[ED]

I’m sitting back and thinking about the popularity of games and what two genres have dominated the action game market – Military and Gangster/Violence. Look at Vice City, GTA 1-3, Max Payne, Dead To Rights, etc. And I’m thinking, well why haven’t we had a MMORPG real life game that basically transplants Vice City to an online persisting environment? Here’s how I’d do it.

Rockstar could easily contract out with Sony Online (I know horrible thought), to produce the title since theyre in good already with Sony. The basics of the game would be this:

You start out in Vice City. You have the option to be a hood or a recruit at the Academy. In the beginning youll just be running errands for your local capo – there’d be several disctricts with several bosses, captains, etc. – or doing routine traffic stops or domestic disturbance calls for the police. As you gain experience of course you go up in rank, rising from a numbers runner to manager of a local strip club laundering money, to eventually becoming a made man. Or you rise in the ranks of the police department and become Lieutenant, or maybe even a Detective with a special unit. Along the way though you’ll meet up with several other folks in your disctrict, and ala PLANETSIDE will fued with other members of rival gangs and of course with the police. Police offers in different precincts would not fued with each other of course, but they would be vastly outnumbered with the number of gangs and “families” out there.

As a police officer youd have the choice to take on assignments (missions) and gain experience points, but youd have a fixed income with which to equip yourself with (we gotta give the item collectors something to shot for). As a gang member, the sky would be the limit, as your tasks run from drugg trafficking to assissinations – sometimes of other players (imagine taking a mission from your don to infiltrate the area of l337_destr0234 [a player currently on the server], and doing a drive by killing him and anyone in his unit. . .of course if l337 leaves the server or kills you, you fail).

Random events would be inserted into the world as Developers could take pages from the real world and update them into the game – mayors would come and go, scandals would occur, precincts could lower your pay, and dons can die, or be taken over.

I’d definitely pay money to be part of something like that, especially if it had the interactivity of a game like Half Life 2, and had the attention to storyline that ROCKSTAR injects into its games.

[Bazooka_Joe]

Star Wars: Galaxies meets GTA - Sounds like a call for every parent to sue the company making the game for extreme violence. . . I like it! evil:

[Simo Häyhä]

http://www.multitheftauto.com

[Infernal_]

it would be awesome because you would have clans both hoods and cops and there would be huge gang wars like one gang ownsw one "turf" and you gotta take over

[Bazooka_Joe]

[quote="Simo Häyhä":e76cc]www.multitheftauto.com[/quote:e76cc]

Yeah, but that's all beta. It was left-over code from the developers. I think Ed means an actual MMORPG-type game.

[Bazooka_Joe]

Dammit, Ed. The more I think about this, the cooler it sounds, lol

You can have classes like:

Thug
Hooker
Cop
Medic
Truckdriver
Taxi Driver
Drug dealer

Man, that would be sweet.

[Strik0r]

Originally Posted by ACE

it would be awesome because you would have clans both hoods and cops and there would be huge gang wars like one gang ownsw one "turf" and you gotta take over

sounds like what we were planning on aa.com way back before gta3 was released. we had crime families etc...of course everyone got along back then so it was possible

[Sergeant_Scrotum]

oh, i would pay soo much to play something like that! i hate the cop & paramedic missions in vice city, say you get to level 20, your car cathes fire so you abandone it. you now have to start over at level 1. pain in the ass

[ED]

[quote="Bazooka_Joe":57622]Dammit, Ed. The more I think about this, the cooler it sounds, lol

You can have classes like:

Thug
Hooker
Cop
Medic
Truckdriver
Taxi Driver
Drug dealer

Man, that would be sweet.[/quote:57622]

The more I thought about the more I thought it would be cooler if you had more options but still "good vs evil" type characters.

A Driver, Hitman, Thug, etc. for the GANGS. An EMT, Firefighter, SWAT (a special class that you'd only get after going through patrolman), etc. for POLICE. A drive can take a mission for a "clan" that has posted its need for an assault on a certain gang. For instance -

I'm in the MOH clan, and we post that at 7:00pm et, we're going to hit the TMT Clan which is a rival group on the other side of town. We need a fast driver (as a driver you're car handling ability, vision, starting car health, etc increases just like normal), who can handle an armored car of some type. A Drive reads this, and applies. We agree to his ability, and at 7:00pm we hit the TMT clan with guns, and possibly rob them of their stash. It's all going good, until we find out that someone in our gang, or in our neighborhood has ratted us out (a HOOD player is approached by a DETECTIVE player for information, and learns the location of the hit), and the MOH clan (after owning TMT), finds a SWAT team blocking their exit. The SWAT team (made up of players with high ballistics skills, high level weapon handling, and heavy weapon and armor skills) makes easy work of the thugs and all are taken in or killed. The assault is over, exp points distributed accordingly and MOH now has to find the snitch in their group/neighborhood, as well as plan an assault on the SWAT team.

[ED]

Further thinking:

For balance issues I’d have the cops have access off the bat (if they have the weapon handling skills, as well as enough cash to afford the ordinance) to AK’s, shotguns, etc., while the GANGS would have to either steal these weapons or buy them off of crooked cops (of course we GOTTA have crooked players). COPS would also have to worry about procedure and protocol: for example, you cant just run up and shot a GANG MEMBER. If he opens fire then you have cause to open fire, but you can give him a warning. Of course there would be an insentive for the GANG MEMBER to try to shot his way out of a firefight (decreased exp points, decrease in “street cred”, etc.) so shootouts would be common in VICE CITY. The “penalty” for a COP breaking the rules would be strict though – including but not limited to, being kicked off the force. (a player would have to wait a certain period of time before they can rejoin the force, in the meantime taking on certain activities – or they would just have to start over again).

However, GANGS get more MONEY from the jobs they do, aren’t limited ot what they can do, but they have lower health, aren’t even close to being as accurate with their weapons, and have persistent wanted levels (a THUG who has assaulted SEVERAL cops will NOT be walking up and down the streets willy nilly, since if you are a cop, some sort of sign will be visible that this is a wanted criminal – there could even be a VICE CITY MOST WANTED list in the post-office showcasing the most wanted players, as well as a “hitlist” for the most hated COPS – rewards are given to the player who takes these guys out, of course that system would have to be worked on) to deal with. So in exchange for skill limitations you get more freedom.

The AI in the game would run CITY HALL. So we’d have a MAYOR one month increase cop budget – better weapons, higher pay, maintenance on equipment (cars would break down, etc), and there would be cutbacks. There would be specific families for GANGS, but clans could create their own Capos and run certain sections (think SOPRANOS, TONY SOPRANO answers to that one guy, and has his capos and lieutenants). Of course gangs wouldn’t just be itallians – there would be blacks, asians, white rednecks, etc. Each of them might have their own advantages and disadvantages as well.

[Sergeant John W Martin]

Brilliant Idea, i would love to see this

Its a great idea i was thinking about something like that before you should be aloud to be the cops online instead of that shit cop AI they have now.

[Judas]

theres a site out there that has a mp mod for the game ... so far you can only hook up with other players and "run" around the city ... no cars in the latest release ... midnight club 2 does have a mp part to it but its only racing ... 8 players can connect and race each other .....................