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Why Does The "Upstate" Part Of The Map Even Exist?


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Smash Bandicoot

Why on earth is this unfinished waste of disc and gameplay space even in the game? why couldn't they make some more streets that go down to sea level then end the map there insetad of modeling a half-assed hill with absolutely no real purpose? why include these tunnels if they're never unlockable? it's just bothering as f*ck and there's no real reason to do something like this, was this supposed to be some kind of 4th final island that was never finished? I mean, where exactly does the "ghost town" in the intro take place anyways? I think it was intended to be a final world at one point, since in north Portland, you see this enormous island on the other side of the map, and you're excited to go there later in the game, but you never do, this area has no buildup and is a clump of mess, they couldn't even be bothered to atleast finish it, you can use the dodo and see the unfinished mess of polygons on the other side with relative ease, this wasn't even fixed in LCS, but was fixed in GTA 4, so what the f*ck is this all about?

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HOW'S ANNIE?

For the sake of immersion, to give the player the feeling that there's more to the in-game world than what you can visibly see.

Under normal gameplay conditions the Dodo was never supposed to be flown, the same reason most tall buildings aren't fully modeled or have proper collision. You were never truly meant to see the other side of those mountains.

Smash Bandicoot
6 minutes ago, HOW'S ANNIE? said:

For the sake of immersion, to give the player the feeling that there's more to the in-game world than what you can visibly see.

Under normal gameplay conditions the Dodo was never supposed to be flown, the same reason most tall buildings aren't fully modeled or have proper collision. You were never truly meant to see the other side of those mountains.

Yeah, "immersion"... right...

I don't understand how you claim this is "fixed" in GTA IV when it uses a completely different map, and isn't intended to be a rendition of the same city. I'm also a bit puzzled at your "immersion" scoff. You can't really claim it's for any other purpose. As for using the Dodo to take a peek at the areas beyond the map you're intended to visit, you aren't meant to be able to see it, regardless of how easy it is to access. It's like complaining about how bare bones the inside of the stadium is. Adding a landmass is just a bit more interesting and makes more geographical sense for the city depicted than just water. I don't know what else you expect.

Smash Bandicoot
8 minutes ago, Rhoda said:

As for using the Dodo to take a peek at the areas beyond the map you're intended to visit, you aren't meant to be able to see it, regardless of how easy it is to access. It's like complaining about how bare bones the inside of the stadium is.

Oh yeah? explain the "cocks" easter egg.

9 minutes ago, Rhoda said:

I don't understand how you claim this is "fixed" in GTA IV when it uses a completely different map,.

GTA IV doesn't have a random half-assed landmass with no real purpose connecting to Alderney, that's what I'm trying to get across.

  • Like 1
xSapphirePlayz
2 hours ago, Smash Bandicoot said:

Oh yeah? explain the "cocks" easter egg.

GTA IV doesn't have a random half-assed landmass with no real purpose connecting to Alderney, that's what I'm trying to get across.

Actually, the stadium's door textures are buggy in the PC version of GTA III, being render as nothing but white squares. If you go there in the PS2 version you'll be able to see the stadium's interior. Also have in mind this game started it's development in 2000, being initially made for the PS2 platform. And yeah, it's literally half-assed, because if you somehow manage to make the Dodo fly over the landmass and reach the very end of the model, it looks like as if it was cut with a very big knife. And judging by the looks of Ghost Town, if it was properly implemented it would've likely been located in Staunton. I'm just hoping AdusPL puts an end to our suffering by releasing UpstateLiberty.

 

R* actually had plans for adding a similar sort of landmass to Alderney, however it was scrapped on very early development stages.

  • Like 2
Smash Bandicoot
Just now, xSapphirePlayz said:

Actually, the stadium's door textures are buggy in the PC version of GTA III, being render as nothing but white squares. If you go there in the PS2 version you'll be able to see the stadium's interior. Also have in mind this game started it's development in 2000, being initially made for the PS2 platform. And yeah, it's literally half-assed, because if you somehow manage to make the Dodo fly over the landmass and reach the very end of the model, it looks like as if it was cut with a very big knife. And judging by the looks of Ghost Town, if it was properly implemented it would've likely been located in Staunton. I'm just hoping AdusPL puts an end to our suffering by releasing UpstateLiberty.

 

R* actually had plans for adding a similar sort of landmass to Alderney, however it was scrapped on very early development stages.

Where exactly in Staunton would it have been? inplace of the stadium? Fort Staunton? isn't Alderney just Shoreside Vale? what were these plans?

  • Like 1
xSapphirePlayz
2 minutes ago, Smash Bandicoot said:

Where exactly in Staunton would it have been? inplace of the stadium? Fort Staunton? isn't Alderney just Shoreside Vale? what were these plans?

Well, I think it would be Bedford Point. Also, unlike the HD rendition of LC, the 3D universe version isn't meant to fully represent NY.

Edited by xSapphirePlayz
  • Like 1
Smash Bandicoot
Just now, xSapphirePlayz said:

Well, i think it would be Bedford Point. Also, unlike the HD rendition of LC, the 3D universe version isn't mean to fully represent NY.

It doesn't make sense, how would Ghost Town be Bedford Point? and what is 3D LC meant to represent other than New York?

 

5 hours ago, Smash Bandicoot said:

Oh yeah? explain the "cocks" easter egg.

 

I don't have to explain anything. Eggs like that are put there for the developers just as much as they are the audience. I feel like you're deliberately misunderstanding me. When I say you aren't supposed to be able to reach it, I mean during conventional play. Somebody with little knowledge of the game beyond the plot would miss things like this and the cheeky little sign altogether because they take a great deal of effort and patience to see. I have little doubt that R* knew players would eventually find them, either from some fiddly flying or some poking around in the game files, or even using these custom cameras people have to sequence break or visit out of bounds areas. The only exception to this is the ghost town area, which is just a cutscene environment tucked well away out of the field of view from anywhere on the map.

 

This discourse doesn't exactly change things, I just felt like arguing back.

  • Like 6
On 3/22/2021 at 3:18 PM, Smash Bandicoot said:

It doesn't make sense, how would Ghost Town be Bedford Point? and what is 3D LC meant to represent other than New York?

 

 

Why is Ghost Town the idea you have for being upstate? Ghost Town is nothing more than a prop area solely for the introduction as confirmed by Rockstar:

 

"We didn’t take an island out of the game. There were only ever the three. We think what people refer to as “ghost town” is just the small area of a city we built for the bank heist scene at the very start of the game. It never had a name, but we wanted it to be somewhere separate from the liberty map and so we built these few streets floating in space and assumed no one would ever find them."

 

It's clearly an immersion thing, you're not supposed to be able to see the other side of the land in the same way a lot of buildings don't have a roof, solely to save on space. Sure, you can fly there with the Dodo but again that was never meant to be a thing:

 

"The Dodo was never meant to be flown very much at all, and it certainly wasn’t grounded as a result of 9/11 – it was just a fun thing that people then went crazy with when they figured out various bugs that let them fly it!"

 

And just to be pedantic, here's Rockstar's statement on the tunnels:

 

"There was never meant to be anything on the other end of the tunnel, we were just playing with ways to make the world feel like it continues past the physical boundary. It’s something that we’ve been pushing in all sorts of ways ever since, making the world you experience as a player feel like it’s part of something bigger. This tunnel was one of our first little baby steps in that direction."

 

Would you look at that, immersion.

 

https://www.rockstargames.com/newswire/article/25o241181oaa23/grand-theft-auto-iii-your-questions-answered-part-two-911-the-gh.html

Which walls are you specifying here, the ones in the tunnel? It's obvious they're closed off as a way to add depth as Rockstar stated, personally I have no qualms with GTA3's map and I have no idea why you're being so pedantic about a 20+ year old games map design when it outpaces most if not all open world games from that era.

  • Like 3
Smash Bandicoot
14 hours ago, sombrA said:

Which walls are you specifying here, the ones in the tunnel? It's obvious they're closed off as a way to add depth as Rockstar stated, personally I have no qualms with GTA3's map and I have no idea why you're being so pedantic about a 20+ year old games map design when it outpaces most if not all open world games from that era.

The game is extremely outdated, there's a goddamn tumor on the map with no purpose isntead of it being an island.

Extremely outdated, yeah no sh*t it came out in 2001. Dunno why I'd expect logic or coherent discussion from a guy who couldn't figure out a compass in game.

On 3/29/2021 at 7:30 AM, Smash Bandicoot said:

The game is extremely outdated, there's a goddamn tumor on the map with no purpose isntead of it being an island.


Yeah. its 20 years old, And Rockstar have gone through many development phases since this. Not really sure why you've made this topic?

Edited by Mikeol1987
  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/29/2021 at 7:30 AM, Smash Bandicoot said:

The game is extremely outdated, there's a goddamn tumor on the map with no purpose isntead of it being an island.

Why does it bother you? The game is almost 20 years old and they tried something to add immersion. Obviously they already made their mind up about whether it works when they didn't attempt it with Vice City and yet here you are complaining about something that never carried through the series.

Edited by Fidzy
Smash Bandicoot
2 hours ago, Fidzy said:

Why does it bother you? The game is almost 20 years old and they tried something to add immersion. Obviously they already made their mind up about whether it works when they didn't attempt it with Vice City and yet here you are complaining about something that never carried through the series.

Why didn't they fix it in LCS though?

Because LCS is canonically set 3 years prior to III.

  • Like 1
3 hours ago, Smash Bandicoot said:

Why didn't they fix it in LCS though?

They did actually. They made the tunnel accessible with just one exit to upstate that was blocked off. You can still traverse the tunnel without removing the element of "a world beyond LC"

  • Like 1
Smash Bandicoot
18 minutes ago, Fidzy said:

They did actually. They made the tunnel accessible with just one exit to upstate that was blocked off. You can still traverse the tunnel without removing the element of "a world beyond LC"

They still had the big useless tumor and a blocked area instead of ending with water

On 4/11/2021 at 7:38 PM, Smash Bandicoot said:

They still had the big useless tumor and a blocked area instead of ending with water

You've been told the reason why numerous times. Are you a brick wall?

  • Like 4

@sombrA thanks for quoting R* from their Q&A. They really cleared a lot of stuff out 10 years ago with these two Q&As and I'm surprised that there are still people recycling the same conspiracies about the Dodo, 9/11, Claude not talking, Ghost Town and so on... I'm starting to think that there should be a pinned topic here in the GTA 3 forum titled "Read First before posting conspiracies" with links to these articles.

  • Like 4
  • 2 years later...
HOW'S ANNIE?

So after seeing some old discussion on Discord, turns out the tunnels were actually supposed to serve a purpose at one point. In the scm files that leaked with the Definitive Edition, the tunnels are labelled as "tunnel to Miami". 

 

Since what we now know as GTA Vice City was originally conceived as an expansion pack, it only makes sense that these tunnels were supposed to lead to the new section of the map. This is all before Rockstar decided to make Vice City its own standalone game of course.

  • Like 3

Back in the day, there was a mod that opened up the tunnels. I was very excited about it, until I realised the mod maker simply linked them together :D It still felt better than what we got in the game.

Edited by Lioshenka
  • Like 1

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