rmofarrell

If you follow the current city cycle and the constant attention it got in IV, it seems Vice City is the best bet. But before Rockstar gets cracking, I have a few suggestions. IV's map is basically a more detailed version of III's. Not too much changed, other than slight changes in shape and the addition of Bohan. For Vice City, however, you run into a big problem, mainly, what do you change in the map's size and shape to scale it up to the current generation? It only has two islands, and adding another large island might not be in keeping with continuity. My soulution: Add more cities. Like San Andreas, it would be awesome to cruise between multiple cities, each large enough to give an immersive experience, but also keep their own feel. Huge tracts of land and water could be put between them, opening many possibilities. I'm envisioning a Carribean environment, with Vice City, a model of Bogota and a model of Rio De Janeiro as the other two cities. Bogota and Rio could be on the same island, but divided by a huge jungle (somewhere GTA has yet to go), while Vice City could be on its own large island separated by a large sea. The sea could even have several islands within it, modeling Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, etc. This could open up a whole new approach in GTA: Drug trafficking, Scarface style. What we haven't seen yet is a rags to riches story in which riches actually matter. Niko never climbed to the top of an organization, and never ordered attacks on competing cartels. Some RPG elements could be added, allowing you to choose a course of action, such as in the final mission in IV. Essentially, I'm picturing a game revolving around a drug-fueled war in shit-poor Bogota, circa-1980's cocaine driven Miami that kills in the day and parties at night, and a Rio flooded in tourists, while at the same time being filled by the poor in favelas.

Having no idea where to begin with modding, I was wondering how possible it would be to replace liberty city's map with the Venezuela map from mercenaries 2. People keep complaining that there is hardly any open spaces in gta iv, a la San Andreas. Could you simply replace the map, and certain gameplay features with that of Mercenaries 2? basically I'm thinking: -use gta 4 civilians -use gta 4 gameplay/controls/character models -use gta 4 cars/vehicles except for mercenaries 2 tanks, planes etc. -keep some of the factions of Mercenaries, to keep some of the regional variations you see (running into different factions in different areas) -allow destructible buildings, air-strikes, etc, to get that over-the-top flair. If you wanted to really get into it, you could replace some the the mercenareis 2 urban areas with buildings from gta 4. This would be difficult, particularly dealing with the whole destruction angle. Just thinking that fighting in the jungle would be pretty cool.

Also: 1. AI should be improved, so that killing cops, especially SWAT and FBI would be very difficult. I think the highest level should be military police, with heavily armed soldiers (better than SWAT and more numerous) using military-grade APC's and tanks. I think this would be more likely, and give much more of a challenge - and making 6-star escapes that much more impressive. 2. Buildings should be destructible, like in Red Faction: Guerrilla. Being able to bomb out several floors or even collapse a police building would be pretty damn sweet, as far as missions go, and a little bit of narco-terrorism goes a long way when making a game about criminals. 3. Police responses should be different in different areas of the map. For instance, in Rio, the favelas often experience extremely violent police responses when the police actually show up. Basically drug rings run the hoods, and often have shootouts with police, who also have a knack for killing civilians. I think it would be pretty interesting if, when in the favela, police rarely show up, but when they do, you have to face trigger-happy cops with assault rifles. Basically, I think the game should be a little more realistic. Allowing the city to grow somewhat organically would give players a much more interesting and detailed environment, and these gameplay changes would complement that. I'd like to see a game where you can take on the role of Pablo Escobar (who basically bought himself a seat in the legislature with cocaine money, and when he was threatened with arrest, he hired Marxist guerrillas to attack the Colombian Supreme Court, burning all narco-trafficking papers and killing half the judges) and the like. Chaos is basically what I'm going for.

Alright, so I have several ideas: First, I think Rio would be an excellent location. It is so big that the atmosphere would take elements from almost all GTA games. The downtown could resemble Liberty City, while beach/more coastal areas could resemble the semi-resort areas of Vice City, and the slums and other areas could incorporate elements of San Andreas. Also, the uber-dense 'favela' slums would be awesome to play in, with their insane inclines and windy, dense streets (google 'Rocinha', which is the favela I'm mostly thinking of). Perhaps more important is how I think the city should be built. One of the problems, I find, with GTA 4 (and all sandbox games, for that matter), is the detail of the map. To build something like Liberty City, you have to spend tons of time, and their simply isn't the time to spend on small details or interiors, which are so limited in GTA 4 (and generally in all games). Basically, I think it would be awesome if players could build the city. My idea would go like this: 1. When people buy the game, instead of buying a city, they buy the topography of the city, with few buildings. (obviously the price, considering what you get, would be much lower, though people would pay for the other features) along with all the physics, vehicles, weapons, character models and non-building elements. 2. Next, players would buy points, like Microsoft points, with which they can buy raw materials or templates, with which they can design (or just build template designs) buildings and their interiors, which can be entered (or broken into) in the game. 3. Also, players would pay a monthly subscription fee to download daily updates of the map, which would include the newly-built or changed buildings. The developers would have to include certain building limitations, like if someone builds on too steep of an incline or uses the wrong materials, the building collapses. This would not be an MMO. Players would play locally or with a multiplayer like GTA 4. However, players would be able to pause the game, select a building, and see the information of the builder, and be able to communicate with them. One issue that would have to be figured out is why players would want to build buildings when others already have, a trend which would result in no buildings being built. To get players to build, they'd be required to have a home (rented or owned), as well as furnished to a certain degree (required: bed, sink, table, etc) so that when players enter, they will have something to look at. Worse buildings, like in the slums, would be cheaper, while nicer buildings, like downtown or beach-front, would be more expensive to build (and thus more expensive to purchase from other players). Consequently, people could buy property using points off of others, and get around building, if they have the cash. Since these points are actually worth money, this would result in some people having really nice buildings, if they want to spend the money, while others have really bad buildings, because they don't want to pay. However, here you would run into another problem. There would need to be some sort of incentive to have nicer buildings, such as better weapons/vehicles/clothes/etc, different missions, or something else. When someone pays someone else points for the "deed", that would be exchangeable in real money paid through paypal or something like that. This way, their would be an incentive to sell property like in a real market. People could also rent, which would be cheaper in the short term, though not in the long term, and allow builders to make a profit on building a multi-unit building. In this scenario missions would also be a problem. While you could just cruise around, killing civilians and prostitutes, missions are still some of the best parts of the games. However, making missions in player-created buildings would be problematic, as they could obviously change. Consequently, the developers would have to construct certain buildings/areas in which missions take place. So, the idea obviously has a lot of kinks. Nonetheless, a city created by players, which constantly shifts and changes, would be pretty awesome. Considering the money-side of things, I think it would develop like a read city, with varying degrees of wealth, neighborhoods, etc. This would make the city pretty damn cool to play in. PS: Elements of Rio's real economic differences could be introduced: Players could have a simple job if they buy a shitty house, or a more complicated, upscale job if they bought a better one. Basically, I think the missions/story-lines should be different based on how much money you spend, with wealthier players dealing with rich people, like in Ballad of Gay Tony, or if you spend little money, the story line is grittier, like in Lost and Damned. So, anyways, this is just what I'm thinking would make a sick game. I'd sure as hell buy it. Any feedback?

I think it would be really cool if Rockstar somehow added a political aspect to the games. I know this is not quite what they've done in the past, but to have an open world game where various factions and militias openly compete, or there is some sort of insurgency going on, would be really fun to play. Mercenaries sort of brushed on this, but quite frankly, Rockstar could do a better job in their sleep. I think they could put in features like ambushes where you get some sort of team together and attack an enemy convoy; raids of enemy bases; IED's; and bigger explosives. If you play around, you can sort of do this in GTA IV, but it would be really cool to have it purpose built. Rockstar could invent some sort of fictional city gripped by civil war, such as Beirut during the 1970's and 1980's (and change the names of course), with multiple parties you could choose loyalties to. Destroy-able buildings would be a plus too, giving a bigger sense of realism if you were going to design a war zone. So, these are just my thoughts. Probably not gonna happen, but I think it would be cool if it would. They could make the setting somewhat like this: or this: with heavy urban combat and tight streets, but add big vehicles like tanks and apc's. Also a stretch, but they might be able to add some sort of MMORPG aspect in multiplayer, where you could have a few hundred or thousand players fighting on all sides, belonging to like a half-dozen or more factions with various capabilities. If you look up the Lebanese Civil War, particularly where it pertains to Beirut, you'll get a pretty good picture of what I mean. So anyway, its just an idea, but definitely one I'd buy.