Oh boy....Where do i begin ? The anger of losing multiple characters ? Long load times between missions and jobs which eventually time out ? Or maybe the great and awesome moments i have had with friends and fellow Giantbomb duders in the game which have been so good. I have spent around 12 hours with the online and here are my impressions so far.

Day 1 = Pain

After a few tries of trying to access the online i managed to get past that AWFUL race. I was apparently one of the lucky ones. I finished the tutorial and decided to invite a few friends to cause some chaos in los santos which i mentioned in another thread. It was going so great i was having fun until this happened.

For the next few hours i kept trying and trying and kept getting this error. I decided to call it a day. It was a few hours later that i found out that most PS3 users couldn't connect to the online due to a error on PSN ( Shocker)

Day 2 = Progress

After Numerous attempts of joining and losing my characters i finally found a solution to which stops me losing characters online. When ever i go to the online tab in the pause menu i make sure i dont click on play when it shows that the cloud servers are down. I also make sure my character appears on the wheel then i know it is safe to progress. I haven't lost the my character yet !. So here he is.

On Wednesday i only experienced a few instances where i would get disconnected but the majority of that day was spent on testing the different game modes we have currently.

As you expect playing with random people is a pain in the ass but it had to make do when i played Simeon and Gerald's missions. I had a good time with these missions. Some times increasing the difficulty to increase the rewards was needed. I mostly grinded that day made it to rank 5 and gaining now. It was good nothing too spectacular until today.

Day 3 = Jolly good fun

Today was a very pleasant day as i FINALLY been able to connect with fellow GB duders and good thing i did as every job/mission was fun in their own way. @fetchfox and i had fun in a mission which only involved stealing an RV.

It was a tough mission with both of us dying but in the end we made it through and passed the mission. It got more intense as we started to rob stores Bonnie and Clyde style with police chases ending up in mountains and fighting helicopters to escape.

Sadly i could only get into one more game with a fellow GB duder but it was also pretty intense. The mission was Crooked cops and it lasted over 20 minutes with cars and police vehicles being flipped over mountains and such.

The fun ended there as i couldn't connect to crew lobbies anymore but i am glad i expierenced the fun today after the initial disappointment. I cannot wait for tomorrow to let the fun begin again if the servers will let me. Only time will tell.

GTA online has the ability to become a pretty fun experience only if you are surrounded with friends or fellow GB duders. Random people in GTA online suck as expected so if you plan on playing GTA online play it with people you know. Trust me it is a pretty fun game once the ball gets rolling.

You changed your avatar back. The dream is OVER.

Yes, fuck that avatar. Anyway...I STILL haven't been able to get past the first race prompt. Blah.

@mb: Rockstar's trying to get out a patch by tomorrow, so hopefully that'll fix things.

I was loading into the first race and then it spawned me in the sky above the Vinewood sign and dropped me to my death...

That was the furthest I've gotten so far.

I've been playing and while it was fun, but I just got fucked over and lost a $147,000 house and a car with $20,000 dollars in upgrades and didn't get the money back because it didn't save. It also screwed me out of $29,000 dollars early on because of the same thing. So all my meaningful progress is basically gone now and I have no desire to pick it back up and play now.

Edit: Oh I forgot it actually saved the clothes I had bought after I bought the house and upgrades.

I feel your pain.

So thats your name on the site, yeah that was an awesome run. My character is gone though... seems I suffered that glitch. I hope the game breaking bugs are worked out soon. I've read too many accounts now of people loosing their characters and being level 12 or more, someone even lost 80k. Why would I wan't to try online again if I might lose my character?

@capum15: I hope that update fixes the worst.

@greggd: I am taking it back to season 4 Jimmyfenix....Ratings were not good enough.

If i remember correctly Rockstar said if you deleted the update data/clear cache it might fix that error maybe that would work ? I hope this new patch does not break my character !

EDIT The patch is live for PS3 users. 360 users will get it later on today. People have been saying that the patch some what fixes the first race prompt.

I look forward to pulling heists and being able to fly helicopters. I wonder what level that will require to unlock. if heists dont give me lots of money I might buy one of those micro transactions when they unlock. We will see though. I can't wait to play today. I love that it let's me have the option to play in the same lobby as other duders

Your experience sounds similar to mine.

Any way to make a lobby full of GB crew duders? Also, how do I split money with my homies?

@coafi: Yes when you start up the online click on invite session only from there you can invite other GB duders. To split money Hold select and go into inventory > Cash then a give or share option will available.

Yeah, thats roughly how it was for me. I'm having a blast. Been getting alot of GB duders too. Just did a repo mission with one. Great fun.

I'm not even going to bother with the MP until a month or two down the road, until it is perfectly fixed. The SP keeps me content, and a shit load of games are coming out.

Ever since the latest patch, GTA Online has worked without fail on my PS3. Just like a Keebler Elf in heat the day before the day of Christmas Eve, I'v been kept very busy and absolutely am loving every second of it! Los Santos feels more dense and alive than it did during the singleplayer campaign, also, much more dangerous . . I feel that R* has finally hit it out of the park with GTA Online; delivering something that, so far, has exceeded my every expectation. I cant wait to play some more with you fine people!

Anybody knows if there's a mute option in the game? It's fucking irritating hearing people bitch at me online, and for some reason I don't see the mute option.

@falserelic: When you are playing with those idiots go into the pause menu > online > players and click on the idiot who is causing you grief and mute his/her ass!

Thanks, I'll give that a shot.

I've started playing online yesterday. Overall I'm enjoying the game, but I have ran into alot of internet tough guys. Its to be expected, but alot of these guys say the dumbest shit at times. One guy got pissed at me calling me a cheater cus I won a match, even though he was a higher ranking player. He sent me all kinds of death threats, all kinds...

Finally got on played a few things. Decent fun but I'll have to dig in more to see if it has lasting power to me. I completed a job with a fellow duder for simeon then as I was on my way to bank money at the ATM I get a real phone call and as I'm taking the call on my cell some yahoo sneaks up behind me and ganks me. FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK. So much money lost and then...then the motherfucker disconnects. >_<

For some reason, the game still isn't connecting with my Social Club account for the GB Crew... my accounts are linked, I've been able to train Chop, I've got my license plate, but the GB crew doesn't show up.

Otherwise, MP's been fun.

@falserelic: Are you apart of the PS3 crew ? If not i can add you on my PS3 list and when ever you are online i can invite you with other GB members. I don't join a lobby with randoms anymore as they just cause problems.

Sure I'll join the group, whats your psn name?

@falserelic: Check your PM.

I wouldn't mind an invite to a crew if anyone has one, I have no mic but I could be useful... maybe.

Psn: lif3isp3achyboyo

Rockstar Social Club: lif3isp3achy

For whatever reason joining crews didn't work when I selected it in the menu, but once after I tried it it dumped me back into a game with some duders anyway. Got into a playlist with some, had a lot of fun (shout out to Ketchuppp on PSN in particular). Got 22k from just that session alone and really helped boost me some levels as that was right after I finished the tutorial. Almost have enough for the cheapest property online lol.

To anyone whose played more, are there more mission types than basically just deathmatch/racing/parachute jumping? Cause that's all I saw on my one session. It was fun playing with GB people but I don't think I'd play too much more if that was it.

My review of GTA Online: Man, this parking lot is pretty sweet.

At this point my absolute number one feature request for this game is being able to tell when a mission invite is coming from a crew member. I have absolutely no problem dropping what I'm doing for a fellow member of GBPS but at this point figuring out if it's a crew invite requires remembering the name of the inviter, going into the start menu, then online, then crew, then into the specific crew menu, then into members, THEN scrolling through what is likely a multipage list looking for the name of the person who invited you. All while sitting there vulnerable on the street. It's like 15-20 seconds worth of effort every single time if I want to make an effort to help out my crew.

It's a massive pain in the butt for something that should be BEYOND simple

@dystopiax: No there is more. It looks like so far to me that all the co-op missions come through phone from gta characters. I also read somewhere once you get a apartment is when bigger heist come in to play.

My early impressions are... that i haven't even tried yet. I haven't tried because i know that making any sort of meaningful progress only to lose my character would probably be the end of it for me. I'm not a big enough fan of multiplayer in general to deal with this kind of mess. And jumping in too late where everyone i would want to play with are much higher level and have access to all the cool shit isn't an interesting prospect either. The single player offers plenty of fun on its own.

I suppose i'll give it a shot tomorrow as it appears to be working better now with the latest patch. I was able to patch it just fine this morning. No lock up or whatever issues people have had with the update.

I fucking hate everything. Had to disconnect so i could do a friend a favor for a second came back home got back on and the game straight up didn't save any of the level progression or unlocks. Which is fantastic seeing as I pumped some money into guns. I'm liking it but christ that puts a real rain cloud over the experience tonight.

Extremely early impressions (I'm rank 5), the actual jobs that you get from characters seem like they could potentially be a lot of fun, especially with a good group. But all that deathmatch and racing? Barf. No thanks.