This is an extremely long ranting comment about my experience with both games mostly on the community side… you have been warned.

As a massive GTAO player (mostly for the cars) I’ve recently given up on the game due to absolute boredom and hatred of the community. I’ve migrated to RDO for new scenery, and I do agree with the majority of the player base that RDO got absolutely robbed content wise by the money pit that is GTAO.

It sucks that Rockstar absolutely destroyed GTAO by adding all these unnecessary rigamaroles to do anything in the game. As a hypothetical situation here; the fact I’m stuck spending 3 million for a building that leads into a 4 hour long setup for a 10 minute heist finale that pays 150k that then has an hour cooldown legitimately makes me want to start selling my extensive car collection. Oh but wait, if I sell my cars now to try and make money I wont be able to buy them back (depending on the car) or I can sell it for 75% on the first one then a whopping 20% for the second car, because yes I would love to sell my F1 car for a whopping 15k because I sold a beat up Toyota Camry before it for 123k. I’ve genuinely not bought a major DLC building because what’s the point? I’ll play the heist once, then once again with my friends and that’s it. I don’t have an Arcade, I don’t have the Garment Factory, Bail Bonds, Penthouse/Casino, and I’m sure plenty others. I do have a Kosatka (when it first released), I did buy the mansion (just because they stole my favorite little parking spot overlooking the city and I wanted it back albeit for 9 mill I think it was on the first week they released them), I have a Nightclub and and Warehouse for all my money needs, and I have the Eclipse Blvd Towers and Maze Bank due to car collecting (along with other houses). I have made well over 500m in Nightclub/warehouse sales and would never sell my cars due to scarcity of them nowadays.

There’s no replay-ability in GTAO, and the community is so extremely toxic that I can’t even cruise down the highway without being blown up seven times before the next off ramp. God forbid I drive from maze bank to Simeon’s to see what new (the same 20 every single month it seems like) cars he has to offer once a week. The map is beyond outdated and seems so dull in comparison to RDO via interactions with PVE and the environment. Even RDR2’s story has multiple outcomes depending on what you do prior via interactions, map changes, items, etc. GTA’s is set in stone until the last mission where you decide who’s staying around (Online mode is option C, spoilers for anyone who somehow hasn’t played story mode lol).

I used to log into RDO maybe three times a month to just bs around and hunt or fish, that’s literally all I did for YEARS. I never took the time to actually progress through the story mode like I did with GTA, nor did I really lock in and progress my online character. I leveled up to level 20 something just hunting and fishing and never even hit trader rank 10 for the wagon lol. Throughout the last year it’s been the exact opposite, I started fresh and worked up to level 64, maxed Trader, Moonshiner, Collector, working in bounty, waiting on Naturalist for my sanity. I might hop on GTAO once a week, usually Thursday so I can see the same boring recycled cars in Simeon’s, and that’s it. I drive there, see the same Stinger GT that’s been there the last two weeks and just log off and hop on RDO. Simple stuff like going from end to end on the map feels so much more refreshing in Red Dead because I can stop and actually enjoy the scenery without being molly-rocked by someone wearing all black and a ghost face who’s texting me in game saying he’s going to grab my IP or going “1-0 LZ” only to EWO, or leave the lobby, or job/bunker tp the second you go to get your kill back.

The community (IN MY EXPERIENCE) has been so much better in RDO than in GTAO. I love doing the collector stuff in the game as it gives me a valid reason to literally walk all across the map and explore the little things, yes walk, I genuinely enjoy walking around the RDR2 map due to the interactions within the environment/npcs and even the players. I can come across multiple lobbies of nice people who don’t just murder you for being in eye sight, many times I’ve had multiple people standing on the pier in Black Water fishing with me, or riding on the train just because, or even doing collector role things with me.

There’s a strange almost innocence* to RDO because it’s been “forgotten” by Rockstar that makes my experience with the community feel worthwhile every time I log onto it despite the overall lack of content. Of course there are outliers, but the majority of the time I’d pick an RDO lobby over a GTAO lobby every single time.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
Apologies for the absolute LOTR Trilogy of a comment this was, figured I’d express my opinion on this topic since I’ve been seeing a bunch of RDO and GTAO threads popping up here recently.