods, as every time I go to moddb to havce a look I see 3 or 4 real interesting ones that have "new versions coming soon" so I say I'll wait until they're released.. and so far they never have been


oh snap, just checked again
http://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-soc-oblivion-lost-2010
download links for oblivion lost iirc a total conversion mod for stalker chernobyl, meant to be very good

guess i know what i'll be doing next week


also, i only managed to squeeze another hour out of misery. so 4 hours short of it being double the combined playtime of both my early playthroughs of pripyat.
still 84 hours is pretty incredible, it didn't feel like it dragged.. I dont even know how it took me that long, I guess time flies when you're running away from pseudodogs


oh and sequels. clear sky is ... like it's a good game, compared to everything else out there. but it's far inferior to chernobyl and pripyat. I think I read somewhere they nerfed the guns and game slightly so that long range combat wasn't as effective, to force players to get in and run/gun. it kinda shows, but still has some amazing locations and barring the occasional game breaking bug (some of which are still in the game after modders attempts to patch them out) it's a very enjoyable game

call of pripyat is fantastic. it's almost as good, maybe better in places than chernobyl. doesnt have the sense of isolation chernobyl had or the happy go lucky family picnic vibe of clear sky but is a good mix of what worked from both games.

ShadowHearth

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

it's torture for the first 10-15 hours, once you get going it's great... and firefights are bloody hard, it's almost one shot kill

tar for chernobyl.. stalker complete
http://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-complete-2009

i havent tried any other chernobyl mods, as every time I go to moddb to havce a look I see 3 or 4 real interesting ones that have "new versions coming soon" so I say I'll wait until they're released.. and so far they never have been


oh snap, just checked again
http://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-soc-oblivion-lost-2010
download links for oblivion lost iirc a total conversion mod for stalker chernobyl, meant to be very good

guess i know what i'll be doing next week


also, i only managed to squeeze another hour out of misery. so 4 hours short of it being double the combined playtime of both my early playthroughs of pripyat.
still 84 hours is pretty incredible, it didn't feel like it dragged.. I dont even know how it took me that long, I guess time flies when you're running away from pseudodogs


oh and sequels. clear sky is ... like it's a good game, compared to everything else out there. but it's far inferior to chernobyl and pripyat. I think I read somewhere they nerfed the guns and game slightly so that long range combat wasn't as effective, to force players to get in and run/gun. it kinda shows, but still has some amazing locations and barring the occasional game breaking bug (some of which are still in the game after modders attempts to patch them out) it's a very enjoyable game

call of pripyat is fantastic. it's almost as good, maybe better in places than chernobyl. doesnt have the sense of isolation chernobyl had or the happy go lucky family picnic vibe of clear sky but is a good mix of what worked from both games.

m8 do you get weird bug: when you load sometimes all goes very very foggy. and before you saved it was clear night or day?

i am in prypyat and i got that crapy fog again. i want to see prypyat not swim in fog

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

hahaha yeah, got that loads of times
it was annoying as hell a few of them.. i saved on the southern plateau and was about to go looking for bodies. died, and then reloaded.. fog *everywhere* took me ages to find the bodies i wanted to loot

it goes away after a few ingame hours, although loading a game does seem to make it more likely to happen

actually weirdly enough, this is my 3rd time finishing the game.. and it's the first time I never saw nighttime in pripyat
both other times I hardly ever saw pripyat during the day whtaever way it worked out I always did the missions during the dark.. this time, day time.
it's actually a pretty nice city and I wasn't so scared that I ran through everything, i strolled and explored

ShadowHearth

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

hahaha yeah, got that loads of times
it was annoying as hell a few of them.. i saved on the southern plateau and was about to go looking for bodies. died, and then reloaded.. fog *everywhere* took me ages to find the bodies i wanted to loot

it goes away after a few ingame hours, although loading a game does seem to make it more likely to happen

actually weirdly enough, this is my 3rd time finishing the game.. and it's the first time I never saw nighttime in pripyat
both other times I hardly ever saw pripyat during the day whtaever way it worked out I always did the missions during the dark.. this time, day time.
it's actually a pretty nice city and I wasn't so scared that I ran through everything, i strolled and explored

yeah, i get A LOT of nightime too when i am off on my explorations. its creepy at night and if you got all maxed out the lightning effects from your light makes it very creepy and realistic!

i am stuck with money thought. got only 300 left on me and i would need some repairs done. and getting back in to pripyat costs 5k! ****! i need some good stach of crap from pripyat before i will be off to look who can repair that cannon yoke!

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

yeah i didnt even have enough money at the end to fully upgrade my weapons or armour, artifacts are alot rarer in misery and without 30 anti rads and 500 bandages in my inventory I've no wasy way to make money

Tar.Aldarion

So many good games to play The sense of isolation and atmosphere in the original is brilliant. May have to save your post to come back and play them when I can.

ShadowHearth

I am playing it again all morning.

Got more and more in to it. I love Pripyat. When you exploring it at night it gives a real scary sence of ghost town.
I feel that I am not far from end here. Need to walk a dog and I will be back in action!

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

the mod im waiting for to reach a mostly stable level is tecnobacons stalkersoup

http://tecnobacon.com/modders/levelmap.html

I played a bit of it last year, and I *loved* it but it bugged out after about 30-40 hours and I figured I'd just wait until it was slightly more stable. if you think misery is hard.. by christ you've seen nothing yet

you actually can't walk forward without a bolt in your hand to check for anomalies, well.. you can but it's suicide.

ShadowHearth

Finnaly finished it. Really loved it and mod was great, but I got soooo pissed of near ending. I would have gotten way better ending of not this stupid ****ing npc bug. All of the escorted npcs ( and I saved almost all of them ) got stuck near bus and were just sitting... I reloaded it so many times and could not get them unbugged so it would mean to restart last part again.. **** that... I just watched YouTube good 100% ending.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

heh
there's something like 21 slides that can appear at the end depending on the various choices you made during the game, i saw things this time I never saw the others

I also realised this playthrough that I always sided with beard over sultan.. and if you side with sultan you get other quests to do.. so might have to do another playthrough as short range or mid range guy in misery and work for sultan this time around

marco_polo

This is not news at all really, but its nice to have a another little bit of assurance that all is still well.

http://www.vg247.com/2012/03/16/gsc-s-t-a-l-k-e-r-2-still-on-track-no-date-yet/

GSC has yet again moved to assure fans that work on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is still ongoing.

The Ukranian developer said in a tweet today: “To answer the multitude of questions we’ve been getting, #Stalker2 is currently in development, yes. However there is no release date yet.”

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

yeah saw that this morning, gave me a chubby

"no release date" is kinda ominous though, i was trying to find a stalker thread in here a while back so I searched "stalker" in the games forum. pretty sure there were threads from 2004 talking about the game

Ciaran500

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

"no release date" is kinda ominous though, i was trying to find a stalker thread in here a while back so I searched "stalker" in the games forum. pretty sure there were threads from 2004 talking about the game

They develop and publish their own games, they don't need to have a public deadline to rush to.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

http://vimeo.com/39690265

MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPP

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

so.. stalker 2 isn't happening apparently

Official S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
After a long silence the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 development team is finally back with the announcement. A new studio and project, despite no official continuation of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is reported, it looks like the ideas and spirit S.T.A.L.K.E.R. will live on in the team's new game – “Survarium”

but

Our company appeared in March 2012 in Kiev. Ten years earlier, when at GSC Game World we started developing the renowned S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game series and continued working on it until December 2011 when the studio was unexpectedly shut down and the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 project – frozen. We did not reach agreement with the rights owner regarding the use of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. brand, that’s why we made the decision to move forward as an independent studio with a new project. That day became our starting point for Vostok Games.

http://www.facebook.com/Survarium/info

http://www.vostokgames.com/en is their website

and it's a freeplay MMOFPS

for
****
sake

--edit

Money was the issue. We were not able to secure the rights to continue development of the Stalker series.

from the stalker twitter account @gscstalker

ShadowHearth

FECK :mad:

Sephiroth_dude

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

so.. stalker 2 isn't happening apparently



but



http://www.facebook.com/Survarium/info

http://www.vostokgames.com/en is their website

and it's a freeplay MMOFPS

for
****
sake

sad news

Sarky

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl812VZv9VI

Retr0gamer

The dream is over

Sarky wrote: »

You sir have earned a lot of brownie points for the use of adventure time gifs.

Hande hoche!

Very,very sad news.

gizmo

STALKER Franchise Sold to Bethesda?

Obviously it's only a rumor but between what happened in December, the subsequent "revival" of development, the fallout from the team leaving, their sudden move to a new studio with a new engine and a 2013 release date and the insistence that they couldn't get their hands on the STALKER licence, I reckon something really really weird happened here...

Chairman Meow

apparently thats not true about bethesda. but if it was...stalker designed for a pad, dumbed down for consoles and on gamebryo engine?

gizmo

Chairman Meow wrote: »

apparently thats not true about bethesda. but if it was...stalker designed for a pad, dumbed down for consoles and on gamebryo engine?

Yup, because being dumbed down is a prerequisite for being on the consoles.

When is Dark Souls being released on the PC again? :pac:

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

yeah 1 complex good game on consoles, maybe two with the witcher
quality argument there

honestly you are such a console fanboy

gizmo

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

yeah 1 complex good game on consoles, maybe two with the witcher
quality argument there

honestly you are such a console fanboy

I'll give you one thing Sir Digby, you're nothing if not predictable

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/may/01/zone-chernobyl-tarkovsky-video-game/

not really related to the closure of GSC games but im not making a new thread for it and it's a nice read, even if he clearly doesn't think the games are that great

Sarky

"Sub par" graphics? Those games were sodding beautiful. Still are. Maybe he didn't have a decent PC to run it on?

He's dead right about the game's strangely appealing not giving a damn what happens to the player. It's really refreshing not to be the hero, just some guy trying to survive in a world that will go on without you regardless.

AlmightyCushion

Sarky wrote: »

"Sub par" graphics? Those games were sodding beautiful. Still are. Maybe he didn't have a decent PC to run it on?

He's dead right about the game's strangely appealing not giving a damn what happens to the player. It's really refreshing not to be the hero, just some guy trying to survive in a world that will go on without you regardless.

The first one is showing it's age a bit now but mods fix that.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

The first one is showing it's age a bit now but mods fix that.

aye, chernobyl can look a bit.. sort of awful before you install complete mod

well, maybe not awful .. but it does look bad compared to how it looks with the mod installed

briany

Sarky wrote: »

"Sub par" graphics? Those games were sodding beautiful. Still are. Maybe he didn't have a decent PC to run it on?

He's dead right about the game's strangely appealing not giving a damn what happens to the player. It's really refreshing not to be the hero, just some guy trying to survive in a world that will go on without you regardless.

STALKER was or is part of a dwindling number of FPS games that have a look, a feel and mythology that is their own. STALKER, Far Cry and Half Life were the only FPS games that really excited me and drew me in, and the tangible worlds they presented had a lot to do with that.

Sarky

There's still life in that style of shooter yet. Day Z is looking to become just such a game, and eastern Europe has delivered some cracking experiences like the STALKER series, Metro 2033, Cryostasis (ok, it had some problems but I thought it was amazing), Pathologik, and I'm sure there are more.

Tar.Aldarion

Somebody get rich and make this happen ffs

gizmo

Sarky wrote: »

There's still life in that style of shooter yet. Day Z is looking to become just such a game, and eastern Europe has delivered some cracking experiences like the STALKER series, Metro 2033, Cryostasis (ok, it had some problems but I thought it was amazing), Pathologik, and I'm sure there are more.

Woooooo Cryostasis!

More people need(ed) to play that game

5uspect

I got a copy free with a graphics card but never got around to playing it beyond the opening. It reminded me of Condemned a bit. I must dig out the installer again.

Sarky

It was visually incredible, and I thought it was bloody creepy myself.

briany

Sarky wrote: »

It was visually incredible, and I thought it was bloody creepy myself.

It reminded me a bit of Condemned with the thick atmosphere and claustrophobic setting.

On the subject of creepy games, has anyone ever played The Experiment? It's set aboard a large wrecked ship and you have to guide a person through the ship using the onboard surveillance system, switching on lights prompting them where to go etc.

Odaise Gaelach

Sarky wrote: »

It was visually incredible, and I thought it was bloody creepy myself.

Loved the lighting, and the colours! I remember having a debate with a friend of mine about which was better looking: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or Metal Gear Solid 4 (which wasn't released at the time). MGS4 had the high polygon count and high-resolution textures, but it was all in that pale yellow colour. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. had the dynamic lighting - shoot a light fixture above a metal grille, and watch the shadows of the grille moving with the light. The bright red or blue lights of a fire or electricity anomaly. And the perpetual feeling that - either in the middle of the wilderness, or in the middle of a gunfight between two opposing sides that, while I had nothing to do them, their bullets were flying over my head - you were totally and utterly ****ed.

briany wrote: »

On the subject of creepy games, has anyone ever played The Experiment? It's set aboard a large wrecked ship and you have to guide a person through the ship using the onboard surveillance system, switching on lights prompting them where to go etc.

I played it for a while; I liked it, but I got fed up of having to wait for herself to shamble from light to light.