Grand Theft Auto V

[MartyG]

It's horses for courses, but something's driving you to buy nearly 2500 Steam games and 1500 DLC, that you can never possibly play properly, but those sales are hella tempting...

How much have you spent on your gaming rig? Again, something is making you unhappy with your current set up and want to upgrade.

My current gaming rig is about £2K probably which I upgraded in Dec last year having used the GTX1080 rig it replaced since that card launched in May 6, 2016 so I got nearly four years out of and was quite happy with it up to the point I needed something that would run the latest VR title with better framerates - but that's a concrete thing that has value, even the Steam games have some worth (most of the excess is from things like Humble Bundle packs where there's a lot of crap thrown in or review codes over the years - I haven't actually bought 2500 games and it's a library that's grown over 12 years). They're not in-game digital assets in an online world - I definitely do not need a digital GTA Online car.

The two things are not really equatable (dropping £1/2 a day isn't that same a big £1349 GFX card purchase - that's a big sum you have to think about carefully before parting with the cash and I cancelled it) - but that's not really relevant anyway - as I said, if you're getting enjoyment out of it that's fair enough.

What I have an issue with in any of these games / microtransactions / transient digital assets, is the mechanics in a game being deliberately setup to push people into purchasing in-game items with real world money, small tiny transactions you don't notice if it's just £1/2 a day, but it adds up over a year - half a billion dollars a year is a lot of Shark money whose sole purpose for existing is to remove your association with spending real world money - if you say they're not pushing that down your throat, I'll take your word for it as it's not something I play.

James Stephanie Sterling explained why predatory practices from greedy publishers are a bad thing, far better than I ever could.

[QualityChimp]

My post wasn't to make you justify your expenditure, Martino, my point is we're all constantly influenced into spending our money, be it bargainous Steam sales, not to be missed, or the need to update hardware to be able to play the latest releases stably.

I'm also very against anti-consumer DLC. It's very rare it’s done right. I hate paid cosmetics and I'm really pleased when games fall flat or even get prosecuted for gambling levels of loot boxes.

As someone who's been playing solidly for half a year, I can assure you that the game never nags you to spend real money.

I had to think what prompted the game to take me to the marketplace last and it was at the gun shop. There are some empty slots and I wondered what they were and it said something like "extra content might be available in the marketplace, would you like to go there?"

I can also assure you that you can make virtual money in lots of different and fun ways without having to spend any real money.

Yeah, there's always something else you could buy, but the game wouldn't still be being played 3 generations later if they never added anything, none of which you have to buy, but that's not unique to this game.

I've never bought a Shark card, none of my friends have bought a Shark card and none of us intend to.

We seem to be going around in circles where everyone who hasn't played the game seems pretty opinionated about what a cash syphon this is.

I won't stop anyone repeating the same opinions about it again and again, but I'll crack on having fun, cheers and just focus on doing updates for anyone who is interested in the new content.

Not snarking at you, Marty, or anyone in particular, but I'm enjoying playing and want to relay that.

[MartyG]

If you've never bought a shark card, you're probably not the target market. Sure there are influences everywhere, and sometimes I am a sucker for buying games on sale but I think there are some things that simply aren't worth spending money on - one of those things would be in-game cosmetics (and I'd probably add in-game casinos to that list too), but you don't make half a billion a year out of microtransactions without some hook, habbit, hobby to get that spend going - after all, RockStar isn't adding these updates out of the goodness of its heart.

Anyway, we should probably move this to the Why microtransactions, IAPs and LootBoxes are here to stay thread and let you evangelize GTA Online (batteries not included).

[QualityChimp]

Price list of the cars are out:
Calico GTF
KARIN Calico GTF
Sports - $1,995,000

Dominator GTT
VAPID Dominator GTT
Muscle - $1,220,000

Euros
ANNIS Euros
Sports - $1,800,000

Futo GTX
KARIN Futo GTX
Sports - $1,590,000

Jester RR
DINKA Jester RR
Sports - $1,970,000

Remus
ANNIS Remus
Sports - $1,370,000

RT3000
DINKA RT3000
Sports - $1,715,000

Tailgater S
OBEY Tailgater S
Sports - $1,495,000

Warrener HKR
VULCAR Warrener HKR
Sedans - $1,260,000

ZR350
ANNIS ZR350
Sports - $1,615,000

[kryss]

The Euro is $1'350'000 after purchasing Auto Meet membership.

[fishbowlhead]

Has someone broke it to grief people in the car club house yet?

[QualityChimp]

Has someone broke it to grief people in the car club house yet?

Some guy pulled my trousers down.

[QualityChimp]

Spent some time in the new Los Santos DLC last night and it's pretty good.

I really enjoyed the car meet section.
You can take your car along and you can look at each others' cars, which I really enjoyed doing, but made a shopping list of the ones I liked!

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When you're there, you can test drive a selection of 3 promoted cars or your own. It's just a big underground car park, but a good test of how your car will handle.

There are other bits like a tattoo parlour and a podium car to win if you do the challenges (place top 3 in a race, 3 days in a row atm).
There's no fighting or weapons here, so it's pretty chilled and I can imagine the racer community will love it.

We then did the new street races and tried out the available cars in the "tuner" bracket.
4 of us did this together with no other players, so no other randoms.

There are a couple of clunkers that really can't keep up with the other cars, most disappointingly, the Trueno clone drives like a dog.
Slow, doesn't drift and can barely turn.

Calico (Toyota Celica) seemed the best, so I bought that, fully upgraded it in the LST club but found it had an awful turning circle, which is vital in the street races. So I bought the ZR350 and upgraded that.

Took it for a spin and it handles better, but still a little skittery, so I've yet to find a car from the new pack that I love.
By that time it was gone half midnight, so went to bed!

If you buy a tuner's garage, it unlocks a load of new missions, but we didn't get around to those in the first night.

So far, so good and if I click with one of the cars, I'll love it.

[kryss]

I found the Comet S2 was the best of the test drives available right now.

[QualityChimp]

That's the Porsche clone, isn't it?
Not available to buy yet, though, only test drive.

They've used the opportunity to patch a few things too. Apparently, there was a glitch where you could get through a locked door on the CP heist and get to the gold on solo. Learned that trick too late to try as they've patched it out!

[kryss]

They've used the opportunity to patch a few things too. Apparently, there was a glitch where you could get through a locked door on the CP heist and get to the gold on solo. Learned that trick too late to try as they've patched it out!

Son of a...

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-10-08-gta-online-teases-exciting-new-adventure-20th-anniversary-tie-ins-for-later-this-year

More bits and bobs coming to GTA Online to mark GTA3's 20th Anniversary

[Neon Ignition]

Launching 15 December, new story DLC focusing on Franklin years after the events of the main game... but the whole thing is part of GTAO

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2022-02-04-gta5-and-gta-online-ps5-and-xbox-series-x-and-s-release-date-set-for-march

Confirmed to release on 15 March 2022

Pretty much still no sign any effort has been made with it though

[fishbowlhead]

If its anything like their trilogy release they can shove it.