Red Dead Redemption

St Denjs at night is prettty
Visited the fence and sold all the rings and jewelry I had accumulated

MICAH: You're a small tree with a large shadow!

ARTHUR: I don't even know what that means.

I went through a Groundhog's Day of annoyance last night.

Grabbed a bounty for former Confederate Lindsey Wofford, holed up in a fort up north from Saint Denis. Rode out there, arriving around two in the morning. Trying to sneak around for some recon, but Arthur's whistling?

Then I realize there's a camp right by the riverbank, in full view of the fort. It's my old buddy William! I bet he's going to ask me to go pick a bunch of herbs that I've already got a million of in my satchel. Well, ok, the fort can wait.

In the distance, gunshots. What, is the sharpshooter guy out here too in the middle of the night?

William asks for some currant. Shit, William. I've been grabbing currant left and right ever since Kieran asked for some too. I hand it over. He gives me a bottle of miracle tonic. We affirm our friendship. I wander back to my horse and hop on.

WANTED! HORSE THIEVERY! What? Oh, shit. My bad! Jumped on the wrong damn horse! My horse is right over there and they both look very much – Fuck! William comes at me with a knife, cursing me. IT WAS A MISTAKE, WILLIAM. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW COMMON THIS IS? I DRIVE A BLACK HONDA CRV IRL. LIKE, EVERY TRIP TO KROGER!

William's not listening to me. This is either not going to end well or it's not going to end well. Even if I get away from him without killing him, or being killed myself, I doubt we're ever going to shoot the shit over Orelander Sage again. I make the decision to load the previous game back in. Before I do, I tie up William and loot his camp. For what it's worth if you've ever wondered, he's got some more tonic in the horse satchel and a can of peaches.

Load game... I'm up north from Saint Denis. It's dark, around two in the morning. There's the glow from a camp by the river. In the distance, gunshots.

Hey, it's William! Howya doin', old friend? He calls me "Traveler" which I like. Currant? Pfffft. My pockets are full of currant. Anything for you, William. Or can I call you Bill?

I head up to the fort. How they haven't heard me and William carrying on just down the hill, I have no clue. I call out Lindsey Wofford. He makes some peacock speech about sovereign rights, and then his boys start shooting. First time I see a gatling gun in the game, and it stings!

My personal mission is take Lindsey alive back to Saint Denis. The reward's the same either way, but if he's dropped off alive, there's apparently a whole cut scene of him being hanged at a public execution. Neat! Bringing back the body, eh, toss him in the dumpster.

Well you know these types. They don't want to go alive. So without even really trying, I kill the guy. I ponder this for a few moments. No, I want to take this guy downtown, let him enjoy the view of my horse's ass the whole way.

So I quit and load the game. I'm way north of Saint Denis in the middle of the night. Dammit, there's William again. Why didn't I save this after I had my meet-up with him?

In the distance, gunshots. A woman screams. OK, this doesn't sound like the sharpshooter. "They killed him!" I ride past a bewildered William to find a man dead in the road next to his two horses and overturned stagecoach. Two of the ugliest hillbillies are making the worst conversation with each other as they carry off a hogtied woman. I open fire.

The hillbillies are dead, but I can't find the woman. There she is in some bushes. It's very dark out here! I pick her up to carry her out to the road. She's obviously in distress and wants to be put down.

The only option the controller gives me is DROP. "Kinda rough with me, aren't ya?"

I untie her, she tells me her whole sad story and wants to be given a ride to Van Horn. Sheesh, I'd be happy to do so even though it's way out of my way and – well, hold on. She gets on my horse and I ride the 100 yards over to William's to go through that whole currant routine again. Except he's gone, leaving everything including his fire unattended. Smart man, that William.

"This doesn't seem to be the right way to Van Horn!" my backseat driver tells me. OK, screw this. Load game...

It'sthemiddleofthenightinthewoodsnorthofSaintDenis. I try to circle around to William's post without spawning the whole disturbing hillbilly hostage event. Just as I come up to him from the north, there's a gunshot, and William goes, "Hey, friend! Been awhile!" Ok, maybe he aborted the whole hostage thing by beginning his spiel with me.

I take his miracle tonic, go up the road, and there's the two horses. Nothing but tracks anywhere else.

This isn't a good sign. I go up to the fort and go through several different variations of getting tore open by the gatling gun or killing Lindsey Wofford. The times that I do walk across the little bridge to his hideout, throwing my lasso around like I'm Will Rogers, well, even I have to chuckle at how ridiculous this is. Just how badly do I want to see a public hanging anyway, even of this proud soldier of the once-great Southern Army?

At one point, I start snooping around the fort, looking for gold and a certain kind of gun in the basement. All this while racist NPCs are still shooting at me. Clearly, I'm a little shell shocked.

Load game... certainly, I saved it after my last William encounter, right? Or did I? I'm in the woods north of Saint Denis in the middle of the night. William isn't there. No screams or gunshots.

Just the fort up ahead, where at this point, we're all just daring each other to kill us again.

“I’ve got a secret…”
“You’re secretly normal?”

Finished the main missions and epilogue. Still got 15% more to go.

Kinda taken off guard when the three characters got caught in a freeze-frame during a group high-five and "In the City" by Joe Walsh came on.

There was all sorts of stuff I heard about but never experienced, like the supernatural stuff and the like.

"My people... need peace. We cannot afford to wage a war we cannot win. Our spirit... HEY, WATCH IT! YOUR HORSE BUMPED INTO MINE! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? NOW GET BACK UP HERE, YOU'RE TAKING TOO LONG! What was I saying again? Oh, yes. Our spirit can only remain strong if..."

*horse smacks into a tree and Arthur is thrown 20 feet*
"GET BACK HERE! STOP HOLDING UP THE SHOW!"

All it does is rain now. If it wasn't for the fact that I've already seen how this guy dies, I'd say he's going to die from pneumonia.

(Along those lines, I slow walk through Armadillo whenever I'm there, knowing full-well that I'm somehow immune to cholera.)

I've collected a set of cigarette cards. I've found all the bones and dreamcatchers. Don't know what to do now except go look for Bigfoot.

Run into Pearson at the Rhodes General Store.

"Marston! You're alive! How are ya! Yeah, here I am. Lot better than that old butcher's table!"

*Five minutes later*

"So you gonna buy something?"

^^ My life in a nutshell, living in the same town from where I graduated high school.

There is definitely a Bigfoot reference in this game (RDR2).

Man, I hope they give this one a PS5 polish to convince me to play it again. I'll probably end up playing it again sometime anyway.

I think the way I’m meant to play this is just to go from bar to bar in the different towns, drinking and smoking all day and stealing when the money runs out

I think that's definitely *a* way to play, lol. There was a point in St. Denis where I had attracted so many police I wanted to see how long I could hold out and defend myself against/elude them, but they just kept coming and eventually I had to go out in a blaze of glory.

I have still yet to rob a stagecoach on my own. Nobody's given me reason to? Same thing with robbing the stores. The fact that my options when I saunter up to the trapper's tent is buy, sell, or AIM WEAPON is a little disheartening.

I have robbed from campsites, and not just from gang members either. Sometimes I'll mosey up, and the campers will tell me a little story about how you have to trust people in order to make the world a better place. Or, maybe how they're haunted every night by the faces of the Native Americans they imprisoned. Those folks can keep their canned peaches. But when someone tells me I better git and AIMS WEAPON at me, well. Those peaches sure taste good later on.

And oh, how I love the home robberies. It's just like browsing Zillow, except I get to open the drawers and closets. There have only been a couple of guys who have come from out of nowhere to admonish me. And while I'm smashing DEFUSE, they pull out their guns and AIM WEAPON. Dropped one guy, who fell right beside a grave next to his house. Almost too perfect.

For the most part, I don't want to cause too much trouble. Since the missions ended, I've only committed two acts of actual murder. I'd call them mercy killings, but I know what the law would say.

First one was the Englishman looking for Gavin. I was tired of this guy already when Arthur was alive, and when he showed back up on the streets of Blackwater seven years later with the same schtick, I knew something was going to have to happen. I got my chance up near Beaver Hollow. It was either going to be me or the Murfrees. So I tied him up and laid him out on the train track, just on the other side of Ambarino. While I watched him from the woods, he said something like "Well, I certainly don't like this!" and UNTIED HIMSELF. Shot him as he ran across the train bridge and watched as he fell into the ravine below. Passed his body on the way out.

Other guy was the old man in robes who's always standing in the water. Seven years of that is long enough. I roped his feet and drowned him. You could call either of those a mercy killing, but really, I was getting tired of hearing voices and thinking, Oooh, a new stranger to check out! Only to find it was one of those two.

(So of course in Rhodes last night, I hear "Gavin???" Maybe that's your supernatural content.)

I don't think you can ever find Gavin, tbh. I think if you kill the mad preacher in the river he comes back (!), dunno if that's a glitch or intentional.

And yeah, I pretty much shot anybody that pulled a gun on me first. Like, oh, so that's how you want it to be?! I felt the worst when I rescued someone from a cage on the back of a wagon, killed their captors, but then accidentally pointed my gun at the rescued person and scared them away. I wish there was a "no, wait, please come back!" button.

The supernatural stuff, iirc there is something about a vampire, a bit about ghosts, and also a UFO sighting, but a couple of the quests are pretty obscure and convoluted.

Yeah, I've read about the ghosts and vampires, how you have to time it just right and be in the area within a certain window. Nah, let that vampire come and find ME.

I felt the worst when I rescued someone from a cage on the back of a wagon, killed their captors, but then accidentally pointed my gun at the rescued person and scared them away.

Happened to me last night. Came across the Skinner Bros giving a woman a hard time after they had put an arrow through her husband's chest. Killed the Skinners, but instead of bringing up the GREET or ADMONISH choices as she was was kneeling over her husband's body, I aimed my rifle right at her head. This understandably did not improve a bad situation, so I restarted from my last save.

(If I find a nickel, I'm re-saving the game.)

Revisiting online lately (as well as gta too) and having a bit of fun with a mate. We got the collectors bag and just enjoying roaming around looking for stuff.

gta I've been spinning that wheel and winning bundles of cars!

I'm going to break down and buy that PS+ card at some point.

"Ah! It's good to see you again! That's a fine pelt you have there with you. Are you looking to sell?"

"Listen. It's time for you to answer a few questions. First of all, how are you always here in the market when I just saw you in the goddamm woods?"

"I don't buy from stores. Everything I sell is handmade –"

"Shut the fuck up! I fast travel from Strawberry to St. Denis, and you've somehow disassembled your camp, packed all your game, gotten here first and set everything back up again before I'm even back in town! What the hell is going on?"

"If you ever see a man near Rhodes –"

"And speaking of those bumfuck areas you set up camp in! I once built a fire 300 yards away from you and was set on by the Skinner Brothers within seconds. How do you sit alone up there and not get fucked with? By the Skinners, the Murfrees, or hell, even A BEAR."

"The new president is trying to turn the West into a theme park."

I've basically wrapped it up, around 93.7%. Just riding around, tying up a few loose ends.

And I'm still finding new stuff just out of nowhere. Strange statues. The guy who challenges me to a duel and then keels over dead before anything happens.

Stopped to admire the view from atop a mountain, look down, and there's a monk meditating on the edge of the cliff!

He was not responsive. Especially to John Moronston, who just kept going, "What are you doing?"

I know the guy is the face of the franchise, but man. His dumbfuck little scribbles in Arthur's notebook. How he can't ever remember what his name is supposed to be. My favorite is when I see a bonfire in the woods and bring my horse to a slow, stealty trot, the way Marston yelps, "HELLO?"

Anyway, last night I saw the guy who's the subject of this wiki tip:

• He cannot be looted since he is not wearing any clothes.

I wasn't planning on getting that close to him anyway.

Wow 90 percent
Maybe I’ll get there by 2025

I look at what's left, and it just doesn't light a fire under me to get them done.

For example, my next step in the horseman challenge is to drag someone 3,330 feet with the lasso. Went to Armadillo, found some poor sick person vomiting into a horse's trough and roped him up. He screamed in agony until finally dying around the 2,400-ft mark.

Just wasn't that fun, for obvious reasons. Even on the next three times I tried it.

i'm also in chapter 4, and it's a little disappointing because i totally explored this city a couple chapters ago. i really goofed off a ton during chapter 2, avoiding the story entirely. but i imagine that the chapter 4 stuff will let me interact with things a little more

― Karl Malone, Friday, November 23, 2018 10:46 PM

Alongthoselines, I saved the treasure maps for last. Kept getting ones that looked like places I had already explored.

ME: I've already been behind this waterfall. There was nothing there!

THE INTERNET: *look again!*

Finally started this and loving it obviously (on Chapter 2)

Anyone got any advice on upgrades (camp or otherwise)? Like is there a satchel or saddle or whatever that you should really try and craft early on?

And do the ammunition ones make much difference? I've been doing just fine in shootouts so far without having bought any ammo, let alone crafted any special bullets

I don’t think it matters that much. The game makes shooting pretty easy. It doesn’t want to get you frustrated and rage quit …

I don't think ammo really matters. In terms of upgrades, I want to say focus on stuff that increases capacity. There are some good quality of life trinkets and talismans to aim for, too, though there's no hurry.

I found that I eventually had so much money that I upgraded everything just for the sake of spending it, so just prioritize what ever seems to make life easier for you in the start, because you’ll get everything else eventually.

The fight in the art gallery was probably the funniest moment in the game for me so far

Anyone got any advice on upgrades (camp or otherwise)?

Get that Legendary Buck first. The prize will be more findings of three-star animals.

There's also a good trinket to get that keeps animals from spoiling on your horse.

Chapters 2 and 3 are a good time to get a lot of that stuff out of the way.

Man, this game

Have only just completed Chapter 2 and reckon, similar to the first one, 90+% of my time is spent hunting animals, collecting herbs, doing challenges and generally just wandering around. So fucking good

I wish I had done a lot more of that stuff right around where you are now, Chapters 2 and 3.

It did leave me with plenty to do after the missions were over, but whenever I'd complete a challenge and get the reward, I'd think, "Boy, I sure could've used that a month ago."

Best moment so far was when I shot the Legendary Bison with a poison arrow and then the fucker decided to run into the lake and drown, leaving me unable to skin it and harvest the parts (thankfully they then auto appear in the fence's inventory so it doesn't stop you crafting any of the talismans)

i'm trying starting RDR2 over from the beginning. i could never get into it despite my love for the first one, and i stopped playing for so long that i feel like i need the refresh of a complete restart. i'm sure i've complained about this upthread but my main obstacle is how arthur moves. he lumbers around like frankenstein's monster, so slow and clumsy, which isn't very fun to play. it still looks gorgeous though, even as a ps4 game that came out four years ago.

ha, I like that about him. especially at the beginning, he's just this big lumbering goof, along for the ride, being told what to do. So Frankenstein's monster is kind of accurate.

I really wish I could play the first game. it's unfathomable to me that people could put so much time and effort into these prolonged narratives and they can just vanish in a generation.

tried to play GTAV after this and it just makes RDR2 seem even better. I keep being annoyed that I can't interact with objects or people the way you can in RDR2, they all just seem like fake props.

I didn't realize until after RDR2 how much the GTAV POV camera floats and bobs, reality show-wise, during cutscenes.

And so many more burglary options in RDR2!

i accidentally ended up in Saint Denis and man that is an overwhelming experience if you're not expecting it. it's so huge and so beautifully designed, with so much detail to look at. impressive

The whole game is kind of like that. Just so much to look at, so many details.

Finished this the other week. Just an incredible game.

Crazy that you can put in 100 hours plus to complete it and still won't have unlocked all that south western bit of the map

Finished this the other week. Just an incredible game.

Crazy that you can put in 100 hours plus to complete it and still won't have unlocked all that south western bit of the map

Got way too proud of myself for accomplishing this:

https://i.imgur.com/zCF7hPR.jpg

played a lot of RDR2 over the holidays. i need to do more exploration/hunting/etc, i've mostly been following the plot so far. just started the st. denis chapter

they should have a GTA-style thing where you can pick the music while you're riding around, but instead of radio stations, it's different folk singers riding on donkeys next to your horse

I finally started in on the online version.

The missions are pretty much the same, but the characters are fun. Been a few "Wait, I know this guy," moments. My biggest complaint is how much they want you to grind everything three different ways. This will cost money, but this can only be bought with gold. All these neat roles and, well, I guess I'll get a chance at one of them this summer when I can finally afford the right bag.

Live sessions are a different vibe from GTAO. Other players in the missions seem invested in winning the missions. No one really fucks around with you out in the open. Having a defensive mode and not being able to see other players on the map until they're in your vicinity must help.

got to guarma, thought "wow this huge game even has a totally separate tropical island environment, i can't wait to explore it" and then the whole section is basically on rails and is just a lot of running around shooting soldiers, disappointing

Yeah, I didn't mind it, but I also didn't quite get the point. It's basically pre-integrated DLC.

i didn't really care that much about the lack of freedom to explore but the missions on the island were tedious and could've used some variety. i guess following an old lady through a cave and shooting a cannon at a ship was fairly cool.

You want open world, they should have given you the option to swim back to America.

Lot of animals to discover there, and they're gone once you go back.