S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl - coming September 5th

[NecroLord]

IMO it adds to immersion to have a few female stalkers

Prostitutes or otherwise in a relationship/married to another stalker, that I can believe.
But a woman stalker who goes full Rambo? Nah.

 

[Hace El Oso]

Small amount of women stalkers makes sense. There are women in the military too, or working as guards. IMO it adds to immersion to have a few female stalkers somewhere in the zone (as long as you don't go full retard with 50/50 ratio or make the girls always be best like Obsidian does).

But the zone isn’t life in a ‘civilized’ army with many support rules for softies like women, it’s frontier life on steroids. And the common thread in all frontier societies is that women are in extremely short supply or not in stock at all, and never doing the same work as men.

 

[cvv]

Small amount of women stalkers makes sense. There are women in the military too, or working as guards.

Because our plush, fat, comfortable civilization can afford it.

Since the dawn of man up until a 100 years ago there were zero women in combat roles anywhere in the world, for good reasons. A postapo world would bring those reasons back.

 

[Konjad]

Since the dawn of man up until a 100 years ago there were zero women in combat roles anywhere in the world, for good reasons. A postapo world would bring those reasons back.

Stop spreading such obvious bullshit.

Is that why after Bizantines defeated Slavs in the siege of Constantinople they reported there were many women among the dead Slavic warriors?

Here's a random link:

Possible grave of a Slavic warrior woman has been identified by Dr. Leszek Gardeła. Archaeologists discovered it many years ago in the Viking cemetery on the Danish island of Langeland. But until now they did not notice a typical Slavic axe.

(...)
Unfortunately, bones are not preserved in most graves from this period. It is therefore difficult to say how people buried there died, or unambiguously confirm their biological sex. Researchers are convinced that some of the graves containing weapons are women`s burials mainly because of additional equipment, for example typically female ornaments and jewellery.

https://scienceinpoland.pl/en/news/...sible-grave-slavic-warrior-woman-denmark.html

It's well known Slavic women were fighting along men in combat.

Same with many nomads, Illyrians and so on.

 

[Harthwain]

A postapo world would bring those reasons back.

Or it could change it to "all hands on deck!". During medieval sieges women were helping, because it was the moment of crisis that required even them to take part. Same goes for putting women into factories to replace men who were sent off to war and women who were conscripted into the army (not just in supporting roles), because there was a shortage of fighting men at the time. Same goes for farm work (again, men were sent to war). So you could see women doing work they usually wouldn't do in a postapo setting (especially depending on size of the group and its makeup).

 

[cvv]

It's well known Slavic women were fighting along men in combat.

Yes, there is that one mention from the Siege of Dorostol (not Constantinople) where the Byzantines won, marched into the city and found dead Slavic women alongside their men.

It seems this was indeed a time-honored tradition among the Slav and the Norse women to take up arms and fight alongside men when their settlement/town/fortress was attacked.

It was a purely defensive role, along the thinking "might as well swing the sword too because if they win they'll kill me or turn me into a sex slave and fuck that noise". That's very different from women going on raids or serving as regular soldiers or mercenaries.

Or it could change it to "all hands on deck!". During medieval sieges women were helping

Sure but roaming the wasteland in search of loot and glory isn't the type of "all hands of deck" scenario we're talking about in connection with female "warriors".

 

[normie]

Negro and strong independent women stalkers when? Це Європа after all.

It's telling that Anomaly, probably the most popular Stalker mod, decided to include female stalkers (Hip) and nobody minds.
The fanbase will get what they deserve.

It is almost as if men want to see some hot ladies in tight gear in their games...

Cool story, bro. Anomaly is for trannies.

 

[Gerrard]

Negro and strong independent women stalkers when? Це Європа after all.

It's telling that Anomaly, probably the most popular Stalker mod, decided to include female stalkers (Hip) and nobody minds.
The fanbase will get what they deserve.

Plenty of people mind, but otherwise she's in the Rookie Village so out of sight for the most part.

 

[GloomFrost]

Please for the love of GOD stop ruining one of the best and most atmospheric Post ap games in existence with this degeneracy. Just realised we are going to have strong independent wymen in Gothic remake aren't we.

 

[cvv]

Just realised we are going to have strong independent wymen in Gothic remake aren't we.

Yes.

Women in an all-male penal colony is just the thing to subvert your expectations.

 

[Harthwain]

Sure but roaming the wasteland in search of loot and glory isn't the type of "all hands of deck" scenario we're talking about in connection with female "warriors".

Yeah. I was thinking more along the lines of the "postapo world" scenario where it is important to gather resources for the survival of the group or have as many able-bodied members as possible for defense purposes. But Stalkers are a different bunch. Nobody is in the Zone because he's stranded, they are looking for artifacts or fulfill other obligations (fight for the control over the area).

in Gothic remake

Was that the one with the demo? The shitty one?

 

[NecroLord]

Women in an all-male penal colony

This isn't gonna end well, is it?

 

[Iucounu]

Small amount of women stalkers makes sense. There are women in the military too, or working as guards.

In theory, sure. Adventurous women do exist (Agnes Milowka and Noraly Schoenmaker come to mind).

But in practice, the likelyhood of running into such unique females would be next to zero, unless the game writers created just such an unlikely scenario. And why would they do that? As fan service to feminist journalists or incel gamers? Neither are valid reasons from a lore/setting perspective.

IMO it adds to immersion to have a few female stalkers somewhere in the zone (as long as you don't go full retard with 50/50 ratio or make the girls always be best like Obsidian does).

On the contrary, I think female NPCs would draw too much attention to themselves by their mere existence (both the player's attention and from male NPCs in the gameworld). But Stalker is not about relationship drama, it's about the Zone. This is also why the previous Stalker 2 trailers worry me, with their dancing gay stalkers and (male) drama queens. Woke developers might then try to reduce the womens' distracting effect by making their personalities asexual and manly; but that would just draw even more attention to them, and in an even more negative way.

....

Here are the two ladies I mentioned above, I think both of them showcase true Stalker spirit (so it's not entirely off-topic). But should they be in the game? Absolutely not. Put them in Tomb Raider, Alien or Mass Effect instead.

Agnes died (a bit ominously) just a few months after uploading the video:

Diver calm to end as death closed in



Note Noraly's agreeable personality, in contrast with most "strong" women in pop culture that try to act tough to hide their insecurity. Highly recommended Youtube channel:

 

[NecroLord]

Small amount of women stalkers makes sense. There are women in the military too, or working as guards.

In theory, sure. Adventurous women do exist (Agnes Milowka and Noraly Schoenmaker come to mind).

But in practice, the likelyhood of running into such unique females would be next to zero, unless the game writers created just such an unlikely scenario. And why would they do that? As fan service to feminist journalists or incel gamers? Neither are valid reasons from a lore/setting perspective.

IMO it adds to immersion to have a few female stalkers somewhere in the zone (as long as you don't go full retard with 50/50 ratio or make the girls always be best like Obsidian does).

On the contrary, I think female NPCs would draw too much attention to themselves by their mere existence (both the player's attention and from male NPCs in the gameworld). But Stalker is not about relationship drama, it's about the Zone. This is also why the previous Stalker 2 trailers worry me, with their dancing gay stalkers and (male) drama queens. Woke developers might then try to reduce the womens' distracting effect by making their personalities asexual and manly; but that would just draw even more attention to them, and in an even more negative way.

....

Here are the two ladies I mentioned above, I think both of them showcase true Stalker spirit (so it's not entirely off-topic). But should they be in the game? Absolutely not. Put them in Tomb Raider, Alien or Mass Effect instead.

Agnes died (a bit ominously) just a few months after uploading the video:

Diver calm to end as death closed in



Note Noraly's agreeable personality, in contrast with most "strong" women in pop culture that try to act tough to hide their insecurity. Highly recommended Youtube channel:

Brother, women just do not have an adventuring, pioneering spirit. They are weak minded simpletons, herd animals.
In the worst of cases they are whores and betrayers.
This strong woman shit needs to stop, as it is actively harming women, making them believe they are capable of doing absolutely everything without consequences...

 

[Iucounu]

Brother, women just do not have an adventuring, pioneering spirit. They are weak minded simpletons, herd animals.
In the worst of cases they are whores and betrayers.

Alas that's true for most men and women alike. But we're discussing the exceptions here.

This strong woman shit needs to stop, as it is actively harming women, making them believe they are capable of doing absolutely everything without consequences...

I'd say Western women need to stop their whiny entitlement and grow real strenght and responsibility, like women in the rest of the world learn from their mothers. Usually that doesn't mean doing the same things as men, of course.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Small amount of women stalkers makes sense. There are women in the military too, or working as guards. IMO it adds to immersion to have a few female stalkers somewhere in the zone (as long as you don't go full retard with 50/50 ratio or make the girls always be best like Obsidian does).

You see, yes, it is quite possible to include wimminz in Stalker in a realistic way.

But doing this requires acknowledging that wimminz and men are not equal and will explode more asses than simply having a game without wimminz.

Imagine a stalker base at a place like Skadovsk. You can imagine a woman being a medic there, totally realistic.
Or woman being a barkeep. She has bodyguards to keep her out of trouble with rowdy customers. You can make a story how she came to the Zone with her brother and he was the original barkeep, but then died in anomaly and she had to take his place.
Wimminz among scientists make sense too.

But this is not what the modern "audience" wants. They want stronk independent wimminz gunning down chimeras like it's free. And this is where we enter the fantasy land

 

[Ol' Willy]

Negro and strong independent women stalkers when? Це Європа after all.

It's telling that Anomaly, probably the most popular Stalker mod, decided to include female stalkers (Hip) and nobody minds.
The fanbase will get what they deserve.

What's the problem with female stalkers?

Breaks immershun, is distracting. Regressing back to barebones civilization means going back to the "might makes right" kindda world people used to inhabit for millennia. And that in turn necessarily drags women back to their previous roles.

In such a world every stronk yas queen trying to fearlessly roam the wasteland would be everyone's favourite juicy prey. Very soon everyone would get the memo and women would once again stay huddled around well guarded campfires.

That was the point I made a few months back.
What the hell are women doing in The Zone? You know, surrounded by packs of mutants, bloodsuckers, chimeras, pseudogiants, bandits, mercenaries?
Yeah, man, not fun...

You know, while I like Stalker setting from sci-fi perspective, from a social one it is completely toothless. My little pony level world of friendship.

Imagine the Zone. A place devoid of any (!) law enforcement. No police, no state security, and even army prefers no to venture far without major reason.

What this place will look like in a real world?

Drug trafficking. Organ trafficking. Slavery. Prostitution. Experiments on humans. Shady deals of any kind ever imaginable. Cannibals. Satanic cults with human sacrifices (was kinda present with Sin faction in builds). The only thing present in this regard is Arena from the SoC. Human on human gladiator fights, this is what I am talking about.

But instead, we have hordes of romantic stalkers who want to "explore the Zone". We have Dolg with "hurr durr zone is bad let's destroy it" against Svoboda with "hurr durr zone should be open for everyone!". What kind of conflict is this?

One may argue that this is the game after all, but Fallout 2 had all of these features without any problems.

And even most of the mods follow this happy social order of original trilogy

 

[Konjad]

Small amount of women stalkers makes sense. There are women in the military too, or working as guards. IMO it adds to immersion to have a few female stalkers somewhere in the zone (as long as you don't go full retard with 50/50 ratio or make the girls always be best like Obsidian does).

You see, yes, it is quite possible to include wimminz in Stalker in a realistic way.

But doing this requires acknowledging that wimminz and men are not equal and will explode more asses than simply having a game without wimminz.

Imagine a stalker base at a place like Skadovsk. You can imagine a woman being a medic there, totally realistic.
Or woman being a barkeep. She has bodyguards to keep her out of trouble with rowdy customers. You can make a story how she came to the Zone with her brother and he was the original barkeep, but then died in anomaly and she had to take his place.
Wimminz among scientists make sense too.

But this is not what the modern "audience" wants. They want stronk independent wimminz gunning down chimeras like it's free. And this is where we enter the fantasy land

I'm still for realistic portrayal. "Strong independent woman who is above men" is retarded, but so are opinions like below:

[Women] are weak minded simpletons, herd animals.

and blatant lies:

Since the dawn of man up until a 100 years ago there were zero women in combat roles anywhere in the world

It seems this was indeed a time-honored tradition among the Slav and the Norse women to take up arms and fight alongside men when their settlement/town/fortress was attacked.

Yes.

It was a purely defensive role, along the thinking "might as well swing the sword too because if they win they'll kill me or turn me into a sex slave and fuck that noise". That's very different from women going on raids or serving as regular soldiers or mercenaries.

Women also fought in offense, though in significantly smaller numbers and there were few elite units made of women (tbh I only know of Japan but I'm not educated in the matter). Nonetheless, plenty of women fought in less strict and elite formations, especially in nomad and slavic cultures (for normans it was less common afaik, their women did indeed fight mostly in defense, but again, I'm not educated enough to be certain)

Sure but roaming the wasteland in search of loot and glory isn't the type of "all hands of deck" scenario we're talking about in connection with female "warriors".

There were women pirates, commanders, and rulers, I find it hard to believe there wouldn't be a few women capable of wanting to go and taking care of themselves in the zone. Probably not a lot, but none is almost as unrealistic as 50/50.

 

[Ol' Willy]

There were women pirates, commanders, and rulers, I find it hard to believe there wouldn't be a few women capable of wanting to go and taking care of themselves in the zone. Probably not a lot, but none is almost as unrealistic as 50/50.

This will require having wimminz as prostitutes and sex slaves too. Lawlessness works both ways

 

[NecroLord]

Negro and strong independent women stalkers when? Це Європа after all.

It's telling that Anomaly, probably the most popular Stalker mod, decided to include female stalkers (Hip) and nobody minds.
The fanbase will get what they deserve.

What's the problem with female stalkers?

Breaks immershun, is distracting. Regressing back to barebones civilization means going back to the "might makes right" kindda world people used to inhabit for millennia. And that in turn necessarily drags women back to their previous roles.

In such a world every stronk yas queen trying to fearlessly roam the wasteland would be everyone's favourite juicy prey. Very soon everyone would get the memo and women would once again stay huddled around well guarded campfires.

That was the point I made a few months back.
What the hell are women doing in The Zone? You know, surrounded by packs of mutants, bloodsuckers, chimeras, pseudogiants, bandits, mercenaries?
Yeah, man, not fun...

You know, while I like Stalker setting from sci-fi perspective, from a social one it is completely toothless. My little pony level world of friendship.

Imagine the Zone. A place devoid of any (!) law enforcement. No police, no state security, and even army prefers no to venture far without major reason.

What this place will look like in a real world?

Drug trafficking. Organ trafficking. Slavery. Prostitution. Experiments on humans. Shady deals of any kind ever imaginable. Cannibals. Satanic cults with human sacrifices (was kinda present with Sin faction in builds). The only thing present in this regard is Arena from the SoC. Human on human gladiator fights, this is what I am talking about.

But instead, we have hordes of romantic stalkers who want to "explore the Zone". We have Dolg with "hurr durr zone is bad let's destroy it" against Svoboda with "hurr durr zone should be open for everyone!". What kind of conflict is this?

One may argue that this is the game after all, but Fallout 2 had all of these features without any problems.

And even most of the mods follow this happy social order of original trilogy

Yes, that's why Fallout 2 is so awesome.
It does have humor, but it's also dark, as a post apocalyptic setting should be. Slavery, drug trafficking (New Reno Crime Families), tribal cannibals, etc.
Stalker is rather tame in comparison (but it has a great horror atmosphere, especially Shadow of Chernobyl).

 

[Ryzer]

Codex- "We don't want any degeneracy into our games"
Also Codex-" There is not enough slavery, cannibalism, prostitution and rape into the game, decline !?!?!"

 

[Iucounu]

Imagine the Zone. A place devoid of any (!) law enforcement. No police, no state security, and even army prefers no to venture far without major reason.

What this place will look like in a real world?

Drug trafficking. Organ trafficking. Slavery. Prostitution.

That sounds a lot like the Darién Gap in Panama, a lawless region with marshes, migrants, drug traffickers and guerillas. But to me the Zone would be too dangerous for most organized crime to pass through, basically all the slaves would die. I've always imagined its environment as a bigger threat than other humans.

And what advantage would a drug trafficker gain by taking a shortcut through the Zone, instead of just travelling around it? Unlike the Darién Gap, the Zone is not a geographical choke point (unless you could use it to enter Belarus?). Rather it's an attraction on its own (artifacts or secrets), or a place for Bandits to escape to from the outside police.

As for prostitutes, I think they would make the Zone too "civilized" (in a negative sense) and its bases too established, almost like little towns. What's next --ice cream vendors, bowling halls? It would mean civilization encroaching on the Zone's perimeter, which is not what I'd want as a player.

Experiments on humans. Shady deals of any kind ever imaginable. Cannibals. Satanic cults with human sacrifices (was kinda present with Sin faction in builds).

There is some of that, like the experiments in the labs. Not sure if the Monolith faction are cannibals (there are some burnt human bones), but they are indeed portrayed as cultist (though I prefer the idea that their minds are reprogrammed mainly through technology than by religious conviction). Satanic cults from the outside world moving into the Zone sounds too unbelieveable though. I sure hope GSC won't add such things just to desperately fill the game's large areas with "content". Make the areas smaller instead, quality always wins over quantity.

The only thing present in this regard is Arena from the SoC. Human on human gladiator fights, this is what I am talking about.

I think the Arena is a bit silly, and never play it.

But instead, we have hordes of romantic stalkers who want to "explore the Zone". We have Dolg with "hurr durr zone is bad let's destroy it" against Svoboda with "hurr durr zone should be open for everyone!". What kind of conflict is this?

Romantic Stalkers make sense, as long as they stay in the Cordon (once they venture deeper into the Zone they'll get killed or desillusioned). I agree that the ideologies of Duty and Freedom are a bit simplistic, but if you view Duty's origin as ex-Military and Freedom's as pot-smoking Hippies their mutual contempt becomes more understandable. But the real basis of their animosity would likely just be competition over resources (artifacts) and perhaps personal quarrels.

One may argue that this is the game after all, but Fallout 2 had all of these features without any problems.

Never played any Fallout game, their setting and art style seems completely off-putting. Is it Bethesdas bad influence?

 

[NecroLord]

Never played any Fallout game, their setting and art style seems completely off-putting. Is it Bethesdas bad influence?

Play Fallout 1 and 2.
It was originally an Interplay IP, but then it got bought by Bethesda and things went to shit and downhill from there...

 

[Ol' Willy]

That sounds a lot like the Darién Gap in Panama, a lawless region with marshes, migrants, drug traffickers and guerillas. But to me the Zone would be too dangerous for most organized crime to pass through, basically all the slaves would die. I've always imagined its environment as a bigger threat than other humans.

And what advantage would a drug trafficker gain by taking a shortcut through the Zone, instead of just travelling around it? Unlike the Darién Gap, the Zone is not a geographical choke point (unless you could use it to enter Belarus?). Rather it's an attraction on its own (artifacts or secrets), or a place for Bandits to escape to from the outside police.

You don't get it.

It's not that drug traffickers and slavers will make their deals in the Zone.

It's just that locals will start doing it.

Why go into anomaly by yourself when you can use a slave for this?

There is some of that, like the experiments in the labs. Not sure if the Monolith faction are cannibals (there are some burnt human bones), but they are indeed portrayed as cultist (though I prefer the idea that their minds are reprogrammed mainly through technology than by religious conviction). Satanic cults from the outside world moving into the Zone sounds too unbelieveable though. I sure hope GSC won't add such things just to desperately fill the game's large areas with "content". Make the areas smaller instead, quality always wins over quantity.

Monolithians are in-between flesh puppets and cultists. Sin faction existed in builds, some weird human sacrificing cult

Experiments in the labs took place before the Zone was created. Yeah, controller, chimera, poltergeist - all manmade

 

[mondblut]

What's the problem with female stalkers?

Why would anyone let them out of the rape shack?