Page 5 of 13

Re: GTAV Trailer Released, Aircraft!

PostPosted:
by AADX



Interview: Rockstar North president Leslie Benzies on GTA Online

By Tim Weaver, Managing Editor for CVG UK

He's President of Rockstar North, his games have sold more than 130 million copies, he's the mastermind behind September's GTA V and GTA Online - and he's given so few interviews since the release of GTA III, you probably don't need a hand to count them on.

Entering the fourth floor of Rockstar North's top secret Edinburgh bunker feels like charting undiscovered territory. And yet, for a man who prefers to shun the limelight, Benzies is affable, welcoming, and incredibly upbeat. He also looks surprisingly stress-free for someone four years into development on Rockstar's biggest ever game.

Maybe it's the two air conditioning units running simultaneously at either end of his XXL-sized office. Or the scented candle he's burning. Or the fact he's the owner of the World's Biggest iMac. Or maybe - as the wall full of vehicle printouts, idea-crammed whiteboards, and TVs showing live feeds of bug fixes, attest - maybe he's just really, really good at these things after eight successive Grand Theft Autos.

More GTA: An exclusive first look at GTA Online | GTA V O'Clock: CVG's massive weekly GTA V show | Our preview of the GTA V single-player experience

"It's hard to understand what GTA Online is," he says when we ask him why he's decided to open up the doors to us now. "It's such a new development for us, I thought it best you got the info from the guys here who know."

But, the truth is, in forty-five minutes we covered a whole raft of subjects: GTA Online, GTA V, next gen, Cloud gaming, and much, much more. It's big. It's hugely interesting. It's exclusive. Oh, and if four-player tennis appears in the final game, you know who to thank...

When did you first start to think about GTA Online, and what was your vision for it?
Rockstar North president Leslie Benzies

This started when we began making GTA III, and every single game we've said, "Right, now we're going to do it, now we're going to do it," and I guess we've never felt like we've had the manpower or the tech power to do it. Now the time is right. We had a great engine to work from, and we had the staff to do it.

On GTA V O'Clock, we've been speculating for a while that GTA Online would, in fact, be an MMO-style experience - and it's exciting to see that's definitely where it's headed. A by-product of that is that players will be able to create their own missions and reshape the world. Can you expand a little upon that?

Well, let's take the most simple example: a deathmatch. You open up the Creator, you place all your spawn points, place some props, place cars, place planes, place anything you want around the world. When you're happy you've playtested it, when you're happy to publish, hit the button, and it sends it up to the Cloud - our Social Club Cloud. That's then available for everyone else in the world to use.

So, when (your friend) boots their game up, they could pick you as a preferred creator, and then all your content will get sucked back into (their game). It's constantly evolving. Everybody creates things. You choose whose content you want to see. You set up a blue marker, and that's kind of the instigator of the mission. You walk in there, and then it triggers whatever you've created. And that will constantly be evolving, so we'll be creating content all the time - every day you'll boot up the game and there'll be new things coming in.

But the tools for the Creator won't be available at the start?

Initially, you'll be able to create races and deathmatches, which are probably the simplest. And then, over time, when we feel comfortable that people are ready to get the new creators, they will be released. So it'll be a trickle, but it'll be a constant release of new creators and new content. We don't want to overdo it. It's a complex system. That's another reason for the two week delay between single-player and Online. We want to give people an opportunity to actually get their heads around what's happened, because even single-player is a big advancement from the old games. There's a lot of new things to learn.

"Grand Theft Auto Online is a different entity, a separate thing. It's not part of GTA V. It'll grow on its own..."

So, you could, in theory, have launched at the same time?

We could, but we want it to be known as a different entity, a separate thing, and it'll grow on its own. It'll be GTA Online; it's not part of GTA V. Obviously it's set in the GTA V engine, but it's going to grow and evolve into its own thing.

And after two weeks, how will you get access to it?

When it launches, you'll have an extra character on your Switch Wheel. Instead of choosing Franklin, Michael or Trevor, you'll select your multiplayer character and you'll be sucked straight in there.

So your multiplayer avatar will appear after two weeks?

Yes.

There won't be any other download required?

There may be a tiny download, but it'll just be a code. We've just got to figure out how that will work with Sony and Microsoft.

When you first start playing Online, will you have anything to start with, any stats that will carry over from the single-player game?

There's a character creation system, so you'll create a new character to start with. But, no, none of your stats, as the three guys in GTA V, (will carry over). Again, this speaks to the difference between the two: the world of Grand Theft Auto Online is set slightly before the events of GTA V, and so while it shares some of its experiences and it shares characters, the stats are all separate.

They're all separate, yeah. Each character has his own set of stats, and as you create your character, depending on what you're creating, your stats will be different.

So Michael, Trevor and Franklin don't exist within GTA Online?

We've got to be careful for story spoilers. (Laughs)

Okay. When you start GTA Online, you presumably begin with no money. So what are your first steps in the game to get things moving?

In traditional GTA style, you'll be taken on a journey through the first few missions of the game, just to give you a feel for it. We'll have the usual Rockstar help, to keep you on the straight and narrow all the way through. So, it'll be a nice, hopefully well-paced introduction to the game. There's a lot for people to learn, so we don't want to just throw you into the world. You're not just going in and playing deathmatches.

Characters from GTA V will introduce you to the experiences of GTA Online. You'll meet characters from single-player, who'll introduce you to things in the same way as they do in single-player. So, for example, someone will say to you, "Here's Ammunation, here's where you can get weapons..." It's got a flow like a single-player has a flow, so there is a progression through some things - not a story, but a progression through Online. It's a different type of flow.

At the end of the demo, you mentioned that players are ranked on performance and everything is tracked. What kinds of things will players be ranked on?

It depends on the type of mission. A deathmatch will score differently to a race, which will score differently from what we saw today, which will score differently from any other mode, so it just depends what mode it is. But we do have an internal score that we hold, that can rank people. It encompasses shooting, driving, flying, parachuting, so we can tell where people exist within the leaderboard.

And is that just for internal use - or will players be able to see that information?

There's enough data for people to know exactly where they stand within all their skills.

Do you have any plans for people to gain access to that data when they're not necessarily tied to those consoles? For example, on an iPad or phone?

Everything's available through the Social Club. Social Club pages will all work through iPhones and iPads.

So no plans for specific apps?

I think if (the Social Club pages) are written well, you don't really need to. They'll be written specifically so they work on Android and iOS. You'll be able to get all your stats. It's a little bit finicky on an iPhone, but it's all available.

As you complete missions, you also showed that you can share your winnings. Have you found, as you've played it, that certain types of personality have developed because of that; that people are willing to become the bad guy?

Yeah, of course. Even in a race, you've got the (people) who will happily clip your back end as you start a race to get you out - or some guys will help you. So, definitely, there's going to be a lot of different types of players. I guess the tricky thing with Online is keeping all these players in the same world, and not having them mess with each other too much. So, we've got some good cheater management, some bad sport management, to make sure everybody's behaving themselves.

"We've got some cheater management, some good bad sport management, to make sure everybody's behaving..."

We were going to ask how you prevent it becoming like Lord of the Flies...

With a lot of these things, we don't see the problems until we actually sit in a big session and play. We've got a thing called Passive mode. If you're spawning and being killed immediately, go to Passive mode - it means you can't shoot people, but they can't shoot you. So you can just kind of hang around and get to grips with the game.

A lot of what we saw in the demo today appeared to be team-based or versus AI. Will there be much direct, head-to-head player combat?

Yes. They were kind of tricky to show in this format, and I think we all know what kind of style they come in. So, yes, all the traditional stuff is there, plus a bunch of new modes.

You also showed how, if you're carrying a lot of cash, and then die, that money then spills onto the streets, so there's a big risk carrying cash around...

Yeah. You want to be visiting the bank a lot. So, do I want to do this job with fifty grand on me, or do I want to go to the bank and take five with me? It's another little gameplay element.

You can also insure cars now, so that - if someone steals it, or blows it up - you can get that same car back for a premium. You can also leave your cars somewhere in the world, and come back to that place and they're still there...

We don't let anyone steal your personal vehicle. If we were in a personal vehicle, and I jumped out as the owner, you could take it. But if it's locked, it's locked. You could blow it up, if you're that way (inclined), but anything that's going to annoy other players, we will punish by giving you what we call a Bad Sport stat. We store how you behave in there. If you're too bad, you will be punished.

Can other players see when someone has a Bad Sport stat?

Yeah. They'll be able to check it out, and think "I'm not playing with that guy."

So going back to the vehicles - are you almost more encouraged to buy them than to steal them?

You can buy cars, just like you can (in the real world). Or you can steal them if the mod shops are prepared to dabble with them. If they are, you can spray them and change the plates. If they're not prepared to do that, when the cops spot you in a stolen car, you'll get a Wanted level.

Is that why you'd want to employ the $50-a-day man to mod your stolen cars?

He won't deal with stolen cars. All he does is repair busted-up vehicles, and deliver your car. So, if you're out in the countryside without transport, you can give him a phone and he'll come out and drop the car off for you.

We saw switches of camera angles as you were driving in the demo - that's all still manually controlled?

Manually controlled. Remember in GTA IV, you had all the cinematic cameras, and you could flick the stick up and down to change the modes? All that stuff - an expanded version of that - is in GTA V, and in Online.

So with that in mind, are there any plans to give people the opportunity to record, edit and share videos they've made?

A dream of ours is, when you finish the game, you press a button, and it's made a film of your game. Maybe one day. It depends on lots of things.

It sounds complex...

Not really. It's all doable.

How is Weazel News going to work online? You showed news feeds of fellow players escaping from the cops - are we going to have the ability to share them?

You don't share them. All you can do at the moment is watch the feeds when people have Wanted levels, from your apartment. It doesn't get fed out anywhere else.

It'll just pick the people who are currently on Wanted levels?

It'll pick your friends, Crew members, if they've got Wanted levels, yeah.

What sort of money can you earn from missions?

The money in the game is one of the things that has to be so very finely balanced that we're still working on it. If I was to give you a number, it would probably change tomorrow. Because you're buying properties, and you're buying cars, and you're earning money, we need to make sure that that fits in with the flow. So it'll change. But we try and base everything on real life, so imagine the kind of sums you would get in real life for doing a job. If you're robbing a store, you're going to get a couple of hundred dollars, three hundred dollars; if you're nicking a car, you're going to get a thousand, two thousand, depending on the car. We'll probably base it on what happens out there.

"We try and base the economy on real life, but it's so finely balanced, we're still working on it..."

We saw, in the recent gameplay trailer, that you could invest in stocks and shares as well - will you be able to do that too in GTA Online?

Yeah. You can go online, buy some shares in a car company, target that company's cars, blow them up so the insurance will replace them and the stock price will go up. Everything's tied in, the same as it is in single-player.

So could you, as an online group, organise into cartels?

You could, yeah. But then, of course, there's the government - us - who has to make sure there's nothing untoward happening.

Can you give us a steer on the geography of that last mission, where we stole the Titan? It looked like the player came along Vespucci Beach, along the western coast, and there looked like there was another, previously-unseen town on the western edge?

That wasn't all of the map. You saw a bit of city, you saw some countryside, there's a whole other chunk of map. (The air field that you end up at) is where the plane in the (first) demo took off from. A big military plane. In fact it was the same plane that we stole today. That's what Franklin looked at in that demo when he was parachuting.

And we landed next to the Alamo Sea in that last mission?

Yep. It was in Blaine County.

And approaching Zancudo River way?

You guys know your shit! You saw a bit of a map, and there's a lot more going on. There's a lot of toys out there, and a lot of areas for people to use, to make their missions.

We still get a lot of feedback from people saying the map isn't that big...

It's big, and the level of detail in there is ridiculous. It's really quite impressive what the artists have managed to do; to squeeze it all on to this machine.

Wheeling back to the sections set in and around your apartment, there was a show playing in the background on the TV which looked like it was set in and around a private detective agency...

You guys don't miss anything!

Are you allowed to talk a bit more about that?

You know what, to be honest I don't know what that is.

Really?

Yes.

So, your team has gone off and created something entirely off their own back?

There's a lot of stuff in there. Those TV shows, I think they just went into the game a week ago, so I've not had the chance to watch them. But everything's tied into the world in some way. It's going to relate to something that's happening in the world.

We saw a glimpse of the planning room in your apartment too...

Yes. You will get a very similar planning board to what you get in single-player, with all the maps, and the people, and the dots around the map to show you where you're going to have to go.

How do the heists in GTA Online compare to the heists in single-player? Will they be more like the tentpole heists in GTA V, or the 'Blitz Play' mission we saw in the demo a couple of months back?

Initially, they'll be simpler. But we do have plans to set up heists that could contain twenty individual components. A lot of these questions are hard to answer because there's now, and then there's what we have in our heads for the future. But to answer your question: initially, they'll be fairly straightforward heists, but they will get more complex as time goes on.

In the single-player, you've mapped underwater as well - will there be underwater gameplay in GTA Online?

We're not really pushing the underwater side right now, but once we get the first batch of content out - which is going to be a lot; hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of missions - then we'll start looking at some other things. Underwater. Getting all the subs going. They're all there, it's all ready to go. And underwater's kind of cool. I think we're going to find that a lot of people like underwater, so I think it's an area that we might utilise in future.

One thing you did confirm was that minigames like tennis were available - does that mean you can play four-player tennis?

That's a good question. Four-player tennis is something we've never even thought about, you know that? Shite. No, tennis is only two-player. Can I write that down?! (Goes off to get a pen and paper.)

We've made a contribution to GTA V!

That'll be fairly straightforward, actually. I should mention that, when you play those sports games, you won't be terrorised by jet fighters when you play tennis. In the sense that, you can enjoy a game of tennis in your online world without people spoiling things for you.

So a gang couldn't sniper rifle you when you're about to hit a volley?

Exactly. Something else we didn't talk about today was the whole phonecall side of things. So, as you progress through the game, you'll meet all these various characters, and you can call contacts almost anytime - on mission or off - to ask for their assistance. You use the mobile phone to call one of the characters you've met as you play through and each character or business you call provides a different service. When on the phone with them they will ask you which service you require and you are given a list of options to choose from.

We saw today these army guys, who you can also enlist to help you in missions. Let's imagine we were playing the first mission and we needed some goons to come and help us. I'm doing it on my own, or we're doing it the two of us, but it's an eight-player mission and we find we're struggling with only two people. We can actually call in some computer character help from these guys, the Merryweather, or call in an air strike, or turn off our blips so people can't see us. So just a bunch of different things you can have to assist in a deathmatch, or in a race. If you're in a race, you could call in an air strike and take out whoever's in first place.

As you get higher, you're introduced to new characters with new abilities. So you could call the bikers, and say, "Send over a couple of bikers, we're going to do a job," and they'll come and help you. Or call an air strike. Or, if we're doing a deathmatch, I can call a character and hide my blips, so you can't see where I am on the map. Little things like that, just to mix up the modes a bit.

Will there be a way for Crews to directly face off in a mode to show who's the best?

We've got pretty huge plans for Crews, playlists, challenges, all that kind of stuff. We could set up a bunch of missions: you make five missions, I'll make five missions, we then combine them in the game, put them in a playlist, and then challenge all these guys to a head-to-head.

So you could start a set of missions on your map, with your set of goals, and we play yours, then we swap to mine?

Play can be made up of anything; anybody's mission, any style of mission. You just bung them in the playlist, it all goes through, and it'll score you at the end. You can do head-to-head challenges, or you could set a challenge for everybody in the world to beat. So you make a race - say, five races - set up a challenge, post it to the Social Club, then everybody else in the world can try and beat your score. If they do beat your score, then you've got to give them some cash - the amount you set when you set up the challenge.

Can you decide to only open it up to people with a certain reputation?

No, it's open to everybody. But one thing we do have to say is that, because this is in development, there's always things that come and go. Everything you saw today is in there, but maybe a couple of things we're talking about, we're still fiddling with.

The game was demoed on PS3?

Yep.

And, of course, the single-player demo we saw was also demoed on PS3. Is PS3 your lead platform?

Not really. This is probably the first game we've done where both platforms have been running in parallel. There's very, very little difference in the development state of them both. They're both very similar. It would be hard to tell them apart.

In terms of the fidelity of the Online world, have you had to cut any corners?

No.

"We already have plans for what the next world holds... We've got a bunch of old stuff we're toying with using..."

So single-player and GTA Online are literally exactly the same?

Usually we cut quite a lot out from multiplayer. We haven't (in GTA Online). That's not to say we might not in the next little while. But, no, what you see is what you're going to get. I think we might stream in the detail on cars at a slightly different time, because cars take up quite a chunk of memory. But the world is the world. We can't have two versions of it.

Obviously we've seen the game running on current gen systems, but in three months we'll be in a situation where next gen consoles will be arriving. How do you plan to develop GTA Online as the audience migrates over the next year or so?

We already have plans for what the next world holds in terms of missions, new content, clothes, apartments, for the next while. But we really want to see what people are playing, and we're putting a lot of effort into the back end, so we can keep an eye on exactly how long people are spending in deathmatches, races, and all the other modes - just to see what they're doing. And if we see any peaks anywhere, then we know where to concentrate our efforts. There's not a lot of data out there for us. There's very few games like GTA Online - so we'll play it by ear and see what the consumers want.

Do you see a player's online identity as being kind of agnostic? So, the stats they build up in GTA Online now will continue accruing, regardless of platform?

We've been working towards that for a while; started with Max Payne 3 and the Crews. The Crews you can take across and use them here, and we'll give you little bonuses if you've got a Max Payne character at a certain level. So, yeah, we want this to be an ongoing thing. This isn't just for GTA V. It's for the future of all our games.

What scope have you got for expanding beyond the locations we're seeing already?

Well, one thing we've toyed with - and we've talked about this before, so it isn't a spoiler - is (the ambition) to grow this world until it's the world. We're just going to add on new things to it, new places all the time. We've set this up so there are no limitations. The only limitation is the size of the disc and how much memory we've got. We could, if we wanted, simulate the entire world, different countries, whatever. Whether we do that or not... But we've got a bunch of old stuff that we're toying with using.

Is there some kind of Holy Grail at the end of the game - some kind of definitive end stop?

Probably not. Because we want it to last forever. We'll stop when we've simulated life - and then that will be the end! No, people have to keep going. There should never be an, "Oh, I've reached the end." We've got to have goals, and we've got to have stepping stones, but there should never really be an end.

Is there anything else in the GTA Online demo that we saw today that you wanted to make mention of?

What you saw in the demo today is such a tiny part of it. The actual thing is such a huge entity. It's massive and it's ever-evolving, and it can be whatever you and your friends want it to be. You can make your own world in any way you want. Place the missions how you want, have the types of missions that you want. So hopefully people will modify it to suit them.

So do you think the next generation will help and allow you to expand your plans more easily?

We'll get the current gen version out first and see what happens in the future.

But you're almost transitioning to a point at which GTA Online becomes a service, and the choice of console is irrelevant. Have you thought about a future where GTA exists within the Cloud?

Everything's going to the Cloud, isn't it? It's the future, and the boxes become less relevant. It's more about the content. It's more about the data than the hardware. And, yeah, whether you're on your iPad, your iPhone, your Android or your console, to me it doesn't matter what it is. It's a game.

It's a topic that consistently talked about within the industry and yet, sometimes, it still feels like a pipe dream. But then you speak to someone like Hideo Kojima and he thinks that's where it's going. Do you think that, technically, it seems conceivable - and will it be better for developers?

It's good and bad for developers. It's good for developers because you write one set of code and it runs everywhere. But then Sony and Microsoft, they do set you up with a good platform. You can plug a game in, and it goes. You download something on your phone... iOS, it's fair enough, but you download it on an Android phone - and we've seen it with our apps - you download it on one phone it doesn't work, you download it on another, it does work. And that's a kind of level of frustration you don't want to be giving customers. If you get your game, plug it into something, and it doesn't work, you've basically lost your customer. So it's good and bad.

These guys (Sony and Microsoft) do a great job of making it nice and simple. You plug it in, you pop your disc in, you sit down and play it. But, you know, when somebody's figured out a way (for) the hardware to work together, so it's all compatible - like Apple have done a pretty good job of - then maybe it'll happen. But it's not coming for a while yet.

"What level of realism do people want? Do they want to cook a pizza? Do the shopping? We can do it, if they want it..."

At what point do you stop trying to base the GTA games on reality? Would letting people fill up cars with petrol be a step too far?

These are all things that go through our minds. Do people like that level of realism? Do people want to cook a pizza? Do they want to go shopping and buy the ingredients to eat and be healthy? Not that a pizza's healthy, but you know what I mean. That's all there for the future, if people want to do that.

The main thing to remember is that, when we're designing this... we don't design in a little bubble of orbs and dragons. We all live lives. Normal people doing normal things. So that's what we base it on. It's based on (life). If you think of something, chances are it's going to work. Like the car insurance - it's real life. You pay an insurance premium, you phone them up when it gets nicked, you get it back. So everything is based on normality - with a little twist, of course.

How do you decide where to draw the line?

I'm trying to remember what we did with (filling cars up with petrol). I remember thinking, "Should we do that?" maybe six months ago. I think it just sat in a list of 'Will we do that?' We do all the stuff we have to do first, and then see where we're at; if we get time. But that's such a change for the game that it would take a bigger discussion. It would take a lot more people in the company to decide if something like that was going to go in, because it would change the whole dynamic.

Also, single-player's always been in development ahead of the Online side, so a lot of what's in here is dictated by the single-player game. If we were to implement such a drastic change, we'd probably also have to do it in single-player.

What's been your personal highlight on the GTA journey?

GTA V! It's probably be the longest development time of any of our GTAs - four or five years - though we've been working on a lot of other games in the mean time.

And the lowlight?

There are no downs. The only downs are the frustration of getting it into a little box and getting it working. Certainly the scale and complexity of GTA V is something that I'm not sure a lot of us thought would be possible. To see the leap from GTA IV to GTA V, and to think it's (running off) the same box, is a high. And then, seeing some of the Online stuff... It was like making GTA III again.

GTA III, we did things in there that no one had done - streaming and that type of thing - and, again this time, we took a lot of risks with Online and it looks like it's paying off. And seeing it, seeing the guys in the Titan and the helicopter, that gives me a little spine-tingling moment.

Was that a 'Eureka!' moment in the development of GTA V where you thought: this is working, this is what we wanted, this is it?

Yeah. On every game since GTA III, there's a moment. I remember on GTA III it was when Misty got in the car, and you picked her up in the projects, and Kim Gurney - our secretary at the time - had done the voice, and she got in the car and said something cheesy. It was a spine-tingling moment. It was, like, this is cool. I've had that every game since, and I got it on this, and it was probably that last mission we played with the airplane. So, yeah, the 'spine-tinglers' - that'll be the moment when you think, "It might work..."


Rockstar North Boss on GTA Online, Why the Time is Finally Right
August 15, 2013 7:00AM PDT

Shaun McInnis
By Shaun McInnis, Editor

In a rare interview with Leslie Benzies, Shaun McInnis learns about all the steps that led to this ambitious new GTA offering.

It's not often that Leslie Benzies talks to the media, but with nine Grand Theft Auto games under his belt, the president of Rockstar North certainly has a lot to open up about. Last month, we visited Rockstar North's Edinburgh office to chat with Benzies about all things Grand Theft Auto, including the recently announced GTA Online--by far the most ambitious multiplayer offering Rockstar has attempted to date. For the full context, be sure to check out our comprehensive GTA Online preview. Now read on for the full interview…

When Grand Theft Auto IV came out, what sort of creative trajectory did that game establish? What were you eager to do next?

I remember sitting down and chatting about what the [next] game was going to be with Aaron [Garbut], Sam [Houser], and Dan [Houser]. That's kind of when the whole idea of heists came about, opening up the missions and making them much larger. We also decided where it was going to be based, so some people got started on making the map because the map takes forever to make. But besides that, we didn't really do anything early on because we were working on Red Dead Redemption and then L.A. Noire. So it wouldn't have been until a year or so later that we could really get into the nuts and bolts of what the game was going to be.

Our goal was to simulate what's outside [in the real world], to make it feel good, and tidy up all the rough edges that we thought GTAIV had. It was to get it so the handling feels perfect, the gunplay feels perfect. And also the online side of it--that's been a goal for years. We've started it a few times before, but we've never finished it. That's what we wanted to do, basically. We wanted to push these consoles to their limit. I think we've squeezed every single ounce of power out of these boxes that we can.

How conscious are you of what makes a Grand Theft Auto game a Grand Theft Auto game? Is that something you keep in the back of your minds?

Always. The one thing that dictates what will be in the game is the game. If you put something a bit too gonky in the game, it goes, "I'm not terribly happy with that. It's gonna have to go." You can feel it when you play it. And we're lucky, we've got some clever guys who have a real good feel for what works and what doesn't. So amongst all these people, we can get a feel for what's GTA and what's not. I think other people can tell as well because it's based on the real world; it's not superheroes. And we're lucky, we can always put some of the weirder stuff in because Dan's a genius when it comes to writing. He can write his way around anything. When we do need to go a little off the track, he can deal with it.

"We wanted to push these consoles to their limit. I think we've squeezed every single ounce of power out of these boxes that we can." What sorts of challenges are there in building a world like this? What's the hardest part about breathing life into this world beyond just the sheer manpower required?

Making it realistic. It's weird, because one tiny little animation can change the whole way something feels. The setting is based on Los Angeles, so it's warm and people walk slower so they don't sweat. It's a lot of tiny little things like that that can make a difference. If you see somebody rushing down the road, it'll look more New York because people walk faster in New York. So I guess it's noticing stuff like that. Which is why we've got a lot of guys who've spent a lot of time out there taking photographs, taking videos. California is very different to the rest of the world.

What tangible benefits are there in having such a deep well of experience creating these open worlds?

We kind of know what's going to work and what's not. We've experimented with a lot of ideas in the past that just haven't worked. But advantage-wise, it's always evolving. It always gets harder and harder. If it doesn't get harder, we're not doing our jobs properly. There's snippets of wisdom from these guys; they know things they didn't know before, so we've got this foundation of ideas. Alleys to take and alleys not to take. But there's always new challenges. We've got to keep pushing it into the unknown.

How has your development process evolved over your last few games?

The core team's been the same now for a long time. We know who we are and who each other are. We've probably worked together in a closer fashion than most other game companies out there. I think that's one of the root levels of why we can continue to make these games. Obviously we've been working on our tools for a long time, and that helps. But we've also got good communication between all of our studios, the guys in New York and the guys in San Diego. We know who to communicate with to get what we need. But bottom line, we know who the boss is [points at the game]. The game gets what the game needs. As long as everyone understands that, we'll be fine.

"A lot of people here are fans of the American culture. As much as we love it, there's a lot of wackiness to it--especially California." It's interesting seeing the environment where you guys work here in Edinburgh, because so much of these games are about looking at American culture through the lens of the media. What's it like for you guys being this Scottish studio making all these games about America?

A lot of people here are fans of the American culture. As much as we love it, there's a lot of wackiness to it--especially California. Being the sarcastic British we are, we can have a laugh at it. The game, I think, is doing that. Not in a negative way, but funny stuff happens and we like to point it out. But yeah, it is weird. Edinburgh probably is the complete opposite in the world to California.

Is that what pulled you back to Los Santos? You felt like there was so much more ground to explore with that setting?

It was the logical next place to go. Things just felt right. It was Sam's call, and I think he's got a good feel for what's coming up. With the world economy collapsing in 2008, one of the most affluent places in the world was California, so one of the most affected places in the world was going to be California. So the timing was just right.

Is GTA Online the biggest risk you're taking with this game?

It's the nature of any creative business. You can have the number one album, and with your next album nobody's interested. It's all a risk. At Rockstar, we try to take risks. We don't want to make what everyone else is making. We want to make what we find fun, and chances are if we find it fun, then other people will find it fun. We like taking a little risk.

What sorts of hurdles did you have to overcome to finally execute on the vision for Grand Theft Auto Online? Was there any breakthrough, or was it more just pushing that boulder up the hill until it finally reached a point where you were happy with it?

I think we knew where we wanted to be but didn't know if we could get there. It's brutal hard work from a lot of people to just keep going and going until it feels right. To do something that's different from what we've always done, there's a lot of risks. Some things didn't work, but we're prepared to try it and see where it goes. There's always a point where something clicks or it doesn't. So we either try it again or we give up. Luckily, pretty much everything we've done with Online has clicked. With GTA, there's probably not a better platform to build a multiplayer game onto.

Why was it important for you to create Grand Theft Auto Online as its own stand-alone thing rather than take those social elements and weave them into a story campaign?

We want it to grow into its own world. We want it to be its own master. We can bolt things and add things and change things in the online world--because it's separate--that we maybe couldn't have done if it was tied in more closely with the single-player. It gives us freedom to do what we want to do. We have a lot of plans for it in the future, and this breaks it off so we can take it anywhere.

In a rare interview with Leslie Benzies, Shaun McInnis learns about all the steps that led to this ambitious new GTA offering.

How do you approach the idea of structure in an online environment? It's such a delicate balance between catering to players who want to be told what to do versus those who prefer the open, emergent stuff.

It's an issue that we need to figure out on every individual mission. A lot of people think, "Oh, let's just let them get on with it." But when you do that, some people just stand and don't do anything. So we give you in the initial description the premise of the job, and we'll suggest some avenues you can take--but you don't have to do it that way. What we do see is people playing the missions over and over again to perfect them exactly as you do in a single-player mission. Perfect your strategy over two, three, four attempts with other people. So you might be the gunner the first time and I'll be the driver, and then we swap over. But it's definitely a balance that we're still working on.

What sort of potential is there for adversarial behavior between players? What happens if I want to steal another guy's car, or he doesn't give me my cut of the heist profits?

This kind of goes down two paths. One is the fun battling between players, and the other is, "This guy's just a pain in the arse." We've spent a lot of time on what we call "bad sports." Anyone that's misbehaving, whether it's blowing up someone's car or shouting abuse--anything that pisses people off--we can track that. The game can track that, and you can report them. If anybody's a bad sport, then we deal with them.

The other side of it, where it's just the fun gameplay, we want that to happen. We want you to run off with the cash and me to come and chase you. Or you run off with the cash and I'll phone up one of my contacts and set a bounty on you. Then somebody will kill you, you'll drop the cash, and I'll get it all. We'll track that as well. So if we always battle with each other, the game will remind us, "Oh, it's that guy. He pissed you off a couple weeks ago. Maybe you should deal with him." It remembers who your enemies are and reminds you to pay them special attention.

"We want GTA Online to grow into its own world. We have a lot of plans for it in the future, and this breaks it off so we can take it anywhere." How much of the world design was influenced by knowing that you wanted to do this online component?

We don't really build our worlds around the game. Obviously we do, but we don't say we're going to have this mission so we're going to have to build this bit of the world. We start by building a city, which I think is the right way to do it. Then you get a bunch of mission ideas and see how they fit into the city and where your contacts are going to live. You can't really do that until the map's been built. So the map gets built first, and then we see how things fit into the world. That works for us. It seems to help. And it helps with the design; you can find a nice-looking location for a cutscene or nice interior for a shootout. Obviously there's going to be a building that you build specifically for a mission, but the map always comes first. The location is always the first thing that we work on.

It seems like you've put a lot of effort into getting the matchmaking as painless as possible, like when players automatically surface in the same space or you invite a player to join you on a mission and they immediately show up next to you. What was your approach to make that happen?

It was a huge thing for us. The process is: you do it and you test it. If that doesn't work, you do it again until it's perfect. We went through a few iterations where it was good, but it just wasn't good enough. One thing I like is when you hit a button and it does it for you. The game knows all the information about you, what you like to do, who you like to play with. So our concept of a lobby is where you go and press a button. There won't be any pings or hosts or sessions. You just hit a button, and you get what you asked for. I hate games where you sit there and you spend more time waiting for everyone to ready up than you do playing the game. This will be a quick process.

With heists playing such a big role in multiplayer missions and all the things you can buy with your cash, it looks like money is a big part of GTA Online. What are you doing to ensure that this economy stays meaningful throughout the player progression?

It's just a case of balancing. Balance it, play it, tweak it. One of the things we've found with Online is that you've got to keep playing it and keep an eye on it. And we'll be doing that once it's released. We've got a fairly complex backend watching exactly what people are doing, how the economy is running. So we can make little tweaks here and there to make sure everything is fair and balanced.

How are you planning to make sure the multiplayer still feels fresh a year down the line? Especially for those power players who are going to be sinking huge amounts of time into this thing?

We're going to be continually creating content. The speed that we can create content is pretty unbelievable. From booting the game up, you can create your own deathmatch from scratch and have it published and people playing it within 20 minutes. It's super simple. Everybody has the ability to create content. And we've got a voting system for all the missions. If people like a mission, they'll vote for it, and the creator will be higher-ranked. You won't just be playing shit that people have made; you can be playing the good stuff people have made.

Have you fully braced yourselves for the fact that as much effort as you've put into the multiplayer, you're going to learn so much more once it finally goes live?

We're ready. It is a nightmare; we've not done anything on this scale before. But we're very respectful of the process. When you release single-player, you're kind of done. But this is going to be an ongoing thing. There's not going to be any rest.


Summary:

Features:

Players can invest in their character through customizing their appearance, improving their stats, owning customized vehicles, purchasing personal property, choosing their favourite weapons and vehicles and taking part in missions, jobs and activities.
Players have the freedom to explore alone or with friends, work cooperatively to complete missions, band together to participate in activities and ambient events, or compete in traditional game modes.
As progress is achieved through the world of GTA Online, players will be introduced to new characters, missions, rewards and such.
A maximum of 16 players can be active at any one time as part of an online universe of hundreds of thousands competing to earn Reputation Points (RP), money and almost limitless material acquisition.
As you speak into your headset, your GTA Online character will lip-sync broadly in time. When robbing a store, AI characters will react to the urgency in your voice, stuffing money more quickly in the bag.
The Content Creator will allow players to create and share their own missions and activities via the Social Club cloud. Other players can beat your target times and scores, then rate your mission. You can even choose which creators you want to follow and curate your favourite missions.
The Feed, a twitter-like program, appears on screen to relay all your emails, texts and messages from Social Club.
Rockstar has no plans to sell Grand Theft Auto Online separately, and it doesn't require a code, online pass, or anything like that.
The world of Grand Theft Auto Online will constantly grow and change as new content is added, and at some stage GTA Online will head into new locations. Access to Grand Theft Auto Online is free with every retail copy of Grand Theft Auto V and launches on October 1st.


General:

Your ranking will be based off of shooting, driving, parachuting and flying skills.
People can access their data through Social Club and via their iPhones or iPads.
There is a mode called "passive mode" which means you can't shoot people and they can't shoot you.
A "Bad Sport" stat will be given for bad behaviour such as blowing up another player's car, and if it's done persistently you will be punished.
if your multiplayer character at Max Payne 3 had a high level, it will be carried over to GTA: Online for more bonuses that you will unlock.
Matchmaking is based off of ranking, so it prioritizes your friends' rankings, crewmembers' rankings and even strangers so that when you need people, you know who to get.
GTA Online tracks who your rivals are and lets you know when they've come online so you can get some revenge on them.


Multiplayer:

You can assemble a team from your friends list, or recruit according to specialist skills. As you rob a liquor store or perform a heist, the team member that does the job gets the cash and can choose how much to share.
It's possible to spread the wealth by sharing cash, weapons and ammo among your team. In turn, they can 'defect' and try to steal your cash.
You can pick up your phone to 'ring' friends in single player and invite them into your world. Your friends will be listed under 'Contacts' on your phone.
Set up challenges and post it to the Social Club and players can try and beat your score, if they beat your score -- you give them cash.


Miscellaneous:

You start GTA: Online arriving to Los Santos pennyless and you must complete a few missions first to get a feel of the online.
There will be loads of property to buy at different prices, according to their views and location. You can use your in-house CCTV to spy on people at your front door, or take showers, surf the net, change clothes and watch the game's many TV channels.
You can take out insurance and ring for a replacement car if yours gets destroyed.
You can pay a personal mechanic to fix your cars automatically, or deliver them to any location.
You can also check any vehicle's stats for speed, handling etc, before making your choice to purchase.
You can watch real-time events such as police chases on your TV moments after you see them speed past your house.
Your custom cars show as markers on the map and get impounded if you leave them too long. You can pay to retrieve them.
You will be able to deposit your money into your bank account as often as you can. When another player kills you, they can snatch the wallet right from your dead body.
You can switch between single player and online mode by selecting your multiplayer avatar from the character wheel.
Passengers will be able to change the in-car radio, via a radio selection wheel similar to the weapons wheel.
You will have contacts available at anytime that will provide different services on or off mission, as you rank higher you will have access to characters with new and stronger abilities. Examples of such are being hidden from the radar and setting a bounty on another player if you're being chased.
If you steal a vehicle, you can spray and change the plates. Some vehicle customisation businesses might not be willing to do that and you may get a wanted level.
Weasel News will pick up people that have got wanted levels.
There is a planning room in people's apartments.
If you are in a heist and need some help, you can invite your friends and they will be teleported to you instantly.
The experience is seamless between transitions for free-roam and missions.
You can call up a private security firm to bring in an airstrike, i.e. destroy street races.

Re: GTAV Trailer Released, Aircraft!

PostPosted:
by AADX
3DJuegos Interview with Lezlie Benzies
Posted by PrometheusX at 18:02. Category: General

Spanish gaming website 3DJuegos have just released an interview with R* North's Art Director, the once impossible-to-land-an-interview-with, Lezlie Benzies. The interview included some new interesting tidbits about GTA Online summarised and listed thanks to forums member Spider-Vice.

General:

The camera will zoom out and pan away to your online character seamlessly. During the animation, a matchmaking process will be in progress.
You can do almost anything you can do in single player in GTA Online.
You can change weather, time of day, time you want it to rain or to be a certain weather state, radio station to be tuned at the start of the race or mission in the Content Creator.
You can watch races and deathmatches on your apartment TV.
There are masks to hide from the cops.
The Online will be run on the Social Club servers, data will be stored on the cloud. There are datacenters from NY to San Diego, and more Rockstar studios.


Missions:

Each mission requires a rank depending on difficulty and complexity. The bigger your rank, the more difficult the missions will be.
There are around 700 missions in GTA Online. 500 will be available to play on release, as more will be added eventually.
Missions will be ordered randomly as you play Online.


Multiplayer:

For certain heists you might need certain weapons, vehicles or characters such as a sniper or a driver. This will also depend on the mission creator if you download the mission from the Social Club.
Some missions are so complex they need plenty of good communication.
There will be descriptions to help each character on its heist function.
There is something called "team lives". If you have 4 team lives and 4 people, if everyone dies there will be 0 lives left, or if you die 4 times, the team will have 0 lives left, which means if anyone dies, it's mission failed.


TRANSLATION

A new world to live

A Grand Theft Auto online with cooperative missions, persistent world multiplayer events. Seems like a dream, but Rockstar Games is behind him. GTA Online is a good demonstration of this, the online aspect of GTA V that, in fact, is a new game in itself. We spoke with Leslie Benzies, director of Rockstar North, to learn all about your new baby.

In Rockstar Games do things differently, even when the goal is to show their creations to the media. The company's R and star treats every game as a child, taking care from creation to the time when they show the world for the first time. And of course, as often conceived titles, strive to publicize them in the best way possible.In our editorial we were very surprised when Leslie Benzies, one of the most important figures of Rockstar North, would sit with us over half an hour. It is not usual in this type of events, but it is clear that this company thinks differently. No hurry, taking time from the serenity of your armchair, the creative forward answer each of the questions that we formulated on GTA Online, the new creature. And he did it without egocentrism, knowing that the more the group company has the reputation of a single developer. In fact, I struggle to find creative photographs of the Internet. Rockstar Games is a company in which the stars are the games, as it should be."We are here because we can not do anything or otherwise""We are here because we can not do anything or otherwise," he sentenced the producer, summing up the extra effort that goes into every game that comes out of there. A philosophy which is broadcast in the corridors of the building in which they work, which has gone through the last Grand Theft Auto, but Manhunt, Red Dead Redemption, LA Noire and Max Payne 3. Now it's the turn of an online project, very ambitious, which is a game in itself and in fact could become in a few years the first MMO GTA series. We talked to a key figure in the gaming industry to discover how far he can get GTA Online.

3DJuegos: Why did you decide to create GTA Online and multiplayer classic that both are used?
Leslie Benzies: There was a time, I can not remember exactly when, which while working in the online think it must be something more than the typical online content. Then Thomsons should operate as a separate unit. Since we always wanted to converge the worlds "single player" and multiplayer. Propose all those things you could do alone, now with friends. It has been one of our dreams for a long time, particularly since GTA III. And now it is here.

3DJ: To create GTA V and GTA Online, Did you have to split the team into two parts?
L. B. Most of the work for GTA is in the artists, programmers, animators, sound responsible ... But then we have workers who are
responsible for the story in the campaign, "scripters" (writers), who speak in a special language invented to make games. So, we have 30 or 40 writers for the single player campaign and another 30 or 40 dedicated to the online. They are the ones who have worked specifically on each of the parties. The rest has been involved in both aspects: individual and multiplayer.

3DJ: GTA Online is a separate unit of GTA V, but also integrated into their world. Could you explain how to access the GTA Online?
L. B. During the game appears a wheel on the bottom of the screen that lets you select protagonist. There are three spaces to the side "single player" and, on the underside, there is another room for your character in multiplayer. If you select it, the camera pulls back and goes straight to your character online, letting us play from that point.

3DJ: Once you're inside GTA Online, will any player can join your game?
L. B. As the camera moves the game gets you into a multiplayer session in which they are your friends, members of your group and, finally, other players of similar rank to yours. It is a transparent process. We see only, for example, the camera moves from Trevor to our character online, but actually undergoing a process "matchmaking". It is exactly the same as when we change character in single player campaign.

3DJ: Can you play with anyone? How does the system "matchmaking"?
L. B. We have taken great care in the system "matchmaking" so you end up connected to the people you love, your friends or gang. So the first thing you do when searching for a match, is take a look to see if any of your friends are playing at the time, then check if any of the members of your group and finally, search for users who are at a similar level to yours, with similar range.

3DJ: Can you confirm if GTA Online can make anything available in single player campaign?
L. B. Mainly yes. Anything possible in single player campaign can also make it in the online. The missions in the individual aspect are very complex. The multiplayer is very similar in that regard.

3DJ: We know that we can make your character evolve in GTA Online. We need a certain range to access certain missions?
L. B. In the same way that the campaign has a flow, the multiplayer has its own. When you access Online GTA for the first time, you know a character you enter in this online world. As you progress, there are more individuals to help and offer missions in a similar way as is done in the individual part of the game. As you grow and your rank rises, jobs are becoming larger. When you create a game "deathmatch", you can even decide if you want to play only 50 players range. So every mission requires a range to access it.

3DJ: You said that characters with whom we interact. Does that mean that there will be a story to connect the missions in GTA Online?
L. B. A little is not as intense as in the single player campaign. There is a flow of characters that you know.

3DJ: How many missions have in GTA Online?
L. B. I think they are about 700 missions at this time. We hope you have a 500 always available, and are renewed continuously. You can also go to the Rockstar Social Club and get off more missions. So you can connect and download any player missions to populate your world online, both from friends and from other users.

3DJ: Missions will be in specific parts of the map?
L. B. We will automatically jump missions while playing, something that happens randomly. We can get that kind of tasks when exploring the world, or to receive a phone call from some NPC. We GTA Online characters that are also part of the single player campaign. You can call and ask us to help carry out some odd jobs. These are essentially the ways to find missions: through mapping or guests by telephone. And if you want to take action in a more traditional or fast, it is also possible to open a menu and access to an extensive list of jobs.

3DJ: Speaking of missions, the "hits" they look sensational, as we have shown in the demo. Are there many in GTA Online?
L. B. Right now we are working on missions, and yesterday I could taste exactly a really epic consisting of five parts. So the shots are going to be large and complex. That you cite, Steal Titan is a good example of the kind of missions that we will provide. There are no limitations in this regard with respect to the single player campaign. Absolutely everything you can do in GTA V can also be done in GTA Online.

3DJ: In the single player campaign of GTA V and saw that the "hits" will require a strong preparation. Will the same happen in these "hits" online?
L. B. Depending on the beat, you will need certain weapons, vehicles, or special characters, such as a sniper or a specific driver. Who will provide the mission will provide all these details. You can do whatever you want, of course, but they will tell you the best way to get everything right.

3DJ: Communication seems to be an important part of GTA Online. We have seen that we can communicate by voice chat and even by gestures by our character "in-game". How important is this for you?

L. B. We have great confidence that people use voice communication, we believe it is better for the experience. If not, we also provide the opportunity to chat via text messages on mobile phone. However, some missions are so complex that they require a smooth exchange of information, so the microphone is always the best option. But if we consider that, despite being in the same mission as our peers, tasks may be different. Luckily, we have added descriptions to know what to do each in every moment. So nothing will be confusing.

3DJ: Is it possible to create our own missions and share them?
L. B. We started with the opportunity to create your own races and deathmatch games. From there, we evolved to offer a huge amount of possibilities. We want people to start, however, making things less complex, so that learning is gradual. We can start by creating both a career, something that is achieved getting into a car and pressing a button to set the start and end points.Then you can also send the event to the Rockstar Social Club server so it is available for anyone who wants to play. All this can be done in a minute, is very simple. Our intention is to introduce this idea of ​​users generate their own content. We start with simple things. In the future, we make plans related to believe whatever they want.

3DJ: Like a mission with different objectives?
L. B. Anything.

3DJuegos: We know we have the opportunity to choose different conditions for missions such as weather or time of day. What are the chances of the Creator, the tool to design missions?
L. B. The Creator almost no limitations. You can customize almost everything.

3DJ: Also the difficulty?
L. B. Yes, the difficulty, the time of day ... Even in the race editor you can determine when it rains, the type of cars involved, etc.. For example, we can establish that the event will occur at 12:00 noon and determined sounding radio station. In essence, all you see changing in the game can also be configured from the Creator, including in this case the presence of police or traffic density.

3DJ: A concept that is not very well understood in the demo was "team lives" (life of equipment). Are lives are shared when we play in the company during a certain mission?
L. B. Yes, they share. If you're in a four-player cooperative mission, and you have four lives in total, that means everyone can die once, or die four times a user, for example. But it all depends on the mission. A "deathmatch" has a timer or based on the total number of deaths. Perhaps the only missions that have this type of approach, based on the "team lives", are cooperatives. Even there are some in which there is this concept: have one life and if you lose you go into spectator mode, seeing what your peers do. So it all depends on the mission you're playing.

3DJ: Can we do other activities in GTA Online, style take a game of tennis and the like?
L. B. All activities can be performed on the fly. You can rob a gas station, enjoy a game of tennis, play golf, go skydiving ... All you can do on the side "single player" exists in the online aspect. You can customize your car, cut your hair, get a tattoo, etc..

3DJ: What other interesting things we can do in GTA Online? In the demo we saw, for example, a player turned on the TV and saw on the news the police chase of a friend on the road ...
L. B. We have that option you mention, use the television to see the pursuit of a live friend. But we have other alternatives, like watching a game deathmatch or even a career, whenever we leave its participants. We can see the surveillance cameras in the garage, for example. Then we also have the opportunity to gain skills, given by the characters that we meet. Through these contacts, we can hire mercenaries, get weapons in exchange for money, ask for an airstrike or ask them to come themselves if we are surrounded by enemies.All these things still work well if we are in a game "deathmatch", there are no limitations, yet still possible to perform actions such as calling a taxi or ask for help from a couple of thugs. We do not limit anything despite find yourself in a certain way. Everything is available.

3DJ: The presentation that you offered was very focused on online co-op campaign. But we'd like to know if you plan to include in Online GTA classic modes like "cops versus robbers" and classic modes such.
L. B. Yes, we have a handful of additional game modes in the style of "capture the flag". They will be there, as well as methods that have already been made classic.

3DJuegos: In GTA IV had already some of these modalities, and were very interesting. Are they back? For example, the Guild Wars
.L. B. Yes, we intend to do something similar, related to the taking and possession of territories, but now we can not talk about it. Come next year.

3DJ: How does the economic system? We have seen that we can save our money in banks and also buy properties ...
L. B. As in the single player campaign, you work, earn money and acquire new equipment. When you buy something, that usually helps you get even more funds. As we have shown in the demo is possible to have access to a helicopter. And if we succeed, we may even be invited to more missions for other players. Users can see what possessions they have the other players. So, if we see someone with a helicopter, we invite you to our departure. The same if you are a good driver. Everything has an effect on the game. The more you have, the more attractive you become. We even have masks to hide before the police. Everything that exists in the game has a reason or meaning. They are not mere ornaments.

3DJ: Another aspect that we have seen in the game is that you can determine the amount of money to share with your classmates, but not always ...
L. B. Depends on the type of job. For jobs that meet on the map, you can escape with the money, but in the case of the quests given by contacts, the money is divided equally. However, impacts, for example, will have the opportunity to establish percentages. So the option is there.

3DJ: What chance do we have to create our own character in GTA Online?
L. B. We want character creation does not resemble anything seen in other games. We expect that the results you get are real, not based on fantasy elements, like orcs.

3DJ: individual campaign saw a few months ago. And now, looking at the multiplayer, it seems that the visual differences will be minimal. Is there really any difference to note in terms of graphics?
L. B. There are few differences, is exactly the same visuals. We have made a different treatment on the vehicles, modeled in different resolutions. Normally we have to cut back on certain aspects, not this time. I do not know how they did it, but they have succeeded.

3DJ: How complicated is to make a multiplayer like this in the current generation of consoles? What are the limitations you encountered?L. B. I think the main complication is given by the amount of memory you can use. Every single person in the game has their own clothing and vehicles, so there is a lot of data to be stored simultaneously, since there may be up to 16 players in the same game. That was the biggest factor. Had we not had that limitation would have been possible items of 32 players or more. Although there are other no less important: time. We have so many ideas that do not have enough time to integrate. So we conceived GTA Online as a separate entity.

3DJ: A detail we see in the demo is that we have a number of missions for players: two, four, and so on. What is the maximum number of players allowed?L. B. 16 users. Established a minimum number of players for each mission, but if you want to perform a particular task for yourself, or carry out work to four players with only two, not will any limitation. Yes, it will be more complicated.3DJ: Is it difficult to move an entire online world like Los Santos? Are you going to use dedicated servers or any particular technology to achieve this?
L. B. We'll use the Rockstar Social Club servers to create our "cloud", which control everything. We have servers spread across several of our offices, like New York or San Diego, who are responsible for managing information generated persistent GTA Online. How driving is, however, different from other similar games, less problematic. But yes, it is a traditional server based on the "cloud".

3DJ: Within the single player campaign, each mission has its own music. Will something similar happen in the missions of the multiplayer aspect?
L. B. When you're in the missions, you can listen to the radio in the car. And when you generate a mission or a game "deathmatch" for example, you can determine the style of music you are playing. The user has full control over the issues that sound. He decides.

3DJ: So there is music for every moment ...
L. B. The game features interactive music, so he decides the "tempo" suitable for every moment. There is a rate for each particular mission.

3DJ: We assume that with that you try also maintain a certain style of filmmaking, as in the single player campaign ...
L. B. It is the first time we create a specific soundtrack for a GTA. I have thought and it was weird not having music. It is impossible to think of a movie that does not have a soundtrack, so consider adding a could make a difference.

3DJ: How will you take advantage of the Rockstar Social Club GTA Online?
L. B. Basically, everything you do in the game is reflected in the Rockstar Social Club, so that you can know what missions you played and when, among other issues. All information is there for you to compare with your friends. The same applies if you play alone in the campaign. Record the time you spend, for example, to complete a stroke. I checked everything, and it is stored in the "cloud". This information is important because it will help to know what missions are downloaded more that are successful and popular. This system gives the player tools that allow users to determine which missions they want to be part of your gaming experience.

3DJ: The online experiences are often open to suggestions from users, useful for improvement. Have you intend to support with a dedication GTA Online Periodical: updates, events, missions ...?
L. B. We have designed it so that the game itself is updated. It is not necessary that we put missions, races or events "deathmatch". Do not have to put anything. The "cloud" is responsible for collecting missions and arranged by popularity. Constantly receive these missions both users and ourselves that there is a continuous flow, so that the most popular missions are on all consoles when lit. The missions are updated every time we start our machine. Of course, that does not mean we do not have DLCs with new clothes, vehicles and weapons that will be.

3DJ: GTA Online are made available to users a few weeks after GTA V has been released and will be available for free for those who have purchased. But we wonder if you have plans to add some kind of microtransactions in the future ...
L. B. We DLCs. Right now we are working on the economic aspect in the game, so that there is a balance as in the single player campaign.

3DJ: GTA Online seems to go far beyond traditional multiplayer experiences. How do you rate the way you have given from GTA IV so far?
L. B. I think GTA IV had a simple concept traditional multiplayer with races and "deathmatchs". We see an aura Online GTA MMO. It's not, but it has that essence. We want people to live and exist in this world, not between just to get a career. It's persistent, you have a character evolves, acquiring skills and who should care. It is a more MMO. We will continue working in this direction to get a real representation of life out there.

3DJ: Does that mean that GTA Online could be the beginning of something bigger, like an MMO?
L. B. That's where we try to reach. We have plans to GTA Online to become a persistent world with millions of people to coexist. We will be adding new things. Yes, that's where we expect to arrive.

3DJ: One thing that strikes us is that you have decided to call it GTA V GTA Online and Online. What is the reason? Do you plan to have a continuity product in the future?
L. B. We see GTA Online as something born of his father and his mother, which are GTA V. Become independent and live their own lives, away from their parents to form an entity in itself. We can not keep GTA Online joined with his father and his mother for too long, so the plans we have is to continue its path to become a great MMO style game.

3DJ: A few months ago we had the opportunity to check how is the single player campaign of GTA V. It was demonstrated that goes a step beyond what has been seen in open world games to date. Do you think GTA Online will be another step forward, in this case for multiplayer experience?
L. B. We think so. It will be something that will take time to find out, but we consider that it feels like something different. No other games we are trying to do something like this. We hope it is the start of a new type of video game.

3DJ: You are known to give their best in every game. Each production has its own personality. You offer great original content and mechanical, in this case with the system of three characters. Now also proclaim GTA Online, a massive multiplayer experience. How difficult and stressful it is to try to always give the best of yourselves in each title?
L. B. I think we have no other way to be. To all the people love what we do, and all of us here we like to create games. We always give the best. There is nothing worse for us to purchase a game, turn on your console and you realize that what you just bought is crap. We want to give people something special, dreams locked in a disc.So strive, because we enjoy both playing and creating video games. If we make ourselves happy, other people will also be happy. And if you ever stop striving, then find another job. I think everyone here is happy with what he does, and is interested in that perfect. Never launch a product until well. It's not something that we dictate. The game is the speaker, not businessmen. And GTA speaks volumes ...

Re: GTAV Trailer Released, Aircraft!

PostPosted:
by AADX
861-1280-1.jpg

863-1280-1.jpg

865-1280-1.jpg

866-1280-1.jpg

867-1280-1.jpg

868-1280-1.jpg

---
Screen Shot 2013-08-23 at 4.56.22 PM.png
as of 23 AUG 2013

Re: GTAV Trailer Released, Aircraft!

PostPosted:
by AADX
Image
New Trailer Coming This Thursday!
Posted by Kirsty at Tuesday, August 27, 2013 17:02. Category: General
The "official" trailer for Grand Theft Auto V is comingthis Thursday, August 29th.

Update:
The trailer will debut at 11AM Eastern at the Newswire and the GTAV site, alongside a TV debut on Sunday during AMC's Breaking Bad. We made a countdown timer if you ever need to know how much time is left till the trailer is out!

Re: GTAV Trailer Released, Aircraft!

PostPosted:
by AADX

---

Re: GTAV Trailer Released, Aircraft!

PostPosted:
by AADX
GTAV_screens_1.jpg

GTAV_screens_2.jpg

GTAV_screens_3.jpg

GTAV_screens_4.jpg

GTAV_screens_5.jpg

GTAV_screens_6.jpg

GTAV_screens_7.jpg

GTAV_screens_8.jpg

GTAV_screens_9.jpg

GTAV_screens_10.jpg

GTAV_screens_11.jpg

GTAV_screens_12.jpg

GTAV_screens_13.jpg

GTAV_screens_14.jpg

GTAV_screens_15.jpg

GTAV_screens_16.jpg

GTAV_screens_17.jpg

GTAV_screens_18.jpg

GTAV_screens_19.jpg

GTAV_screens_20.jpg

GTAV_screens_21.jpg

GTAV_screens_22.jpg

GTAV_screens_23.jpg

Re: GTAV Trailer Released, Aircraft!

PostPosted:
by AADX
GTAV_screens_24.jpg

GTAV_screens_26.jpg

GTAV_screens_27.jpg

GTAV_screens_28.jpg

:geek: I pre-ordered my copy today. Anxious for Sept 17th.

Re: GTAV Trailer Released, Aircraft!

PostPosted:
by AADX
World-First Hands-On With Grand Theft Auto V
Our first play of GTA V shows us the next generation starts when Rockstar says so.
by Luke Reilly
September 3, 2013

Millimetres. That’s all it could’ve been.

I was chasing a stricken business jet across the countryside on the outskirts of Los Santos. I was controlling Trevor below on a dirt bike, bombing over the lumpy ground full throttle, one eye on the terrain and one eye on the plane above as the pilot weaved about searching for somewhere to put his smoking bird down. A road suddenly revealed itself ahead; it wasn’t especially busy but there was a truck ambling along it. I needed to blast across this road to continue keeping tabs on the plane, so I was left with a split-second decision: dart in front of the moving truck or ease off the gas and let it pass.

Trevor and the bike sprang out from in front of the encroaching truck like a stabbed cat.

I chose the former, gave the bike the beans, and aimed for the other side of the street. The truck loomed large on my right. I nudged the left stick forward, hunkering Trevor down over the handlebars. At that moment the truck was practically on top of him, but the collision never came. Trevor and the bike sprang out from in front of the encroaching truck like a stabbed cat. There couldn’t have been more than millimetres between the bike’s rear tyre and the truck’s fender, but we’d made it.

It was pure Hollywood. A random, breathtaking moment of awesome directly stemming from a decision I made. A purely emergent, life-and-death dance more exciting than every pre-constructed, quick-time event I’ve ever half-heartedly button-bashed my way through.

Make no mistake; Grand Theft Auto V is made of moments just like this.

And it feels incredible.

My hands-on with Grand Theft Auto V begins just outside of Los Santos, in a small parking lot just off a winding freeway wrapping itself along the San Andreas coastline. There’s a waypoint in the middle of Vinewood and several vacant performance cars available to get me there.

I take the one with scissor doors.

The low-slung supercar feels more sure-footed and grippy than similar models in GTA IV.

I gingerly thread my way into the traffic bustling down the freeway towards the city. The road is thick with semi-trailers rumbling into Los Santos. The distinction between GTA V and GTA IV’s vehicle handling is immediately clear; carving my way through the throngs of 18-wheelers the low-slung supercar feels more sure-footed and grippy than similar models in GTA IV. It’s more responsive, but without erring towards feeling too superficial or light.

To the right, over the ocean, the sun is setting. The sky glows orange as I near the first turn-off. Pulling into a more built-up area of town I’m reminded of the obsessive, incidental detail that amazed me during our first, hands-off demonstration. The cracked roads. The bespoke graffiti lining the walls. The unique shopfronts and billboards littering your line of sight. The city is colourful yet weathered. Living but lived-in. Like Liberty City before it, Los Santos is already making me feel as much like a tourist as a player.

Image
Los Santos looks absolutely stunning at night.

I cruise past an Up-n-Atom Burger on my left. It’s night now and the neon lights of Vinewood are bathing the whole environment in a soft glow. It’s suggested, at this stage, I cause a little mayhem and get a feel for the on-foot controls.

I ditch the car just down from the Cathay Theater and bring up the weapon wheel. For the purposes of the hands-on it’s fully stocked. The wheel itself functions in a similar way to the weapon wheel in Max Payne 3, only in GTA V you can carry a great deal more hardware. The main wheel itself is broken down into a series of subcategories; after scrolling with the stick to the weapon type you want, left and right on the D-pad will cycle between additional individual weapons. I select the heavy machine guns and flick between the ones on offer until I find a minigun. It’s an elegant system. Impressively, the weapon wheel will store all of the weapons you collect and you’ll never lose them, even if they run out of ammo or you get busted.

Image
Somewhere, somehow, Michael Mann just got a tingle in his gentlemen's area.

The minigun makes short work of vehicles, but the response from the local constabulary is swift and severe and my anti-social experiment doesn’t last long. The police, who appear to be giving me a much wider berth than their brothers-in-blue from Liberty City, are quite content to pick me off from afar – and they successfully do so before I wreak too much havoc.

The harsh, San Andreas sunshine... gives the whole environment a brilliant, suitably over-exposed summertime feel.

Respawning at the nearest hospital, it’s daylight and I’m struck at just how much brighter GTA V is than GTA IV. The harsh, San Andreas sunshine lends vehicles a dazzling gleam, casts sharp shadows, and gives the whole environment a brilliant, suitably over-exposed summertime feel. Aesthetically, Los Santos stands in stark contrast to the somewhat washed-out bleakness of Liberty City.

I jog out onto the road and train a pistol at the first driver I obstruct, assuming he’ll abandon his car. He does not; he slinks down behind the steering wheel and floors it, running me down in the process. Civilian responses to carjacking seem more varied here in GTA V. In a few cases simply wrenching the door open is enough for the occupant to get out of his or her car in fear, without you raising a further finger. I appropriate a shiny red, El Camino-style pick-up and proceed to hurl it around the streets. It handles noticeably differently from the high-powered supercar; potent but heftier. The pick-up doesn’t stick to the road quite as tenaciously but it’s simple to tame and throw about.

I loose a few rounds into a passing bus to stir up the fuzz and trade my pick-up for a large beverage truck. The truck’s bulk makes for some satisfyingly crunching collisions with the pursuing police cruisers but, again, I’m chopped down minutes into my rampage.

It’s no matter because it’s time for some missions.

The first mission I play is called Repossession. It’s an early mission, one of the first in the game, and features Franklin. Franklin and his friend Lamar are working for Simeon Yatarian, a dodgy Armenian car dealer. After buttering Franklin up with an Employee of the Month award that serves to simply irritate Franklin and (hilariously) infuriate Lamar, Simeon tasks the pair of them with repossessing a motorcycle he recently sold to a possible gangbanger who’s never made a payment.

Simeon’s dealership has several high-end vehicles available that Franklin can use immediately. I’m told players will be able to save their favourites in a garage or safehouse and, if a saved vehicle is abandoned or destroyed, it can be recovered (for a fee) at the local impound lot.

Image
Franklin and Lamar with a ride that looks fit for an ejector seat.

As I make my way to the customer’s location in an aggressive-looking sports saloon the little touches keep coming. The new crunch of spinning tyres on grass and dirt. The way livid drivers angrily flip you off after collisions. The ubiquitous rain grooves of LA’s decaying freeways brought to life in Los Santos. The subtle ticking of a cooling engine after shutting off a car. The amount of work that’s gone into elements many gamers may not even notice continues to astonish.

The amount of work that’s gone into elements many gamers not even notice continues to astonish.

Arriving in a dilapidated residential area, Franklin and Lamar mantle a chain link fence and make their way down a quiet alley in search of the bike. Lamar accosts a nearby homeless drunk in what I’m told is a totally unique encounter; a brief, one-of-a-kind interaction that serves to immerse players deeper and deeper in this living, breathing city and its surroundings. The main characters and NPCs alike are apparently bursting with thousands of custom animations, all of which are there to add valuable context to the world of GTA V.

The repo, unsurprisingly, goes pear-shaped when Lamar triggers a firefight with the gang while looking for the bike. Kicking a pistol towards Franklin I get my first proper taste of GTA V’s combat. The likes of Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3 have had a hugely positive impact on GTA V’s shooting mechanics. These changes were explained to us all several months ago but, hands-on, I can vouch for the success of these tweaks. The controls are supremely refined and the action tight.

A car peels into the fracas but crashes moments later, leaving a trail of fuel on the asphalt. Lamar instructs me to shoot it and I oblige, setting the trail of petrol alight. A line of flame licks across the ground and back to the wrecked car, which explodes spectacularly.

Image
It's a big bodycount for a bike.

The bike Franklin and Lamar have been tasked with recovering suddenly speeds off down the alley, presumably beneath the miscreant they’re meant to recover it from. I sprint back to the car, pausing for beat while Lamar gets back into the passenger seat. Slamming the sedan into reverse and swinging the front end around I can attest that GTA V’s newly-honed handling still allows for glorious and deceptively easy J-turns. Using the map we move to intercept the bike.

Lamar encourages me to blast the bloke off the motorcycle, which I attempt, but I instead collide with him in the process. It’s still a result, however, and I collect the crashed motorcycle and take it to a prearranged location. The motorcycles have benefitted from the handling improvements too; they still feel quite manoeuvrable but, at the same time, they now come with more believable sense of mass.

The second mission I play is called Three’s Company, which is the first mission to introduce all three of GTA V’s playable characters.

On the ground you feel like a tiny part of a huge world. From the air you see why.

Michael, Trevor, and Franklin have been conscripted to extract and deliver a high-value FIB target from a large building in downtown Los Santos. It’s an audacious plan. Michael makes the extraction, Franklin provides sniper support from an adjacent rooftop, and Trevor flies the chopper.

After making my way to the chopper as Michael I assume control of Trevor and the chopper, taking off and gaining height over the industrial area below. This is my first taste of GTA V from the air and the scale is immense. The city stretches out beneath the chopper in every direction. On the ground you feel like a tiny part of a huge world. From the air you see why.

Image
The view will always blow you away before the police blow you out of the sky.

The chopper controls are unchanged from GTA IV, although they feel sharper and more precise. I position the chopper over the target building, triggering a swap to Michael (who’s set to rappel from the heli to make the snatch). The target is being threatened with sodomy with a large flashlight when I burst through the window and grab him, although I’m immediately surrounded by several armed men. It’s here another automatic swap is triggered, this time to Franklin. A coloured flash on screen will signal a switch to a particular character. Michael is blue, Franklin is green, and Trevor is orange.

Franklin’s peering through a scope at the chaos unfolding. I begin to provide cover for Michael, who’s now dangling from the rope clutching the target. After several kills I’m now able to switch back to Michael manually; his portrait is flashing red on the character wheel, meaning I must either provide support for him or switch to him lest he die (at other times the character portraits may flash white, indicating a particular character is in prime position to assist or has some kind of tactical advantage).

Image
Hey, it worked like a charm in The Eiger Sanction!

After clearing the room, Michael and the high-value target are whisked back up to the chopper and I switch back to Franklin to address the three hostile helicopters that have arrived on the scene. Firing a cluster of rounds through the cockpit glass I nail a pilot and one of the choppers spirals away out of control. The other two, chasing Trevor and Michael, zip past. I switch to Michael, firing a light machine gun from the open door and shoot down another. I then switch to Trevor for a little evasive action while Michael and Franklin take care of the shooting. After all three choppers are despatched I return to the take-off location to deliver the target to the awaiting FIB goons. The improved helicopter mechanics definitely make landing more straightforward; the chopper doesn’t feel as if requires constant correction once you’ve got it in the right position.

Mission number three for the afternoon ups the ante. Called Derailed, this mission sees Michael and Trevor hijacking a train to nab whatever gold or loot it contains. Trevor doesn’t actually know; he just knows whatever it is, it’s incredibly valuable and can’t be transported by air. While Michael heads off to find a boat for his part of the plan, I hop on a dirt bike as Trevor and set off to catch the train.

I tuck in behind the last carriage and follow the fast moving train until I spot a raised area to the right of the track. Breaking off from behind the train I weave the bike up a small hill and over a slight outcrop, aiming for the snaking train below. I slam down on one of the shipping containers and begin to ride towards the locomotive up front. It’s tricky, though, and Trevor and the bike fall off the edge, slamming into a bridge railing. It’s here the checkpoint system, something that debuted in The Ballad of Gay Tony, proves GTA V has well and truly shed its most unforgiving trait. There’s no need to make that tricky jump again to finish the mission; a checkpoint will be triggered once you’ve made it.

You can take more risks and have more fun while you’re doing it, without sweating you’ll need to try again from the beginning should you fail.

This is the kind of thing that allows GTA V’s missions to be so varied and crazy; you’re no longer required to complete the whole thing perfectly or start from scratch. Now you can take more risks and have more fun while you’re doing it, without sweating you’ll need to try again from the beginning should you fail. Like TBOGT, every mission is also replayable, allowing you to experiment with different tactics.

After reaching the loco Trevor jumps in and knocks out the driver, leaving me driving the train briefly until I’m switched to Michael. Michael’s skipping across the water in a Zodiac-style rigid inflatable boat. The water physics are truly great. The sloshing waves foam beneath the boat, which feels light as it skims across the ocean and up the Zancudo River to a rail bridge where Trevor is about to cause a major train crash.

Image
Sure, it looks tranquil now.

Two fully-laden freight trains collide as Trevor leaps from the cabin and into the river below. Containers tumble into the water. As Michael I toss a satchel charge onto our target container and blow the doors. Michael heads in as I’m switched to Trevor, covering him from behind a log outside. A retrieval team of private security is already en route and it’s up to me to keep them off Michael’s back.

Three enemy boats arrive first; a concentrated spray of bullets towards the occupants of each is enough to silence them. A pair of nimble choppers is the next threat, but stitching a devastating line of lead across the cockpits of both sees one peel off into the rocky cliffside and explode and the other drop like a leaf into the river. The thermal scope on my sniper rifle is handy to spot the goons hiding on the bridge above, but the soft-lock targeting and the range of my LMG means it not crucial. A final pair of security personnel arrives on a hill above via parachute, but they too are cut down.

Escaping from the scene I choose to fire on our pursuers while Michael helms the boat. By air, by water, and by land they chase us – a 4x4 bouncing alongside the river scattering hikers proves particularly troublesome to dissuade – but eventually we reach open water. I switch to Michael and beach our boat near our escape vehicles.

Mission four, Nervous Ron, is a Trevor joint and a huge amount of fun. Trevor is furious after some members of The Lost MC ransacked his trailer and broke one of his collectible statues. He wants revenge, but he also wants their arms dealing business, so he sets about killing two birds with one stone. Here I get to see Trevor’s neck of the woods at night and it’s a drastic change from evening in Los Santos. There’s far less bustle in Sandy Shores and streetlights are fewer. The main source of light is the headlamp from Trevor’s ATV.

As psychopathic as he is, Trevor is going to be a firm favourite with many players.

As Trevor I head to the nearby Ammu-Nation. The store is quiet at this time of night; the only real sound is the buzz from the neon at the front of the store. Inside Trevor threatens the clerk into donating him a rifle, a scope, and a suppressor. Weapons in GTA V come with a range of customisation options, both cosmetic and practical. These can be bought and applied in any of the game’s Ammu-Nation stores and, as mentioned, the player will never lose them, even if they get busted.

Making my way back to the outskirts of a Lost-controlled airstrip a coyote unexpectedly bolts in front of my ATV and I strike it. I hear a thud and a whelp before I’ve even seen the animal.

A coyote unexpectedly bolts in front of my ATV and I strike it.

After I rendezvous with Ron, Trevor sends him into the area to set some explosives. I cover Ron from a bunch of bikers as he creeps around the run-down airstrip, at one point even shooting the lights out above one of the bodies to prevent another biker from seeing it.

Eventually The Lost get wise to Trevor’s imminent hostile takeover and begin to fight back. Riding into the scene and wading into the skirmish I make my way into the hangar where Ron is preparing to taxi out onto the runway in a twin-engine plane. Trevor leaps onto the wing on his belly and, as Ron moves the plane out of the hangar, I find I’m able to fire at the bikers ahead and roll onto my side and back to deal with bikers beside and behind me. It’s precisely like Max Payne’s ability to fire in any direction when prone in Max Payne 3.

Further down the runway Trevor leaps off and grabs a plane of his own. As I hurtle down the tarmac I skittle one biker, his body flailing out from underneath my speeding plane. Another leaps onto the wing and clutches on as I take off. He falls away screaming as I jink the controls.

I follow Ron over the ocean where he encourages me to get down low to avoid being detected by the nearby military base. The propwash from my plane kicks up spray as I cruise just feet above the waves.

Image
The higher you get, the more like a postcard GTA V looks.

We drop the merchandise from the planes to some awaiting boats before racing back to a different airfield. A mountain rises to the left. There are wetlands below. Blaine County and the glimmering sea make up everything else I can see. It’s stunning.

The airfield comes into view ahead and I throttle down to cut speed for landing. I throttle down too much and Trevor cuts the engines entirely. They splutter back to life, belching black smoke just in time to give me the extra distance I need to reach the runway and I hastily touch down and park the plane. The planes feel great and landing seems suitably forgiving.

The fifth and final mission of my hands-on, Vinewood Babylon, proves to be my favourite and results in the anecdote I introduced this preview with. A contact of Michael’s needs a package retrieved from a private jet. The jet, however, is airborne so Michael and Trevor need to force it down.

While Trevor heads off to find an off-road vehicle to chase the jet, I head up to a quiet spot overlooking the city as Michael. Waiting is a van with a very special gun in the back. Think of the gun Bruce Willis shot Jack Black’s arm off with in 1997’s The Jackal; a huge, mounted rifle controlled via a computer screen. A small red reticule leading the plane tracks where you need to shoot to critically damage one of the jet’s engines. Three hits and the plane begins to lose height, leaving a trail of billowing, oily black smoke behind it.

Image
At least the peanuts are still complimentary.

This is where I assume control of Trevor, blasting across half of Blaine Country, leaping over hills, ditches and moving trains chasing the crippled aircraft.

The plane eventually crashes and Trevor is able to recover the package for Michael’s contact. At this point, control switches back to Michael and I’m instructed to destroy the van. To do so, I slosh a jerry can’s worth of fuel all around it and slowly back away, leaving a trail of gasoline to light. The van burns slowly, the tyres burst, and then it explodes.

After seeing GTA V for the first time a few months ago the thing that struck me most was its incredible scope. Playing it for the first time has only served to strengthen my admiration of this game’s unprecedented girth. Not just physical girth. The sheer size of the world, sure, but also the utter variety that pervades GTA V’s every element.

Image
Not long now.

The creatively bonkers missions I played. The amazing diversity of the city and its surroundings. The distinct differences between the game’s three main characters (they’re all very different men and I have a hunch the largely appalling but genuinely hilarious Trevor will be a surprising favourite).

I’ve barely even touched on the colossal range of vehicles on offer. I saw everything from Kombi-style surf vans to huge off-highway haul trucks and everything in between, and that was still just a slice of what GTA V will be stocked with.

Image
Although you may want to concentrate on stealing the fast ones.

For most of this year gamers the world over have been preoccupied with discussing 2013’s exciting new console launches. We’ve hung on Sony and Microsoft’s every word, waiting for confirmation of just when the next generation was set to arrive.

The truth is, we knew all along. September 17.

PlayStation 4 and Xbox One may be arriving in November but GTA V is already poised to upstage the pair of them. With respect to the many tremendously exciting games headed to PS4 and Xbox One later this year, GTA V already feels like a potent reminder that ambition, confidence and, above all, gameplay beats a brand new box of chips and wires every time.

Never mind November; I suspect the next generation will start when GTA V says it is does.


:geek: ... with respect to that very last italicized and underlined line, i've said the very same about x-plane endlessly, as well as that is the entire basis for the Flight_Operation section here of given_storyline, purpose, characters and role played situations (gameplay). Beyond that, the same is true about GTAV on PS3/X360 (2006) vs PS4, in that ardent priority and attention to mesh and texture efficiency is key, not just declaring higher hardware requirements, cpu and video card requirments for irresponsibly wasteful modelling. All the GTAV screenshots shown in this thread are on on, yes, 2006 level PS3 hardware.

Re: GTAV Trailer Released, Aircraft!

PostPosted:
by AADX
Summary:

Masks, glasses and such can be equiped from an inventory menu.
You will have mission playlists if you choose to enter them - or you can just jump into Free Roam mode.
There will be everything from 2-player missions on up to full-blown 16-player quests.
Several tennis courts dot Los Santos, while the city contains one 18-hole golf course. The golf mini-game can accomodate [up to] a foursome.
There are movies to watch at theaters, and in Online up to 16 players can pack a theater.
You will be able to deposit your money through ATM, in addition to using Debit cards.
You can take a shower at your apartment.
There is a Make it Rain button to use at the strip club. You will also be able to touch the girls during private dances, but if you get caught three times you will be tossed out on the street.

Re: GTAV Trailer Released, Aircraft!

PostPosted:
by AADX