Take-Two vs The GTA Modding Community, 2021 E&E Edition

[Carbonox]

25 minutes ago, psxdriverplayer said:

Also I also use no mods on PC side to play things, another principle. Thus I claim that anyone who claims old (GTA) games are unplayable without any moddings are fricken loonies. That is just wrong. The common issue probably is that old releases on new hardware = nope. Also modern releases after five million years = different feel = get used to it again or else. If it would be truly impossible, I wouldn't have been able to 100% VC and SA (in reverse order) quite recently through original copies and without cheating (you know, those button inputs).

My love for the PS2 era games is undying, but at some point even I have to come face to face with the harsh realization that they're gonna run out of content sooner or later, if played through in their original form over and over. Without user-created content, would they have remained relevant for as long as they have?

 

That, and if we (humanity as a whole) have access to technology that grants us the ability to merge all of that era's GTA maps into one game and generate brand new missions and other content, common sense dictates that should be celebrated, not shot down by greedy lawyers panicking over it potentially costing pennies for the parent company (who, I should add, are suspiciously disconnected from gaming for being a game publisher).

[Igor Bogdanoff]

san andreas RGL version is straight up unplayable lol, because that unpaid intern who takes care of legacy titles accidentally broke mouse input futher when they tried to fix it. Go ahead, download it, save game and then load it. Camera is spinning and you cant do jack sh*t about it.

 

 

 

[psxdriverplayer]

18 minutes ago, Ash_735 said:

They're not unplayable, but these versions do have a lot of bugs and missing features that certain mods fix and would be recommended as essential now just to get the best out of these games.

They may not be, but people like to use that exact word (unplayable) a lot when meaning "use "QOL" mods" in places I've been. It is annoying. I take stuff literally.

 

18 minutes ago, Ash_735 said:

ohhhh you're one of those people. 

Yes indeed. Playing unmodded game while all the videos use some modifications make them seem off, like we're not playing the same game. And I'd argue that they aren't completely the same game if ye add moddings to it.

[Ash_735]

4 minutes ago, psxdriverplayer said:

And I'd argue that they aren't completely the same game if ye add moddings to it.

Well you've gave your opinion but it's probably best for you to leave this thread if that's the case, if you're against mods then surely commenting in a topic about raising awareness about Take-Two's actions against modders is not exactly the best place for you.

[psxdriverplayer]

25 minutes ago, Carbonox said:

My love for the PS2 era games is undying, but at some point even I have to come face to face with the harsh realization that they're gonna run out of content sooner or later, if played through in their original form over and over. Without user-created content, would they have remained relevant for as long as they have?

Solution: don't play them so often then. Playing something else at times may help.

 

4 minutes ago, Ash_735 said:

Well you've gave your opinion but it's probably best for you to leave this thread if that's the case, if you're against mods then surely commenting in a topic about raising awareness about Take-Two's actions against modders is not exactly the best place for you.

It is in fact correct that I don't use that stuff, but at least I'm not trying to ban them altogether. Except perhaps when one is doing a first playthrough, especially then I wouldn't even recommend using any, after that one is free to do that. Also if moddings are done in the style of a Custom Game which is separate from the main game and thus main game is not impacted, I'm actually fine with those, despite not getting any of those either outside official releases (I have the original Opposing Force which is treated as a customized thing and me release of Half-Life 1 has Uplink as a customized thing as an extra).

Been here looking at them reactions. Most people hate the situation, some don't, me reaction to this is pretty much "eh".

[Ash_735]

Just now, psxdriverplayer said:

Been here looking at them reactions. Most people hate the situation, some don't, me reaction to this is pretty much "eh".

And again, you decided to come into the information thread about this and slate modding just because you're eh? No offense but this thread isn't about in-fighting, this thread is for the modding community to stay up to date on who's been reporting on this and what Take-Down and Rockstar have DMCA'd next. You're comments come off as wanting to start a situation and derail the thread, even if that isn't your intent, that's how it feels and to be honest they might get removed.

[GEETEEAYEE]

At this point of my life I should really calm down and think like psxdriverplayer and just not give a crap about sh*t like this that doesn't affect my life whatsoever.

[GEETEEAYEE]

T2 is going to win the fight anyway so there's no point in caring about events like this. The modding community is powerless and while that's too sad. That's the reality of it so oh well. Let's just quit playing R*s games altogether and move on with our lives.

Edited August 15, 2021 by GEETEEAYEE

[Kris194]

4 hours ago, Ash_735 said:

 

 

"The precarious business of living off modding"

 

Are you kiddding me? What the hell happened with community in last ~10 years? Why everything has to be about money these days? If I would create game like Grand Theft Auto and someone would try to sell some mods to it I would do everything to take it down. It's like having a restaurant and out of sudden someone comes and tries to sell his dishes. Charging people for mods is even more scummy, than many of so called DLCs.

[Ash_735]

1 minute ago, Kris194 said:

Are you kiddding me? What the hell happened with community in last ~10 years? Why everything has to be about money these days?

Yeah it's not a trend I'm fond of, that's the darker side of things but with things like Patreon, etc, it's become a job for some people, just posted the article since it's another that at least highlights modding in a positive way for these games, despite what the creators are doing.

[Gravarty]

1 hour ago, psxdriverplayer said:

Also I also use no mods on PC side to play things, another principle. Thus I claim that anyone who claims old (GTA) games are unplayable without any moddings are fricken loonies. That is just wrong. The common issue probably is that old releases on new hardware = nope. Also modern releases after five million years = different feel = get used to it again or else. If it would be truly impossible, I wouldn't have been able to 100% VC and SA (in reverse order) quite recently through original copies and without cheating (you know, those button inputs).

 

The PC version of the GTA 3 Trilogy have been sh*t since day one. Sure, you can play these games without any modifications but it you played these games on PS2 before, you'll notice that many things are different and even worse. GTA San Andreas looks awful on PC, just look what you can do with SkyGFX to bring back the original graphics. All these fan made fixes and patches were not made to change the game and make it something different. It was made to restore the way how R* actually intended to have these games in the first place. Do whatever you like and think whatever you think but calling us loonies because we like the GTA series and support it any way possible, well that's just absolutely hideous. Any other company actually SUPPORTS the modding community to bring the classic titles back to live and keep playing it today.
You shouldn't listen to all these big companies and believe everything they say and do, it's just all about making money. "Oh, we're developing GTA 3 Remastered for PS5? sh*t, let's get rid of all texture and map mods for GTA, because it looks better than the remastered collection and we don't want to lose sales because everyone just can buy GTA on PC and make it even better!"

[psxdriverplayer]

41 minutes ago, Ash_735 said:

And again, you decided to come into the information thread about this and slate modding just because you're eh?

Slating modding. Perhaps, but not completely.

I once had to use an official mod tool for figuring out the level name to input to the level start command. Luckily it was included with the game.

Like to take looks at files if I can, just to see how things work.

 

Seeing some helpful tools - which are separate from the game itself - which show collectables and such go away would be annoying to me. Any reports on those? All articles seem to focus on modifications themselves if I am not mistaken here.

 

  

8 minutes ago, Gravarty said:

Do whatever you like and think whatever you think but calling us loonies because we like the GTA series and support it any way possible

The meaning of that was to say that seeing many call those games unplayable without using any mods despite the fact that it clearly can be done is annoying. Saying "if ye want to play it today ye might want to use moddings" would be better.

Edited August 15, 2021 by psxdriverplayer
Sorry, I had to

[AlexGRFan97]

It takes an awful lot to wake me up from my hiatus du jour, current situation notwithstanding. Misinformative posts like these are one of them.

2 hours ago, psxdriverplayer said:

The common issue probably is that old releases on new hardware = nope. Also modern releases after five million years = different feel = get used to it again or else.

Firstly, wrong. You can have a top spec 2005-era gaming computer and GTA: San Andreas would still not play as well as it did on the PS2 or Xbox because of certain things that the team assigned to the PC port broke and never fixed.

A few off the top of my head:

• The moon had phases on the original version; in the PC they are absent.
• Missing map objects, and tons of them. The Airport Surveillance Radars are fairly substantial ones that are missing.
• Trucks not having dual-axle wheels like they do on the PS2 version.
• Tuner car decals showing up as blank rectangles.

These things are inherently BROKEN in the PC port of San Andreas because the game was ported lazily, there are many more that I could list if I had the time to find some comprehensive documentation on the matter. There is NOTHING you can do using the game's default menus or tools (there aren't any) that will fix these. These flaws between ports were never officially fixed nor patched. They weren't even addressed. If every Rolex watch sold in a particular country came with a hairline crack in the dial and incorrect illumination (i.e. one of the hands did not light), then you would send it back to have it fixed. But if it turns out that Rolex does not offer such fixes because you do not live in their target region, then you either get rid of it, or you take it upon yourself to restore the functionality of the watch to how it came out the box everywhere else. This is the situation with the PC port of San Andreas as it has been for over 16 years now.

 

2 hours ago, psxdriverplayer said:

There should be more unmodded 100% playthroughs for us who care about the original everything without any "fancy crap"

I have seen enough amateur streamers (some big name like Vinesauce for instance) play the game in cringeworthily stretched 4:3 to know that this is not the case. You are simply not searching hard enough or you keep finding your typical ESL/14 year old that thinks switching everything out with mismatched HD and real life assets with a thick, laggy layer of ENB (a garbage mod from the beginning) are the way to go. There are a few vocal individuals on here that would argue otherwise, but for 99% of us, we are long past the 2006 - 2009 era of GTA modding, and for good reason. Most mods I have seen over the past 5 years are designed to fit with the default game environment, whether graphically, physically, or aesthetically to the point that you would not notice them unless you were specifically looking for them.

 

2 hours ago, psxdriverplayer said:

A game doesn't offer 16:9. It must be "fixed" despite the fact that that is just a (small) change, and "fix" implies something is broken, in this case things really aren't broken.

Except the game DID offer widescreen from release and this is a completely false claim. However, the "widescreen" feature in base copy San Andreas is not, in fact, actual widescreen. It just stretches the FOV and a bunch of other stuff to fill the screen, likely due to crunch reasons. If you're going to have a widescreen option in your graphics settings, then you should actually have widescreen rather than lie about it and provide a weak imitation. A stretched FOV is not widescreen. By your own definition, the Widescreen Fix IS a fix because the game was offered with a widescreen option that oops, wasn't actually a widescreen option. So the fans took it upon themselves to do what the original programmers were too incompetent to do.

 

Also, 1280 x 1024 in a AAA title from 2005 is nothing short of pathetic when you consider that there are MANY '90s/early '00s games out there that were far more futureproofed and supported much larger resolutions out of the box, including, ironically enough, III and Vice City. You might not agree with that, but personally, that's the way I feel. If you have all those resources at your disposal, then you can do a damn sight better than 1280 x 1024.

 

Most of the rest of your post is a rant on people not supporting Rockstar automatically being pirates as though it's somehow mutually exclusive, so I'll just address all those tirades in this one paragraph down here.

 

I might be one of the rare cases, but I have never actually went out my way to pirate a Rockstar game that I do not own. I legally own San Andreas, but I have multiple installs and a particular thing that I cannot name which means I don't have to put the disc in every time I want to play it, simply out of convenience and the fact that optical drives are no longer a common thing to see on modern PC builds. I have physical discs of San Andreas, IV, and V which I paid for via legal means. That said, Rockstar has not seen 1 penny of my own, hard-earned money since Christmas 2008, when I bought Midnight Club: LA Remix for the PSP. Up to that point, I had bought MC3, its Remix version and Canis Canem Edit when they were brand new. Every purchase I have made since was of a used copy of the game. I own physical "day one" copies of IV and V, which were both bought used. I did this intentionally, because I do not agree with their business practices. If and when VI were to come out, I'd wait a week or two for the first few waves of scalpers to vanish before buying a sealed, used copy of that game too. The free market allows this. It means Rockstar does not get my money yet I still get to enjoy their product. They lose a sale yet I have committed no crime.

[Kris194]

1 hour ago, Ash_735 said:

it's become a job for some people

It's not a job, it's an exploitation. If someone wants it to be his job then he should start making his own game or get a job at any game company, there is absolutely no explanation for this.

[psxdriverplayer]

Let's clarify:

 

20 minutes ago, AlexGRFan97 said:

Firstly, wrong. You can have a top spec 2005-era gaming computer and GTA: San Andreas would still not play as well as it did on the PS2 or Xbox because of certain things that the team assigned to the PC port broke and never fixed.

A few off the top of my head:

• The moon had phases on the original version; in the PC they are absent.
• Missing map objects, and tons of them. The Airport Surveillance Radars are fairly substantial ones that are missing.
• Trucks not having dual-axle wheels like they do on the PS2 version.
• Tuner car decals showing up as blank rectangles.

These things are inherently BROKEN in the PC port of San Andreas because the game was ported lazily, there are many more that I could list if I had the time to find some comprehensive documentation on the matter. There is NOTHING you can do using the game's default menus or tools (there aren't any) that will fix these. These flaws between ports were never officially fixed nor patched. They weren't even addressed. If every Rolex watch sold in a particular country came with a hairline crack in the dial and incorrect illumination (i.e. one of the hands did not light), then you would send it back to have it fixed. But if it turns out that Rolex does not offer such fixes because you do not live in their target region, then you either get rid of it, or you take it upon yourself to restore the functionality of the watch to how it came out the box everywhere else. This is the situation with the PC port of San Andreas as it has been for over 16 years now.

Didn't mean exactly that with that, was more like "coming back after playing newer games". Can't really comment to the other stuff.

 

23 minutes ago, AlexGRFan97 said:

I have seen enough amateur streamers (some big name like Vinesauce for instance) play the game in cringeworthily stretched 4:3 to know that this is not the case. You are simply not searching hard enough or you keep finding your typical ESL/14 year old that thinks switching everything out with mismatched HD and real life assets with a thick, laggy layer of ENB (a garbage mod from the beginning) are the way to go. There are a few vocal individuals on here that would argue otherwise, but for 99% of us, we are long past the 2006 - 2009 era of GTA modding, and for good reason. Most mods I have seen over the past 5 years are designed to fit with the default game environment, whether graphically, physically, or aesthetically to the point that you would not notice them unless you were specifically looking for them.

If there's one thing I agree here, it is that streching sucks. It could be that I'm not looking hard enough, all the popular ones seem to have things. Sometimes it has been a small hassle to find a PS2 version of what I want to find.

 

25 minutes ago, AlexGRFan97 said:

Except the game DID offer widescreen from release and this is a completely false claim. However, the "widescreen" feature in base copy San Andreas is not, in fact, actual widescreen. It just stretches the FOV and a bunch of other stuff to fill the screen, likely due to crunch reasons. If you're going to have a widescreen option in your graphics settings, then you should actually have widescreen rather than lie about it and provide a weak imitation. A stretched FOV is not widescreen. By your own definition, the Widescreen Fix IS a fix because the game was offered with a widescreen option that oops, wasn't actually a widescreen option. So the fans took it upon themselves to do what the original programmers were too incompetent to do.

That line of me you quoted was meant to be a scenario meaning any game where that would be the case. Anyways, regarding SA, I've heard different stories about it, but the game - v1.0 - does not offer me any widescreen resolutions, unlike Vice City does, and even with that it's 4:3 stretched - I've compared them through screencaps. It's not a big deal for me either way. That widescreen option is in Vice City and III too, to me it seems like a carryover. And that widescreen ticker is meant to be used with 4:3 resolutions anyway when the game doesn't offer 16:9 resolutions, one is meant to stretch the output with the display manually to 16:9 if it doesn't happen automagically - even the manual explains this. I'd see that as widescreen. Not a true widescreen though, which I'd rather use as well. I've heard that v1.01 of SA is supposed to give you actual 16:9 resolutions, but still keeping that widescreen ticker.

 

31 minutes ago, AlexGRFan97 said:

Most of the rest of your post is a rant on people not supporting Rockstar automatically being pirates

I'd say "no", I'm saying that if one boycotts and also pirates - that is bad. Didn't mention anything about automagicalities.

 

31 minutes ago, AlexGRFan97 said:

I might be one of the rare cases, but I have never actually went out my way to pirate a Rockstar game that I do not own. I legally own San Andreas, but I have multiple installs and a particular thing that I cannot name which means I don't have to put the disc in every time I want to play it, simply out of convenience and the fact that optical drives are no longer a common thing to see on modern PC builds. I have physical discs of San Andreas, IV, and V which I paid for via legal means. That said, Rockstar has not seen 1 penny of my own, hard-earned money since Christmas 2008, when I bought Midnight Club: LA Remix for the PSP. Up to that point, I had bought MC3, its Remix version and Canis Canem Edit when they were brand new. Every purchase I have made since was of a used copy of the game. I own physical "day one" copies of IV and V, which were both bought used. I did this intentionally, because I do not agree with their business practices. If and when VI were to come out, I'd wait a week or two for the first few waves of scalpers to vanish before buying a sealed, used copy of that game too. The free market allows this. It means Rockstar does not get my money yet I still get to enjoy their product. They lose a sale yet I have committed no crime.

I still find all that a bit baffling. I've gotten my PC GTA titles used, because they were quite old at that point and not sold as new. PS2 titles I've bought new since I could. And I've been just interested about playing those titles.

[Zapper]

Even if everyone here stops buying (directly) or playing Rockstar's products it'll just be a rounding error to them. The mods they've taken down are all for older games so naturally the news reports and retaliation won't gain much traction compared to the OpenIV fiasco. So they can evade the heat pretty easily and those rumored remasters/remakes will make it even easier for them if they're even remotely good. Mainstream media and consumers will eat it up. Twitter went berserk from just the rumors (IGN's tweet got 89k likes!) so go figure I guess.

 

And Rockstar is basically unmatched in this genre and I don't see anyone competing with them anytime soon. They spent $400-500 million in a slow paced moody western, so imagine what they'll do for their flagship franchise which haven't seen a sequel in 8 years. At very least it'd be technically unparalleled and if it's as good as V it'd sell 50 million copies under a month and then there is GTAO so they won't really support modding in capacity or fashion any time soon. We still don't have full OpenIV support for RDR2 even after 2 years due to those stupid hashed file names for the RPF packages.

[Claude_Lib]

On 8/14/2021 at 1:20 AM, LarcenousUrsine said:

It was bundled with the Max Payne 1 CD if random Steam tutorials and some old article on editing the game I found are to be believed. You can now get it on ModDB since the Steam version doesn't have it.

Funny thing, the Russian versions of Max Payne 1 and 2 on Steam are actually totally separate apps and at least in case of MP1, the game appears to be ripped from CD, because it has the modding tools and the uninstaller.

 

8 hours ago, GhettoJesus said:

Let's see how many people will keep their vows about not buying anything from R* once the new trilogy drops.

Gotta admit, back in 2017, I swore that I would never buy another R*/T2 game, but I still bought RDR2 on Steam when it was on sale. Such shame.

P. S. Buying Mafia Remake does not count, because back then I didn't know that 2K is under T2's wing. I liked the remake though.

[psxdriverplayer]

3 minutes ago, Claude_Lib said:

Funny thing, the Russian versions of Max Payne 1 and 2 on Steam are actually totally separate apps and at least in case of MP1, the game appears to be ripped from CD, because it has the modding tools and the uninstaller.

Probably because the disc releases are separate applications as well, certain regions having a non-English version. Mafia (1) is another example. There's English only, Czech only and what have you only. I've heard Steam doesn't usually bother with non-English variants of old games.

[Igor Bogdanoff]

mafia 1 orig and 2non-de have one app for the game (except for japanese m2), and seperate depots for each language (funny enough m2de does not and wastes your hdd space with 30gb download)

 

also p sure mp1 or mp2 russian copy uses cracked exe even on steam 

Edited August 15, 2021 by Sneed

[Claude_Lib]

4 hours ago, psxdriverplayer said:

Also it annoys me when people don't like a company, they say "boycotting their crap" yet they show interest anyway through pirating.

In cases like this, boycotting means not giving them your money, so I don't see how pirating the game goes against that vow. I'm not explicitly saying that I'll resort to piracy, but if the remakes are real and they'll be good, I'll play them, but I won't pay Strauss a single cent from my wallet anymore.

Edited August 15, 2021 by Claude_Lib
That might still break the rules, so feel free to delete it if it does.

[universetwisters]

1 hour ago, Kris194 said:

It's not a job, it's an exploitation. If someone wants it to be his job then he should start making his own game or get a job at any game company, there is absolutely no explanation for this.

 

idk man, if there's a market for it and you have the skills, idk why you can't tap in and make a living off it.

Okay, maybe not a living, but if you can make some extra spending money doing programming or modelling or porting nobody else is wanting to do then more power to ye

[Kris194]

9 minutes ago, Claude_Lib said:

In cases like this, boycotting means not giving them your money, so I don't see how pirating the game goes against that vow. I'm not explicitly saying that I'll resort to piracy, but if the remakes are real and they'll be good, I'll play them, but I won't pay Strauss a single cent from my wallet anymore.

I can't believe, that I'm reading something like this in 2021. Boycotting something doesn't give you right to steal anything.

[Ash_735]

Let's tone down the arguments and talks of piracy.

[psxdriverplayer]

8 minutes ago, Kris194 said:

I can't believe, that I'm reading something like this in 2021. Boycotting something doesn't give you right to steal anything.

I'd say this as well. Dunno if buying used copies is any better, since you're paying to the guy who gave their money from that copy to them companies anyway, so I'd see that as indirect support.

[Adminsaredicks]

People probably have no idea how silent patch with PS2 graphic mods saved GTA:SA for me.

I played gta:sa on pc for many years, but I find many things off or broken.

Guess what, now its perfect game without any flaw! Probably even remaster cannot top this!

[CynicalMexican]

Let's just be real GTA: SA looks like ass by default. It looked decent for 2005 but it looks awful today. Mods have saved the game for me entirely, lol.

[Jezus Holy Christ]

47 minutes ago, CynicalMexican said:

Let's just be real GTA: SA looks like ass by default. It looked decent for 2005 but it looks awful today. Mods have saved the game for me entirely, lol.

 

I used to think the same but compare it with other 2004 or even later open world games and you'll see that it's better than you think. San Andreas didn't have the best graphics but at least it didn't look stitched together, unlike some of those games with relatively higher quality textures that stuck out in a sea of inconsistent antialiasing, bad color grading, terrible shadows and lighting, greasy PS2 era reflections on asphalt and terrible animations.

I don't mind graphics tho, I get used to them a few minutes in, but San Andreas was one of the best of its time imo.

[CynicalMexican]

1 minute ago, Jezus Holy Christ said:

 

I used to think the same but compare it with other 2004 or even later open world games and you'll see that it's better than you think. San Andreas didn't have the best graphics but at least it didn't look stitched together, unlike some of those games with relatively higher quality textures that stuck out in a sea of inconsistent antialiasing, bad color grading, terrible shadows and lighting, greasy PS2 era reflections on asphalt and terrible animations.

I don't mind graphics tho, I get used to them a few minutes in, but San Andreas was one of the best of its time imo.

Yeah I definitely don't disagree. Some people think GTA:SA should have the graphics of Half-Life or something, but I doubt they could pull it off at the time given how big GTA SA was.

 

Plus, the more I look at it, the more I appreciate the subtle graphics improvements with GTA: SA. The shadows, for example, were pretty good for the time. The character models definitely looked a lot better too, as did the textures.

[Ash_735]

2 minutes ago, Jezus Holy Christ said:

I used to think the same but compare it with other 2004 or even later open world games

He's talking about the default PC version of San Andreas which lacks a LOT of the graphical features the PS2 version had, luckily mods can restore those features such as the colour correction overlay, blooming sun, grass, correct reflections, etc.

[CynicalMexican]

Just now, Ash_735 said:

He's talking about the default PC version of San Andreas which lacks a LOT of the graphical features the PS2 version had, luckily mods can restore those features such as the colour correction overlay, blooming sun, grass, correct reflections, etc.

 

Even with those ones not in the game, some of the game's default effects just don't look well for me. For example, I'm not a huge fan of the PC sky colors, I prefer a more realistic look, and I don't like the particle effects too.

 

These aren't such revolutionary changes that make the game look too different, but certainly make it better.