Five Things I Learned from a Weekend in Los Santos
Written by: Adam "ManKorn" Korenman, CC2K Video Games Editor
3) Where the Hell is Everybody?
Pictured: Every resident of GTA Online
In Grand Theft Auto V, real world Los Angeles has been artfully copied and pasted into the incredible Los Santos, down to the last detail. Vinewood is grungy, downtown is industrial, and Little Seoul feels just the right amount of unsafe. Even the people populating the city feel right, with hipsters and celebrity-wannabes crowding the sidewalks. The attention to detail is astounding, and you won’t often find these archetypes in the wrong part of town. If you’re a Los Angeles native, or have visited, you will easily see the way that Rockstar captured the essence of the town.
Online, however, things are not so idealic. While I am happy to report that the traffic problem in Los Santos has been handled, it seems to be at the expense of millions of lives. At last count, real world LA had a population of about 3.8 million, with an average of 1.6 cars per person (because how else do you explain the 405 during rush hour?) GTA Online’s Los Santos appears to have been hit by a plague, as there are rarely more than four people walking down the street at any given time.
During my last trip to the city, I was trying to lose a team of police officers and ran up onto the sidewalk. I must have driven a mile on the walkway, and all of one NPC had to get out of my way.
I understand the reasons behind this move. On launch day, the servers crumbled under the weight of poeple trying to log on. To have to handle all of those players and all the NPCs would have pushed modern technology a little too hard. Granted, World of Warcraft manages to keep a pretty high population density, but I can’t beat up hipsters in Azeroth so it holds no interest to me.
Of course, I have my own theories as to what’s happened to Los Santos
The shame of it is that the game loses some of its charm this way. Only sixteen players inhabit the map at any given time, and this is one huge piece of real estate. That translates to long stretches of road with nothing happening: no pedestrians, very little traffic, and none of the random chaos. Sadly, this means the lived-in feel of the single-player is missing. But that lack of social interaction hasn’t stopped people from enjoying the sandbox. In fact…