Gamernode: News - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. MMOG a possibility

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. MMOG a possibility

Category: PC, Posted: 12/18/2007 at 07:30PM CST by Sean Pincombe, Staff Writer

RAWR! GSC Game World, developers of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (SoC), recently allowed S.T.A.L.K.E.R. fansites to submit questions in relation to the current game, as well as the upcoming Clear Sky prequel.

One of the questions, "Will there be S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Online?", garnered an interesting response from the devs.

"If it is the cooperative mode, then no, there will be none. Even at the time of development of the first part of the game we said that a cooperative mode is impossible, since Life Simulation would be different at each computer. Synchronizing it would be practically not doable."

Now this might not seem like much, a little dissapointing at the most, but thankfully the devs gave a little hint of things to come with the next sentence: "If you mean an MMOG, then we are seriously considering it."

A S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game in MMOG form would be an absolute dream come true for a lot of gamers, with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. SoCs existing multiplayer being generic and easily forgettable.

Some other interesting tid-bits to come out of the fansite Q&A were:

- confirmation that the X-Ray 1.5 Engine being developed for Clear Sky will support DirectX 10
- confirmation that a number of characters from SoC will appear in Clear Sky
- a Singleplayer SDK for SoC was planned, but has been delayed indefinitely.

The Q&A is going to be expanded over the coming weeks so keep an eye out. Good hunting Stalker.

[via GSC Game World]

Posted by Psyborg on 12/18/2007 at 06:36PM

Grinding in Chernobyl would be way more fun than grinding anywhere else, to be sure.

Posted by lskennedy on 12/18/2007 at 08:00PM

that would in fact be AWESOME, the only quesion, is, how big is Chernobyl?

Posted by Disc0 on 12/18/2007 at 08:19PM

But will the FPS gameplay remain intact, or will I press 2 to select my "fire weapon" ability and click a target?

And if it remains FPS, are they going to attempt to keep lagtime down and just have people roam free, or will it be instanced battles/games ala Diablo or Guild Wars?

How about we just get a nicely polished sequel down first.

Posted by popecodex on 12/18/2007 at 10:44PM

It would certainly be interesting but I wouldn't put to much stock in this. Stalkers developers have had a huge habit of hinting at or even outright announcing things way before they know if it's actually possible. Also I imagine damn near every company is "seriously considering" mmo opportunities at the moment given the insane popularity of wow and it's ilk. Hell, many keep arguing its the only future for PC games (which is of course as flawed and argument as PC gaming being "dead' but thats another story).

Posted by Archem on 12/18/2007 at 11:49PM

If it can be done, then I say do it! It would be like sex, as far as I'm concerned.

Posted by Kester on 12/19/2007 at 07:00AM

"how big is Chernobyl?"

What do you want to class as "Chernobyl"? The 5km exclusion zone, the 30km or the 50km one?

Does that answer your question?

Posted by goatlinks on 12/19/2007 at 02:09PM

Could be cool, but I have doubts about anything they say.

Posted by popecodex on 12/19/2007 at 06:02PM

It's also worth remembering the extra-dimensional phenomena of the zone could help them expand the apparent size of the territory. Anomalies can become portals pretty easily.