GTA Online - The Saga Continues

[BinnZ]

Today on Rockstar's newswire another announcement of stunning new updates hitting GTA Online this spring. The first, concerning special vehicle races only weeks away!!!

http://www.rockstargames.com/newswire/article/60149/Coming-Soon-to-GTA-Online-Special-Vehicle-Races-New-Cars-Modes-More?utm_source=blast&utm_campaign=progengp1-img&utm_medium=email&utm_content=gtao-stuntraces-03022017

[PZ]

That Progen GP1 supercar looks like a nice ride 

[Art Blade]

looks like a McLaren

[LowPolyOWG]

Every vehicle in GTA V is basically hybrids of their real life counterparts.

Nice to see more DLC coming, but this might be the final updates coming before RDR2 ships

[BinnZ]

Well, they announce 2 dlc's. They also speak of new stuff coming for the CEO business related with arms dealing. But those two might indeed be the last ones coming before the madness around RDR2 starts.

[fragger]

heh, every time I see RDR2 in print it makes me think R2D2 Let's see HIM get on a horse...

[Art Blade]

 

[LowPolyOWG]

Let's see HIM get on a horse...

Possible on PC, if R* releases a PC version. I guess the modding community is eager to mod this game.

[Art Blade]

then we might even see a horse riding on R2D2.

[LowPolyOWG]

 

[PZ]

RDR2 is one of the main games I'm most anticipating these days

[LowPolyOWG]

Having a good run with BinnZ, our friends and the NPCs Haven't played GTA Online much due to other games taking up my time and my modding adventure.

Anyway, decided to spend 270 NOK on two Great White Cards (I know, I can earn money through grinding, but I need a Buzzard ASAP). Also, Rockstar/Take Two's DLC model is good IMO. We got a lot of updates for free (Beach Bum/Heists/Ill-Gotten Gains 1&2/Lowriders/Executives and Cunning Stunts) While people complained about the grindiness earlier (I assume Take Two wanted to see if the community would buy shark cards or grind, pubilshers have a lot to say for games being shipped tbh), it seems like they abandoned a paid DLC model (which would inevitable fracture the playerbase) and decided to go for a microtranscaction model instead. Take Two have also publicy said they are not interesting to "milk" players compared to other publishers (Activi$ion, EA, UBI*bleep**bleeb*). EA and UBI*bleep* seems to have improved, they either back up their games with a traditional DLC/Season Pass system or a microtransaction based one. They don't do both simultaniously in some of their games. Even MS seems to have done so with some of their titles. Watch Dogs 2 does feature micro DLC for skins etc, but most of them can be purchased separately and are not forced into a season pass/locked behind a pre-order bonus.

Activi$ion is the worst now. They decided to go full anti-consumer with Black Ops 3, locking DLC weapons behind loot crates and selling a season pass together They "fixed" this with Infinite Warfare, people are rewarded daily with a bonus (loot crate or other in-game benefits). New guns can be unlocked by getting them out of the "Mystery Box" in IW zombies. Still, they and every other publisher should ditch the season pass DLC model completely (microtransactions made ATVI 1 billion in additional revenue last year).

Microtransactions is a nice trade-off if done right. I would still encourage us gamers to tell publishers when we think they behave like morons. Look at EA now, completely different after 2014.

[BinnZ]

I think you are right GKID. I mean I definitely like this way of DLC. For the hardcore fan it's perfect. You buy the game once and have limitless access to a long stream of gameplay, new features and content and if you spend enough time and effort you can get your own personalised fleet as big as you desire.
The more average gamers can enjoy the same, and if they don't want to spend loads of time grinding and still want some of the cool stuff, they can pay for a shark card or two to get what they desire.
I first thought that buying shark cards was for losers. I heard other people state that R* was exploiting their fans with the expensive new cars etc. in every new DLC because people would buy shark cards to obtain the new goodies and R* would fill their pockets. Actually, I disagreed on that and it made me think again on the losers aspect of shark card buyers.
I mean, I play 4 hours straight and earn $1.2 million in-game money. Compare that to real-life money making. I would make something like €80,- in the same amount of time. With that I can buy a total value of 5 times that $1.2 million with shark cards. So spending time purely for grinding should be ridiculous, it's the worst paid job a man can get (for us western adults I mean).
Is it a shame to pay for in-game content? No it isn't. I spent money on DLC's in various games and didn't feel exploited (in most cases ) and here it's a free choice whether you pay for the content or not. It is there, available for anyone, and if you don't want to w0#k for it, you buy yourself a shark card and enjoy it right away.

So my conclusion is; Shark card buyers are no losers. They are customers who pay for the game content in a way that suits them best.
Same as R* not being a company that exploits gamers. They delivered a damn good product with over 3 years of constant streams of new content and gameplay, giving their customers various options to access that content. Let's say the average GTA gamer bought for $30,- on shark cards. That's the price of an old fashioned DLC. What we get for it is a massive amount of DLC spread of a long period of time. U*bleeb* would have charged is 3 season cards for that stuff. And something else; the single player people who aren't interested for the online dlc content aren't bothered either with additional payments. They just pay one chunk of money for the main story and that's it. They only have to face the downloading of unnecessary DLC content, but who cares. In a few years from now we'll all have blistering fast internet

[LowPolyOWG]

Yeah, you basically pay 60$ and you're done. Rather than paying 60$ + 40$ for a season pass that may fracture the player base. It's of course dependant on the game. The worst model is base game + season pass and microtransactions at ocnce. Especially when those microtransactions alter the game (new weapons etc).

Again, paying for a season pass is of course optional, but why fracture/split up the player base?

[fragger]

... the single player people who aren't interested for the online dlc content aren't bothered either with additional payments. They just pay one chunk of money for the main story and that's it. They only have to face the downloading of unnecessary DLC content, but who cares. In a few years from now we'll all have blistering fast internet

Well, that's not strictly true. R*'s DLC uses up a good chunk of my monthly data allowance, so it does actually cost me.

So far now that's two big DLCs that I've let slide because they're useless to me as a SP, and after a couple more there will be so much to DL that if I want to play the game again, it will likely expend close to my entire monthly allowance just for the DLC to come down - which I will never use.

The only truly reasonable way to do it is to make the MP DLC optional. As it is, with all that DLC data just waiting to pour down on me as soon as I try to run the game, it has become economically prohibitive in terms of time and data allowance for me to even fire it up. So the DLC has in effect killed the game for me.