GTA 5 Online
“Grand Theft Auto Online” Rockstar Games/Screenshot

Rockstar Games launched last week “Grand Theft Auto Online,” the much-hyped multiplayer online version of its massively successful “Grand Theft Auto V.” Despite all the hype surrounding the “Grand Theft Auto Online” release, however, the launch was a complete dud. Players worldwide reported hundreds of problems with “Grand Theft Auto Online,” ranging from graphical glitches to data loss to an inability to access the game in the first place.

On Friday, Rockstar released an official update for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 designed to fix the myriad issues with “Grand Theft Auto Online.” While it solved a handful of problems with Story Mode and the game’s overall stability, plenty of issues still remain. Here are three issues that Rockstar has yet to fix with “Grand Theft Auto Online.”

Losing Data

“Grand Theft Auto Online” may have just received a major patch that allows players to access the game they paid for, but that doesn’t mean players can actually enjoy the experience. One of the most important parts of a good gaming experience is progress. You want your character to make strides in the game and have those achievements matter. Unfortunately for many “Grand Theft Auto Online” players, progress appears impossible at the moment. Players are randomly losing hard-earned money, cars and even their characters, despite Friday’s patch.

Rockstar has responded to complaints that many players are still losing characters, save states, in-game items and more -- and, despite its response’s length, the company has admitted there’s pretty much nothing you can do if you lose a character or an item in “Grand Theft Auto Online.”

“We have received reports from some players who experienced losing characters, progress, items, and/or in-game cash during the first few days after release,” Rockstar wrote on its support forms. “We are working diligently to identify and correct the causes for these losses, as well as to establish how best to restore any lost progress and value. If you would like to receive an automatic email notification as soon as there is more information about this, please log into the Support Site and click Subscribe at the top of this page. You do not need to do anything else, and you can continue playing in the meantime.”

Translation: We have no idea how to fix this, and you’ll just have to deal with it (at least for now).

Login Problems

Of course, these data problems are only an issue if you can actually log in to the game. Unfortunately for many players, it can still be incredibly difficult to actually log in to “Grand Theft Auto Online,” despite the new patch. This seems to be a server problem, meaning there simply isn’t enough space on Rockstar’s servers for everyone who wants to play “Grand Theft Auto Online,” so people are still being turned away from the game they bought.

Common error messages for this problem include “Rockstar Cloud Servers Unavailable,” “Failed to Host a GTA Online Session,” “Timed out when matchmaking for a compatible GTA Online Session to join” and the occasional “Mission Failed” (which appears regardless of context).

Character Creation

This one isn’t a glitch per se, but it’s one of the most annoying “features” of “Grand Theft Auto Online.” Traditional character-creation models allow players build an avatar from the ground up, programming height, skin tone, hair color, etc. It’s an easy-to-understand system used by the vast majority of games, but Rockstar has rejected this model in “Grand Theft Auto Online,” making character creation a confusing chore instead.

Rather than giving players complete control over their characters’ appearances, Rockstar has instead forced players to abide by a confusing genealogy system for “Grand Theft Auto Online.” Players select their characters’ grandparents from a set list, determining the characters’ genetics from several generations back. In theory, it’s a novel system that could be entertaining, especially considering the option to make your character’s father “Red Dead Redemption” protagonist John Marston, but, in practice, it comes off as clunky and confusing, especially considering there’s no other option.