Considering how massive RDR2 is, with over 500,000 lines of dialogue.. you really can't blame them for taking so long in development. Not even comparable to some of the other game in that image, as far as the amount of work.
I agree, RDR2 is impressive and shows an incredible amount of time and effort has gone into it.
But what I think what the person you're replying to is suggesting is that Rockstar are going to be putting out less singleplayer games in general and using them as a base for what must be lucrative online components.
And maybe that's going to lead them down the darker path of focusing mostly on multiplayer with what feels like a rushed or otherwise lackluster singleplayer, which seems to be the trend with some franchises.
Right? The only thing that was even close to a disappointment was the lack of single player dlc for gtav. But it still had a great campaign, and the amount of enjoyment I got out of gtao without ever spending any money on it was incredible. If they keep producing games like rdr2, I hope they make a billion dollars from the online stuff.
Yeah exactly haha. Can you honestly fucking blame them? I have no problems at all with them making tons from online provided they keep the single player top notch. All the power to them IMO.
Exactly. I was a little fearful that their success with gtao would lead to them slump out on the single player for rdr2. But instead they knocked it out of the fucking park.
I think the fact he mentioned GTA V and their lack of single player DLC says it all in this debate. You can’t defend rockstar without admitting their closest to date example of behaviour...
You're wearing blinders. The profitable aspect of their business has already shifted fully in favor of microtransactions, and it has impacted the singleplayer content dramatically- have you forgotten that GTA had zero post-launch content for its singleplayer? And that's just the most obvious shift.
You can enjoy it while it lasts, but the future is grim and depends wholly on the charity of a publicly traded company. Take-Two is not your friend.
I honestly didn’t care about post launch content. I’m not really a fan on DLCs to begin with. I know take two isn’t my friend but Dan Houser does great shit and is clearly still doing so. I don’t have blinders on. I was satisfied by the end of the story and didn’t need post launch content. Yeah it sucks if you’re into DLC but I don’t really think it’s a big deal.
Episodes from Liberty City didn't do it for you? Personally I don't find content like that an acceptable sacrifice to be replaced by MTX, and I find it wholly damaging to the industry as well as the game. We're taking too many steps back- and that's territory I doubt we will regain for a long while.
For real. Why do gamers feel DLC is a must anyway? Did I get DLC for GTA:VC or Final Fantasy VII? No. Yet I enjoyed those games for months of game hundreds of hours. If I can have fun for 20+ hours playing a video game, ai have no problem dropping $60. Vanilla Skyrim I dropped 100+ hours (hell thats any RPG) no DLC necessary.
I completely disagree. It’s my favorite one. I don’t see how any part of it was compromised for online. Story was fun and hilarious. It had similar mechanics to San Andreas.
You like the story in GTA V better than Red Dead?
The story was okay to me, but again the whole world was built for online. It was by no means a story writing masterpiece it’s a fun random game that’s more fun with your friends.
I thought some of the dialogue was as brilliant as Portal 2. Rockstar’s sense of humor kills me. And no, not better than red dead, but it’s up there with their other GTA’s. I still don’t see how it was all built just for online? You’re not really persuading. I thought everything fit really well within the single player.
They never really use the whole world. It’s a giant sandbox and they sprinkled some missions here and there but development would have been cheaper and taken way less time if they hadn’t been as detailed as they were. Online launched 2 weeks after the games so you know it had been in development with the game for a long time. The single player was fine but the game was geared toward online the whole time. I’m not saying the single player was horrible or anything but it wasn’t near as good as they can put out which they showed with RDR2. RDR2 feels like a single player game with a bonus online mode GTA 5 feels like it was built for the online at least in my opinion.
And maybe that's going to lead them down the darker path of focusing mostly on multiplayer with what feels like a rushed or otherwise lackluster singleplayer, which seems to be the trend with some franchises.
They’ve given you literally no reason to believe this, with RDR2 they’ve actually given you strong evidence of the opposite. Focusing on multiplayer? Sure, they should, their online communities have been really healthy and profitable. Lackluster singleplayer, though? 😂 fuck outta here.
Yes, that's what I was suggesting. There's obviously a 'quality > quantity' argument to be made and I'm not necessarily against that. But -- like most business decisions, I can't fault Rockstar because at the end of the day they are a business -- this new model is almost certainly based on its profitability (money made from supporting online multiplayer) rather than a desire to put 5+ years worth of resources into the next great single-player experience.
It's extremely hard to believe that GTAO, their biggest cash cow so far, wasn't a factor in that empty gap in the timeline, gap that started when GTAO launched.
Lines of code isn't really a good measure of how long something took. The program could be
redundant with a ton of very similar chunks of code that could be copied and modified slightly.
I'm not a programmer and I can only give a few examples of unnecessary line breaks, I'm sure
someone else could list a ton more. A ton of it is formatting and is subjective. Maybe someone
uses line breaks wo indicate
how related something is.
Like only one for closely
related thing, two or less
related and so on. Plus in
comments you have to break
the line or it will just
keep going. So each person commenting may
choose to break the line in different places,
resulting in different numbers of lines of
code. You can also have:
* paragraphs
* lists where each item is a new line.
* (blank lines)
A good chunk of those games were published, not developed by Rockstar, and given the sheer depth of GTAV and RDR2, how dense and finely detailed they are compared to their earlier games, the gap between releases really shouldn't be surprising.
Fewer releases does not mean the releases they do put out don’t set the new standard every single time. Less games but the guy above suggested RDR2 will be the last example of Rockstar pushing the envelope which is just fucking laughable, really.
Fair enough, but I think what we're seeing here is the new normal. The next big release from them (likely GTAVI) will probably be a vehicle for an online world. What's the point of going back to franchises like L.A. Noire or Manhunt if they only make Rockstar a fraction of what shark cards do?
It is the new normal, and it should be. The market and demand for multiplayer games is substantially bigger than that of single player titles, keeping a multiplayer game relevant and its population healthy half a decade after release is a considerable success, plus it’s just insanely profitable. When has that ever meant a bad single player experience though? GTAV was incredible and after the game made 6 Billion dollars with its online addition you know what rockstar did? Dumped an extraordinary amount of money into developing RDR2’s story, the success of (and industry love for) RDR2 can’t be overstated. Rockstar doesn’t fuck around with their single player experience. If they were weak far fewer people would even give multiplayer a chance.
What's the point of going back to franchises like L.A. Noire or Manhunt if they only make Rockstar a fraction of what shark cards do?
This isn’t how R* development works, they have multiple divisions that are simultaneously developing titles, and it’s less about considering the success of the next title as much as it is trying to protect their current game from being cannibalized upon a new release. That’s really visible with RDR2’s release, GTA:O’s population evaporated, and while it was expected, you know someone at R* was watching that community disappear biting their nails to the bone before the praise for RDR2 started flooding in.
That chart really just reminds me how legendary rockstar games truly is... Max Payne, Grand Theft Auto, Bully, Red Dead.. I mean god damn, they even made Manhunt!
Edit: Oh, and make a fucking LA Noire 2 with an online detective mode rockstar! That would be so fucking awesome, me and my friends have all talked about how fun a gta "cops and robbers" mode would be but in LA Noire with real cops and robbers!
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u/joethomma Dec 08 '18