How to Write a Custom Mission

Did you finish GTA4 and have nothing to do besides play online. But don't you miss the missions and sometimes you just want to play alone? Custom missions are fun for the entire GTA Community. To write one you have to remember some basics.

1. Spelling counts. The better the mission you write out looks, the more its respected and generally the higher quality it is.

2. Be original. Add spice to a regular assassin by creating a story behind it, it doesn't need to be pages long. In fact watch me do it in one word. Ex-wife. Now two words. Ex-Wife's Lawyer.

See

3 Formatting is imperative. If a Custom Mission is not formatted correctly, it can't be completed without decoding the cryptic scheme you created.

-----------------

Here is an example Custom Mission. Its extremely simplified to show the Formatting.

Employer:Bob Jinglesburg
(You must have an employer so someone can give a mission or pay for the mission, make sure the character is dynamic, has goals, and their own job in life. You needn't mention it all but just having that information will help make your CM more detailed.)

Protagonist: Niko Bellic
(This is extremely important because it will tell the player which character to use. If none is chosen, the player will feel a little more distanced from the custom mission because than the Employer will never ever say the characters name or criticize them in any way.)

Employer Meeting:



(This generally does not have to be the beginning of a mission, it can be any form of first encounter with the employer. It can be that a friend gave the protagonists number to a friend. Or it can be like a random encounter. Try not to make the objective stupid like I am going to do in this example.)


Mission:



(A title can sum up the entire mission before it if its good enough. Be creative with the title.)



(What is important about this is it gives clear cut goals, and a little more insight into the employer as well as any characters in the mission. You can tell that Bob is a bit of weirdo, and there is some odd business occurring.)

Objectives:

-Acquire a coffee that is being consumed by someone.

-Drop the coffee off with a contact at Lorimar Street.

(Objectives give the PLAYER direct and short instructions on what to physically do in the mission. Make sure all of the objectives here are conveyed in the mission dialogue.)

Terms:

Do not spill the coffee.

Do not drink the coffee.

(Terms give people limitations. Such as if a contact wants a silent assassination, guns would not be allowed, so you would put No explosives, No rifles. They also must be conveyed unless they are obvious. This goal is to deliver the coffee, obviously the contact does not want you to drink or spill it.)

Payout: You gain 5,000 dollars from the coffee junkie he calls a wife.

(The payout ninety percent of the time is fictional. If you can be creative with the payout and say.. "Find a sentinel, this car was given to you as payment." or "Find an extra large hooker, her services are payed by ----". You can thankfully decline payment if you don't want the large hooker's services or the sentinel.)
-------------------------------------

That is how you do it folks, just don't be as stupid as my example, but be creative and have FUN with it. And make sure the mission you create is fun to play.

Some other points:

Don't be too specific with characters you must meet ingame.

Why? People don't want to search for hours for a woman with a pink top and blue pants who is black and has a red cap who MUST be with a black man in a top hat. GTA4 citizens shirts, pants, and accessories change randomnly which makes it super hard to find the same ped twice. What you can do is be physiological. A black man in a suit in *area here*. A white female in a slutty skirt in *area here*.

If its too long, split it into parts, unless its truly epic and should not be waited for.

Be careful when talking through characters who exist in the game. Generally if you make an employer you will actually want to create a brand new one. Why? Because sometimes you get things like Francis McCreary saying things like "Hay niko, can you do me a favor, I want to buy pakie a prwesant lol." Not only is that badly spelt, its out of his character to say that. Its obvious he would never say that. When you create your own employer, you are able to do that kind of thing because the character is YOURS. You also have to be careful when talking through the protagonist for the same reason. If you're unsure, keep the protagonists answers short, otherwise look up some dialogue they have said in the past and get a feel for it.