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Several inconsistencies in the server continuity


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I don't like having shit ton of referances to Liberty City and not being able to have a character from Liberty City. 

 

The FDLC logo on most of the Fire trucks is there as a memorial to events in 9/11 (Some LACoFD and LAFD rigs also have an FDNY sticker irl), Liberty City Cycles exist as a brand that is known for it's famous motorcycles in GTA series. The vehicle, Faction, has Liberty City Willard plate holder. Having San Fierro and not having Liberty City seems really off, but I can get behind it since San Francisco is in Cali.  The whole 'island' thing is really silly, and it's connected by bridges...? Nope. 

 

A small team of community players should be established to assist continuity management to create a better lore or improve the current one. 

 

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Just now, Mescalero said:

I don't like having shit ton of referances to Liberty City and not being able to have a character from Liberty City. 

 

The FDLC logo on most of the Fire trucks is there as a memorial to events in 9/11 (Some LACoFD and LAFD rigs also have an FDNY sticker irl), Liberty City Cycles exist as a brand that is known for it's famous motorcycles in GTA series. The vehicle, Faction, has Liberty City Willard plate holder. Having San Fierro and not having Liberty City seems really off, but I can get behind it since San Francisco is in Cali.  The whole 'island' thing is really silly, and it's connected by bridges...? Nope. 

 

A small team of community players should be established to assist continuity management to create a better lore or improve the current one. 

 

Spitting facts here. Liberty City is the single place besides Los Santos that is heavily established in the HD universe. Forcing us to avoid roleplaying it, but making us roleplay San Fierro (a 3D era city as it stands right now) is stupid as hell. It's like taking a step backwards.

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Ok, everything stated below is only my opinion, and I am not criticizing anyone's work.  Here goes.

 

14 hours ago, i dont wanna od in LA said:

the server continuity states that quote "San Andreas replaces California.

 

Staff never ever should've done this.  California is a huge state with different regions, climates, and cultures.  It's about the size of Germany or France, and it's larger than countries like the UK, Italy, Romania, and many other countries.  It's like taking GTA 5's piddly little map and saying, ok this is Germany.  It's unworkable and it's only creating problems.

 

GTA 5's map is a map for a game, for a toy.  It is purpose-built for that, and it is inherently limiting, extremely limiting.  That, along with the immense complexity of something like California makes even approaching a rough 'makes sense' simulation impossible.  The best we can do, really, is go for the aesthetic, because the map is only a little glass globe with California landmarks in it.

 

I mean we don't even have California Highway Patrol, and we're discussing case law.

 

If GTAW is going to have it's own lore, then it needs to make it's own lore.  This needs to be done as carefully as novelists create their fantasy worlds, or it will be just as stupid as movie and book settings where the writers didn't bother and it doesn't make sense.  It's an immense task, a Mount Chiliad of a task.

 

There are certain OOC realities that GTAW staff and players must wrestle with:

 

1. The map.  

The map is a small island.

The graphics and names on the map are all GTA lore and there's not much we can do about this.

 

2. The game mechanics.

Our cars that we wreck mysteriously appear when we spawn them and so on.

Our characters get shot, stabbed, and run over and they mysteriously appear at a hospital a few minutes later.

The game engine simply cannot support a lot of the things players would like to see, like Scandalouz mentioned in another thread, GTA 5 modding support is almost nonexistent.

We have to just handwave this stuff, really.

 

3. Server considerations.

Staff must impose certain restrictions so the server can function.

IC legal code for OOC reasons, like gun control to prevent Deathmatching and so on.

All IC must accommodate these OOC concerns.  The challenge is to integrate these OOC concerns into the lore so that the characters' understanding of their world makes sense.

 

These three issues must be incorporated into server IC lore in a way that makes sense, or we're going to keep having these problems.

 

I think staff should go all out and wipe the slate clean, then start server lore from there.  Try this:

 

An earthquake devastated the Greater Los Angeles area and Orange County, causing much of the land to sink into the sea, creating an island called San Andreas that is connected to the California coast by ferry.  Staff could say this happened a long time ago or something, and the towns and places on the map were rebuilt and renamed after the earthquake.  This could explain the map being an island, and that San Andreas replaces Los Angeles, and why some Los Angeles landmarks remain in an otherwise very different city.

 

San Andreas is still an emergency control zone, operating under a modified legal system created to deal with rampant civil disorder after the disaster.  The crime wave that started after the disaster still hasn't abated, and this explains the extreme crime, the heavy police presence, IC laws that are different from California and federal laws, the lack of the California Highway Patrol, and all those inconsistencies.  This would allow staff and players to ICly define laws that meet the server's needs ICly and OOCly.  San Andreas could even be it's own territory, not a state, governed by local authorities and then the federal government.  There are numerous precedents for this in US history.  Here's a good article about US territories.  https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-territories-of-the-united-states.html

 

The island of San Andreas still hasn't recovered economically.  That's why there's not much economic activity, jobs, manufacturing, white collar jobs, etc, and so many people are dependent on welfare.

 

California and the rest of the country are not replaced by GTA lore.  That requirement is satisfied.

 

I know a lot of people will really dislike this kind of idea, but there's no way to reconcile GTA's map with California.  We can all agree to ignore inconsistencies, or staff can create a lore that explains them in a sensible way. 

 

Anything we do is going to be about as realistic this:

 

 

And this:

 

 

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2 minutes ago, jcat said:

Ok, everything stated below is only my opinion, and I am not criticizing anyone's work.  Here goes.

 

 

Staff never ever should've done this.  California is a huge state with different regions, climates, and cultures.  It's about the size of Germany or France, and it's larger than countries like the UK, Italy, Romania, and many other countries.  It's like taking GTA 5's piddly little map and saying, ok this is Germany.  It's unworkable and it's only creating problems.

 

GTA 5's map is a map for a game, for a toy.  It is purpose-built for that, and it is inherently limiting, extremely limiting.  That, along with the immense complexity of something like California makes even approaching a rough 'makes sense' simulation impossible.  The best we can do, really, is go for the aesthetic, because the map is only a little glass globe with California landmarks in it.

 

I mean we don't even have California Highway Patrol, and we're discussing case law.

 

If GTAW is going to have it's own lore, then it needs to make it's own lore.  This needs to be done as carefully as novelists create their fantasy worlds, or it will be just as stupid as movie and book settings where the writers didn't bother and it doesn't make sense.  It's an immense task, a Mount Chiliad of a task.

 

There are certain OOC realities that GTAW staff and players must wrestle with:

 

1. The map.  

The map is a small island.

The graphics and names on the map are all GTA lore and there's not much we can do about this.

 

2. The game mechanics.

Our cars that we wreck mysteriously appear when we spawn them and so on.

Our characters get shot, stabbed, and run over and they mysteriously appear at a hospital a few minutes later.

The game engine simply cannot support a lot of the things players would like to see, like Scandalouz mentioned in another thread, GTA 5 modding support is almost nonexistent.

We have to just handwave this stuff, really.

 

3. Server considerations.

Staff must impose certain restrictions so the server can function.

IC legal code for OOC reasons, like gun control to prevent Deathmatching and so on.

All IC must accommodate these OOC concerns.  The challenge is to integrate these OOC concerns into the lore so that the characters' understanding of their world makes sense.

 

These three issues must be incorporated into server IC lore in a way that makes sense, or we're going to keep having these problems.

 

I think staff should go all out and wipe the slate clean, then start server lore from there.  Try this:

 

An earthquake devastated the Greater Los Angeles area and Orange County, causing much of the land to sink into the sea, creating an island called San Andreas that is connected to the California coast by ferry.  Staff could say this happened a long time ago or something, and the towns and places on the map were rebuilt and renamed after the earthquake.  This could explain the map being an island, and that San Andreas replaces Los Angeles, and why some Los Angeles landmarks remain in an otherwise very different city.

 

San Andreas is still an emergency control zone, operating under a modified legal system created to deal with rampant civil disorder after the disaster.  The crime wave that started after the disaster still hasn't abated, and this explains the extreme crime, the heavy police presence, IC laws that are different from California and federal laws, the lack of the California Highway Patrol, and all those inconsistencies.  This would allow staff and players to ICly define laws that meet the server's needs ICly and OOCly.  San Andreas could even be it's own territory, not a state, governed by local authorities and then the federal government.  There are numerous precedents for this in US history.  Here's a good article about US territories.  https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-territories-of-the-united-states.html

 

The island of San Andreas still hasn't recovered economically.  That's why there's not much economic activity, jobs, manufacturing, white collar jobs, etc, and so many people are dependent on welfare.

 

California and the rest of the country are not replaced by GTA lore.  That requirement is satisfied.

 

I know a lot of people will really dislike this kind of idea, but there's no way to reconcile GTA's map with California.  We can all agree to ignore inconsistencies, or staff can create a lore that explains them in a sensible way. 

 

Anything we do is going to be about as realistic this:

 

 

And this:

 

 

No offence but honestly you're missing the point and the entire "special state" thing is pointless. I don't think you also realize that per the current continuity the entire map of GTA5 is only the Los Santos County (your size argument is gone really, since in fact all of GTA5 locations have their real life counterparts in LA County) and not the entire state. I can absolutely see where you're coming from with your little narrative, but it really isn't the way to go about it. And yes, GTAW has to have its' own lore, made up both off the real life Californian events and fictional events, in order to balance it properly and make it a fun experience.

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3 minutes ago, i dont wanna od in LA said:

No offence but honestly you're missing the point

 

Well hey, I'm not perfect.

 

8 minutes ago, i dont wanna od in LA said:

I don't think you also realize that per the current continuity

 

I think current continuity should be scrapped and replaced.

 

11 minutes ago, i dont wanna od in LA said:

all of GTA5 locations have their real life counterparts in LA County

 

That's not true.

 

Sandy Shores is based on Desert Shores, California by the Salton Sea, which is about 150 miles from LA (about as far as London to Birmingham), not in LA County.

 

Paleto Bay is based on the town of Morrow Bay, California, about 200 miles from LA.  Trevor mentions in single player that it takes 4 hours to get there from Los Santos, and it takes 3.5 hours to get to Morrow Bay from LA, and the rock by Paleto Bay is Morrow Rock.  

 

Spoiler

http://www.oceanlight.com/stock-photo/morro-rock-morro-bay-california-picture-22213-355732.jpg

 

image.png.74fc88844323938e5efa384c62ff7f1f.png

 

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, jcat said:

Sandy Shores is based on Desert Shores, California by the Salton Sea, which is about 150 miles from LA (about as far as London to Birmingham), not in LA County.

 

Paleto Bay is based on the town of Morrow Bay, California, about 200 miles from LA.  Trevor mentions in single player that it takes 4 hours to get there from Los Santos, and it takes 3.5 hours to get to Morrow Bay from LA, and the rock by Paleto Bay is Morrow Rock.  

 

 

 

Not exactly. Whilst Sandy Shores in fact does not have a clear counterpart in LA County, all of the other cities could be easily considered one. Let's take a look at Paleto Bay for example, there's no issues with saying it's our counterpart of Santa Clarita, which is a town up north in LA County. Let's look at Chumash, it is based on Malibu, LA County. Grapeseed and Harmony can be easily considered Lancaster and Palmdale, both of which are in LA County. I've made a pretty nice map some time ago that places real life LA County locations onto the GTA5 map. I'll attach it in the spoiler below. It is that easy to fit it into the continuity, yet there's barely any activity on the end of the continuity team.
 

Spoiler

area-codes-copy.png
Codes breakdown:
based on this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_area_codes;
213 – Much of the City of Los Angeles and several inner suburbs (October 1947; split numerous times since then, incl. a split to form 323 on June 13, 1998; in August 2017, the boundary between 213 and 323 was erased to form an overlay)
310 – The western and southwestern parts of Los Angeles County, including the Westside and South Bay regions. These include the cities and towns of Santa Monica, Malibu, Pacific Palisades, Compton, Torrance, Beverly Hills and Catalina Island. (Split from 213 on November 2, 1991; overlaid by 424 on August 26, 2006)
562 – Long Beach, Whittier, Norwalk, Lakewood, Bellflower, Cerritos, southeast Los Angeles County and a small portion of coastal Orange County. (Split from 310 on January 25, 1997)
661 – Most of Kern County including Bakersfield; northern Los Angeles County including Lancaster, Palmdale, and Santa Clarita. (Split from 805 on February 13, 1999)
818 – The San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles County: Burbank, Van Nuys, Glendale, Chatsworth, San Fernando, Panorama City and Northridge. (Split from 213 on January 7, 1984; split off 626 on June 14, 1997; overlaid by 747 on May 18, 2009)

213 - Downtown LS, Vinewood etc. Self explanatory
310 - Vespucci, Chumash, Davis, Morningwood, Rockford Hils
562 - East LS
661 - Paleto Bay, Harmony, Sandy Shores, Grapeseed
818 - Tongva Valley, Northern LS

 

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7 minutes ago, i dont wanna od in LA said:

there's no issues with saying it's our counterpart of Santa Clarita, which is a town up north in LA County

 

 

Santa Clarita isn't even by the sea.  It's 50 miles from the coast.  That's a pretty big issue.

 

Let's get into your original post.

 

Quote

What does this mean in practice? San Andreas replaces California, but does not inherit its' culture or history. The issue araises when certain people act as if the State was "created" in 2017 (i.e. when the server was opened) and as if the State of San Andreas had no history pre-2017. I believe that all of us can agree that this is a pretty ridiculous approach and does more harm than good. What I believe should be the general consensus is; certain events from real life Cali should be lory-fied to fit into the game realm.

 

GTAW lore inherits California culture, that's the aesthetic, but it does not inherit California history, nor should it.  Staff would be much better off inventing their own history.  If they want to include events that capture the feel of important events from California history that's great, but again, that's aesthetic and it should stay that way.  They should focus more on lore-ifying in game events, like the city hall riots last year and the riot a few weeks ago.  California events like the riots in the 60s, that was what, 60 years ago?  The Rodney King riots were 30 years ago?  In game events are a much more relevant history that characters lived and took part in.

 

Quote

Those two events quite obviously reference the North Hollywood shootout and Rampart Station scandal.

 

Again, 20 years ago.

 

What you are discussing is historical info that people incorporated into their faction histories because they wanted to.  These historical justifications for their factions are of interest to them, and probably not that much to people who aren't in their factions.  Having staff set down a history and then force people to acknowledge it, that's a bad idea.  Staff has enough problems with the trolls, rule breakers, and fail rpers.  The last thing we need is staff punishing people for not acknowledging a historical event that has no relevance to their daily lives.  It's especially difficult for players who are not American and who don't know all that much about California culture and history.

 

Another thing to consider is how many factions are going to get screwed if staff sets down a history and their gang or organization's faction lore is invalidated.

 

I see where you're coming from with setting inconsistencies, but if staff mandates something, a lot will get destroyed and there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Everybody, especially factions with histories, need to either agree, or commit to changing their faction histories to match what staff mandates.  

 

Staff will also have to mandate the legal codes, and then that will it, no more discussion, because it will be official GTAW lore.

 

Objections:

 

Staff would have to mandate the historical conditions for areas of the map, like there either are or are not gangs in Mirror Park, things like that.  People would be restricted and hemmed in when it comes to creating histories for their factions.

 

I don't want to be forced by the staff to acknowledge a lore history, which will probably be tailored to appease factions, and which I may personally find highly unsatisfactory.

 

The considerable flexibility we have now may be a lot better than a more rigid lore, even with the inconsistencies.

 

 

Quote

I believe that the solution to this issue is quite simple and putting up a lore thread, with lory-fied names and references to certain events (pre-2017 that is) would help

 

This is a good idea, and it's essentially the staff creating their own lore.  They may use California history as a guide, but at most lore should exist as a context that people understand as a consensus when they join the server, that supports and is consistent with what people see in game, and not as something the staff is going to punish people for.  What I did in my little narrative was show an example of how to use historical narrative to justify what our characters see every day.  It was an example of how to justify what is, to alleviate the conflict between what they see and the lore they're supposed to acknowledge as true in the game world.  Where are the bridges connecting Los Santos County to San Andreas?

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4 minutes ago, jcat said:

 

 

Santa Clarita isn't even by the sea.  It's 50 miles from the coast.  That's a pretty big issue.

 

Let's get into your original post.

 

 

GTAW lore inherits California culture, that's the aesthetic, but it does not inherit California history, nor should it.  Staff would be much better off inventing their own history.  If they want to include events that capture the feel of important events from California history that's great, but again, that's aesthetic and it should stay that way.  They should focus more on lore-ifying in game events, like the city hall riots last year and the riot a few weeks ago.  California events like the riots in the 60s, that was what, 60 years ago?  The Rodney King riots were 30 years ago?  In game events are a much more relevant history that characters lived and took part in.

 

 

Again, 20 years ago.

 

What you are discussing is historical info that people incorporated into their faction histories because they wanted to.  These historical justifications for their factions are of interest to them, and probably not that much to people who aren't in their factions.  Having staff set down a history and then force people to acknowledge it, that's a bad idea.  Staff has enough problems with the trolls, rule breakers, and fail rpers.  The last thing we need is staff punishing people for not acknowledging a historical event that has no relevance to their daily lives.  It's especially difficult for players who are not American and who don't know all that much about California culture and history.

 

Another thing to consider is how many factions are going to get screwed if staff sets down a history and their gang or organization's faction lore is invalidated.

 

I see where you're coming from with setting inconsistencies, but if staff mandates something, a lot will get destroyed and there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Everybody, especially factions with histories, need to either agree, or commit to changing their faction histories to match what staff mandates.  

 

Staff will also have to mandate the legal codes, and then that will it, no more discussion, because it will be official GTAW lore.

 

Objections:

 

Staff would have to mandate the historical conditions for areas of the map, like there either are or are not gangs in Mirror Park, things like that.  People would be restricted and hemmed in when it comes to creating histories for their factions.

 

I don't want to be forced by the staff to acknowledge a lore history, which will probably be tailored to appease factions, and which I may personally find highly unsatisfactory.

 

The considerable flexibility we have now may be a lot better than a more rigid lore, even with the inconsistencies.

 

 

 

This is a good idea, and it's essentially the staff creating their own lore.  They may use California history as a guide, but at most lore should exist as a context that people understand as a consensus when they join the server, that supports and is consistent with what people see in game, and not as something the staff is going to punish people for.  What I did in my little narrative was show an example of how to use historical narrative to justify what our characters see every day.  It was an example of how to justify what is, to alleviate the conflict between what they see and the lore they're supposed to acknowledge as true in the game world.  Where are the bridges connecting Los Santos County to San Andreas?

I mean the issue here is that your entire argument falls short because to a degree you agree with what is being said here and then you completely contradict it. What I'm trying to say is you once mention that events that occurred 30 years ago are irrelevant, yet the Rodney King riots were literally a huge, event aired out nation-wide. In fact it is kinda the point that the server lore sets a fixed standard, which is to be obeyed by. Flexibility is cool, of course. Is it annoying that you cannot bring up events that are relevant to this day? Yes, it is. Is it annoying that people will refuse to acknowledge certain events and go into /b "oh this didnt happen in our server continuity hahahah of course the server history applies from 2017 onward"? Yes, it is very annoying and in fact it does happen more often than you would imagine. I don't think it's unreasonable to base the server lore off of pre-2017 Californian events and anything that happened since the server was launched should be based only on IC events.

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3 minutes ago, i dont wanna od in LA said:

you once mention that events that occurred 30 years ago are irrelevant

 

My argument does not fall short.

 

Events 30 years ago were a big deal then, but not anymore.  They're not relevant to the daily lives of characters who are in their twenties, and they are in the past even for older characters.  It sounds like you have your version of what GTAW's in-game history should be (incorporating analogies to historical events) , but people aren't going along with it because it didn't happen in game, and so you're suggesting that staff mandate some lore.  

 

I agree with you in that perhaps there would some benefit to having a consistent official server lore, but I disagree with your recommendations on how to implement it, and I pointed out possible disadvantages and other ways to create consistent lore.

 

 

 

 

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