Red Dead Redemption

Chapter 5 improves at the end and Chapter 6 is great.

i wanted to finish the story mode before tackling online, but i'm still way back in ch 4 so i just put that on pause for a bit.

just spent a few hours in online. that was...weird. it's definitely a very different vibe than the regular game. i'm not sure if it's because most of us are lower level, but everyone is clustered together on the map way more than i expected. i thought it would be kind of a lonely thing where i'd occasionally run into people, but there are constantly that are less than a minute away, if not closer. it makes riding from mission to mission tense, because you're never sure if the other person will freak out and just kill you or if they'll ignore you. i've run into plenty of both already, enough to know to keep my gun ready. most of the time it hasn't been that bad but there have been times when i just want people to leave me the fuck alone.

the clumsy controls that are mainly just funny during the single player mode sometimes create frustrating problems in multiplayer - like if you're trying to pick up a key object while everyone's shooting at you, and it won't give you the Pick Up option until you approach it from one certain angle.

but generally it's really fun. i decided to quit for a while after the server starting crashing every 5 minutes. connectivity issues have been bad today, but that's true of all ps4 things right now, so maybe it's a larger issue.

How to play as naked nutless Arthur. Please note the advice to back up your save before using this glitch.

https://youtu.be/ZER1Z6uRECk

i quit video games like five years ago now, but i'm back off the wagon for this. and... it's a lot. like a lot of people i don't even know if it's good or not? but it is certainly engrossing.

some scattered thoughts:

i've found a lot of cool shit scattered on the landscape, much more entertaining than the main story -- which is itself pretty good. so i've taken to just picking a tiny square shack on the map and seeing what's up. rockstar seems to have put something everywhere.

have you found the cabin of the suicide ex-ice skater (his card is there)? or the cabin with two starved dead kids? or the abandoned plague town? or the cabin with the corpses of some proto-raelian cult? there are a lot of abandoned, dead things on this landscape.

i got attacked by some pretty scary "night people" in a swamp. i'm pretty sure i found their cabin, it had skulls and of course canned vegetables.

there was a line of dialogue that legitimately made me laugh out loud, maybe a first for a video game, but because it was past 2am on a work night i don't remember it.

i want to get better at hunting but everything is so badly explained -- ok how do i get the right feathers to make the right arrows to shoot the rabbits -- where do i even take these rabbit skins. it's all like this. there are millions of pieces of information but no clue how to get started on any of it.

people talking to you in any circumstance can unlock something. during a poker game, the camp cook said he lost his compass and now finding a compass is a minor collectible. the more you fuck off and get distracted the more things open up -- the more you try to do anything directly, the more impossible it seems

gunplay seems really difficult and i've been mostly avoiding it. i've been playing mostly as a goody-goody.

I want to say it's only genuinely good in the last chapter, everything you do has a weight to it that I've only experienced in the first Telltale Walking Dead game. But it took the time investment from the previous chapters (even when you didn't care about the cut scenes and all) to do that, I guess.

Have kind of lost interest in playing online because it sounds like such a grind, wish I'd kept a save somewhere around Chapter 3 so I could go fuck off and do more stuff as Arthur.

there was some line a stranger said that really made me laugh that was something like "art is bullshit fucking is the only thing that matters"

i want to get better at hunting but everything is so badly explained -- ok how do i get the right feathers to make the right arrows to shoot the rabbits -- where do i even take these rabbit skins. it's all like this. there are millions of pieces of information but no clue how to get started on any of it.

i agree that it's poorly explained. answers to your questions, and then a few general things that helped me:

- to craft different kinds of arrows (like Improved, which can take down larger animals with one hit, and Game, which are for killing smaller animals without damaging their pelt), you need "Flight Feathers", which you can get by shooting many kinds of birds that you run across. You can craft the arrows from your satchel (i think it's one of the options in the Items subsection) or in the fire way on the side of the camp (not the main fire, because that would be too simple)

- you can take the skins to the butcher in town if you're just looking for some money. you can also donate them to Pearson in your camp. to upgrade your satchel from Pearson you need a variety of different kinds of "perfect" (more on that in a sec) skins. you can just donate perfect skins to Pearson as you find them, and he'll add them to the inventory so you don't have to carry them all around with you at once.

- there's also a Trapper that you'll find as you progress. he moves from town to town. bring "legendary" pelts to him and he'll make you goofy clothing items.

- there are different quality levels of animals and the pelts you get from them. they have one, two, or three stars. when hunting, you can use your binoculars to see the quality of the animal. in the pic below you can see three tiny marks by the animal's name:

https://i.imgur.com/OKOfwZf.jpg?1

i think you might have to "study" the animal species before it'll give you the quality information. so when you see a new animal species and have an option to study it first, you should do that.

THEN, even if you kill a three star, pristine animal, you have to do it in a "clean" way that will preserve the quality of the pelt. sometimes you can do it by just shooting once, in the head or near the heart. but you improve your odds by using the appropriate weapon for the animal. again, i think if you "study" the animal or look it up in the compendium, it'll often tell you which weapon to use. improved arrows will help a lot, game arrows for small animals, using the varmint rifle for smaller animals instead of regular rifles, etc - all that stuff improves your odds. when you skin the animal it'll let you know what quality of pelt you ended up with.

It turns out that I did NOT actually know how to play dominoes.

i finished the main story last night (still gotta get through the epilogue, which apparently is quite long in itself) and no spoilers but i found chapter 6 tremendously moving, moreso than any video game i've played really. the ending was fairly standard but the side stuff around it held such a sense of sadness and resignation, and even though it annoyingly had every mission on the opposite side of the map from the next one, you start to appreciate this teeming wilderness in a different way. and it's coupled with the fact that you have the real world knowledge that it's all gone away or will be gone very soon, burnt up and ruined by the leviticus cornwalls of the worrld.

i wish they thought of a better way to do the legendary hunts other than "find the three glowing things which causes the animal to spawn directly in front of you then blast it in dead eye bc you can't ruin the pelt". feel kind of bad killing these beautiful animals in such an undignified way.

i had really high honor the whole time so i kind of want to do another playthrough with evil arthur.

i'm still planning on doing Online mode after i finish up the story, but everyone who hasn't tried it yet should log-in today for free shit:

"Rockstar’s changes come after an earlier announcement on Monday that they would be adjusting both the game’s economy and implementing bug fixes. In addition to increasing rewards and lowering prices, they are giving 250 in-game dollars and 15 gold bars to any player who plays the game through midnight PST today. It should be enough to help players make up for lost time in multiplayer playlists."

i guess they've lowered the prices of a lot of stuff in the shop, balancing prices etc: https://kotaku.com/rockstar-makes-early-adjustments-to-red-dead-online-s-g-1830912146

The legendary pelts aren't effected by damage, I had to do things with a few that would get a poor pelt and it was fine.

thanks Karl!

some useful charts:

animals, in size categories: https://i.imgur.com/ZOJfbkq.jpg

best weapon, per size category: https://i.redd.it/fyu6i263asu11.jpg

i've had a couple oddball encounters where the "quest reward" wasn't money but an unavailable gun (i haven't advanced past chap2)

i tried a couple different ways to rob the armored room behind the doctor's in valentine. kind of a fun challenge, but the payout is barely $100 and i couldn't get out w/o a huge mess so i just reverted the save and left it.

i've also run into more than one dude in the wilderness who's perusing a treasure map, gets skittish when you say hi and leaves. since i've decided not to be honorable i haven't stuck anyone up for their map

The main reward in that is a gun, either the double action revolver or Volcanic pistol

***minor chapter five spoilers****

god, chapter five BLOWS

the whole island thing is very clearly just the developers throwing in another location that can be used later for DLC or online death matches. the whole feel of it is different than the rest of the game. there are extended portions where you just press the directional stick and trudge in one direction, resident evil 1 style. i guess it's nice if you're into the gunfighting, but tbh the shooting stuff is one of the least fun parts of the game for me, and doing nothing but firing guns for 20 straight minutes just emphasizes the clunkiness of the combat

on top of that, when i got back to the mainland i made a poor decision. i was supposed to head back to the old camp (maybelle? can't remember), but it was the middle of the night and nothing worked, the stagecoach had gone home, the hotel clerk was nowhere to be found (?), and time was frozen. i should have just stolen a horse, but i thought i was trying to lie low. so i decided to walk out of town and steal a horse there. about 10 minutes later i realized the 'frozen time' thing meant that there were no randos to be found, no horses to steal. i had already walked so far that i decided just to run the rest of the way back to maybelle, across the map. siiiiiiiigh

i'm still not done with ch. 5, but from upthread and elsewhere i know it gets better soon. i am ready to be done with the story and focus on the other tasks + online

*for real spoilers**

also the story in general has been alright, i think. not too many eyerolls. but the stuff with arthur becoming disillusioned with dutch turning out to be a cold-blooded killer just makes no sense at all after i have personally murdered thousands of people in this game

lol still in chapter 1, not getting a great amount of time to play this but have scheduled myself to hammer it tomorrow.

I had a brief go today, but with my ten yo godson watching I had to refrain from doing any missions or anything other than hunting - which we both love. I did steal a nice top-hat and and sold a pretty decent stage coach.

But at one point my stupid horse decided not to stop at a cliff and tumbled down and died. Purchased an awesome War horse which we named Terry?_.

Immediately upon leaving the stables I was set upon by some O'Driscolls. Normally I'd shy away from shooting anybody in front of the kid but War horse between my legs triggered something inside me and I kicked their ass in rapid style. Then as the moon rose in the sky I posed a profile silhouette with my great horse and top-hat. Photo is now ps4 background.

Wait, you named the horse with an underscore and question mark at the end?

that’s how you do it!

It was something like that yeah, the boy did it by mistake but we liked it so kept it.

i think it's great

imagine if there was a way to get away with adding _? to your name in real life with none of the negative consequences. none of the eyebrow raising or dumb questions about it at bars. just the benefits. red dead redemption 2 is a game where you can get away with it.

i need to buy some more horses, or capture some. for some reason i find myself hoarding money in this game. i love my main horse, who i named and styled after my good life dog pal. she is my main horse and that will not change.

well watch out for those cliffs

I spent heaps of money on the camp. Is it worth it? I mean do future chapters move us to newer places and remove all my hard work?

they do but you might as well spend it, there's nothing to spend money on other than camp upgrades, clothing, and like $5 worth of ammo and horse feed every few days

i'm nearly done with the epilogue, it's a fun chill sesh but super long and doesn't do a great job building on any of the themes of the main story so a lot of it feels a bit pointless. it has a great willie nelson song though.

i definitely heard the colin stetson song a few missions ago

I hoarded so much cash that the whole getting a loan and having to work to pay it off thing in the epilogue made no sense.

Spending money on the camp helps refill the food/medicine/ammo without you doing it directly but not a huge impact. I bought a boat for the camp when you're in the south but there's never any particular point in using it.

I heard this game makes you shave

i never do, but i always try to look as silly as possible

tip: there's a card in every pack of premium cigarettes, incl the one you buy at stores. i wasn't using any cigarettes because of the core damage. discard them immediately and you can keep picking them up/buying them

If you’ve quit smoking irl do you get a rush when you smoke in game? LOL

Inspired by all the jibber jabber on this thread, I returned to the original with the intention of playing some further in. Completed one mission of aimless shooting and then just played poker and liar's dice for a few hours. I think video games are no longer for me.

Maybe y’all already heard this nickname but the Greatest Generation guys were calling RDR2 “Jazz Horse” and I lol’d.

My problem with cigarettes in this game is that you only smoke them for like one second! I want to savor the damned thing

i found the meteor house. gross!

i found a cutesy little cabin with flowerbeds, marked on the map as "roadside brothel" or something. took me a bit to notice the dead body sitting on the porch.

most of the unique little ambient details i've run into so far involve corpses

Well that’s environmental storytelling for ya! You got a skeleton and a toilet, now how do you arrange them

i'm gonna try to beat rdr2 today. i am alone stuck at home for the day so i have all the time in the world. i think i'm about to finish ch 6 but i've been saying that for an hour now.
https://www.twitch.tv/weinventyou

I'm at work :(

i'll be playing aaalllll day

finally beat it late last night. there's a lot to complain about but i managed to play some enormous number of hours, and i'm still riding around after the credits have rolled, hunting legendary animals. so i guess i enjoyed it!

is anyone else still playing? i'm not sure whether to jump into online or just not be a cowboy for a while.

It doesn’t sound like fun and I’m not sure I’ll play it despite enjoying the first one. Nb that’s was the only rockstar game I ever enjoyed

I tried to play this at a friend's house and you had to pull off some street fighter II button combo bullshit just to eat a can of beans

LOL

From all accounts this seems like an enormous time sink and there’s no way I could give the old timey west that much time. It would have to be blade runner 2814 or some shit for me to invest that much of my life

https://www.audubon.org/news/birding-its-1899-inside-blockbuster-american-west-video-game

Today I met a rancher randomly and he started shooting at me when I wouldn't leave the area, so I killed him. Then I set his pigs free. Who then all proceeded to munch on his corpse.

circle_of_life.wav

glad i found an example of this, which is one of the most clever and poignant details i've seen in this game:

**RDR2 SPOILER ALERT** unbelievable how much detail @RockstarGames has put into Red Dead Redemption 2. First pic is Arthur’s journal entry, Second is John’s entry for the same encounter. Arthur being the more experienced journal writer, his drawing was naturally better. pic.twitter.com/Pw8k2u03zx

— Teo Kıral (@mayo_teo) November 17, 2018