Yeah, for me it is Rockstar’s magnum opus. I wish they gave it as much care as CDP gave Witcher 3. I would love some Sadie focused expansion, nextgen update, all that.
Having RDR2 stuck at 30fps on consoles is a crime.
They sorta did if you consider Online as in scope for your definition of care. But yeah, story and other expansions to the core game would have been nice.
Yeah I don’t, online holds no interest for me. But from what I read Rockstar pretty much abandoned RDR2 online as well, in favour of GTAV Online.
Got to my first real camp today. Gave myself a nice shave and headed into town. Not bad. Not bad at all.
I still feel RDO was vastly underrated as well. It was certainly rough at the start but evolved into something with tons to do that all felt rewarding to me. Hell, the hunting alone was better than many hunting games as was the fishing. Shame they all but ditched it for more GTA
As someone who loved RDR2, played a ton of GTAO with friends, and only played some of RDO before putting it down, my pet hypothesis is that the friction level of in-game travel is too high for RDO to be a good multiplayer game.
In GTAO, you spend most of the time using a vehicle to travel between places, which is easy because you just hold down the “accelerate” button and point your vehicle in the direction of your destination, and funny stuff happens along the way. If your car gets wrecked, no big deal, just grab another one. If the cops get involved, it’s often trivial to escape them, or you can just call Lester if you’ve unlocked that functionality.
In RDO, you also spend most of the time travelling between places, but it’s way more annoying because you have to tap-tap-tap-tap-tap the button to keep your horse moving, unless you want to move at the default pace. The “funny stuff” in GTAO doesn’t translate to RDO. Crashes between horses/carts/wagons can be disastrous in terms of continuing to travel to your destination: horses may die or run off, and there may not be another horse/cart nearby to steal. (And if you do manage to steal a horse/cart, I think RDO has an imposed character morality system that GTAO obviously does not.)
The design choices that totally work for an often slow-paced single-player game where you’re encouraged to take your time are a real hindrance when you have two hours after work and want to mess around with your friends in an online game.
I don’t necessarily disagree with your premise, which is as interesting an explanation as any for why Rockstar treats RDO like a red-headed stepchild. But I do think you might be missing some of the game’s “horses” system.
Because this…
…is not really how horses work in the game. There are varying speeds, and you can alter the performance of a horse based on its rigging (not the right word, but whatever you call saddle, bridle, stirrups, etc.), or what you feed it, or how you’ve developed it. Horses have pretty comprehensive autopilots so you can freely look around while they travel, and you can still spur them to go faster if you want, and you can even maneuver them with fancy tricks like drifting and skidding. But RDO does very little to surface all the finer points of how horses work; unless someone reads over all the fine print in the ingame documentation, there’s no reason anyone would know this stuff. :(
Anyway, I do like your premise, but I’m wondering if you might be overestimating friction by not fully appreciating horses as a system in RDO. It was one of my favorite parts of the game and I wish they’d done more to show players how cool it could be. Some of my most satisfying gaming moments in the last year have been riding around with my friends in RDO, and that’s partly because of how well these horses handle.
As Tom mentioned, horses are more deep than just tapping a button, but also you can just get on a road and it will autodrive you. then you just grab the controls when you need to get off at your stop or if something happens along the way.
You can also just call a new horse if yours dies. It’s a really flexible system that you definitely are not familiar with. Also there is fast travel and over time it became more and more useful.
I got my White Arabian early in the game, and stayed with it all game long. That horse and I saw a lot of good, bad, and ugly things over time. I’d have never replaced Destiny (my name for my horse) no matter how much better any other horse was. But I really role play games like this.
As for fast travel, I played for a LOT of hours, trying to explore every inch of the game (same way I did Skyrim) and never fast traveled. They put so many interesting things to find and explore in this game. In fact, I free-roamed so much that they often sent Charles from the camp to check on me. ;) I did a restart when my brother started playing for the first time, just to remember things and help him out, and I got hooked again at just riding around the world, camping out at night, and exploring. After playing a LOT of hours in my first playthrough, trying to see every inch of the map, I was very suprised at how much I saw that was new to me in the second playthrough.
I’d be very happy at a RDR2 option that just let me play as a loner living off the land, no main story mission, maybe generating random interesting things as long as you play. I’d probably never stop playing.
I think they were mostly talking about the RDO side not the single player
Ohhhhh. Never mind. ;)
Really wish RDR2 had some sort of expansion or add on (other than RDO).
Thanks for the reply, Tom. :)
Based on what you wrote, I think we wanted different things from the multiplayer aspect of the game. I was aware of the horse customization because it seemed similar to the single-player; my problem with them duplicating that system is that multiplayer is (for me and the people I played with) about a completely different kind of gameplay. Taking the time to develop the player-horse relationship is great when I have my Christmas vacation to really savor it. In my significantly more limited multiplayer time, I preferred for the gameplay to be less about horse customization ('cause I did it already in the single-player) and more about PvE action with my posse of real-life friends, who add an element not in the single-player game.
I also never found the horse autopilot (autojockey?) to be fast enough, but it’s possible I’m just impatient; I learned this year I have an attention disorder. If I wanted to get somewhere at a more reasonable pace, I felt like I had to tap a fair bit. I can (and did) enjoy the landscape on my own time with Arthur. Between 8 and 10 PM Eastern I needed to be riding around and shooting with my friends, and GTAO facilitated that better than RDO.
I am aware of the auto-pilot feature; I just never found it fast enough. It doesn’t surprise me other people didn’t mind the default pace.
I don’t recall the whistle bringing your horse back to life if it died. Didn’t it summon a different horse that you had in your stable, or some random rental horse? I don’t remember it being the same horse, but it has been a very long time since I played, so maybe it was different and changed.
You are correct that I didn’t engage much with the fast travel, but I’m pretty sure that’s because it cost money, and horsing around was free. My friends and I put the game down after a while, so I don’t know what’s changed.
So far, this game agrees with me. This is the combo of cool missions when I have time and chill out and ride and enjoy the scenery after work that I needed. Only 10ish% in, and I’m really enjoying it. Went on a treasure hunt afterwork today. Found map #2!
Chapter 3. Today I drove a cart for Women’s Suffrage! Neat!
I’ve also learned how to fish, which is enjoyable and relaxing.
My one gripe is that bodies get cleaned up by the game so I can’t return to a scene and loot. That’s how I made a lot of my cash in RDR1. I rob a train, shoot a bunch of dudes and get away, then ride back? Poof! Dead bodies magically gone!
The American West was infested with freelance undertakers.
So yesterday Arthur was out enjoying the sights and sounds of Saint Dennis and decided to get a haircut (I’m in Chapter 3 and his hair is getting too shaggy for me). Some drunk kids decided to insult my rugged good looks and I chastised them a bit.
However, things spiraled out of control and long story short Saint Dennis is on lockdown and Arthur has a $250 bounty in Lemoyne.
No matter how many times random encounters turn into something completely different, this one shocked and surprised the hell out of me. Put those kids up there with cougars for turning a pleasant time into absolute terror.
That’s one hell of a bounty! I’m going to have to let my imagination run loose for a while to figure out that one. I just hope you got an awesome haircut out of the deal. :)