SimonTemplar

Fine, that's me sold - now the only choice is black or white (I have a black thoroughbred and am quite attached to him!). Thank you for pushing me over the edge.

Pin a badge on me and I'd be happy. Love to be a Marshal or something. Think outlaw is another good shout. Would give some structure to those who want to do PvP play, and maybe then leave some more room for those who wish to avoid it to do so (as the players who want that would often become law or outlaw and then focus on one another). Would also enable innocent traders maybe to call on player lawmen if attacked by player outlaws?

I don't always get the parley option and don't always get the 'press charges' option, I get them 90% of the time but not always. I figured it's a minor glitch but didn't bother reporting them (as pressing charges does nothing and I never met an opponent I couldn't run away from successfully!).

Right there with you - many a happy evening spent hunched over the C64, trying to lock missiles and hoping to avoid Thargoids. Happy days, and the new game comes close. But I'm a cowboy at heart, it turns out. That's good advice right there. I had to restart initially as I couldn't live with my new face. Felt like a mobster who had gone on the run on the cheap and had his face done in a back alley in a banana republic.

I'm not sure that there are beginner sessions? I saw everyone from level 6 up to someone at level 406 (!) last night, with several over 200. I'm 85 and almost always alone, so now only do short deliveries. A banked $500 is much better than a risky $625 for me - if I lose one in four long runs then the money is the same between the two. I'm a trader in real life so perhaps I just look at Risk:Reward too much but I think you're going to run out of luck doing solo long deliveries on a day when a new legendary bounty hasn't dropped. I find enough players lurking at dropoff points as it is! Respect to you, though!

Always good to hear of another cowboy introduced to the Old West by their kids at Christmas! Mine bought me the game, and got naming rights over my first four horses as part of the deal. So now I have four horses, all with ridiculous names - Festive Jim, Festive Lolly, Festive Chestnut and Festive Snowy, one for each of the children. The first two are named after our cats, the third no idea why, and the fourth by my six year old daughter as it's a white horse she bought me for Christmas (yes, she thinks of it as buying me a horse for Christmas). Given she's six it could have been much worse. Slightly tricky to strike the 'tough man of the West' tone with a horse named 'Festive Snowy' standing behind you, but a man does his best. The memories our kids give us!

Yes I'd echo the responses above. Until 18 months ago I had never gamed online, despite being a gamer for any years. Then my eldest son (he's 14, I'm 45) got into playing Fifa online with his school friends, so asked me if I could set up Xbox Live at home (he was gaming on my old Xbox One, the ever-lovely Mrs Templar got me a One X that Christmas). I did, and then realised that my game of choice at the time (Elite Dangerous) had an online mode. I tried that out of pure curiosity, died a lot but loved the online experience. Then last Christmas my kids got me RDR2 (apparently I had been 'going on about how great it was going to be for months'), and I completed the single player campaign twice and loved it. I'm on FB so saw a lot of chatter about online, so dipped my toe in over the Summer. Fast forward a few months and I am level 85, play solely RDR online (have even stopped Elite Dangerous, cripes, and I love that game but something had to give), and am on most days. In terms of what to expect, it really is just a sim of being a wandering cowboy at the end of the Old West, so you can make of it what you will. Personally, I spend around 75% of my time alone, mixing up hunting, fishing, looking for treasure and some bounty hunting. I also put a lot of time into developing my camp, as well as my own character's equipment, clothing and horses. I have a few different clothing/horse combos which I cycle between for different sessions, depending on what I am doing, each with its own weapons loadout. The other 25% of my time, I am in posses with a few acquaintances I met purely through the game. For instance, last night a posse leader noticed that I was online, reformed the posse, and the three of us teamed up for some bounty hunting. I am in another posse which does some voice comms, turns out the posse leader is a steel fabricator, while I am a currency trader. I think that most of the players are adults, and many are (like Elite) older gamers with kids or grandchildren. But it is an open sandbox game. There are various online challenges, where players compete against one another (I like to do one where you look for buried treasure, winner is the one who finds the most, and one where you work together to defend a train against bandits, but there are many I have not tried), but really you can just ride around finding adventures as you come across them. There are many parallels to Elite, if you have played that - that is a space ship, this is a horse, but really how you approach both games is entirely up to you. It is the best antidote to real life that I have found.

Yes, I'm pretty levelled up, decent horse, decent firepower with decent ammunition, but still seem to come off second best most times if I try to defend myself against another human player. Am thinking I need to look into the dark art of these passive cards or whatever they are called as I need some sort of leveller. I rarely even use deadeye (not that I'd have time to use it against humans!). I was supping a Baileys and ice while gaming last night. Clearly need to reach for something stronger to unlock my full anti-griefing potential!

Dang I shouldn't have read this thread. I bought my first top-level horse last night (the $950 Kladruber) and absolutely love it, although I only bonded to level 2. Was coming from a thoroughbred. But the Kladruber is another level, love it (and faster than I expected). Yet here I am feeling I have to try the Black Arabian now, sounds great (had previously worried it would be too small -not worried about being bucked, am level 83 and have been bucked only a handful of times when animals surprised us).

Yes I noticed the one about donating to Cripps. Hoped it was just me in that session. Vain hope, probably - agree that it messes with muscle memory. Cool new bounty though, ranked me up to #20 so I have maxed the three collector roles, finally, and liked the pressure of having to bring her in alive.

Lol it's obviously the lightning reflexes part I'm getting wrong!

I was riding into Valentine last night, to visit the stable to buy a horse, was riding pretty quickly and had no players visible on the radar, then suddenly just before I get there a player shoots me dead in one shot. Bolt action rifle to the head, apparently. Didn't see who it was, where they were, had no weapons drawn, none of it. I just respawned and went and bought my horse but I do wonder what they get out of it. It ought, imho, to mobilise law and trigger a hefty bounty, but crime is almost unpunished in the land of RDR.

I only do trade route and salvage for that reason - other players can't shoot you!

Yes, they're great, I do these and Salvage every time they pop up. Trade Route also seems to give around 350xp, too, in addition to any kills. Doing those and salvage, plus as you say the increased wagon turnaround Trade Route gives, and I am ranking up more quickly than ever. Love this added content.

I only do local deliveries (don't fancy taking on player posses solo when it's my livelihood!) in a large delivery wagon (so $500 a time) and have had this several times. Good fun!!

I have now had this for a few days and, in conjunction with the large delivery wagon, it has changed my (RDR) life/economy. Making $500 a run for local deliveries, I made four of those in my first two sessions, so easily paying for the investment in my camp. Now I can fast travel in when I take good carcasses, then run other missions while Cripps works his magic. Suddenly I have gone from being a subsistence economy to having $3-4000 in cash constantly, freeing me up to just do what I fancy. Also started me levelling up more quickly - in the eighties now and doing a couple of ranks a session. Amazing stuff. Just need to work out how to work the hunting wagon now (bought it with my new-found riches but haven't used it).

It was working on my Xbox last night, and has been throughout the week, so maybe is just PS4.

That made me feel better and I didn't even have a problem!

Sorry to hear that you have had a stressful start to the game. But I really wouldn't let YT videos put you off, or make assumptions about the game based on the events recorded on there. Someone could play for 100 hours, post a three minute video and it wouldn't necessarily represent their gameplay or gaming experience at all. For my part, I am level 68, 20 Collector, 20 Trader and 17 Bounty Hunter, so while I still feel like a rookie I have put in a fair few hours. I have never been blown up, I have been hogtied by other players twice (killed one), had my horse killed twice (killed the guys who did it both times) and been attacked by random individuals/posses maybe six or seven times, in months of play. I don't pop tonics in free roam, don't understand the card system so leave it alone (my cards are all level 1 costing $50, and I don't use anything fancy in terms of weapons loadout - twin Schofields with high velocity ammo for in close, Litchfield repeater with high velocity ammo for horseback/large battles, and a scoped Springfield if I need some long range stuff. That's it, all stuff you can earn early in the game. The vast majority of my combat encounters I win, if I'm not winning I can get away (love race horses!) and the majority of my player encounters are benign. I was collecting up in the hills north of Manzanita Post last night, disturbed a bear but was only holding a .22 rifle, so ran away across a river on horseback. At the last minute I realised that I was racing towards a guy who was fishing. He understandably stopped fishing and drew a pistol, but didn't shoot. I quickly messaged him to say 'b-b-bear..!' and he waved, I tipped my hat and we went our separate ways. I wouldn't have blamed him had he just shot me from the off (most would have done - he probably couldn't see the bear, and I passed within 10 yards of him) but he didn't, and that is much more representative of my player encounters overall. And the odd fight is fun and realistic, and I can handle myself, despite not being some tanked up war machine (I'm a stressed out, 45 year-old, married father of four seeking some distraction in the Old West). I never feel uncompetitive. So I'd just relax and let your own game experience shape your opinion of the game, rather than worrying about a few juicers posting on YT. They won't post the dull bits, after all. Happy Trails.

Yes, oddly I noticed a posse camp last night which didn't have the stew pot and thought it was an odd omission given I have one. Makes sense to share - it's stew, after all!

Personally I'd rather ditch defensive/and other modes altogether (grubs like me never understand them anyway) and just stick us all in a big sandbox but with bigger consequences. So if someone attacks another player for no good reason and the victim presses charges (which seems to do nothing) there would be an instant, more serious bounty, some law turn up, maybe bounty posters as well, so the aggressor would field some real heat. That would either deter the casuals and they'd stop, or the hardcore would enjoy the attention and would carry on but that in itself would be realistic and would improve the game realism. As it stands, a bounty poster will send me after an NPC because the committed one relative innocuous crime, but a player can murder a whole town and my horse (you know which part of that I find particularly unpalatable) and get off scott-free. If a stranger shoots me that's actually fine, but he needs to expect some payback, both from me and the authorities and other players who are into fighting the good fight.

Yes I agree with the feeling behind this. I love being in a posse, but am not really interested in running one. Four of us did the new bounty at three and four stars yesterday, and brought in a few regular bounties, and did a little hunting for the leader's camp in between. I never get help with my own trading, I just do it as and when and run solo, local missions. I have the medium wagon, having the large (should happen soon, it's about all I have left to buy of the structural stuff, and I am now level #65 after yesterday's bounties and some collecting). Trouble is, we had to log off (school run!) before we ran in the delivery, so the hunting only benefits me as I enjoyed helping out, I won't financially profit from it (indeed, I set my own hunting back). I don't mind personally at all (collecting has made me ridiculously rich and I'm ranking up so fast that I always seem to have a treasure map), but I can see why many players would feel torn between posses and flying solo. Maybe joint wagons for posses, and each having our own Cripps table in a shared camp is the way forward, although (not being an expert) I imagine that'd be a nightmare to code.

So if you have a deer on the back of your horse and use FT to go directly into Camp, the deer is still there when you get there??? For some reason I thought that you couldn't use the Camp FT to transport goods for Crips..? This could be life-changing if I am reading you right!

I was buying new clothes last night and realised that I have various new shirts and vests which I didn't buy, so it seems that my last few gifts have been a multicoloured wardrobe!

In a similar vein to some of the things mentioned in this thread, last night I was in Valentine. I was inside the saloon, getting a haircut, in defensive mode. I had no back/shoulder weapons with me (they were on my horse), and hadn't had any interactions with other players on the way in. My sole purpose in town was to buy some new clothes and get a haircut ahead of changing my home location and horse. I suddenly got a prompt on the screen saying 'your horse has been critically injured'. The horse I left tied up outside the saloon. So I race outside, no horse. The horse icon is on the map, in red and white, and I had a prompt saying that I had to give him a reviver or he'd die. So I race towards the icon, find Jim in a field outside town, and he dies as I get there. Really upsetting. There's a level 26 player called Mihkail something whose icon has gone red, and he's racing away from me on a different (presumably his own) horse. I get the prompt saying that he has had to pay a penalty (but it's like $4, pointless as a deterrent). So I whistle up my next stabled horse (fortunately its a quick one) and ride off after Mikhail, to ask him about it. I ride for 30 seconds, he's on a clifftop towards Emerald Ranch, as I crest a ridge Mikhail shoots me, headshot with a rifle, I'm dead. What a di*k. So I press charges, respawn, message him ingame asking 'why did you murder my horse?' (he ignores me) then switch to Litchfield repeater with explosive ammo, chase him down and execute him as he's trying to draw his revolver. I got 25 extra xp for 'avenging horse'. Which I didn't know about and was cool. Mikhail then quit the server. But what is with some people? And do I now have to hide my horse while getting a haircut?!? Mihkail stole, rode and killed my horse despite me never having done a thing. I can play aggressively if I need to but I'd prefer a bit of live and let live if people are just minding their own business!