GTA Time Management (What is a Day in GTA and how do you manage the 48 hour game day along with it?)

[GeneralDee]

So I learned the hard way last night to pay attention to how GTA relates to time depending on the activities we do. I missed out on this week's prize ride because I was going by the time of day I started my first race on Thursday which was in early afternoon Eastern time and I finally came in 3rd but it was after 12am on my 5th day though I been in game from 11pm (still within 5 days according to the time of day I started). I did not consider that Rockstar considers a day to have a strict 12 midnight in real life as the beginning of a day and not according to a time cycle of initiation of an even. Sometimes I find myself thinking really hard about when it's gonna be time to collect money from my nightclub, agency and arcade as I try to keep track. For example, if I know my nightclub is near capacity, i would not start any heist or activity that will keep me busy past another 48 minutes of the safe being full (I'm thinking that's how you lose money...am I right?)

My question is, am I right to assume that when they say you have 5 days to be in the top 3 to win the prize ride, a day equals from midnight to midnight (your local time in real life)? And how do you manage your time cycles while playing? Just seeing if anyone got tips I never thought of.

 

Thinking about this, how hard would it be for Rockstar to consider a player who starts a race time to begin from the initial race time? It's kinda not fair that someone who may start a race at 10pm is technically only given 4 days and 2 hours to win the prize when it's advertised at 5 days.

Edited June 28 by GeneralDee

[Jenkiiii]

You're thinking about this too hard, but I'll bite... yes, it's an automated system run by an algorithm inside a computer, so when Rockstar says you have 5 days to do something, it means exactly five days. There isn't a paid support member of staff sitting in front of a terminal making calculations for everyone. The only exception I can think of is the time zone differences between countries and continents, so if you're in France and they say 5 p.m. in California, it won't be the same time for both of you.

 

Here's a funny story.

Back in the day of street-car dupes, you could make up to 200 k every 48 minutes by selling a duped car every in-game day, so my friend set his alarm clock to organize his life. During a death match - RING-RING - time to quit out fellas to sell a dupe! Just like the other friend of mine who used to go home for lunch back in 2014 to sell a Baller . I hope you're not taking the game too seriously, young man?

Edited June 28 by Jenkiiii

[motomami]

For the LS Car Meet prize ride the day resets every day at 1am BST / 5pm PDT / 8pm EDT etc.

 

So depending when you start you can actually get "two days" done in one day.

[GeneralDee]

12 minutes ago, motomami said:

For the LS Car Meet prize ride the day resets every day at 1am BST / 5pm PDT / 8pm EDT etc.

 

So depending when you start you can actually get "two days" done in one day.

I will definitely keep this in mind. Good point.

 

21 minutes ago, Jenkiiii said:

You're thinking about this too hard, but I'll bite... yes, it's an automated system run by an algorithm inside a computer, so when Rockstar says you have 5 days to do something, it means exactly five days. There isn't a paid support member of staff sitting in front of a terminal making calculations for everyone. The only exception I can think of is the time zone differences between countries and continents, so if you're in France and they say 5 p.m. in California, it won't be the same time for both of you.

 

 

I get it. I was just pointing out that if you don't know these details, it's easy to miss out on a prize ride if you have no sense of the time frame you have to complete the task. It's not like a set time of day in real life is in any messages. Unless I been missing it all this time. How could I know that I could've done 2 races with a 24 hour period if I don't know the hard time frames?

[DrEeveell]

It's really flingin' flangin' annoying when some things are 24 hours and something are once per day.

I had a daily objective to Spin the Lucky Wheel, easy right? Except I couldn't spin until 11:30PM, and when that time rolled around, my daily objectives had changed to something else.

And the "Do Something for X Days" at the LSCM are the worst for this.

 

  

3 hours ago, motomami said:

For the LS Car Meet prize ride the day resets every day at 1am BST / 5pm PDT / 8pm EDT etc.

 

So depending when you start you can actually get "two days" done in one day.

 

Or, if you play early one day, and late the next day you can get boned out of all your progress and set back to zero.

Edited June 28 by DrEeveell

[motomami]

I guess it depends in which time zone you live in. For me everything resets at a pretty convenient time where I wouldn't really run into any of those issues. But I can see how it might be annoying for others when things reset at really odd hours for them.

[B_E_N_1992]

Looking out into the ocean hoping that a island will appear and then I will fly to it and see the wonderful Vice City.