Has GTA IV Pushed the bar for future games

[bigpapa400lb]

Has GTA IV Pushed the bar for future games?

 

[Kadayi]

I think it's going to be raising people expectations for future titles, esp those that operate within a similar game space (Mafia 2 for example), but I'd say GTAIV is more an evolution than a revolution. The core game play that existed in GTAIII is still there, it's more the game world and the added degree of interactivity that Rockstar have so successfully built upon.

 

[Raziaar]

For games that feature explorable worlds and especially cities, I'm sure it'll raise the bar. Games like Assasin's Creed have cities and stuff, but I think it's hardly a living breathing world compared to Liberty City.

 

[Dynasty]

Making a believeable world is hard, but I think theyve nailed it here. You see cops arresting other people, people with smoking cars on the side of the road with their bonnets up, people walking around with drinks, newspapers, umbrellas, on the phone etc. Ive yet to see the same model twice walking down the street.

Stuff like cars on the road, people and activities around the city changing at different times of the day is also pretty awesome.

Its little things that make it believable, so yeah, if anyone wants to out-do GTA4, they have a hell of a task ahead.

Think this COULD be our Concord moment.

 

[Kadayi]

For games that feature explorable worlds and especially cities, I'm sure it'll raise the bar. Games like Assasin's Creed have cities and stuff, but I think it's hardly a living breathing world compared to Liberty City.

From what's been said though Liberty City still suffers from the frustrations of space that dogged the earlier games, in that as much as there are many locations you can walk into and explore, there are as many more that are just closed doors and visual wallpaper, and you still spend a lot of time walking into walls as a result.

I can't for the life of me recall exactly who said it, or the exact wording (it may have been Richard Garriott or Warren Spector) but a famous game designer once said something like 'Don't put a phone on a desk in a room unless you intend to let the player use it'. I think there is some truth to that statement.

 

[Bad^Hat]

It's raising the bar for detail and polish in open-world games, but besides that I don't think it's outstanding in any particular field. As a package it's outstanding because it has quantity without sacrificing quality, but on a feature-by-feature basis I don't think there's anything especially revolutionary about it. Except maybe the physics engine, but that's already being used by other games in the future.

If I had to pick one thing, the voice acting. For having such an enormous amount of dialogue, I've never once heard an actor read off-cue. It's always delivered the way it should be, as though they were acting out a single linear script from start to finish, rather than thosands of individual pieces of dialogue.

 

[Dalamari]

I think it's raised the expectations for Saint's Row 2 and Mafia 2 as far as the detail in the world goes

 

[knut]

I can't for the life of me recall exactly who said it, or the exact wording (it may have been Richard Garriott or Warren Spector) but a famous game designer once said something like 'Don't put a phone on a desk in a room unless you intend to let the player use it'. I think there is some truth to that statement.

That's a bit of a silly statement. How can you imply a sense of realism or depth in any kind of environment with that aproach to design? Half-Life wouldn't of had any pipes or control panals lining the walls to give Black Mesa an actual facility like feel; all of the buildings in GTA wouldn't even have the wallpaper, making them even blander or non-existant at all, and how can you show a city if half of it isn't there? If the game puts the player in some kind of office apartment, and there is a phone on the desk, why should the player have to use it? Offices have phones, so what's the problem in it being there to actually give the room a realistic feel to it.

I can see what you mean about the wallpapered rooms and blocked off buildings but it's GTA - it's an entire city. It would take a helluva lot to create every single interior and what benefit would it really have? Sure, some people would go exploring but is it really essential to the game?

 

[Kadayi]

That's a bit of a silly statement. How can you imply a sense of realism or depth in any kind of environment with that aproach to design? Half-Life wouldn't of had any pipes or control panals lining the walls to give Black Mesa an actual facility like feel; all of the buildings in GTA wouldn't even have the wallpaper, making them even blander or non-existant at all, and how can you show a city if half of it isn't there? If the game puts the player in some kind of office apartment, and there is a phone on the desk, why should the player have to use it? Offices have phones, so what's the problem in it being there to actually give the room a realistic feel to it.

I can see what you mean about the wallpapered rooms and blocked off buildings but it's GTA - it's an entire city. It would take a helluva lot to create every single interior and what benefit would it really have? Sure, some people would go exploring but is it really essential to the game?

The statement is a comment on interactivity. If you put a phone on a desk and then deny the player the ability to interact with it,you instantly detract from any sense of immersion in the environment. One second the players worrying about the Zombies outside the door and how they are going to get out, the next they are thinking 'the hell can't I use the phone..stupid Devs' stuff like that hauls them out of whatever atmosphere, your trying to portray. If there's parking meters in a game I expect to be able to put coins in them.

Sure with a game of GTAIV size it's impossible to open every door and have stuff going on behind them, that's a given because of the logistics, but there are ways and means to make the separation between what counts and what doesn't, if you take the time.

 

[knut]

The statement is a comment on interactivity. If you put a phone on a desk and then deny the player the ability to interact with it,you instantly detract from any sense of immersion in the environment. One second the players worrying about the Zombies outside the door and how they are going to get out, the next they are thinking 'the hell can't I use the phone..stupid Devs' stuff like that hauls them out of whatever atmosphere, your trying to portray. If there's parking meters in a game I expect to be able to put coins in them.

Sure with a game of GTAIV size it's impossible to open every door and have stuff going on behind them, that's a given because of the logistics, but there are ways and means to make the separation between what counts and what doesn't if you take the time.

Oh, well when you put it down to interactivity, or a specific genre or scenario that may involve said object then yeah, it's plausible for some sort of discussion, the way you worded it made me think he/they were saying it about things in general.

 

[Kadayi]

I pimped it before in the reviews section but I really recommend watching the 1up round table discussion about the game by the writers there:-

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3167659

I think they do make some pretty valid points, esp about how Rockstar have evolved the gameworld, but the humour hasn't evolved with it. The talking to the guys in line shit is can be skipped though.

 

[Raziaar]

If there's parking meters in a game I expect to be able to put coins in them.

If gamers expect to interact with every single set piece they encounter, given your example of parking meters expecting to be able to put coins in them and getting upset when they can't... they really need to reassess their mindset when it comes to video games, because they're being idiots. Especially when it comes to complex worlds like GTA IV that contains entirely too many things to be able to make pointless game mechanics for each one.

Exceptions to this are things like... for example, viewing scopes like you have in GTA IV. Players would EXPECT to be able to use something like that, because it'll give them the ability to examine their world in a different way. Especially after they climb up a gigantic viewing tower to do so. And that's one of the things rockstar thought was worthy of implementing mechanics before, because it won't be a pointless object, it'll let the players be more drawn into the world they're in by being able to see the city from high up and view how beautiful it is.

 

[Kadayi]

Raz

Feel free to disagree with me using constructed arguments, but don't fall into the trap of trying to blanket dismiss me as an idiot. There are plenty of games out there (and large ones) that obey that simple rule of game design, Fable, The Witcher, Oblivion being some off the cuff examples. With a bit of imagination it's no hardship to introduce means where in you can maintain objects within a game world, but make it abundantly clear to a player they aren't interactive, but merely dressing. In the case of parking meters, it could be visibly out of order. With shops, they can be marked as closed, being refurbished, taped off for crime scene or just plain derelict.

It's generally only necessary to do these things a few times when a player is familiarizing themselves with a game space so that they learn to recognize the interactive from the static. Once they make that jump in understanding then subconsciously they no longer worry about the unimportant. With Portal Valve had to train you as the player to understand the space and think with Portals before they could give you the whole gun. The principal is exactly the same.

 

[PvtRyan]

GTA4 hasn't done anything particularly revolutionary. It's just that it's made with so much money, time, love, dedication and passion that it will not be surpassed by any game any time soon.

 

[Kadayi]

I'd say the unprecedented budget ($100 million) is the biggest factor. Rockstar cite over 1000 people were involved in the games production. I can't think of any other developer whose used those sort of numbers on a project. You just can't rally that amount of input without that kind of budget.

 

[TCfromBN]

But boy, was it worth it.

 

[Kadayi]

Well it's a double edged sword. Personally I think it's great in terms of pushing the envelope, but there are very few developers (maybe 6 at best) who are able to compete on that level. No ones going to front that kind of money into a project that has no existing profile. You need the guarantee of sales to secure that sort of funding.

 

[Raziaar]

Raz

Feel free to disagree with me using constructed arguments, but don't fall into the trap of trying to blanket dismiss me as an idiot.

I'm sorry, I wasn't blanking dismissing you as an idiot. I was pointing out that such expectations are foolish. If I was genuinely intending on calling you an idiot, I would have said that.

I'm just saying it's quite an idiotic though to EXPECT to be able to interact with every single thing in a gameworld such as GTA IV, when gamers should already know there will be many limitations, especially when it comes to gameplay.

It's as much of a responsibility for developers to not allow players to do things, as it is to allow them to do things, so long as the things they allow and disallow follow their vision and don't detract from that vision of immersion.


And I'm sure you can appreciate the ridiculousness if 95% of the buildings in liberty city had "Sorry, closed, Come back later" signs on them, and every single parking meter and mail box and food vending machine and telephone booth had "out of order" signs on them.

That would be FAR more detracting than just not letting players use them. I as a player don't expect to be able to do everything under the sun in a game. I generally have realistic expectations.


If you want to think I was calling you an idiot just because you have those views, feel free, but know I'm not specifically targeting you, I'm targeting players with that mentality.

 

[Kadayi]

But Raz, it's not a player mentality it a game design philosophy, and one that's been tried and tested throughout numerous games. You start a player off in a control space, a small area in which you showcase to them a range of interactive and static objects ranging from vehicles, lamposts, parking meters, telephone boxes, shops etc and this acts as a training ground to educate the player as to what's likely to be worth paying attention to in the larger game space beyond. In order to see the positive, you need a player to be able to separate out the negative. If the first few parking meters I encounter in a game are all out of order, as a player I'm not going to bother looking at a parking meter again as something that's likely to function. In fact it's kind of breaking the rules of play if a game designer reverses that assumption halfway through a game.

Albeit I haven't played it, I know that in Army of two such a thing happens where the player having been taught by the game to believe that they and their buddy can't get over a particular style of wall enter an arena where in fact they can, and it really throws people because they spend ages looking for the exit, before they figure it out through trial an error. That's the sort of thing that instantly kills immersion. Citing Portal again, as the player you quickly learn which surfaces a Portal will adhere to and which ones it won't. The principal is exactly the same.

I don't talk about games so much as player, but more as a person with a keen interest in game design & philosophy as a subject (I'm a designer at heart). Sure I have enthusiasm for games but I'm also critical of them at the same time. How do they work? What works well? What doesn't work so well? And why doesn't that work so well? How can it be improved upon? That sort of stuff interests me, often more so than storyline at times.

 

[Pesmerga]

I played it for a few hours last night. Albeit a little drunk. This is how I felt.

Everything was so huge that I didn't feel like I was accomplishing anything compared to everything that could be done. When I passed up an interesting building to chase a mission objective, I thought "You know, it'll be hours before I figure out where that building was" and I always get the feeling I'm not playing the game "right" if I stray from the missions. Kind of like Oblivion or any other free roaming game.

In the time I played, I didn't see much of a fundamental change from GTAIII. Everything is improved, surely, and the city certainly feels "alive" as it were (although there are ice cream trucks yet no kids?).

 

[Raziaar]

But Raz, it's not a player mentality it a game design philosophy, and one that's been tried and tested throughout numerous games. You start a player off in a control space, a small area in which you showcase to them a range of interactive and static objects ranging from vehicles, lamposts, parking meters, telephone boxes, shops etc and this acts as a training ground to educate the player as to what's likely to be worth paying attention to in the larger game space beyond. In order to see the positive, you need a player to be able to separate out the negative. If the first few parking meters I encounter in a game are all out of order, as a player I'm not going to bother looking at a parking meter again as something that's likely to function. In fact it's kind of breaking the rules of play if a game designer reverses that assumption halfway through a game.

Albeit I haven't played it, I know that in Army of two such a thing happens where the player having been taught by the game to believe that they and their buddy can't get over a particular style of wall enter an arena where in fact they can, and it really throws people because they spend ages looking for the exit, before they figure it out through trial an error. That's the sort of thing that instantly kills immersion. Citing Portal again, as the player you quickly learn which surfaces a Portal will adhere to and which ones it won't. The principal is exactly the same.

I don't talk about games so much as player, but more as a person with a keen interest in game design & philosophy as a subject (I'm a designer at heart). Sure I have enthusiasm for games but I'm also critical of them at the same time. How do they work? What works well? What doesn't work so well? And why doesn't that work so well? How can it be improved upon? That sort of stuff interests me, often more so than storyline at times.

Well.. .for games like Portal which is a confined corridor puzzle game, and most FPS games which follow this corridor format, this Philosophy is sound. But not for games like GTA IV, this isn't a valid design strategy. At least I don't think so. They didn't do it here, and it works beautifully just the way it is. I know almost off the bat, from the first time I try using a telephone booth that I cannot use it, but that makes sense to me because I have a cell phone. But then I see something new, like a viewing scope thingy, and I can use it.

GTA IV accomplishes telling the player what they can and cannot use by a notification at the top left of the screen telling you to press the left bumper button. And this works surprisingly fine in a world that is so huge that has such a wide variety of things that we encounter in every day life. It doesn't tear me away from being immersed.

 

[Tyguy]

Everything was so huge that I didn't feel like I was accomplishing anything compared to everything that could be done. When I passed up an interesting building to chase a mission objective, I thought "You know, it'll be hours before I figure out where that building was" and I always get the feeling I'm not playing the game "right" if I stray from the missions. Kind of like Oblivion or any other free roaming game.

In the time I played, I didn't see much of a fundamental change from GTAIII. Everything is improved, surely, and the city certainly feels "alive" as it were (although there are ice cream trucks yet no kids?).

The missions near the start of the game are generally just to familiarize yourself with the city and controls. I somehow felt like this after a few minutes of playing but when you delve deeper into the game you discover your place in the city.

Trust me, give it time and you'll begin to notice all of those little missions with no real connection to anything start to serve their purpose

 

[-Psy-]

GTA IV accomplishes telling the player what they can and cannot use by a notification at the top left of the screen telling you to press the left bumper button.

But it doesn't tell you whether you can go through certain doors or not. Too often have I walked into doors expecting them to open...

 

[Kadayi]

Well.. .for games like Portal which is a confined corridor puzzle game, and most FPS games which follow this corridor format, this Philosophy is sound. But not for games like GTA IV, this isn't a valid design strategy.

You'll find exactly the same design strategy in place in open world games like Fable, Oblivion and stalker though. Very quickly you get to grips with what you can interact with and what you can't and it informs your play ever more.

 

[Bad^Hat]

It works both ways, though. For an open-world game like GTA which very much thrives on letting the player run amok and discover things for themselves, presenting barriers or showing the player things they can't do breaks immersion and the sense of freedom that the game is trying to create. It's inevitable that a game on the scale of GTA is going to have alot of redundant objects that can't be interacted with, but if you point them out to the player or make them obvious in any way, then it's only going to diminish the effect of the things that can be used.

It's all very smoke and mirrors really, they reinforce the things that work and draw attention away from the things that don't to create a sense of openness. Take the traffic meter for example, on it's own it looks perfectly useable, but as it fits perfectly with the world around it then most people won't even pay it any mind, it will only serve to create a greater sense of immersion subconciously as it falls in line with the world they're already familiar with. If you then put an "out of order" sign on it or something like that, you're immediately pointing to the fact that they can't interact with it, so even if they had no intention of trying to use it otherwise, they're now aware of the fact that it's useless. Of course they might get a similar reaction if they try to use it on their own expecting it to work, but then at least it's an external expectation and not something imposed on them by the game.

tl;dr - GTA is all about "dos", not so much "don'ts."

 

[Raziaar]

But it doesn't tell you whether you can go through certain doors or not. Too often have I walked into doors expecting them to open...

And that is a valid criticism. That's one of the big criticisms people have about the game.

 

[-Psy-]

I wish they would place those little red inverted cones in front of buildings you can enter just like in San Andreas.

 

[Saturos]

The statement is a comment on interactivity. If you put a phone on a desk and then deny the player the ability to interact with it,you instantly detract from any sense of immersion in the environment. One second the players worrying about the Zombies outside the door and how they are going to get out, the next they are thinking 'the hell can't I use the phone..stupid Devs' stuff like that hauls them out of whatever atmosphere, your trying to portray. If there's parking meters in a game I expect to be able to put coins in them.

Sure with a game of GTAIV size it's impossible to open every door and have stuff going on behind them, that's a given because of the logistics, but there are ways and means to make the separation between what counts and what doesn't, if you take the time.

Plus, think about the resources it would take to store that much game. If every single interior in Liberty City was explorable, the game would be like 20GB's big or more. Also, as stated above, GTAIV wouldn't be out now if the devs were still adding that much content. In fact, it probably wouldn't be out till like 2012 or so if every single room in every single building was explorable. That would be quite counter productive on Rockstar's behalf. After all, they are a business.

 

[PvtRyan]

Summary of this stupid debate:

Cons of Rockstar's approach: There's doors that you sometimes walk into that don't open.

Pros of Rockstar's approach: It's out now instead of in 2018. Also, not every store in Liberty City is closed all the time and not every object is out of order.

 

[Kadayi]

Plus, think about the resources it would take to store that much game. If every single interior in Liberty City was explorable, the game would be like 20GB's big or more. Also, as stated above, GTAIV wouldn't be out now if the devs were still adding that much content. In fact, it probably wouldn't be out till like 2012 or so if every single room in every single building was explorable. That would be quite counter productive on Rockstar's behalf. After all, they are a business.

When exactly did I say it was a requisite to make every building in Liberty City explorable?

 

[Omnomnick]

It has pushed the bar high...


Very high...

In other news, WOOT Completed it on Sunday .