I know that people might probably really love the thought of this concept, so I thought, "what a great idea would it be for me to create a discussion for this and maybe even Reflections could really examine it (if it's very successful)." This is a very nice new approach for the Driver series if Reflections decides to go with such a thing. Personally, I feel that we are too bored at the thought of having the old Driver come back or even to have the same GTA clone concept of Driver as it was in D3, DPL, and D76, so a new approach would be very appreciated by us and could really give Reflections what it needs to heavily impact both the Video Game Industry and the Free-roam genre.

This will be the official place to discuss everything about this new concept, saying what you would and would not like to see in it.

Question:
Do you want this to be the next approach for the Driver series?

Choices:
Yes
No

 

So with this "Multiple Career Path", are you saying like we should have different jobs in the game that you can do that can effect the story? You know, like being a cab driver, stunt driver, truck driver, etc? It sounds interesting.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Do you say yes or no to the poll? As in, do you like the idea for being a new approach for the Driver franchise or do you wish to be stuck with one career that being a gangster (like T.K.) or an undercover cop (depending on which of these careers Reflections has decided on having for the next game)? If you want only one career path, note that it really limits your freedom and isn't a very good way to make the replay value good. Even side missions aren't that good, especially since it's already been done in the GTA games, so do you want a storyline, missions, and other things for the many careers in the game or do you want the overall game to be as simple as the GTA franchise in its gameplay?

Edit: Okay. I see that you have voted. I'm glad to see that you like the idea. Also, would you happen to give out ideas concerning this concept in the future? This topic will die if no one else contributes to it other than me and you. Hopefully, InsaneDriver06 and others will join in for this topic. Also, I wonder where the others are (Matt Jon, Getaway man, etc.). They must have either forgotten about the Driver franchise or are too busy with other things.

Yes, I agree. It would be cool if you start off as a cab driver at the beginning of the story (just an example) and maybe someone in the story will say "You've dis-satisfied many of your passengers before, and what makes that you're a good driver for me?" So then maybe you could move on to something like a truck/train driver to get a different response. It might take longer, but at least it's more challenging and who knows, you might be hired after all.

Yes and that would lead to a great reason for you to have other vehicles like planes, helicopters, and boats because you could be offered career paths that deal with those vehicles too. For instance, you can race on a boat, be a helicopter or plane pilot, or find any other way to use those vehicles as a job. Every type of vehicle would have a way of you to get a career, even the train, which could be used for being an engineer or something else, and this is what would really push the driving experience further than ever before. Just imagine how far developers can push the freedom of having to choose any career that has do with driving or any other type of thing. It would even mean that you no longer would need to look at the other driving games if Driver was to have such a concept because it could make many of the driving elements feel realistic and fun, even of the racing elements found in GT, Forza Motorsport, Midnight Club, and any other racing games, are what would be found in a Driver game. How cool would that be?

In addition to this multiple career path concept, we should have schools in the game that you can go to, to learn how to drive. So if you want to drive trucks, you'll need to go to a trucking school. If you want to be a cop, you'll have to go to the police academy. And so on and so forth. Does this make your vision even better?

It makes more sense, so I have to say that this would be one of the best options for beginning a career. After you would go through a school of training for a particular job, you'd begin the job immediately and get to all of the great missions and narrative (its storyline) that the job has to offer. Once you beat a mission in the game, you make money and maybe can even unlock some things for yourself, so you'd gain even more freedom for yourself on what to do. And because you have the freedom to choose from many different careers, it would only make a lot of sense for you to be able to create your own character rather than be forced by Reflections in to playing as the one the team decides on.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Assaultmachine1,

I sure hope Reflections doesn't reject our ideas in this thread for sure! It would be a shame if they did. I think we started a revolution tonight in new ideas!

Indeed, we did, Driverman2006 and with more time and more discussion as well as a larger group of people to discuss this thread, the concept will grow only more powerful and bigger than ever, which will make it that much easier for Reflections to decide on whether it should or should not be used. Also, it seems like we're becoming the creators of the concept as we build it in to something bigger, so this can later on in our time, really help us boost confidence and improve in how well we can make ideas come alive and have them be new ones that really impact the Video Game industry. No longer should Reflections claim that it was their idea for a concept and that they did all of the ideas for it, but they should give us many of the credit for helping create much of the concept ourselves.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Assaultmachine1,

Do you think it should be required to complete all of the storylines for all of the careers? Like the cab driver, train engineer, trucker careers, etc? Or you could just follow one and still beat the game? Which one do you like more Assaultmachine1? One for 100% game completion or all for 100% game completion?

I definitely would want the players to put forth a lot more work in to the game because of how much easier it seems that games are starting to become, so it would be very good to have them complete all of the jobs in order to beat the game 100%. If you didn't unlock everything and finish the rest of the jobs of the game, do you think that you can consider that 100% completion? I don't think that would be a reasonable thing to believe, so it needs to be more difficult than that. Also, think about how much bigger the replay value would be if you were forced in to playing through every job as opposed to just one job? If you have so much that a game has for you to offer, then why complete only one job and move on when there should be a lot more time for you to be spending on the game. After all, this is a free-roaming game that we're talking about and with the GTA games, you wouldn't let go of them too easily, you would spend a lot of time on them for sure. This is what the multiple career concept needs to feel like.

There is something else that I'd like to add to this post, which very much supports this concept. It is to say that freedom is becoming a much more reliable way of engaging players in to video games today as the sandbox gameplay feature is being implemented in to all sorts of games. Mercenaries, Destroy All Humans, GTA, Driver, Getaway, True Crime, Saint's Row, Crackdown, and many other games are becoming to have more freedom for the player than ever before. This is done usually for the portion of when you would feel like doing something else besides follow the storyline, but there were games that extended the amounts of different paths that you have for yourself when going through the story of the game. My point to you all is that, eventually, all games will soon need to allow you a lot of freedom for both choosing your own path (a part of the story) and even when you feel like taking a break from the story itself. Therefore, if the next Driver game can do both of this, using the sandbox gameplay and even this concept of multiple careers, it will make sure that, no matter if you are following the story or taking a break from it, you'll never get bored from the game and ever want to leave it alone.

I am noticing how much more of the story is becoming important to the GTA franchise. GTA IV is focusing on giving players whichever path they choose for the storyline, so it is absolutely essential for Reflections to follow the freedom towards the story portion of the game too, but except that there will be even more careers to choose from and that they will all have their own storylines and missions to make them look a lot more unique than having to decide on having any side missions of those jobs.

If you had it so it was required of you to complete all careers, then it would definetly take a longer time to complete (which I think is good). I would like to get involved in careers in the next Driver game like being a cab driver, bus driver, trucker, train engineer, stuntman, and more. It's something that everybody should experience.

Exactly. It would feel as if the developers were stupid if we saw them just have you finish a certain portion of the game and call it 100%. I honestly don't think that I've seen any developer who would be stupid like this ever in my life and never should we need to see it happen to a game. For it would really ruin the experience of the game and it's like saying, "you beaten the taxi driver career, so you don't have to go and finish the rest of your careers. The game is now one hundred percent complete." No. There need to be unlockables, money, and many other things for you to have to get in the game other than just finish the careers for you to beat the game. It is not enough to have one career and beat the game 100%. There must be a lot more to it than that, especially if you're looking at an open-world city game or in other words, a free-roam game.

I'm liking on what you two guys are talking about.I'm in.
So if the game had different careers paths to choose from ,that would mean different endings to the game?That would be a reason to replay the game.

I really like the idea of different driving careers to choose from. I'd like to see some in depth missions for each career, not just mini-games like Taxi driver where you just drive customers around and that's it. Maybe they could throw in some story elements where fancy driving leads one of the customers to suggest they try stunt driving, or one of the customers hops in your cab and is being chased by bad guys, bringing you into a big chase scene storyline, but still cab related somehow.

Stunt Driver could be like the game Stunt Driver, or better yet, a grandstand live stunt show with loops, ramps, scrap cars to ride over, monster trucks, dirtbikes, stock cars, etc.

Highway Patrol Officer would give you the choice to catch a quota of two speeders per day, some would be standard traffic tickets, some warnings, others would be extensive chase scenes where back up could be called in. Kind of like that show, Scariest Police Chases.

And so on...

This place looks like its starting to become even better because of more people coming to post. I'm guessing that if this thread is to be around for a while (even after we first hear about a new Driver game), Reflections may decide to go with this concept for the Driver franchise. I would really love to see them put my concept of such to practice.

As to your post, InsaneDriver06, I must say that I agree with you. No longer should careers feel like minigames anymore. I've mentioned before that there should be unique missions for them and even storylines to accompany them. Also, about how you find and collect things around the city in the GTA games and the stars in DPL, instead of that, we need things that accompany the career that you are doing such as hunting down or arresting specific criminals as a law enforcer, killing an enemy gang as a gangster, finding stolen fire department vehicles, etc. There need to be a lot of unique things given to every specific career in the game.

We still need some minigames. Minigames that aren't career related. Like go-kart races, checkpoint races, street races, and other "little" things that you can do in your free time.

You're right. Anyways, it wouldn't make any sense to have a storyline as a racer, so that's why we could have side jobs like those that you had just mentioned, which too, are a good way of making money, but each time that you experience a side job, it shouldn't always be the same experience. I'm tired of seeing the same coming from the side missions in the GTA games and even from DPL, so when you race a second time, the opponents are different people, different vehicles, and the races can go on being scheduled almost, if not, anywhere in the city at any time (instead of being just in those same spots as always). If Reflections can make all of the driving this realistic for both the side jobs and even the driving careers themselves, then I think that the Driver franchise will really do well in the future.

For a race driver, the missions could involve advancing like any career mode game (Nascar from EA), but add on foot elements, like maybe one mission, you'd have to take a break from racing to perform in the pitstops, getting the timing down for tire changes, etc. Otherwise, you'd be racing, increasing your wins, changing teams, racing against rivals, buying new cars, parts, etc.

Now I have to change my opinion. I agree more with InsaneDriver06, because you can still have a storyline for all the driving careers. There's always some way to give us missions and storylines for every career in the game. It was very good that you mentioned it, InsaneDriver06.