I was playing GTA:SA today and I can’t help but wonder when a developer will release a GTA-like mmorpg.
You are a gangsta, as you level you gain more followers… the missions are gang related missions, you get different guns as weapons… drugs, prostitution, cop killing…
It would be a sure sell if done right.
Instead of clans, you have gangs, and each gang could choose their own colors. You could fight rival gangs for territory.
Yeah, it’s just a matter of time…
Haven’t heard a whole lot about this game, and it sounds like they are trying to stay responsible and keep somewhat clear of the whole “gangsta” thing, but the new Hip-hop themed MMO from 404 Gaming is reasonably close to what you’re talking about. Here is an interview with CGM.
It will be awful because it’s an MMORPG. I’m sure they would not license it as an MMO-action game like planet side.
Well, in that interview they say that combat would be action-based and not stat-based. Not a whole lot of detail, though.
isnt this kinda what APB will be?
Agree! I have no interest in a GTA-style griefing game. However, lots of people would and it would make lots of money, so from that perspective it wouldn’t be awful.
I really, really, really hope that GTA never goes online.
It’s funny to think that as more and more people start evangelizing about online as the necessary future of vidogaming, that the 800lb gorilla of the console world is a single player experience.
Don’t get me wrong - I like me some LAN fps action, and play WoW with a bunch of friends - but I don’t think that online = better (although I’m not saying that has been set forth in this thread - not trying to put words in anybody’s mouse). I certainly don’t think that the experience for which I turn to GTA has anything to gain at all by being turned into an online experience.
That said, I certainly hope that MMO games expand onwards beyond the confines of swords-and-sorcery style fantasy. I’m more intrigued by games like MXO or Anarchy Online just because I’d like a nice dark future setting. Certainly, a modern gangster tale has a great setting and who wouldn’t find setting up a crime empire instead of a guild a refreshing change?
The type of world depicted in GTA games could be as good a setting as any to try an MMO. I just hope that the GTA series itself doesn’t feel the need to go down that path.
I agree that GTA would lose what makes it “GTA” if it went online… I can’t really think of it working well as a MMO. I think that a large map, with all of the freedom of GTA, and just shooting the heck out of each other (plus some minigames) would be satisfying for a bit.
Games like The Mercenaries and 25 To Life would be neat online.
A GTA MMORPG would only work if you can have player characters hookers, so you can take the “pay hooker for head, get head, kill hooker, get back money” meme to the next level.
I wouldn’t mind if GTA went online in a more Guild Wars fashion, rather than the usual MMO fashion. Keep the actual game highly instanced for small groups at most.
On the other hand, the main reason I’d like to see that is so they could periodically stream updates to the radio stations, more than group stuff. Although missions designed specifically for multi-person capers would be pretty fun if done right.
I never want to see a GTA online game either. You’d have to change the game so much it wouldn’t be GTA.
blah blah blah. You know what? I didn’t want to see The Sims Online either (or The Sims itself, frankly), and we know how -that- turned out.
A Grand Theft Auto Online sounds fantastic. There’d be enough money behind it to provide a reasonable guarantee that it wouldn’t be ass, there’d be lots of people playing it, and I’d get to shoot people. Sounds like a win to me.
Yes it sucked as well and we all saw it sucking years before it was even released. Primarily single player games make awful online games. GTA would be no different.
Ratchet and Clank?
Webzen already hired David Jones, the creator of Grand Theft Auto, to do an online MMORPG based on a similar idea called APB - All Points Bulletin:
http://www.webzengames.com/Game/APB/default.asp
Bruce
I thought he ‘created’ gta 1, not the wildly successful (and more fun) gtas of today?
Microsoft also hired David Jones who now runs “Real Time Worlds:” http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/06/21/news_6127877.html
The website says that the team was handpicked by Jones who served as designer and creator of over 15 “hit titles” including “Grand Theft Auto” and “Lemmings.”
I don’t know what you’re talking about but I got into GTA starting with GTA1 and that game was fun as heck, pitting the mobs against each other and starting gang wars, then seeing the police drive down there and kick everyone’s butts… taking a tank and driving around felt so much better than it does in GTA: San Andreas. Perhaps because it didn’t feel as fake when pedestrians/cops spawned off the screen (now they just spawn whenever you rotate the camera! arghhh).
And of course GTA had multiplayer, run over your buddy, that was fun :-).