Grand Theft Auto Online is working now, and given how I lambasted Rockstar previously for their failed launch, I decided to take a peek in and see how it handles.
The initial tutorial section of GTAO is handled very well, but it does little to actually prepare you for being in games with other players. Once it's complete, however, you're thrust into a game with as many as 15 others, most of whom have bad intentions.
Given that the only reason to kill another player in GTAO is to take their money, I feel Rockstar mishandled the banking system. While it's fairly difficult to find an ATM at times, it's a trivial matter to open up the cell phone menu, go to the bank's website, and deposit all your cash on hand, making it unobtainable for others, and essentially invalidating the open world PvP system.
More interesting is that all the missions, races, et al, are entirely instanced. While this makes it harder for trolls to rack up a 4-star wanted level and drag a convoy of police to the shootout most of the other players are taking part in, it does break immersion, particularly when players join from other games. Upon completion, it brings you to a voting screen where you can choose to re-enter free roam, or vote on the next "job" with the other players, but spatial relations are ignored, and as your playlist goes on, you could essentially teleport all over San Andreas, continuing to do various competitive and co-op jobs until you find an area from which you wish to actually re-enter the world.
GTAO also suffers from voice chat issues, with it being broadcast to all players in the game, not just those within a certain distance, or friends only, and all it takes is one or two loud players to ruin the experience, even if they're on the other side of the map from you.
I'd like to mention is that there is an option to enter a solo mode game, or to host a friends/crew only game, however, those without a large number of friends, and a close-knit personal crew will still have mostly empty games, and in solo mode, or even a private game with too few players, some of the jobs are disabled due to them being designed for multiplayer.
Another problem I have with GTAO is that the auto-matchmaking isn't particularly good, putting myself, at rank(think level) 7, and quite a few other low ranked players into a game with a mid-20s ranked player. With weapons and armor locked away behind experience goals, there was little we could do when the higher ranked player started stalking us with a sniper rifle, and picking us off over and over again.
It's an interesting concept overall, and possibly Rockstar's way of looking into a potential persistent world GTA MMO, but it still needs a lot of fine tuning. It can be kind of fun in short bursts, but it doesn't cause the same compulsion to play that the story did.
The initial tutorial section of GTAO is handled very well, but it does little to actually prepare you for being in games with other players. Once it's complete, however, you're thrust into a game with as many as 15 others, most of whom have bad intentions.
Given that the only reason to kill another player in GTAO is to take their money, I feel Rockstar mishandled the banking system. While it's fairly difficult to find an ATM at times, it's a trivial matter to open up the cell phone menu, go to the bank's website, and deposit all your cash on hand, making it unobtainable for others, and essentially invalidating the open world PvP system.
More interesting is that all the missions, races, et al, are entirely instanced. While this makes it harder for trolls to rack up a 4-star wanted level and drag a convoy of police to the shootout most of the other players are taking part in, it does break immersion, particularly when players join from other games. Upon completion, it brings you to a voting screen where you can choose to re-enter free roam, or vote on the next "job" with the other players, but spatial relations are ignored, and as your playlist goes on, you could essentially teleport all over San Andreas, continuing to do various competitive and co-op jobs until you find an area from which you wish to actually re-enter the world.
GTAO also suffers from voice chat issues, with it being broadcast to all players in the game, not just those within a certain distance, or friends only, and all it takes is one or two loud players to ruin the experience, even if they're on the other side of the map from you.
I'd like to mention is that there is an option to enter a solo mode game, or to host a friends/crew only game, however, those without a large number of friends, and a close-knit personal crew will still have mostly empty games, and in solo mode, or even a private game with too few players, some of the jobs are disabled due to them being designed for multiplayer.
Another problem I have with GTAO is that the auto-matchmaking isn't particularly good, putting myself, at rank(think level) 7, and quite a few other low ranked players into a game with a mid-20s ranked player. With weapons and armor locked away behind experience goals, there was little we could do when the higher ranked player started stalking us with a sniper rifle, and picking us off over and over again.
It's an interesting concept overall, and possibly Rockstar's way of looking into a potential persistent world GTA MMO, but it still needs a lot of fine tuning. It can be kind of fun in short bursts, but it doesn't cause the same compulsion to play that the story did.
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