I wish someone would do a T2k sandbox computer RPG

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Great thread, this one. I agree that ARMA 2 does NATO vs WarPac combat really well (especially with the right mods) and I'm also a huge fan of Fallout 3 and FO New Vegas (I absolutely saturated both with mods). I had no idea that mods had been created for the Stalker games, but now that I do (thanks to raketenjagdpanzer and Stainless) I'm going to go and look up those mods and replay SoC and Call of Pripyat. Yay!

STALKER SoC with the Oblivion Lost mod is my favourite computer game for the last decade. Plain vanilla SoC is damned good but for me Oblivion Lost makes it great. There's still a point where you have plenty of cash and it's not so difficult in the survival sense but there's a lot of random occurrences that can surprise the hell out of you: -

-- Use Left Mouse Button to highlight the area under the spoiler notice --
** Little Spoiler Alert **
Freedom soldiers can and do attack the Duty soldiers in the Bar/Rostock area

** Big Spoiler Alert **
Controllers can sometimes attack the Freedom base at the Army Barracks

[M-Type]

I always loved CoP and the STALKER games in general because of the great AI. One mission in CoP has you sneaking around a den of bloodsuckers. After the mission, I headed back to the Stalker ship base whose name escapes me, and spotted someone following me. I hid behind a rock and took a peek.

It was a bloodsucker who wasn't even invisible, just walking along towards a small camp of raiders/stalkers.

I couldn't save them.

I paused the game and sat back for a second. I figured that the bloodsucker had followed me back from the nest, and had instinctively attacked those guys because hell, bloodsuckers will be bloodsuckers. Then I realized it was MY FAULT they were dead now. I felt a tang of guilt. Not a lot of games can do that.

EDIT: Still looted them though. Survival of the fittest :P

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Great thread, this one. I agree that ARMA 2 does NATO vs WarPac combat really well (especially with the right mods) and I'm also a huge fan of Fallout 3 and FO New Vegas (I absolutely saturated both with mods). I had no idea that mods had been created for the Stalker games, but now that I do (thanks to raketenjagdpanzer and Stainless) I'm going to go and look up those mods and replay SoC and Call of Pripyat. Yay!

SoC basically "ends", regardless of what ending you make of it, so I don't regard vanilla SoC as a true sandbox. STALKER Complete redefines how the game works. Unfortunately, even with the Complete mod, the game becoming a true sandbox eventually leaves it kind of hollow: once you've beaten all the missions, there's really not much else to do except ramp up money (for no reason). Kill off all of the Monolith Cult at the NPP (and in the creepy "shelter areas" underneath) and the whole NPP becomes just a big hole in the ground. Sure, it'll take a few runs if you've got OCD about cleaning out an entire area of any and all salable goods (artifacts, weapons, dropped 'gear from dead people) (and I am), but ultimately, it's just a great big radioactive playground after that.



<spoiler>

You know how in vanilla STALKER, if you fall off a building or gantry outside at the NPP, once you're behind it fighting the Monolith guys, you get this red flash on your HUD like you're taking psychic damage and it injures you pretty badly every "flash" until you die Complete removes that; you're free to explore the entire area. It's basically a big red herring: the sinister looking "energy ripples" aren't anomalies, and with the exception of the Sarcophagus area, there's no radiation, either, so it's basically just a movie set at that point. It has its own creepy poignancy, given some historical perspective, but it's just this vast expanse of an industrial graveyard that's about as dangerous or mysterious as your living room.

I wonder if it's different with Oblivion Lost...

[StainlessSteelCynic]

From memory, I think the back of the CPP is pretty much the same with Oblivion Lost. I think STALKER Complete incorporates elements of Oblivion Lost or maybe it's the other way around (just can't remember) so for someone like Targan - check out both of them and see which one appeals the most, then install that one!

The saddest part of the endgame is that the area behind the CPP was meant to be an area for missions/to explore but with the developers always falling behind schedule, they cut a lot of things to actually make a release date.
The original Cordon map was supposed to be about half as big again as what we got for example and there was also supposed to be a section of forest that you had to traverse from Dark Valley back to Cordon.

[Targan]

I've decided to install and play SoC Complete instead of Oblivion Lost (although it pained me to make that decision). I really do want to try out vehicle use but I doubt I'd stick with the game for very long if it still looked and played like it did when it came out in 2007.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

I've decided to install and play SoC Complete instead of Oblivion Lost (although it pained me to make that decision). I really do want to try out vehicle use but I doubt I'd stick with the game for very long if it still looked and played like it did when it came out in 2007.

The play area is so small that adding back vehicles really doesn't do much at all. They probably cut vehicles when they cut down the map sizes. No need for a working car when it's less than a km between zones. :P

[raketenjagdpanzer]

The saddest part of the endgame is that the area behind the CPP was meant to be an area for missions/to explore but with the developers always falling behind schedule, they cut a lot of things to actually make a release date.

That IS a heartbreaker. BTW, there are lots of Artifacts around the front of the plant; Complete removes the timed blowouts and gives you ample time to explore once you've killed off the Monolith cultists and the military assaulting them. They REALLY didn't want you to see much out there, did they Like the CP for the military operation - complete with an Asus branded laptop, a few random guns and other equipment lying around directly across from the big door that opens into the "garage" where the sarcophagus entrance is. I'm sure you know what I mean.

But playing the game without any mods means you'll never, ever see those areas with the massive blowouts that happen once you enter the NPP zone.

The original Cordon map was supposed to be about half as big again as what we got for example and there was also supposed to be a section of forest that you had to traverse from Dark Valley back to Cordon.

That's just depressing, knowing it's not there anymore.

Speaking of incomplete things, in the Brain Scorcher lab up near the NPP, there's a couple of locked doors that there are no codes for that were meant to open into more areas to explore, and also the big pipeline area just down the street from the area where you enter Pripyat, if you climb up that long monorail-looking thing there's another pair of coded locked doors; I found the code for one somewhere on-line, it opens into a couple of rooms filled with broken down electronic gear; there's another door that clearly was supposed to open into the interior of the monorail-line looking corridor that runs the length of that part of Red Forest, but there's no code to open the door, and as far as I know in vanilla SoC, you can't use the weapon drop trick to open the door, either

SO much potentially cool stuff we'll never see now. The mod communities for SoC have pretty much moved on to other games.

[Cdnwolf]

And back to the original topic....