GTA Online's Snow Affects Player Behavior
The recent release of the Festive Surprise DLC also brought with it the rare sight of snow in GTA Online — for a day, at least.
The snow enabled players to engage in snowball fights, a feature not available at any other time. However, as some players have taken note of, the snow seemingly changes the gameplay of GTA Online on a much more intrinsic — and unintended — level. It seems that somehow, the holiday spirit has crept into arguably one of the most hostile and unforgiving online environments currently available, with the virtual snow as its conduit.
On the best of days, joining a GTA Online public lobby will have players face the scum of society. Each public lobby is bound to have a few typical assholes mixed in with the decent players, not to mention the minimum of one hacker per lobby. There was even an experiment conducted, which proved that the vast majority of GTA Online players respond to a greeting by killing the other character.
In a world where a bullet to the face is the local equivalent of "hello", you'd think changing the color of the terrain to white would not change much.
You'd be wrong. Ever since the "snow fell" in Los Santos, players have been reporting a general change in behavior among the denizens of GTA Online — namely, people were being nice to each other.
Random players grouped up for impromptu car-meets, and no one whipped out a shotty just for the laughs. Players roamed the snow-covered countryside, engaged in casual conversation and fun snow-ball fights, with not one griefer bloodying it all up. The GTA V Subreddit went from being filled with money this, hackers that, killing whatever to being all about the snow, the Festive Surprise, and the good in the community — and all of this was seemingly brought about by the snow.
Have you noticed any significant change in typical player behavior in GTA Online due to the snow?
