Modders Have Already "Fixed" Some Rain Issues In The Grand Theft Auto Trilogy

This is why I don't think it's time to retire the phrases "lazy developer" or "lazy publisher" just yet. Fans and modders are literally doing some of the work for them after launch without even getting paid for any of it, and it's not like this is the first/only time a scenario like this has happened with a modern game.

I’ve been playing GTA 3 and while it does have some low fps situations, I am really enjoying it so far. I haven’t encountered any of the rain glitches after 5+Hrs of gameplay, it doesn’t get as dense as in videos I’ve seen and I haven’t noticed the awful looking Z depth errors. I do hope for those affected that the patch will launch sooner rather than later, I hope it also manages to improve on the fps dips

I can really recommend those two very long Videos

https://youtube.com/watch?v=jhVdb4K1M-M

https://youtube.com/watch?v=TTxY_S0XD8E

@RetroOutcast The thing is that fans shouldn't had to do the dev's jobs for them otherwise they'll get even more lazier and they are the ones who already got the money. The modders fixing the game for the gamers is a good thing for the gamers but that won't solve the issues of lazy devs. All those fixing does is make the actual dev lazier cause they know the modders will clean up their mess.

Don't do it, tell the modders to stop fixing issues that the devs are too lazy to fix and the gamers need to do their part and stop buying these craps. If you bought it, ask for a refund, you won't change anything if you kept buying their garbage and having someone else fixing their issues. If they want money and profit they need to work for it and actually show quality.

GTA V made a cool billion in its first three days after release (turning a very handsome profit from the get-go), and to say nothing of the billions upon billions that they have made in the ensuing eight years.

Rockstar are clearly destitute and deserve our sympathy.

@RetroOutcast Another case in point: Bethesda games, and how modders make and/or patch things they should be doing.

@ferryb001 I've never seen the rain that bad on Switch, the effect looks like its turned down so I've not had an issue with it. A few on here are trying to tell me the game is unplayable but I've easily made it through quite a few missions on Vice City and had fun doing so

@RetroOutcast Truer words were never spoken! Lazy devs/publishers still, very much, exist and this game is the epitome of that.

@RetroOutcast
Cases like this are usually down to a lack of time/budget or poor planning. I definitely wouldn't assume the developers (meaning the ground-level people actually doing the work) are lazy. They probably had to do the work within tight time-restrictions. It's all supposition either way but I'd always be more inclined to place blame at the top - the higher-ups planning and budgeting (time and money) the project, rather than normal development team.

Even IF the developers were lazy, I’m still inclined to blame the executives because at some point a decision was made that hitting predicted earnings was a higher priority than not ripping people off.

@Splodge To be fair these are the same dev studio that presented a very lackluster port of the same trilogy, then proceeded to use that same port and introduce bugs that never previously existed.

I do wonder who really is to blame and who will ultimately pay the price regardless of who's to blame in these cases. Will the people responsible step and take the penalty accordingly or will the hard worker (if they did work hard on it) get punished for not meeting the standards (in time)?

Regardless of who's at fault though. This stuff should stop happening.

@RetroOutcast Indeed, just like the team who created SAMP the multiplayer mod for the PC version, that was extremely popular back in 2005 considering it's just a mod, even more surprising that it had so many players for years with servers having hundreds of players in them all at once.

@RetroOutcast on the other hand, I'm pretty sure the fans who do this are not working full time to get a game out on time.

It feels cheap to take some teams work, point out what's wrong and then act as if all their other work can be disregarded without knowing what the actual labour cost is of putting it out in the first place.

Having said that, of course I completely agree that no one should pay money to an international company for a product that is obviously not finished.

comments if this was a 1st party ninty game

Seems fine guys, works fine for me, stop being entitled whiny gamers!

I've started with GTA3 and about 12 hours play so far. I've had the rain issue on 3 occasions and I've had 3 system crashes that forced me to reset the game. The game autosaves at mission starts and ends, so no issue with the crashes as I picked up exactly where I left off - but its not a good look considering I've had maybe 2 crashes total in over 5 years across a couple of hundred games !!

The rain issue is very annoying. I've had it where the game goes ridiculously foggy so you cannot see anything. I've had this weird purple and green overlay on all the roads. It sorted itself out eventually on all occasions, but again, really not a good look.

Overall, I'm enjoying the game, but I'll be taking a break after GTA3 before I move onto Vice and then San Andreas - so there's some bug fixes in place.

Really glad I stuck with my plan to play them in order.

@RetroOutcast The problem with "lazy developer" is it places the blame on the wrong people. The developers are the team of individuals who make the code and audio and visuals etc. Now I'm not going to say there is never an individual in there who is lazy or even incompetent, you get people like that in all professions, but the reason game get released like this is very rarely caused by the team being lazy. It's caused by the people at the top, either through bad management, unrealistic deadlines and budgets or both.

"Greedy publishers" is what people should be shouting if anything else. As long as we keep blaming the devs they get away with forcing too short a dev time or too low a budget or not allowing a delay to get the game up to standards. It's in dev's interests to make a good game, that's their career, that's what's on their CV. You think a programmer want to have a known buggy mess of a game on their CV when they apply elsewhere? The publisher doesn't care, they get money anyway, they have other things on the go if it does flop and the cherry on top? Everyone is blaming the devs anyway!

And to reiterate, this is not to say there are no lazy individual developers, and it is also not to say all publishers are greedy and unreasonable. But the more we push the blame onto the wrong people, the more we enable those that are.

@Gwynbleidd I mean, of course you can blame the fans for it. And partially, I would absolutely agree with you. It's also a reason why I personally believe Pokémon has been going down in quality for years, because fans will buy it anyway.

But you can't blame it on JUST the fans. It's still three companies developing these games who are responsible for the quality of their products, regardless of fan reception. So while I think fans can be given part of the blame, I don't think they should be given the biggest part of the blame. They're not the ones delivering the shoddy experiences. They're merely blind followers, for one reason or another. Either that, or their standards are just lower, or haven't played previous entries to have comparison material, etc, etc.

But yeah, long story short, I agree partially with you.

@Ogbert Well said

@Specter_of-the_OLED Sadly, the "gamers" will continue to buy whatever crap these devs funnel out because of brand loyalty. We can say "vote with your wallet" all day long but the truth is that it's a vicious, neverending cycle. No matter how badly this game gets review bombed and no matter how many people decide not to be shills and pay for an unfinished product...it is still going to sell well. :L

@RetroOutcast Most people will not be on websites like this to see all the issues or look at sites like Metacritic etc. They will see a brand name they trust, in this case Grand Theft Auto, and that will be enough.

Again, this is on the publishers. They know this. They know it doesn't matter if the game isn't finished or even good, so long as they don't do it enough to loose brand loyalty they're good, people will keep buying it. And they know if it's real bad they can promise patches and then pressure the dev studio again.

And again, they are the one who should have given the devs longer and delayed a release. Even if this was entirely the devs fault for being a mess this time, if they'd had ample time and resources but still messed it all up, ultimately the publisher was the one who decided to send it out anyway. They could have delayed it, they could have brought in external help, but they did not. Because they knew they could get away with it.

I was really looking forward to having GTA on the switch. God this situation sucks

Glad the dev is proud. Ranks with XIII AS PERHAPS THE WORST REMASTER EVER 😂😂😂😂 I downloaded San Andreas on Xbox Gamepass and gave up after an hour, horrible art direction, character design is brutal and even the animation is screwed up. The tone of the originals is stripped out and all is very generic. Why?

Rockstar should have paid the fan modders for their brilliant remaster projects, ported and released those across all platforms instead of this souless tripe.

@Dethmunk the Wii U has an unoptimised, quickly made proof of concept fan port of GTA3 and it runs @ 720p 30-60fps and has never been updated.

If a fan can make a quick port with none of the original documentation, how can a massive team make a mess. Seriously wtf Rockstar??

Things like this is why I considered the PC version. Good thing I decided not to buy it though since PC players were cut off from even playing the damn thing, mods or no.

I'm not even going to think about this till it's fixed and physical.

But it's not looking good and they already delisted the PS2 digital versions.

This is developing into another Cyberpunk debacle...which is really tragic.

"It’s so fun to see players out there really enjoying what we’ve put together for them. I’m honestly enjoying this unparalleled level of scrutiny on our studio. Today we are celebrating our monumental project launch, while we work on updates."

The guy sounds like he's living in an alternate universe given that this is easily the most derided release since Cyberpunk 2077.

I hope that GSG patch the FPS...

I've been playing a fair bit of GTA 3 and SA and I've been enjoying them. This is mostly due to the fact that those games are still really playable even after all these years. There is so much potential for this port which I really hope a patch sorts out but at the moment I think it objectively looks worse than the originals and definitely performs worse. SA froze when I was playing a pool mini-game and GTA 3 has gaps in the geometry. Not great tbh.