That is the only thing that is missing, othervise S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is still greatest game for me :)

Besides factions and gangs would bring more immersion in the STALKER world… Afteral whos gonna wander the wasteland alone? IN harsh enviroments, Logicaly Ppl would have the tendency to band up for survival.

The events of Call of Pripyat – the second stand-alone project in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe (Clear Sky being the first) is taking place two weeks after the events of the original game: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. As Gunslinger shut the psy-antennas down, lots of stalkers rushed to the center of the Zone trying to lay their hands on the treasures it conceals. But only few made their way into it safely, as a new faction war broke out. The survivals are mostly neutrals, ”Duty” and ”Freedom” members as well as some bandits.
As the psy-barrier broke down, the military started to develop an operation called ”Fairway” in order to establish full control over the new territories. As a first step of the operation, 5 reconnaissance helicopters were sent to investigate the new areas and find a safer way through the anomalous fields for their full-scale ground operation. Despite all the precautions made, the operation fails with all HINDs being vanished from the radars leaving only approximate coordinates of the crash sites.
The player takes a role of major Degtyarev, an ex-stalker who signed the contract with the military in the past, and now is an undercover agent sent to the center of the Zone to investigate the reasons behind the operation failure.

The Zone.

First of all, there will be no faction wars in Call of Pripyat, the number of NPCs will be greatly reduced, as opposed to Clear Sky, and the developers promise us to create a bigger ”back to the roots, explore-the-surroundings” feeling of the game, more common to the original: Shadow of Chernobyl. Among other game improvements, the game’s locations are one of the most important ones with three new huge locations that include a photorealistic Exclusion Zone – Pripyat (the eastern part of the town), Yanov railway station, Jupiter factory, Kopachi village and others, recreated by their true-to-life prototypes with the use of satellite photographs. There are also two underground locations which are kept secret for now.
The first location, where the game starts, is Zaton (The Backwater) – a huge 1.5×1.5 km area, featuring a dried out river with some shipwrecks, a factory of some sort and lots of anomalies. As the player arrives to Zaton, other stalkers have already accustomed to the area, so we can find the Bar in one of the ship’s carcasses, the bases of the ”Duty” and ”Freedom” factions who share one ship by having a cease-fire agreement (but only within the walls of their base), and the mercenary base somewhere in the industrial area.
The Blowouts (aka Emissions) will now be random and deeply incorporated in the local ecosystem: with every Blowout, new artifacts are born in the anomalies, and some anomalies will change their positions (only random anomalies and not the unique looking, static anomalous fields). Stalkers will seek cover during Blowouts and will fight for it, if members of others factions will attempt to use the same hideout; this works for the player as well: staying on the open field during the Blowout is lethal, but finding a safe spot (they will be marked on your map) can cost you your life as well, if it is already occupied by your rivals. The new types of anomalies will also be introduced in the game.
It is also worth mentioning, that now both stalkers and mutants will have their own day/night cycle, with mutants being more active at night, while stalkers will be going to bed. As for the mutant additions, we will see the good old, finally made functional Chimera and Burer. Chimera will be your most fearsome night encounter, as it moves rapidly, hiding in the dark, always trying to attack you from the rear; however it won’t be such a menace during day time, as it can be easily spotted under the sun light. The Burer uses telekinesis to grab and throw objects at you, which can be a heavy barrel or even your own weapon pulled out of your hands and thrown at you. It was also mentioned in some previews that Burer is able to cast a bulletproof shield with his telekinetic abilities. But the good thing about Bruer is that he is not really an aggressive creature and, for the most part, will only attack if the player bothers him.
The behavior of the older and more familiar mutants been reworked as well. For example, dogs and snorks are now attacking on the move, instead of just stopping in front of you and biting like before; so fighting them is now much harder, especially when they attack in packs. The packs, however, can now be formed with the mutants of each type, and since all the mutants are now divided into carnivores and herbivores, we can expect one hunting the other. The Bloodsucker has been redone as well, so it can now literally grab the player and start sucking the blood out of him. If you think they now have an unfair advantage over you, the developers made it fair by removing the invincibility of the bloodsucker while he is invisible.
The stalkers, as mentioned before, have a ”timetable” of what to do during the day: they leave the base in the morning, alone or as a small group, roaming across the landscape in search of artifacts and finally return to the base in the evening for some rest. The developers are promising to make a fair system of an artifact trade, so if you happen to run across some stalker, you can see the stuff he has already collected and trade with him by offering something more worthy than just vodka or a lump of bread.
Searching for an artifact with the detector is also in the game, and both positive and negative effects of the artifacts are rebalanced.
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Quests.

The game features over 70 ”hand-made” quests (no more randomly generated missions), which can be received from not only faction leaders and a barman, but from ordinary stalkers as well. As already mentioned there will be three factions to cooperate with (but not join, as the main character is already an undercover military soldier). ”Duty’s and Freedom’s leaders and members are controlled by the criminal authority nicknamed Sultan, who is ready for cooperation with everyone if it is beneficial to him. However, even without joining a faction, it will be possible to become a dominant force by cooperating with others, for example when the scientists will lose the protection from the military, it will be possible to give them a hint about some guys from Freedom who are eager to grant scientists their services for a small price. For the Freedom faction it will mean a stable financial income and for the player – good relations with the faction and an access to their up-to-date equipment. ”Duty” will support you with machineguns, assault rifles and heavy armor, while ”Freedom” will equip you with sniper weaponry and their armor which is more suitable for exploration and protection from the environmental hazards. The bandits will possibly equip you with shotguns, but it is not clear yet.
Some side-quests have already been shown. For example, we can take a quest from the barman to find a specific artifact on the abandoned fishing vessel – the player finds the ship being surrounded and filled with anomalies, and when he finds his way through all the traps, finds the artifact and leaves the ship, he will be greeted by a stalker, who will ask the player to give him this artifact, as it is the only thing which can save his dying friend. If you’ll refuse to handle him the artifact – two heavy armed stalkers will block the road and ask you the same thing but in the less polite manner. If you will give the artifact, the two heavy armed stalkers will wait until the first one will run away, and then you can find him at the barman’s place selling the artifact. Of course the barman doesn’t care who found it first and the only thing he will say to your complaints is: ”This is the Zone, son.”
Another quest that has been showcased is from Sultan’s bandits. They try to establish control over stalkers, so they are attempting to make a raid at night on one of the stalkers’ bases. You can accept their offer and kill the stalkers or you can warn the stalkers of this threat and they will give you a counter-mission to engage the raid with the bandits but shoot them in the back. What to do is up to the player, but the both decisions will affect his reputation among stalkers and bandits.
The game is expected to have 20 unique characters with unique appearances taken from real life people.

Q: Which locations can we expect in CoP? Are there any dungeons, faction bases or some old locations?
A: As one can already guess form the name of the project, the main location in the game is Pripyat; and we are proud of this location, as the eastern part of the town (which is featured in this location) is created with every minor detail. We made a trip to the Zone once again, took a lot of pictures, and used satellite photography to make it as authentic as possible. We tweaked it for the gameplay a bit, so it is about 90-95% accurate. Apart from Pripyat, we have a huge Zaton and some smaller locations as well as few dungeons. There won’t be any old locations – all of them are new.

Q: And what about the characters in the game? Are we going to see some factions, military, or the foreign troops?
A: If comparing to Clear Sky, then factions won’t play as big of a role in CoP – they won’t wage a full-scale war. We’re going back to the concept of the original game, where the Zone isn’t populated with people so much and the stalker’s main opponents are mutants and anomalies, as it would be if the Zone was real. Sure you’ll spot the factions and the military in the game, but each have their own goal, and you can achieve better relations with some, as the hero is neutral at the beginning.

Q: And what about the relations between the factions? Will they fight for the territory and defend their positions?
A: In the prequel (Clear Sky), we’ve been telling a story about factions establishing their power, fighting for territory and resources. The Faction War was back then – now it is about a month after the events of the original SoC. Each faction has its own goal, according to their ideology – the conflicts are inevitable, but it won’t take the scale of the war again.

Q: What about our earnings? Can we find an expensive gun or artifact? How easy will it be to get ammo or medicine in the game?
A: It sure won’t be easy to find a rare or expensive gun, but you shouldn’t forget, that now stalkers will search corpses, collect artifacts and guns, so it is possible to find a lot of stuff in the backpack of a dead stalker. Ammo or medicine can be found or bought from stalkers or traders – as it would be in the real life.

Q: What can you say about artifacts and anomalies? Their quantity and difficulty of finding an artifact?
A: The search for artifacts is the main business of the stalkers – their bread. That’s why we are trying to make this part of the game as interesting as possible. You can’t find a valuable artifact just lying on the ground – you have to equip yourself with a detector and crawl in the anomalous field. Only by making your way through anomalies, constantly being under the harmful effect of the anomalous field, you’ll have a chance for a big buck. Moreover, after every Blowout the order of the anomalies in the field will change, so it won’t be possible to just memorize the safest way and use it over and over again.

Q: What guns and armor will we find in CoP? Will there be something new?
A: One of the biggest innovations in CoP concerning armor is that it is now divided into body armor and head protection – for example bulletproof vest and the helmet. It is also possible to repair and upgrade them. As for weapons – the upgrade system from CS was improved, so it is now possible to upgrade it in a few directions at the same time.

Q: Is it possible to hire some stalkers for your squad? Can we be stealthy by hiding in the bushes with a sniper rifle and shooting enemies from a distance? Will the enemy spot us at once, or will he run around searching for the sniper?
A: Stalkers are loners, so it’s not possible to find a partner, though you can join stalkers during some missions, or some stalkers can join you during others, but normally everyone is on his own – it’s the Zone. NPCs have the ability to hear in the defined radius and see in the defined sector – being outside of these, you can easily sneak undetected. As for shooting – each shot has a sound and direction, and it is quite possible being detected after the first one.

Q: In Clear Sky, it is clear that the AI had been greatly improved – NPCs don’t leave themselves open, but hide behind the rocks, walls, etc. Will you use the same system and will the AI be improved even more?
A: Well, I’d rather say ”polishing” than ”improvement” – the most radical improvements were made in the monster’s AI and the global A-Life system. With every new step, we’re getting closer to that functionality of the system which suits us most – it is so complicated, that we were improving it all the time since the original game, always making corrections and tweaks here and there.

Q: In both STALKER games, we got outstanding visuals as well as the atmosphere. Can we expect further improvements in the graphics department as well as more spoken dialogs and new interface features?
A: The atmosphere will be close to the original SoC game that was critically acclaimed as the most atmospheric game of the 2007. The visuals will be somewhat better then in Clear Sky, but system requirements will be the same due to the optimization. The dialogues will be mostly written, it is better than the voiceover at times because the player uses his own imagination instead of artist’s expressions to perceive the character’s personality. The interface was totally redone to make it more intuitive. The use of hot keys was added, a convenient round mini-map and lots of other stuff. Also, we made a possibility to continue the game after completing the main storyline.

Q: Will there be Blowouts in the game? If yes, will the occur only as storyline-driven events, or will they be completely random?
A: Both, and the player will have to seek shelter to survive one.

Q: Will there be any improvements to multiplayer?
A: We’re working on the code optimization, reduction of traffic and new anti-cheat tools. There will be a system of ratings and rewards as well. No radical changes in the gameplay modes.