*continuing the GTA:SA rant*
OK. Now I've been part of this "San Andreas went the Godfather roleplay" game from
http://www.godfather-rp.com/ for awhile.
I'm not a roleplayer at all. This seems to be a roleplay to the extent that they usually link to definitions of roleplay at wikipedia and other dictionaries; with avoidance of metagaming as one of the key ideals.
You start off with a nobody, and have to work your way up. But it's not like that's really the point, the point is just to try to lead the life of your character, and not go deathmatching and so on (which is not allowed). To even enter the game you have to read through pages of background history, rules etc and then take an exam about this which you have to score 100% at. The world has some clans (Cosa nostra, Yakuza, some latin gang and so on) and also a police force (very corrupt), and lots of other jobs like taxi drivers, car rentals, lawyers (people hire lawyers to try to get out of prison..) and so on. Admins run around and if they see you do/act out of roleplay they give you a warning, with five warnings you're banned. You have to obey the rules in order to not get stopped by the police, like driving on the right side, keep the speed limits and all that stuff.
In theory, this is all so cool. But in practice, I don't know. Everyone starts off without even a f*cken driver's license. ("In a game called Grand theft AUTO?", I ask myself). Turns out driver licenses are given out after you take part of a driving runthrough at a small village out in the middle of nowhere. So the first task is to even get there, the next one to even have the timing to catch one of the runthroughs. Which means the police force (all this played by people) show how to drive, what to do when being pulled over by the cops and so on). Of course I couldn't find a taxi or any ride for my first visit to that place, so I ended up late, after RUNNING the whole damn way. And the guy handing out the licenses after the run through decided to not give me a license cause he thought my name was not roleplayish enough (What's wrong with MUGG???). Before I actually got to object (I tried some RP comeback line "Please don't mock my name. My mother was high as a building when she named me", my character died, OUT OF STARVATION. Damn ,there went some hours. So I had to re-register, take that test again, what a truly annoying procedure. So then, back into the game, I run across two guys going around in a car, they told me they sell licenses (driving, flying, motorcycles, and so on). Illegaly, of course. I thought, maybe I'm actually gonna buy a car + bike license, it seemed like a good tradeoff after what I went through. They drove me to the bank so I could get a huge money sum out, then I got back into the backseat of their car, and they drove off. Now they started being very twitchy about how much I should pay for those licenses, and to whom. I should have understood something's not right at least as early as here. Anyway, I ended up paying 10 grand to the one guy and then 5 grand to the other. With me still being a noob at this mod, they totally had me of course, and it's likely this isn't a first time for those guys. They never gave me any licenses, it just looked that way to me first, but it's just a UI hickup that allowed them to do that. I got pissed off of course realising that, so I started saying something like. "OK, now you're getting into trouble." "My boss will be coming shortly", I lied. The driver instantly stopped, the other guy jumped out, drawing his pistol and popped two bullets in my head and end of story. :-\
Not sure I'll play this anymore, but it sure is a huge step in the right direction from the "A->B" original single gameplay.
If I do play some more, those guys are officially part of my hitlist. Money on their heads!