You guys are going to give Stalker 2 negative reviews but for the wrong reasons.

[Dragova]

Hell cometh the day of release and the reviews are filled with thumbs down. And not because of bugs or some rushed ♥♥♥♥. But because it simply doesn't play like Escape From Tarkov or some form of the Misery mod. I've noticed a majority of the Stalker community doesn't play Stalker for what it is, but rather what they've been playing repetitiously as of late. If they could, they would gut all the artifacts, mod out the science fiction setting, and turn it into another generic af hardcore survival open world shooter.

Please don't be like that. Don't go into this expecting Escape From Tarkov or Misery. You can ♥♥♥♥ on the bugs and brokeness all you want, but god forbid you ♥♥♥♥ on it because it plays like og Stalker.

[PsyWarVeteran]

Anomaly fans when they realize it's STALKER 2 and not Anomaly 2.

[Troomp]

I mean at the end of the day steam public reviews are useless. You be the judge of the game.

[FBI]

stalker has 4 community:
stalker fans
anomaly fans
gamma fans
stalker 2 fans

[Iamlegend]

There could be a hardcore difficulty in Stalker 2 for anomaly/gamma fans, who knows. If not, new mods will be there anyway.

Also, I wonder how much the modding community will feel the need to mod the game. The modding community became so huge on Stalker 1 partly because of the need to enhance technical aspects that felt incomplete.

[Redrick]

Anomaly, gamma, efp, are mods though. Why would anyone compare the commercial vanilla S2 to those at release ?

Furthermore those mods came very late in the original game's lifecycle.

Stalker 2 should be tested on its own merits, against the vanilla Stalker games.

In future Stalker 2 will no doubt also get mods (I for one cant wait to see what the modding community brings).

There will always be troll reviews, happens for lots of games.

[Dragova]

Originally posted by Iamlegend:

The modding community became so huge on Stalker 1 partly because of the need to enhance technical aspects that felt incomplete.

Not sure if I read this somewhere or it was a rumor. SoC was supposed to be a Stargate SG1 FPS, but GSC couldn't afford licencing after making a few tech demos. They had a lot of left over assets and tried to cobble together a game using those assets. In a way, they were on a crunch and things were incomplete.

Still enjoying the modding scene myself. Just wish they could make a modified Xray engine that can assign AI and A-Life events to a seperate CPU. With as stacked as my build has gotten, stutter is damn near impossible to avoid.

Originally posted by Redrick:

Anomaly, gamma, efp, are mods though. Why would anyone compare the commercial vanilla S2 to those at release ?

It's the age old concern of "Are you sure introducing someone to Stalker through these sandbox mods is a good idea?" I make it a point myself to try the original game unmodified to gauge what it's doing and where it ends up. But as already pointed out, yeah anyone can ♥♥♥♥ a review about anything. Maybe I'm just getting concerned over nothing.

[PsyWarVeteran]

Originally posted by Redrick:

Anomaly, gamma, efp, are mods though. Why would anyone compare the commercial vanilla S2 to those at release?

Because the numbers of newbies who don't know anything about this series but have heard their favorite hack youtuber gush about the greatest thing ever that is anomaly are way too high. Do you think they'll be reasonable or cry about how "this is nothing like my favorite mod!"

Or my favorite: "This isn't STALKER!" said the guy who has never played any of the STALKER games without modding.

[piet11111]

Unfortunately a large percentage will indeed judge stalker 2 based on the mods for the original trilogy.
Worse still since lots of people dont read the reviews but only look at the general overal rating those BS reviews could have an impact.

This is where in the distant past the games journalists played a part but these days i would trust steam reviews far more its gotten that bad.

I am just going to do what i have always done and that is recomment to my friends the games that deserve it and warn them away from the games that dont.
Its how the original stalker trilogy got to be a cult classic.

[Dragova]

Originally posted by Stalker2010:

I don't know what majority you're talking about... But I definitely agree that new players do come with such expectations, most people I've known for years through big Stalker groups play the game for what it is and separate between the mods and the actual thing.

The majority that has been watching big name youtubers play these super tedious and totally difficult mods and trying to add onto these or reinvent them several times over. They make a large chunk of the Stalker community, and usually buzz off when EFT gets a big update, or something up that alley of multiplayer battle royale survival. Gdi that was a mouthful to say. Yeah, people get really shallow and totally forget they're playing a modded video game or someone's twisted sense Quicksave abuse. Could also be I don't like those mods either, but I know I'm not exactly in that majority either.

[Redrick]

Originally posted by piet11111:

Unfortunately a large percentage will indeed judge stalker 2 based on the mods for the original trilogy.

What gets me the most is, why ?

When did GSC ever say stalker 2 will be anything like the aforementioned mods. They didn't !! so why have that expectation. So even if you do maybe just apply a tiny bit of critical thinking and take a look at the game first to see what it really is, wait for a review form a trusted youtuber... so many ways you can stop and see it for what it is first.

But apparently they're going to what ? dive head first, buy it on launch day and then give it a negative review because is dint meet their expectations that they invented ?

♥♥♥♥ me are people really that stupid.

[Yoru]

Not sure why everyone assumes everything will be negative about the game. Came from Anomaly, bought the trilogy, loved the trilogy, and now I'm excited to play STALKER 2.

[PsyWarVeteran]

Originally posted by Parkerc341:

Not sure why everyone assumes everything will be negative about the game.

No one here said anything about the game turning out bad, what negativity?

[Yoru]

Originally posted by PsyWarVeteran:

Originally posted by Parkerc341:

Not sure why everyone assumes everything will be negative about the game.

No one here said anything about the game turning out bad, what negativity?

Im talking of negative reception. New fans that come from Anomaly are not going to automatically give negative reviews. I am speaking in relation to the OP. He is directly stating that Anomaly and GAMMA players will give negative reviews to STALKER 2 because it will play like the trilogy, not the mod. I am saying that I dont understand why someone would assume this, being that the game is not even released.

[PsyWarVeteran]

Originally posted by Parkerc341:

Im talking of negative reception. New fans that come from Anomaly are not going to automatically give negative reviews. I am speaking in relation to the OP. He is directly stating that Anomaly and GAMMA players will give negative reviews to STALKER 2 because it will play like the trilogy, not the mod. I am saying that I dont understand why someone would assume this, being that the game is not even released.

He's not completely wrong. I myself saw many people who have no idea what the base games are but worship those overrated modpacks. If such people get their hands on STALKER 2 and when it undoubtably turns out the game is nothing like their favorite mod they might complain about it, be it on various forums or by giving it a negative review.

[Yoru]

Originally posted by PsyWarVeteran:

Originally posted by Parkerc341:

Im talking of negative reception. New fans that come from Anomaly are not going to automatically give negative reviews. I am speaking in relation to the OP. He is directly stating that Anomaly and GAMMA players will give negative reviews to STALKER 2 because it will play like the trilogy, not the mod. I am saying that I dont understand why someone would assume this, being that the game is not even released.

He's not completely wrong. I myself saw many people who have no idea what the base games are but worship those overrated modpacks. If such people get their hands on STALKER 2 and when it undoubtably turns out the game is nothing like their favorite mod they might complain about it, be it on various forums or by giving it a negative review.

I hope that it is not this way. Thank you for articulating well what you mean though, many other people say similar stuff and refuse to really elaborate past saying that anomaly is bad.