The Goal of Complete Freedom

[28RedEyedCrows]

Tony: I remember that 'Teriake' guy! He's probably the only one I do remember.

 

The 'jingles' thing is great. Of course that has always been in these great movies, but they did use it to a small degree in 'Doom 3'. They would chant out different information about the base you were in. This could go along with when we were talking about having people watching TVs on the street, either on large screens or in shop windows. That would be a COOL way to incorporate the TV again. Just fill it with weird propaganda playing all over the place, not just in your room. (the TV would have been more entertaining to see if it was on someplace besides your safe house!)

 

I'm glad you actually know 'Strange Days'! I swear, no one saw that film and I will reference it for eternity! I loved that thing. I think it's also really funny that when I was talking about the bad guy in 'The Crow', well, he was the bad guy in 'Strange Days'. 'Strange Days' also starred 'Juliette Lewis' who also did songs for the film, who I thought would sound good for a futuristic game, who not only has a song in 'GTA IV' but is a DJ, and who is also in 'Dusk Till Dawn' that I referenced!! Let's just make her a playable character and be done with it!! lol Juliette FTW!

 

Like what you're saying about the arena: at LEAST street fights should be a must, especially with the much better fighting system. They could even add that or just boxing to bet on. They could just let the A.I. battle it out normally and it'd always be a fun bet.

 

gtaman4523: We have another vote for the concert!

 

Add: [email protected] Visually Impaired! I knew what you meant!

 

Had to Add:

"Seriously... Do I look harmless?"

Edited July 7, 2008 by 28RedEyedCrows

[gtaman4523]

hire hits on enemies / traitors or random peds by taking a pic of them and sending it to a contract agency and the higher the price the more he will not be spotted by enemies protection

but if its a random ped he will be sniped instantly . price is from $5,000 - $1,000,000

 

EDIT : a bonus can be paid so if the assassain gets caught captured he doesnt blab your name and doesnt betray u for his life

Edited July 7, 2008 by gtaman4523

[28RedEyedCrows]

gtaman4523: I think that's a good idea for a scenario where you actually come into power. I'd rather be the one doing the hits, but it'd be a good option, especially for an intelligent price like you're saying. It'd be like a bonus available for having that much money.

 

Add: It could really help you out if someone was after you, or on certain missions.

 

Add: Yeah, having the risk of the assassin talking is good. That should always be a chance you take. Paying more money for a better hitman might also be an option.

Edited July 7, 2008 by 28RedEyedCrows

[Tony Mozzarelli 80]

I think it might be interesting if there was a kind of religious movement to replace the Hare Krishna.

Could be called something like 'The church of (insert deity name here)' and they could have chapels

and preachers throughout the city. Maybe you would come into contact with some of them, and it would

tie into the issue of your morality, maybe someone could have a poignant conversation which has an

impact on you, and you begin to wrestle with faith. this would add foe a lot of oppurtunity to have these

personality choices, and would also allow for a lot of great imagery to add more power and weight to

the story.

[28RedEyedCrows]

I'm going to take off again and check back later, give a little time for anyone else wants to respond to what we've been bringing up too. I did want to say that I've been thinking about some way to tie in something like you're talking about. I like the idea of having some kind of church or cult organization. I saw that big cathedral in 'IV' and wanted to walk around in it. I though it would be cool, though I know a lot of people would instantly shoot it up.

 

So that Rockstar wouldn't have to deal with upsetting certain people though, making sure the church and it's members in the game are more cultist and/or corrupt like they were in GTA2 would be a good idea. (of course several violent games have done this in the past, so maybe it's not as big a deal in an adult game) Anyway, I like the general idea.

[Tony Mozzarelli 80]

hire hits on enemies / traitors or random peds by taking a pic of them and sending it to a contract agency and the higher the price the more he will not be spotted by enemies protection

but if its a random ped he will be sniped instantly . price is from $5,000 - $1,000,000

 

EDIT : a bonus can be paid so if the assassain gets caught captured he doesnt blab your name and doesnt betray u for his life

That would be an interesting concept. Perhaps if it's a gang member and you don't wanna lose respect with

that particular gang. You would hire an assassin to whack em for you. And if you hired a budget one who was

a bit inept, there's a good chance that he'll get caught and sell you out, so you wanna spend as much as you

can spare, and the guy will make it look like an accident. Or even make it appear as if a gang you don't like

carried out the hit. It's an interesting idea

[gtaman4523]

it could be like wat happened on gerrys mission (carbomb) to make 2 gangs get into gang war so that while a gangs members are away u can take their business or help 1 of the gangs to make an allie

[Tony Mozzarelli 80]

There should be a status bar with each gang too, ranging from respected, to hostility. At full hostility there

should be a sense of immediacy to resolving the conflict. Your businesses getting attacked frequently. Your

guys getting killed off that sort of thing, so you will have to engage them in a war and 'go to the mattresses'

or regain some respect with them, and diffuse the conflict. No resting on your laurels. Don't wanna worry about

gang wars? ... simple, don't provoke hostility from gangs.

[mkey82]

238Red, very good stuff on Reaper. When I said wanzer I meant any kind of robot thingy, no matter manned or unmanned. But you are correct, unmanned wanzer will definitelly reek of chaos and destruction because (like ED-209 was) I will be wild and out of control. If it was manned EMP grenade wouldn't probably have that great effect. It should have some rush attack - it could go for it and try to stump on criminals, just run them over (for example if it runs out of ammo).

 

Since I'm a metalhead, I could give my metal&rock recommendations.

1) some math metal, like The Dillinger Escape Plan. This is very hard to listen to, it could be used in some of frenzy combat.

2) when I think of this world of ours, one name pops into my mind - Max Cavalera. So some old skool Sepultura and Soulfly is probably required. Stuff like Chaos AD and Prophecy.

3) if the setting would consist of fighters for freedom taking the battle to oppressing companies then Rage Against the Machine is a must have.

4) I would like to see some death metal in there, like old skool Amon Amarth, but it's more like a personal preference, I don't know if it would fit properly.

5) Rollins Band - stuff like Illumination, Liar and stuff from Come in and Burn album.

6) as a alternative rock consideration I would like to see/hear Chavelle and One Minute silence

 

And yeah, you definitely can't miss with Depeche Mode and Ice-T. Concerts would be nice, BUT they would need to have a lot of music in there. For example, you would need to have ate least 10 tracks per band. This is a very nice idea, but it would probably turn sour like the cabaret and stuff. The best bet would be to have a concert in some of the missions and leave it at that - like Love Fist in VC.

 

[macorules94]

This will never happen

 

If it does, it will be ps3 exlusive and Microsoft will pay anything to keep his crammy xbox 360 owners to think that they own

 

a good gaming console and stupid R* will take the cash to make a sh*t GTA.

[28RedEyedCrows]

Macorules94: I won't get involved in 'Microsoft vs. Sony', but I also won't count out what you're saying. I acknowledged it a couple of times in this topic: that it's possible that Rockstar will focus more on the money aspect than anything else. Even though I don't expect them to make the GTA we're discussing, I still hope they won't sell themselves (and their creativity) out either. We'll just have to see. I agree that Microsoft will be doing anything it can to stay afloat in the gaming industry though as the HD-DVD hardware they used fell though, killed by Sony's own Blu-Ray. (Imagine to have to purchase hardware from a competitor...)

 

Tony & gtaman4523: On the PC, there was this game simply called 'Gangsters', set in the mafia era, and it had a lot of great things in it. One of them was a 'respect & hostility' system like you're talking about. It would also allow you (because you were a mob boss) to actually declare war/peace/neutrality with other crime families.

 

For Example: you send a couple of your men over to a shop owned by the 'Blue Family' and tell them to throw a Molotov through the window, setting it on fire. The Blue's, who were neutral with you, are now hostile. Whenever they see your men (or you) moving through their territory, they will immediately beat the crap out of them or open fire. Now, if you go one more step, and make another blatant attack on them, they then may decide to declare war. At this point, it's as you said, you better make sure you have men guarding your businesses, because not only will they shoot on sight, they will also begin bombing your shops and calling hits out on your men. This goes on until one side puts a lot of hurt on the other or makes a peaceful gesture of some kind.

 

As well, you can make friends and have peace with other families as long as you offer them something, usually as simple as money. This not only will stop wars from occurring, but allow you to move freely through their territories. I think you could also trade a bit, but I may be wrong.

 

Acts of hostility could also include: killing their men, extorting a shop owned by them, killing shop/racket owners/managers and other things.

 

You also had the option to set your hostility against whatever family you desired to change the behavior of your own men. Where as, I don't think they went out and attacked enemies on their own, if they saw them in your territory, setting it to 'hostile' would cause them to attack anyone coming into your area, even if they weren't hostile.

 

I am sure that 'The Godfather' had some of these same themes, but my brain doesn't always work well. The 'front' system was also in play, as in 'The Godfather' where any business you controlled, you could run a 'racket' in the back. They were also subject to police raids, and you needed to keep the cops happy. I think you would even have the choice to bail out some of your men if they were put in prison. I don't know, it was a great in-depth game. The second one sucked though!

 

Ah, you also had to not only hire men with different specialties (intimidation/killing, etc.) like in my 'Crow' scenario, but also men to run the fronts and rackets specifically. (I hope I am using 'rackets' in the right way. I don't usually use that kind of lingo! )

 

Mkey82: "Robot Thingy." lol I knew what you meant by what you were describing, but I did have to look up 'Wanzer' cause I didn't know what that was at all. I found some pictures first and figured out it was a kind of Robotech styled 'mech'. I just pushed a little harder on the ED-209 image, or even the bot in 'Metal Gear', because I thought it would fit better. I like those 'humanoid' bots, but usually in a distant future setting which they are usually reserved to. Maybe when GTA takes place on a space ship!

 

I liked what you said about it trying to basically rush or 'stomp' people. It would have to be fairly limber, but getting too close to it could cause it to either to try and crush you, like you said, or maybe even just kick you away. This could work against cars and things too. Imagine it smashing the front of a car with it's foot, holding it in place and then firing straight down through the roof and windshield! Not good for the driver!

 

When you said 'run out of ammo', this gave me a couple of other ideas. Either it would never run out of ammo, just overheating at times, and giving you a chance to move, or, maybe if it did run out, it would take a while, and then an officer (or someone) would have to pull an ammo box out of their car trunk and feed it into the RP ala 'Matrix: Revolutions'.

 

One more: when you were talking about stomping, that made me think about getting close to it, and then how it would be really cool if you could jump onto the thing such as in 'Shadow of the Colossus'. It would be just like that, not a pre-set animation, in which you could get up near the top, press whatever smaller caliber weapon you had against it's 'head' and start blowing holes into it. It'd be an awesome desperation maneuver if you didn't have a large weapon.

 

The Music: I didn't know a lot of them, but I should write these down just so I can listen to them later. I do have some stuff from Rollins (he'd make a good character/actor by the way), and that's a really good one. (I love Illumination!) I'm not always big on Rage Against the Machine, but I will agree that some of their stuff would fit extremely well. Chevelle is good also. You're right, that kind of alternative rock sound... If you didn't know some of the 'metal/rock' bands I listed out, that's really the kind of sound I'm going for, just a little more atmosphere specific. I have a lot of 'Epic Metal' bands too, (Nightwish, etc.) but that wouldn't go at all. Lacuna Coil might work though.

 

The Concert: It really could be more of a 'mixed' concert (I don't know what the good term is) where there are several bands and they each play 2-3 songs, or even just 1. (maybe from out of a pool bands and songs) I think it would work, because, it's not like the comedy routines where you hear them once and you can't listen to them again for a couple of weeks, (or never) but seeing a digitized band play a song you like while giving you the option to free roam should be immensely more re-watchable. I mean, when you got to a concert, it's not like bands change their songs often. Plus, you'd include all the lighting, crowds and stage effects as well. I don't know if you played 'The Warriors' or not, but there was a punk band in there that played about 3 songs on this stage, and you could fight with them or even trash their stuff (I think). I went there all the time, cause it was so cool! When you started screwing with them or stuff got thrown their way, you'd actually hear them stop the music, making it sound like they were really interrupted. Another great Rockstar moment that should be capitalized on. Yeah, and they wouldn't have to be overly long either, like the Cabaret/Club, maybe have 5 bands do one song a piece or have 2 bands do 2-3 songs a piece, etc.

 

Good job!

 

Add: I could really see Henry Rollins, Ice-T or Juliette Lewis doing a game like this, and maybe even doing the concerts. We know about Juliette, but Rollins has not only been in movies such as 'Johnny Mnemonic' but been a character in 'Def Jam: FFNY' (I sure can reference certain games a lot!) Ice-T, oddly enough, was also in Mnemonic and also in 'Def Jam'. lol Rollins is also a good actor for action/dark roles, and Ice-T, of course, is not only a good actor himself but been on 'Law & Order: SVU' and in the 'Manhunt' style movie 'The Game'. Not to mention they've all been in things involving lots of dark atmospheres, crime and guns! Companies like Rockstar should take advantage of these actors while they are still around and willing to do this kind of thing.

Edited July 8, 2008 by 28RedEyedCrows

[gtaman4523]

i have a cool idea : having men in other gangs that are hostail so your spies can tell you if a bussiness is gonna be attacked so you can put more men on that bussiness . but after awhile they might suspect something and look for a spy so either take em out of the gang to save him or hope that they will think it was one of their own members

example : spy : hey boss they are gonna attack the club at 18:00 or 6:00 pm ok? phone call end.

Edited July 8, 2008 by gtaman4523

[28RedEyedCrows]

I'm sure Tony will want to cover that one as he had a lot of ideas about that early on, but it's a good idea. I think 'Gangsters' had something like that in it as well, and I've also seen something like that in the small PC game 'Dope/Drug Wars'. Informants you hired would alert you to when good deals were coming up and when a place might get raided.

[Tony Mozzarelli 80]

Yeah totally agree, spies are a great idea, maybe you would just be able to bribe or blackmail members of

other gangs to give you some intel. But you would also have to be wary, if you can do it to them, they should

be able to do it to you. Maybe one of your gang members would begin behaving irregularly, but only in very

subtle ways, so you would need to be fairly astute to catch them. Maybe the cops and the feds, could also get

to gang members, and if you see anything suspicious, you could follow your gang member and see where he

goes and who he meets with. If he goes to an enemy gangs club for instance, you could follow him away and cut

his head of and put it on a spike outside the club as a warning to that gang haha

 

Yeah i played gangsters. I think the way properties and businesses were handled in that game was really good

and there are many elements that could be transferred to GTA. Have you ever played another little RTS game

called Gangland? that had some good elements to it. Like gang members who level up as i was saying earlier

and you could kit them out with better weapons. They also had specialists like Russian snipers, explosives

experts, brawlers etc. And you had to leave men guarding your properties and could also attack enemy fronts.

This would all be awesome in the context of a GTA

 

Rage Agianst The Machine, and Rollins band also both get my vote, especially the former,

and yeah Ice T has done sci fi games for the PC years ago, (can't remember the names) but yeah any of these

people could be great. There are so many awesome things they could do with the game no matter whether they

used a future, contemporary or past setting, and no matter what part of the world they used as the stage. It has the

potential to be the best game ever

[28RedEyedCrows]

You know, I actually like the 'head on a stick' idea, but to make it more family friendly, I think it might be cool (if gangs were more heavily decorated) to pull off the jacket (ala 'Warriors') of the guy you killed, all bloody and tore up, and hung that up outside some place. That would really cool. You'd have jackets of rats, rivals, people who didn't serve your coffee correctly or thought you were funny like a clown...lol

 

I've think I've heard of Gangland but never played it. I'll look it up later to see if it's the one I'm thinking of, but yeah, all those ideas are good. I still like keeping it simple and only customizing/leveling up a few important guys though (that are also your friends) and using a lot of clones for backup. They could probably be the ones used as spies too, so you'd have an idea of how loyal they are, what their skill level is, etc.

 

I think we're all in agreement on the music. Rockstar, of course, could always hire some people to make up custom content like they've always done as well. One thing I really liked about 'IV' is that you would consistently hear the DJ's make references to actual areas in the game. I think the rap DJ broke cover once and said 'Brooklyn' instead of 'Broker', but it was a shout out so I'm sure they just let him do it.

 

Add: I didn't know Ice-T did any old PC games. That's cool. Of course, I remember the first thing I ever saw Clive Owen in was Privateer 2: The Darkening. When I was watching him in the cinematics, I remember I was like, "wow, this guy's good. I hope he does something cool after this." Little did I know. lol

Edited July 8, 2008 by 28RedEyedCrows

[Tony Mozzarelli 80]

Yeah i don't think they are too worried about the consitency on the radio, since there are many songs

referencing New York. But yeah i still like the idea of a classical score. it would lend a great deal of weight

to the main story line. In fact they should get Morricone himself to do it

[28RedEyedCrows]

I was actually playing with your 'score' idea a little bit last night. I shut the in-game music off and put on some things. I'm slowly re-playing the game again, and your right, it worked well when something cinematic popped up. I'd be careful though, as many times I find that certain scenes do well without any music at all (or just background noise). Sometimes that's dramatic enough, or scary enough. One thing I always hate is watching an awesome horror movie, and then they get to a scene that would naturally scare you to death, but is ruined by "Dunt Dunt!" music!

 

One of the creepiest things I ever saw in a a game though (not counting Silent Hill, etc.) was in 'Hitman: Contracts'. You're trying to not only perform a hit but save a girl that's been kidnapped. Near the end of the stage, you walk into this small, square room and she's dead, all hanging upside down and bloody. Everything is dark and candle lit with tools around and a shrine to her. The bad guy is standing near the back of the room with his back to you and they are playing this classic 'easy listening' song on an old record player nearby. Of course, if you alert him, I think he comes after you with a butcher knife. One of the darkest, coolest things I ever saw.

 

'Eddie Low' in 'IV' was also a really badass creep. I love weird and scary sh*t like that, especially Niko's reactions, like "I've killed a hundred men, survived onslaughts of torment and pain, watch people I loved die in front of me, but YOU are one f*cked up dude! Get the hell away from me!"

 

 

Add: I just posted this in the 'I want Ammunation and Tool shops back' topic, but thought I should put it here too. Yes, I am actually quoting myself. It was just so wonderful.

 

"They might try mixing in the world of GTA and Manhunt together in some way. It's almost like they want to, but that would really enhance cool things like the tools they used to have. You could finally do cool stealth kills in GTA, and not just with the knife as in San Andreas. (of course they wouldn't have to be quite as bloody)

 

Let me also add that another idea might be to reintroduce Ammu-Nation, who supplies normal weapons, but then have a hidden area in the back, as in 'GTA IV', where you can buy more black market items."

Edited July 8, 2008 by 28RedEyedCrows

[Tony Mozzarelli 80]

Yeah many films and games have used that juxtaposition of something extremely violent and disturbing, with

the typically happy or upbeat music in the background. This, if done right, can be extremely atmospheric.

We're all familiar with the old music box in a horror movie cliche though, and they want to avoid the overused

themes like this

 

 

And yes there are so many excellent ideas for weapons. If they just let us use anything we find in the environment

the game would never get old. imagine hurling some poor unfortunate, into the cement mixer and switching it on

Edited July 8, 2008 by Tony Mozzarelli 80

[28RedEyedCrows]

But I love that cliche, dammit!

 

 

Add: 'The Punisher' is kind of the current king of environmental kills, since you could drag people over to certain spots and threaten them with something in the environment in order to get them to talk. You could then let them go, or just chuck them into whatever it was. If you weren't careful, you could even accidentally throw/drop someone into something before they told you anything. They had everything from a wood chipper to being held over a trash compacter. Lovely. 'Manhunt 2' took advantage of items like that as well, though strictly for killing.

Edited July 8, 2008 by 28RedEyedCrows

[gtaman4523]

hmm... on the good guy side i sugest having normal Jobs like fast food : press to give food , taxi driver , cop , army , detective and S.W.A.T

[Tony Mozzarelli 80]

hmm... on the good guy side i sugest having normal Jobs like fast food : press to give food , taxi driver , cop , army , detective and S.W.A.T

Yeah i could see those ideas being fun if they were done well. Dunno about fast food though, that one could get

a little tedious.

 

They have a massive industrial sector they didn't utilise. Warehouses, docks , Power plants, Prison

[28RedEyedCrows]

I thought this might be a good time to just throw this in. This was the second half of that police post. This is all about standoffs. Feel free to tweak it, but I thought it worked pretty well. I think it sounds a lot more advanced than it is.

 

Standoffs:

 

I think GTA would gain immensely from the inclusion of standoffs and give players the ability to truly reenact great scenes. At 1 Star levels, if a suspect has a gun drawn and/or points it at an officer while stationary or keeping within the general area the standoff started, the officer(s) will take cover, but not fire. If you begin walking or running too far, they will get in their car(s) and follow you until you completely stop for at least several seconds in which they will take cover behind their car(s) again (if there are two officers to a car, one might even stay inside of the car). In this protective position, or when following you, they will attempt to talk you down. (like when a person is suicidal) If it goes on too long in the stationary position (a minute or so) 1 Star will stay, but they will call in backup (a couple more cars) and a negotiator, which will all group together, forming a small barrier of vehicles that the officers will stay behind. The negotiator will be unarmed but wearing a bullet-proof vest. (this situation would also arise with the inclusion of being able to hold one hostage with a gun/knife to them, without otherwise being violent)

 

At this junction, the negotiator will begin talking to you. This can either just be for show (until you decide what to do next) or you might actually be able to interact with him (demand something). If you remain stationary for a particularly longer period of time, the area will eventually look straight out of a movie. There may be up to five police cars, with officers stationed around them, a news and police chopper overhead, and one or two news vans setting up just behind the police vehicles. (outside of this area if they are stupid!) At this point, the police should subtly be trying to surround you. With the addition of enterable buildings (or by use of spawning) snipers will also begin to set up positions if you wait too long. 'NOOSE' will also set up their van nearby in preparation.

 

At this point, you might be able to wait as long as you like. Unless the player wants to sit there and listen to the negotiator for the rest of his life, he needs to make some kind of decision. (you can add dialog interactivity here if possible. It would be cool to request a vehicle or some other strange thing) At a set time point, (preferably a point where the police have decided to surround you, and/or NOOSE is set up) the suspect will be asked to drop his gun or they will open fire. In other words, stop aiming at people/cops with your gun. Once this warning has been given, you will have a couple of seconds. Keeping your weapon aimed at someone will then send you to 2 stars, and you are now aiming at a person at that level, which means 'open season!' and most likely sniper chow. If you keep your gun down though, the negotiator will continue to talk to you and begin to approach you. He will keep approaching you until he is right next to you (if you haven't given yourself up at this point which should be an option at certain times). Once he's close enough, he will slowly try and take the gun from you (forcing you to give up). During this scene, if you begin struggling with him, it's 2 stars and the cops will rush you. If you start shooting, they will open fire on you (and possibly give you 3 stars as well) and you're an open target again and most likely sniper chow once more.

 

Walking or running away before the negotiator reaches you or gets to that point (without aiming at anyone) will get you 2 stars, and the police will all swarm you on foot in attempt to take you down and apprehend you. Again, if you aim or start shooting, so will they. (once you do this, they should continue to shoot at you unless possibly something happens like you run out of ammunition)

 

So that is basically my standoff system, for better or worse. If you were held up in a store/house, the cops would set up outside and wait, and the negotiator would ask you to come out before attempting to come in. If you got really advanced, you'd add the addition of getting a phone call, either on your cell phone or a phone in the store/house, where you could discuss terms. In an apartment building, the police might even set up near the outside of your door, in true cinematic style. When inside a building, I would suggest instead of infinitely waiting like they might on the street, eventually NOOSE would come crashing in through the door or windows and take you down. (peacefully or not)

 

It would be awesome to see all of these things implemented for random criminals as well. Imagine walking down the street and seeing an apartment building with cop cars and news vans around it while a suspect is screaming from a top floor window, only to eventually start firing on them all and getting obliterated, or having NOOSE crash into the place, or watching him give up and taken away. Being able to interfere in some way would also be incredible.

 

I won't go into hostages as that would take another hour to write, but I am sure that you guys can come up with additions to this.

 

ADD: I think when you are actually inside of a building, even at higher wanted levels, a couple of normal cops may carefully go in after you, (3 stars or above) but if they get shot down, they don't keep swarming in like idiots. Instead, they will set up the snipers, NOOSE and other precautions as they would in real life and in the descriptions above. If they decide to come in, it should be NOOSE or NOOSE with FIB agents in a tactical advance, not running one or two at a time into their graves. 100 cop Hospital Massacres should not happen unless you are just that good. I think if you killed an entire SWAT team in real life as they made their advance, using tear gas and other measures would be a lot smarter than blindly sending more men in. They should have use of flash bangs too, which you could avoid by looking away (although it will still hurt your ears. I love that effect in 'IV' when you're too close to an explosion. I think it should last longer though.) Police, and especially NOOSE/FIB should still be as vulnerable as they are in 'IV'. Damage is very realistic, and very good, but they should just be smarter and have a wide array of tactics.

 

ADD: The whole point of setting up continuing wanted levels and these kind of behaviors for the police, the media and emergency services is to put across that everyone is important in some way, and you should be held to account for what you did, also being rewarded for being a smart perp. One ped getting shot on the street starts a lot of chain reactions in real life. Police to check the situation for trouble, paramedics to help, friends morn and scream, others stand around with interest, forensics to investigate, news teams arrive etc. The same importance should apply even more so to an officer getting killed. Killing a ped shouldn't be "oh, I killed a ped. No one cares." Killing a cop shouldn't be "oh, I killed a cop, let me just escape this wanted level and go kill some more." Citywide manhunts should be applied, as well as patrols being heightened in hot zones. Areas where something bad happened should look like they did, for those that know, like they did in that stage in 'Manhunt 2' where Leon is running through the neighborhood. These kinds of systems should be tweaked before we get bigger cities. It would make all of the GTA's far more fun and interesting to play. It also doesn't make killing so mindless and without consequence.

 

ADD: One more... There are always going to be people who just want to run around and kill everything without the realism implemented. This is where I recommend that Rockstar add things into the game like they used to. These would be mini games you could do after you completed the story, or wild settings you could apply. You could have Rampage missions (completely mindless), apply riots, shoot tons of guys running around in Cluck N'Bell costumes, I don't know, but anything like this could be a reward for doing something. I'm not into much of that except the riots, but I'm trying to think of everyone. The large number of cheats should also make a comeback. They always added quite a bit of replay value to finished games.

Edited July 8, 2008 by 28RedEyedCrows

[gtaman4523]

hmm how bout barricades? block the police and go out the back

another idea : if in a crowded area the cops would be looking for u in the crowd . maybe if u hit someone a riot will acurr and while the cops and riot police would try and stop them making the perfect chance for a getaway. but if your stuck trying to fight the rioters eventually riot tear gas will be used how bout that

Edited July 9, 2008 by gtaman4523

[Tony Mozzarelli 80]

Very much liking the general stand-off idea. If it was implemented right it would be awesome. I like

the idea that they would set up outside instead of running in in pairs and getting mowed down. And

yes they should throw tear gas and stun grenades, all that sh*t would be cool, cos if they can use em

so can i haha. It would be great if you could grab a hostage and hold a gun to his head too, the police

would be forced to hold back and send the negotiator.

 

It would be so atmospheric to hear his voice over the megaphone too. have him bargain with you and

try to use basic psychology on you, there could be a lot of humour in that. Like he keeps saying he wants

to be friends and blaming it all on your mother haha.

 

And you're right it would be great if you could see other people all camped inside of a building and police

all waiting outside, and yeah seeing em in the window would be good too. I was thhinking this earlier while

playing the game. You should see people at windows, and hanging their washing out on clotheslines up

between the buildings. People should also come to the window and tell you to shut the f*ck up whilst kindly

reminding you of what time it is

 

@GTAMAN yes it would be great if you could lose the cops in a big crowd. they should at least be more hesitant

to fire off rounds into densely populated areas. Maybe all the peds would hit the deck though or something like

that. And yes we spoke about riots earlier, these would be awesome and so atmospheric. Like cops using riot

hoses on the rowdy mob, and mounted police would be awesome

[Epicohnoes!]

I'm guessing you guys have no idea how little can fit on one disc.

 

Sweet ideas, though. Standoffs would be awesome.

[mkey82]

The stuff with gangs has been a lot of times and R* can simply collect the best experiences, spice it up a bit and make it their way. We discussed it a lot but IMO it's simple - you need gangsters (homies, whatever) with different abilities and skill. You can upgrade them with new weapons and/or clothes. They should be able to level up as they go and acquire new abilities and upgrade the existing ones. Each of them would have a weekly pay and you could organize some jobs for them on a regular basis (like bank jobs or new racketeering venues). Some of this has been done in Godfather, but there you were one man army, you did most of the business yourself and there were a lot (too many) fronts to take so it got a bit tedious. There should be fronts, but you should take into account that you have to hire enough people. There should be to kinds of foot soldiers. Ones that don't level up, you can give them more stuff, but they get wasted sooner or later in gunfights. The others would be treated like heroes in Mount&Blade. The could only get knocked out, but after somebody took care of them they would be back on the street.

 

Wanzers are mech and they are always run by some person inside. But the ED-209 is better as it allows for some real wacky robot AI This can definitely be abused. It could play on different tactics. For example, from time to time it could only be faking it's reloading or it could get real jams.

 

I don't know some of the bands you mentioned, I will check them out. And epic metal bands are definitely not for this setting. The concert idea seems to be evolving, it could be done as festivals, but nevertheless they should put in a lot of music, because they would need to have more then one radio version song. So it would be better to have separate radio songs and those that get performed live. If done properly this would bring a lot of depth and would be a great addition. They would need to have at least a dozen of bands with some 3 to 6 songs per band. Then the whole gameplay could consist of hanging in game only to wait for then ext concert. They could put poster on various places to promote the concert. Fliers could be passed along. Even you could sign out to put posters on some dangerous places as a side mission. Nice idea ll around

 

I definitely see Henryetta in this kind of game, Ice-T also. They could pull it off, even though their acting skills are a bit lacking. They could have a concert from time to time, and later on appear in the story with some missions.

 

Tony, while some of the gangsters become erratic, some of them could be spies, but others would only be anxious so you should be careful that you don't waste an "innocent" guy .

 

28Red, I think you need to rework the standoff a bit. I don't think one single armed guy would cause the police to bring out the SWAT and snipers. This should be warranted on more then one or two stars. It's simple IMO. If you pull out the gun, the cops will try to talk their way out of that situation, but will draw their weapons and point them at you. IF AND ONLY IF you aim at them, they will open fire and a second star should be issued. It gets a bit different if you manage to escape into some building. Then your notoriety could come into effect. If you are know as crazed killer, they would immediately send in the SWAT, but if you are not too known, then regular cops could follow you into the building by using some cover system, not only to brainlessly enter the premises and get shot.

 

Your scenario is excellent for a hostage situation, it's the way to do it. For hostage situations it would be nice if they would offer you different scenarios. For example, you could choose to put people away in a safe place, or to dress them up all the same sou you could try to run for it because the cops wouldn't know at whom they should open fire. You know, like seen in movies.

 

This is my take on cop system. To get:

1 star - run along, hit some people with your car (not too many though), take out the gun in front of cops

2 stars - kill some random people or aim at cops or drive over a lot of people (like 3 in ten seconds)

3 stars - kill/shoot some cops, kill even more random people. This is what found in previous GTAs, by killing civilians it was impossible for me to get above two stars.

on 3 stars heli comes but it follows only

4 stars - kill more cops or shoot the heli down.

on 4 stars heli starts to shoot, swat comes

5 stars - shoot and kill swat or more cops

on 5 stars feds come

6 start - kill more

on 6 stars national guard comes in.

 

In special situations they would react differently, like when hostages are involved, or in bank robberies. Maybe hey should ED only during riots and gang wars while a larger number of casualties is to be expected. With hostage situations there should be a limit. You can steal some money and get away with it, but if you take too much, cop will just not let you go, disregarding any hostages (have you seen the movie Killing Zoe? That's a perfect example). Generally, if you go too far the cops will get a grudge and will try to kill you no matter what.

 

note on helis - they should be done like in scarface, that is you should be able to see/aim/shoot people on it.

note on army - I would like to see dangerous army like in VC, not that wimpy army from SA.

 

There should be areas cops are slow to react or don't react at all. Such as areas that are guarded by those private forces we discussed. Special rules would apply and you wouldn't get a wanted level. It would be nice if you would get a special wanted level in those areas which would indicate you are off police radar.

 

Police reaction time is crucial. If they react like they do now, it's plain lame. BUT if they react to realistically then it would be too easy to get away. So, the should have some patrol routes they usually go along and they should respond to some situation with some delay before they get to you. In this regard the game should be handled like an RTS. There should be limited resources for the cops and for you. That is, cops can get killed, but if they get killed too often/quickly, they will have trouble replacing the lost units. Among their ranks should be some leveling up also, so there would be more seasoned cops and rookies. More experienced they are, more skilled with their weapons they get, i.e. hey can keep their cool in a heated situation. In the same way you have hero gangsters, they should have hero cops - some that don0t get killed, only knocked out. The same applies to every party - you have a limited number if gangsters you can hire. IF the police predominates, then your gangsters pool gets even smaller, as people get more law abiding. I you manage to severely reduce the number of cops in town, the whole city could fade into chaos slowly, while gangs fight between themselves for control.

[gtaman4523]

in my wish-list i said that planes should have interiors for parachuting out or putting satchel charge on the wall (and jump out to see enemies die ) so i was think ing that if in a passenger plane u could get up and hold a gun to the pilots head and a map will come up so u can pick where to land or hit or call a ransom (like i seen in a movie but i forgot its name , i think that if you don't land a fighter jet would shoot u down cos of 4 *'s or maybe a passenger is armed or is willing to smack you to knock u out ... add on what u want because im too tired to write

[Tony Mozzarelli 80]

I was also thinking that perhaps your gang members would all have respect levels for you which are interchangeable.

So if you did happen to shoot someone who you suspected of being a rat, and he turned out to be innocent, your gang

members (only the top ones) would begin to gradually lose respect for you. This could perhaps be echoed in their

dialogue, calling you paranoid, or a nervous wreck, that kinda thing. And similarly, if you were the other way this too would

affect their respect for you. For instance, a certain gang attacks one of your business, or attacks a couple of your

guys on the street. You would have to react, say within a few days or they would think you've gone soft and can't cut

it anymore. The less reapect you have. The more people begin to desert you and turn to other gangs.

 

 

As much as i would like to see the plane hi-jacking idea, i doubt if it would get past the ESRB. Rockstar would be accused

of inciting terrorism and sent to Guantanamo Bay haha, would be cool though.

 

And who says a lot of this stuff couldn't fit onto a disc? There's still room left on the Xbox DVD, and PS3 has a vast

storage space. Besides games developers always get better and find new ways to compress the data. We know a lot

is used up on audio, so i say down with comedy and cabaret clubs, up with crime

[28RedEyedCrows]

Summary of this post: Blah blah...blah blah blah...blaahhhhh. lol

 

Tony: I'm glad you liked the ideas. I liked your comment on using the tear gas and flash grenades yourself as well as the comments the negotiator would make! I'm responding big to Mkey82's stuff, so there's a lot more stuff in here you can take a look at.

 

Regarding the plane thing from gtaman4523, I agree that it probably won't happen due to the terrorism scare. It'd be a hell of a scenario, but games are reserved much harsher punishments than movies. Idiots... They need to bring the parachute back though. That was fun as hell.

 

I like all of the ideas on the gangs, especially how they would have different personalities and reactions.

 

Epicohnoes!: They can fit a lot on these new discs, but many of the things we mention is more about altering/adding to the A.I. more than putting in more objects, etc.

 

Mkey82: You really seemed to have gotten into this, so that's cool!

 

Well, I'm taking everything you said into consideration. It's good you did take the time to think about it and tweak the system as you saw fit. Let me try to respond. Here we go!

 

Street Standoffs:

OK, we pretty much agree up to the point of the negotiator. The reason I went on all the way up to sniper/NOOSE is because I was trying to think of how the police would protect themselves from someone they didn't know anything about, and without just firing on them even though they weren't doing anything but holding a gun. After I look at it now, I agree that it got overboard. I'm trying to think of a more real life situation now.

 

I think I would take what you said and tweak it again like this:

1. 1 Star in effect. Suspect is standing in street with gun drawn. (could be changed for a knife, etc. as well)

2. Police take cover/stand close to their vehicles (and/or with guns drawn/aimed at suspect as you stated)

3. Police try to talk the suspect down while calling for backup (1-3 cars).

4. A POLICE negotiator will be with one of the backup cars. He will be a normal, but trained cop that will do a better job of talking to you. This really does happen in real life.

5. Instead of doing anymore setup, time passes and the negotiator will make the 'disarm' approach in which you can decide to give up or fight. Fighting gets you the 2 stars.

 

Notes A:

If you are facing down cops and you are unarmed, (or have something like a baseball bat) none of this really comes into play. They may try and talk you down at first, but will just end up rushing, subduing and taking the weapon from you.

 

Notes B:

1. Walking/running past a certain point will cause the police to follow carefully.

2. If you break into a vehicle in the middle of this, officers close enough will try and rush you as you are in the middle of the action. Once you are settled in the vehicle though, the police will keep their guns on you and tell you not to go anywhere and/or get out of the car. It gets a little tricky here as far as stars, but I would suggest that if you then start driving away (allow several feet to pass to prevent accidents) the police will consider you a real threat and you will receive 2 Stars. They won't shoot you, but attempt to block you in/run you off the road, and as long as you don't shoot at them, attempt to haul you out of the car.

3. There should always be a point in the middle of a standoff, either when the negotiator shows up, or just before, where you are warned not to do anything stupid, or you will be shot. (only when armed) In other words: 2 Star wanted level. So, don't aim at cops.

4. The 'aiming at police' thing is very hard to figure out, because I have seen instances where suicides/disturbed will hold the gun on themselves, or have it brandished, and then start waving it around at the police. Sometimes this gets the guy shot and other times the police restrain themselves. The only way you could really make this work intelligently is to add on a dynamic like you said, where they take your notoriety into account. Low notoriety gives you a chance. High notoriety gets you killed.

5. I think this setup should work for all weapons except things like grenades and rocket launchers. Since they are explosive, I think something else should be added, either the application of NOOSE or the setup of a POLICE sniper, etc. I guess we wouldn't have to add this extra complication, but it's a thought. The suspect should be looked at as a terrorist.

6. For weapons above handguns and shotguns, I think aiming them at cops, even at low notoriety, should get you shot. Suicides, etc. don't often have SMGs and Carbine Rifles.

 

Tweaks for 2 stars:

1. Aiming at cops gets you shot.

2. Police will tackle you if you don't have a gun.

3. Tazers might be used if you're being a pain in the ass.

 

As for the current system of RECIEVING stars, I don't think it's that bad. Except for the addition of brandishing a gun in front of an officer, shooting a ped can get you one star. Shooting a cop can get you 3 stars. Shooting a ped in front of a cop gets you 2. It's not so unrealistic. It's just the actions of the police that should be altered.

 

I agree with you that in special situations, the police should act differently. It'd be a lot more to add to include what to do with hostages, but simple inclusions such as police snipers during a hostage situation would be intelligent. I'm glad that you thought my original setup would work well for hostages, so maybe that IS how it should be. My suggestion to Rockstar in any of these cases is to speak with a real police officer and get the correct input.

 

I think we pretty much got the building standoff correct.

 

Helicopter Note:

Did you know that you CAN target the people on/in the choppers? Next time you have one on your tail, when it's close enough, pull out either your Carbine Rifle or Assault Rifle (less range) and aim up at the chopper. If it's shooting at you, you can get a lock on onto the 'sniper' and kill him. Killing either the one or two chopper snipers will usually scare the pilot off. You can kill the pilot as well, but only with excellent aim with the Carbine/Assault Rifles or a Sniper Rifle which you can hit anything with. You can't lock onto the pilot.

 

I agree with you that certain areas should be more lax than others.

 

Army:

The army (or national guard) would be a much more awesome thing if forced to abide by the same rules as the police, as in, they don't always know where you are, etc. Imagine the entire city under martial law in a hunt for you. Stalking around in a dark alley, you wait for a tank to drive past before quickly darting to another alley across the street. Imagine going to the top of a building and looking to see annihilators in the sky and soldiers with their trucks moving through the streets. Enough of the chaos, make it suspenseful!

 

Realism & Notoriety:

You're right, done poorly, a realistic police setup could make it easy to escape in game. That's why you need to make it work just the way it does in real life. Here are some other general suggestions. Some of this is taken from the 'Driver' system.

 

1. Witnesses: When you commit a crime in front of someone who calls the police, you should NOT receive a star. Instead, police should head to the area of the call and your notoriety or general wanted level goes up appropriately. The police will be watching for you, but if you stay out of their line of sight, you won't receive a star. What makes this more difficult (and more intelligent) is that THIS wanted level doesn't go away. (except in very specific situations, like getting to your safe house or staying low for so long to make it more realistic) Whenever you are spotted by the police with a wanted level, you will receive an appropriate star level.

2. Disguises: Wearing a mask/etc. of some sort will allow you to commit crimes and attach the crime to the mask. So, if you can get back to your hideout and remove the mask, your wanted level will then drop or drop to zero. As with cars in driver, you will have to wait a period of time for the wanted level on the mask to go away before you can use it again. This makes it so you won't be constantly abusing it. Things like sunglasses and hats will help, but won't bring your wanted level to 0.

3. Cars: As stated before, if you commit a crime in a car, the car receives the wanted level. Getting out of the car away from the police will ditch your wanted level. Different than Driver, an addition could be that if the car is spotted abandoned by the police, they won't just ignore it unless you get back into it, they instead will impound the car which you can then attempt to get back later, if it's important to you. (the impounding was brought up by someone here early on)

4. On Foot: if you are personally wanted for something, getting into a car and not getting too close to an officer will allow you to cruise right by them as long as the car doesn't have a wanted level.

5. Combine: Cars and suspects can have two different wanted levels. The cops will react to the highest one they can spot.

6. Hot Zones: Areas where crimes have been committed will be 'hot' for a while. Cars will patrol the area regularly in these areas, and depending on the size of the crime, will expand the zone and may send choppers to scan it as well. It might also be that if you have done something really bad, there will be heightened alerts all around the area, so choppers and patrols will cover the whole city.

7. Limits: As in Driver, the police should not spawn. There should be a certain amount of police and should always be kept track of (and not so damn many of them. There are times where I can't turn a corner and there isn't a cop there. Give me a break.) Of course they will start spawning eventually when so many of them are wiped out, but it won't be instantly, like you said.

 

Heroes:

I like the hero idea. I like how you added that the police would benefit from this as well. The only thing I am not sure of is from what Tony and I talked about before: that sense of loss. If your guys only got knocked out, then you'd never feel like you'd really risk losing them, but, on your side, it does kind of suck, for a game, to actually have them killed off (especially if they were strong story characters) because you'd only have so many of them.

 

To make this work, I would suggest adding in what we talked about earlier, that if one of your guys is knocked out and you're not there to help him, he might end up in jail after going to the hospital. This would give you the chance to either break him out while he was being transported or help him escape from prison. If you cared, you'd at least feel bad that he was rotting in prison if you couldn't, or didn't, want to risk getting him/her out.

 

They would have to work on limits though. If I see a hero cop, I don't want to be shot once by him and I'm dead every time. And, although I think it would be cool if one of my guys could take out 12 gang members on his own with a Carbine Rifle, if he's shot 30 times, he shouldn't sill be getting up. In other words: they shouldn't constantly become more invincible. They should all have limits somewhere to keep the realism. I think they should only be as powerful as a second-in-command bodyguard from a good action movie. They don't fall fast, they certainly don't fall easy, but they can fall eventually.

 

OK, wow...that's enough! Great stuff! Thanks for keeping it up!

 

ADD: If you commit a crime away from any witnesses view: gunshots, breaking windows, screams, etc. will be what alerts them. Officers will show up and look for anyone suspicious, but unless seeing you doing something, you will not receive any kind of wanted level. This is basically how it worked in 'Driver'. You might also add a 'leave evidence' dynamic as Tony and I discussed at one point, but this is a whole other thing.

Edited July 9, 2008 by 28RedEyedCrows

[Starskos]

Some great ideas here, R* have openened a Pandoras box as far as virtual world simulations go, GTA SA was revolutionary, after picking up the GTA series from VC i now find alot of games two dimensional in comparison, i love the freedom and i'm sure GTA will get better and better as consoles and technology improve, i can't wait to start seeing some of these ideas though