So, GTA: Online seems to be completely broken.

Maybe GTA Online being broken is just satire of modern video game launches.

I'm still stuck at that point too. I'll give it a full week before I start raising my pitchforks towards Rockstar.

It's worse for me today than it was yesterday. At least yesterday I saw the intro before getting kicked, today I can't even start it. Got some invites but because I can't do the tutorial it won't let me join. Getting angry.

@mike76x said:

That's not necessarily true.

OK GUYS IK HOW TO FIX ON X BOX CREATE A NEW CHARACTER AND JOIN YOU WILL HAVE TO WAIT TO A MAX OF 2 HOURS FOR THE RACE TO START THO BUT ITS WORTH IT!

This mandatory tutorial stuff reminds me of when DICE went braindead and didn't put voice chat in Battlefield 3 for PC. I can't see how this passed any sort of process at all. People know how to drive cars in GTA. They know how to shoot. Why the fuck is it a mandatory step to play with friends?

Oh and my character is gone, like many others in here.

@microshock: ikr why do we need a damn tutorial!

WHAT IF YOU CANT CREATE A NEW CHARACTER??

Seems to be something about the tutorial. I haven't heard anyone say that they experienced any problems after it.

IT WORKED MY WAY WORKED FINALLY IN

I have and a couple folks I know have. I got past and played yesterday and today and got to level 11. Went to log into my character this evening and my character had been deleted. Seems like the safe bet for anyone who wants to take it is to just wait for this whole thing to get fixed.

I can confirm thats not true. I tried a few variations of that idea earlier today, invite only, crew only, friends only, solo match. None worked for me.

At this rate I think i'm gonna give up trying to brute force my way in and just wait it out.

So, I went through all the tutorials and now I'm doing random jobs. If you wanna do missions and such, send me an invite through the GB Crew.

I was finally able to get in on PS3, but so far it's a real bummer that every time you start a job you have wait two minutes for the game to match people in, and not once have I had a game with more than 5 people. Hoping that's part of the server issues as well, because having to wait in order to play a half full game sucks.

I'm hosting a few matches, sending invites to crew members... if anyone cares. Btw my PSN id is Jlodla, so I'm the one sending those invites.

I'll send you a friend request, PSN ID DuskDarkflame.

Joined a random crew member earlier and though he was unmic'd, we got shit done

Add me on PSN, you GiantBombPS3 crew guys....
Microshock

I still cant get it to work on ps3, how'd you guys make it work?

@secondpersonshooter: Oh, so that was you! I'll accept!

Man, if you rob stores and your buddies are too close you can accidentally pistol-whip them. So, to the dude I kept doing that, I'm sorry. :(

So now I'm weirded out. Gave the game a day and change, went right to the "Go" option in the pause menu and had it load me right into the parking lot from Franklin's apartment - which was neat! - with a character I'd never seen before and then I was loaded into two instances of the guy handing me a car to race in. After the second cutscene I've just been sitting in a player lobby.

That said, it's farther than I've ever gotten!

Also, to PS3 members, is there a good cheap mic I could pick up at a Best Buy or Radioshack or something, or is the only real option truly that Sony joint?

Just spent a good...5-6 hours mucking around with friend a friend and some random folk. GTAO is pretty cool, y'guys.

^^This. I got past the intro race, then got kicked off around 1PM EST, then I tried again at 11PM, and it worked just fine. Got together with Giant Bomb crew members and had a fun time carpooling/holding up stores!

@extreme_popcorn: I'm expecting them to push a couple of big patches tomorrow...probably once after lunch and another one late at night. Rockstar has the resources to get this going...I think Friday is probably something they're trying to hit, I know I would be. They really can't afford an entire weekend with no GTA Online, PR-wise.

Oh well, I'm done trying for tonight. I'm going to watch Pan's Labyrinth.

@extreme_popcorn: Quit being silly. This isn't even the worst game launch this year.

@extreme_popcorn: Don't forget, SimCity happened this year as well.

Got in yesterday, finally, like many others I ended up racing Lamar by myself. I did the remaining tutorial elements like insuring my car or buying a new t-shirt. When it came time to do the group deathmatch activity as directed by the tutorials the game once again timed out. I was able to rejoin and drove around, held up a few stores. Every single other player I ran into shot me on sight - much like Red Dead Redemption multiplayer back in the day it was impossible to try anything civilized with randoms. I tried joining the Bombcrew members so I could attempt to do some activities together with other people, but something was screwed up since despite having a BOMB tag next to my name the game didn't recognize that I was actually in a crew.

So first impressions are kind of lackluster. The lack of people or cars on the road in multiplayer make the world seem very empty. It really shows how far the people density goes in singleplayer in creating an atmosphere of a living, breathing city.

Hopefully tonight things will be even less broken and I'll be able to join some Bombers.

Still no luck. As for traffic volume, when I go to move my character about and steal a car I thought there were more cars than I expected but considering what an absolute mess online is right now I can't even be sure I was playing online at that point.

As for Rockstar fixing it before the weekend, very much doubt it. Sounds like these issues are considerable and Rockstar haven't exactly been quick to fix issues with Social Club with the apps.

Besides the fact that people are jerks the game is really fun.
Nothing like being chased by some random dude, getting off my bike and running between some houses...only to have him follow on foot and I shoot his face point blank with a sawn off.

Sold.

It hasn't even been two yet.

Here's the thing I really don't get, they delayed launching GTA Online for 2 weeks, so what the fuck were they doing in those two weeks? Basically seeing how many copies they sold and how hammered the social club was getting how did they not see this coming? Was this preventable (at least cost effectively preventable?), and why have they not released any statement to advise on the situation? (something as simple as hey man way too many of you are playing could a couple million of you fuck off for a week or two). As much as I'd be bummed to not be able to play I'd at least know that hey in x amount of time it will be up and running where as of now it is just fucking unbelievably broken on every fundamental level and Rockstar has kind of given the attitude of well you can't get in fucking too bad thanks for the money hope you liked the single player (which I did very much so but seriously).

I think the three things to take away from this were

1. Don't fucking launch a game that is this broken.
2. Don't expect an online game to be 100% at launch.
3. If you're going to launch a broken game slap a fucking beta logo on it Jesus.

The only time I've been able to enter the tutorial race was earlier today and then the thing froze after the race was done. The character was deleted so now I'm once again stuck in the loading screen before the race. I think I've created about 10 characters by now. None of them can get past the loading screen.

This can't be a capacity issue because I'm having the same issues in the afternoon and at 1-3 AM in the morning. It sounds like most people aren't able to get in and those that do end up with their character deleted.

I stil have yet to get passed the tutorial cutscene.

How long does it typically take to launch the first tutorial race session?

I'm starting to think that standing there with other people for 40 minutes waiting for the session to launch is not normal

I went over to a player character to greet him and got devoured by bullets.

Yep... it is an online game.

I finally fired it up last night, got the update and I was about to make a character. It did give me an alert stating that my character will not be saved. I would think most people are getting this message so I would say don't create something right now and pour your hard work into. That said I created the character and was stuck at a loading screen, didn't even get to Lamar picking me up.

Jumped straight into it, skipping over the character creation, and it worked fine. Got through that initial race, and figuring it had been mostly sorted out since launch, I backed out to make a character. Didn't get to the cutscene with Lamar. I'll try it again over the weekend, I guess.

Since launch I have created 3 characters on psn and everytime i log in, they are not there anymore.

It seems like I keep the money I put in the bank but the rest is gone. Last two times when switched to a story mode character to log off, the ps3 locked up.

I have recreated my character and watched the intro video 6 times now. Haven't been able to actually launch the first race yet. And then when I try to load up my character the save has been corrupted every time.

Good thing I still have some things left to do in single player.

Finally got past the race. Now im having the same issue with the last bit of the tutorial where it forces you into a deathmatch game....AWESOME.

Is there anything interesting to do? It seems that all there is are races and death matches that nobody is playing and poorly designed missions.

Anyone having better luck getting online? For me it's the typical stuck at tutorial race thing. Love to know what's the cause of all this, though I doubt Rockstar will say exactly what the issue is.

Still, will try in a little bit.

@machofantastico: I think it has to be the bottleneck of everyone trying to matchmake on that same damn race mission. They should just remove the tutorial altogether, as it doesn't really teach you anything that you couldn't figure out on your own, and it's causing so many stupid issues.

I'm on PS3 and I've managed to make my character and whoop Lamar's ass in the race but then I got disconnected afterward. Then anytime I tried to connect after that always ended up dumping me back in GTA 5 after a time-out.

I managed to get back into the game. It's working perfect now that i'm past the race and that first deathmatch. The first deathmatch i had to dashboard out since it was stuck, but after that ive done a few activities and missions with people and its working fine.

I'm pretty sure the cause is the bottleneck of the race. I ended up just by myself racing lamar

Still not working for me. I've deleted the title update, created a new character and tried all the tricks and still nothing.

I think I'll stop trying. Waiting ages at the launching session screen is starting to make me not want play the single player which is a shame cause it's awesome. I think it just irritates me.

Not sure how other folks are getting in. Are things broken past the tutorial stuff? Does matchmaking take forever?

I still can't get in.

Any European based players been able to get through? Curious as the three people I know who've gotten past tutorials are American based so I was wondering if Rockstar are fixing server issues region based.

@machofantastico: I've gotten past the tutorial (after a lot of trying) and have completed a couple of jobs past that. Can't seem to get in again though. I only sporadically get dropped into free roam, but often get kicked out when a job/deathmatch launches.