What is being addressed here
Ever since San Andreas teased us with a little bit of RPG, fans of the franchise had a taste for it, and asked for Rockstar to make it a more permanent and a bigger part of the franchise.Rockstar only emphasised with the fans recently on the appearance part. Commenting that the current resolution of the characters makes appearance changes (fat / slim) a difficult task and it was more easy to get away with it on PS2.
What about levelling up your weapons as you use them, XP and even sex appeal that SA had.
OK, so what is your take on it
I feel RPG elements puts a very strict creative shackle on Rockstar's story and character creation. If we look at where Rockstar is taking GTA this gen, they are going for a very precise and tailored experience. The characters are laser focused and so much detail is put into each one that putting in RPG elements would throw all that work out the window. As putting in RPG elements is to hand the DNA of the character to the player, effectively throwing out the work Rockstar has done.GTAV's three characters is a clever way to give key characteristics of the franchise to three different characters so the immersion never breaks.
They are giving you the variety you crave, without giving you control.
But we are the players, we want control of our characters!
This is where it gets tricky. To give control is to take away immersion. Imagine if Niko did most of the stuff in GTAIV as some fat guy. Or even when he was talking about morality in one cutscene, and then soon as gameplay starts, the player rockets someone in the face. That doesn't work for Rockstar's current vision.They want us to respect their characters on the level of "well, Trevor would never do that". This creates a stronger character through believability and thus we are drawn into the world much more like any well written TV show.
Rockstar, WHY SO SERIOUS?!
Even though many like to see GTA as some silly game where you go around blowing up cops, Rockstar as the creator, I suspect has much more respect for it. Rockstar has a reputation of raising the bar and pushing boundaries. And they can't do that when they give you the PS2-era GTA over and over again for 10 years.They clearly felt the next level of GTA lies in more immersion, more believable characters that sell you emotion.
It's simply Rockstar going from being top of the class in Adult Swim to trying to go to the top of the class in HBO.
And knowing Rockstar, they won't rest until they get there. And once they do, who knows what challenge they will take on next. Maybe it will be to create a GTA-RPG. That is what is so exciting about Rockstar.
For now though, you are going to have to trust them to give you characters that best fit the world.
