What's the point of playing it anymore if I don't have fun?!
So it's official, Rockstar started removing all of the hacked in online cash. How do I know this? Well, someone with a level over 9000 gifted me around 55mil while playing in a session and now it is all gone. Don't get me wrong, I fully understand that Rockstar needed to take this action from their part cause they were basically losing money by all of these exploits, but I am also kinda "angry" at them.
When GTA Online was first announced, we were promised great things. You as a player would have a shit ton of content to play through, a gazillion of missions, races and activities, cooperative or competitive, you could buy things and sell them, you could invest in the stock market etc. At a point they also said that they had "45 years worth of ideas for the franchise" so I guess at least one out of 45 belongs to GTA Online, am I right? Now let me ask you another question, how many of you are still playing GTA Online the legit way right now?
As we all know, GTA Online had an extremely rough launch. It simply did not work! But after a week or so, they managed to kinda fix it so people, me included, started playing it. At first everyone enjoyed it cause it was cool and the missions were fun. But then people wanted to get new weapons and upgrade them, they wanted to get fast cars and pimp them out and they wanted to buy the best crib the money could buy. Then the harsh reality of GTA Online economy hit us in a hard way.
You want a new pistol? Sure, 15 grand and it's yours. Ah you want to upgrade it by adding a silencer and extended mag? Sure, drop another 25 grand and they are yours. Oh I see, you want to buy a fast car? Well, they start from 150K to up to 1mill, so which one can you afford? Nothing, I as everyone, could not afford to buy anything! For the first week I was stuck with a stupid pistol and I had to grind a lot of missions that payed next to nothing compared to the difficulty itself. It was not worth it, but what could we do? Sure we could buy the bullshit Shark cards for real money, but we are not that stupid. All hope was lost... until a group of hackers found exploits within the game and started modding the game.
Using these exploits they could generate insane amount of cash and RP. What was impossible before, these guys made it possible. They could generate billions of dollars in a matter of minutes. When this all process started, meaning that only a small number of people had that kind of money, the game and experience was ruined. These people would dominate in Races, Deathmatches, Last Man Standing and in Free Roam. They bought Buzzards, tanks and a shit ton of C4s. They murdered and mowed down everyone in their path. So the game was basically ruined, it wasn't fun.
But then something really good and slightly strange started to happen. These hackers who ruined the game were joining lobbies and just gifting millions and billions of dollars to everyone, me included. At first I got scared, cause I had to grind my way to level 53 for almost a week by completing jobs which payed near to nothing compared to the difficulty and having all that progress wiped away just cause of a douchebag hacker, shit, it was scary. So at first I didn't use any of the money, cause I thought Rockstar might ban me, but as days passed I saw more and more guys just driving pimped out Adders, driving tanks in the city, throwing C4s like candy and that's when I realized that Rockstar was doing nothing. I decided to jump in and my god, how fun it was! So thank you Mr. Douchebag Hacker, whoever you were.
The amount of fun and craziness I experienced using the "counterfeit GTA$" was epic! I could do anything and there was nothing to stop me. I could buy a million dollar car and drive it off a cliff or a bridge and parachute out of it, just for lolz. I could buy an unlimited supply of C4 and explode everyone in my path. I could buy all of the available weapons and upgrade them to the max. I could buy a tank and I could call in an airstrike, god damn it. I was a fucking BADASS! Sure, let's call me a cheater, but since everyone was a cheater, I didn't hurt them or ruin the experience and nor did they, hell I/they made it even better!
Free roam was all we needed and since everyone stopped doing those meaningless missions even before the "happy time", that was all we had. People were racing each other through the highway, while shooting and throwing bombs to one-another, to the traffic and the police. People were engaging in dog fights using jets they stolen from the base they got in using their own choppers. People were fighting wars in the middle of the city PVP and PVE. And it was all amazing, it just was! Now it's all gone, so what is the point of going back to Los Santos?
I don't wanna go back to just grind stupid missions that give me only 5 grand. I don't wanna do a 20 minutes survival where I need to spend 10 grand in ammo to just earn 10 more. I don't wanna compete in races that give me a max of 5 grand. I don't wanna go back cause there is nothing to make it worthwhile. Yes, yes the fabled "Heists" are coming, but do we know any details regarding them? Do we actually know how many there are, how they work and how much is the payout? Sure if the payout was at least 500K or even 250K per heist, then I would get excited, but I know that is never going to happen. Why? Cause of the bullshit microtransactions, the Shark cards where 500K GTA cash is worth 10 real dollars, so that's why that would never happen.
Again I understand that Rockstar had to do it, but this wasn't the way they should have done it. Why not have two big separate modes? One being GTA Online where everyone has to be legit and the other one, let's call it, GTA Sandbox where the cheaters and modders could go as crazy as they would like, no penalties, total freedom. That would be great now, wouldn't it? Having all of that money, being a badass and all, it would have been fantastic.
But for the moment we are stuck with the boring one, the legit one even though no one wants to play it. What I still don't understand is how can Rockstar not see that these exploits did not hurt GTA Online, they only made it better and more fun. But I believe that this will not stop the hackers/modders, oh no, they will hit back and hit hard. Anyway this is only my opinion and I would like to hear yours, so hop and go as crazy as you want in the comments section below.
