how do you want the first chapter of the story to be like?

[Lemoyne outlaw]

i really love the beginning chapter of a rockstar game. mostly the open world ones. i don't know what it is. but i feel like they are more entertaining and fun. even though most of them are tutorial missions. they just have some kind of nostalgia that the rest of the story does not. here is an example. in chapter 2 of red dead redemption 2. one of the first missions is going to valentine with the girls. we get our first glimpse of the town. and see some of the amenities that it has to offer. its so cool to see the gang so happy. with the girls singing. uncle and his lumbago meme. checking out the general store. and visiting the hotel and getting in a fist fight. and then chasing down jimmy brooks and deciding his fate. this one mission is so memorable and nostalgic to me. and its just one of many awesome missions in this chapter.

 

i also think the location has a lot to do with it. chapter 2 is set in the heartlands. which is the closest thing we have to a desert western location in the new map. so we really get to feel like we are playing in the wild west. when chapter 3 comes around. im usually getting kind of bored. the missions start feeling a little less memorable or exciting. and some of them are just a chore to get through. of course there are some good missions in this chapter. but it lacks that amazing nostalgic feeling i have with chapter 2. even chapter 4 which is my favorite overall chapter. does not have the same feeling from chapter 2.

 

and this is the same for most other open world rockstar games. with gta 5 i love those opening missions. from visiting a new location to the series. and meeting franklin and doing some hood missions with him. then finally having michael and doing missions with his family. the first heist was great. and all the way up to when trevor goes to los santos. i feel like once trevor gets to ls. the story starts to lose that nostalgic feel again. and it goes downhill when we start working for the fib.

 

many other games have the same effect. so i really hope gta 6 will have an amazing memorable beginning. what kind of intro missions would you want to see? and when should we get our first gun? in the red dead games we start off with a revolver. in gta 5 the prologue has a big shootout. and franklin gets his first gun in his second mission. gta 4 takes a lot longer to get a gun. how about other things like unlocking clothes stores, gun shops, car mod shops, unlocking the cell phone. all of this and more. how do you prefer the intro missions to work?

[universetwisters]

I don’t want it to be a boring slog of tutorial after tutorial like GTA 4 and RDR 2 and even Mafia 3 were 

 

Consider it like this; if you’re old enough, you have your own nostalgic memory of the first time you popped in Vice City or San Andreas or whatever into the disc tray and played it and what you did to make you fall in love with the world, right? Having a forced tutorial and “slow” sections that show you the world (as opposed to letting you find out about it on your own) really take away from that magic IMO. Wouldn’t it be better to have a special memory of a personalized first impression of a game as opposed to a collective one shared by hundreds of other people?

Edited March 20 by universetwisters

[rjmthe2nd]

Thread says first chapter

 

 

Proceeds to talk about chapter 2 in RDR2

[Mister Pink]

I always thought Rockstar weren't too patronizing when it came to tutorials. I remember in San Andreas we got bikes for the first time. In retrospect, it seems bonkers that everyone goes to a funeral on push bikes but at the time, being a young naiive gamer, it seemed cool. It was weaved into the story.

 

With regarding the first chapter.. ooh.. good question. I hope like Vice City and San Andreas we quickly see the gripe, the injustice done to our character. Give me one antagonist quickly. Start me off poor and something sh*t happens me and I'm with our main character wanting to right the wrongs in the world.

 

We could be a beat cop like Felix Gallardo in Narcos and you see corruption around you. You're underpaid and under appreciated but all of a sudden you get the opportunity to make some quick cash but it goes kind of tits up.  I'd love to play as someone who's smart, has an entrepreneurial spirit but was dealt bad hand. We can empathize with his situation. He's poor but being a white collar or blue collar guy doesn't cut. So he chooses a path that's perhaps not great but possibly rewarding. 

 

He's an anti-hero.. he's not quite Tony Soprano but he's capable of doing bad things.. but he's human and has conscious.. 

 

So first chapter, let me see the protag being poor.. grinding away. But opportunities arise.. I don't want him forced in to crime against his will.. but perhaps lured into it due to his life's circumstances.

 

Narcos inspiration..

Edit: 

Spoiler

There's this low-ranking cop in Narcos Mexico. He's a beat cop. It's a sub-plot or b-plot to the show. I haven't finished the show, so I don't know the conclusion and no spoliers. We first see him accepting bribes. That's kind of par for the course. Cops in Mexico in 80's/90's were underpaid and the country rife with corruption and bribery. We're introduced to him being asked by a concerned mother looking for her young missing daughter. At first, in the whole scale of crime and corruption that show built up, we're not even sure if he's actually going to try search for her. Aside from the fact that this woman feels the need to pay a policeman to do his basic duties, we're kind of introduced to the working class - those that aren't in the game, so to speak. Slowly we discover that this guy starts to feel for the missing girl, and not just motivated by money, but perhaps his own moral compass, he decides to figure out what happened her. As he does this, he's roped into seedy places and even seedy work. It's a slow burn as a b-story to cartel wars but it's fascinating. He ends up doing or being in the presence of scum, in order to get closer to the truth. 

 

I would love our protagonist to be drawn into a life of crime like that. 

 

Edited March 23 by Mister Pink

[Lemoyne outlaw]

17 hours ago, rjmthe2nd said:

Thread says first chapter

 

 

Proceeds to talk about chapter 2 in RDR2

well the first chapter was super boring and limited. you can only stay in colter. i consider chapter 2 to be the first real chapter. when you can free roam the map and visit towns. so would you like to contribute to the discussion?

[Thomas Cavendish]

People will always complain about the first chapter.
Because they always want to jump to turmoil, havoc, and trying to get six stars. Most of people want to just jump into that.

But thank god, single player is still about storytelling.
Colter chapter is absolutely ESSENCIAL to the storytelling. That slow pace is essencial to the story.
Don't you like that? go online, you will get what you want in the first free roam you get.

[rjmthe2nd]

On 3/23/2022 at 11:29 AM, Lemoyne outlaw said:

well the first chapter was super boring and limited. you can only stay in colter. i consider chapter 2 to be the first real chapter. when you can free roam the map and visit towns. so would you like to contribute to the discussion?

You're right, it was just jokes

 

I believe GTA VI will follow RDR2's blueprint when it comes to "States" and "Chapters" which is why if the Cartel Vice City leaks were true I'd imagine the Prologue would take place in a linear setting in Colombia or Mexico, similar to North Yankton or Colter where you're limited.

 

Edited March 29 by rjmthe2nd

[Jasmyn]

I really liked how in GTA V you begin with the robbery in North Yankton, so I hope GTA 6 starts off with something like that also...

[thebaddude12]

I want a introduction mission not so short but not so long like in GTA V in GTA games we want to freeroam the soon as we can like go to point A to B buy this things to learn go to the point B to C and after a cinematic go home and mission finished something like in GTA TBOGT you need to go to multiple locations to know the basic without problems with the enought time but not so long and have a freeroam soon

[Dallas0727]

Like GTA V and RDR2, I expect an introduction that is not too long and that can show us what the game's footprint will be, that shows us and convinces us that it will be a very good story... After all, it was long years of waiting so I believe that in the intro they can "tell" us that all this waiting was not in vain and that from the beginning we can say: wow, this game looks like it's going to be amazing. 

[PinbaII]

I'd love to see not the first but every "chapter" of the story dedicated to a specific area of the map, just like it used to be in previous games (and in RDR2).

 

For the first chapter, I'd like to see it being an escape from another town, something along the lines of what happened in North Yankton (GTA5) but without any timeline skip.

Many small events could then happen, like an Interpol-like organization searching for you as well as enemy gangs/mafias. A bit like the Pinkertons in Red Dead Redemption.

 

But whatever the initial chapter is, as long as its tutorial is short enough to let us enjoy the game quickly  (unlike RDR2), I'm fine with it. What matters is the whole story coming right after it.

 

Edited April 10 by PinbaII

[thekingbutten]

I think despite what people may say GTA 5 did handle the pacing a bit better than RDR2 or even GTA 4. 4 has more story to it in the build up to action which is essential to the more somber, down to earth nature of the plot. 5 on the other hand (excluding the North Yankton prologue) gets you into the action in a way that both narratively makes sense and is paced well enough to keep you from being too bored. RDR2, as much as I like the game, does have a very slow start that is too obviously a tutorial. I like the slow start with Colter but it absolutely turns people away from the game.

 

So I think the best way to handle things would be to have a slower start, right as the game begins. Build up the world, the characters and begin to establish key plot points. But interspersed into all of that would be moments of action, say the game establishes the protagonist has a brother who is into the drug dealing business (totally original plot-point definitely not present in any other GTA game). The early missions could be running errands with him like with Roman in 4. Nothing too violent right away, but then out of nowhere a mission could pop up which is a drug deal gone bad. Suddenly you're pulled into conflict that may persist for a bit but importantly hasn't persisted from the beginning. The game up to that point hasn't been constant skirmishes, it has been slower. Making the sudden change of pace more of a shock and a bigger dopamine hit to the player which keeps them engaged longer as they're waiting for the next hit.

 

But above all else, to get the pacing right they need to make sure the opening portion of the game isn't locked to an area like Colter. It doesn't have to be as open and unrestrictive as 5 was, and it probably shouldn't be, but instead of putting the player in a vacuum let them run around and get into chaos. A GTA game where you can't go on a rampage right after the opening mission isn't a true GTA game in my eyes.

[mariana_dm1989]

I would love it if it started in a long gone decade preferably the 80s.

[WanteD1]

A flashback from Vietnam!