Rockstar definitely made the best decision

[zippo55312]

Heres my breakdown of why los santos is the best setting.

 

Firstly doing all 3 or even 2 of the 3 cities in san andreas is not an option, because it would take so long to do that by the time that they finished it would be near the end of this generation of consoles. Unless you want to wait like 3 f*cking more years until the next consoles are out, for it to be released as a launch game, then it not is an option.

 

VICE CITY- now maybe vice city is an option, but the problem is there is only one interesting story worth telling in vice city: that is - dude rising through drug trade in mid eighties. thats the only angle that miami is interesting from- and they already did that with vice city. A present day Miami would be boring- drugs don't go through Miami anymore. So they could do vice city again, but they would have to rehash the same story/ setting that they already used. A ton of people would have a problem with that.

 

San Fierro - simply not big enough or important enough to be a standalone city. I don't think anyone would argue with that statement.

 

Las Venturas- Alright vegas was built by the mafia. So in the 50s there was a ton of high level crime, but its not like that anymore. The mafia doesn't really f*ck with casinos in present day vegas. So I don't think vegas can stand alone unless you go back the 50s when the mafia controlled it. Who the f*ck wants gta in the 50s though?

 

cities they haven't done

 

Any east coast city (including washington)- too similar to NY. WHo wants to go from the gritty east coast city to less important gritty east coast city?

 

Any midwest city- too boring. Yeah theres gang violence and all that in midwest cities, but the fact is there aren't any midwest cities that have serious mafia presence, and the drug trade goes through coastal cities first, so again there is low level dealing but the high level multi kilos sh*t- that is through coastal cities (specifically NY and LA).

 

Atlanta - there is nothing interesting about atlanta.

Any other US city- there are simply no other US cities interesting enough.

 

So the only other option is to set it out of the US. THis would hurt sales badly because most people who buy GTA live in the US. I believe they will eventually set GTA outside of the US when they have exhausted all other options but for now the time is not right.

[Slamman]

Who's saying that Vice City doesn't logically follow ( since they ARE using known maps and adding new work to them)??

[Bomberlegend]

There will be 3 cities. I am convinced.

[ucah8er]

yea, R* is just f*cking with yo mind son

[BlademanX]

Well if sales suffer because its outside the US say London then people need to get out more and broaden their horizons....I wished it was London ...People in London have no issue with it being in the US but its kind of getting played out now....Even if it was Rio or somewhere else would have been good too..........But the whole series is based on teh US....but for me their are far more interesting places than the US with a lot more character..then again its not my game,...........hope the next one will be somewhere outside USA......

[Turin88]

 

Places in GTA are supposed to be loose parodies of places in the real world. This point alone completely undermines your arguments against Vice City or Las Venturas as suitable settings.

 

As for not being able to do 3 cities in one game? Bullsh*t. They managed to do SA in a relatively short period of time. With their budget and current technology, there's really no reason at all why they couldn't do the same again only more detailed and on a slightly larger scale.

[Tipper]

 

So the only other option is to set it out of the US. THis would hurt sales badly because most people who buy GTA live in the US

 

So what you're saying is that most american GTA players buy the games just because it is set in the US? I can't see why an american player wouldn't want to buy a GTA set in London, it would give the series a fresh start. They can't use the same cities forever and honestly, I think sales would be better if set in London which is a world city than if set in Seattle or another american city no one cares about.

[Algonquin Assassin]

 

Places in GTA are supposed to be loose parodies of places in the real world. This point alone completely undermines your arguments against Vice City or Las Venturas as suitable settings.

 

As for not being able to do 3 cities in one game? Bullsh*t. They managed to do SA in a relatively short period of time. With their budget and current technology, there's really no reason at all why they couldn't do the same again only more detailed and on a slightly larger scale.

Detailed being the key word. I doubt R* would/could retain GTA IV/RDR like quality across 3 cities plus countryside and desert.

 

I honestly want to see another GTA IV detailed like city than 3 that would most definitely not be of the same quality. We probably wont see maps like that until next gen.

 

I think it could definitely be done (Meaning another tri city state), but the end result would suffer. JC2 has a huge map, but the city of Panua really lacks quality and detail compared to cities like we've seen in GTA IV, even LA Noire.

 

Immersion is very important to me and a detailed city plays a big part of that.

Edited November 4, 2011 by Miamivicecity

[jimi1990]

NO i liked the division, i liked the fact that we could take a plane journey to venturas and hide out and live the glits and glamour. i liked the fact that they were seperated by sea, and not one giant blob of a city.

 

the transition fromt the riches(venturas) bACK to the ghetto (los santos), was awsome and felt real when using the airport, or even flying yourself.

 

sa ruled it was so random, somtimes during a gang war with the ballas or who ever, there would be a plane just randomly crashing in los santos.

 

making one giant city is a stupid move. but im not that botherd, mainly cause i know we have to wait a FRIGIN year until they release the game

[Blazevski12]

Of coure they made the right decision. Rokstar simply can't make a bad game, i'm sure we will be impresed with GTA V.

[GreatGig]

To be honest, if GTA was set in the U.K., they'd have to do one hell of an amazing job to make the map look good. The U.K. isn't as diverse as America. You chaps have deserts, mountain ranges and amazing cities. We have small and somewhat rubbish cities, an endless amount of fields full of livestock and maybe the odd hill here and there. Aside from a few places, it's visually boring. If they did venture away from the US I wouldn't mind them going somewhere completely different. Maybe even just make up a whole new city of their own.

[Turin88]

 

I honestly want to see another GTA IV detailed like city than 3 that would most definitely not be of the same quality. We probably wont see maps like that until next gen.

 

I think it could definitely be done (Meaning another tri city state), but the end result would suffer. JC2 has a huge map, but the city of Panua really lacks quality and detail compared to cities like we've seen in GTA IV, even LA Noire.

 

Immersion is very important to me and a detailed city plays a big part of that.

People use GTA IV as an example of quality over quantity, but in my opinion that's a terrible example to support the tradeoff. Liberty City in GTA IV just felt like an empty shell to me. There were hardly any buildings you could actually go inside of. Sure it looked nice... but the lack of diversity and things you could actually do just made it boring. If that's Rockstar's idea of a detailed, immersive city, i'd honestly rather they went back to SA's level of detail and have a larger, more diverse map.

Edited November 4, 2011 by Turin88

[Slamman]

Once we have the Redux GTAs outta the way, then perhaps you OTHER GTA fans will allow US to have our new GTA with all new..... EVERYTHING??? It's a novel idea, I know! haha

[meson1]

San Fierro - simply not big enough or important enough to be a standalone city. I don't think anyone would argue with that statement.

Actually I would. An expanded San Fiero which also included the whole Bay Area would make a great location. The way it was done in GTA:SA was okay, but there is plenty of scope for doing it much much better. San Francisco is an iconic city that is instantly recognisable worldwide and has it's own distinct vibe. It would be excellent for a GTA.

 

But SF is for a future GTA game. Right now we're talking about GTA:V for which LS was a great choice, so I won't distract from that any further.

 

Peace dude.

[Tipper]

To be honest, if GTA was set in the U.K., they'd have to do one hell of an amazing job to make the map look good. The U.K. isn't as diverse as America. You chaps have deserts, mountain ranges and amazing cities. We have small and somewhat rubbish cities, an endless amount of fields full of livestock and maybe the odd hill here and there. Aside from a few places, it's visually boring. If they did venture away from the US I wouldn't mind them going somewhere completely different. Maybe even just make up a whole new city of their own.

Depends if they focus on London and its surroundings, or if they cheat with the scale and include a SA-style map which would go all the way to Scotland (well they'd have to cheat a lot with the scale though). And the scottish countryside can be quite magnificent.

[urbanfire]

Why is the best place out of US London? There's loads of other places out there that are still strongly westernised. Take for example my country - land down under - Australia, mate.

 

We've got beaches, rainforests, deserts, most dangerous spiders and snakes on the planet, and then we have iconic urban landmarks like Sydney Opera House and Harbour bridge, and then we have Miami style tourist areas like Gold coast (not to mention the finest girls in the world).

 

And R* could take the sh*t on us by parodying how Australia tries to copy everything America does since WWII. It would be brilliant

[LucasV]

No, Rockstar didn't make the best decision. Two or three large cities and a lot of nature and towns between them would've been the best decision. Being able to drive from one large city to another was one of the best aspects from San Andreas. Roaming through Los Santos plus countryside will not capture that feeling.

Edited November 4, 2011 by LucasV

[Tipper]

Why is the best place out of US London? There's loads of other places out there that are still strongly westernised. Take for example my country - land down under - Australia, mate.

 

We've got beaches, rainforests, deserts, most dangerous spiders and snakes on the planet, and then we have iconic urban landmarks like Sydney Opera House and Harbour bridge, and then we have Miami style tourist areas like Gold coast (not to mention the finest girls in the world).

 

And R* could take the sh*t on us by parodying how Australia tries to copy everything America does since WWII. It would be brilliant

Australia could work, but London still appears to be a better idea as it is one of the best known cities in the world. If they move GTA out of the US, London would be my first guess. Other european cities couldn't work alone because of the language issue (yet we can still imagine London with another european city which would act like Mexico in RDR but it's not very likely to happen). Same for asian cities.

[KarinSultanRS]

Keep GTA in the USA!

 

As has already been said; the UK's environment is pretty lackluster unless you go to like the Lake District.

London, Birmingham, Manchester etc would make good cities but I think they'd have to make the game with unrealistic geography to be interesting.

 

 

[hcrealill]

Any other US city- there are simply no other US cities interesting enough.

 

Cool opinion.

[Over_the_hill]

Chicago has almost every type of criminal gang although it would be too similar to New York/Liberty city.

[secksyjames]

making one giant city is a stupid move. but im not that botherd, mainly cause i know we have to wait a FRIGIN year until they release the game

Cool your jets, bromigo. We don't know that for sure. San Andreas was announced what, 6 months before release? Could be more, could be less. Who knows.

[GreatGig]

To be honest, if GTA was set in the U.K., they'd have to do one hell of an amazing job to make the map look good. The U.K. isn't as diverse as America. You chaps have deserts, mountain ranges and amazing cities. We have small and somewhat rubbish cities, an endless amount of fields full of livestock and maybe the odd hill here and there. Aside from a few places, it's visually boring. If they did venture away from the US I wouldn't mind them going somewhere completely different. Maybe even just make up a whole new city of their own.

Depends if they focus on London and its surroundings, or if they cheat with the scale and include a SA-style map which would go all the way to Scotland (well they'd have to cheat a lot with the scale though). And the scottish countryside can be quite magnificent.

It can indeed. We do have some beautiful parts. I don't think London would be all that great to be honest. It would be like another Liberty City in the sense that it'd just be a city. The surrounding parts of London aren't that diverse so it could be quite tedious. Like you said though, they could cheat and just add some of their own stuff to it to make it more appealing. I think I've been put off London by The Getaway. A good game but the map was incredibly boring. Then again, it wasn't free roaming was it? I'm not sure. Anyway, I'm sure that whatever Rockstar decide to do in the future, they'll do a damn fine job of it as they always do

[Slamman]

Best decision I think is making some announcement/release changes/surprises. With Strauss Zelnick, You got the feeling he was the last person to ask about WHEN to expect anything GTA related!??!

[HeliWolf420]

 

Well if sales suffer because its outside the US say London then people need to get out more and broaden their horizons....I wished it was London ...People in London have no issue with it being in the US but its kind of getting played out now....Even if it was Rio or somewhere else would have been good too..........But the whole series is based on teh US....but for me their are far more interesting places than the US with a lot more character..then again its not my game,...........hope the next one will be somewhere outside USA......

Problem is that GTA is seriously American, it's absolutely drenched in Americana. I'd love to see it in a different city in a different country (especially London, there's amazing potential for a GTA-like game set in London due to the rise of the gang culture here in the UK) but I don't think it would be essentially GTA, because GTA relies on Americana for it's feel (for example the humour). But yeah there are a lot of places in the US that would be interesting, Chicago for example which is being absolutely ravaged by drugs.

 

 

I'm really happy that it's set in San Andreas again. Haven't been this buzzed for a game since MGS4.

[skillz7855]

Wait they Could do a Map of the Bay Area thats detailed.

[FilipinoGoblin]

HAHAHA

 

Did you really just state: Miami doesn't have any drugs / cartels going through it nowadays?

 

...

 

Florida is WAY worse than it was back then, where are you getting this from???

[CryptReaperDorian]

I think it would be a bad idea to only do Los Angeles. Do you know how many games have done either a quite detailed or accurately scaled Los Angeles? I think having only Los Angeles would be pretty boring after playing games like True Crime: Los Angeles, Midnight Club: Los Angeles, and L.A. Noire. The same can also be said about Las Vegas. I'd say this is a great reason for R* to do all three cities so we are trapped in at least two cities we are very familiar with (can recall many sandbox games that take place in San Francisco) instead of just one city that we are very familiar with.

[zippo55312]

HAHAHA

 

Did you really just state: Miami doesn't have any drugs / cartels going through it nowadays?

 

...

 

Florida is WAY worse than it was back then, where are you getting this from???

What???? How is it worse now? In the eighties something like 90% of cocaine went through florida, now it goes through the border states instead of florida because the big drug cartels are based in Mexico.

[Official General]

 

VICE CITY- now maybe vice city is an option, but the problem is there is only one interesting story worth telling in vice city: that is - dude rising through drug trade in mid eighties. thats the only angle that miami is interesting from- and they already did that with vice city.  A present day Miami would be boring- drugs don't go through Miami anymore. So they could do vice city again, but they would have to rehash the same story/ setting that they already used. A ton of people would have a problem with that.

 

San Fierro - simply not big enough or important enough to be a standalone city. I don't think anyone would argue with that statement.

 

Las Venturas- Alright vegas was built by the mafia. So in the 50s there was a ton of high level crime, but its not like that anymore. The mafia doesn't really f*ck with casinos in present day vegas. So I don't think vegas can stand alone unless you go back the 50s when the mafia controlled it. Who the f*ck wants gta in the 50s though?

 

 

I disagree strongly with what said about Vice City and its real-life counterpart Miami. Yeah sure, I will agree with you and say that the really violent 'Cocaine Cowboy' era in Miami during the 1980s, when Latino drug cartels were fighting vicious gang wars and shooting up the city has long gone. And again you are right, most hard drugs entering the USA these days goes through Mexico rather than the Miami/South Florida route. But don't be fooled. Miami is still a very dangerous city - it experiences very high levels of gun crime, shootings and gang actvity in the more rougher districts and ghettoes. In fact most of the homicides in modern-day Miami are drug-related shootings. And in modern times now, a lot of drugs STILL does pass through Miami/South Florida, not as much as Mexico maybe, but it still happens on a large scale. Many drug dealers still use South Florida to either import or go there to buy kilos of cocaine. You can check this out yourself. Plus add the fact that Miami is now such a huge tourist destination in the US, enough to rival Los Angeles, and also the fact that Miami remains an important and thriving center of various cultures, fashion, media, entertainment, musical styles, nightlife etc. A modern-day Miami would provide more than enough rich material and background for a great new GTA game. Also importantly, bear in mind that these cities in GTA are still fictional, so therefore Rockstar can make the cities in any way they want to.

 

I am actually quite disappointed that GTA V was not Vice City, I really am. I was so hoping for V to be Vice City, but my hopes have been totally dashed. However I'm still excited for GTA V.

 

I think San Fierro and Las Venturas should be included in GTA V, seeing as we have Los Santos. It would make the game even more mouth-watering. San Francisco (San Fierro) actually has a lot of crime in form of heavy street gang activity, so San Fierro would be a welcome addition. Ok Las Vegas (Las Venturas) does not really have a Mafia presence anymore since the 1980s - but so what ? There is still a lot of organized and crime and gangs that exist in Las Vegas so Rockstar have a lot of real-life material to work from there. I'd be more disappointed if GTA V is just gonna have Lo Santos as one main city. We'll have to see what Rockstar come up with in the end.

 

I agree with rest of what you said about other US cities. And no I dont wanna see GTA in London or anywhere abroad (and I'm British).

Edited November 5, 2011 by Official General