BropolloCreed79

I think that's true for a LOT of content/modes at the moment.

I'd pay to play as Dutch. It'd be fun to watch him get his comeuppance. Shoot, now I have to go home and reroll my online character and make him a Dutch knockoff. "Dutchbag VanFlimFlam"

To Anthem in February or The Division 2 in March. We won't see them until near the end of Beta, just because our tears taste delicious to them. Excellent point which gets to the heart of the matter for a lot of players who aren't keen on the PvP free roam mode: every single mode of RDRO is built around PvP, and there is no dedicated PvE scenario or game mode. Everything outside of free roam is strictly PvP, leaving PvE players or players who prefer cooperative MMO-style play out in the proverbial cold. R* doesn't owe the player base a dedicated PvE mode, but it would behoove them to make the status a toggle in Free Roam with a 60-second cooldown once the player is no longer in combat. Literally everyone would get what they want, apart from griefers. Literally nothing would change for anyone else. If it's good enough for the most successful MMO in history (WoW) it should be good enough for RDRO.

If you think that sounds good, slightly overcook some bacon, crumble it up, and mix it into some guacamole. Then, instead of dipping tortilla chips in it, slather it on a burger. Speaking of burgers--if you use cinnamon (just cinnamon, not cinnamon and sugar) as a dry rub on a burger, it'll blow your mind. I don't put anything else with it, not cheese, not condiments. Just beef, cinnamon, and a bun.

@FLIP there's a lot of ways to grind out XP. Replaying certain missions is one of them. I've personally found (in my limited time playing online) that actively looking to complete the online tasks/challenges will net you plenty of incremental XP bumps. Depending on the respawn rate of NPC's and how comfortable you are with a high level of dishonor, there's always the opportunity to loaf around butcher's creek or Van Horn and rack up Head Shot XP.

You're right. You'll have to deliver Moonshine in a slow wagon while O'Driscolls, Murfees, & Lemyone Boys try to take you down like a pack of wolves on a wounded elk. What if that unicorn is producing ice cream instead of cannon balls? You're right, THIS is running away: That's exactly where I am until the "Beta" becomes the full release. Hardly appropriate to make an assessment of what we think it will be versus what it is right now. And right now, it's a bit of a mess. The troll move is to have it be a one-star carcass that's already skinned. That requires waaaaaay too much effort than your average troll is going to make. Most of the time, it's a crime of opportunity, nothing more, nothing less. I'd be willing to bet that apart from the afore-mentioned changes that are confirmed to be incoming (which I honestly believe will mitigate a big portion of the current issues), very little else will be done in the foreseeable future. If I had to guess, they're focused on lauching modes and content now, as opposed to mechanics. But I could be wrong.

SmArt move. I'm actively pushing to finish as much as I can before the endgame because my window is shrinking.

The game generated $725m in it's first three days of sales. Toss in another $200m in holiday sales (conservatively) and they're closing in on $1b in revenue. Even at the most garish assumptions of the total production and advertising costs, this game is already in the black. R* is flush with cash between this and the continued success of GTAO, so please, you're only fooling yourself if you don't think that kind of liquidity creates a competitive advantage when it comes to resource allocation. 95% of the publishers and studios out there would kill to have R*'s resources. If this were a traditional beta, then 90 days would be appropriate. Most betas in software development are closed affairs. This one is open to MILLIONS of users generating mountains of data. I'd be willing to wager most of this beta is designed to be little more than a stress test for the economy, build a model for anticipated player behavior "grieving", and soft testing pvp showdown variants to tweak rules. But most of the work that traditionally goes into beta trials was done before they shipped the physical copies. They're just using this to track the items above and get free QA testing. They're more concerned with exploits and rank boosting than any sort of technical calamity at this point. But moreover, 90 days puts them squarely in the release windows of 2 competitors in the online space, Anthem and TD2. Thise dates have been set in stone for ages, and someone are R* dripped the ball on that one. See my point above, this game is already profitable. Everyone sinking time into the beta is not only providing free bug testing and QA, but paying for the right to do so. It has nothing to do with gamers feeling entitled, and everything to do with gaming companies taking customers for granted, not the other way around.

Not to sound glib, but it's a game that has been worked on for the better part of a decade, and the online structure is going to end up borrowing literally from the GTA framework. A beta should not be active for 3-4 months unless it's going to be a radical departure from the GTA model. Preaching patience is all well and good, but this is a top line studio /publisher with what amounts to unlimited resources. Leaving this in Beta for more than 90 days is inexcusable. Launching past mid-February is inviting disaster. Anthem launches February 22nd, and The Division 2 in mid-March--both with fully formed online MMO capabilities that will release as "gold", not in Beta. If RDRO isnt fully launched or out of beta by then, it's going to be d.o.a. when it finally does. You already have a substantively smaller install base than GTAO; it's a period piece, niche genre game with a deliberately slower pace and entirely different aesthetic. Players won't stick around. There aren't enough hours in the day to be devoted to multiple online communities that have the level of depth and sophistication that most online games, particularly MMOs do these days. I've pre-ordered TD2, but I'm only going to have time to fully devote to either this or that. If TD2 launches with full online in March, and this is still in beta, the choice will be easy.

Hell, I'm more pissed about how ugly my character is than the imbalance in weaponry at this point. Literally tried remaking him about four or five times, but no matter what I do, he looks like they used his face to level concrete.

Reminds me of the scene in Trading Places when Billy Ray invites everyone from the bar over to his place and they just trash it.

Well, that's true of any game really. But you're not wrong. Which goes to the most critical part of my genius plan: require a 60-second cooldown after a player is no longer in combat before the toggle can be deactivated back into passive mode (and vice versa; if you go to passive mode, you should have to wait an additional 60 seconds to reactivate PvP mode). The blasting animals and fish thing is going to happen no matter what you do because those things are external to the PvE PvP dynamic. Other MMO style games have systems in place for handling loot distibution, whether it's everyone having access to the same loot if they "tag" it during combat, or only giving credit to whomever does the most damage. Stuff like that never goes away, but that's not what most people are complaining about: a majority of the ire is directed specifically towards player-killing activities in an open environment, and I have yet to see a better argument than a cool down tied to a toggle. There's always going to be exceptions or circumstances that alter the intended mechanics, and again, I'm not advocating that they should actually go through with a toggle system--I'm personally fine with the system the way it is. But my point is if they insist on doing something gating PvE experiences behind a private lobby is not a fair or equitable solution, especially when literally every other online mode is dedicated to PvP. I'd rather see no solution than that specific solution. This one we agree on 1000%. Thanks for staying engaged on this, by the way. It's good to see there's folks out there who can have a spirited debate without resorting to name-calling and just enjoy hashing stuff out while not taking things personally. You've raised a lot of excellent points in all of this, and a lot of the ideas have merit. For me, it makes sense to have AA natively disabled in ALL strict PvP modes, because having it enabled is not a fair assessment of a player's true skill. I didn't realize how dependent I had become on Dead Eye in Story mode until I tried to go online last night and got my butt handed to me. Seriously, it was more embarrassing than Hue Jackson's record with the Browns. But I know that I literally have to "git gud" before I can make a fair assessment, and stop relying on the crutch that is Dead Eye. If I'm going to suck, then I'm going to suck like a man. Auto Aim is no different, as far as I'm concerned.

Last night was interesting. I spawned in and immediately crouched to open my map. Three players in three different directions made a beeline towards me but got confused when my blip disappeared. I hid in some cactus shrubs and ambushed them like a total Delta Hotel. And you know what? It was fun. Sure, I got my ass handed to me because I'm rusty for online play, but all things being equal, I certainly didn't feel griefed, even when they spawn jumped me a couple of times thereafter. It wasn't that bad. Eventually, I made them chase me and they got bored, and I was able to go about my business, but it took all of five or six minutes. After that, I had a lot of casual encounters with other players where we just side-eyed each other, but otherwise, everything was fine. Hell, I even managed to clear out a gang hideout within eyesight of a town, and nobody bothered to come out and interfere. Sure, one play session does not a sample size make, but my opposition to playing the beta in it's current incarnation has more to do with the fact that it's still just a beta, and they're already monetizing it without informing the player base of what the finished "gold" release will be (pun unintended). I'm still dabbling in other games that I enjoy more online because I know what I'm getting out of them, and RDRO, by comparison, is not nearly as complete an experience. Like you said earlier, they're focusing on all the wrong things right now. I'm starting to agree with this assessment, provided one isn't routinely harassed by a large group for an extended period of time, but those instances have been few and far between in my experience. In fact, I look at it as an opportunity to unmute my mic and really start having fun. Terrible dad jokes. Puns. Impressions. They'll mute me, and then I'll send them a "friend request" just to be an irritation. It's one thing to troll someone in a game by killing them, but it's another to send them system messages when they're playing other games. Trolling in game? Amateur hour. Trolling across an entire online platform takes skill and talent. In a way, I"m flattering them because I won't put the time and effort into that kind of engagement on a basic troll--you have to earn that level of effort from me. Sounds like you enjoy "having to watch your back", not unlike fellow forum user @the uncucked canuck, which is fine. I'm not as big a fan of that element, but it doesn't add or detract from my enjoyment of the game. Of course they are. Do you expect PvP'ers to play with themselves? How are you going to invite randos looking to group up if you are in a private lobby? They'll need to open private lobbies up to matchmaking with other users, otherwise there's literally no point to having the online experience. The whole point of playing online is to play with others. Segregation is not the answer. Again, if you swap it around and make the game PvE in the sandbox environment, and force folks to play PvPvE in private servers only, how well do you think that would be received? If it's detestable, how is it supposed to be palatable to PvE'ers to be walled off from interacting with others and grouping up in posses? If players who wanted open world PvP had to invite players into a private lobby to play the game because there was no matchmaking for the PvP free roam, how long do you suppose that would last? Again, I'm not advocating for anything to be changed from the current iteration as it comes when discussing the current PvPvE dynamic, but I don't believe private lobbies are going to be a tenable solution because of exploits, rank/stat boosting, farming, and other aspects that R* actively looks to curtail. Reducing rewards and XP gains effectively penalizes those players for pursuing a PvE experience, which is a form of punishment, and hardly conducive to a "separate but equal" environment. There's no way to make private lobbies a fair, equitable solution. Realistically, they have two options; leave the mechanic the way it is, or make PvP/PvE status a toggle as I've suggested, with a 60s cooldown once out of combat. Everyone gets what they want, except for trolls whose sole enjoyment in life is derived from ambushing players who want no part of being bushwacked. It takes no skill whatsoever to attack a player not actively defending themselves, so the game's community literally loses nothing by having these folks stymied. And the best part? Players like yourself, who enjoy random dangerous encounters with other players, lose nothing! These people will still attack players and you can still mop the floor with them.

Well, it certainly would look elitist of me to tell folks, "no videos" when I share them all the time. It's all about intent, and embedding a video at least give the viewer the option to press play or not while at least getting some semblance of the length and content, whereas linking out to a video is like playing Russian Roulette. I despise external links (must be all that IT Security training at work), so I try to be mindful of that when I comment here--though sometimes I can't help myself.

There's an inappropriate joke in there somewhere.... but I'll allow it for now.

Piggybacking off of what @Kean_1 said, the forum does not allow promotion of private media distribution channels. However, this does not preclude you from sharing content from your channel on the forum provided: (1) the content shared fits within the context of a relevant topic of conversation (i.e. sharing a funny video of in-game activity as part of a conversation in a thread); (2) the content is embedded in your comment within the forum, and is not a link to the page directly (i.e. "clickbait"); (3) multiple topics are not formed for the specific purpose of sharing videos from said channel--it's one thing to want to share content, but blatantly circumventing the rules will not be tolerated. I myself have shared videos that have been embedded from both my own YT content, and from other sources. There's no harm in that, provided you follow the guidelines above. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to any member of the moderation team via private message. Edit: one more tip--if you are sharing content or a video, specifically from youtube, please be mindful of using the "start at" feature provided by youtube's sharing function so that forum members don't have to sit through a five minute video to get to 30 seconds of content).

Donkeys are the superior beast of burden, even on three legs.

THAT'S your griefing "counter measure" right there. I have yet to meet a horse I wouldn't shoot. In the face. With a shotgun.

Oh, I'm firmly in the PvE camp myself. I suppose I'm just going to have to turn into a total nob online if I want to get any satisfaction out of the game, because for the brief time I played the other day, I couldn't get within ten feet of a town without a group of spazzes pulling a "Number Six" on me and everyone else. And all I wanted to do was go to the tailor so I didn't have to worry about getting bushwhacked out in an open field while looking through my catalog.

NEVER be ashamed of being a Swede (warning, slightly NSFW for language): All kidding aside, things to be ashamed of should have more to do with what you've done as a person than where you're from. Me? I should be ashamed of the time I crapped my pants at work. But it's going to take more than that to rattle my cage.

This is the most true statement in this thread. R* should be making announcements about expected content changes once the beta concludes. Will additional content to free roam be available at "launch" or is it a backburner item? The biggest impediment to the game's long term viability is the lack of free roam content. By making it a PvP environment (sorry @Kean_1, but with friendly fire being a persistent state, the game is absolutely PvP, and not PvPvE, like The Elder Scrolls Online), there's little for players to do once they achieve max rank other than kill each other in the free roam environment until endgame content, like raids or dungeons, is implemented. Maybe they have instanced, gated content like robbing a wagon train, bank heists, storming a fort to rescue an NPC or Posse member, whatever.

Historically, the last two "official" online game communities I've been a part of have devolved into cesspits of negative energy. It's one thing to have developers and people who work on the game actively engage the community, but not everyone is suited to handle communicating with "the public" or "the customer". That's where a lot of companies go wrong in that they not only allow, but encourage team members to answer on behalf of the company in an official capacity, when in reality they're irrefutably better off letting media professionals or community engagement specialists manage the process with limited, tightly controlled access to team members who actively work on a title. That's not to say that team members unilaterally incapable of interacting with the public, but the company stands to gain very little from the exposure and risk they create by allowing employees unfiltered access to interact with the customer base. In a case like R* and RDR2, the game has such an enormous install base that there isn't really much to gain by having an official community presence. By keeping official communication isolated to select gaming journalists, news outlets, and offical press releases, R* limits their exposure to potentially damaging communications by employees who aren't trained on how to effectively communicate with the public. Branding is VERY important in the modern culture. People get attached to brands and develop loyalty as a consumer, so it's imperative that a company find an effective way to not only obtain but RETAIN customers. An official online forum for specific games creates too much exposure to liability to be an asset worth pouring time and resources into, especially at the level that R* is at, when hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake. People here in the US seem to inaccurately adhere to the notion that the First Amendment, guaranteeing free speech, applies to the private sector. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Amendment is there to prevent the government from creating laws to restrict speech. Private companies absolutely retain the right to monitor employee activity both in and outside the workplace as a condition to employment. One of the biggest mistakes I see people make (particularly younger people) is the inability to segregate workplace and personal relationships in social media. I highly encourage everyone to maintain separate social media profiles for work and personal use, because you never know who is reading what you say/post online, and who may report what you're saying to your employer. Circling back to my original point, folks seem to forget that when they make comments in the public space (which includes online gaming communities), that their employer can be held accountable for their actions under the legal doctrine respondent superior . When employees participate in official communities of the companies they work for, it creates a very complicated situation for parties on all sides, so R* deciding to eschew an official online community (outside of the Rockstar Games Social Club) makes a lot of sense, especially from a legal and media management perspective. TL:DR; The most likely reason R* doesn't have an official online community is to limit their exposure in the event that an employee or agent says or does something stupid. And they really don't need one give the runaway financial success of their titles overall, and consumer brand loyalty.

Exactly why I have a "go-to" list of 5-10 places I know Mrs. Creed won't say "no" to. It covers an array of cultural culinary options, and it's never failed. Pro tip: always have your S.O.'s favorite desert option on the list. I know that for Mrs. Creed, every so often, I'll be going to Dairy Queen for a Blizzard instead of an actual meal. Which is fine with me because I pass the best tacos in town on the way back.

No worries bro, the argument could be perceived as insulting, but I know you're coming from a good place, and I definitely see your point. I just disagree with the idea of private lobbies being a solution to a PvE player's issues, because they're effectively locked out of grouping for content unless they have a group of friends available to play with at all times.

Again, I'm not even sure they SHOULD fix it. But suggesting private only servers for PvE players is dismissive and insulting to players who enjoy a PvE experience. There are enough threats out there without worrying about players shooting you in the back. Calling it a WIld West game doesn't justify the antics of some of these players. In the real WWW, people who indiscriminately murdered civilians were systemically hunted down by law enforcement and had to live life on the run devoid of any creature comforts. Again, telling people to switch lobbies if they don't like it is the highest form of elitism and putting the onus on the PvE segment of the portion to "go without" if they want to play the game. Private lobbies will limit access to all the MMO potions of the game, and is not a fair, tenable solution to the perceived issue. Allowing players to self-flag their status with a cooldown period is. It literally does nothing to your enjoyment of the game, unless your sole enjoyment is player killing people who are literally sitting ducks. It's not short-sighted to not want to participate in PvP but being forced to do so at this stage. Again, having a player's status be selectable eliminates the need to punish griefers, because if you don't want to be griefed, you can simply set your own, personalized setting to PvE and not have to worry about it. The only people losing in this scenario are people who like free kills or to grief. Players like you who enjoy that aspect of the game literally lose nothing because the players who are prone to PvP and griefing are still going to try and attack you, and you can still fight back. PvE players aren't going to attack you if you're as benign as you purport to be, so there's literally no reason to oppose a measure to have a player's status be self selectable, unless you enjoy killing players who are participating in PvE activities because they won't fight back. I fail to see the issue with having the status be selectable with a cooldown. There'd be no need to implement these penalties for griefers, and it's the simplest, most elegant solution short of having separate lobbies.