[Death2Drugs]

GTA V is taking place in a modern-day, completely re-designed, crisp Los Santos. Los Santos is obviously based on Los Angeles. If Los Angeles and in general Southern California is known for one thing, its suburbs. GTA: San Andreas' take on Los Santos lacked a lot of suburbs. The only suburbs were either: crime-ridden ghettos with dilapidated housing or hilly very rich kid neighborhoods. No middle-class areas. Los Angeles has many suburbs though, such as the San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley, etc.

I want suburbs to be represented in a much better way than they were in San Andreas. Major areas that should be represented include:
*San Fernando Valley (middle class area)
*San Gabriel Valley (middle class area)
*South Central Los Angeles, Gateway Cities, and East Los Angeles (lower class area, ghetto suburbs)
*Orange County (middle to high class area)
*Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and Western Los Angeles (higher class areas)
*Hollywood Hills (richest of the rich)

Suburbs could provide a lot of safehouses, and also activities. These areas would be perfect for burglaries, causing crazy havoc, providing a lot of restaurants, providing some venues and used in some missions. We could see tons of events in suburbs, such as fights, some car crashes, a burglar trying to rob a house, a party, etc. Ghetto areas would be perfect for gang-related random events to happen, such as gang fights, getting mugged, gang getting together, rap shows (according to 1 topic), etc.

Of course, suburbs shouldn't be done in excess. TC: LA and L.A. Noire suffered the problem of the map being a lot of suburban areas. Suburbs should be condensed to an area that is big enough but not big enough where it takes up a majority of the map. TC:LA and LA Noire had too many suburbs (but they were based on L.A., which has a lot of them) while Los Santos in GTA SA had too few.

[spike88]

They've been doing Suburb's small since forever now, although I can understand LA Noire being mostly suburb as it was mostly about going to peoples houses to talk to them, I think if they made the ones from San Andreas a little bigger, and through in a Middle class suburb, it would be perfect.

[saintsrow]

Yep, I agree. A nice sprinkling of different suburbs would complete the work of art that will be GTAV. I think that Rockstar is excellent at capturing all the subtle nature of different neighborhoods, and there could be great richness and variety.

Different towns and different areas had various zoning and codes, housing density and street width, different mix of businesses and institutions, as you point out. And if these characteristics are captured well, it will greatly add to the sense of immersion and sense of moving around the city.

GTA IV did have a few distinctly different neighborhoods, and that was a good start, but unfortunately there were not too many destinations or things to do in those areas. I hope Rockstar will add some kind of motivating activities or things that we need to obtain from those areas, as you suggest, to draw us to those places and make them useful for replay value.

[interpolfan11]

QUOTE (Death2Drugs @ Friday, Apr 13 2012, 20:12)

GTA V is taking place in a modern-day, completely re-designed, crisp Los Santos. Los Santos is obviously based on Los Angeles. If Los Angeles and in general Southern California is known for one thing, its suburbs. GTA: San Andreas' take on Los Santos lacked a lot of suburbs. The only suburbs were either: crime-ridden ghettos with dilapidated housing or hilly very rich kid neighborhoods. No middle-class areas. Los Angeles has many suburbs though, such as the San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley, etc. I want suburbs to be represented in a much better way than they were in San Andreas. Major areas that should be represented include: *San Fernando Valley (middle class area) *San Gabriel Valley (middle class area) *South Central Los Angeles, Gateway Cities, and East Los Angeles (lower class area, ghetto suburbs) *Orange County (middle to high class area) *Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and Western Los Angeles (higher class areas) *Hollywood Hills (richest of the rich) Suburbs could provide a lot of safehouses, and also activities. These areas would be perfect for burglaries, causing crazy havoc, providing a lot of restaurants, providing some venues and used in some missions. We could see tons of events in suburbs, such as fights, some car crashes, a burglar trying to rob a house, a party, etc. Ghetto areas would be perfect for gang-related random events to happen, such as gang fights, getting mugged, gang getting together, rap shows (according to 1 topic), etc. Of course, suburbs shouldn't be done in excess. TC: LA and L.A. Noire suffered the problem of the map being a lot of suburban areas. Suburbs should be condensed to an area that is big enough but not big enough where it takes up a majority of the map. TC:LA and LA Noire had too many suburbs (but they were based on L.A., which has a lot of them) while Los Santos in GTA SA had too few.

I wholeheartedly agree with your entire post. Southern California is mostly made up of middle-class suburban sprawl, so it will be impossible to capture the region's true identity if the game doesn't include an ample amount.

[Bad Azz]

[Mr Jump]

The suburb area at the top of Alderny was fun to cruise round in GTAIV and It was fun doing missions there with gang shootouts and car chases. More of that with more venues, land and missions would be brilliant

Chasing down a guy by vaulting fences, bursting through houses and using stone fences for cover during a shootout from a rival gang would be awesome!!

[saintsrow]

QUOTE (Mr Jump @ Saturday, Apr 14 2012, 13:42)

The suburb area at the top of Alderny was fun to cruise round in GTAIV and It was fun doing missions there with gang shootouts and car chases. More of that with more venues, land and missions would be brilliant Chasing down a guy by vaulting fences, bursting through houses and using stone fences for cover during a shootout from a rival gang would be awesome!!

LA Noire had a bit of that as well - foot chases and car chases in the suburbs - jumping over fences and through yards.

If they make some GTAV missions or side missions that cause the action to take place in the suburbs, there would be a reason to go there and appreciate the design work that they have done.

More generally, there are some interesting places and some nice design work throughout GTAV that we rarely get to appreciate because the normal flow of getting places does not take the player through them.

The Drug Wars in TBOGT were an example of a design that shows more of the city, but the way they are written, they only take place in certain locations. Maybe in GTAV we could have something similr, but with better AI for the NPCs that turns it into a running gun battle that can move and morph around.

[kasper2212]

hey

[Official General]

@ Death2Drugs

I very much agree with this idea, GTA definitely needs to include more middle-class suburbs in its locations. And what you said about San Andreas was right. Los Santos in SA did not really have suburbs as such, it had just 3 kinds of ares - ghettoes, working-class districts and very wealthy neighborhoods in the hilly section of the city. I hope LS in GTA V this time has much more middle-class suburbs, because I know most of Los Angeles is made up huge sprawling suburbs.

I felt that Liberty City in GTA IV should have much more middle-class suburban areas, especially in Dukes. Alderney was done quite well as far that middle-class suburbs go.

[FilipinoGoblin]

QUOTE (kasper2212 @ Saturday, Apr 14 2012, 21:12)

hey

...

Anyway, HOPEFULLY burglary missions and activites come back with a bang. They were fun in GTA San Andreas but weren't detailed enough to have real replay value and you kind of just forgot them...

I would love to burglarize the suburban homes and set the alarms off