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Grand Theft Auto Online Start Times And Additional Details Announced
Say a prayer for the network teams at Rockstar, Xbox Live, and PlayStation Network. Grand Theft Auto Online kicks off tomorrow bright and early.
If you want to get in right away, be sitting at your console of choice at 4 AM Pacific/5 AM Mountain/6 AM Central/7 AM Eastern. The title update will start rolling out about that time.
We also know that Rockstar has been working to make sure that griefing is at a minimum in friendly circumstances. If you invite a friend to your residence, he or she won't be able to shoot up the place or steal your cars. If you both own the same property, you'll have individualized instances of it available.
Rockstar has also addressed the concern over real-money purchases of GTA$. Players will still need to rank up with Reputation Points before they can purchase high-end items.
Grand Theft Auto Online will continue to see new content after launch. Tools to create and publish your own races and deathmatches, new vehicles and items, a capture the flag mode, and major heists will be added over the coming weeks.
For more on Grand Theft Auto Online, check out our extensive preview. Keep an eye on the Rockstar Newswire tomorrow for updates, as the servers are bound to be slammed. Oh, and remember to hit the ATM to bank your score. You don't want to lose it to some street thug.
[Source: Rockstar]
Our Take
Grand Theft Auto Online is extremely ambitious and there are a lot of people who want to play it right away. Do not be surprised if the servers buckle under the weight of the people behind $1 billion worth of sales all trying to access the game at the same time. It'll even out over time, but be prepared for some disruptions. From everything we've heard and seen, it'll be worth the wait.
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