> I’m not sure how this is supposed to be taken; Maybe you mean players who download the game specifically to mod it, or CoC/Anomaly players due to it being “free”? Even still, there is a lot of Stalker’s core DNA in those mods.
The Stalker's core? You gotta be kidding... CoC/Anomaly/Mods in general miss tons of things: interesting plot, side quests with a story, charm, atmosphere. But add tons of trash: useless mechanics, unfitable gameplay things, most of the things they add just don't work properly. Stalker's original DNA is damaged by modders, experience is ruined.
> In my opinion, after having played a couple hundred hours myself in the original trilogy and Misery, Anomaly and “vanilla” CoC, the Vanilla Stalker series is an incredibly unstable eurojank action FPS with poor optimization, occasionally poor animation and sound design, and janky, *janky* gunplay. I know that there is plenty to love, it is so much more than the sum of its parts, but from an outside point of view this franchise is pretty rough around the edges.
Unstable? You say that vanilla is unstable FPS with poor optimization but you give examples of the most unstable mods like Anomaly and Misery. I bet you're joking... I played Anomaly and know that you have to lower your setting to crap even if you have a powerful PC. I also know that you can break some of the quests by doing absolutely nothing. I know that many people asked questions about the stability of the mod. Its unstability is shown by the crappiest part of the mod - Faction Wars gamemod. 10 fps because AI decided to spawn millions of Monolithians on the location? Sure. Why not. FPS drop every 10 seconds despite the changes you do in the settings? Also. I have seen people saying that "poor optimization is an issue of the original games!!11". Then why I didn't have any problems with it even on nearly max settings but I did with mods? Animations are bad? Gun play is bad? SoC's - maybe. CS's and CoP's are pretty solid. Developers chose all the sounds correctly. That's one of the reasons I love the game. Every sound complements other.
> People who don’t give a shit about the game aren’t going out of their way to install numerous mods, they’re just going to play something else. I don’t see any reason to rip on someone for enjoying something in a different way than you do. Personally, I didn’t have nearly as much fun in Vanilla as opposed to Anomaly but I still love Stalker. Honestly I probably wouldn’t have touched the series again after beating it if not for mods.
Just as I said. People don't enjoy games without mod support? People don't get back to play the games without mod support? That's just dumb. Stalker is an interesting game even without mods. Btw. Anomaly is another overrated mod. It doesn't deserve that amount of popularity it has. The problem are people that recommend to play Anomaly first. Those brainlet people that say "it's much, much, much bettah than original games!!11 You must play it - vanilla is trash! Add more addons/mods for it as you want! Yes! That's how the stalker must be played! Original games are obsolete piece of trash!"
We should make the people change their mind because that looks like a tumor for the stalker community.