Lets see...

[fragger]

Thanks for the info and responses guys :) Nice post Binn, you pretty much told me as much as I needed to know.

One thing that has been swaying me is the comments you gents have been making about Rockstar. They sound like they're more in tune with, and more generous towards, the gaming community than the mercenaries running Ubisoft.

I may give it a go. I'm after something a bit different to play with and GTA V looks like such a terrific open-world environment to gallivant around in. I'll just have to contain my aversion to criminals I guess :-() Somehow I don't think it will lead me to a life of crime...

I may even see you guys online sometime if I really get into the game. I would only ever consider playing on a private session - there's no way I want anything to do with the trolls, cheaters and other assorted scumbags in the general online population ::)

[Binnatics]

That is cool Fragger, looking forward to your experiences and we'll make sure you have a warm welcome in LS whenever you decide to come online :)

[fragger]

 :)

[Art Blade]

Sorry for being late -- my internet died on me for a few days. Just got back online after a techie sorted it out for me ^-^

Nice replies there indeed and I want to add some of my own.

fragger, I know that you're not alone having problems to play as a criminal so at least you're not alone. The question is, are you willing to play the game for its endless possibilities including the tremendously rich free roam aspect? :-()

I don't like to be a criminal, either. However, the game is set up in a way that your role (or roles, given that you're going to play three different characters in SP) feels as if you were a good guy. I know how dangerous that sounds, it might imply that being a criminal is nothing to worry about but that's not the point of the game.

It feels as if you were a good guy because you're doing everything you can to get out of the criminal life and turn normal (well, except Trevor perhaps) Which.. isn't that easy. So you fight corrupt officials and greedy mobsters and the occasional gangsters just to get away from it all. In SP it amounts to "the big one," one big hit on the Union Depository (almost like Fort Knox or, more precisely, like the United States Bullion Depository) so you get enough money to finally retire. Once you're through with the main mission line, you should be rich beyond your dreams (if you follow my tips topics for the stock market..) and may do whatever you want.

You don't have to indulge in any criminal stuff anymore once you're done with the main story.

In MP, you will find yourself in dire need of money, however. No stock market. In order to unlock stuff and to make money, most of the jobs available to you do have a criminal background but you may just as well participate in races (even on your own) of all sorts which include but are not limited to planes, boats, cars, bikes.. you name it. But eventually you're going to get bored a tad.. your little criminal problem will likely start to vanish once you learn of the adventures your friends are constantly talking and posting about. :-D

I'd suggest you take it easy. Your goals of world dominance and along the path conquering civilisations by leading armies into battle as you do in CIV isn't exactly a good example of your pacifist mind :-()

So, knock out a few bad guys even if it means to be a bad boy yourself and consider the fact that it is a game.

I say hit it, man.. and I didn't say you were a hitman. :-() Go fetch a jewel box (no, not with jewelry but a DVD cover) with the game so you won't have to download 65GB plus updates. ;)

Well, I might add that I do have my doubts, if ever so slight, that your mind will be harmed in a way that you'll turn into a criminal monster of the highest order in real life so maybe you shouldn't.. :-D

[fragger]

Aha - I was wondering why you hadn't weighed in on this Art :-D

Hey, I never said I was a pacifist. I'm always ready to kick butt, as long the butt I'm kicking belongs to bad guys >:D I was just never crazy about being the bad guy myself...

You put an interesting twist on things though. One of my personal heroes is actually someone who many have considered to be a bad guy - Ned Kelly. Ostensibly an outlaw (or "bushranger") in Australia in the late 1800s, he was in fact the nearest thing we've produced to a Robin Hood. He was no saint, but he certainly wasn't a criminal by nature. Had he not run afoul of a corrupt establishment (and equally corrupt police force) he would have been just another hard-working colonial-era farmer whom nobody today would have ever heard about. He was a classic example of a rough but honest bucolic man pushed beyond his limits - well, it's a long story and I won't go into it here. I've spent a good many years reading up about him, and the fact is that the perception of good and bad can be largely influenced by whoever's telling the story. I've looked at Kelly objectively from both sides and my own conclusion is that his overall intentions were good, but he had to do "bad" things to bring them about (he robbed a couple of banks, but gave the money to the downtrodden people in his community from whom it had essentially been legally stolen and/or extorted by corrupt big landowners. The bank staff themselves were actually rooting for Kelly and made no attempt to resist - even helped him out to an extent). He was essentially a revolutionary who hated the venal system that was making life miserable for his family and friends in his part of the country and tried to do something about it. It was that system that branded him a criminal, had him hunted down and eventually hanged him.

So "bad" can largely be a matter of context.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted. May pick up the game early next week if they still have it in my local store. I may have to order it or get it through Amazon or something otherwise.

[Art Blade]

I had heard of Ned Kelly :)

You see, I really don't want to play games that cherish violence per se or warship the bad and evil as in, "act out your primal instincts -- it is just a game after all" or some stuff like that. Then again, I do like shooters. In fact, the games that spring to mind that I played were probably all on the "good" side of the medal -- at least I don't look for games that are the opposite -- and the majority were shooters of sorts. Assassin's creed for instance wasn't exactly a shooter but I played a killer.. so was I a bad guy? Or was I just compelled to revenge my father and all that, fighting evil forces aka the Templars? Hell, I never thought about it a lot. But I did have quite some fun killing. Man, I need help, I reckon >:D

So, the recent GTA titles (IV and V) are basically about guys with a bad background of sorts who more or less are just trapped in the wrong environment and forced to do bad stuff in order to prevent things from getting worse but essentially they all want out. It is not like some two-bit gangster who wants to become a criminal legend or just someone of Al Capone's caliber. Basically in SP GTA IV/V you're some sort of weirdo and loser in one person with a heart of gold but always in the way of the big shots while their knockaround guys try really hard to make you feel even more miserable until finally you've had enough and dish out a real hard blow all around to free yourself.

I like that :)

In GTAV MP, you start as a nobody and as such you're everyone's errand boy. You can stay that way or move on and up.. which is fun, too :-() It always feels as if you were a good guy with your friends who are good guys, too, and together, in a world of crime and corruption all around, you just want to survive as there is no way out anyway. So we don't see it as a problem to take some of the money that is out there for ourselves.. and eventually to become multi-millionaires :-()

[smg id=8437 type=preview align=center caption="bloody nose"]

By the way, I usually avoid violence but I don't mind running over pedestrians when I'm driving like a lunatic :-D

[smg id=8438 type=preview align=center caption="road kill 4"]

You can make money by simply doing so called daily objectives. Many times you will have to participate in some type of player versus player but not all of those daily objectives involve killing players. There are races and other stuff, too.

Just performed a 10-seconds wheelie
[smg id=8439 type=preview align=center caption="daily objectives 01"]
and here I unlocked a nice reward: free chrome rims for sports cars. Usually they cost around 60k-80k per set.
[smg id=8440 type=preview align=center caption="daily objectives 02"]

I don't want to shoot other players unless we both agree to, as in helping each other in turns so the kill/death-balance is kept neutral. It sometimes is necessary to kill players to achieve some good stuff or money rewards as in doing daily objectives or participating a given amount of times in a deathmatch and so on but you don't have to do that.

Sometimes it gets a bit bloody, however. But we do it in turns and try to make it worthwhile by joking around a lot. Never take that stuff seriously and you're going to be alright -- I only play with friends and fair rules :)
[smg id=8441 type=preview align=center caption="daily objectives 03"]

[fragger]

Cheers for the info mate :)

Sorry, didn't mean to go into a history lesson on Kelly :-D I know you know about him, I'm not sure how many others here may have so I thought I'd provide a little bit of background.

Your last point made me think about the "best buddy" system in FC2. I had no compunction about offing my BB in order to bring on a new buddy to get at their extra missions - especially knowing that they'd stab me in the back at the end anyway >:D And when driving in FC3/4 I'd run over civvies who got in the way (but not too many in case I got penalised for it) and I'd think, "Oops, sorry - not. Don't get in the way, stupid!" :-()

It's the exploring and free-roam aspects of GTA V that I'm mainly interested in trying out, plus of course seeing what the game is all about. I did play some GTA IV but didn't take to it, only because it was actually that add-on type thing about bikers (can't remember what it was called) and I didn't like that weird film-grainy thing they did with it. Plus that was on my old sluggy PC which wasn't really up to spec so the game ran like crap on it.

Looking forward to having a play :)

[Art Blade]

no worries about Ned -- unless.. it's not the one who shot himself in the foot yesterday, is he? :-()

I know what you mean, the Balad of Gay Tony and so on, the DLC stand-alone. I never liked it that much, either, and the grainy images really annoyed the sweet bejeebus out of me. The real GTAIV was a totally different experience and actually got me hooked in a way that I couldn't wait for GTAV. ^-^

The free roaming is a lot of fun. And chillaxing until you're so fed up with those crazy AI drivers that you really, really need to vent off some steam.. use one of many gang attack areas for that (red circles on the map where there are gangs hanging out that you may take out in a 1vs20 or so massacre) or just shoot those drivers  :-D

[Art Blade]

oh. for those who don't need or haven't (yet) got cars.. here we go..
[smg id=8442 type=preview align=center caption="bicycle"]

[fragger]

 

I'm OK with knocking off other drivers >:D :-X Sounds like a good way of venting from the real drivers I sometimes have to contend with :-()

[Art Blade]

 :-()

reminds me of PZ and those massive gas tanks he liked to blow up in games. In real life he kept seeing some of the same type and found it very hard to resist shooting them just the way he used to in games  :-()

[OWGKID]

  I enjoy blowing tankers up too, they provide some amazing in-game firework shows  >:D

[Art Blade]

lots of different crew colours on those cars. Expensive but eye-catching :-()

[smg id=8443 type=preview align=center caption="cars 013"]
[smg id=8444 type=preview align=center caption="cars 014"]

[Binnatics]

Funny how men can always find a way to twist things just to make the moral questions give a positive outcome. Well, that's just the way things are. Everything is relative, and depending on one's point of view. I don't know Ned, but can wholeheartedly agree with the fact that people see him as a hero. Thanx for the little history lesson Fragger ;)
Morality is a lifelong struggle, constantly popping up again in a different appearances, making life more interesting after all.

That leads me to yet another fact why this game isn't just promoting criminality, although admiring the lives of ppl who make up their own rules along the way; Our three protagonists have their own moral questions along the way which they share with the player, making the storyline even more interesting and real.  :)

[fragger]

 :)

One last interesting tidbit about Ned Kelly: The first movie ever made was about him (The Story Of The Kelly Gang, 1906). Some consider The Great Train Robbery (made in the U.S. in 1903) to be the world's first movie, but it depends on how you define a movie. TGTR was only ten minutes long, had no narrative and wasn't much more than several scenes stitched together, whereas TSOTKG ran for over an hour and was narrated, i.e. it was a silent film with occasional text narrative. In those days, early films were about 5-10 minutes long, like TGTR, and several different ones would be shown one after another in a theatre to make up a program. TSOTKG, due to its length, was a standalone attraction which effectively made it the first feature film. Today, only about 17 minutes of the original film survives.

Since then there has been around ten films about Kelly, the most recent being Ned Kelly (2003, with Heath Ledger as Ned). I didn't like that one, way too Hollywoodized and very historically inaccurate - ridiculously so at times. But the worst ever Kelly movie would have to be Ned Kelly (1970) with Mick Jagger of all people in the title role. Not only does Jagger turn in a cringeworthy performance, it's just a rotten movie all round. Best treatment was a six-part TV miniseries called The Last Outlaw (1980), which is excellent and painstakingly accurate - as far as anyone can tell. A wonderful actor named John Jarratt plays Ned. The screenplay was written by a guy named Ian Jones who has devoted over sixty years to researching Kelly and has written numerous books about him, some of which I've read.

[Art Blade]

 :-X :)

[PZ]

Great pics, AB!  :-X  ... and yeah, I still am reminded of FC2 when I see a certain type of propane tank  :-()

fragger, if you want to only do free roam you might consider a 100% save - here's one at the nexus

http://www.nexusmods.com/gta5/mods/4/?

[Art Blade]

 :-D

and thanks :)

By the way fragger, there are no invisible walls in GTAV. Whatever it is, you can climb onto or over it. :-()

[fragger]

Thanks guys :)

I'll check out that full save PZ, cheers. But first I'll experience some of the game and see how I feel about it - I might prefer to get there under my own steam.

[fragger]

Got it, will start installing later today. Might take a while, there's seven disks in the set ??? It comes with all the online stuff and free-to-access content updates, so I won't have to download all those things. Cool :-X

I was talking to the guy in the shop who's pretty well up on all the latest game dev news. He reckons that Rockstar will be making the next GTA game to be online only, a la The Crew. The response to GTA V online has been so big and positive that this is the way RS will go with the next installment, according to shop guy.

He may be right, he's a pretty clued-in dude. He's been on the money before.

[fragger]

Well, I'm in, finally, after four-and-a-half hours on installing and downloading updates... I had the wrong impression by what was printed on the box. Install took just over two hours, but the online stuff and other content still had to download, which took about another 2 1/2 hours... Bloody hell.

But anyway, it's all done now and I'm having a lot of fun with it already. You guys are right, this game is like free-roam nirvana :-X You could spend frigging weeks exploring this place. I did the first few missions as Franklin, then went off to see the world. Great environment, so much to see and poke around in. I learned the hard way not to hang around the cops, I got busted and lost what little money I'd already made. I saw a couple standing around on the sidewalk after they'd been talking to some people and I was curious to see what they'd do if I just stood near them - now I know. I won't make that mistake again ????

I went walkabout in the countryside at one point and got attacked by a mountain lion ??? They're a bit nastier than the cats in FC4, this one killed me pretty darned quickly.

I had to drop a lot of graphic options down to get the game to run nice and smoothly. I went with the recommendations first, then tweaked a little here and there and did some trading off to get an all-round decent config. I can't get a good frame rate at native res unfortunately, I had to lower that a bit and turn down most things. Stuff like the AA options and such I had to turn off altogether. It still looks pretty good though, and is very playable where I have it now.

One question: How do you take screenies? Couldn't find an option for that.

I had to switch a lot of the game controls around to be able to play the way I like, but since everything is remappable it was just a question of moving some control clusters (like the phone options) to a whole other area of the keyboard. Everything works well for me now. It's nice that you can switch between 1st and 3rd person. I find driving in 1st person mode easier than in 3rd, anyone else find that?

Early impressions: Great fun, can't wait to get back in and muck around some more. Will have to do some more missions, need to get more money happening - especially since the cops took what I had...

[Binnatics]

I usually take screenshots using the Steam functionality. Since you don't use steam for this game, you'd use the ingame camera functionality. It's a tiny little tyle on your phone looking like a throw-away camera. When you open that app, you can take screenies. You can apply all sorts of filters while making your photo. Then upload them to your gallery to 'save' them and later choose to upload them to social club to publish them to all GTA gamers if you'd like.
You can also change the camera-pointer to make a selfie, which is cool if you'd later like to have your customized SC avatar.

I bet your screenshots are saved in one of the Rockstar game folders, but I've just took a look around on my HDD's and can't find them. As soon as I found out will let you know.

Cool that you joined GTA V! Can you let me know what your Social Club Nick is? I will add you to our crew then ^-^

[PZ]

Your install was like mine fragger.  I still like the physical media because FO4 and JC3 are similar in size, and I made the mistake of downloading at home for FO4 - took all night.

Shame that the developers are going full online - leaves us old SP guys out in the cold.  Admittedly we are a dying breed, but sad nonetheless.  I have not had a chance to start a private session yet, but will one of these days just to see how online is different.  I'm completely uninterested in playing with anyone else online, except for you chaps of course.

[Art Blade]

Hey, regarding online only: don't believe it until you see it. Rockstar has always kept things under lock and key until they wanted the world to know, so right now no one knows anything but them and they're likely years away from the next release.

fragger, bloody hell so you really did it! :-X :-D

One thing I like about the online gaming is.. there are next to none animals (except some phoney fish and fake birds) so I can walk around wherever it pleases me. Until I come across some animals wielding AK47s and Uzis.. :-D

Before you get busted, just try to get killed instead or kill yourself. When you die you'll only have to pay a percentage of what you've got until you're in the millions (there's a limit to health care per death, I think it's five grand) and you'll keep your money and weapons and ammo in particular but you will lose your armour.

One tip: Early on, very early on in the game, run a lot and walk around in crouched (stealth) stance to up those stats. Strength and stamina are essential for longevity..  :-() Max them out as soon as you can so the first missions will be a lot easier for you to accomplish.

As to screenies.. I think that you can basically forget about that mobie cam but then again.. unless you get something like fraps or get that print to clipboard to w@&k, you're screwed.

However, welcome to the hood, bro  :-()

[OWGKID]

Apparently Rockstar is already planning GTA VI  :o