GTA Offline

[dgwillia]

I managed to get past the first race, and also do a Deathmatch. Taking FOREVER though, I guess with all the glitches people can't even get online yet so I'm constantly getting put in matches by myself or waiting 10+ minutes just to get 8 people.

Its fun, broken as hell, but fun

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

You'd have thought given that the game made its development budget back and more just on pre-orders that they'd have had some idea as to how popular the game would be and increased server capacity accordingly.

Except that's very time consuming and isn't necessary. Chances are, millions of players won't be connecting all at once like on the release of the game. It'd be silly to buy more server space when you don't need it.

 

[Blaze163]

Except that's very time consuming and isn't necessary. Chances are, millions of players won't be connecting all at once like on the release of the game. It'd be silly to buy more server space when you don't need it.

Yeah, it's not like it's one of the most eagerly awaited games of the online age or anything with completely ridiculous hype, massive pre-order stats, etc. All I'm saying is that the huge surge of gamers the moment the service went online shouldn't have been a shock to them and they should have been better prepared. With all the stuff to do people are likely to be spending a lot of time in game, so the servers need to be capable of handling those sort of numbers.

 

[Foxi4]

You'd have thought given that the game made its development budget back and more just on pre-orders that they'd have had some idea as to how popular the game would be and increased server capacity accordingly.

No server is ever set up to accept each and every player who bought the game - being "prepared" for 15 million players all at once would be nigh-impossible and even dividing it into Europe/Americas/Japan doesn't help much.

Think "World of Warcraft" - it's one of the most popular MMO's in the world and the average player cap per realm (concurrently Online) is about 40 000 players - everybody else gets thrown into a waiting queue until it's their turn to log on... and that's an MMO. "Grand Theft Auto V" is anything but an MMO game.

 

[Arras]

Should have gone with a dynamic server structure where they could just rent additional server space at will. Rent a ton of space for the first 24 hours/week/whatever then gradually drop it after that.

 

[ShadowSoldier]

Should have gone with a dynamic server structure where they could just rent additional server space at will. Rent a ton of space for the first 24 hours/week/whatever then gradually drop it after that.

Hindsight is always 20/20.


But hey, this is Rockstar. I knew it. I fucking knew it. Those bastards are worse than the mafia!

 

[Foxi4]

But hey, this is Rockstar. I knew it. I fucking knew it. Those bastards are worse than the mafia!

Ahh, so that's why they're so good at depicting it - they've got good source material!

 

[ShadowSoldier]

Seems like some people are starting to be able to get online, still some bugs though:

Thank you everyone for continuing to bear with us since yesterday’s initial roll out of Grand Theft Auto Online – we’re aware that a variety of technical difficulties have made it difficult to get access and that the experience has been a bit less than smooth for many of you who jumped in straight away, so here are a few updates as of this afternoon to keep you all apprised.

At the Rockstar Games Support site, there is a dedicated article listing out the most common technical issues being reported. Things are changing and developing frequently but here are some latest updates as of this afternoon:

• For PlayStation 3 users, a PlayStation Network server issue was detected that was limiting the amount of possible concurrent users. This was preventing most players from accessing GTA Online altogether and as of this morning, that problem was resolved.
• There is an issue that is preventing some players from getting through the first tutorial mission across both platforms. Many players have been able to get through this with repeated retries, and we are working on unblocking this for everyone as soon as possible.
• This morning, we experienced some instability across the GTA Online services which is affecting even people who have progressed beyond the tutorial mission. We are identifying these issues now and are working to restore stability for users as soon as possible.
• For the time being and until we have been able to get everybody access to GTA Online and things are running smoothly, we have disabled the option of purchasable GTA$ cash packs. Players can however keep on earning GTA$ by pulling off Jobs and other profitable gameplay activities rather than purchasing cash packs.
  

You can keep updated on these and other common issues by subscribing to the GTA Online Launch Status Rockstar Support article at http://support.rockstargames.com/hc...6246-GTA-Online-Launch-Status-Latest-Updates-. Subscribers will be sent an automatic notification as updates happen.

All of these initial technical issues will be ironed out as soon as we can. Please know that the entire team here at Rockstar and all of our relevant partners are and will continue to be working around the clock to get the experience to be as smooth as possible, as soon as possible.

 

[Foxi4]

Seems like some people are starting to be able to get online, still some bugs though:

So... people are able to log on now, they just can't finish the very first tutorial mission unless they re-try a number of times plus the servers continue to be unstable?

Well... some fixes are better than no fixes at all, but I'm going to treat this as a "Status Update" rather than a complete solution to the array of problems the game is suffering from right now.

In any case, the update is now added to the article.

 

[pasc]

Metaphor thread is full of metaphor.

Was there ever a game that had it's servers this hopelessly overloaded ?

The average Pokeflood is entirely capable of knocking out GBATemp servers, multiply that by thousands upon thousands and you're getting close to the problems Rockstar was facing.

God ... no.

 

[Taleweaver]

The problem with "making sure servers are capable" is that you cannot really predict how many people are actually going to buy it. Or even harder to predict: how many are going to continue using it.
The problem with online games (and this goes for diablo, starcraft, sim city and the likes as well) is that EVERYONE wants to play it at launch. In a month or so, at least much half of them will be playing other games.

To go with the car analogy (somewhat): if you're building a theme park, you don't go around making all the roads in the environments 4 times as big to make sure everyone can reach you in a decent matter. You make sure that the roads can handle your average amount of expected traffic. But on the first day, it will be crowded no matter what you do.


The analogy kind of ends with "they should have rented extra servers for the first months". But I have to admit I didn't think this would be so popular. Rockstar isn't doing an EA, right?
(meaning: it doesn't force people wanting to play the singleplayer to log on to the servers first, right?)

 

[Arras]

Hindsight is always 20/20.


But hey, this is Rockstar. I knew it. I fucking knew it. Those bastards are worse than the mafia!

True, but the same honestly applies to any online game. If you have your server structure properly set up, renting some additional servers should be a reasonably quick and painless process to handle the initial flood of players, and after a few weeks when you have some idea about how much you'd actually need you could buy dedicated servers based on that.

 

[gifi4]

So, I've still been having trouble accessing the online version aswell as many others on the PS3.
I've got several people in my friend list who are flawlessly accessing the online mode.
Who here is still stuck, unable to get in to the game?

 

[ShadowSoldier]

True, but the same honestly applies to any online game. If you have your server structure properly set up, renting some additional servers should be a reasonably quick and painless process to handle the initial flood of players, and after a few weeks when you have some idea about how much you'd actually need you could buy dedicated servers based on that.

That's money spend that they don't need to spend though.

 

[Arras]

That's money spend that they don't need to spend though.

How is being able to handle the initial flood not necessary?

 

[ShadowSoldier]

How is being able to handle the initial flood not necessary?

Not everybody is going to be playing online at the same time. That initial flood, yeah that was expected. That was literally close to 17 million people logging on at once. Because how many people waited up or whatever to try the online? But now that the online is out, not everybody is going to be flooding at once. Still gonna have a huge amount of traffic though.

 

[Arras]

Not everybody is going to be playing online at the same time. That initial flood, yeah that was expected. That was literally close to 17 million people logging on at once. Because how many people waited up or whatever to try the online? But now that the online is out, not everybody is going to be flooding at once. Still gonna have a huge amount of traffic though.

That's why you rent a ton of servers for a day or so and then decrease the amount after that. There's tons of places where you can rent servers on an hourly basis IIRC. I didn't mean to keep that amount of servers for a longer period of time, that'd be just a waste of money yeah.

 

[Sop]

​

The long-awaited "Grand Theft Auto V" add-on, "Grand Theft Auto Online" launched, and... it did not take off without its fair share of problems. This Massive Multiplayer Online Carnage Game (MMOCG, if you will) was highly-anticipated and the moment it launched, the flood gates have opened - players have overloaded the servers quicker than anyone (more like "everyone") could've predicted.

A "Mission Failed" message before a Mission even properly starts is just one of the problems "GTA Online" players are facing right now... provided they even connect in the first place, as "Rockstar Cloud Servers" may (and probably will) be "unavailable to them at the moment".

Such a situation was to be expected - the game sold over 15 million units and all those players wanted to have a taste of the Online experience as fast as possible. When will they be given the chance to do so without raging at the screen? Rockstar is "working on fixing the situation around the clock", but it's hard not to compare this to the "Diablo 3" fiasco and its infamous "Error 37". Fortunately "Grand Theft Auto V" is actually a good game so this situation probably won't give it a bad name... it has enraged millions of gamers though.

EDIT: Status Update, courtesy of ShadowSoldier


Source #1
Source #2 (source of the banner - credit where credit is due)

Diablo 3 isn't that bad.

Also. Damn I wish I had money to buy GTA V.

 

[BORTZ]

The server was "ready", it just wasn't ready to support several million players at the same time. That's "stretching it" even by MMO standards and for all intents and purposes, this isn't an MMO. The popularity of the game surpassed anyone's expectations, it sold "beyond well".

Just sit and think for a minute what a million copies of this game would look like in a warehouse. Now multiply that by 15... I know its not a number you or anyone else hasnt thought about before, but its pretty staggering.
And from what I have heard, GTA isnt a casual appeal audience, those 15 mil players got it to seriously play it. So I can certainly understand in a few days the servers crashing under the strain of millions of players. Luckily with that number of players and the calibler of gameplay this service offers, im sure players will (eagerly) wait for their change to play again when things are fixed.

I just cant get over how many copies were sold...

 

[The Catboy]

This problem with the online features of games not working is happening way too frequently. I think either gaming companies are either underestimating how well their games are selling or overestimating how much their servers can handle.