Grimy Parts of The City | Projects Come to life

[Mister Pink]

I love broken, decayed parts of cities depicted in video games. Usually low-income areas have a sense of character and danger.  Places like Bohan in Liberty City or parts of Los Santos in GTA V where Vagos hang out. 

 

In V, I think it lacked really run down poor places. I mean it had them but it never felt scary there. Yeah, there was a threat of gangs but it never felt like there were really deeper-rooted social issues in the fabric of those communities. 

 

I'm hoping GTA VI has proper ghettos. I'm talking about massive housing projects like Pruit Igoe in St. Louis, Cabrini Green in Chicago or Vele di Scampia in Italy. I think they could take some of the worst elements about living in a high-rise complex and emphasis it for GTA. During the day it might be relatively OK, except their might be highly aggressive individuals and easily-provoked gangs. And I think some of these gangs have to be completely unmarked. They aren't wearing colours. These guys are just hoods and will beat the sh*t out of you with baseball bats and other blunt objects if you come close. 

 

 

 

Make these places like their own eco-system. Have a fence in there, and make going in there feel dangerous. That's the price you have to pay for having and wanting to sell stolen goods - you have to go to a sh*tty part of town and deal with hardened street criminals and visit the fence there. Tie car-thief missions to guys in the projects, not guys like Simeon. Make it that you steal cars that are going to get stripped for parts. Make the projects a a living, breathing place.

 

Ultimately, I would like a GTA to start off with street level crime again. A bit like the start of San Andreas. It was great because you started off with nothing. Every dollar counted at the start of the game. Regardless of whether the next GTA has you starting off dirt poor or not, I still think some high-rise projects can be perfect section of the map that can be brought to life. 

 

 

Perhaps there could be lots of enterable old abandoned crack dens/apartments. Some apartments can have the walls knocked through. It could serve as a good place for close-quarter combat online or in some drug dealing missions.  sh*t, maybe you can even buy an apartment there.. and if you do, and as you use more local services danger level might go down as you are recognized as "friendly" and "local." 

 

They could have a unique Pay 'n Spray. Unique, local thrift store that sells used clothing, so you can actually roleplay and blend-in, a fence, a car scrapyard that dismantles cars for cash, drug dealers and buyers. 

 

Would you like to see more fleshed-out ghettos? What was your favourite run-down area in GTA? What would you add or change? 

[WXSTER]

I love the idea of the ghetto buildings maybe you can witness people dealing drugs, fighting in the stairs, people smoking crack etc. Maybe a good place for deathmatches in the inevitable online deathmatch mode. I want to be able to talk to npcs in gta 6 like rdr2 with *greet* and *antagonize* buttons maybe you can get some interesting dialouge from the crack addicts

 

My favourite ghetto in gta is the accesable gta 4 apartment buildings i always spray those guys with a micro smg

[Mister Pink]

5 minutes ago, Lucas wester said:

I love the idea of the ghetto buildings maybe you can witness people dealing drugs, fighting in the stairs, people smoking crack etc. Maybe a good place for deathmatches in the inevitable online deathmatch mode. I want to be able to talk to npcs in gta 6 like rdr2 with *greet* and *antagonize* buttons maybe you can get some interesting dialouge from the crack addicts

 

My favourite ghetto in gta is the accesable gta 4 apartment buildings i always spray those guys with a micro smg

I would love that feature from RDR2. There's something special about verbally antagonizing someone first, with no weapons present. 

 

Yeah, loved the enterable apartments in GTA IV. Loved when it wasn't obvious you could go in some of them but the door just swings open. 

 

I also really liked Greg Johnson projects. 

 

I think Rockstar does pay attention to these places but I'd really love too see them take it too the next level and bring them more to life. They don't have to have main missions there. 

I just want them to exist as a living, breathing part of the map. 

[WXSTER]

32 minutes ago, Mister Pink said:

sh*t, maybe you can even buy an apartment there..

YES i fancy this the gta online properties is so bad because everyone lives in the same houses ( Del perro apartments) (the penthouses worth a million)

 

Having different places to live and some in a real apartment building would be very interesting

[60017 Silver Fox]

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Perhaps there could be lots of enterable old abandoned crack dens/apartments. Some apartments can have the walls knocked through. It could serve as a good place for close-quarter combat online or in some drug dealing missions.  sh*t, maybe you can even buy an apartment there.. and if you do, and as you use more local services danger level might go down as you are recognized as "friendly" and "local." 

 

One thing i'd love to see is being able to use stealth to hide from a gang  and observe their dealings only for a Snowstorm-like (that mission in IV) police raid which you can get caught up in whether you wanted to or not. Just another thing to further remind you that the world doesn't always revolve round the player and that these things can happen whether you're there or not.

 

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Make these places like their own eco-system. Have a fence in there, and make going in there feel dangerous.

That bit about having a fence reminded me of a short film I had to watch in school around 8-9 years old warning people to stay off the railways. In the film a gang of kids snuck through a gap in the fence into a large railway depot where they started spraying graffiti and throwing rocks around barely paying attention to the trains that were slowly moving around only for one guy to trip and get killed. Good times. Especially the moving hand at the end from the Addams Family which i'll never forget.

 

I'd love it if we went to the low-end street crime side of things. Little money, cheap and garbage weapons, community meaning more ect.

[Lemoyne outlaw]

yes i agree i hope they improve on it from 5. i loved the thrift store idea. they could have a parody of the salvation army or goodwill. if the game is set in vice city. i really hope they do a better job than the original vice city. because there were very few areas that felt like a ghetto. even las venturas and san fierro had very few low income places. i feel like saint denis did a pretty good job in red dead redemption 2. you had plenty of mansions and wealthy districts. but you also had a low end district with criminals around. there is even a run down crappy saloon too. which you can actually get ambushed in. there is a soup kitchen and street kids. so i feel like they did a better job than gta 5 did.

[Middle Class Roadman]

5 hours ago, Lucas wester said:

I love the idea of the ghetto buildings maybe you can witness people dealing drugs, fighting in the stairs, people smoking crack etc. Maybe a good place for deathmatches in the inevitable online deathmatch mode. I want to be able to talk to npcs in gta 6 like rdr2 with *greet* and *antagonize* buttons maybe you can get some interesting dialouge from the crack addicts

 

My favourite ghetto in gta is the accesable gta 4 apartment buildings i always spray those guys with a micro smg

 

I think the mission Shadow in GTA IV did a good job with the part I bolded when you followed the dealer into the project building. I don't think we saw the exact things you mentioned but there was defo similar things like someone taking a piss in the corner, people just hanging out, muffled music plying etc. it's a shame it was only like that during that mission though would be cool if that kinda thing was happening all the time in said buildings.

[GTA-Biker]

The only place in GTA 5 that to me feels really run down was the abandoned hotel in Sandy Shores,but that was pretty much empty (other than a few hobos and some stray cats) and perfectly safe to hang around.LS ghettos feel too safe,gang members just stand around and do nothing if unprovoked,there are no random drug deals, muggings, carjackings or shootouts,and there's even rich looking NPCs in business suits walking around sometimes.

I'd love to see ghettos actually being dangerous places,with gang members, thieves, drug dealers, junkies, pimps, prostitutes and hobos hanging around.The NPCs should also do stuff on their own instead of only reacting to player's actions,there should be completely unscripted random events such as thieves mugging people including the protagonist or jacking cars (sometimes the victims might be armed and shoot back), junkies buying drugs from dealers, junkies getting high and ocassionally getting hostile to the protagonist or other NPCs, two allied gangs meeting to deal drugs or guns, people picking up prostitutes, pimps defending prostitutes from agressive customers, random brawls or shootouts between rival gangs, random drive by shootings, SWAT team randomly raiding some drug den or underground gun shop, etc.

Some small rural towns could also be more dangerous,with outlaw biker gangs riding around,hanging out at local bars and diners,and ocassionally randomly starting brawls with rival biker gangs that stop by,as well as some heavily armed rednecks sometimes being hostile to outsiders.

Edited September 7, 2021 by GTA-Biker

[Middle Class Roadman]

25 minutes ago, GTA-Biker said:

The only place in GTA 5 that to me feels really run down was the abandoned hotel in Sandy Shores,but that was pretty much empty (other than a few hobos and some stray cats) and perfectly safe to hang around.LS ghettos feel too safe,gang members just stand around and do nothing if unprovoked,there are no random drug deals, muggings, carjackings or shootouts,and there's even rich looking NPCs in business suits walking around sometimes.

I'd love to see ghettos actually being dangerous places,with gang members, thieves, drug dealers, junkies, pimps, prostitutes and hobos hanging around.The NPCs should also do stuff on their own instead of only reacting to player's actions,there should be completely unscripted random events such as thieves mugging people including the protagonist or jacking cars (sometimes the victims might be armed and shoot back), junkies buying drugs from dealers, junkies getting high and ocassionally getting hostile to the protagonist or other NPCs, two allied gangs meeting to deal drugs or guns, people picking up prostitutes, pimps defending prostitutes from agressive customers, random brawls or shootouts between rival gangs, random drive by shootings, SWAT team randomly raiding some drug den or underground gun shop, etc.

Some small rural towns could also be more dangerous,with outlaw biker gangs riding around,hanging out at local bars and diners,and ocassionally randomly starting brawls with rival biker gangs that stop by,as well as some heavily armed rednecks sometimes being hostile to outsiders.

 

To be fair if you play as Franklin and walk past Ballas they will stare you down and draw their guns to make you move on.

[CynicalMexican]

I feel the Watch Dogs games did the ghettos pretty well. Those sketchy areas of the map felt quite dangerous and were detailed too.

 

Even in GTA 4, I never really got the sense of danger in a ghetto.

 

But, speaking of this, if the game is set in a redesigned Vice City, I really hope they don't put so much emphasis on Vice Beach, and the Mainland is given a lot of justice. Neighborhoods and areas like Little Havana, Little Haiti, Hialeah, Alpattah, Liberty City, etc deserve representation. Los Santos was a joke, almost the entire Eastside of LA was ignored and the Gateway Cities were mostly exempt as well.

 

I'd look to Stilwater in SR2 as a bit of a model; it was meant to be an amalgam of various Midwest cities, so it had a benefit of not following a city particularly closely, but it feels so balanced. The north island had suburbs, trailer park, shopping areas, a marina, high rises, and downtown. The south island had a run down ghetto area, university area, and more working class areas + industrial areas. Not to mention the gentrification of Saints Row.

 

Los Santos had few suburbs, a small ghetto area, an all right number of industrial areas... and a bunch of rich areas, and a f*ckton of countryside. I really wish R* didn't focus so much on the rural areas and the seabed, and instead focused more on making Los Santos more balanced.

[sefus]

Apartment complexes give a more lively feeling to cities then Suburbs, and are a lot more easier to add. 

[GTA-Biker]

12 hours ago, Orbea Occam said:

 

To be fair if you play as Franklin and walk past Ballas they will stare you down and draw their guns to make you move on.

I only noticed them pull out guns if Franklin (or any other protagonist) stands near them for too long,if he's just passing by they ignore him,or at most insult him and tell him to get out of their turf.The only gang that's actually hostile are The Lost MC towards Trevor.

[The Coconut Kid]

Always good to see threads from you Mister Pink. I'm always interested to see how the environment can be developed in future games.

Rockstar do an excellent job of bringing projects to life.

The problem is they only come to life during missions.

Take Holland Nights in GTAIV for example. You've been sent to wipe out drug boss Clarence Little and his crew. They're working out of East Holland and they've got the entire project on Vauxite locked down.

Clarence Little is basically his own ecosystem. Everything that goes down on that block is influenced by him. There are dealers hustling his product. There are heavily armed spotters guarding each tower floor and at ground level. Cars circle the block with equally well-armed backup. And they're all responsive to how you move with Niko as a player. Hang around too long and they'll tell you to leave. Try and break out off the ground floor and into the tower and they'll try and gun you down.

But go there outside of that mission? Place is dead. No goons, no product changing hands... nothing.

This is exactly what they need to address. Imagine the depth of that one mission applied to regular gameplay.

For my favourite run-down areas in Grand Theft Auto it comes down to the Red Light District in GTAIII and Hove Beach in GTAIV.

The Red Light District is the level of sleaze GTA should always aspire to. Working girls touting for business, pimps on the prowl, and three or four different sex theatres. There are the flasher pervs in their hats and macs and trousers with the pockets taken out -- MA MOTHER'S MA SISTER -- and the street thugs who will pickpocket and bash you. But, strangely, it's never been equaled. Washington Beach in Vice City is a more subdued attempt and by the time we get to San Andreas, there's no attempt at a red light district at all.

Which brings me to Hove Beach.

Hove Beach is superbly fleshed-out and is designed to be full of criminal potential. The harshness of the environment is completely at odds with the image of the ideal 'American Dream' Niko has been sold by Roman.

But it could be so much more interactive. Let's have a look at what could be done with it...

Hove Beach is the perfect environment to open up for side-characters linked to random and repeat missions outside of the main storyline. There would be a rotation of working criminals who frequent various businesses in the area who can be approached at any time -- assuming you've developed the appropriate criminal reputation (a rewired honour/fame system from RDR).

The 69th Street Diner:
A bookie working from a booth at the back, giving SP odds on action from Liberty to LV.

Comrades:
A fence and a loan shark have a permanent place at the bar. People will enter from the street and attempt to offload their merchandise.

Perestroika:
Local gangsters who are seeking leg-breakers for hire and are also receptive to lending you a couple of goons-for-hire for the right price. Dimitri, I took care of that thing for you...

Sex Shop:
Has a brothel upstairs which will conveniently replace your health; you can also make a few dollars driving their girls to outcalls. These girls know everything and everyone and can set you up with scores for a percentage.

Alazones:
The remnants of the Italian mob running high-stakes card games from the back room. They also 'float' between local apartments and building sites.

Hot Dog Stand:
This guy doesn't just sell streetmeat; he sells information on possible targets too. He will also hire you to rob and destroy his rivals who are laundering money for local gangs.

Dentist:
Deals with back-alley emergencies for the right price; if you can't make it to the hospital, they'll see you through.

Docks:
Cargo gets lost all the time... white-goods, guns, cars; the occasional bag of diamonds. A great place for exports too.

Body Shop:
They'll perform an autopsy on any car you bring them.

Ball Courts:
Like a magnet for ex-cons; pick up muscle, product or guns -- it's all on sale here.

And this is just one area.

 

Imagine a few of these districts across an entire city or two, each with their own criminal ecosystem and gang dynamics and volatility. Basically, everything @GTA-Bikersaid above.

This doesn't mean they all have to be dangerous -- not unless you're hanging around on the wrong side of sundown; then you might feel a sense of physical threat. Ever notice how neighbourhoods in New York City went to sh*t after they took the mob off the streets in the 1980s and 90s? When there's presence, there's safety. And there's safety, ultimately, because there's profit. The real danger is getting caught between territory. Where are you from, motherf*cker? Cruisin' through this part of town with those plates, you better be giving up or getting the f*ck out...

The game shouldn't just give you opportunities to perform crime. It should give you opportunities to build networks unique to every playthrough.

Roman is a great example of what I mean by this. In the space of two missions you've taken him to an underground gambling club, encountered his (two) loan sharks and been introduced to a potential girlfriend. You're soon introduced to two partners in crime (Jacob and Jermaine) and quickly a third (Brucie). Roman isn't much but he's a hustler -- he's the kind of cabbie you can climb into their taxi and slip them some cash to show you where to find a good time. He also has the kind of drive and ambition that should be woven into every protagonist from here on out.

Place characters like that around the map, in dirty, dangerous, deviant environments, and, as players, let us find our own way into the criminal underworld -- because that's really where a GTA protagonist needs to be permanently fixed.

[The Coconut Kid]

On 9/8/2021 at 9:32 AM, CynicalMexican said:

if the game is set in a redesigned Vice City, I really hope they don't put so much emphasis on Vice Beach, and the Mainland is given a lot of justice. Neighborhoods and areas like Little Havana, Little Haiti, Hialeah, Alpattah, Liberty City, etc deserve representation.

I actually think there's a really strong case for expanding Vice Beach, especially if the next game returns to the eighties.

Vice Beach/Miami Beach was completely different in the 1980s. And if Rockstar neglect this and confine the area just to the stereotypical Ocean Drive, they're missing a massive opportunity.

When we think of Miami Beach, this is what might come to mind.

 

But go back to 1980, and this is the reality.

 

Imagine the shock value. People load up the game, expecting a neon paradise delivered in ultra-HD. What they get instead is akin to a warzone, a Paradise Lost.

The lay of the land in eighties Miami Beach was so extraordinarily different to present day and I wouldn't want to sacrifice a block of that if Rockstar decide to revisit it.
Collins Avenue and Washington Avenue -- both bland, high-end shopping districts in present day Miami -- and previously portrayed as completely uneventful in both Vice City games, were total red light districts in the 1980s.  

Imagine pr0n theatres, billboards hanging over the street like something out of Times Square in seventies New York City; imagine peepshows and divebars and twin-screen adult cinemas advertising hardcore S&M, gay-and-straight. Imagine burned out hotels, relics of the 1950s, being used as flophouses and shooting galleries. This was the dirty, dangerous, decayed Miami Beach of the early 1980s.

Imagine the ex-cons unleashed on Miami by Fidel Castro robbing, killing and raping for sport. Imagine them fighting it out with the Colombians in the streets for control of the cocaine trade and the bodies left bullet-addled in the streets. Imagine Marielitos evicted first from Tent City and later the Orange Bowl, abandoned hopelessly beneath the palm trees of Ocean Drive, hounding old folks for money so they can beg a boat back to Cuba. Imagine the South Beach pier and the lighthouse inhabited by the homeless population and in a tragic state of disrepair.

Imagine the Haitian refugees washing up on that pristine Vice Beach in tyretubes and dinghys. Imagine the tents set up as makeshift refugee camps on those beaches to house them. Imagine them looking at you with their blank, vacant stares and imagine your protagonist backing away from them very slowly, very carefully, because these are the refugees that Miami doesn't want, doesn't know what to do with and doesn't know how to handle them. Vice City will eventually make devils out of them, accuse them of severe mental illness, accuse them of bringing AIDS to the United States, and they will stare out on your empire from between the bars of detention centres.

Imagine, as the protagonist, overcoming all of this, taking control of the city and eventually transforming Vice Beach as your own personal playground. Wouldn't it be worth it?

You are also absolutely right. Mainland Vice City was totally neglected. Let's look at how they could improve on it. I'm going to stick with the eighties again but anyone is welcome to contribute from any era.

Little Havana and Little Haiti were both significant sites of cultural transformation. Prior to 1980, Little Haiti didn't even exist. Little Havana, by contrast, had been thriving as a Cuban enclave for years. After the Marielito migration of the 1980s, it was truly the Cuban community who led Miami's revival and this should be recognised. Hialeah must be included. Imagine Hialeah Race Track and being able to place bets or even own horses. Imagine playing chess and dominoes in Calle Ocho. Imagine the chaos of Tent City and the Orange Bowl and the Marielitos roaming the streets in search of friends and families.

Imagine Liberty City in the aftermath of the 1980 riots... or the 1982 riots, or the late 80s riots. Imagine Overtown at the height of the crack epidemic and as the hub of the Southern U.S. heroin trade. Imagine Opa-Locka -- "The Triangle" -- where they literally erected concrete barricades to stop people moving in and out and control the drug trade. Imagine the red light district of 79th Street West Little River with its sex shops, strip clubs and pr0n palaces. Imagine the open-air drug markets and hooker stroll of Biscayne Boulevard. Imagine the suburbia of Kendall with drug fortresses encased in metal shutters and barbed-wire fences.  

Imagine the cranes and the steelwork and the eventual skyscrapers towering over Downtown and Brickell. Imagine being the power behind not only the transformation of Vice Beach, but Vice City too...

In many ways, and across many eras, Vice City can be revisited as the most grimiest, dangerous location we've seen yet. And Rockstar are best placed to achieve that if they focus on both Vice Beach and Vice City.

[sabitsuki]

On 9/7/2021 at 6:26 PM, Mister Pink said:

 favourite run-down area in GTA

Probably just me but I really loved the industrial parks and blight areas of Alderney around Plumbers Skyway, especially in TLAD. There's just a unique, contemporary American gothic feel about that area that's very evocative of Rust Belt cities in the Northeast, Southeast and Midwest, like the juxtaposition of violent crime and heavy industry.

 

Listening to the EFLC versions of LRR, LCHC or Radio Broker while driving around there was quite the experience.

Edited September 21, 2021 by sabitsuki