It functions well enough that I haven’t noticed anything off, save for maybe two occasions in 40+ hours where I was unlucky enough to have bandits spawn in near me. Once out in the woods, and one time they literally appeared sitting in chairs in the room I had just passed through, then attacked on my way back through it. You can’t help but laugh when it happens, but it’s nowhere near like it was on release.
I know that several of the squads I encounter in the wild have been artificially spawned in just outside of my exclusion radius, but they move organically enough that I’ve never had my immersion broken with the impression that these aren’t just stalkers on their own mission. Sure, if I reload a ways back and travel the same route, it may well be a different assortment of them, no one at all, or maybe bandits or mutants the next time, but rather than feeling tacky it keeps the Zone feeling unpredictable. Retracing my steps after reloading often results in a wildly different experience from Point A to Point B, so I can’t cheese my way through much of anything.
I’ve also encountered large, roaming packs of mutants who, when avoided, travel well outside of my exclusion radius and continue to be heard far off in the distance (Flesh are a good example) even though they’re no longer rendered on my screen. I’ve traveled in that direction a short time later just to run into the same pack having changed direction, so there definitely are some persistent A-Life doing their thing out there. It’s just sprinkled with some chance encounters.
All in all, the A-Life isn’t exactly where they/we want it to be, but they’ve taken enough corrective steps that I find it very enjoyable, and I say that as a long-term fan of the originals, as well as hardcore versions like Anomaly. Honestly, the only thing I truly dislike about STALKER 2 is the number of bloodsuckers. They’ve become a lot easier to dispatch with my better gear, but if I’m ever going to run into three bloodsuckers in the wild, it should be like one time. But there are times where I encounter packs of them several times per day, and on Veteran difficulty that is absolute bullshit.
STALKER 2, and I haven’t felt this frightened to climb down into the basement of a decrepit waste processing station since the original trilogy. So in short, it hits just right.
I actually stood in my kitchen last night eating some yogurt and two Lucky Charms cereal bars just to procrastinate what I knew I had to do.
The ugly comments are fucking hilarious. She’s a perfectly attractive older woman at this point, and quite honestly, if I’m going to be forced to take up her mantle as the player character, I’ll have a much easier time identifying with a hardened older woman as a Witcher than a young adult girl with perpetually running mascara.
I didn’t enjoy playing the Ciri bits at all in TW3, but this version of Ciri is about as palatable as it could have been, and I’m open to it. Especially if I can customize her playstyle like I could Geralt, so that it’s not just fast, whippy, lightning zippy-zappy whatever-the-fuck that was in TW3.
That’s unusual. Yeah, I had only played on mobile. Couldn’t tell you whether or not it contained spyware, but the game itself is fantastic and the only paid content (additional classes/decks) are well worth it.
STALKER and The Elder Scrolls probably hold the record. I may have wasted even more time in my life on World of Warcraft, but I feel like that doesn’t count since you’re just in a fucking trance for several years until you finally break away.
I never completed that one but had explored most of the mainland. I really need to go back and go through it all again. I loved the small details throughout the world. The wilderness and countryside was so well done, with little shrines along the roads here and there and so many lived-in places throughout. I spent 75% of my playtime with Roach set to a slow trot just so I could really absorb the world and feel like I was making a journey on those old roads. There’s something so profoundly Witcher about quietly riding dark paths at night and stopping to hear a monster in the woods. You climb off Roach and draw your silver sword, then make your way into that decrepit forest to deal with whatever is going on out there.
I think No Man’s Sky was my first brush with it. In that game the feature is entirely necessary, especially when starting out on survival, but that was ground zero for me.
Nearly every server is different, but the ones my friends/wife and I always did (10+ years ago) were like role-playing kingdom building maps. Server owner (usually me) would hold the title of King/Sovereign and appoint their friends to specific roles. I would oversee the general development and expansion of the kingdom, as well as decide and manage a system of ore-based currency (or would at least create the mint and appoint someone to running it). Afterward I would introduce and gradually roll out phases of a larger storyline for anyone who cares.
My left and right hand would build/manage the keeps/barracks/military structures, or the government buildings/libraries/cultural centers, etc. These would all be injected with their own lore and staffed by the person in charge of them. Everyone else would receive more minor roles, but typically be given monopolies in certain types of goods or commerce. Maybe Bob wants to be a trapper. Sure, anyone else can legally go and gather leathers and animal parts, but Bob is the only one permitted to sell those items in his shop in the city. Things like that just to try to keep it interesting. When Bob isn’t trapping or trading or being involved with the kingdom, he’s pretty much just playing Minecraft on his homestead.
The idea is to open it up to the public (via applications and careful vetting) and watch people run amock in the simulated medieval economy. We used to have a blast doing it. Especially with mods installed that added skill progression, abilities at milestones and other MMORPG-esque mechanics.
Normal people, however… They just do what they do in single player but occasionally trade, work together, tackle bosses, and show each other their latest creations.
Those oldest memories of Minecraft are the most peculiar of them all. I still remember starting with either the last Alpha release, or the earliest Beta release. I had come across a comic (using screenshots from the game) of Steve looking out into the night and seeing a single pair of red eyes in a distant hill. He looks out again and a monster is looking back in (or something like that). Always wanted to find that comic again. Anyway, that was my extent of knowledge going into the game. I knew there was mining, night time, and monsters.
I remember digging a hole into a hillside to survive my first night. There was a single torch placed outside of the hole, and throughout the night I watched various animals gather around the entrance to look in at me. I remember feeling awful, thinking they wanted shelter from the monsters outside, but realized while looking back much later that they were just spawning in my torchlight.
I also recall finding sort of a canyon or mountain pass with lava flowing into it. There was a small doorway or opening on one cliff face, and several flaming poles between it and the other side. It looked like an altar of some sort. This was back when lava/fire burned leaves and left the stumps to burn eternally, but in my inexperience I thought these were pyres placed deliberately by some entity, and began to worry there was truth to the Herobrine myth. Maybe other players were in my world.