So the GTA franchise has a lot of long-standing structural and cultural problems. We all know this. They are, after all, games where one is specifically intended to play the role of a violent criminal. (For the record, and I think I mentioned this a few times in the CoH board back in the day, that's not my scene. I tried GTA 4 and never got anywhere with it, because I just don't cotton to being the bad guy.) When it came out that GTA 5 was going to have an online multiplayer free-roam mode, it seemed to me like a recipe for a perfect storm of Internet shittiness: all the things that suck about MMOs, overlaid on a game designed to appeal to players' worst impulses in the first place.

And, well, there is certainly a large element of that. And the base game is just as... morally challenged?... as it always was. But you know how they say "the street finds its own uses for things"?¹ This is also the case with GTA Online. The game world is so big, so detailed, and so inherently ridiculous that it's sufficiently fun just to wander around it, dicking around at random. Sure, you can go berserk and run over everyone in Sandy Shores, or see how far you can get into the military base before the army guns you down (note: not far), but equally, you can just as viably jog uptown from South Los Santos, arriving in Vinewood just in time to see the sunset light up the hillside sign. Or doing stunts on the many, many features of the landscape cunningly included for the purpose. Or mountain bike up Mt. Chiliad. Or buy stuff in the convenience store run by the nice Pakistani gentleman, rather than robbing it.

Mind you, there isn't a completely legitimate alternate pathway through the online game. It will constantly importune you to get out there and do some crimes. There doesn't seem to be any non-criminal way of actually progressing, or of making an in-game living. And unless you're playing in passive mode (and a big thanks is due to Rockstar for including same), the insane legions of five-year-old Xbone players will blow you up a lot while you're minding your own business trying to find an ATM. But still!

I've only recently started playing (having been convinced to try it by the many YouTube videos of people Randomly Sandboxing Around that can be found on the various Yogscast channels), and since I'm not actually doing a bunch of crime I'm only like level 4, but I have to say I'm finding it quite fun in an off-label, I Know I'm Doing It Wrong kind of way. :)

--G.
¹ William Gibson, 1982
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I also gave up on GTA 4 (I think it was GTA 4. The one set in ersatz New York City.) for related reasons — I actually picked it up in the first place because I wanted to try a game where you're playing the bad guy, but then it was very clear that the protagonist didn't want to be a bad guy. He would have been happier if he could have ditched his loser cousin, gotten a legit job and signed up for some night classes. You're meant to believe he's sticking to the cousin out of family obligation, I suppose, but the writers didn't sell that nearly hard enough.

>You're meant to believe he's sticking to the
>cousin out of family obligation, I suppose, but the writers didn't
>sell that nearly hard enough.

I think there's some backstory there related to the war back in the Old Country, too, but I didn't stick it out long enough to find out what the deal was with that. It's still in my Steam library, I might go back and try it again sometime.

--G.
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Don't bother, GTA5 is superior in every way.

------
Oh God, it was me. I was the grognard all along.

That's one of several reasons why I never bothered with GTA. Wanting to be the Good Guy/Hero is just too ingrained (all apologies to Wreck-It Ralph). Even in games with morality systems or D&D alignment I favor the light side. Although I will admit to the occasional Renegade Interrupt ("You're working too hard" "How about 'good-bye'") in Mass Effect or a Quick-Save>Rampage>Load when the NPCs get too annoying.

I'm the same way. I just can't immerse myself in an evil character like that, at least not for long enough to play a game of any real length.

------
Fearless creatures, we all learn to fight the Reaper
Can't defeat Her, so instead I'll have to be Her

>And unless you're playing in passive mode (and a big thanks is due to
>Rockstar for including same), the insane legions of five-year-old
>Xbone players will blow you up a lot while you're minding your own
>business trying to find an ATM.

Oh! You can set up a private lobby. The menu option for it, weirdly, is in the menus for the single-player game. Well, that's handy! You can't do a bunch of the stuff there, but at least you don't have to render yourself incapable of defending yourself against obstreperous NPCs (and boy, there are a lot of them) just to keep from being blown up by the grade-schoolers.

--G.
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Have you tried GTA's absolutely batshit insane cousin on every drug known to man, Saints Row? Specifically 3 and 4. The original was pretty mych a straight GTA3 clone, 2 was getting wackier, and 3 is when it went crazy-go-nuts. 4 is crazy-go-nuts on TOAST. :D

If need be, I'm reasonably certain I have a code for at least one of them lying around you could use.

>Have you tried GTA's absolutely batshit insane cousin on every drug
>known to man, Saints Row? Specifically 3 and 4. The original was
>pretty mych a straight GTA3 clone, 2 was getting wackier, and 3 is
>when it went crazy-go-nuts. 4 is crazy-go-nuts on TOAST. :D
>
>If need be, I'm reasonably certain I have a code for at least one of
>them lying around you could use.

Isn't that the game with the shark gun?

(Seriously, Chief, that's a Skuld-goes-what kind of weapon. It doesn't shoot sharks. It shoots your target... and then for no sane reason at all there's a spray of water from below, and a shark comes up and devours your target, then it goes back under the street leaving no mark at all.)

--
Geoff Depew - Darth Mephron
Haberdasher to Androids, Dark Lord of Sith Tech Support.
"And Remember! Google is your Friend!!"

. . . so it's like a shoulder-fired Infinite Improbability Drive?

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

>Have you tried GTA's absolutely batshit insane cousin on every drug
>known to man, Saints Row?

I haven't played any of them, but have heard of them. I got the impression, based on what I read about Saints Row the Third when it came out, that the developers had gotten bored with the street-crime thing and decided, "Well, fine. They want us to 'differentiate' our franchise from Grand Theft Auto? Yeah... we can do that."

--G.
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It is an absolute treasure.

"OK, Franklin, now let's try and be subtle about this. See if you can climb up that storm drain."

(Franklin pauses as if considering his options, then gets a running start and rams his face as hard as he can into the garage wall next to the storm drain, knocking himself out cold momentarily)

"... Right, I guess you can't climb storm drains. I'll make a note."

--G.
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*SNERK*

Um, Hello, Amazon? I need to order another monitor...

Yeah, Coffee again.

>"OK, Franklin, now let's try and be subtle about this. See if you can
>climb up that storm drain."
>
>(Franklin pauses as if considering his options, then gets a running
>start and rams his face as hard as he can into the garage wall next to
>the storm drain, knocking himself out cold momentarily)
>
>"... Right, I guess you can't climb storm drains. I'll make a note."

Franklin appears to suffer from the same neuromuscular condition that Altair did. Does he often also suddenly veer off to the right or left when at a dead run, tripping over easily avoidable obstacles?

Ebony the Black Dragon

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."

>>"OK, Franklin, now let's try and be subtle about this. See if you can
>>climb up that storm drain."
>>
>>(Franklin pauses as if considering his options, then gets a running
>>start and rams his face as hard as he can into the garage wall next to
>>the storm drain, knocking himself out cold momentarily)
>>
>>"... Right, I guess you can't climb storm drains. I'll make a note."
>
>Franklin appears to suffer from the same neuromuscular condition that
>Altair did. Does he often also suddenly veer off to the right or left
>when at a dead run, tripping over easily avoidable obstacles?

Not so much with the tripping, but definitely the veering, if I'm using my Steam Controller. The analog stick, she's pretty sensitive. By the same token, vehicle steering tends to be full lock to full lock, which is annoying, since it was mainly to see if I could make that work better than on keyboard that I bought the dang thing. Maybe the real problem is that I have a digital thumb.

--G.

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"OK, Trevor, we've climbed almost all the way to the top of this dockyard crane. All you have to do now is hoik yourself up that last couple of feet onto the top of the thing so you can get to the control cab and we're in business."

(Trevor pauses as if considering his options, then pivots 180 degrees, climbs onto the safety railing that had been behind him, and launches himself into space, screaming and windmilling his arms and legs all the way to a bloody death on the blacktop far below.)

"... You useless tweaker asshole."

--G.
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Upon reflection, I don't think Trevor is a psychopath, as he is commonly assumed to be. I think he's the only character in the game who knows he's a character in a video game. His complete disregard for the lives and safety of NPCs is thus not insane callousness, but simply the knowledge that they didn't exist before they spawned for this one appearance and will cease to exist immediately afterward, regardless of what he does or does not do to them.

(As an aside, I think my favorite moment he's in isn't actually in story mode, but in Online, the first time the player character meets him. The PC in Online never speaks, like Gordon Freeman, so when Trevor stands there in all his freak glory berating the PC for (inadvertently) interfering with his operations and threatening dire punishments, he doesn't react other than to give Trevor a curious sort of "what planet did you just arrive from, mate?" kind of look. Trevor finds this reaction so baffling and unexpected that he completely loses track of his agenda, finishing the rant with, "What he hell is the matter with you?! Why aren't you afraid of me?" To which the PC responds with a shrug. Turns out Trevor can't handle unflappability. :)

--G.
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>Upon reflection, I don't think Trevor is a psychopath, as he is
>commonly assumed to be. I think he's the only character in the game
>who knows he's a character in a video game. His complete disregard
>for the lives and safety of NPCs is thus not insane callousness, but
>simply the knowledge that they didn't exist before they spawned for
>this one appearance and will cease to exist immediately afterward,
>regardless of what he does or does not do to them.

This is pretty much what Saints Row 4 did. "Okay, this is a virtual world, and no one here is even remotely real. You don't even have to PRETEND to hold back any more."

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

If you get Michael, one of the main characters, a shaved-head haircut and a vandyke, then buy him a polo shirt and some jeans...

... he turns into Zoner.

(He even sort of moves similarly. Voice is nothing like, though, fortunately, or that would just be too creepy.)

--G.
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

There are many things about Gin Shepard's new job as my GTAO character that are arguably out of character for her.

However, wearing that shirt is totally not one of them. (And nor is participating in a cross-country motor race using a flag-themed monster truck called The Liberator, which also happened.)

--G.
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Once I had an Imponté Ruiner, I pretty much had to.

--G.
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Moral imperative.

>Moral imperative.

Speaking of which,

This is Jim Rockford. At the tone, leave your name and message, I'll get back to you.

--G.
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LAST EDITED ON Nov-22-16 AT 11:25 AM (EST)
 
>>Moral imperative.
>
>Speaking of which,

Very nice. Will there be a red Gran Torino with a white racing stripe in the near future? Or (to jump from TV to film) a Mustang 390 Fastback?

(We can leave the orange Dodge Charger with the Stars & Bars out. I think that's a bit of a touchy subject these days.)

Ebony the Black Dragon

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."

>>>Moral imperative.
>>
>>Speaking of which,
>
>Very nice. Will there be a red Gran Torino with a white racing stripe
>in the near future? Or (to jump from TV to film) a Mustang 390
>Fastback?

There doesn't appear to be an in-game muscle car similar to the Torino, though it might be possible to simulate the look very roughly with a Stallion (which is generally more GTO-like). I'll have to look into it sometime. The only distinctly Mustang-like car I can think of in the game is the Dominator, which is patterned on a modern Mustang, but you can approximate that dark green readily enough.

--G.
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>>>>Moral imperative.
>>>
>>>Speaking of which,
>>
>>Very nice. Will there be a red Gran Torino with a white racing stripe
>>in the near future? Or (to jump from TV to film) a Mustang 390
>>Fastback?
>
>There doesn't appear to be an in-game muscle car similar to the
>Torino

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Sabre Turbo. Even has an approximately appropriate secondary paint option.

--G.
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Man alive, the cops in Los Santos are incompetent.

Case in point: I just hijacked a garbage truck (not just for laughs, I need it for a heist I'm in the process of setting up), and a bystander called 911, so I got an instant wanted rating. Only one star, so not the kind where they bring out gunship helicopters and the National Guard, but still. Cops were looking for me.

I drove the garbage truck out of the intersection I'd jacked it in and maybe ten feet up the cross street, got out, and—just to see if it would work—literally just jumped over somebody's front garden wall and hid behind it. Maybe a foot from the sidewalk, six feet from where I'd left the truck, no more than 20 or 30 from the scene of the crime.

From the third-person camera angle that happens when you take cover behind a wall, I could see the cop cars driving up and down the street, not just the red and blue flashing dots on the map, and watch their Metal Gear-style "NPC field of vision" things sweep over my hiding place on said map. One of them, I shit you not, crashed into the back of the garbage truck because I'd left it sort of half up on the sidewalk, half still in the street. As did a couple of civilian NPCs during the time I was hiding back there, one of whom seemed to have been killed in the crash.

About a minute of this, and then... the cops all gave up and went back to Dunkin.

None of them even got out of his car to have a look at the obvious stolen abandoned garbage truck one of them had crashed into while driving aimlessly around the area. It didn't occur to any of them to, I don't know, watch the truck to see if the guy who had stolen it came back, either, or have someone else drive it off, or get it towed to impound, or whatever. Nope. Just left it there. (Also the crashed Smart car with the dead driver still slumped over the wheel, endlessly sounding the horn, until he eventually despawned.)

So I just had to wait for them to leave, then stand up, hyoip over the wall, climb into the truck, and drive it off to where I needed to stash it. Easy. I passed one of them at the next intersection. He didn't give a shit.

On the other hand, mind you, if they had noticed me they've have started shooting at me. Without preamble. For stealing a garbage truck and driving it 20 feet. Like the real LAPD, the LSPD has only two responses to crime: total indifference and immediate lethal force.

The Los Santos Police Department, ladies and gentlemen.

--G.
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Yeah, that's not exactly an impressive display of police work.

>
>(Also the crashed Smart car with the dead driver still slumped over
>the wheel, endlessly sounding the horn, until he eventually
>despawned.)
>

Out of curiosity, does the car despawn with the driver? If it doesn't, I'd have grabbed that as well, because, hey, free Smart car.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

>Out of curiosity, does the car despawn with the driver? If it
>doesn't, I'd have grabbed that as well, because, hey, free Smart car.

It did, yeah, but they spawn pretty commonly, so finding another one wouldn't be hard. Anyway, I had to leave the area in the garbage truck anyway, I wasn't at liberty to take a random car. Besides which, the Panto (what the Car That Is Obviously a Smart is called in-game) is worth too much to be permanently stealable; you can only keep cars you've stolen that are worth less than $50,000, and Pantos, hilariously, sell for $80K.

--G.
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

LAST EDITED ON Dec-14-16 AT 10:23 PM (EST)
 
I call this part of my garage Tornado Alley.

It's not every variation of the Tornado you can get, but the beater convertible is too much of a pain in the ass to acquire and I haven't gotten around to getting a normal hardtop yet. I had one, but I converted it into Sharknado, the lowrider, and it became a convertible in the process.

Oh hey, I've leveled up since I took that pic, I can get the fender ornaments now. Back to Benny's!

--G.
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OK, the GTAO people are on my wavelength this week.

There's a car in the game called the Annis Elegy RH8, which is essentially a modern-day Nissan GT-R. One of the things in the big update that dropped today was the option to take an Elegy RH8 to Benny's, the high-end lowriders-and-other-radical-customs shop. If you do that, and you drop the change for the upgrade he offers, it turns into an Elegy Retro Custom, which is basically an '80s Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R.

Which is exactly what I would have done.

It also means that Gryphon's car from Locard's Exchange can now come full circle. It's in that story because it was my very favorite car from the original Gran Turismo, and now, it can be replicated in GTA Online.

Well played, Rockstar! Thanks to this and the enormous new garage spaces that are now available, I'll forgive you for the "new" gameplay mode introduced in this update being exactly the same stupid mission setup as you've put into not one but two previous updates, with the glaring flaw it's always had completely unaddressed.

But only just.

--G.
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