My time with GTA Online or, How I survived a warzone populated with billionaire psychopaths

Now that Grand Theft Auto Online is relatively stable, I have to believe that the landscape of the mode is playing out a bit differently than how Rockstar envisioned. Despite including tons of great missions, activities and modes in GTA Online, it seems that the majority of players are content to cause chaos having exploited glitches to earn nearly unlimited money.

When the mode first came online, it was basically unplayable. The mode was overloaded by the massive amount of people trying to access it and eventually, Rockstar doled out $500,000 in GTA cash to players who had suffered through the trouble and eventually everything evened out. And now that the Beach Bum DLC pack and content creator have been released, the mode is starting to feel more complete.

But there’s a new menace in GTA Online and it isn’t the Rockstar cloud servers – it’s the players themselves. The overwhelming majority of people who play GTA Online seem to be complete psychopaths, content to cause as much mayhem and madness as possible. It’s like people suddenly turn into Heath Ledger’s Joker when they boot up GTA Online.

The big problem it seems is that some players have found a way to earn nearly unlimited amounts of money. I can’t say for sure if it’s a glitch exploit, spamming lucrative missions or just straight up hacks up but whatever it is, some players have managed to amass ungodly amounts of money. While I struggle to keep my balance around $100,000 (I like having a little to fall back on, you know?), I’ve read online of people being gifted millions by strangers and heard stories of people collecting similarly insane bounties.

Granted you also need a high RP level to legitimately buy more expensive weapons of death (like tanks or attack choppers) and even though there is a “Good sport/Bad sport” system in place to keep griefers in check, it isn’t really enough to dissuade someone with a ludicrous amount of cash to not blow up your personal vehicle over and over and over again.

My friends and I are pretty much forced to play in invite-only sessions to keep the rampaging madness at bay. Because, honestly, any time I’ve been in an open session with random players, more than a few of them will relentlessly attack you if they so much as catch a glimpse of another player in their vicinity.

For example, I went online briefly the other day to pass the time and knock off a few convenience stores for some quick cash. My attention was divided between GTA Online and Reddit (what can I say – I have no attention span anymore) so I parked my character (on my brand new Bati 801 RR) in an alleyway off the main drag to browse the internets. I glanced back at the screen and noticed another player on a motorcycle had driven past my character, then made a U-turn out on the road and drove past again, I guess to gauge my reaction. Sensing danger afoot, I picked up my controller and waited.

Just as I suspected, this guy was up to no good. He was on his bike just around the corner from me, but I could see on the mini map he was looking in my direction. Just as my short attention span was kicking in and I was about to turn my head away, he struck. This guy came blazing toward me, sticky bomb in hand trying to stick me and destroy my own motorcycle.

But luckily, just before he could do that, I slammed on the gas and got the heck out of there as fast as I could, just in case he decided to give chase. Only there wouldn’t be a chase because this devious fiend got a bit overzealous, detonating his sticky bomb and blowing himself up instead of me. Hey, I said these guys were psychopaths, not criminal masterminds.

And this story is just one of several that I could relate. Granted my own friends have been responsible for the destruction of my cars and bikes several times, at least I can call a truce with them. Calling a truce with the crazy driving a tank, blowing up your car and you every time you spawn is a little more difficult.