[HN Gopher] GTA GeoGuesser
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       GTA GeoGuesser
        
       Author : popcalc
       Score  : 308 points
       Date   : 2022-07-06 02:58 UTC (20 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (gta-geoguesser.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (gta-geoguesser.com)
        
       | paraxisi wrote:
       | Here's yet another for old school runescape
       | https://www.osrsguessr.com/
        
         | iamricks wrote:
         | best mmo of my time
        
       | keithnz wrote:
       | This is pretty cool! It's been ages since I have played, but
       | actually did pretty well, some of this stuff is just burned into
       | my brain
        
       | bobsmooth wrote:
       | DarkViperAU has a bunch of videos where he does this. Very fun.
        
       | djsavvy wrote:
       | This is absolutely amazing. Just donated some too :)
        
       | metadat wrote:
       | Weird game, but I do have fond memories of GTA :). Rusty ones,
       | apparently.
        
       | dewey wrote:
       | For the people hoping that it would be the Greater Toronto Area.
       | You can just play this map on the original GeoGuesser:
       | https://www.geoguessr.com/maps/601ad726f59c050001a53a2b
        
       | d12bb wrote:
       | 15k points without movement (not disabled, just not used, don't
       | know if that matters for points) on first try, best 53m off. I
       | guess I actually know GTA V better than the real world :D
        
         | formerly_proven wrote:
         | Maximum always seems to be 5k points, played two rounds on Hard
         | and Medium. Hard is a bit goofy because you might just look at
         | a hill roadside and that's pretty generic in GTA. Closest was
         | 2m. Worst 1200m in the hills. I actually think there is no real
         | place that I know as well as Los Santos, and I haven't even
         | played GTAV for years.
        
           | usrusr wrote:
           | Real places are more difficult because they change over time.
           | And some of them seem just as full of seemingly copy/pasted
           | objects as the games... (or worse? Games have come a long way
           | since the ubiquitous crate, on the level of production
           | standards of GTA they probably go deep on generative
           | variations)
        
       | antegamisou wrote:
       | Am I too old if I expected a San Andreas version instead?
        
         | asib wrote:
         | San Andreas was released almost 18 years ago - you be the
         | judge.
        
           | bipson wrote:
           | The last version I played myself for more than 5 minutes at a
           | time was GTA III
           | 
           | Released 2001. Wow.
        
             | davidkunz wrote:
             | For me it was Grand Theft Auto, released 1997. Fun times.
        
               | userabchn wrote:
               | I reinstalled it using Wine last year. It ran well (only
               | the cheat codes didn't work), but it didn't really
               | transport me back to my youth the way I expected it to (I
               | played it a lot at the time, so thought it might the way
               | other games from my childhood, like King's Quest VI, do)
               | and I grew bored of it after a day or two.
        
             | Insanity wrote:
             | GTA III was the first one I played for more than 5 minutes!
             | The last one being San Andreas.
        
           | pwython wrote:
           | And the latest game this website uses (GTA V) was released
           | nearly a decade ago.
        
             | _fat_santa wrote:
             | I recently got back into playing GTA V (Well GTA Online
             | really). On the one hand I wish that Rockstar would put out
             | GTA VI and set it somewhere like Vice City again, it's
             | clear that GTA:O is their cash cow and they don't want to
             | give it up and ties into some generally scummy behavior
             | from Rockstar/Take2 Interactive (devs and publishers of
             | GTA).
             | 
             | On the other hand though, for a game that is nearly a
             | decade old, it has aged like fine wine. You would think a
             | game that is nearing a decade old would start to decline in
             | popularity but with the constant updates, it almost feels
             | like an RPG or an old school MMO nowdays, and content
             | updates as well as general graphical updates for new
             | generation consoles make this game look like it came out
             | just 2-3 years ago.
        
               | dkarp wrote:
               | Last I heard, the rumors are exactly that. They're
               | working on GTA 6 and it may be set in Vice City again
        
         | drewzero1 wrote:
         | I was kind of hoping for a mix of different GTA games, but GTA
         | V makes sense. I'd love to play a San Andreas version but I'd
         | probably only do well on the initial island.
        
         | BjoernKW wrote:
         | Well, I was wondering why none of the examples showed the
         | Liberty City and Vice City I remember from Grand Theft Auto.
        
       | Hamuko wrote:
       | 24955 points on my first attempt. I think my worst one was about
       | 60 metres off. Probably couldn't have done as well if you gave me
       | one for my local area within a 5 km range of me.
        
       | elchief wrote:
       | I was hoping it was for Greater Toronto
        
         | yreg wrote:
         | Why? Real world GeoGuesser exists...
        
           | zerocrates wrote:
           | Just because "GTA" is also an abbreviation for Greater
           | Toronto Area.
        
       | pelasaco wrote:
       | just hijacking this thread to ask a question:
       | 
       | We are seeing in Germany an increasing numbers of Vehicle-ramming
       | attacks[1]. Some of them were committed by people that were
       | mental ill, some of them were used to play GTA hours non-stop.
       | The question that a friend raised and I forward to HN: Do you
       | think that GTA can be a bad influence for people which have
       | problems distinguishing virtual from reality? There are any known
       | studies in that direction?
       | 
       | References: https://www.thelocal.de/20220608/one-person-dead-and-
       | several...
       | 
       | EDIT: To people down-voting me like crazy, I'm not saying that
       | games make normal people violent. Just observing the fact that we
       | always had mental ill people and we always had cars, but none had
       | the idea to drive it in the crowd back in the days. My friend is
       | a professional psychologist working in a psychiatric facility in
       | Germany.
        
         | mkl95 wrote:
         | > Just observing the fact that we always had mental ill people
         | and we always had cars, but none had the idea to drive it in
         | the crowd back in the days
         | 
         | Unstable people were driving recklessly and with homicidal
         | intentions decades before the videogame industry existed. Road
         | rage was a thing in the 19th century.
         | 
         | > In 1854, a satirical article describing a hell-bent railroad
         | engineer named "Joe Smashup" intentionally ramming other
         | locomotives appeared in U.S. newspapers
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_rage#Historical_Anteceden...
         | .
        
           | aaaaaaaaata wrote:
           | This is hilarious and cool, but bad logic.
        
           | pelasaco wrote:
           | Road Rage and Vehicle-ramming are totally unrelated things.
        
         | bfgoodrich wrote:
        
       | seydor wrote:
       | how do you make 360 images from GTA?
        
         | bzzzt wrote:
         | Just like you make 360 images with real photo's? Take
         | screenshots looking in all directions and use a panorama
         | stitching tool.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | djsavvy wrote:
           | I initially thought this wouldn't work, since you can't take
           | pictures in all directions simultaneously in GTA V, and
           | moving the camera in different directions might add artifacts
           | from moving objects and/or cause items out of view to despawn
           | entirely.
           | 
           | A Google streetview car can take pictures of all directions
           | simultaneously, thus avoiding the "stretched dog" or "double
           | person" panorama problems that can happen from stitching
           | shots together. And things tend not to despawn in real life,
           | though there are plenty of examples of anomalies on Google
           | maps.
           | 
           | It turns out you can follow the same car over a long stretch
           | of road in this GTA Geoguessr, leading me to believe your
           | intuition is correct.
        
             | yreg wrote:
             | https://www.gta5-mods.com/tools/panoramic-view-screenshot
        
             | Hamuko wrote:
             | It might be possible to automate taking the screenshots so
             | that a single hit of a key will quickly move the camera
             | while taking overlapping scerenshots, reducing the amount
             | of moving artifacts.
        
             | Ekaros wrote:
             | I wonder if automating something like Nvidia Ansel is
             | possible. It stops the gameplay and allows to take various
             | screenshots and even 360 views.
        
       | oynqr wrote:
       | I was hoping for games other than V.
        
       | asadlionpk wrote:
       | This is awesome. I am that person ie. I know GTA map more than my
       | real city's map.
        
         | prawn wrote:
         | I flew my partner across the planet to propose to her in New
         | York City, shortly after GTA IV. There was a bit of a stumble
         | early in the trip when we were walking somewhere in Manhattan
         | and I blurted out that it was all so incredibly familiar. Then
         | excitedly told her that this exact spot was where I'd murdered
         | a helicopter pilot and got into a massive shoot out with
         | police. From that point on, I'd randomly laugh at various other
         | locations we walked through, remembering other crazy GTA
         | capers.
        
           | andrewingram wrote:
           | Had this in Boston after Fallout 4, my ex wasn't amused.
        
           | julianwachholz wrote:
           | I had the same experience after playing Watch Dogs
           | extensively before a trip to SF. It's a weird mix of
           | familiarity and deja vu.
        
           | typon wrote:
           | Same experience visiting LA for the first time. It's like I
           | knew the city more than the locals
        
           | usrusr wrote:
           | Test driven marriage?
        
           | asadlionpk wrote:
           | Thanks for sharing this haha. I had somewhat similar
           | experience visiting LA (and probably my biggest motivation
           | for visiting lol)
        
         | tjungblut wrote:
         | yeah I was also surprised about myself, first pin I set on the
         | map was only 20m away from the real location.
        
       | pionar wrote:
       | This is fun, but I got the same image like 4 times.
        
       | prawn wrote:
       | Someone should do this but for Halo. And every shot is one of
       | those angular Forerunner structures with Covenant/Flood
       | everywhere. That'd really narrow it down...
        
       | etoxin wrote:
       | It would be cool if there were multiple games within a geoguesser
       | game. Doom, Witcher, Battlefield, Red Dead.
        
       | haunter wrote:
       | Here is one for Fortnite covering every different map from every
       | season https://www.whereinfortnite.com/
        
         | yccs27 wrote:
         | I've never played Fortnite, but I just got a perfect score
         | (without time limit) there. The Fortnite map designers did a
         | really good job at creating varied biomes and recognizable
         | landmarks.
        
           | haunter wrote:
           | Depends really. Early season maps (Chapter 1 Season 1-4) had
           | barely any changes and they were all the same green forest-y
           | style, so it's much harder to guess just based on the
           | geography and flora.
        
       | mhh__ wrote:
       | One of the things that keeps me just pottering about inside GTA V
       | is just how good Rockstar's map is. It's a brilliant piece of
       | design and tonally perfect too, whereas I'd say something like
       | Night City is well designed but the wrong kind of cyberpunk.
        
         | dleslie wrote:
         | The wrong kind? That's a bold claim. It was developed with the
         | design oversight of Mike Pondsmith; based on lore, maps and art
         | from his original source material.
        
           | arkitaip wrote:
           | Doesn't mean it's a good map for a game.
        
             | dleslie wrote:
             | Good thing it's a good map for other reasons, then.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | hacked_news wrote:
       | Lots of GeoGuessr themed games recently, including my
       | https://wheredle.xyz
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | walrus01 wrote:
       | I thought this was greater Toronto area geoguesser
        
       | lpcvoid wrote:
       | If this where the Morrowind map, I'd be right at home...
        
       | kaffeeringe wrote:
       | Cool!
        
       | twayt wrote:
       | I don't play GTA and I was able to get a decent score by just
       | correlating the visual features with the outline of the map +
       | prior visual references from previous rounds.
       | 
       | Someone should create an arbitrary environment generator and
       | render the 3D image + map outline. I could totally see a variant
       | of GeoGuesser for unknown worlds. That would be trippy.
        
         | jerrre wrote:
         | For me the same, plus I have visited LA, which also helped. But
         | I like the idea of a procedural generated GeoGuesser. Maybe in
         | Minecraft worlds? Although you do not have roads, which makes
         | it a lot harder
        
       | lurker616 wrote:
       | Making these kinds of apps is the reason 12-year-old me got into
       | programming in the first place. So cool, kudos!
        
       | tempodox wrote:
       | I'm still pissed that there is no Mac release of GTA V. Enjoying
       | San Andreas on the iPad instead.
        
         | Insanity wrote:
         | I had no idea this exists.. is it actually good? Considering
         | buying it for the iPad Pro.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2022-07-06 23:02 UTC)