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Role Playing (Games)

Massively Multiplayer Grand Theft Auto 62

Posted by Zonk from the that'd-be-a-lotta-punkz dept.
Voodoo Extreme has the story that earlier this week Grand Theft Auto creator David Jones announced the upcoming release of APB, a massively multiplayer game in the vein of Grand Theft Auto. It won't be out until 2007, but will make an appearance at E3 this year. Business Wire has details on the game's developer, Webzen, as well. The company sounds as if it's going to be making a major push into the market. From the article: "In addition to APB, Webzen, Inc. plans to bring multiple online game titles to the U.S. market. The titles include the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), SUN, releasing in the third quarter of 2005, and a massively multiplayer online first person shooter (MMOFPS) called Huxley, that leverages the latest Unreal 3 game engine and is scheduled to release in 2006."
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Massively Multiplayer Grand Theft Auto More

Massively Multiplayer Grand Theft Auto

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  • MMOGTA (Score:3, Interesting)

    by clausiam ( 609879 ) on Thursday February 17, 2005 @01:54PM (#11701953)
    Given this story: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/17/13 40222&tid=123&tid=10/ [slashdot.org]

    Does that mean we will also see massively parallel lawsuits (I guess that will make them class action lawsuits).

  • Killer App (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Golias ( 176380 ) on Thursday February 17, 2005 @01:56PM (#11701984)
    I just got rid of my one and only Windows PC, since my current MMORPG choice, World of Warcraft, runs on my Mac, and I mostly game on the X-Box other than that.

    However, if APB turns out to be a Windows-only game in 2007, I will run out and build a brand new Intel or AMD whatever-the-hell-version it is up to , slap in whichever nVidia or ATI card is the new hottness at the time, and install Longhorn (which just might be out by then)... for no other reason than playing this game!

    That said, it would rock if I could just play it on my media-room Mac.
    • Interesting, you say that you got rid of your one and only Windows PC, but play games mainly on your XBox. Which is it?
      • Interesting, you say that you got rid of your one and only Windows PC, but play games mainly on your XBox. Which is it?

        Both are true. The X-Box is manufactured by Microsoft, but does not run Windows (although it can be modded to run Linux.)

        I didn't get rid of my Windows PC out of anti-MS bigotry.

        Nor do I own an X-Box simply because I'm some kind of MCSE-toting, Balmer-worshipping, .NET programming drinker of Microsoft Flavorade. I got rid of it because it became redundant to keep around.

        I'm one of t
    • The article says that the same company is releasing another MMOFPS based on the Unreal3 engine. That's no indication that APB will be, but if it is, then it will easily be cross-platform. We can always hope.

  • MMGTA? (Score:3, Funny)

    by FirienFirien ( 857374 ) on Thursday February 17, 2005 @01:57PM (#11702012) Homepage
    This is going to be a game of 'who can run over the pedestrian first'... gonna have all the "That was my pedestrian!! OMG" arguments we see in hacknslashes at the moment ;)
    • How about "Hey your screwing my whore in my carwash again!" Hehhe I'm sure we're going to see that soon.
    • I wonder if they'll have copters. If so, expect cries of "OMG L@m0r" and "Leve coptr or I crsh srv!" (sic) from the whiny subset of the Halo-crowd.

  • Dare I ask..... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LordPhantom ( 763327 ) on Thursday February 17, 2005 @01:58PM (#11702022)
    .... what your charachter options are? I can see it now - "I wanna be a $10 dolla ho!" or "I wanna be Crazy Voodoo Woman". I mean, seriously, how many mobsters CAN there be running around before it gets....boring? And what happens when the Cops and the Mobsters get organized?

    • Re:Dare I ask..... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Golias ( 176380 )
      For the first half of GTA-3, you play a bottom-rung flunkie for the mob, fresh from a jailbreak.

      Unlike fantasy RPG's, where the whole point (for most people) is to be a big-shot hero, I don't think it will hurt the story at all to have PC's play as one of a thousand mafia errand-boys, doing the dirty work for low-ranking made men.

      Being a nearly faceless scoff-law trying to build a rep for himself is what GTA is really all about.
    • Can't they just integrate with the "Sims Online" (http://thesims.ea.com/ [ea.com]). Then the GTA players can kill and mame the poor Sims players who just try and go about their daily life 8-)

    • Re:Dare I ask..... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ShawnDoc ( 572959 )
      How many superheroes [cityofheroes.com] CAN there be running around before it gets...boring?

      • Re:Dare I ask..... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Golias ( 176380 )
        Actually, the crowd of superheroes in CoH was not a problem for me. It was a fun sort of "The TICK" vibe.

        What bugged me was that the game's rewards system encouraged you to behave exactly as you would in any other out-for-yourself RPG.

        There's something wrong (within the context of Silver-age comics) with seeing an NPC old lady being mugged and crying out for help, as dozens of high-level "superheroes" simply dash right by her and the attackers, ignoring the situation completely, on their way back from th
      • I think there's a difference here - one is DESIGNED to be a fantasy world a'la comic book legand where the other is a gritty street drama. Slight difference really.... you can't have 30 kingpins in the city for long, but a hallmark of MMORPGs is that EVERYONE eventually can make it to lvl 60 ;-P
        • If the game is designed around gangs of players rather than individuals, all competing over turf, then even with thousands of players on a server and hundreds of them at max level, there may only be 4 or 5 truly powerful gangs. Sure there would be hundreds of micro-gangs, but most would have to be content with a very small niche. If gangs are made up of players rather than NPCs, then getting to level 60 is not all that it takes to rise to the top of the underworld. The number of people at the top would b
        • Perhaps there won't be a traditional MMORPG level system? Beyond aquiring a few advanced weapons, the hero in GTA3 doesn't seem to improve much inherent combat ability. Once the player first aquires an armor upgrade, he is just as resistant to damage as he will ever be. I believe APB could follow a similar system, which would make teamwork much more important than in a traditional MMORPG. The measure of a player would be the number of reliable friends he or she could bring to a fight.
    • I'll bet there will be situations like in City of Heroes, where people will be copying their favorite gang lords or punk rappers. Although, maybe not to such an extent as in CoH, because (hopefully) most people don't have favorite gang lords they'd like to imitate.
  • Webzen is the publisher for this game not the developer. The game's developer is Real Time Worlds [realtimeworlds.com].
  • I had that same idea years ago.... Oh well my lazy factor, lack of motivation and know how kept me from pursuing it..

  • This sounds cool, if..... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Asprin ( 545477 ) <(moc.oohay) (ta) (dlonrasg)> on Thursday February 17, 2005 @02:20PM (#11702348) Homepage Journal

    Three things need to be possible, though:

    1) Higher-level players have the ability to create and define missions for other (lower-level) players to complete. You could order hits on enemies (or friends), pay other people to take the rap for your dirty work, etc.

    1) Cops need to be playable characters. (You could even become a dirty cops!)

    2) Jail time has to COUNT. When you get caught by the police, the game has to turn into you sitting in the crossbar hotel sitting on a cot for 48 hours (or so) of realtime.

    • Re:This sounds cool, if..... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Golias ( 176380 ) on Thursday February 17, 2005 @02:35PM (#11702567)
      If you followed the link, you would have seen that cops can be played... although from the promo shot it looks like they are supposed to look like the cop from the Villiage People.

      I've found that I've been able to "create and define missions" for lowbies in just about any MMOG. It started in Everquest, when my barbarian shaman needed snake skins and bat wings for spell components. Instead of running around hunting level 2 monsters (or looking for somebody who already gathered some for sale), I would invite some 1-5 level characters to take up a "quest" for me, rewarding them with a platinum coin for each stack of 20 they gathered.

      Since then, I've found that it's kind of fun to send players on errands. You would be surprised the lengths some people will go to for a "free" Sword-of-killing-pretty-touch-monsters, as long as you roleplay it out to make it seem like a "mission" to them.
    • I dont think this would be worth playing if it was a level based game, go skill and factional based.

      Yes playing the fuzz has to be a part of the game. with different guidlines and rules for players who are cops.

      Jail time counting.. yea.. just not in the way you have suggested.. Sorry nobody wants to watch there character sit in a jail cell for a few hours, not sure if the penalities for failure (death?) should be much worse than WOW. The more time taken away from you actually being able to play the game t

      • No, really, I'm dead serious about being locked in a cell with nothing to do for a few hours or days worth of realtime. Maybe that means there's no point in logging on until Friday at 4PM when your character gets out; maybe it means you have to do community service in the game or must so many pounds of rocks into gravel with a sledgehammer; maybe you get sentenced by a crooked judge who hates you but can be bribed; maybe that gives you a reason to go after him later; maybe you commit a hard enough offense
        • It's the old perma-death question. It obviously would make for more interesting, gritty, and exciting game play (plus you'd get more out of your content, since difficult content would be dangerous to work through and thus take more time.)

          The downside is that the it will piss off the newbs and once-a-monthers who make up the bulk of the revenue for any bigtime mmorpg, and it breaks the basic animalistic conditioning of simple tasks followed by predictable reward that keeps people hooked like a drug.

          Look a
        • OOhh hardcore.. would not be the best business move to impliment a game where you end up unable to play your character for days, that isnt fun and that is why most people play games.

          But this is all speculative anyways. I could see the
          user base of this game being full of little fucktards tho. But that can either be enforced by other ingame rules and the player/npc police force.
          If your character is sitting at 6 stars (hypothetical since we have no idea what to expect) but lets say he's at "6 stars" he isnt
    • 2) Jail time has to COUNT. When you get caught by the police, the game has to turn into you sitting in the crossbar hotel sitting on a cot for 48 hours (or so) of realtime.

      Are you kidding me? I can't stand the minute or so run back to my corpse in Warcraft. Nobody wants forced downtime in a supposedly fun activity.

      -prator

  • Oh my God, the *cycles*. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Thursday February 17, 2005 @02:21PM (#11702361) Homepage Journal
    There are a lot of MM games out there. But do any of them even try to emulate real-world physics to the extent that GTA does? The amount of computing power to make this work is mind boggling. Maybe SGI will survive after all!
    • Clients can compute physics for their nearby surroundings just like GTA3 does now. Positions and stats of objects should be all the server cares about really. Obviously you have to build in some method to detect cheats, I guess having multiple clients do computations and vote on correct answer would be best. But I leave this to an exercise of the creators. Sadly every game I've heard that starts out promising client side computations ends up changing their minds during development, so it may not be possible

      • Clients can compute physics for their nearby surroundings just like GTA3 does now. Positions and stats of objects should be all the server cares about really.

        But its precisely the nearby physics that are mostly likely to overload a typical desktop computer. GTA3 only gets away it by making non-player objects stupid and slow.

        In point of fact GTA3 cheats by not maintaining the existance of non-player actors that are more than a certain distance away, unless you're looking looking directly at them. It's am

  • Great... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dragoon412 ( 648209 ) on Thursday February 17, 2005 @02:23PM (#11702393)
    Fantastic! Where do I sign up for beta? There's nothing I'd rather do than hang out with the sort of quality people that think beating hookers to death is fun! I can't imagine a game with a more enjoyable crowd of players than the teenage-suburban-white-kids-that-act-like-gangstas demographic this game will surely attract!

    I mean, just think of the possibilities! I always found common 13375p34k to be too intelligable, now, I'll be able to revel in wonderful in game conversation like "wtf yo gimme ur g4tz fo rizzle j00 f4gg0t" and "3y3 wiznill takes j00 ryde fizzy you plz!11!elevntyone!11"

    *sigh*

    I fear for my generation.

    Besides, what could this game accomlish that Gizoogle [gizoogle.com] hasn't already. ;)

    • Re:Great... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by StocDred ( 691816 )
      I see your point, but show me a current online game that isn't already filled with jackhole teens talking nonsense and abusing the gameworld. My rule for online gaming is, if I can't limit the players to solely people I know, I'm not playing.

      I think a GTA-esque MMORPG would work better by dropping the first M, and making it team based for the majority of it. (Wasn't that how PSO and Monster Hunter worked?) That way, your team could participate in an engaging and evolving story without being hamstrung by a

      • Re:Great... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Macgrrl ( 762836 )

        Why does the general populace think GTA is nothing but some kind of hooker-killing sim?/i>

        Probably because they have bought into the whole madonna/whore diachotomy and believe on some level that the 'dirty' whores' deserve it. After all, having sex with someone, either for money or not, is obviously much worse than killing people. It must be or the ratings systems would be totally different from what they currently are where even implied sex will get you banned but explicit violence will get you awa

      • I see your point, but show me a current online game that isn't already filled with jackhole teens talking nonsense and abusing the gameworld. My rule for online gaming is, if I can't limit the players to solely people I know, I'm not playing.

        Try Second Life [secondlife.com]
    • now, I'll be able to revel in wonderful in game conversation like "wtf yo gimme ur g4tz fo rizzle j00 f4gg0t" and "3y3 wiznill takes j00 ryde fizzy you plz!11!elevntyone!11"

      I don't know if it was good/bad/ugly that I parsed that. =)

      'Fo sheezy [bash.org].

  • In case we are invaded by demons from Hell... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You may all rest easily, knowing that Blizzard has
    thoroughly trained me to deal with that situation.

  • No need to RTFA... (Score:3, Informative)

    by TuringTest ( 533084 ) on Thursday February 17, 2005 @02:31PM (#11702516) Journal
    Here are the OTS summaries of both articles:

    All Points Bulletin, a massively multiplayer action game from the creator of Grand Theft Auto, was today announced. APB will feature real-life cities from across the world, with Squads (the law) going up against Gangs for control of this territory. Thousands of players will form gangs or squads all around the world, and will play in hundreds of online cities.

    Grand Theft Auto Creator, David Jones, Awards Worldwide Publishing Rights for His First Online Game, 'APB' to Webzen, Inc.; (Nasdaq:WZEN) was awarded the worldwide online game publishing rights to All Points Bulletin (APB), the first online game developed by David Jones, the creator of the multi-million unit selling video game, Grand Theft Auto, and his UK-based game development company, Real Time Worlds (RTW).

    "As an avid gamer and creator of many single player games, it has been my dream to create an online game experience that provides the player with the ultimate freedom to do whatever he wants, in a thriving, living environment," said David Jones, founder and creative director of Real Time Worlds. "When looking for a publishing partner for APB, it was imperative to find a company that was a worldwide leader in online games and we found that in Webzen, Inc."

    "APB is an online game that we think will fuel the worldwide growth of online gaming," said Nam Joo Kim, CEO of Webzen, Inc. The titles include the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), SUN, releasing in the third quarter of 2005, and a massively multiplayer online first person shooter (MMOFPS) called Huxley, that leverages the latest Unreal 3 game engine and is scheduled to release in 2006. is also developing game properties for the next generation game consoles to enhance its appeal to the mainstream gaming audience.
  • APB (All Points Bulletin) is also the name of an Atari Games arcade release, circa 1990 or shortly after, which is readily playable on Midway Arcade Treasures 2 (and is indeed one of the high points of the collection). -THIS- APB is also recognized as having gameplay that harkens forward to the Grand Theft Auto games (having a huge simulated city to explore with special locations to keep track of, gameplay that focuses on driving, and being filled with secrets). While it is a "classic" game, the fact that

  • defeats the point entirely (Score:3, Insightful)

    by briancnorton ( 586947 ) on Thursday February 17, 2005 @03:21PM (#11703166) Homepage
    The entire point of GTA is that you get to be a predator without regards to the lives of the relatively peaceful citizens around you. So now you go from predator amongst sheep to predator amongst predators, and the dynamic changes entirely. You'll have snipers on every rooftop, a couple air-wars, one guy with a tank and streets that resemble the LA riots with serious military hardware. It'll be REALLY fun for about 10 minutes.
  • I respect that there is this thriving "twitch-centric", Prozac-prone community of gamers who enjoy Halo, Half Life, Unreal, GTA and their contemporaries as appropriate entertainment therapy.

    I've played these games; they're visually exciting in many cases but the environment is so aggressive and hostile that it seems to breed an almost artificially, unrealistic, hyperactive, reactive approach to problem-solving that many of us feel is highly counterproductive, if not destructive.

    I don't see where it's fun
    • I figure at some point, more "thinking peoples games" will rise up from the ashes of these sadistic, unrealistic twitch-fests, which will remind gamers of what it's really like playing a game, instead of merely playing a victim or a victimizer.

      They're not hard to find if that's actually your area of interest. Search for servers hosting games of Go or Diplomacy. It doesn't get much more "thinking people" than that. Or if those are too sedate, play one of the hundreds and hundreds of online racing sims.

      Exa

  • A massively multiplayer GTA environment? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Wildcat J ( 552122 ) on Thursday February 17, 2005 @06:17PM (#11705360)
    They already have something like that--it's called "Detroit".
  • There are two cheat codes that simulate this now:

    OURGODGIVENRIGHTTOBEARARMS
    and
    FIGHTFIGHTFIGHT
  • The one here [ign.com] - it looks like an army of Fred Dursts.

    Sign me up for the Cops team...

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