trashbat

If I must spell it out, I'll spell it out. I don't really think toast and tax returns would make a good game. I don't really want to see a title called 'Grand Theft Average'. I don't really want this level of realism because reality is, for the most part, dull. I was - I thought quite obviously - taking the piss.

So no issues with the filling out a tax return bit then? Christ.

I'm a software engineer. I think it's quite high, but not surprisingly so - this is Rockstar's breadwinner, and it'll make them a huge amount of money for - I imagine - relatively low cost, so why not employ the extra staff? SA sold about 3 million copies, apparently, and so that's say about £90 million revenue - no idea what profit is, but a lot. The wage bill for that many software developers, for a year or two, is peanuts in comparison.

I really, really hope - for your sake - you didn't read that properly!

I have another idea. You play the part of a bitter protagonist called Cuthbert, and the carnage begins at 8.30 on a Monday. Gameplay will be in real-time and with highly detailed missions. Like previous GTA games, you are not able to access certain areas, such as outside your house, until completing certain objectives, like making some toast and brushing your teeth. You will get to experience open environments across large urban landscapes - this is what you have to walk across because you can't afford a car. When you do arrive at your place of work, engage in an exciting minigame in which you have to perform 100 successful marketing calls - get pressing those buttons over and over again if you want to pass! When you complete this task at around 7pm and return home, perhaps on a bicycle you have negotiated some interest free finance for, a wealth of exciting opportunities is presented to you, such as the secret 'fill out a tax return' game, or having to pay the gas bill via the engaging and innovative telephone system! Soon your character finds himself tired and even exhibits realistic and accurately modeled clinical depression, and goes to bed. Don't worry though - stick around for six hours or so, and the fun begins again! Grand Theft Average - coming October 16th!

It sounds like you (and in fairness, lots of other people) want the game to be much more of a chore than anything else, which I don't get. I really think - ignoring any issues of feasibility and cost - it's all stuff you'd say 'that's cool' the first and maybe second time, and then get really sick of afterwards, surely? I don't think you're going to fare too well with any ideas of aircraft hijacking either, but never mind

The prototype car creation could go quite a long way. Components or options already present are something like: * wheelbase: FWD/RWD, 4WD, tracks, hovercraft, plane wheels, plane floats * engines: normal, fans, jets * weapons: machine guns, cannon, maybe flamethrower * addition of wings i.e. microlite style or maybe even rotor * a few bits and pieces like the magnetic crane Stick some of those together in a standard framework and add some kind of automagically generated body shell to fit on it. In fact maybe what you end up making determines whether it's any use or not. You can create a tank with wings but it sure won't fly, and it'll sink if it goes in water. If you balance the options, characteristics and capabilities correctly you can create bespoke vehicles to do various things like flight, amphibious travel, very fast travel etc. Another idea tied in with that from before - there could be special chaos modes, a bit like rampages. You've seen it's possible to customise the water level in SA to the point where it's either bone dry or covers the skyscrapers. Integrate this into the game in this way so it doesn't interfere with the plot and you can do what you like - missions around it perhaps. Maybe the same applies to some kind of terraforming or other environment changes - that's how you get away with non-permanent changes like blowing a dam or something. Can't think of anything else off the top of my head but I'm sure there are some. Riot mode, martial law etc. On the subject of respect/factions, maybe there could be ongoing battles between gangs or other elements (the police). You come across one of these, join in for one side, and if you are deemed to have helped them out they become a little more friendly - perhaps offering missions etc. It's a bit more direct than just killing certain people to influence one gang, and its effect can be overridden by the plot. Oh and being able to summon help might be a nice touch. On demand you can call in a car full of hired guns, a transporter with a certain vehicle, a helicopter either delivered or to take you somewhere... an airstrike? These things could become available as you meet people through missions during the game.

Some things I'd like to see, in a little detail... Large scale movable objects - ships are the obvious ones, but maybe other stuff too. You need the right environment to put them in but in GTA:SA it was possibly doable. To go with that you should be able to sink/destroy them with some form of reasonable modelling. Edit: oh yeah, car ferries, transporter trains, that sort of thing. Large scale structural damage. The difficulty with this one is how it fits in with the plot. Suppose you crash your ship into the Golden Gate style bridge in SA, and do it some serious damage. How and when does it get repaired? Along those lines is possible demolition, arson and terraforming, but it probably faces more practical gaming problems than it's worth. Proper controllable train systems would be good, with signalling, points and other sets travelling around. I thought some form of 'build your own vehicle' might be an idea. Think Tanktics, if you remember that! You could have sets of components, i.e. pick a base - tank/wheels/hovercraft, a body, and features like a weapon or power etc and basically end up with a prototype that has handling characteristics based around those choices. Improved helicopter and aircraft handling would be good - esp. partial loss of control when a helicopter's hit, instead of it just catching on fire. More military kit might be nice; it's something only touched upon lightly in most GTA incarnations. It feels like there's more potential there. Civil war? Heh. More character behaviours and random mutations thereof. Maybe traffic jams, road rage, random crashes etc, I don't know. Rarities and minor unusual events add value, I think. Longer term behaviours too - people with destinations or routes perhaps incorporating transport or parked cars. Just a little detail. Emergencies and responses independent of your actions might be an idea - it's all realism. More stuff to do once the game is theoretically 100%'d. I guess this means events and randomised things that keep going on. Random mutations are the key again - things that are always slightly different to keep you playing. That's into game theory but I reckon you could easily automatically generate missions from components. For instance take the SA flight school and the waypoint missions. Why stop there? Generate some waypoints in random places and make the route different every go - now you can play it any number of times and it's always new. Say, assassination missions are simply a person, a place, and some story. Generate them. Definitely more opportunities with what's available already; someone mentioned putting out forest fires with planes - great. Lots there - off the top of my head, crop dusting games, garbage collection, boat races, airlifts, helicopter rescue etc. Simply look at the resources and ask what's doable with them - I think that's cheaply done. Also when stuff is implemented for missions, like the SA magnetic helicopter or GTA3's bulletproof cars, keep it accessible afterwards at all times by default. You've got the reward so you shouldn't lose it, and there's more opportunity to use it. Perhaps completing the game should reset everyone's hatred of you, or something similar - like God-style control over the environment. I found GTA3's constant gunfire after finishing it a little disappointing. In this respect I really liked GTA2's respect levels - a hidden/subtle version of this might be nice. Perhaps this is a good core for the gameplay, but I wouldn't expect to see it back. For me the main thing would be some form of user-friendly (at some level, I don't mind some programming) scripting and customisation. Making mod development more accessible really extends the life of a game. It's highly unlikely to happen - dev tools now are licensed/proprietary, and more importantly it's time and effort spent for no money. Still, the best games offer this IMO. What do you think? I've been playing GTA3 again so I've been thinking about this a lot. Wouldn't it be lovely if R* took notice?