Madrigalian

Good, looking out, Kean. Much respect.

I like having the Springfield Rifle and Lancaster Repeater on my back and shoulder. I used to dual wield schofields but found that I rarely used them. Meanwhile I was constantly switching out one or the other, Rifle or Repeater, for my pump action shotgun. So now, I dual wield the sawed off shotguns and keep my rifles handy at all times. The Springfield for long range and the Lancaster for shorter range and faster fire rates. The sawed off shotguns are fast firing and fast reloading. And frankly, they seem more effective in close range than the schofields ever did. I too only keep slugs on me on the off chance that I run out of regular shotgun shells and need a little extra ammo.

I've been kicked a couple of times "suddenly and recently" from story missions. I've chocked it up to saving room for others as I don't grief and generally play well without being too greedy or causing mission failures. So, cant imagine it's personal, but who knows. My only real complaint is that after being kicked and then trying to rejoin another mission I sometimes crash and have to reboot (PS4) which is annoying. /shrug

For me, it's the lack of story following the epilogue. I don't mean that the main story should continue past it's conclusion. I just mean all of the random encounters, bounties, robberies, gang sites, etc. Once you become John and complete the epilogue the game world just goes dead. It feels lifeless and there's no real reason for it. It seems to me they could have kept a lot of that going on indefinitely to enjoy as John.

I just can't do it. The online game is awful (for me) waiting 40+ levels to get the things I want, when leveling is just so painfully slow and griefing is everywhere. It's not for me. Horizon Zero Dawn the Complete set came out for $15 bucks a couple of weeks ago and I'm having a blast with it. If/when R* ever gets their act together and fixes the slow grind, constant griefing and actually puts more value in the online experience, (such as more story missions and a more immersive world) I will consider coming back. But until then. Meh. It's not worth my time.

For online play I have the black thoroughbred from the ultimate edition. After a long session of travel and fighting and camping and fighting I noticed that my horse was looking a little dirty. So I hopped off and gave it a good brushing. I was immediately confused because where normally the horse would have returned to it's normal black and purple sheen there remained a large patch of grey area showing just below the saddle in the stomach, rib cage areas exactly as you have pictured above. I had never seen this before. Another brushing did not help. But then, I noticed the rib cage look to some of it and realized that it had been some time since I had fed him. I gave him a few carrots and oak cakes and the gray area faded away and was replaced by the black sheen again right before my eyes. I think the look of the Murfree horses is meant to show that they are emaciated from lack of proper feeding. I don't know if feeding them will have the same effect as it did on my own horse, but it might. Anyway, I am much more careful about my own horse's feeding routines now. Poor thing.

When someone enters my camp that I don't know (Not just passing through but actually loitering) I drop a stick of Dynamite at their feet and watch them get blown to hell. Just make sure you're far enough away to not get caught in the blast as well. Sometimes it will kill them, sometimes it won't. Not sure what the difference is. Either way though, it makes them leave.

I would expand on this and do the following; Tie your morality score directly to PvP interactions only. No score change, up or down, for killing NPCs, hunting, skinning, fishing etc. The only exception being story mode missions where your choices make a discern able difference in the story outcome. Maybe include a morality bonus for resuscitating a fallen comrade. This would allow those with a lower score to raise their morality back through PvE cooperative missions. Additionally, there would be no reduction in morality for PvP inside of an event where pvp is mutually consented to when you choose to participate in the event. However, killing another player outside of clearly defined PvP event results in an immediate reduction in morality. Those with a low morality pay higher prices in the stores, have less friendly and amiable relations with the locals and (most importantly) remain identified on the mini map with a pink dot. Higher morality characters are not shown on the minimap. This allows those who want to engage in free roam pvp to hunt each other down on the mini map and further allows the remaining players to easily identify the "morality" of the other players they encounter, from a distance. Pink dot players are avoided, and otherwise when you encounter another player in the game who was not highlighted on your mini map you have a relatively safe assumption that they are not a griefer. Moreover, if you have a high morality, you too can engage in hunting down griefers you see on the map, so long as you are careful not to kill so many as to have your own morality score reduced to the point of negative morality and end up on the wrong side of the equation yourself. Obviously this would require careful balancing of morality rewards and losses. But it seems perfectly doable to me.

Oh, and then there's the wagons that are hiding in the trees at crossroads that suddenly pull out in front of you like they were just waiting for you to come by. Ugh. Initially, this dynamic really aggravated me quite a bit. But then when I started thinking about it, it's kind of like adding something of a Mario Cart mechanic to the game. A bit of Arcade flavor, dexterity and awareness, mixed into an open world RPG/shooter. /shrug What's wrong with that? Nothing. As long as you can avoid the crash, that is. There in lies the trick! lol

In my experience, it's the NPCs who are riding at a walking pace that are the most prone to suddenly turning into your path. It is clearly by design. They will wait until you are almost right on them, at whatever pace you are moving, and then suddenly turn their horse into your path. The NPCs that are moving at a trot or canter almost never do this to me. As long as you see them ahead of time you can usually set your path to one side or the other and breeze right past them and they just continue on their way. But, whenever I see an NPC moving at a walking pace on their horse coming my direction, I will give them a much wider birth when I can to avoid their clear intention to get in my way.

Awesome YellowDragon! Thanks! It's not exactly what I was looking for but a great start.

That's great. However, due to these exploits and and glitches we already have people with huge advantages over others. Such as, being level 200 because you spent hours hiding behind ghost walls killing at will and largely without risk, while everyone else tried to play fair. So, new content comes out and these folks immediately leap ahead of everyone else in terms of access and availability to the new content and upgrades. If they really were interested in "stress testing" the beta and identifying all of the glitches and exploits first, they should not have closed the door on a potential reset by opening the gold store before they were done.

I'm not really excited about private lobbies. I like the idea of private instances, like those in the story missions early on. But private lobbies for Free Roam? Nah, thanks. I would much prefer to see them just make use of the honor system, bounties, and community involvement (PC Bounty Hunting) instead to discourage griefing. There are lots of ways this could be done. Private free roam just seems like lazy development and given the lack of real content in the online game, sounds immensely boring. jmo.

I didn't think you could sleep online. Think about it, if you slept you would have to wait until the requisite number of hours passed for everyone else online in your lobby. Or they would all have to skip forward to when you woke up. Then, 10 people all go to sleep at different points several minutes apart, unless everyone had their own unique day/night cycle it just wouldn't work. Not even sure it would work even if everyone did. Seems like it would just have everyone sleeping at night (theirs) to avoid being at a disadvantage of those roaming around in daylight on their own cycle and having a huge advantage with visibility.

So, I have been looking for a Soundtrack release for RDR2 and so far have not been able to find anything. Specifically, I would like to find a copy of the song being sung during Arthur's trek back to the abandoned camp upon his return from Guarma. The song is hauntingly beautiful, and I would really like a copy of it to add to a couple of play lists. Since I cannot seem to find any soundtrack release, I was wondering if anyone knew the song? Who performs it, name of the song, availability? Anyway, probably my second favorite song in the game is sung by the characters at camp about the Elk and the Buffalo and how times have changed. Awesome stuff.

I have totally gone back to the solo game. The PvP stuff is fun... for a while. But what made RDR2 so great was the immersive world they had created. Online is a sad shell of that world. There is no real reason to hunt, fish, rob, hijack, craft, or to do just about anything outside of FFA pvp. Posses are largely pointless in any long term sense. Add to that, all of the glitches and exploits currently in the pvp game, such as ghost walls, varmint rifles being the best weapon in the game, xp and money exploits, (It is ridiculous that you can climb up on a building and spend hours killing an endless chain of npc cops with little or no risk) (It is also ridiculous that you can join a FFA pvp session, go essentially afk, and collect money and xp) and so on, simply makes the game, for me, a joke. I hope R* begins introducing more immersive content online soon. And fixes the damn exploits. There are better pvp shooter games out there. If that is all RDR2O is meant to be that's fine. I got my money's worth with the solo game already and I will just be happy with that and move on.

They changed which items will allow you to purchase with gold before the appropriate level when they turned on the gold bar system. Things like weapons, ammo, horses and pamphlets all got the gold option taken away, unless you are of appropriate rank. They did this to appease all of the folks complaining about a pay to win paradigm. So, essentially if it contributes to your combat effectiveness, it is no longer able to be bought with gold unless you have also achieved the appropriate rank.

I never communicate with the enemy. At best it is just a waste of time. At worst it only serves to embolden or encourage greater heights of douchebaggery. I've found that in gaming, just like in real life, silence makes people uncomfortable. I've found in previous games that when someone wants to mouth off or tries to engage me in taunting and such, just staying silent and continuing to kill them without response to their taunts more often than not drives them off to find more entertaining targets that will rise to their bait. More importantly, I have also found that they tend to avoid messing with you again in the future as they remember you being "no fun" for them to mess with. Of course, killing them again and again never hurts either. Just do it silently. And they will avoid you in the future. (mostly)

Maybe. I think it comes down to personal preference and play style. Overall, I think the Fox Trotter is the better horse. It has a faster top speed and more stamina to maintain it. I also think they are the most calm and easily controlled horses in the game (with good stats). So if you're playing the game solo or do a lot of traveling and hunting, etc. it may be the best horse for you. Certainly my favorite for general free roam style of play. However, and this is a big consideration, if your play style is more PvP based, more protracted and ongoing gun fights and hunting down opposing posses and such, then I would say the Turkoman is the better choice by a pretty significant margin. It has the same acceleration as the Fox Trotter, just not the top speed. Which, acceleration is probably more important in pitched gun battles than top speed anyway. And although you give up some longer ranging stamina you more than make up for it in much better health so that your horse has a better chance of surviving throughout the battle. Seriously, I don't think you can go wrong with either choice. It's just a matter of which you really value more. Health or Stamina. As for the Arabians, no. Absolutely not. Skittish little ponies that everyone just looks ridiculously huge riding on.

Nah, because there are probably a million other things I could spend my money on that are actually of real value compared to virtual toys. But hey, it's fun. So, what the hell.

Yes. Yes, it is. I just wish there was greater consistency or maybe control over where your camp is and stays. I understand that when you log in your camp may need to move because someone else is now in that location. But it seems like it should at least stay in the same region or close and not move 3 states away from where it was before. Still, having the fast travel has already proven to be hugely advantageous. I don't regret the purchase.

Camps should have a mascot. You should be able to pick a dog breed to stay and guard your camp and always be there to greet you with a wagging tail when you return. Petting Cripps behind the ears is getting a little old and he never seems happy to see me, even when I rub his belly. On another note, the bottom line for me is that I am growing increasingly bored with the online game already. They've stripped it of just about everything that I found the most engaging in the story mode. Why can't my posse rob the bank in Valentine? Why can't we hunt legendary beasts and craft their pelts into the coolest looking gear? Why is the Panther saddle for sale in the catalog but I can't go hunt and crafty it myself? What about all of the cool hats, coats, chaps and other things that we can no longer craft that ISN'T available in the catalog? I want my Legendary Wolf coat dammit! I'm guessing they will be along shortly in some expanded catalog offering at some point. Probably for Gold bars. Unfortunately, I will likely have quit long before then out of sheer boredom. The PvP alone can be fun in short stints. But it won't keep my interest for the long haul. Not if it remains the near exclusive purpose of online play.

I believe it is a pig farm just North and slightly west of the Blue Water Marsh. South of the train tracks but not by much. And thanks!

On losing your cash ... I have not tried this yet myself as I am still in Chapter 5. (I made it halfway through chapter six and reverted back to a previous save point to redo some things I wanted to complete as Arthur first) So, if there is anyone who can confirm this, please let us know.

So, I am ashamed to admit it but I spent real money to buy more gold bars a couple of nights ago. So far, I don't regret it. The fast travel wagon wheel cost me (I think it was) 111 gold. And it has been worth every penny, so far. YMMV.