Grand Theft Auto V: Online

Say One Thing & It End With Something Else

I fell in love with GTA when GTA III first came out on console. I wasn’t on PC back then. I played every GTA after that. When RockStar announced GTA 5, yes, I was excited for a new GTA and to go back to San Andreas. Rock Star, at that time, made the announcement that micro-transactions were going to be part of the “economy” but it would not have any negative affects. If you want to buy, fine, if not, grind. At that time, I really didn’t know anything about micro-transactions or let alone the impact it would have. I said, fine, ignored it, went on. GTA V came out and with-in 72 hours, they made over $1B in sells. That’s was a record. When it came to micro-transactions, I figured how greedy can one be? Unfortunately, I got my answer as the weeks passed. it was the complete opposite of what they have said.

The Beginning of the Nerf

After playing GTA 4 for so long and racing online, the news for GTA V, just me pumped. So pumped in fact that I per-ordered GTA V a year in advance. In the meantime, I stayed racing in GTA4 online until release day. Man, when it released in mid or late September, we all burned through the story just to get online. The online was a mess. I had created my character over 20 times because it kept getting deleted. Finally, I can play online now. Now that the frustration was over, it was time to do what we did best, race and raise hell on the tracks. And we did just that. The cars didn’t feel like the car from GTA 4. It felt more like a Need For Speed type deal. All we did was farm races to level up, earn money and find the highest paid street race. We all ran missions here and there but racing is what my friends and I wanted to do. We grinned race everyday up to when a friend of mine told me that the payouts are no longer the same. I jumped on noticed that payouts got reduced. All payouts from all races and missions alike got reduced. The reason why all payouts got nerfed was because little to no one was buying the shark cards.

Shark Can Always Spot A Donkey

In poker, you have poker terminologies. One being Shark and the other Donkey. Poker Sharks in poker is someone that can play extremely well. A Donkey, on the other hand, is someone that’s really bad, makes all the wrong plays at the wrong time, and relies solely on luck. Sharks loves donkeys. Are you getting what I’m saying to you? SHAK … CARDS. Get it? I’m far from a donkey.

Modded Lobbies is Bad For Business

We raced every track, played what we knew were high paid missions, payout was nerfed. Most of the people I knew had tons of cars, apartments and when I asked if they bought it with Shark Cards, I was told no, modded lobbies. Everyone was banking in modded lobbies. December rolls around, and Rock Star shuts down the server for24 hours. At that time, we didn’t now why. We just figure it was going to be some huge update like heist, stock market or the casino we’ve been asking for. Nope. None of that. After the severs wen up, they wiped everyone that had modded money. Many were angry and broke, some even with negative balances. It was frustrating and annoying.

Buy or Quit

The nerfs kept coming. Missions were made harder, for example, positioning a drop off point father with an increased chance to fail. Time was introduced to races and missions. For instance, if you finished a race before set time, you would make less money. If you completed a mission before set time, you would make less. That meant, I had to sit there for, say, 12 minutes to turn in a mission, get paid the full amount, to grind it again every 12 minutes. It was just utterly pathetic. Either your waist time or, Shark Cards was the next option. I figure, ok, “what’s the point of GTAV online”? “To start off as a broke scrub and make it to the top” I That’s what I did. After earning a few million to buy property, cars, motorcycles, a sub and stopped playing. The nerfing got so bad it was stupid.

Some Tricks Are Better Left Unsaid

Sure, you can open a business yada, yada, yada, didn’t care for any of that. I preferred playing in solo mode with a few whomever I wanted to invite. I’ve always stay cleared of pub lobbies in GTA 4 and 5. GTA5 pub lobbies were the worst. A short time after then Rockstar finally released heist, I jumped back on and with a group of friends, we are starting farming heist. That was a hassle onto itself. Yes, we found little tricks. Tricks I will not share, ever, well, maybe for the right price. Anyways, we made millions farming heist. I bought more houses, a yacht. and that pretty much did it for me. There was nothing else. I really didn’t see much of a fun factor. Also, San Andreas was missing Las Ventura and San Fiero, two maps that never were added and were part of San Andreas.

Almost Ten Years and No DLC Story: Greed is Real

The online was just a hassle, didn’t care for Shark Cards, I was aggravated because the game itself was kept taking up space in my hard drive. Unfortunately for me, I have no way to delete the GTA5 online from GTA 5 core game. I just don’t care for GTA5 online, and I have no interest in wasting my time girding for hours on end just to end up with little to nothing to show for it. It’s not fun. I just don’t care. I can say more but you get the idea. Sure, I may still play from time to time, mod lobbies may still be a thing, maybe players are still running hacks/cheat, don’t know, don’t care. All this garbage for micro-transactions. It’s just unreal. However, the story is good, sadly, no story expansions ever came to GTA V. That was a shame.

GTA VI

Am I looking forward to GTA VI? If the online is anything like GTA V, then no. If the story mode is any good, then maybe I’ll buy it on sell, who knows. At this point, I just don’t care. Just know that nothing has been said about GTA VI. But it’s safe to assume, However, that a new GTAVI will come out at some point before I die. Predatory Micro-transactions will still be implemented, maybe more aggressively. Take Two has made millions off of donkeys buying Shark Cards, don’t see why they wouldn’t add Shark Cards. All micro-transactions did was replace cheat codes. If gamers are going to use cheat codes, why not make them pay for it. Well, I guess it worked.