# So, that GTA V, huh?



## Morrus (Sep 18, 2013)

I've played about 4 hours of the game so far, and I'm loving it much more than GTA IV.  I found the previous one a little dull, taking itself a little too seriously (excepting a couple of marvellous set pieces).  This one brings the humour back.

I'm also flabbergasted by the graphics these days.  Admittedly, I don't play many video games any more, but the city in GTA V looks and feels real to me.  The level of detail, the ambient sounds - it's approaching an astonishing level.

The driving is much easier and more fun than GTA V.  It's now as good as _Driver_ (and _Driver's_ awesome driving physics was the one thing it had over GTA)   I can't remember the gun targeting system of IV, but this one feels easy.  That's easy in a good way, not in a "makes the missions easy" way.  The voice acting is the usual high GTA standard.  So far I've met two of the three main characters, and switching between them at will is kinda fun.

Anyone else playing it?  What do you think?


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Sep 19, 2013)

Never picked up the GTA series as I've never quite grokked the attraction.  What kind of sales pitch would you give me on it?


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## Morrus (Sep 19, 2013)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> Never picked up the GTA series as I've never quite grokked the attraction.  What kind of sales pitch would you give me on it?




Sales pitch? I wouldn't! I'm not trying to sell you a copy! 

If forced into the role of unwilling salesman, I'd say if you like sandboxy open world stuff, the GTA series is the clear industry leader. Plus it's incredibly fun and immersive.

I'm a bit stuck part way through. I've just arranged the jewellery store heist, but I don't know how I trigger the mission. I've been switching between the two main characters I have so far and just wandering around doing random stuff, but I can't work out how to continue with the storyline stuff.


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Sep 19, 2013)

I like sandboxy open world.  I like RPGs and driving games.  Is it possible to play without being a criminal?


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## Morrus (Sep 19, 2013)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> I like sandboxy open world.  I like RPGs and driving games.  Is it possible to play without being a criminal?




Nope. It's not *that* open. The storyline is about crime. The opening scene has you pulling a bank heist.


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## jonesy (Sep 19, 2013)

I have to agree on the driving physics. The cars in III and Vice floated. In IV they bounced. In V the physics are getting very close to a real feel.

Plus this is the first GTA where the shooty bits don't feel tacked on. Maybe a bit too easy, but they were always easy.


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## The_Silversword (Sep 19, 2013)

I got to pick this one up!!! Sounds awesome!!! They didnt have it at the local Wall-Mart, stupid "family-friendly" store.


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## Kid Charlemagne (Sep 19, 2013)

I'm loving it.  I've played about 12 hours so far, and gotten to just after the first heist.  The attraction to me is the richness of the world; there's just so much to see and do.  To answer Olgar's question; it would be very difficult to not play as a criminal - but mostly because a lot of activities unlock as you play through the game.  Once the game is complete, I suspect you could play for a long time without doing anything criminal at all.  Also, once GTA Online comes online on Oct 1, I expect that there might well be some options to just roam about doing stuff.

Which brings me to this - I've started a crew for PS3 on the Rockstar Social Club.  It's called the Perestroika VIP Club (the Perestroika Club being the Russian cabaret from GTA IV).  If anyone wants to request an invite to the crew, feel free.  Crews are a big part of the multiplayer experience - basically GTA Online will be GTA with co-op missions galore, up to and including heists.  I expect I'll be playing a lot of that - I was very big into GTA IV multiplayer.

My PSN Handle is Morganthaler - feel free to friend me on there!


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## Morrus (Sep 19, 2013)

Kid Charlemagne said:


> I'm loving it.  I've played about 12 hours so far, and gotten to just after the first heist.




So how did you trigger the heist?  I've chosen a crew and a style.  Now I've been just driving around town doing nothing for three (in-game) days.  I'm clearly missing something!


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## Kid Charlemagne (Sep 19, 2013)

Which style did you pick, Morrus?  Smart or Loud?  I picked Smart, and then I had to do a couple of minor prep missions (the below isn't a spoiler if you've gotten through the briefing and picked the Smart style):

[sblock]I had to go get a pest exterminator van, and then steal a shipment of knockout gas.  The van is available near the docks in the south of town; it displays pretty clearly as a mission, and the shipment of knockout gas you need to hijack on the road somehow.  Both of those are missions for Michael.
[/sblock]

but after that it went right into the heist.  I'd call Lester, maybe he'll prompt you on what to do.

If you decided to go loud, Lester mentions:

[sblock]Needing to steal some guns from the Los Santos PD[/sblock]

But since I didn't pick that route I'm not sure what to do there, or if there were some more steps to take.


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## Morrus (Sep 19, 2013)

Kid Charlemagne said:


> Which style did you pick?  Smart or Loud?  I picked Smart, and then I had to do a couple of minor prep missions (the below isn't a spoiler if you've gotten through the briefing and picked the Smart style):




Loud.

But I can't find *any* missions.  Not the heist, not any prep missions.  The briefing did mention I had to get some guns from an armoured van - is that all it is?  I have to search the city for an armoured van and steal guns from it?  Or am I supposed to trigger that in some way?


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## Kid Charlemagne (Sep 19, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Loud.
> 
> But I can't find *any* missions.  Not the heist, not any prep missions.  The briefing did mention I had to get some guns from an armoured van - is that all it is?  I have to search the city for an armoured van and steal guns from it?  Or am I supposed to trigger that in some way?




Hmmm...  I would expect that to be the first thing to do.  I'd expect that a specific police van would be rolling around, and that the game would notify you when its en route - that's what happened for me with the knockout gas.  There was a pop-up notification, and then a mission marker showed up where the van that I needed to hijack was.  Can't be totally sure, though.  You might need to resort to a walkthrough guide online to get you started there...


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## jonesy (Sep 19, 2013)

I'm not that far, but based on comments on Youtube other people are stuck on the initiating the loud part as well.


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## Bullgrit (Sep 20, 2013)

I've never played any GTA, (although I'm getting interested because of all this hype and talk). I saw this gif today, what which GTA I have no idea, but it has made me laugh every one of the two dozen times I've watched it.

http://9gag.com/gag/apqQNPW

Bullgrit


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## Morrus (Sep 20, 2013)

Well, another day, still no mission.


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## jonesy (Sep 20, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Well, another day, still no mission.



I heard that if you've done the bank casing you need to go back to Lester to start the mission. He should be marked on the map.

Edit: bank? Jewellery store? Like I said, I'm not there yet myself.


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## Morrus (Sep 20, 2013)

jonesy said:


> I heard that if you've done the bank casing you need to go back to Lester to start the mission. He should be marked on the map.
> 
> Edit: bank? Jewellery store? Like I said, I'm not there yet myself.




That occured to me.  The problem?  Lester is not marked on the map, and his phone just goes to voicemail.


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## frankthedm (Sep 20, 2013)

Is one of the Playable characters off his rocker? I got that feeling feeling from the trailer and wonder how far they take it.  IMO Lynch made the first _Kane and Lynch_ game almost playable and so I'm hoping one of the GTA5 characters is mentally unstable.


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## Kid Charlemagne (Sep 20, 2013)

Trevor is certifiable.  He does some truly horrific things, but is also very funny at times.  He'll be the most polarizing character in the game, absolutely.  One common criticism of GTA games is that there is a disconnect between the supposed nature of the main characters, who are often conflicted about their lives, and the incredible mayhem they cause.  No one can make that criticism of Trevor.  I remember checking my stats on the social club after playing him for a couple hours; I had played all three characters a roughly even amount of time, and Franklin for example had killed 11 people in his time.  Trevor?  169.


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## Kid Charlemagne (Sep 20, 2013)

Morrus said:


> That occured to me.  The problem?  Lester is not marked on the map, and his phone just goes to voicemail.




The marker for Lester will show up for the planning session, but for the heist the markers will read "H".  Once you do all of those, I think the heist just starts.


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## Morrus (Sep 20, 2013)

Kid Charlemagne said:


> The marker for Lester will show up for the planning session, but for the heist the markers will read "H".  Once you do all of those, I think the heist just starts.




Nope, no " H"s. No "L"s. No anything.


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## The_Silversword (Sep 22, 2013)

I finally got it!! Still waiting for it to install, gah!!!!


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## The_Silversword (Sep 22, 2013)

It finally installed! Been playing it some, havnt really been doing alot of missions, just driving around checking stuff out, flew around in the blimp for awhile, and of course had to check out the strip club, boobies!!!


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## Felon (Sep 25, 2013)

Lester's messages on your phone should tell you what you need to do.

The idea of having three characters that you can switch between is long overdue in a video game. The only other game where I've seen it was in Clive Barker's Jericho. 

Imagine a game like Skyrim where you have multiple characters across the world doing their own thing, swapping between the rogue doing his city-based thieves' guild missions, and a ranger roaming around some ancient ruins.


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## Morrus (Sep 25, 2013)

Felon said:


> Lester's messages on your phone should tell you what you need to do.
> .




Honestly, the issue isn't that I didn't think to look at the phone. The mission just isn't triggering.


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## Felon (Sep 25, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Honestly, the issue isn't that I didn't think to look at the phone. The mission just isn't triggering.




I just finished the first heist tonight. Here's how it started for me:



Spoiler



I stole the van from the pest control company and then, for some reason, I had to steal another van. After dropping the second van off at the yellow spot in that little underpass next to the sweat shop, the heist actually triggered automatically, with no option to wait.



As for how the mission played out from there, in a fairly disappointing fashion/ That's a separate set of spoiler text:



Spoiler



I pulled the mission off perfectly, well under the alarm-reset's time limit, but there was apparently an unavoidable police chase, making the whole "go in smart and quiet" bit a complete canard. Luring a player in with the illusion of options is a major letdown. A chase ensued, and one of the guys fell off the bike and dropped over a million in loot. I'm not sure if that was pre-programmed or if it would have been possible to recover the dropped loot off the ground, but ultimately I didn't come out of it with much left over.


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## Morrus (Sep 25, 2013)

Felon said:


> I just finished the first heist tonight. Here's how it started for me:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




If I could figure out how to change my approach choice to quiet and smart, I would.  Seems I'm stuck with the loud and fast approach.  Returning to Lester's lets me look at the board with the plans, but not change them; and Lester is not there.


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## Felon (Sep 25, 2013)

Morrus said:


> If I could figure out how to change my approach choice to quiet and smart, I would.  Seems I'm stuck with the loud and fast approach.  Returning to Lester's lets me look at the board with the plans, but not change them; and Lester is not there.




My advice at this point would be twofold. Sorry if you've already tried it.

First, look at the map and see if there any icons you can't account for. I recall him saying about needing to raid the Police to get some weapons.

Second and last, when all else fails, Youtube the mission.


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## Felon (Sep 25, 2013)

frankthedm said:


> Is one of the Playable characters off his rocker? I got that feeling feeling from the trailer and wonder how far they take it.  IMO Lynch made the first _Kane and Lynch_ game almost playable and so I'm hoping one of the GTA5 characters is mentally unstable.




Michael and Trevor pretty much are Kane and Lynch.


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## frankthedm (Sep 25, 2013)

Enjoying the game, plenty of nits to pick, but definitley fun.

Uhg, HORRIBLE walk speed and WTF must they make it mash the button to run? Are they getting kickbacks from controller manufacturers?

Where the hell are the bicyclists? Have not seen one to bike-jack yet and even when CJ.. err Franklin's garage was empty, the on-line bike shop would not sell me one.

Controls still are not ready for Rainbow 6 style cover to cover gun combat, thankfully the weapon you get right before an early situation like this is potent enough to mostly make up for it. Be very careful if you see fire. Seems like you can catch, take huge damage, fall down in pain, then stand right back up catching fire again.

But the worst thing so far are the missions that auto grab you when you are trying to get to a save point! NO! NO! NO! BAD DESIGNER! BAD!


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## Kid Charlemagne (Sep 25, 2013)

Lots of activities don't unlock until you get further into the game.  I can't remember how the bikes worked.  I'd imagine you could find some out in the park/wilderness areas.

Morrus - Computervidoegames.com has video walkthroughs of lots of the missions.  I'd look at one for the first heist to see whats going on.


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## Felon (Sep 25, 2013)

Kid Charlemagne said:


> Morrus - Computervidoegames.com has video walkthroughs of lots of the missions.  I'd look at one for the first heist to see whats going on.




It also occurred to me that it may be necessary to switch to Franklin and complete some of his missions before the heist will unlock.


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## Argyle King (Sep 26, 2013)

I'm currently unsure how I feel about the game.  On one hand, the graphics are great, I like the characters, and the sheer amount of stuff I can do is awesome.  On the other hand, I wish the driving felt more like GTA IV, and I seriously hate the aiming system for weapons in GTA 5.  With assisted aim or classic GTA style, the game makes really weird choices about who it locks onto.  (There's a guy right beside me, but for some reason I'm now aiming at a pedestrian running down the street?)  With Free Aim, I avoid that issue, but then I have the problem of not being able to see the aiming reticule very well in a lot of situations.  I've been playing around with some of the options, but I still haven't found a combination I like; thus far, the aiming system is the one part of the game I can truthfully say I hate.  Being that a rather large portion of the game requires gun usage to be effective, that has thrown a serious wrench in my enjoyment of the game.  Something that would help a great deal would be an option to change the color of the aiming reticule to something other than white.

On a side note, is there anywhere I can go (online or otherwise) to find explanations of what the different options actually do?  As I said, I've been playing around with some of the options in hopes of finding a solution to my hatred of the default aiming.  I have learned that "complex" gives me a circle rather than a dot, so that helps.  What do options like "safezone size" do under the "settings" tab?


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## frankthedm (Sep 26, 2013)

Johnny3D3D said:


> What do options like "safezone size" do under the "settings" tab?



I think that is how far to the side of the screen the 'help messages and control reminders' show up. Helps keep them in your peripheral vision if you have a really big screen and sit really close to the screen.


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## Kid Charlemagne (Sep 26, 2013)

Johnny3D3D said:


> I'm currently unsure how I feel about the game.  On one hand, the graphics are great, I like the characters, and the sheer amount of stuff I can do is awesome.  On the other hand, I wish the driving felt more like GTA IV, and I seriously hate the aiming system for weapons in GTA 5.  With assisted aim or classic GTA style, the game makes really weird choices about who it locks onto.  (There's a guy right beside me, but for some reason I'm now aiming at a pedestrian running down the street?)  With Free Aim, I avoid that issue, but then I have the problem of not being able to see the aiming reticule very well in a lot of situations.  I've been playing around with some of the options, but I still haven't found a combination I like; thus far, the aiming system is the one part of the game I can truthfully say I hate.  Being that a rather large portion of the game requires gun usage to be effective, that has thrown a serious wrench in my enjoyment of the game.  Something that would help a great deal would be an option to change the color of the aiming reticule to something other than white.
> 
> On a side note, is there anywhere I can go (online or otherwise) to find explanations of what the different options actually do?  As I said, I've been playing around with some of the options in hopes of finding a solution to my hatred of the default aiming.  I have learned that "complex" gives me a circle rather than a dot, so that helps.  What do options like "safezone size" do under the "settings" tab?




Rockstar has a 100 page guide available as an iphone/ipad app, but I haven't downloaded that to see how much info it contains.


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## Felon (Sep 26, 2013)

frankthedm said:


> Enjoying the game, plenty of nits to pick, but definitley fun.
> 
> Uhg, HORRIBLE walk speed and WTF must they make it mash the button to run? Are they getting kickbacks from controller manufacturers?
> 
> Where the hell are the bicyclists? Have not seen one to bike-jack yet and even when CJ.. err Franklin's garage was empty, the on-line bike shop would not sell me one.



Bicyclists started appearing when I got to Trevor's neck of the woods. Ran over a few.

If you hate how running works, you might well loathe flying and (worse) landing.


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## Argyle King (Sep 26, 2013)

I want to clarify something else I said.  I don't necessarily think the driving in GTA 5 is bad, but I think some aspects of it took a step backward from GTA 4.  In particular, it seemed to me that the various cars in 4 had more individual personalities.  That is to say the different cars actually felt different.  While that's true to an extent in GTA 5, not so much.  Also, as weird as this may sound, the driving (of cars) in GTA 5 is almost too smooth.  In 4, I could do things like skid and countersteer and other such things; techniques to use during a chase for evasive driving... or just to do something cool.  In 5, it's almost like the handling is too good for the cars, and while I can do some skids and slides with the handbrake, the tires feel too sticky for a lack of better words.  Taking things a few notches back toward 4 (but certainly not the whole way back because 5 did fix some annoying car issues that 4 had,) would make driving feel like it has more personality.

I've finally got to the point where I'm ok enough with how aiming works in the game to not want to rage quit.  I had to play around with the options for a while, but I've discovered that I do much better on free aim, and I had to play around with the sensitivity settings for a while to get something that works for me.  I still feel it's (the aiming and gunplay) my least favorite aspect of the game, but I'm at least ok with it enough at this point to continue playing the game.  Mostly, I'm just baffled by how things can feel so smooth in Maxx Payne, but then be so clunky in GTA when both games are made by the same company.

Overall, I highly enjoy the game.  As I said previously, the sheer amount of stuff I can do is pretty amazing.  Things like golf and tennis are complete enough to be relatively full games inside of the game that is GTA.  A lot of small touches and small details make the city feel more alive than many of the previous games.  Though, in spite of all of the many things I love, the things that bother me really really bother me.  As such, while I highly enjoy the game, and I do feel it stands head and shoulders above many games, I don't believe I'd be able to place GTA 5 on my list of favorites if I were making a personal top 10 list.


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## The_Silversword (Sep 27, 2013)

Morrus said:


> If I could figure out how to change my approach choice to quiet and smart, I would.  Seems I'm stuck with the loud and fast approach.  Returning to Lester's lets me look at the board with the plans, but not change them; and Lester is not there.



I was thinking I may have had the same problem, I was running around around doing all kindsa crazy stuff ,but the stupid heist wasnt starting ,I finally gave up and went back to Micheal's safe house to save, only to get sucked into a mission, I thought that big M there was just to tell me that it was Mike's safe house, I didnt realize that it was a mission lol. Did that mission; "Daddy's Little Girl", right after that mission I got a text from Lester than I needed to steal a van for the heist. So it should start right after you do that mission. If youve already done that mission and it still aint started you may have to start over or something, you could just reload a save, assuming you didnt already save it after you made the choice on the heist.


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## jonesy (Sep 27, 2013)

On VGA they picked loud:

[video=youtube;CkjvRWbiL_o]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkjvRWbiL_o[/video]


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## The_Silversword (Oct 3, 2013)

So anyone try the Online mode? I went to play it, but its all heists, what happened to Death Match!?!


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## Kid Charlemagne (Oct 5, 2013)

The_Silversword said:


> So anyone try the Online mode? I went to play it, but its all heists, what happened to Death Match!?!




Open up your phone in Online, go to Playlists, or Quick Jobs.  Those are often races or Deathmatches.  Some Deathmatch modes are listed under Missions, too.  I've been playing quite a bit, though I haven't been able to get any good partners in crime to do some of the more difficult missions.  There's so much potential for solving the problems of some of the jobs in varying tactical ways, I'm enjoying it a lot.


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## The_Silversword (Oct 5, 2013)

Kid Charlemagne said:


> Open up your phone in Online, go to Playlists, or Quick Jobs.  Those are often races or Deathmatches.  Some Deathmatch modes are listed under Missions, too.  I've been playing quite a bit, though I haven't been able to get any good partners in crime to do some of the more difficult missions.  There's so much potential for solving the problems of some of the jobs in varying tactical ways, I'm enjoying it a lot.




Ahhhh ok, It seems set up alot differently than past games, All I was seeing was heists and stuff, glad deathmatches are still in there, Im gonna have to go check it out now.


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## The_Silversword (Oct 9, 2013)

So, Ive really been having fun with the online thing. Nice that they got stuff you can do alone on there, for some reason when I get home at 3 in the morning none of my friends are on (or anyone else for that matter it seems) So ive been doing alot of robbing stores and delivering stolen cars, and I almost got a stripper to give me her number, except I got no apartment, snobs!!! So my dudes been in Los Santos for like a month now (game time) and hes still sleeping in his car, got like 50,000 bucks saved up but still can afford a place to live! Rents damn expensive in LA, er I mean LS.

In other news, had a problem where I went to play online and my dude was gone!! exited online mode and went to story mode and tried to load up from the character change menu only to see a blank spot where my guy was, i was really bummed at first, but I went to the pause menu selected online and then choose character and there he was, Man I thought I was going to have to call up Rockstar and bitch somebody out. But I guess its all good now. So if that ever happens to you whatever you do dont make a new character in the same spot as your last one, cause then they will be lost! Just try reloading it and it should pop back up.


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## Kid Charlemagne (Oct 9, 2013)

Yeah, characters getting lost in the Cloud is a common occurence right now - I'd recommend anyone planning on playing online read this article first that goes into what not to do.  Basically don't create a new character in the same slot, and always quit the game by exiting to single player and then shutting down, as that forces a save.  I lost a level 21 character (I'm hoping it will be recovered) although I still have all the cash I earned.


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## Argyle King (Oct 12, 2013)

I've been having an issue where some of the missions don't show up for me.  For example, the survival mission Boneyard shows for my friends, but not for me.  I understand that some of the missions only appear at certain levels, but I'm far beyond what I should need to be to have Boneyard available.


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## Argyle King (Oct 13, 2013)

I finally figured out what the problem was.  For some reason (glitch perhaps) I never received a message telling me to go meet Lester.  After doing some missions and ranking up again, I finally received a message saying to go meet Lester.  After meeting him, I then started getting all of the phone calls which unlocked the missions I had been missing.


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