GTA Anywhere City Stories - Beta 1.0 - Palmont DEMO!

[AssainGuy]

GTA2 is played in Anywhere City, USA right? It reached its 10 year anniversary long ago, but the GTA2 ERA still don't have any other game that refers to it. SAD.

GENTLEMEN, BEHOLD!! MY NEW PROJECT!

LOGO:



SUPPORT SIGNATURE: (for other sites if you want to help to populate the mod and the forum)



DESCRIPTION:
This is an almost total conversion for GTA2, including 3+ new districts (including south town, palmont, and the beach!)

RELEASE DATE:
FULL VERSION: UNSURE. When I finish all 3 cities and the design.
DEMO: I'll allways release a demo, when a new, and bigger update comes out!

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CURRENTLY RELEASED VERSION: Beta 1.0
CURRENTLY WORKING ON: Palmont District v0.3 (development), South Town v0.7 (cleanup)

SOUTH TOWN DOWNLOAD: http://gtamp.com/maps/southtown.7z

PALMONT BETA DOWNLOAD: http://gtamp.com/forum/download/file.php?id=1192

If you would like to see smaller updates, just always see the last page of the replies. Smaller updates will be posted as replies.

NEWEST FEATURES:
-Palmont released! Still beta, but includes the whole North and West canyon road and Silverton. Fully scripted and done. 6p multiplayer support
-Palmont has traffic lights, navigation zones and wider, better roads with fixed stripes
-Palmont includes several hidden cars and weapons
-etc.

SCREENIES:

SOUTH TOWN CURRENT MAP:


Overlook of the main area:


The newer, western side of the main area:


...from another view:


The airport, and southwest side of the map:


The norther side of the main area:


The southern village:


The military storage base, and the industrial coal refinery:


PALMONT CURRENT MAP:


Overlook of Silverton:


Jesus saves:


The scientist village:


Da Ghetto:


The bombed Osmosis FM:


Canyon Pictures:






NEWEST VIDEOS:
PALMONT v0.3:

SOUTH TOWN v0.7


CHANGELOG & OUTDATED VIDEOS:
http://gtamp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=497

CREDITS:
Rockstar Games and DMA Design (Rockstar North)
-For making this awesome game engine
AssainGuy
- Mod leader - Mapping, Custom Music, Radios, Planning
ludi911
- 2D stuff, Menu Design, Artwork, Logos
BenMillard, Elypter, Sektor, TM, B-Shep, Pyro
- Scripting help, programs, encouraging me to continue the project

[Sektor]

Welcome to the forum. Good luck with the mod. Your profile says you are only 16. Not many GTA2 modders that young anymore. I haven't tried the latest version (waiting for non exe version). I downloaded the previous version when it overwrote wil.gmp. I hope you changed the names now, it's best not to overwrite any files but it's hard not to when you are changing the frontend and music.

[AssainGuy]

when it overwrote wil.gmp. I hope you changed the names now, it's best not to overwrite any files but it's hard not to when you are changing the frontend and music.

Yes I'll keep an eye on that, but for people with not much modding experiences, i'll use your GTAMP rip, and release GTA ACS as a standalone game.

Can I use your rip? I will give you full credit on that.

[Cuban-Pete]

Wow, interesting.

I'm curious to what missions you got planned.

[Sektor]

I don't want credit for that rip. You can use it if you want. GTA2 isn't actually free to distribute but so far Rockstar Games hasn't complained. It's not like they are making money from it.

[elypter]

very interesting project!

little hint: when capturing the video use window mode to keep the ratio 4:3

[BenMillard]

--Pistol = 10mm
--Dual Pistol = Dual 10mm

Erm, 9mm is what these weapons tend to use.

The road network looks rather boring and grid-like. 1km straight roads are no fun when all cars reach top speed in less than 5 seconds.

Most of the buildings are massive, monotonous boxes. Easy to cover a large area quickly but very boring for players. Take a look at the excellent tutorial about buildings interesting places for GTA2.

I wrote a guide to the best Downtown textures which may help you build more interesting buildings. I tried to use them in more interesting ways when I re-built tiny versions of Hidden Surprise. Smaller is better for multiplayer. The target is to make every block in every building different from each other; not always possible but that's the way to think.

More alleyways would help the gameplay without needing much work. GTA Vice City demonstrates this nicely, especially the SE Ocean Beach area.

You can turn stacks of boxes into highly playable areas by arranging them carefully. Try playing MultiSlayer Ship to see how.

Avoid dead-ends, please. They are really annoying in multiplayer.

Also, claiming "the FULL map of South Town, exact size as Downtown has" is slightly false. Nearly all of your level is grass with copy-pasted trees on it. The actual district is 1/4 the size of Downtown.

I notice a beach house in the South West. The only access to it is by dirt tracks, which is a nice touch. I would to see that area have much more hills, so the track has lots of turns. It would feel a bit like a rally stage, that way. WRC Australia has some awesome coastal stages you could take inspiration from. You could then create a multiplayer race mode for it - feel free to re-use the code from MultiSlayer Race to help with that.

Start using Game Hunter so you can brainstorm ideas with other players and modders.

[Pyro]

First, welcome to GTA-MP

Second, and I don't want to sound too harsh, but Ben pretty much explained the points that I would say about the map:

• Roads are far too long, straight and boring.
• The road markings are all bunched up together. Things like lack-of fading line markings into corners and stuff like that.
• Buildings are mostly boxes and uninteresting to look at.

I know it's early days yet but better to point them out now rather than having to go back later and fix certain bits later on when it gets harder to spot, especially the small details like road markings and the likes.

Beyond that, sounds like an interesting project. If you need help with scripting then feel free to ask and I'll try and help where I can especially for things like trains, working garages, missions, car crusher/crane system and other stuff.

[AssainGuy]

yeah, that's why i said that the map needs SHINYNESS
of course, the map won't be released like THIS. It's heavily WIP.
the map's shinyness will be done about in a month
don't be nervous about the trees and the roads. this ain't the final one

[AssainGuy]

OKAY, Now i realized, that you guys have awesome ideas!
I have a lot of new ideas for the forest too!

@BEN: That beach house is actually the krishna's radio station :>
its 10mm instead of 9mm, because i wanted to make it a bit more futuristic.

I'll put work on:
-The southern village
-Expand the city outside
-Made dirt roads (or normal) into the mountain
-the northern village
-alleyways
-traffic lights
-less dead ends (there aren't much btw)
-i'll remake the forest, because the trees look ugly sometimes
-put more secret stuff into the forest
-and to make the map less blocky

also, please post ideas!!!!!!!!!!!

ALSO, is this what you mean by making the map less boring?:




less blocky, and average design

or

[Pyro]

Still rather blocky, but better than the last 'cube' buildings from before.

Some things for you to think about:

• Use shadows on tiles, especially near buildings. Pick a shadow direction and stick with it through the map.
• There are other variants to pavement tiles like drains, broken bits and the likes, you should add those to break up big patches of pavement.
• Should be buildings with roof access and areas to jump to/from for secrets. Can put good powerups in places that are interesting to reach.
• Any plans for a train and/or subway? Stations in popular areas are always useful and could be useful planning out a rough route now. Things like single or double tracks and overhead tracks and the likes. Check out the Jailbreak map for a good example of a slow moving freight train that Ben and I came up with as well as seeing the San Andres tram system that I added which uses slow trams in places.
• If its going to be multiplayer, you could try making 'better' versions of the Instant Gang where you can set how many characters join and what weapons. Could even make it so that you answer a phone and the player(s) pay $5,000 to get a group to join them which are better than standard Instant Gang. In some of my old test scripts I made 'rented' characters with weapons, vehicles (which I dubbed Rent-a-Wreck), weapons and even things like 'buying' tanks!
• Again if its multiplayer, you could do team stuff and group missions. You can even make other players enter vehicles of someone else, great in team stuff!
• Since the gang icons don't appear in multiplayer, you can still set the reputation of each player per gang and have as many gangs as you want (in a lot of maps we have a generic army gang which is always hostile to players), could be handy for safe areas for players. Could use phones and bribe a gang to increase respect for you or even hire assassins to target other people.
• Power generators protected by guards that open doors to various areas. Again, check out San Andreas map for some examples of it working.

So, lots to think about and thrown some ideas for you to think about too.

Oh, and lol at the second picture with trees on the roof.

[AssainGuy]

@PYRO:
-----------------
Some of the features you mentioning already exist ( like gangs ):

Train/Metro system: Built zones, and underground tunnels for it. But I haven't done any scripting yet. Now I'm concentrating on the map.

More types of pavement: There are more types of pavement depending on what's in that place. For example, at the police department, or at the bar, there's another style of pavement seen.

Building roofs with secrits: There's 2 of them already, but in the detailed version of the map, there will be 7+
----------------
Yeah trees on the roof. Should I take them off? Its kinda unrealistic =)

MP: I'm not planning to release this for multiplayer so far. That's not my job, because multiplayer keeps freezing when I choose TCP/IP connection. Same on Game Hunter. If you want to, feel free to port it into MP if it's released.

PS: I need help with missions! I got into making one, but that's too complicated finish .
(example: I cannot finish the first mission, idk how to make it finished),
it's not that easy to look for stuff in official maps!
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ANY MORE REQUESTS/IDEAS?

[AssainGuy]

NEW SCREENIES:
NOTE: Scripting isn't done at the new places yet. Don't expect them being EMTPY, when it gets released.

NEW BANK: (NOT THE BEST)


NEW FIRE STATION:


SOME OF THE NEW ALLEYWAYS AS REQESTED:


ULTIMATE ROOFTOP ACCESS #1:
This will be one of the biggest rooftop access points. That doesn't means there won't be rooftop access point elsewhere.
To get 6+ secrets, you should use this roof. And logic.


ULTIMATE ROOFTOP ACCESS #2:
3 secrets connected to this access point.


DOJO FTW:


AND FIXED ROAD STRIPES:


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Still taking requests/ideas!

[elypter]

trees on a roof?


tiny face off army lite 1-4p
drive around with the train and you will see it at the west end.

there are also many places that might inspire you how to make individual looking buildings

[AssainGuy]

PROGRESS ON NORTHERN SIDE:

The rednecks territorry on the HILL, isn't designed yet!


Map progress. Note the highway cut into the mountain. Now we have a perfect circle. Don't worry that road won't be in nowhere.


or ?

@elypter
Cool. I like your map . I'll look for train scripting, and will be done if I can.

[Pyro]

With trains, the hardest part is actually placing them in the map editor (especially corners) and getting the train zones in the right place. I've got a tutorial on it with a basic example map for you to have a look at. Like I said before, if you want to try a slow moving freight train check out Jailbreak or San Andreas maps! Scripting wise, trains only take one line of code per station and this is also explained in my tutorial.

I still think the road markings are wrong, they are too bunched up together. Try having a gap between them (so one block with line, next without line, third with line and so on) to make it look better and easier on the eyes, you'll see what I mean when you travel at high speed.

[AssainGuy]

@Pyro

I'll work on the trains when everything looks shinier. After that I'll have time for that :] But thx for the help.

Idk what can be wrong with the stripes. In my country, its correct. But anyways, Anywhere City is set in the usa, so ok I'll look after it.

[AssainGuy]

PROGRESS:

Northern Town shinyness:
Not all of the buildings remade. Box like buildings still exist in the real world.


Southern Town shinyness:
I made the read end into a road, that made 2x size of the town. There will be reachable roofs too.


That thingy about the road stripes requested by @Pyro, will be done later, if I have enough time for that. With helluva lots of roads like we have right now, it will take about 1-2 hrs seriously.

WILL BE RELEASED SOON!

[BenMillard]

There are certainly some improvements happening! Don't worry about working quickly. If you rush these changes then it won't get any better.

Improving the Bank
As you said, the new bank is not the best. In fact I would say it is featureless - doesn't even have a door!

Your buildings should never have the same tile on every storey. Also, there should be some variety across each storey. Look at the textures and the original levels more carefully. Most buildings have 5-10 different textures; some are designed for ground floor, others go just under the roof and the rest fill in the other storeys.

A lot of your buildings will look way better if you vary the window style and use the proper ground floor and top storey textures correctly.

The bank is using police building textures. These have a big, decorative doorway as part of the texture set. You can build these out by 1 or 2 blocks and give them a sloping roof. It makes a more impressive piece of architecture. You might even have 1 storey of steps leading up to the doorway and use the "windowless" wall textures. If the landscape has an 8-block slope, this will create a natural platform which the whole station could sit on. You could have a car park out front. Removing half of the big building to create a police car impound, with wire fence and a couple of guard huts, is another way to vary this area.

Slow Down and Go Faster
I totally appreciate this detail work takes a lot of time. This feedback is for the long-term; releasing what you've already got and inviting players to try it out is fine.

Taking time to do a few small buildings with high detail will help you raise the whole landscape, over time. The bar you made is a good example. Also, the strip club could be split between levels and maybe have a 45° roof, with 45° slanted corners. You could make the entrance inset, maybe with a little garden in front. A really upmarket brothel.

Multiplayer is Essential
If this level doesn't have multiplayer, it will be a waste of time. Honestly. Maybe you just haven't forwarded ports - ask people in Game Hunter for help. (Elypter, Gustavob and gta2ghbot, especially. Just be aware of different timezones and ask nicely.)

The code to act multiplayer for testing could simply be adding 5 PLAYER_PED lines to what you already have. The other players would just be spectators. If you use the full code, everyone will have weapons so they can try out which areas are nice for fighting in. This way, the level can have fun gameplay even at this very early stage.

I might not be around much this weekend but I wish you good luck. Your enthusiasm and ambition is both new and old at the same time - all of us modders started out the same way!

[AssainGuy]

@BenMillard
thanks fo your feedback. You have great ideas.
As you can see, im not a proffessional mapper, but i have enough mapping skill to make epic stuff . The problem is, that i dont hav ideas, so if you guys didnt told me that its sucky, south town would be released at that sucky state.
Mp porting will be done, but i will unable to play it on my pc.ill have to use moms slow laptop to play.
Im workin on the stuff you said below.

GIMME IDEAS