Map doesn't feel big

[EzOne4Me]

OP has never been up a mountain near a city.

 

Funnily enough, if you go somewhere high up in real life, you can see further. It's incredible, I know.

 

This.

 

If you actually have been on top of a mountain in real life you can see more and it feel near. Isn't it a basic knowledge?

[AlasClarin]

 

OP has never been up a mountain near a city.

 

Funnily enough, if you go somewhere high up in real life, you can see further. It's incredible, I know.

 

This.

 

If you actually have been on top of a mountain in real life you can see more and it feel near. Isn't it a basic knowledge?

 

What he means is that it FEELS smaller because of the draw distance and the structure of the map. It's not all about brute size. GTA:SA feels massive, even if it's smaller. That's because of the 3 cities + 9+ towns + country side + desert, etc, etc + underwater (low quality but good for the atmosphere) + not big draw distance.

Edited September 23, 2013 by AlasClarin

[Ferocious Banger]

OP has never been up a mountain near a city.

 

Funnily enough, if you go somewhere high up in real life, you can see further. It's incredible, I know.

What? I live in a city surrounded by mountains everywhere. "Ooty" is biggest peak near my city; it can be seen from my place, but my place can't be seen with such clarity from Ooty.

 

A cleverer map design ( like with RDR and GTA:SA ) would have sufficed, imo.

Edited September 23, 2013 by Ferocious Banger

[cheetah_7]

Hello, people, I just wanted to know whether I am the only person on the internet not saying "The map is huge!!". Seriously, the maps of San Andreas and Red Dead Redemption felt bigger to me. Now, I know that the map is, in actuality, of the size that is the summation of the sizes of GTA IV, GTA:SA and RDR combined. However, I believe that there are two factors that are working against the illusion of "bigness" GTA V is trying to project onto us:

 

-The draw distance:

The draw-distance in the game is simply incredible! I just can't fathom how the game is drawing such distances running on these now nearly out-dated systems. But this is the first hindrance to the "illusion" that I was talking about earlier in this thread.

 

GTA:San Andreas benefited from the poor draw distance. Every corner of the map felt far apart from each other, for there was no way of seeing one corner from another.

 

Red Dead Redemption, athough it drew distances almost as much as V does ( correct me if I am wrong ), it had a clever enough map design; you cannot see the Nekoti rock from most of the Mexican part of the game, and the deserts felt really far away from the snowy northern part of the game. It also had the luxury of relatively slower mode of transport - horses. Everything felt bigger due to the aforementioned reasons.

 

With GTA V, however, everything can be see from everywhere. I don't get the "isolation" that I get from the deserts of RDR and GTA:SA in the Grand Senora desert. Why? Because, for examples:

 

-The radio tower near Vinewood: That can be seen quite easily.

-Mount Chilliad. The forested mountain can be seen in some detail from the desert of Sandy Shores. It doesn't even feel like it's a "miles away" mountain.

 

Leave that. Climbing up the Mt.Chiliad and seeing the whole of Los Santos. Yes, whole of it - even the Vincent Thomas bridge in the distance - is illusion shattering. The "lost in the country" feel will simply not be there so long as the incredible draw distance is in a game with a game with a scale that doesn't match it.

 

-The in-game GPS meter:

This shrinks the whole game down exponentially more than the first major reason does. A total of 9 miles from North-South; that includes the "metropolitan" city, the desert AND the forests. Does this not break anybody else' illusion? Couldn't they have had distances that fit into the internal logics of the game? Or hell, couldn't they have not not included the distance meter in the first place? When two different logics - one that is consistent with the real world and the other that is consistent with the in-game world and lore - collide, it really isn't pleasant.

 

So, yeah, what do you feel?

 

 

Yeh I've been playing GTA:SA MTA and the map feels so much bigger than V. There are less locations and less density in V and only one city makes it feel smaller too. The scale is a lot grander, everything is bigger so it feels like there is less there and most of the map is nothing. They needed at least another city in the game, the map could have fitted it easily, though there is nothing stopping them from adding more in GTA Online.

 

All my friends who I've talked to said the game is disappointing after hearing all the statements of how big it was, yet it feels smaller some how.

 

There is also not a lot to do, the lack of interiors is very disappointing.

 

I completely agree with both of you. V has the biggest and most realistic map, but ironically, it means it feels slightly smaller. San Andreas' outdated technology actually worked as an advantage, creating an illusion of it being bigger than it was.

 

The presence of 2 extra cities (despite being small) also helped, because psychologically, it helped make the map feel bigger.

[iddqdvie]

i understand u, and u are somehow right. u never feel far away from something... i am not a fan of empty maps, but they could have really streched the area around alamo see and the mounatins.... on the other hand: for multiplayer it might be perfect as it is...

[xXMA55ACREXx]

just play the damn game....

[DODI3OG]

R* could make a 40sq mile city.

Problem is, won't it get boring after a while? Is it worth it? Is it very important?

[Batley18]

It is boring driving for a long time from one place to another, regardless of the car. The reason that there are the chance encounters, similar to Red Dead Redemption, is that is breaks up that drive and gives you something to do. If you make the map too big then you make the drive too long.

[Romario]

The map is the perfect size with the right amount of city/desert/forrest.

 

It's just you.

[Ferocious Banger]

It is boring driving for a long time from one place to another, regardless of the car. The reason that there are the chance encounters, similar to Red Dead Redemption, is that is breaks up that drive and gives you something to do. If you make the map too big then you make the drive too long.

But aren't the "long drives" exactly why switching was allowed in freeroam in the first place? I'm pretty sure that Leslie Benizes said that in November last year.

Edited September 23, 2013 by Ferocious Banger

[boxmonster]

It's true, the larger the draw distance the smaller the map feels. Get a large draw distance timecyc for GTA SA and it looks ridiculously small. Rockstar was smart enough to add mountains to cover up LS at ground level so the city doesn't look too close all the time. I wonder how they will pull off a Vice City with a draw distance like this as Florida is flat and it would take away from the immersion to see downtown in the Everglades.

[vivalavendredi]

In my opinion the map feels pretty big and somehow it IS pretty big. There are lots of things I do not like in V but the map itself is very good

[Munx]

The map feels massive to me, especially since I make it a point to not only drive on the highway (those mountain roads are absolutely awesome for high speed driving, a real thrill)

 

I imagine it could also feel small if you constantly use air vehicles.

[TakinThyBacon]

Its fine, really we can stop having this discussion now....

[HighOnGTA]

Hello, people, I just wanted to know whether I am the only person on the internet not saying "The map is huge!!". Seriously, the maps of San Andreas and Red Dead Redemption felt bigger to me. Now, I know that the map is, in actuality, of the size that is the summation of the sizes of GTA IV, GTA:SA and RDR combined. However, I believe that there are two factors that are working against the illusion of "bigness" GTA V is trying to project onto us:

 

-The draw distance:

The draw-distance in the game is simply incredible! I just can't fathom how the game is drawing such distances running on these now nearly out-dated systems. But this is the first hindrance to the "illusion" that I was talking about earlier in this thread.

 

GTA:San Andreas benefited from the poor draw distance. Every corner of the map felt far apart from each other, for there was no way of seeing one corner from another.

 

Red Dead Redemption, athough it drew distances almost as much as V does ( correct me if I am wrong ), it had a clever enough map design; you cannot see the Nekoti rock from most of the Mexican part of the game, and the deserts felt really far away from the snowy northern part of the game. It also had the luxury of relatively slower mode of transport - horses. Everything felt bigger due to the aforementioned reasons.

 

With GTA V, however, everything can be see from everywhere. I don't get the "isolation" that I get from the deserts of RDR and GTA:SA in the Grand Senora desert. Why? Because, for examples:

 

-The radio tower near Vinewood: That can be seen quite easily.

-Mount Chilliad. The forested mountain can be seen in some detail from the desert of Sandy Shores. It doesn't even feel like it's a "miles away" mountain.

 

Leave that. Climbing up the Mt.Chiliad and seeing the whole of Los Santos. Yes, whole of it - even the Vincent Thomas bridge in the distance - is illusion shattering. The "lost in the country" feel will simply not be there so long as the incredible draw distance is in a game with a game with a scale that doesn't match it.

 

-The in-game GPS meter:

This shrinks the whole game down exponentially more than the first major reason does. A total of 9 miles from North-South; that includes the "metropolitan" city, the desert AND the forests. Does this not break anybody else' illusion? Couldn't they have had distances that fit into the internal logics of the game? Or hell, couldn't they have not not included the distance meter in the first place? When two different logics - one that is consistent with the real world and the other that is consistent with the in-game world and lore - collide, it really isn't pleasant.

 

So, yeah, what do you feel?

 

Oh man, this is exactly my own opinion about the map/the feel of the map. I have the exact same reasoning as to why the map doesn't feel huge at all, since the scale isn't accurate, considering all the diverse elements within the world. (Like a big city, huge mountains and forests, and even a desert, which geographically is both illogically small and illogically placed, with green forests surrounding it.)

 

All though the draw-distance of this map is phenomenal, the map-size is actually not very big, and the map-layout is incorrect in terms of scale/real-life distances between the different environments.

Edited September 23, 2013 by HighOnGTA

[Romario]

 

 

Oh man, this is exactly my own opinion about the map/the feel of the map. I have the exact same reasoning as to why the map doesn't feel huge at all, since the scale isn't accurate, considering all the diverse elements within the world. (Like a big city, huge mountains and forests, and even a desert, which geographically is both illogically small and illogically placed, with green forests surrounding it.)

 

All though the draw-distance of this map is phenomenal, the map-size is actually not very big, and the map-layout is incorrect in terms of scale/real-life distances between the different environments.

 

What did you want? A 1:1 scale of the entire universe? No pleasing some people.