What motivates the producers to curb a player's ability to find li

[beat_savy_9]

Edit: Title clip

"What motivates the producers to curb a player's ability to find like minded players"

Playing since launch, it's abundantly clear to me production's mission was to create a game catering to players who enjoy eliciting anger responses from others above all else. This strikes me as counter productive as it alienates far too many players and ultimately lowers longevity and revenue. The question I'm recently pondering is why would a company that invested so much time and energy to produce such a lovely sandbox consider this strategy valid? Is it envy of players having fun? I tap the master minds here for thoughts. Thank you.

Edited January 18, 2014 by beat_savy_9

[Biohazard Abyss]

I'm going to be straight up.

 

I'm too stupid to understand this

[hornedturtle]

I'm going to be straight up.

 

I'm too stupid to understand this

rockstar made the game into a trolls/griefers paradise

[Biohazard Abyss]

 

I'm going to be straight up.

 

I'm too stupid to understand this

rockstar made the game into a trolls/griefers paradise

 

 

Thanks

 

I kinda thought that, but wasn't sure due to the sentence with revenue in it

 

Anyway, now that my dumbass knows what's going on, Rockstar made the mistake by not including a friendly free roam option. Players are just as aggressive as they were in GTAIV, but did not have access to things like tanks. If friendly fire was off in GTAIV it was impossible to approach someone without getting shot.

[Ezza.]

It's hard to truly limit the game's playerbase to just those "who wanna have fun". There'd be no other way than to have a question when you first log into Online "Do you enjoy going on murderous rampages and having fun at the expense of others?" Even then you'd be hard to find players who are in the category who said "no" to that question

[beat_savy_9]

I'm going to be straight up.

 

I'm too stupid to understand this

I can appreciate the humility in this post but I will not accept the premise, especially coming from the most respected member of the entire community.

 

The question is: Why does rockstar make it such a pain in the ass for people to make friends in GTA.

[Staten]

 

The question is: Why does rockstar make it such a pain in the ass for people to make friends in GTA.

 

You can text or call other players in the same lobby as you I think (I've never used it myself). I don't think there's much more to be done to make friends in GTA.

 

The crew system can also be seen as a way to have a more friendly experience, since it premotes teamwork and stuff.

[Biohazard Abyss]

The tone was so different in friendly free roam lobbies in GTAIV, compared to normal lobbies. Even the traditional activities were different, because if you chose to enter a lobby with friendly fire on, you were obviously choosing to engage in PvP with other players. I honestly think this mindset just merely carried over into GTAV. I can even admit myself that when playing in a lobby, if a white dot is heading towards me I am immediately alert, and this is coming from someone who loved participating in stunt jumps at the airport in friendly lobbies in GTAIV.

 

The addition of tanks in V only made it worse, due to the fact that everything is so personal in GTA. Since free roam is well...free roam there is no objective. So really, there is no reason to kill another player and this leads to grudges being created when someone gets killed for no reason. I can also admit that if someone kills me unjustly, I will chase them down and exact revenge. The people that cruise around in tanks, and shoot other players on site obviously only do it to get under people's skin.

 

I really hope Rockstar adds a friendly free roam option as I'd like to see how the GTA Community will act under rules of no PvP. In friendly free roam in RDR, players would always posse up and complete gang hideouts and such, while in normal lobbies they were busy shooting each other.

[1DrfL]

The GTA Universe is a hostile and cruel one, where being a ruthless bastard is often rewarded. Maybe they want that logic applied in Online as much as Single Player? That's the only motivation I could think of

if there even was one.

I think you're being cynical about it though, the GTA Universe is also about freedom of choice, variety and the game lends itself to those things just fine (Unlike GTA IV MP)

[CarimboHanky]

you can always troll people into becoming your friends...

 

it happens to me all the time... just yesterday i was griefing this 2 guys, the total score was 44-9, so yeah a bit of a ownage. anyway looking to put a stop the griefing they send me a friend request and switch server.

 

i accepted the friend request, joined their server, said "hi thanks guys for wanting to be my friends", the proceed to grief them AGAIN!!! insta rage quit!

 

see this is how you make friends, gta style!

[saintsrow]

Edit: Title clip

"What motivates the producers to curb a player's ability to find like minded players"

 

Playing since launch, it's abundantly clear to me production's mission was to create a game catering to players who enjoy eliciting anger responses from others above all else. This strikes me as counter productive as it alienates far too many players and ultimately lowers longevity and revenue. The question I'm recently pondering is why would a company that invested so much time and energy to produce such a lovely sandbox consider this strategy valid? Is it envy of players having fun? I tap the master minds here for thoughts. Thank you.

^^^ This statement should be chiseled into a 10,000 pound granite monolith and delivered straight to the center of The Rockstar North Edinburgh lobby.

 

One of the best (probably the absolute best), most incredible virtual worlds ever produced by man, is being squandered in one of the most simple-minded, mean-spirted online experiences ever created. Not to mention a similarly epic missed opportunity in the single player game and story. What were they thinking???

[LeAristocrat]

Edit: Title clip

"What motivates the producers to curb a player's ability to find like minded players"

 

Playing since launch, it's abundantly clear to me production's mission was to create a game catering to players who enjoy eliciting anger responses from others above all else. This strikes me as counter productive as it alienates far too many players and ultimately lowers longevity and revenue. The question I'm recently pondering is why would a company that invested so much time and energy to produce such a lovely sandbox consider this strategy valid? Is it envy of players having fun? I tap the master minds here for thoughts. Thank you.

 

I don't think we know what Rockstar's has planned down the pipeline and how that would affect the players' interaction with each other. So we can't really pinpoint "strategy" yet.

 

The game is massive; I mean the project. I can only imagine how much the holes, exploits, and bad launch must have derailed things they've been trying to push out. The Benz has probably taken hella flack from corporate for the modded money situation and they're just now patching things up.

 

Disasters and the consequential resource drains are bound to happen with any major project (i.e. probably why the heists were pushed back, etc.), but generally after the first few hurdles things start to level out and they can focus on real game improvements.

 

In listening to his interviews (Leslie. Interview posted below for reference), before the game came out, he sounded so "five-years-ahead," anytime he referenced GTAO, so I can only imagine what they have planned. From my interpretation of his comments, it seems that GTAO, as it is today, is almost bare bones to what they want it to be. So hopefully the future is bright.

 

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[/media]

[codename_duchess]

Edit: Title clip

"What motivates the producers to curb a player's ability to find like minded players"

 

Playing since launch, it's abundantly clear to me production's mission was to create a game catering to players who enjoy eliciting anger responses from others above all else. This strikes me as counter productive as it alienates far too many players and ultimately lowers longevity and revenue. The question I'm recently pondering is why would a company that invested so much time and energy to produce such a lovely sandbox consider this strategy valid? Is it envy of players having fun? I tap the master minds here for thoughts. Thank you.

I think that this might be why the map is so big. It's big enough to have players going to war with each other one part, and players who just wanna chill on another.

What i don't think they took into account is the fact that some players will go out of their way to travel halfway across the map, just to lay the smack down on someone

[GTA-Freak-Vi]

^ agreed, GTA O will get better over time. It's just the beginning. In Leslie we trust.

[Coin]

Edit: Title clip

"What motivates the producers to curb a player's ability to find like minded players"

 

Playing since launch, it's abundantly clear to me production's mission was to create a game catering to players who enjoy eliciting anger responses from others above all else. This strikes me as counter productive as it alienates far too many players and ultimately lowers longevity and revenue. The question I'm recently pondering is why would a company that invested so much time and energy to produce such a lovely sandbox consider this strategy valid? Is it envy of players having fun? I tap the master minds here for thoughts. Thank you.

 

To be frank, I don't think Rockstar set out to produce an online experience where the power firmly resides in the hands of those who seek fun at the expense of their fellows (e.g: those people who derive enjoyment from making others 'rage quit'). Certainly, with how easy it was for people to end up in the cheaters pool initially from doing things like blowing up other people's personal vehicles, it seems to me that the intent was to create an environment where; in the spirit of GTA (I guess?) someone can screw someone else other, but repeatedly doing so lands you in hot water.

 

As time has gone however, the role of the cheaters pool has been shifted away from where it was at online launch. In fact, it seems pretty much impossible to find oneself landed in there now; People are able to happily blow away dozens of personal vehicles to no ill effect. Of course, when it was stricter, people caught on and found ways to grief that system as well and instead of tweaking it to negate that particular exploit they went OOT.

 

GTA:Online certainly isn't the first game to offer a online that experience that is "freedom - do what you want, when you want, how you want, with little consequences". Day Z is perhaps on the more recent side of things, a prime example of offering that kind of experience and how it can all go wrong. Want to team up with others and try to survive the zombie hordes? Yeah, good luck. Some player will be along soon enough to kill you and take your resources.

 

Why mention the above example? Simple, really. It is something that developers, in this case Rockstar, should have been examining and learning what they can from it, in order to be able to put that knowledge to good use in the development of GTA:Online. The old mantra of "Look at what has come before, learn what it did right, learn where it went wrong and do better". Day Z is just one example, but not the only one.

 

How best to tackle the problem? I don't think there is a silver bullet; well, I mean, a friendly free-roam option might be close to that, but it runs counter to what GTA:O is supposed to be I feel. A viable option, but not without compromising core values of the online experience.

 

1) Disincentivise the behaviour, or otherwise, penalise it.

1.1) An example of disincentivising it might be slapping on an enforced passive mode of sorts, for a short period of time, after being killed - gives you time to get away and makes it harder for you to be spawn killed. Or, by default, do not spawn the player within the vicinity of where they were killed. Spawn them at their home or some other safe place by default. If it is too hard for most people to do, then they are going to stop and only the most determined will continue as before. Just one example. But you can apply this line of thought to other stuff, with a bit of an imagination.

1.2) Penalising or punishing the player AKA bad things happen if you do X repeatedly. Going to use the case of personal vehicles on this point. Blowing up a single personal vehicle shouldn't land you in cheater pool (which should probably be renamed anyway) - or a new form of punishment of which the specifics are not relevant at this juncture - rather it should be based on things like how many personal vehicles you destroyed in X time, or if you have repeatedly destroyed person A's personal vehicle(s) in a session. Similarily it can be applied to spawn killing; e.g. killing another player 10 times in a short period of time without dying in return. The idea being that, you don't want to punish the player for the act in-of-itself, but for repeatedly doing so in a given period of time. The finer details aren't the easiest to work out, and I won't speculate my own figures as it isn't important to the point. As a developer myself though, I'm personally not a fan of taking the punish route of solving this sort of problem. Certainly not as a first, or even a second option in conjunction with other methods.

 

2) Incentivise good behaviour. Basically the counter to the first point I outlined. You want to promote and otherwise make activities like working together with other players, instead of just killing them, is more beneficial. Now, you can argue that Rockstar already do so, and you would be correct, but I personally think it is not enough; half hearted at best.

 

3) Provide more tools for interacting with players (or even NPCs, for that matter) in a peaceful manner, or to group them together. Crews are a start, but could use a lot more love (and the benefits of expanding on them are numerous, not to just helping to get people together and working toward a common goal). More emotes, more safe zones like the house (night clubs, pool halls, bars etc) AKA places to hang and things to do there in. Anything.

3.1) More activities in free roam that promote team work whilst still tapping into the GTA spirit. Think robbing an armored truck for example as an activity, but one that would require two or more players to accomplish.

 

4) The community can help to! I was going to something cheesy like "putting positive energy out in the universe blahblahblah" but I'll refrain. It is important to note however that we aren't powerless and that, for those of us who want to see change and appropriate action, then it starts with us - things like not letting that one douche ruin your otherwise friendly demeanor and approach to the game, etc. So having said that, this thread is a great start, if nothing else. Thanks for that beat_savy_9 <3

 

 

 

tl/dr version: I don't think Rockstar set out initially to promote griefer behaviour, or whatever, but it does seem like that as time goes on, they really don't know how to address it adequately moving forward. But a good solid discussion on the issues at hand, and how best to address them, then presented to Rockstar, is perhaps a necessity.

[johnwontscore]

I disagree OP. GTAO contains numerous mechanisms that weren't in GTAIV and which allow R* to manipulate player behaviour. The game has only resembled a GTAIV on steroids recently because R* lost control of the money supply leaving the dynamics of the game in the hands of the hackers rather than themselves. Hopefully we will not see this situation again.

 

Apart from its beauty, what makes GTA special is it allows free will. You get griefed in this game and have a poor experience if you choose. The only thing that will limit your choice is excessive pride and the inability to look beyond the purely symbolic, i.e. If you get pissed off because of GTA, you're stupid.

 

The clever people aren't here, they work for R*.

[Oz70NYC]

 

 

In listening to his interviews (Leslie. Interview posted below for reference), before the game came out, he sounded so "five-years-ahead," anytime he referenced GTAO, so I can only imagine what they have planned. From my interpretation of his comments, it seems that GTAO, as it is today, is almost bare bones to what they want it to be. So hopefully the future is bright.

 

That being said, with the state of how the game is in it's infancy, unless they start rolling out more varied and engrossing content, I hardly doubt people will still be playing this by this time in 2015. Not with the next gen consoles out. Not with games like Destiny, The Division, Watchdogs and the like on the horizon. Yes, GTAO has a massive install base. There's a lot of people playing the game. But let's be honest here. 70% or so of us are only playing because we haven't shelled out cash for a next gen console...because the games we'd buy a next gen console for hasn't released yet. When they do, we'll most likely move on.

 

I've already platinum'd the single player, and I've already unlocked most of the SC awards. So realistically there's not much left for me to do in GTAO outside of heists and the mission creator when it's inevitably released. Outside of them tacking Liberty City into the game, I see no incentive to continue playing beyond the fall, because by then there'll be more options on next gen consoles...and I'll most likely be playing them.

 

GTAO is a bold experiment. If it were handled better in it's development, it should've been a game changer. As it stands now, it may be one of the worst "Action MMOs" ever released. From the poor launch, to the glitches piled on glitches on top of even more glitches, to the toxic attitude of the community it's built, you'd be hard pressed to find any points to the contrary of Savy's point of view. In fact, when was the last time we even heard R* post launch say they were gonna do something for the people enjoying the game and trying to stay "clean"? The stimulus package...and that's to make up for the sh*tty release...which was their own fault.

 

The fact of the matter is unless R* does something mindblowing within the next 6-9 months of GTAO's existence, I predict a slow and gradual exodus of players. There's only so long people are going to play a "bare bones" game when there are games on the way that will have decidedly more "meat" on them.

[Zwenkwiel]

I don't think they did it on purpose

I think they just couldn't

or at least not yet, this is just the foundation really

 

but you are right though there's nothing really pushing people to play any different than they are atm

stuff like crews are too basic and tbh too much of a hassle

they feel like an afterthought rather than being hardcoded in the actual gameplay experience

 

perhaps that's what this game really needs, sides like a regular MMO

something telling you, this guy is your enemy and this guy isn't

but there are technical limitations with only 16 players in any single server

they'd have to split the players into even groups somehow

 

so really I don't know either

[beat_savy_9]

I don't think they did it on purpose

I think they did, the evidence is pretty clear if you ask me. Just to give one example, if you want to fill a job with players, one of the options is invite players of similar skill, well, that list is the same sixteen players with a gt that happens to begin with the letter A always.

I think that this might be why the map is so big. It's big enough to have players going to war with each other one part, and players who just wanna chill on another.

What i don't think they took into account is the fact that some players will go out of their way to travel halfway across the map, just to lay the smack down on someone

idk, IV had a big map too, but all I remember is everybody played in the airport. I do understand the point, and it sounds reasonable.

...GTA O will get better over time. It's just the beginning. In Leslie we trust.

hope spring's eternal

[SUPERHEAVYDOODY]

 

I'm going to be straight up.

 

I'm too stupid to understand this

 

I can appreciate the humility in this post but I will not accept the premise, especially coming from the most respected member of the entire community.

The question is: Why does rockstar make it such a pain in the ass for people to make friends in GTA.

 

Hmm..hard to make friends. I have made at least 75. I've had to redo my friends list to accommodate them. Its kinda dependant on the player.

[Biohazard Abyss]

Hmm..hard to make friends. I have made at least 75. I've had to redo my friends list to accommodate them. Its kinda dependant on the player.

 

 

I've made a whopping 2 friends, and one is because I joined his game of golf, so that doesn't even count, lol.

[mochakaboom]

Edit: Title clip

"What motivates the producers to curb a player's ability to find like minded players"

 

Playing since launch, it's abundantly clear to me production's mission was to create a game catering to players who enjoy eliciting anger responses from others above all else. This strikes me as counter productive as it alienates far too many players and ultimately lowers longevity and revenue. The question I'm recently pondering is why would a company that invested so much time and energy to produce such a lovely sandbox consider this strategy valid? Is it envy of players having fun? I tap the master minds here for thoughts. Thank you.

 

God, I wish i had your talent... I bet when you write papers for school, you easily get an A+ without even trying to reach the minimum required for pages.

[SecludedMemory]

I've said it in all these threads, Red Dead Redemption had it right with the posse system and GTA:O needs it more than ever.

[SUPERHEAVYDOODY]

BOOM! Just got another friend since last post. Come play with our crew Beat. You'll make lots of friends who are not on auto-rage mode. Don't get me wrong, we have some rowdies but we understand time and place for these activities.

[PrimeTime MP]

So you use up cash faster?

[Dont Shoot]

you can always troll people into becoming your friends...

 

it happens to me all the time... just yesterday i was griefing this 2 guys, the total score was 44-9, so yeah a bit of a ownage. anyway looking to put a stop the griefing they send me a friend request and switch server.

 

i accepted the friend request, joined their server, said "hi thanks guys for wanting to be my friends", the proceed to grief them AGAIN!!! insta rage quit!

 

see this is how you make friends, gta style!

You sound so awesome. Please tell us more tales of your badassery.

[Phyxsius-]

@OP - I think it`s about the players that are actually playing the game and less about what Rockstar had intended.

 

One idea is to make large crews specifically aimed at "policing" the game. But that`s too big of a hassle for most and the few that are willing will simply be swamped by the existing assholes. A Batman would be nice now, though .

[God-eater]

Some really great comments here - if only folks like you represented more than 0.000001% of the player base we might have something close to the game some of us were hoping for.

 

Personally, I can't stand Public Free Roam. If I'm there at all, it's to kill players. Would never try to do anything else (sell/mod cars, stunt jumps) with other players around, because dropping your guard is the same as committing suicide but without the button-pressing. And there is absolutely no point trying to make friends - I haven't seen an environment this unilaterally hostile since EvE Online - just like EvE, in GTA:O even friend requests are half likely to be troll attempts.

 

Unfortunately, it has been the case since the dawn of online gaming that humans are terrible, terrible people when they cannot be held to account for their actions. This forum itself (if not this particular thread) is a damning example of how we behave to each other when we can't get smashed in the mouth for it.

 

So to add to the question, did R* limit our ability to find like-minded players, or is it just that the environment R* created cultivates assholery and there are more people engaging in that sort of behavior than not? In other words, are you not just the minority, OP? I sure as hell feel like I am...

[beat_savy_9]

@OP - I think it`s about the players that are actually playing the game and less about what Rockstar had intended.

I can easily imagine a bunch of production staff farming overtime in the name of research screwing around in lobbies griefing the hell out of everybody.

[darkwar854]

 

I'm going to be straight up.

 

I'm too stupid to understand this

rockstar made the game into a trolls/griefers paradise

 

Rockstar did nothing to encourage the griefers. They even put BS in so they wouldn't destroy your cars. Don't blame R*, blame the losers who think it's fun to ruin others times.