Thirith on 7/11/2011 at 09:08
I'm expecting something along the lines of a Los Santos the size and detail of GTA IV's Liberty City, plus surrounding countryside. If they include even a second major city, I'll happily eat my hat and buy multiple copies (PS3 and PC).
I'm very curious to see what they've learnt from Red Dead Redemption, IMO their best title to date.
Edit: Not sure whether I buy the rumours that they're bringing back the protagonists of GTA games past, but it'd be interesting if they did - and potentially even more interesting if we got to play multiple protagonists. Not sure I'd want that, at least in a main game; I like building up a connection to the one main character I play. Anyway, here's hoping we'll have a bit more information on the game itself before long.
Scots Taffer on 7/11/2011 at 13:04
Sorry, I didn't mean to bounce on this whole thread... ironically, between being busy with work and
life, this conversation inspired me to fire up GTA4 again for a whirl. I must say, I'm not finding that any of my comments are ringing false playing through for the first time in 2 whole years. This is one uninspired but lovingly realised game.
@ Alchy: I don't think I missed the point of what they were doing in GTA4. I think you missed the point of my post. I'm not saying the previous GTA games were a success and 4 was a failure due to there being a morally grey player character... that was true in the previous games also, but before there wasn't an attempt to tell a story of someone "trying to go on the straight and narrow". Why? Because it's boring.
"Oh, maybe I should give this life of crime a miss."
"Hey Niko, let's rob a place and bang some hookers."
"Ugh, CONFLICTED." ... "OK."
That's pretty much what every scene with Niko and anyone corrupt/criminal/etc amounts to, and it's narratively a fucking dead end. Plus we never buy that Niko's going to stop because then there'd be no game (except buying clothes, going bowling and dating, of course). That was all I was getting at. It's actually a waste of everyone's time and is not believable for a second. At least with a morally conflicted gangster (who isn't humming and hawing about
being a gangster) there's the tension of not knowing whether or not you're in the good graces, if shit's going to go to the mattresses, and so on.
Quote Posted by demagogue
@Scots, what kinds of things do you have in mind that would be refreshing to see?
To me, I see GTA as a series with clear mechanics that everyone's familiar with & that sells...
If you don't like the mission structure (that's the most specific thing you mentioned I can imagine where you're going), it seems like the main alternative is to open the plot-advancement with something like open objectives, you have to go out in the world and achieve them at your own pace, and achieving one opens others, although that's almost getting into "quests" and RPG territory. Anyway, that's something I was thinking about that might be an interesting variation. The other thing I was thinking about was more world simulation generally so you could, e.g., start an enterprise, buy properties & supplies, deal with competition & grift, and it all gets procedurally simulated (a real economy)... but it's not something you *had* to do, just something you could (parallel to the plot), or even more generally speaking, sandbox stuff going on persistently in the world that's not tethered down to missions but the world changes over the game procedurally by things you do. That could change the character of the game some too, but I'd like it anyway.
All sounds awesome, and a bit too hard! The AI necessary to make the GTA gameworld "believable" beyond simple character interactions is probably a bit much to ask, but I'm open to the concept. I think what's come before from San Andreas on is basically the bargain basement version of the RPGish elements you're referring to, i.e. customisation of player character, "like"/charm scale with groups/factions/people, and so on. I'd just like to see it actually matter worth a damn in the context of a massive gangster world as opposed to being The Sims jammed into GTA.
edit: As a somewhat unrelated addendum: I also fell away from
Red Dead Redemption around the Mexico area, all Rockstar games seem to suffer from this diminishing returns syndrome where they extend what you're doing a tiny bit
too long so that they can drag out the main thrust of the plot and resolution, which sucks because the missions just aren't varied enough. I must admit though that Red Dead has more mileage to burn out with me before I totally give up on it as it is at least trying some new things (cars=horses=new, loool).
Thirith on 7/11/2011 at 13:22
Scots, did you play Red Dead Redemption, and if so, did its plot/characterisation work better for you? Personally I didn't feel the disconnect between story/characterisation and gameplay that much in GTA IV, but I think that's mainly because I tend not to go on rampages etc. That way it was easier for me to say that much of the time, Nico goes in unwillingly but that doesn't mean he isn't willing to defend himself if it's either him or them. However, I do think they told the "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in..." story with more success in Red Dead Redemption - doing it all because the bastards have your wife and son works pretty well as a motivator. (There were some moments in GTA IV that worked along similar lines.)
To my mind, they also managed the potential disconnect better in both episodes, where the protagonists weren't necessarily happy to kill, but they both are loyal to their chosen tribe/father figure. Rockstar is experimenting with storytelling in games, and even if their individual games don't always succeed at bridging the story/gameplay gap, I've found all of their experiments absolutely worthwhile.
Scots Taffer on 7/11/2011 at 13:27
See above. I did like it, and that is a good example of playing an honourable character who's doing not-so-honourable things while not always being an out-and-out murdering asshole, but not working within a pre-defined dynamic like GTA's gangster world. I liked the fact that in Red Dead they gave you a lot more options in that regard too, being able to hogtie and bring them in etc.
Thirith on 7/11/2011 at 13:54
I wonder whether the ability to be more stealthy would already help, as well as adapting some of the dialogue on the fly. They had subtly different dialogues if you had to redo a mission; I could imagine them tweaking the dialogues similarly on the basis of how many people you kill in a mission, how stealthy you are, whether you kill non-combatants etc. I'm not saying they should turn the game into Deus Ex, but having the characters acknowledge what happens during gameplay sections might go a long way towards making the character contradictions work better. E.g. if a murderous psycho Nico bemoans the fact that he has to go on killing, other characters could call him out on it or someone could mutter under his breath, "Look who's talkin'..."
Angel Dust on 7/11/2011 at 21:34
There is one thing that Rockstar could do to spice up the missions -
use the fucking open world. It's always bothered me that they create this wonderful game world, with traffic, pedestrians, shops, police etc and then they funnel you through rigidly scripted missions they pretty much ignore all of this. Some ideas:
* When a chase is on give the pursued a destination and if you don't catch them before they get there you maybe have a bigger fight on your hands as they are now at their 'home base'. If you lose them, then after a while a buddy rings you up telling you they've tracked the target down but now you have an even bigger fight because. No more fucking canned chases.
* You've got to whack a guy. Give the target a simple schedule (day/night, work/home etc) and let the player decide when, where and how to take them out. Guns blazing in a restaurant in broad daylight? Wait for him at his house? Ram him off the road? Plant a car bomb?
* You need to raise some cash. Hold up a store? Break into a house? Rob a bank? Steal some high performance cars from a car lot?
Mafia 2 had a mission like this and even though it was too easy to knock off a couple of stores, the feeling I got when given the job and then the whole city to do it in was intoxicating.
Still mix it up with more scripted stuff and keep all the other optional fluff too but get that overlap between the missions and sandbox stuff going.
Some other things:
* I hate compulsory racing. Why can't the plot move on because I didn't come first in some unimportant race?
Saints Row 2 had the right idea, make racing optional.
* I think the buddy system could work but obviously make them far less naggy and don't have them call you during a mission or when you're being chased by police. Don't have a negative consequence if you cancel or turn them down but if you do hang out with them enough then you can then call them up for backup, wheels etc. Pump up the amount of date/hangout banter too. I liked the buddy stuff initially because I enjoyed hearing them talk about what they're up to and their thoughts on other characters but it wasn't long before they ran out of things to say. In fact, make it they only call you if they've got something new (would be great if they kept up with current plot events) to talk about.
* The fact that
GTA IV had alternate dialog for a lot of those long, start-of-mission drives shows that Rockstar know that people get bored of having to take that long drive after failing/dying. How about just moving the checkpoint to
after the drive though? (to be fair, I did notice that the checkpointing was better in the episodes)
Quote Posted by Scots Taffer
I also fell away from
Red Dead Redemption around the Mexico area, all Rockstar games seem to suffer from this diminishing returns syndrome where they extend what you're doing a tiny bit
too long so that they can drag out the main thrust of the plot and resolution, which sucks because the missions just aren't varied enough.
This is exactly why I think they should have multiple character campaigns in
GTA V. The episodes had much tighter story telling simply because they weren't 60* hours long. Having four 15* hour campaigns, whose plots and characters overlap (another cool thing the episodes did) with each other would be brilliant. Shorter plots means you could more convincingly tell the 'morally troubled criminal' story as well as more easily put in a bit of that
Deus Ex like flexibility that Thirith mentioned.
* I'm pulling numbers out my arse here, I can't remember how long the episodes or the main game where.
Scots Taffer on 7/11/2011 at 23:35
Angel Dust: work for Rockstar. :thumb:
Muzman on 8/11/2011 at 01:11
The fact that cars are kind of irrelevant and disposable has always sort of bugged me, but they've made it necessary to the whole thing.
In 3 I could let it go ultimately since it was all about just ever increasing numbers of toys to arse about with or in. But as the games got more detailed it started to make less and less sense. Everything else starts to gain value, uniqueness and personality except vehicles, which are essentially free no matter how rare and expensive they would be in real life.
I can imagine them in feature meetings saying there's no way we can restrict this core mechanic and it just sets off a cascade of problems for effective policing and better AI etc, I suspect.
But it would be really interesting if you and others had to spend a lot on a good car, or to work it up into a unique state so that it's irreplaceable and you don't want to scratch it; If stealing a car was hard and only really worked on disposable shitheaps from the wrong end of town or took the kind of Mission Impossible sort of organisation to steal good ones it does in real life (and you can't just drive them around without attracting attention because they are one of the most regulated and controlled things society has ever produced).
I think it'd be cool. Most would find it hamstrung the game, I suspect.
Scots Taffer on 8/11/2011 at 01:20
Yeah, given the title, souping up cars or customising them is an amazing missed opportunity at this stage in the game (given in San Andreas you could specify your fucking hairstyle). I would like to see more customisation of cars. It seemed like in GTA4 they totally did away with garages and storing cars, which was something that was in all the previous games?
The only issue that comes with increased value in cars is the handling and dynamics whereby crashes are more common than not, then you start to move to a Mafia-style system for cars and that's a love/hate thing right there.
PigLick on 8/11/2011 at 01:49
SA had mod garages where you could soup up your car (hydraulics, nitrous etc). If you werent using cheats then it was a fair bit of money so you didnt really want to trash your new ride straight away.
The thing with gta4 is it gave you good cars that spawned after you completed certain missions, I mostly ended up using thoses, an example would be the golden car you get from that crazy russian guy in BOGT.
You know what I hated in gta4 is whenever you stole a parked car you inevitably had to smash the window in, I would like to see something like Chinatown Wars where you had to hotwire and pick locks, making stealing cars a little more of a hassle.
I think a multiple character storyline like the 3 chapters of gta4 would work, but I would like to see just 2 diametrically opposed characters, who end up in the same place at the end of the game, so you have a gangster type who gets sucked back into the crimworld for whatever reason, and an honest young cop, making his way in the corrupt police force, slowly losing his moral values. Storyline would intertwine, you could even play the same missions from both perspectives.
