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

[Dark Souls II]

There might be full blown A–Life system deep in the game's codebase which, by the look at it, is disabled by now, but it looks like devs might work on it and enable it in recent patches

"Guys, the emperor might not be naked! By the look of it, the clothes are disabled now, but it looks like they might be enabled sometime in the future!"

 

[Konjad]

 

[Odoryuk]

There might be full blown A–Life system deep in the game's codebase which, by the look at it, is disabled by now, but it looks like devs might work on it and enable it in recent patches

"Guys, the emperor might not be naked! By the look of it, the clothes are disabled now, but it looks like they might be enabled sometime in the future!"

All I'm saying is that looking at a config file doesn't make you aware of the codebase of the game, by any means it does not. But you're pretty biased (and, frankly, not very bright) so you're seeing that as an endorcement and defending of the game I haven't even played yet

 

[PanteraNera]

Anyways, I installed Shadow of Chernobyl and after trying out a couple of mods I decided to play vanilla. Damn is the game fun.
Stalker 1 just feels so much more alive it is crazy. As I said before Stalker 2 is not bad, has a lot of things going for it, but SoC just feels so much better. And I haven't played the game in the last 10-15 years, nor any other game from the series, nor any mods or that Anomaly thing. Nor am I really a huge fan of the series.

I think it is hilarious having a top notch rig and playing mostly old games and indie games on it.

Well I am outta here enjoying SoC and than probably the other two games. Maybe when I am done with that, Stalker 2 is in a better shape. From playing S2 for 12 hours I can tell one thing for sure, they have to change a lot of things that Alife 2.0 feels anything near what it feels like in SoC. I highly doubt it will be "fixed" as they are clearly different approaches, there is currently no simulation of the world going on in S2 and honestly, it feels like a design choice!

 

[Harthwain]

I highly doubt it will be "fixed" as they are clearly different approaches, there is currently no simulation of the world going on in S2 and honestly, it feels like a design choice!

Or it was done as a bandaid/stopgap measure, because they knew they couldn't get it done before the release and hoped it will do before they'll fix it (somehow). It wouldn't surprise me.

 

[baba is you]

What is certain is that GSC is hiding something. They said they would patch it next week, but they are not going to fix the most urgent A-life bugs. This is a sign that the A-life problem will last for more than a month, so it is better to just forget about it for a while.

 

[V17]

This is a good reminder that buying games before you know what you're getting is idiotic and there's no good reason to do so.

Also, from the documentary they released it was clear that the game was going to be unfinished. They talked about how they had to use a hail mary build for the first public playable demo at some game expo and didn't know till the last moment if it's going to work out. There was no chance to go from that to a finished game before release. I think it's most likely that A-Life is half done and was scrapped for the release to spend more time fixing more immediately visible surface-level bugs.

Despite that I'm quite optimistic about it turning into a great game eventually. I just think there's no way it's going to happen in a month, more like a definitive edition in a year, and may require community doing some work too, Bethesda style, unfortunately. But the reception most often seems to be "this is a great base game, it just needs to be finished" and the sales are good so far, so it's at the very least not entirely out of the question that they do keep working on it long enough.

Btw, the peak players number is 119k and the sales were recently announced as being over 1 mil, so the ratio of "X peak players on steam very roughly equals 10X sales on all platforms" that was talked about in the Veilguard thread I think holds again.

 

[NecroLord]

Anyways, I installed Shadow of Chernobyl and after trying out a couple of mods I decided to play vanilla. Damn is the game fun.
Stalker 1 just feels so much more alive it is crazy. As I said before Stalker 2 is not bad, has a lot of things going for it, but SoC just feels so much better. And I haven't played the game in the last 10-15 years, nor any other game from the series, nor any mods or that Anomaly thing. Nor am I really a huge fan of the series.

I think it is hilarious having a top notch rig and playing mostly old games and indie games on it.

Well I am outta here enjoying SoC and than probably the other two games. Maybe when I am done with that, Stalker 2 is in a better shape. From playing S2 for 12 hours I can tell one thing for sure, they have to change a lot of things that Alife 2.0 feels anything near what it feels like in SoC. I highly doubt it will be "fixed" as they are clearly different approaches, there is currently no simulation of the world going on in S2 and honestly, it feels like a design choice!

Wait until you get to some of the later areas in Shadow of Chernobyl.
Dark, depressing atmosphere with horror thrown in to make it perfect.

 

[tritosine2k]

Also, from the documentary they released it was clear that the game was going to be unfinished.

...which didn't stop them from calling it AAA on their own website. Another shining case of "developer legends" .

Just like Path of Exile 2 budget was "justified ANYWAY" because they earn it ANYWAY.

 

[randir14]

Someone from GSC says A-Life 2.0 is supposed to work how it did in the old games, rather than just spawning things around the player.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1643320/discussions/0/4626981087516564744/

 

[Ryzer]

 

[ciox]

A-Life 2.0 has truly defied all expectations...

 

[NecroLord]

A-Life 2.0 has truly defied all expectations...

So why did they even bother to make this supposedly so elaborately crafted and intelligent AI only for it to turn out to be a big failure?

 

[kangaxx]

Eurogamer: WHERE ARE THE NIGGERS AND TROONS 3/5

There's also a homogeneity to the soldiers of the Zone that feels distracting at times - an endless truckload of men with the same haircut, the same gruff pessimism, the same iffy voice acting. If Stalker has taken much of its mechanical inspiration from 2007, it has also taken its approach to casting from the same era. I met a woman once, after 26 hours of playing. She acted like all the other men. It's possible there's some thoughtful lore to explain the Zone's lack of diversity, and I simply didn't clock it. But regardless of intent the story remains a homogenous parade of lads being lads, where one man bleeds into another, literally and figuratively

https://www.eurogamer.net/stalker-2-heart-of-chornobyl-review

Sums up the absolute state of modern gaming.

 

[ghardy]

"...where one man bleeds into another, literally and figuratively."

I've read this a few times; it makes less sense each time.

 

[deuxhero]

It's probably trying to talk about characters literally spawnning inside of eachother, but is written by someone too retarded to actually make the link between the two flow coherently.

 

[Echo Mirage]

I'm starting to think that using the higher end gear is pointless without any kind of upgrades. Anything that isn't a Ak74U and a PMM is just made out of glass that will lose 20% of its condition just to shoot a handful of bandits. To make things worse, I've only just realized that all gear takes passive damage from anomalies.

 

[Harthwain]

It's probably trying to talk about characters literally spawnning inside of eachother, but is written by someone too retarded to actually make the link between the two flow coherently.

It could also mean that they look and behave in an identical manner ("men with the same haircut, the same gruff pessimism, the same iffy voice acting"), so you can't really differentiate one from the other.

 

[ArchAngel]

Nobodies worries as they know in 10 minutes he will respawn.

 

[mondblut]

It's probably trying to talk about characters literally spawnning inside of eachother, but is written by someone too retarded to actually make the link between the two flow coherently.

You are giving him too much credit. He simply means all characters have to look like this in order to be memorable:

Military thing in the heart of eastern Europe being done by gruff military types of east european descent? Wearing camouflage to reduce visibility to enemies? How passe!

 

[ghardy]

He simply means all characters have to look like this in order to be memorable:

The irony is that people wouldn't remember these ghastly designs if the flight of the Concord had succeeded. This kind of spectacular failure would have been memorable whatever the art style and character design.

 

[KeAShizuku]

Its not Eastern Europe if not everyone is an alcoholic depressed wife beater.

 

[Old Hans]

Someone from GSC says A-Life 2.0 is supposed to work how it did in the old games, rather than just spawning things around the player.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1643320/discussions/0/4626981087516564744/

Word on the street is the Russian guy working on the a-life has up and disappeared. coincidence? I think the Russians sabotaged the game as part of the war effort

 

[mediocrepoet]

Someone from GSC says A-Life 2.0 is supposed to work how it did in the old games, rather than just spawning things around the player.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1643320/discussions/0/4626981087516564744/

Word on the street is the Russian guy working on the a-life has up and disappeared. coincidence? I think the Russians sabotaged the game as part of the war effort

With so many red lines crossed, Putin had to show us all he was seriously serious this time.

 

[V17]

Also, from the documentary they released it was clear that the game was going to be unfinished.

...which didn't stop them from calling it AAA on their own website. Another shining case of "developer legends" .

Just like Path of Exile 2 budget was "justified ANYWAY" because they earn it ANYWAY.

To be clear, I'm not excusing them, I don't think there's anything good about it being unfinished. But also of course they would do that if they're releasing because they're running out of money and desperately need a ton more to fund actually finishing the development. They openly admitted that this was the case and they are kind of desperate (in the documentary), saying that there were too many delays and fuckups in the past and this is the last realistic chance to actually make the game.

Sucks for those who preordered or bought it day one unaware of this. I think the documentary was released not only for marketing but also to soften the blow and prepare at least some people for the state it's going to be in.

I did not buy it, so as for me, whatever, I'll wait and see.