Call of Pripyat: From Vanilla to Special Edition news

In its vanilla form, Call of Pripyat is an amazing game. I would personally rate it as one of the greatest games ever created. However, and I think most fans of the game would agree with me, it has always felt somewhat incomplete. Even as the most stable S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game to date, there were quite a few bugs present. Most of these bugs were simply annoyances, whilst a few of them were actually game-breaking. Then there are the many quests, story-line NPCs, and gameplay mechanics and features that weren't as fleshed out as they could have been, or were completely missing from the final product. And, of course, the broken economy that would ensure money meant very little to the player after their first few minutes into the game. These are some major issues that needed correcting, and, unfortunately, I've only started to touch upon the tip of the iceberg.

Say what you will about Triple A developers, but when they finally get around to fixing their products and releasing a "Game Of The Year (GOTY)" or "Special Edition (SE)" version of it, those who had managed to hold off of making a purchase of the regular edition, are rarely disappointed with their decision. So, like these Triple A developers and their products, why can't STALKER: Call of Pripyat have its very own Special Edition? This thought is what provided me with the motivation to create what is now known as, "Call of Pripyat: Special Edition." The chosen title perfectly reflects the simple aim of this modification: to provide S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat with a "Game Of The Year" or "Special Edition" version of its own, much in the same vein as the multi-million dollar development houses who have provided Special Editions for their more popular franchises. In essence, the goal was to provide players, especially new players to the third S.T.A.L.K.E.R. installment, with the best "vanilla" style experience possible, without breaking the game in the process.

Being completely new to modding, I realized I would be somewhat limited by my own capabilities, so I decided to make up for what I may lack in technical skills and experience with a lot of effort and hard work. This has resulted in every change being given the utmost care and attention. Every addition is polished to a standard where, hopefully, a new player will assume the new content was always a part of the original retail version. Similar care and attention has also been paid to gameplay balancing and progression, important areas that are sometimes ignored by modifications. Of course, this was not all achieved on my own. Call of Pripyat: Special Edition carefully integrates some great mini-mods that were created by various S.T.A.L.K.E.R. modding veterans that I respect immensely. Most of these mini-mods have also been heavily modified by myself to fit in with the mod's overall goal.

Call of Pripyat: Special Edition v0.8 is perfectly playable as something that is finished. I've always tried to make sure that with every update, it is as polished as possible (without any broken feature or avoidable bugs.). Taking that into consideration, I would encourage anyone who likes the general idea behind the mod to give it a go.

There are a few things I would like to do with the mod before I can consider it finished (v1). Most of these are in Pripyat during freeplay. For example, a new mission and a military trader. I will also be manually merging AtmosFear 3 and creating a proper patch for it that will not require the use of Smart Mod Manager and should keep any potential bugs from an AF3 merge to a minimum. I also want to release an options pack for those who would like things such as the original inventory grid sizes restored or a dynamic HUD to be enabled, etc. I am also considering Christmas and summer themed add-ons that will change the textures, sounds, music, NPC dialogues etc. Finally, if a fluent Russian speaker / writer would like to create a translation for the modification, then that would be very welcome, and they'll of course be fully credited.

A special thank you to notanumber (www.zhat.dk) for playing through all seven work-in-progress versions of this mod and providing a lot of invaluable feedback, help with scripts (random_amount, Rulix AI), suggestions and ideas. His input has really made a difference, and the mod is getting bigger, better and more polished because of it.

A massive thank you to the following people for their amazing mini-mods, fixes: starac/Ancient (M.I.S.T.Y. mod), Russo, Decane, Barin (Loot Money From Corpses v1.1b), Mori (Wear Your Goddamn Helmet Mod v1.1), krilatizmajra (Afterlife Camera v1.0), Rulix (ai additions COP fixed), angrydog (Cleared Stash mod v1.0), SetaKat, Smrtphoneusr (Mutant Part Hunter Mod v1.0), SetaKat, Robomook (SSP-99M Suit Mod for ClearSky), Alundaio (Kicking Tushkanos), Cromm Cruac (NanoCell Inventory mini-mod v1.0), Beacon (CoP Corpses), MattyDienhoff (Real Weapon Names mod), AtomicDryad (Svarog MK2 v 1.0), shifter, Stalker_93 & GSC Forum members (Pripyat Reclamation Project), jperez2003us (Aiming Sway 1.0), Brainwrinkle (Nimble Ammo mod), Skidz, ingoiy (Spawn Menu Mod v1.1), Maks (dva_kota) (Bar Music), TKGP (Simple Repair Kit 1.1), Mori (Pseudodoggles v1.2), Wh17E_3aG13 (Lassie bumpmap), enomosiki (holster and draw sounds), Misery mod (repair kit mesh), TheHalloweenHaunters (Radio Static Sound Effect).

Call of Pripyat: Special Edition v0.9.3:

Also another massive thank you to the following people for their amazing contributions to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. community (I may not have used any of their mods directly, but I learned a lot from looking at their work or reading their comments and suggestions): Alundaio (Kicking Tushkanos mod, but also IMO a legend, always provides lots of detailed and complex information in an easy-to-understand manner in his posts), mnn (contributed to PRP, but also provides lots of information in his posts), Steelyglint, nashathedog, BegunValkery, angrydog, Beacon (I'm very thankful that these guys took the time and effort to help a newbie), elgenz (didn't use the Super Cheat Mod 1.0 but looking at the file changes helped me a lot), strelok 4556 (again I didn't use the Product n0 4556 mod but found it useful), Kaplan994 (his quest guide was a great starting point for me).

Finally, a thank you to STALKER Wiki, Wikipedia (some of the item descriptions used), NatVac (SAVandT), Malandrinus (SIE 0.6.5), Don Reba (Database Extractor), Capt.Host, Kazeite, MTGunslinger (providing some feedback).