GG: It has been said before that STALKER isn't going to have scripts ala Halflife etc. How is the dev team designing the game in order to ensure that this won't make for a dull experience for the player in light of this?

Oleg: The world of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. provides for open-ended gaming area where the events are not programmed in advance. We populate the army post with life, make computer stalkers accomplish dealer's tasks, procure equipment, weapons and explore the Zone, make monsters and stalkers evaluate their chances in battle and so on. Thus, we do not use scripts in their usual meaning. Players can freely explore the game world getting different events while playing through one and the same place. For instance, an injured stalker, who we go to rescue can safely await us in one play-through, we can find him in combat with an attacking monster in another one, he may be discovered by a hostile stalker roaming nearby and killed at another play-through and so on. I.e. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a game of circumstances, there's always a certain probability level present: if you are lucky, you can pass the place without any hindrances, otherwise, you may be abruptly attacked by a pack of blind dogs who appeared to be lurking nearby, or you may fall prey to an invisible anomaly etc. This makes S.T.A.L.K.E.R. stand out from the crowd. On the side of game design, we do our best to evenly fill the levels with monster habitats, at the same time creatures can migrate from level to level, and new ones appear with a certain probability, i.e. even if the player has exterminated everything what moves on a level, returning there later, he most likely will find some newcomers.