S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 coming 2012!

PrincessFrosty said:
Multiplatform would kill the PC version of this game.
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I know this happens a lot but GSC has been at the forefront of PC gaming and I don't think that they'd back track. Every incarnation of Stalker has supported the latest variant of DX at the time. We should keep our fingers crossed because Stalker is one of the only gems we have left. :D
 
STALKER 2 will now be set in NYC and feature open gameplay where you can travel both back and forth along the same avenue. Intersecting streets with mutants called "aliens" will be available as DLC.
 
word, even though clear sky and soc were buggy as hell the complete mods made them amazing. cop was awesome out of the box and im looking forward to returning to the zone
 
I am currently replaying all the stalker games using the complete mods since I got my video card. Did you know they are actually working on a 2012 complete mod for the first stalker? I guess the 2009 one was not enough.
 
STALKER uses a hell of a lot of the keyboard. How do they think they can make the game playable on a controller without dumbing everything down?

The article only says they're working on "multiplatform technology" - I'm hoping this means they will make something different for the consoles. I mean, they make different versions of games for the Wii...maybe they can make a crap kiddie linear turd for the consoles and keep the PC version as the real one...
 
Yeah, I don't even think GSC knows how to program a game that will be as efficient as required to be on the console. It would have to be a dumbed down version of the original DX9 stalker, and I think (and hope) that gsc is better than that.
 
Very cool! Stalker is one of my favorite games..but Multi platform? NO! man S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is one of the last bastions of hope for PC fps genre, making this game mulitplaform is a horrible idea.

Just goes to show you that nothing wins over the almighty dollar.
 
I always said I would not switch to consoles until STALKER and Crysis were no longer pc exclusives. lol
 
We are still crying about multiplatform? Come on now guys, you know the realities of business and why this happens. There's no point in complaining unless every PC gamer agrees to each buy 10 copies of the game instead of 1. We're not going to get preferential treatment while selling a fraction of the copies.

Platform exclusivity is dying all around because it's a terrible business decision for the software developer. It only benefits the hardware guys.
 
It makes me so angry I can't even think straight. The PC has always provided some level of mature gaming for gamers who want more complexity than simply "press x not to die".

Now all we have left is just shit, mass produced shit, tailored for the average joe who doesn't care about quality they just want their 20 minutes of fun before getting bored and switching to something else.

I think I'm just about done with gaming now, I've probably got about 2-3 more years of waiting for some titles like the new Deus Ex , Thief4 and a few old franchises to be updated and if they also suck donkey balls then I think PC gaming is dead to me.
 
If they wait a little more, they can release it on the PS4/Xbox 720. I wont be surprised if S.T.A.L.K.E.R.3 was console exclusive :rolleyes:
 
PrincessFrosty said:
It makes me so angry I can't even think straight.
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You might want to rethink your priorities if you're getting that upset over games.

The PC has always provided some level of mature gaming for gamers who want more complexity than simply "press x not to die".
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And it still does. It also provides the best in casual easy-mode gaming.

Now all we have left is just shit, mass produced shit, tailored for the average joe who doesn't care about quality they just want their 20 minutes of fun before getting bored and switching to something else.
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Not really. Triple A titles have moved away from an old school PC style because it's not an economically viable strategy. You can't run a huge dev team and put a lot of polish on a game and then sell 200,000 copies. However, there are plenty of awesome, complex, and often punishingly difficult PC games. You have to look for them though, since they don't spend 50 million dollars per title on advertising.

I think I'm just about done with gaming now, I've probably got about 2-3 more years of waiting for some titles like the new Deus Ex , Thief4 and a few old franchises to be updated and if they also suck donkey balls then I think PC gaming is dead to me.
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You people have been saying this for.. hmm... it started around the time of 3D acceleration, so 15 years or so. And you're still playing.

Look, I've been playing PC games for 20 years, console games for a bit longer. The fact of the matter is that gaming has gotten a lot bigger, development a lot more expensive, and the PC is not a financially attractive platform for exclusivity.

Sorry, but that's business. Game development isn't charity work to jerk off the few die-hards left from the old days. I can't and won't blame developers for not catering to an ever-dwindling niche market, even if I happen to be a part of that market.

The results of a cost-benefit analysis of trying to please nostalgics is incredibly poor.
 
NKDietrich said:
You might want to rethink your priorities if you're getting that upset over games.
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Getting upset over something you love being destroyed is perfect reasonable, it has nothing to do with priorities, I can lead a perfectly normal life and still love my fucking hobby. Jesus...

And it still does. It also provides the best in casual easy-mode gaming.
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No, it doesn't there are a tiny amount of complex and deep games left, and the few left are in the middle of also selling out.

Not really. Triple A titles have moved away from an old school PC style because it's not an economically viable strategy.
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Bullshit, the STALKER series is a good example, being a PC exclusive has let them create an entire franchise of games, you're confusing econimcal viability with simply making the most money possible, these are not the same things. The first is understandable, the second is just greed.

You can't run a huge dev team and put a lot of polish on a game and then sell 200,000 copies. However, there are plenty of awesome, complex, and often punishingly difficult PC games. You have to look for them though, since they don't spend 50 million dollars per title on advertising.
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Whether you sell 200,000 or several million is entirely down to how good your game is, games are business, and in business sometimes companies go under from bad development decisions and thats just a fact of life, it happens in all types of business, only when it comes to games there MUST be some reason why the developer went under, they couldn't just be bad at making games it has to be piracy or some other crap.

There are plenty of PC games which were polished and really leveraged the platform and sold very well, more than enough to make a profit and keep the business viable for making more games.

You people have been saying this for.. hmm... it started around the time of 3D acceleration, so 15 years or so. And you're still playing.
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You people?

I was pefectly happy with the state of gaming more or less right upto the time the Xbox360 and PS3 came out and pretty much every single game started becoming multiplatform which is really just a slightly nicer way of saying "ported to PC"

Look, I've been playing PC games for 20 years, console games for a bit longer. The fact of the matter is that gaming has gotten a lot bigger, development a lot more expensive, and the PC is not a financially attractive platform for exclusivity.
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Doesn't need to PC exclusive, what it needs to be is that PC games need to be developed for the PC and then ported to consoles so both platforms maximise their potential. Building for both at the same time is a lowest common denominator approach, all the superior platforms inherent the constraints of the worst platform.

Whats the future to be? We start releasing games on mobiles, because mobiles are the biggest hardware platform, then we release multiplatform games on mobiles/consoles/pc and bring all of the constraints from the mobiles to the other platforms. The 360 kiddies would go fucking nuts if their precious platform was noobed up because the next halo game only uses 1/10th the potential of the platform, and the excuse was, tough luck kiddo the mobiles are a more attractive platform.

Sorry, but that's business. Game development isn't charity work to jerk off the few die-hards left from the old days. I can't and won't blame developers for not catering to an ever-dwindling niche market, even if I happen to be a part of that market.
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See this is where you're wrong. No one is expecting charity work, PC developers get paid, this notion of it being impossible to make a good PC game and not be able to make a profit is bullshit. The idea that the PC market is niche and ever dwindling is also blatently false, the market is GROWING and there is more money in it than there has ever been, there is just less than rival console markets.

Which makes a switch to multiplatform all about greed. A few games have managed to remain multiplatform and still stick to the PC roots like DAO which was a fantastic game, but even the sequel to that is letting the console newbness bleed over into the PC version.
 
Great news, not too many "in development" announcements are exciting, but this is one I can feel enthusiatic about. Will it be out in 2012, or will it slip by a year or three? GSC need to shake up the formula whatever they do so that the series doesn't get stale. SoC was fantastic, one of the highlights of the last few years and one of the few games that felt original. CoP didn't wow so much, but it was probably impossible to match the novelty and charisma of the first game. Hopefully GSC can now afford to return to the ambition they had for SoC, and with the wisdom and experience they have gained from from developing two expansions I feel cautiously optimistic about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2
 
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I just don't see the logic in making this for the consoles. Most consoletards don't even know what STALKER is. How the hell are they going to tolerate the game's broken English, the NPCs all speaking to each other in Russian, the management of health, radiation, bleeding and food, or the game's steep learning curve? Instead we'll probably get bullshit like regenerating health, checkpoints and the game taking place in fucking America.

STALKER is my favourite gaming franchise of the last few years, possibly ever, and the possibility that it could be yet another game ruined by the fucking consoles maddens me to no end.
 
Get out of here ..... STALKER.
I cant wait for this, or the inevitable "complete" mod. I have played through all three of the games in the series, and again using the complete mods.
STALKER has one of the best game environments of all time.
 
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PrincessFrosty said:
Getting upset over something you love being destroyed is perfect reasonable, it has nothing to do with priorities, I can lead a perfectly normal life and still love my fucking hobby. Jesus...
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"Being destroyed" That's just a silly exaggeration.

No, it doesn't there are a tiny amount of complex and deep games left, and the few left are in the middle of also selling out.
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There are a huge number of complex games. They just aren't the triple A titles you got in the past. For example...

Bullshit, the STALKER series is a good example, being a PC exclusive has let them create an entire franchise of games, you're confusing econimcal viability with simply making the most money possible, these are not the same things. The first is understandable, the second is just greed.
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STALKER isn't exactly triple-A gaming. Its a solid, very well-received game, but they've done "more with less" as it were. They didn't spend nearly as much making it as you'd think. They couldn't. They aren't a big studio. Why do you think they are going cross platform? It's so they can grow their company.

When people start talking about "greed" as it relates to businesses being businesses, that's when I start to fall asleep at the keyboard. A business doesn't exist to simply make enough money to pay their employees and get enough money to start their next project. It is the DUTY of those in charge of a business to bring in as much money as possible, and increase the profitability and profile of the business as much as possible. That's their fucking job. They aren't being greedy, they are competing with a bunch of other businesses and they want to be competitive.

Whether you sell 200,000 or several million is entirely down to how good your game is, games are business, and in business sometimes companies go under from bad development decisions and thats just a fact of life, it happens in all types of business, only when it comes to games there MUST be some reason why the developer went under, they couldn't just be bad at making games it has to be piracy or some other crap.
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And the odds of selling several million are a lot higher when you design your game to appeal to a wider audience. Lets look at a niche genre, grand strategy. Stuff like Victoria, Hearts of Iron, Europa Universalis. Great, complex games. But despite how good they are, they aren't going to sell millions of copies. The complexity ensures that.

There are plenty of PC games which were polished and really leveraged the platform and sold very well, more than enough to make a profit and keep the business viable for making more games.
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And unfortunately the majority of the growth in gaming is in the console world. The standards for what is "selling very well" have risen, and the PC isn't keeping up. That's why many the best-received PC games are now from smaller developers who may not have the big money to put together Triple A titles, but also don't need to sell as many copies to have a really successful game.

The big companies are just that. Big. It would cost them 5 million dollars to release a Solitaire game just due to overhead and what not.

You people?

I was pefectly happy with the state of gaming more or less right upto the time the Xbox360 and PS3 came out and pretty much every single game started becoming multiplatform which is really just a slightly nicer way of saying "ported to PC"
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A lot of people became upset with PC gaming long before you did. A lot of those people are still around and complaining. Obviously there's some redeeming quality of PC gaming that's keeping them around. Ironically a lot of them ended up becoming casual console gamers too, a sort of "if you can't beat em, join em" approach I guess.

Doesn't need to PC exclusive, what it needs to be is that PC games need to be developed for the PC and then ported to consoles so both platforms maximise their potential. Building for both at the same time is a lowest common denominator approach, all the superior platforms inherent the constraints of the worst platform.
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That's not a realistic strategy I'm afraid. Developers already put more work into their PC versions than they do their console versions, in many cases. Usually an extra 3-6 months to get it out the door. The level of tweaks they do are usually minimal, but they are still spending more on a platform that sells less. They do try to take advantage of each platform, but to keep development times sane, there comes a point where you do have to hit a few lowest common denominators.

Whats the future to be? We start releasing games on mobiles, because mobiles are the biggest hardware platform, then we release multiplatform games on mobiles/consoles/pc and bring all of the constraints from the mobiles to the other platforms. The 360 kiddies would go fucking nuts if their precious platform was noobed up because the next halo game only uses 1/10th the potential of the platform, and the excuse was, tough luck kiddo the mobiles are a more attractive platform.
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Mobile definitely has a bright future ahead for it in terms of games. The problem there is the vast disparities in hardware are very similar to PC gaming where you have to design your game to run fine on a billion different pieces of hardware instead of just one. So it might not catch on as fast as some people think. There's also Apple's proprietary App Store bullshit to deal with.

See this is where you're wrong. No one is expecting charity work, PC developers get paid, this notion of it being impossible to make a good PC game and not be able to make a profit is bullshit. The idea that the PC market is niche and ever dwindling is also blatently false, the market is GROWING and there is more money in it than there has ever been, there is just less than rival console markets.
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The PC market is indeed growing. But its Triple A potential is not. PC sales as a percentage of the total sales of multiplatform titles is actually dropping. Consoles are growing faster, which is no different than the PC market shrinking. Either way the consoles make a business a lot more money than the PC. Like I said, there are a ton of great games out there. They just aren't the best marketed best selling games anymore.

The same can be said for movies and music. There's a lot of great stuff, but what you and me define as "great stuff" isn't what is popular right now.

Which makes a switch to multiplatform all about greed. A few games have managed to remain multiplatform and still stick to the PC roots like DAO which was a fantastic game, but even the sequel to that is letting the console newbness bleed over into the PC version.
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Again with the greed thing. Greed is how businesses survive. You gotta be hungry and make the smart business decisions. Sometimes that means pissing off a few people to please a lot of people.

Don't get me wrong, I completely understand where you're coming from. It's hard to see your hobby get "hijacked" by hundreds of millions of gamers who weren't even born when you started gaming. But at the same time, I don't think its as bad as you make it out to be. I have every modern console and what do I spend most of my time and money on? My PC.

The PC market is definitely growing, but it's growing in terms of casual gamers. The deep, complex games people long for will be made by developers like Stardock who don't need to move 5 million copies in order to see a profit.
 
I can't wait. The STALKER series has become my favorite,it completely changed my expectations for FPS games. The corridor shooters of old are boring to me now,the open world,non-linear gameplay adds so much. I just hope they don't fall into the trap of so many developers and put the effort needed into the PC version instead of just giving us a dumbed down console port so many cross platform releases have turned out to be. It would totally ruin the franchise.
 
They should make it for pc then port it over to the consoles at a later time. Simple as that.
 
NKDietrich said:
"Being destroyed" That's just a silly exaggeration.
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No it's not, it's perfectly accurate. The sort of games we used to have simply don't exist any more. That's what destroyed means...

There are a huge number of complex games. They just aren't the triple A titles you got in the past. For example...
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You'd have to name them, I know of none, everything is getting dumbed down, tripple A or not, either franchises have been dumbed down or are going to be dumbed down, games like STALKER were the last of a dying breed and now they're selling out too.

STALKER isn't exactly triple-A gaming. Its a solid, very well-received game, but they've done "more with less" as it were. They didn't spend nearly as much making it as you'd think. They couldn't. They aren't a big studio. Why do you think they are going cross platform? It's so they can grow their company.
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What are you on about, not only did the developers create the game but they even wrote their own engine to support it, the costs involved with actually writing your own game engine is huge, especially one as advanced as the Xray engine. The developer was started in 1995 and have made 15 games since then...the only reason to move to console development for the STALKER games is for more money, greed. They will knowingly sacrafice game quality on the PC and generate more sales on the console.

I can't think of anything more corrosive to the gaming industry.

When people start talking about "greed" as it relates to businesses being businesses, that's when I start to fall asleep at the keyboard. A business doesn't exist to simply make enough money to pay their employees and get enough money to start their next project. It is the DUTY of those in charge of a business to bring in as much money as possible, and increase the profitability and profile of the business as much as possible. That's their fucking job. They aren't being greedy, they are competing with a bunch of other businesses and they want to be competitive.
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Yes because the investors want more money because the managers get paid bonuses for making a bigger profit, because they're greedy, they earn shit loads and they still want more more more no matter how bland and shit they end up actually making their product.

And the odds of selling several million are...blahblah
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More greed, Yawn.

And unfortunately the majority of the growth in gaming is in the console world. The standards for what is "selling very well" have risen, and the PC isn't keeping up. That's why many the best-received PC games are now from smaller developers who may not have the big money to put together Triple A titles, but also don't need to sell as many copies to have a really successful game.
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Standards for selling really well are complete rubbish, that's the whole point. People can make more money selling dumbed down games to the console market, and they make less money making games that are actually good on the PC, but that has nothing to do with the actual profit you gain on the PC, you continue to make the same mistake comparing relative growth between platforms, I hear this over and over and over again that the PC platform is dying (in regards to sales, not quality) yet the industry is expanding, rapidly expanding...just because another platform is bigger does not downplay the actual growth of the platform at hand.

A lot of people became upset with PC gaming long before you did. A lot of those people are still around and complaining. Obviously there's some redeeming quality of PC gaming that's keeping them around. Ironically a lot of them ended up becoming casual console gamers too, a sort of "if you can't beat em, join em" approach I guess.
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Well don't judge me on what others have said. In my 15 years of PC/console gaming I've seen the PC platform do nothing but improve up until mutliplatform became popular (possible even) and now we've done nothing but stagnatge and lost the quality in our games because of this lowest common denominator approach. Other can make their arguments but this is mine,

That's not a realistic strategy I'm afraid. Developers already put more work into their PC versions than they do their console versions, in many cases. Usually an extra 3-6 months to get it out the door. The level of tweaks they do are usually minimal, but they are still spending more on a platform that sells less. They do try to take advantage of each platform, but to keep development times sane, there comes a point where you do have to hit a few lowest common denominators.
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What are you on about?! So it's pefectly possible to build a decent PC exclusive game and make a profit, like for example Crysis, and spend a long time tweaking it and perfecting the engine, graphics, scaleability for the PC. But somehow it's not possible to do that when making a multiplatform game?

Bullshit, Dragons Age Origins did that, the PC version of the game has been one of the best recieved games on the PC in a long time, and for fans of RPGs was a delight, you need only check the theads on Hardocp which highly praise the game for it's quality, story and length.

And the console nubs can have their dumbed down version as well! Hurray everyone is happy, they get their stupid nonsense thumby control rubbish that they love so much and us PC gamers dont have to put up with that stupid mindbogglingly shitty control system in our version. The developers maximise profits from both platforms by sticking to the rule of developing for the PC as the primary platform and letting the constraints of the console only effect the console.

Mobile definitely has a bright future ahead for it in terms of games. The problem there is the vast disparities in hardware are very similar to PC gaming where you have to design your game to run fine on a billion different pieces of hardware instead of just one. So it might not catch on as fast as some people think. There's also Apple's proprietary App Store bullshit to deal with.
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Quite. Well this was more of a thought experiment than anything. Still mobile is catching up and dispartities between mobile phones in terms of hardware is probably not a great deal different to that of PCs and consoles. The best PC has something like 20x more graphics processing power than the best console.

The PC market is indeed growing. But its Triple A potential is not. PC sales as a percentage of the total sales of multiplatform titles is actually dropping.
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First of all, I dont even know if thats true. Even if it is, it's harly a surprise because the PC is the platform that is seeing a measurable drop in quality, of course they're going to sell less as a percentage.

Consoles are growing faster, which is no different than the PC market shrinking.
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NO, it is different, if you don't understand why then talking this any further is pointless.

Don't get me wrong, I completely understand where you're coming from. It's hard to see your hobby get "hijacked" by hundreds of millions of gamers who weren't even born when you started gaming. But at the same time, I don't think its as bad as you make it out to be. I have every modern console and what do I spend most of my time and money on? My PC.
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Never, ever again being able to play a fantastic game like for example Thief, that has deep and interesting gameplay mechanics. To me that is significant.
 
If every game developer put the maximum effort into getting the most out of each platform version of a game,I wouldn't complain. But that's become the exception and not the rule these days. They've become slaves to the console makers,who have brainwashed gamers into thinking they're getting state of the art entertainment from hardware years behind the times,and games slapped together with a minimum of effort and creativity. Of course PC game sales have slipped,look at the consolized crap they've tried to con us with. Name one console FPS franchise that can compare with the STALKER series for creativity and entertainment.
 
RavenX said:
They should make it for pc then port it over to the consoles at a later time. Simple as that.
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That's a stupid business decision and anybody who made that has no business running a company.

The attitude that a company shouldn't make the best decisions for it's business and actually make silly bad ones so they don't get accused of selling out is really silly.

At this point any sort of port should garner them a gigantic thank you. And no games maker should really care WTF complaints are lobbed at them.
 
Glad to hear this. I've always loved the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games. I need to go back and finish Clear Sky and actually play Call of Pripyat.
 
sd11 said:
At this point any sort of port should garner them a gigantic thank you. And no games maker should really care WTF complaints are lobbed at them.
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They should if they want their games to sell. They've gotten our thank you's every time we buy each new STALKER game.But if they give us a crappy consolized game that's a pale shadow of the previous installments,then we don't owe them anything.They set the bar themselves with the past games,so it's up to them to live up to it. This "settling for less" attitude that's been fostered by the consoles is one of worst aspects of them.
 
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2012? End of the world? STALKER to consoles? Eh?


Anyhow, there have been rumors for quite a while that there would be a console version. I doubt it happens.
 
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