What would you like to see in a GTA:SA expansion?

[morto the sane]

To be honest, this post is probably a cross between several topics (i.e. "what a patch should address", "what you think should have been included in the game to begin with", etc.) that have been beaten thoroughly to death several times over, just that I've put a bit of a fresh spin on them. Considering this, I doubt that this topic will get much interest, but I figured I might as well give it a try and gauge the community's interest.

 

I was looking over the particulars of the No More Hot Coffee patch last night, and somehow it led me to thinking about what a San Andreas expansion pack might include, if it were ever to be made. I highly doubt R* would ever release one, considering that it would only be of use to the PC market, and would leave PS2 and XBOX users out in the cold. Still, you never know - it probably wouldn't be terribly hard to do, and it would whet gamers' appetites while we wait for the next GTA installment to come out. I think it's an interesting "what if" to think about. What would you want to see in one if R* was ever to come up with it?

 

My desired expansion would take place sometime soon after the end of the game, and would feature somewhere around 40 new missions in a handful of different strands. I'm not sure what kinds of missions I'd like to see yet, though I'm certain I'd like to avoid some of the more useless missions (schools and "Supply Lines", anyone?). I mean, I wouldn't want it to be "Fish in a Barrel" easy (okay, a little bit of exaggeration), but then again it shouldn't have missions with "Freefall"- or "City Slicking"-esque qualities that require a trip to the handling.cfg file just to have a shot at. Some balance between "the average user can get through this expansion with 12 hours of gameplay" and "the average user becomes embittered to the point of Some starting points - I'd like to see something along the lines of the Assassination missions from VC (hey, we've already got the phones sprinkled throughout the state as a holdover from the first GTA, might as well use them for something), or perhaps a sort of "CJ takes a trip to Vice City and meets up with/has to deal with Tommy Vercetti" mission strand. That's pretty much all I can think of offhand, though...any thoughts, folks?

 

I know that much of this sort of thing can be done by the modding community, but I'd kind of like to see something with the actual voice actors (this isn't meant to belittle the modding community's contributions, by any means - if I had madder skillz, it's something I might want to try doing someday, but that's a digression for another day).

 

For what it's worth, my personal expansion wish list:

 

Technical

-Fix the various audio driver bugs (I know that the Hot Coffee patch fixed the rain/thunderstorm bug, but I think the Realtek bug's still out there).

-Allow the user to select between different audio emulation modes (D3D, EAX, etc.) as was possible in VC (this primarily concerns the Realtek , R*'s EAX solution sucks and causes many users headaches)

-Allow the user the option to use the Vice City and III-style camera mode

-Improve draw distance for trees, rocks, underbrush, etc.

 

Gameplay

-Assassination-type missions and a Tommy Vercetti cameo (as mentioned above - maybe try to get Ken back into Tommy's good graces?)

-Perhaps a mission where Zero betrays you and you get to kill him slowly and painfully (for those thoroughly embittered by "Supply Lines", et al.)?

-One or two more girlfriends (might I suggest Sage - hey, why not, she's pretty much the same as Helena, except she's cooler, has better lines, and likely wouldn't threaten to kill you at least twice a date)

-A couple more vehicle sub-missions (so long as they're not as annoying as Vigilante or Paramedic)

-A few new radio stations (partially as a pretext to bring back, say, Toni or Maurice Chavez); perhaps update WCTR to include a couple of new episodes of their shows (say, one or two more episodes of "Lonely Hearts" with Fernando hosting, or one or two more episodes of "Entertaining America" for Lazlow) and some new news reports to reflect the events of the expansion, etc.

 

Execution

My first thought was that this could work kind of like how Starcraft handled the Brood War expansion - when starting up, the user can select between vanilla San Andreas and the expansion pack. However, the expansion would also patch all of the technical issues (and probably Hot Coffee as well, lest decides to go on the warpath again) in the standard game, as well as feature the updated and new radio stations.

 

I'm not sure how an expansion would deal with the stats, though. I mean, I don't think anybody here, after getting 100% completion, maxing out all stats and having millions of dollars and enough weaponry to take over the entire country, would want to start from scratch with 100 health and a 9mm (at poor skill level, no less) at the Johnson house. Then again, R* would probably have to take into account the fact that people might want to play the expansion without having done a substantial part of the standard game. Perhaps they could make it so that the expansion's missions aren't available until the main storyline missions have been completed? Some people would probably cry foul at that, though ("I bought this expansion pack, I want to be able to play it whenever I want")...I don't know, any thoughts?

[chronic78043]

Rape and real flashy rapper cars ooh and more rappers and a different character

[Opius]

There's support for add-on mission scripts.

 

However, remember this:

The same functionality was also available in the PS2 version of Vice City.

There was remnants of multiplayer resources in GTA3.

 

Chances are, while they have the means to do so, Rockstar will probably not be releasing an expansion.

[Mainland Marauder]

Don't say never. I read in a game mag the other day about Square's upcoming "sequel" to Final Fantasy VII which came out nearly eight years ago.

 

Similar to that one (the new FF7 is supposed to center around Vincent, should you care), I hope any expansion would use a different character - or perhaps, several different storylines for several different characters. You could play as Cesar in Los Santos, a Triad gangster in San Fierro, one of Leone's men in Las Venturas...maybe even a Splinter Cell-type line of missions as the incomparable Mike Toreno? Think about it. A lot can be done. Honestly I think a second game within the original SA where you followed a storyline surrounding Cesar would have been awesome.

 

I wish San Diego was represented in SA along with LA and San Fran. Call it San Domingo. Have a fenced and fortified border which would be ground zero for missions dealing with drugs, weapons and the like coming from the south. Then there would be all the military installations. Make the map bigger, and extend this area from south of Back O'Beyond.

 

Also...make the bodies stop disappearing until you've left the area. I want my massacres to result in piles and piles of corpses and mechanical debris....oh, how I love taking pictures in this game....and I want even more macabre ones for my collection.

 

And yes, more Lazlow interviews. I don't know if it's his personality so much as his created personalities that are so funny (Darius Fontaine, et. Al) I want Lazlow to create a character for me to portray on the next GTA.

 

Finally...if they made a remake of SA where you could kill either Zero or OG Loc (but not both)...which would you pick? The bike chase with Freddy took me more repititions than did Supply Lines (and you had to do that one to advance the storyline), so I say Jeffrey should die. Zero is at least useful for something, like planting GPS chips on cars you want to steal and stuff like that.

 

[samadriel]

Rape and ...

Typo? I... hope so!

 

The earlier idea, about playing a different character in San Andreas, would be a good way to avoid the having-to-play-all-CJ's-missions issue; play, say, a Triad from San Fierro, or a Los Azteca from Los Santos (think about it -- Cesar could ask you to watch CJ or hang with him or something, so you could blow away some of your dumbass gangers who decide to attack him! That'd be a fun bit of 'getting-back' at that stupid glitch... Shame Rockstar North don't seem to have the required sense of humour to refer to one of their glitches that way; although they have made fun of Claude Speed for his 'silence'...) I dunno who you could potentially play from Las Venturas, all the mafia gangers were irredeemable assholes... You could be a Claude-esque mercenary, and start off with a mission there, acting as getaway or working to bust up a gang who disguise themselves with Elvis costumes, or somesuch thing (It'd make a cool image, I think, a big VC-style bank heist with a pack of Elvises...)

[chronic78043]

yeah rape, and just so u know t-bone mendez is Rifa but Cj and Cesar killed him or maybe he will make a comeback in the future since he fell over the pier. As for cesar he is in Varrios los Aztecas and i was thiking a triad to connect with liberty city story of triads and yakuza but i would prefer Yakuza. Cant we just make a petition or something to give to rockstar for them to make a expansion pack. And yes, rape.and if 50 cent could make a cameo appearance. I would buy the expansion even if it were $150 and rated triple AO even if the only copy is at jack thompsons house in a safe i would manage to get my hands on it, to quote Ryder "Ninja style"

Edited August 14, 2005 by chronic78043

[samadriel]

Heh, I'm glad that chump 50 Cent never got to do CJ's voice...

[Markanto]

PS2 and XBox users need not neccessarily be left out if there was an expansion pack; I remember they did one for Metal Gear Solid and it worked on the PS1..

 

I very much like your idea about including Vice City. As much as I love SA and almost everything has been improved, I do miss the radio from Vice City, and as you say, the assassination missions were great.

 

One other thing from VC I much prefered Pizza Boy as a side mission to the Courier missions of SA. It was strategic, not simply dashing around on a bike, which seemed a little pointless.

 

At least the dreadful RC side missions were spared in SA, even though we got the wretched Zero missions. I do hope very much those AWFUL RC crap vehicles will be dumped altogether next time. They handle dreadful, are stupid toys, and seem poitless to me.

[MajorGlory]

I would Like to see a new environment to travel to. (LC in snow, new city or something)

A few new vehicles.

Bugs Fixed. (especially ATI's VPU recover bug)

Two player mode for PC

And some other features (carwashes for instance)

 

[wer]

An off San Andreas mission to Vice City would be nice.

[Eazy `E`]

tommy and cj meet up for multiplayer

 

nuff said

[nathan360]

I would really like to see more racing possibilities in San Andreas. For example, a fully functional drag strip would of been great! You could even place bets to see who wins. In addition, it would very nice if they had custom races. Basically, an editor could allow a player to set checkpoints on the map and create their own unique racing course.

 

-Natedogg

[No.1 Loonie]

Play as Suzie, with all his missions taking place in San Fierro and Las Venturas.

[StreetRacerOG6]

i would want alot more cars and do somthing to Madd Doggs Mansion i mean the interior is nice but i want it to have working garage, a new littal map mabe another mansion and be able to choose the skin color and mabe make your own littal clothes or paint jobs for you car that would be a lot better

[morto the sane]

Haven't had the chance to respond yet - sorry, the real world kinda intruded. Pretty good ideas so far...I quite like the general idea of being able to play as a different character. It would certainly deal with the stats/weapon/money issue.

 

@ chronic78043: R* is in enough hot water already over Hot Coffee; actually including rape in the game would probably generate enough lawsuits to bankrupt them.

 

@ Mainland Marauder: That's a pretty tough one for me to answer. "OG Loc" was an annoying mission, but then again my bike skill wasn't terrifically high. "Madd Dogg's Rhymes" wasn't a breeze either, 'cause I wasn't too good with the stealth at the time. If I were doing either now that I have a better idea of what I'm doing (I'm hovering somewhere around 80% completion, with just the final Los Santos strand and a good deal of extras left to do), I wouldn't find them as difficult. As for Zero, "Air Raid" was kind of fun - I passed it the second time, but only failed the first time because I tried turning the gun on Zero to see if the game would actually let me kill him. Oops. "New Model Army", after I was a little higher up on the learning curve, was kind of fun too (not as fun as "Air Raid", though). As for "Supply Lines", though...yeah, I only beat it because when I was in the air, I flew backwards to prevent my fuel from going down, and if I had to go forward, I landed the plane and taxied it everywhere. If I had to choose, I'd say I'd prefer to kill Jeffrey - he can't rhyme worth anything, and he's simply annoying. Zero's nowhere near as annoying by comparison, and as you say, he's at least a little useful.

 

@ Markanto: I agree for the most part about the RC side missions. The only way I could beat the one at the north end of Vice Beach was to modify the handling.cfg file (one of two ways I cheat; the other being the late, lamented ASPIRINE - maybe they could bring that back too?). However, after about 430238 attempts at "Demolition Man", it became one of my favourite VC missions. As I mentioned above, I didn't really mind "New Model Army" or "Air Raid" either (the latter, of course, because it was the first minigun I could get my hands on... ). "Supply Lines" was just pushing it, though. If there were a mission that was kind of like "Demolition Man", I'd enjoy it, but aside from that the RC missions are too annoying.

 

@ MajorGlory: I think that, at the very least, the "No More Hot Coffee" patch allowed cars to get clean...not sure how they did that, though. It may have activated the car washes, I'm not entirely sure. I'm kinda pressed for time (have to be up early for work tomorrow), does anyone else know offhand?

 

Bleh, gotta sleep...might post more tomorrow.

[samadriel]

Nah, carwashes still don't work -- rain, water and respraying clean up the car, and offroad driving dirties it.

[Tartey]

I'd like new cars, new guns, a better gang i mean all you do is drive around and do drive-bys or have gang wars, wouldn't it be better if the gang drive themselves and follow you to invade certain places?

 

I don't like the weapon tiers, i wish you could have 2 pistols in one tier, or 4 machine guns.

 

 

 

Edited August 16, 2005 by Tartey

[nathan360]

Add Lambo Doors as a car modification option!

[Forelli_Boy]

A new city based off either Oakland (Pineland?) or Sacramento (Eucharisto)?

[Mainland Marauder]

A new city based off either Oakland (Pineland?) or Sacramento (Eucharisto)?

 

 

 

Or Reno...perhaps Fort Carson was supposed to be Carson City (capital of Nevada) - but yeah, smaller cities out West being represented would be cool. Or perhaps a larger suburban area around Los Santos, representing Orange County.

[DanielB]

i would love the yakuza make an appearance

[RvdVit]

removed

Edited July 14, 2019 by RvdVit

[Rown]

Rown

Edited July 12, 2015 by Rown