Given the recent horrible news about the complete death of the Stalker Ip, I thought it would be nice to reminisce and share our favorite memories and moments with Stalker.
When I got the first Stalker, I was playing on a computer with a mid end core 2 duo and 7300 Nvidia card. It had a bug that made it run like crap even on low, so it was both choppy and ugly. And yet there was something compelling about the game that made me keep going.
The mutants. The stark harshness of the zone. Russian jokes around campfires.
I think pretty much anyone who's played Stalker remembers their first time going into Agoprom. I myself hid in a corner for about five minutes after first hearing that blood sucker roar. And the mind controller was trippy as hell of course.
That's not to say there weren't annoyances. Bugs, stalkers dying keeled over flaming barrels, constant respawning, you get the drill. But they were all worth it.
I remember excitedly trying out clear sky in its first swamp level. I remember slowly deflating as I played, with disappointment increasing by the minute.
This was not the Stalker game I was looking for. The constant respawn was no longer a bug, but a feature. No time for hunting mutants when you had to personally kill twenty guys to clear a base. And then wait for reinforcements that never came, meaning that the instant you left those twenty guys would be back. And who doesn't love heat seeking grenades and mini gun turrets that shot through trees?
I never got much past the first level, with quite a bad taste in my mouth.
Which made it such a relief that Call of Pripyat was an excellent return to form, with gameplay refinements and improvements to boot. Anomalies that weren't minor skippable annoyances. Respawn and combat toned down to a reasonable level. Side quests that were more involved than killing a few boars. And finally a release that didn't feel like buyers were paying for the privilege of a beta test.
Possibly my favorite moment in the entirety of my playing was in that game. It relatively late in the game, having fully upgraded my weapons with a tricked out exoskeleton suit. I was wandering around the beginning area going artifact hunting. It was getting near the next blow out so animal activity was high. Which is how I found myself without warning in a swarm of 4-5 pseudo dogs and about 20 rats. All of them hungry for my blood.
As it turns out, even an exoskeleton doesn't do much against those kinds of numbers. I didn't even get the chance to kill more than 1 or 2 rats before being taken down in a flurry of claws and teeth. You can have the best of armor and the deadliest weapons, and the Zone can still kill you dead before you can even blink.
R.I.P. Stalker.
Hopefully it isnt the complete end of Stalker, although things dont look that great.
But yeh, the sheer sense of mystery and exploration has yet to be equalled, I recall going through huge anamoly zones in SOC, slowly and painstakingly with bolts, just in case there was some cool loot hidden away.
Every disused and dilapidated warehouse/factory/etc was a little adventure in itself.
Unlike most games, I could swap STALKER stories for hours at this point (occasionally my friends and I do exactly this). My most memorable STALKER moment was my 2nd or 3rd playthrough and my first with Oblivion Lost (which I LOVED).
I was in Dark Valley and I had just ambushed the duty guys with the prisoner and headed towards that big base all the way at one end (leaving X-16 for later). It was getting dark (and with OL, real dark). I remembered the scripted (or something) event with the bloodsucker in the building, so I started towards that to get it out of the way and start working my way towards the building in the dark to do a nights work.
I was running along the road and noticed movement to the left and saw a HUGE pack of the rat-things and psuedodogs running through the grass in the same direction. I hauled ass away from them, I think I got up on a big fuel canister or something (I think there is a fuel depot there) and watched with binoculars.
I huge firefight broke out and the mutants started basically storming the place. I moved closer when they weren't attacking me and and circled around the back. I set up in that mechanic building with the trenches in the ground full of flame anomalies.
I didn't really want a piece of what was going on, and everybody was on high alert (I had had the idea of sneaking in the dark and having some stealth play). I sat in the near dark and listened to the carnage going on and decided to just sleep in that trench, since it was pretty hard to get in or out without getting lit up I was pretty sure I'd be safe.
I bedded down and slept for a few hours (OL has sleeping bag, which I loved). I awake to the sounds of battle still raging on apparently, and go back to sleep for a few more hours. This time I awake to silence and pitch dark. After no small effort of getting out of my trench, I make my way towards the building. The first thing I see is a dead bandit with piles of dead mutants in ever-smaller circles around him. He is out of ammo.
I creep towards the building and start exploring the first floor. All I can find are dead bodies in corners surrounded by dead mutants. I start looting and sneak around with my knife and night-vision. First floor clear, second floor clear. I decide to go ahead and go down into the basement (I think it was a basement and not just the first floor) where the quest or whatever was important there was. I get whatever was down there and loot a bunch of people and start back up the stairs to the top of the building.
Out of nowhere, a lone bandit crosses right in front of me at the top of the stairs. In reflex I rush him from behind and knife him. He was running for his life but there was nothing else around. Afterwards I feel kind of bad, I wish I had left him alive although it would have made further exploration more difficult. It was dark enough, I could have let him go. He was the only survivor.
I head to the top of the building and felt like it should still be totally dark outside, and I haven't taken night-vision off near a window in a while. As I get to the top where the roof is all gone, I realize its not dark anymore. I turn off night-vision and realize the sun is just now peaking up over the horizon (probably about 6am). The sun was coming up behind the building (where you can't go) and towards the entrance of the dark valley. I really had to stop and just look around for a little bit. Even though this was my second time through the game, I don't think I'd ever seen the light quite like that.
There wasn't much up there so I go ahead and head downstairs to leave. I start to hear a racket outside and there seems to be another mutant mob assembling somewhere. Without my night-vision on, I can see the details of the carnage a lot better, and it is a lot creepier in the daylight somehow. I head in the direction back to towards the road and X-16. If I remember correctly, there is a long pipe elevated off the ground and I got on top of it (didn't fancy a run down the road). A pig pack of dogs and psuedodogs assemble below me and give chase. I decide its time to gtfo and I high tail it down that pipe and towards X-16. Thank god I can run nearly forever.
They continue to follow me haphazardly towards X-16 and when I get to the walls outside and start to plan my entry, I take a pot shot or two at some psuedodogs running around (the people inside are already alerted and firing). I then realize they aren't psuedodogs. There is a psy-dog around, and its the first one I've ever seen even after several playthroughs. My friends ran into several, but this is my first. I actually get a bead on the real thing a couple times and get a few bullets into it, but can never quite kill it. Eventually I give up and just really want to be inside with my back to a wall for a while, I never find the psy-dog.
Most of the inhabitants inside are dead but a few hold out. The sky starts to go red and no shit there is a blowout. I don't even get time to explore the upper levels or go around back (I think that was where the RPG was). There are still some people inside so I can't move too fast and they are in good spots. I take them out with my trusty whatever-scoped-rifle-I-had-at-the-time, and rush like crazy towards the door to the lab, thinking I'll just wait it out right in front and explore before going in the lab. I'm really close to getting fried, it took way too long to get in there. I hang a right into the room that leads down, I can see safety.
I hear a noise behind and swing around and crouch and open up all in the same motion. Some bandit that was hiding had the same idea I did. Not enough room for two. We both open up at exactly the same moment, both finding our marks. We both fall dead 10 feet from safety as the blowout gets started in ernest. Hell of a day in the zone. Luckily for me I can reload.
X-16 had plenty of its own fun. Especially with meeting Dwarves for the first time. I definitely took some poetic license with the story but that was basically what happened as close as I can remember. I have a couple other good ones from that playthrough that I might type up later.
I didn't realize that GSC had even shut down until a week ago when I saw a news thing on steam for CoP that said stalker2 was dead. I went and looked around and was happy again when I saw they were going to struggle on regardless. Then a couple days later it is dead again. I wish they would start a kickstarter if money was part of the reason that it got canceled.
SoC is no question one of my favorite games of all time. I hope to make another playthrough of OL summer.
Last edited by BEAR; 30th Apr 2012 at 23:04. Reason: grammar
Wow. Just reading your stories makes me want to fire up SoC again and D/L Oblivion Lost. I had some bad experiences with Clear Sky (haven't heard from anyone who didn't), which was the last Stalker game I played, and it left me frustrated to the point that I put all 3 games on the shelf and have ignored them ever since.
I'd played SoC first and thought it was the hardest game I'd ever played, but about 4 hrs. into the game I somehow became addicted and couldn't walk away from it. Then came CoP, which imo was almost too easy but just as addictive. But unfortunately, though I was really enjoying CS from the very first moment I fired it up, that game was so bug & glitch-ridden that I recall actually having temper tantrums and finally just giving up altogether.
So now, with DX:HR & Skyrim out of the way, OL is sounding very tempting. And who knows; maybe there will be a Stalker 2 someday - we can only hope, right? (I know .... talk about cockeyed optimism.)
If you're going to play with a "fuck everything up" mod, might as well go all the way and use STALKERSOUP.
Must you shit in every thread, Koki?
Nice story BEAR.
I seriously have to make time to play STALKER again. I played SoC sporadically when it first came out and while it was fun, it was also frustrating and it ran sluggish performance on my PC. It didn't help that 2007 was a tough year and I didn't have a lot of time or attention to spend on games. So after Bioshock came out, I dropped SoC and never came back to finish it. I skipped right over Clear Sky, and then purchased CoP but never played it.
What would you all recommend, going back to SoC or giving CoP a go instead?
So I'm giving out a helpful advice and even that qualifies as shitting?Originally Posted by dethtoll
Sometimes I wonder, how am I so good?
Because you're very bad.
Great idea for a thread. I also hope this won't be the end of Stalker, but I'm very happy with what GSC has accomplished with the series. I'd prefer it take a rest, even permanently, than continue into mediocrity.
Not sure if I've told this story here before - I think not, so here goes. Beware, contains spoilers about the location of a basic toolkit. Also lots of cheese, and possibly a bit of ham.
This is CoP. I'm searching for some tools so my mechanics can make me better guns, and some Stalker lets on that there might be some in the sawmill in Zaton. I made my way up there from Skadovsk, ran into a few dogs on the road but didn't have too much trouble.
On the way, I decided to swing by the burnt farm, since I hadn't been brave enough to attempt it yet. The conditions were good - early afternoon, pretty bright - but artefact hunting terrifies me even at the best of times. Without going into too much detail, I managed to snag two attractive Fireball artefacts and was feeling very pleased with myself as I rolled down the hill towards the sawmill.
Then I remembered just how many zombies there were around there, and why I hadn't decided to loot the place earlier. So what followed was a pretty extended game of cat-and-zombie, during which it started to rain. I was feeling a bit miserable, partly because of the rain, partly because I was basically as far away as I could get from Skadovsk, and mostly because I was faring pretty poorly in what should have been an easy fight. After starting off with a silenced pistol I managed to bork my stealthy approach and got pinned down at the end of the big empty building.
Midway through all this, I got a blowout warning. Oh boy - timing couldn't have been better. And it wasn't like I could take cover in the sawmill itself - I don't remember precisely where my PDA was sending me, but it wasn't close. So I decided I needed to grab the toolkit and 'get out of here, Stalker' quick smart. I hadn't found the kit anywhere in the log shed or the larger building, so I climbed the tower amid a storm of reasonably inaccurate bullets and found... nothing. So the kit had to be in the house where all the zombies were... unless that Stalker had lied about it. (Protip: they don't.) So with the sky going all sorts of colours that it shouldn't, I pounded down the hill, killing a zombie coming around the corner of the house and blazing inside. I'm usually just about the most patient, excruciatingly slow player you'll find when it comes to this game, but I was in a frenzy.
I seem to remember putting some bullets into a few zombies meandering around inside the house. The ones remaining outside seemed to be making their way in - maybe because of the blowout, but more probably because of the shouts and gunshots. By this time I was frantic - couldn't find the toolkit anywhere. I found a way into the attic, not even checking for zombies peering in the broken roofing.
Finally! Found the kit, grabbed it without hardly checking it was the right thing, and managed to find my way out one of the cracks in the roof, which were revealing incredibly worrying weather patterns. I think most of the zombies were dead by this point, though as I sprinted away I heard a parting shot or two. Didn't stop to say goodbye.
The rain may have eased off as I was sprinting down road past the burned village, but I didn't notice it 'cause something much worse was coming. A few metres more and I realised I was out of time. Nothing I could do - safety was kilometres away and the ground was shaking. I had my inventory open to skull energy drinks as I ran, and caught sight of a drug I'd had stashed away for some weeks now - and with a small glimmer of hope I read the description. Keeps you safe from blowouts? Fat chance, I thought, knowing this game. Likely I'd be robbed while unconscious by the side of the road. I'd never used one before, and had very little idea how to. Did I have to time it right? What if I swallowed it too early and woke up before the emission? The ground shook again... what the hell. With a glance at my lovely Fireballs, I swallowed the massive black pill.
Woke up an hour later to calm sunshine, right where I'd dropped, all possessions intact and not a zombie in sight. I meandered back to Skadovsk, nearly singing.
I had just accepted the military warehouses mission for the Duty leader (where you have to get the Bulldog grenade launcher). I also accepted the mission to kill the Duty stalker who'd gone over to freedom and was in the freedom base I had to (ostensibly) get the grenade launcher from. On the way in, I bumped into some duty guys preparing to assault the freedom base and wanted me to kill a sniper for them, but I declined as I had business to conduct there first.
So, I went in, got my reward for killing some bloodsuckers in the village (which I did en route to the base) then trade with the freedom leader, who has an awesome GP37 gun which I want NOW. Only I can't afford it. Being used to having ca. 100,000 RU, this came as a shock. But I swallowed my pride and left him to it.
Went and spoke to the chef and got the info on the grenade launcher - thanks chef!
Then I find the stalker I've agreed to 'take out' for Duty, only he's a gate guard and killing him there would have been suicide.
I had a plan.
I went back to the duty guys preparing to assault, accepted the mission to kill the sniper, then went back in to the base (gave the sniper's tower a wide berth as he shoots on sight when you're in the base if he's spotted you beforehand), walked up the sniper's tower and knifed him in the back with no consequence in the base at ALL. After all, I'm just a regular, non-affiliated stalker guy right?
I went back to the Duty guys having done this, they asked if I'd take the rest of the snipers out for them, but that was a little hot for my blood, so I let them storm the base (which involved a nice sequence where they blew the wall up!) and I followed from behind watching. The Duty guys swiftly took a dick, but not before taking out most of the freedom guys in the base, INCLUDING the guy I was supposed to kill (result!) and a couple of guys with GP37 ARs, so I grabbed me one (for FREE this time), hot-footed it back to the Duty base in Rostok and the Duty guy gave me a great suit and an automatic silenced sniper rifle.
In no other game I've ever played is this kind of micro-political tactic something which can be plotted so on the fly and pay off so well.
I remember the time I discovered drinking too much in this game is a mistake.
If you found SoC hard to get into or frustrating, CoP might be good. Its got bigger zones and less loading, it looks great and plays great.
CoP didn't have the spontaneity that SoC had. I honestly couldn't really tell you any stories of crazy shit that happened. Even though it was bigger, it was more structured and scripted. It was stilll a lot of fun to explore, but it just lacked something that SoC had. It definitely didn't have the scary factor of the various labs of SoC.
I want to replay stalker this summer, and I'm definitely going with SoC:OL.
Ah, memory lane... I think I might've told this one before around here...
It was the first time I'd ventured deeper into wild territory, north of Rostok. I pushed forward past some warehouses and got to the rail station, following a distress call from a group of scientists with some helicopter trouble. A gruelling firefight later I managed to secure that last remaining member of the science team, I forget his name, and he asked me to help him get back to the Lake Yantar outpost. You know the drill.
I took him as far as the point where he turned around to thank me but then, rather than accompany him any further, I decided to turn around and haul ass back to the Bar. You see, there were two factors here. First, I'd never been as far as Lake Yantar before and I had no idea what lay ahead and how much longer to the outpost. Second, faithful to a magpie instinct, I was lugging around a huge load of weapons and ammo that I'd looted from the corpses around the crashed helicopter. They wouldn't need it anymore.
But now it's late. I'm carrying over 60KG of crap and it's taken a long time to escort the good doctor. Now it's getting dark. And I have to trek back to the Duty base all by my lonesome. And did I mention it's dark? "So what, haven't you managed to score a Stalker suit by now?" Well, yes, I have, but being a phenomenal dumbass I've so far failed to register that it has a nightvision module.
So here I am creeping alongside buildings, staying in the shadows, not daring to turn the flashlight on for fear of attracting unwanted attention. Which in this context means any attention. It's difficult to see and my nerves are getting stretched by these awkward snorts and whines I keep hearing far off in the distance. I cross the rails and move on close to the wall of a warehouse, trying to peer ahead. I can only hear stuff, but it's all far away. Satisfied that the way seems clear, I step into an open space dimly lit by moonlight and inch forward, trying to ignore those far-off sounds and focus on my more immediate context.
Except... I just heard something. It's like what I've been hearing before, but... just a little louder. And wait, it's not coming from far away... It's coming from the left! I swing around just in time to catch a glimpse of a lanky, hunkered-down figure disappearing into the shade of the warehouse. I shout out loud "FUCK!" and press the trigger as the thing lunges at me, my view flashes red and one more hit would kill me, and... my weapon jams!...
The exact same instant that the sucker falls over dead. No poetic license here, the last bullet that left the AK before jamming dropped the thing dead.
I checked that it was dead for good, had a quick look around, then I put the game on pause and went downstairs to have a smoke. And no, I wasn't doing an "in-character" sort of telling, I really did shout out from my seat.
Thanks. I decided to play SoC again, this time with Complete and the respawn fix mod Koki suggested. What difficulty do you suggest?
Wow people must hate you if no one replied yet.
If you played it before, don't even hesitate and go for Master. And turn off the crosshair you wuss
I don't hate him; I just never graduated beyond the beginner's level.One of the hardest, yet most satisfying & addictive games I've ever played.
OK, I'll give Master a go and see how it goes. I can't remember which I tried before, Stalker or Veteran. It wasn't overly hard, but I do recall being infuriated by hit probabilities when shooting point blank, and by enemies that could hit me at a distance while on the move with the same weak gun I couldn't hit the side of a barn with while crouched and aiming. But I hear hit probabilities are less frustrating at higher difficulty.
Difficulty doesn't affect aiming in the slightest. Only damage.
You could always try the Complete Realistic Weapons mod, or my amazing* Complete Alternate Realistic Weapons mod.
* - results may vary
These are for the enemies.
All I'm going to say, the first Stalker was one of the very best games I've ever played. RIP.
What does your Complete Alternate Realistic Weapons mod change?
BTW, it wasn't the aiming, which I was fine with. It was the % hit probability applied on top of the aiming & ballistics. I found forum posts saying the % goes up with difficulty, which increases your chance of hitting the enemy and increases their chance of hitting you. I'm playing on Master with Complete now and it seems much better, and easier actually. I'm not sure whether it's the mod or not, but it seems like playing on Master is making it easier to take down bandits surgically while also making it impossible to go in guns blazing, so it's making a careful stealthy play style more rewarding. Or maybe the way I play has changed.
One thing I don't like about Complete is that I can sprint at 30 km/h carrying 40 kg of stuff halfway across a map before getting tired.
Yeah, I'm aware of this urban myth.
I'm not even sure if enemies get more accurate on higher difficulties, but your weapons behave identically no matter the difficulty.
There are damage and accuracy values for different difficulties in weapon files, but they're all commented out.
With Complete 1.4.4 installed, these are the relevant values in gamedata\config\creatures\actor.ltx
hit_probability_gd_novice = 0.20
hit_probability_gd_stalker = 0.40
hit_probability_gd_veteran = 0.60
hit_probability_gd_master = 0.80
These are the values in the vanilla actor.ltx file:
hit_probability_gd_novice = 0.20
hit_probability_gd_stalker = 0.30
hit_probability_gd_veteran = 0.40
hit_probability_gd_master = 0.50
Nothing is commented out.
One of my fondest memories of the game is when I first encountered the bar doorman, you know "I said come in! don't stand there."
Well, the first time I thought nothing of it. The second time I figured, oh...that must be his...thing. Then I think it was one time I was running out as I heard his voice trailing off behind me and realized I forgot to sell something and came back, to find him barely finishing his previous greeting before I triggered the next one. Then I thought "what if I tormented him by just standing there, in front of the bar, NEVER coming in?"
I stopped immediately as he started greeting me again, and just stood there, not coming in. He started on an infinite loop of "don't just stand there I said come in don't just stand there i said come in don't just stand there i said come in don't just stand there I said...."
And it got funnier, and funnier, and FUNNIER. I must have been crying after letting him go on for a minute or so before I finally forgot what I was even originally going to do and felt almost bad for teasing him.
Another similar experience was in the same area when I walked through one of the warehouses with that rude guard who says "Get out of here stalker!" I let it slide the first few times, but around the fifteenth time I came through after busting my ass doing some arduous mission for the group this D-bag worked for, and instead of being grateful he STILL threw the sass my way with his "Get out of here stalker!" spiel, I snapped and instantly shot him in the FACE. Then proceeded to kill every. Single. LAST. THING THAT MOVED in the entire area.
I just found it so intriguing that a game could have as many quirks, hiccups and rough edges that this game did and I never once even got that annoyed. The game as a whole worked so well and the atmosphere was so unique, I never got frustrated with it, I just got determined to keep playing. That's a rare occurrence.
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