Not to defend Rockstar, because I think these practices are quite heinous and it seems that the top management at Rockstar is fully complicit in it, but I think it's less this one company whose processes are broken and more the industry as a whole. Based on pretty much everything I've read and heard about crunch culture in AAA game development, this is sadly not unusual. I assume it's more prevalent in the United States, seeing how employers don't really get much protection from such practices, as the hallowed free market solves all problems, amen.
I spent a good couple hours this morning just riding around looking for blackberries so I could make some hunting bait. Then my horse, Standard, got hit by a train. Dismayed I picked up the saddle and trudged over to the nearest train station, waited till nightfall for a train that just ended up rolling right past without stopping. What a day.
Pro-tip for better controls.
https://twitter.com/RobinGaming/stat...63854298071044
Clearly, trains are the root cause of all ills. I'm assuming you finally just called an Uber?Originally Posted by henke
Luckily a horse I could use came by shortly thereafter. I mean, sure, there was this guy on the horse, but he, uh, look, don't worry about it. It's my horse now.
Ooooh, I'm a fan of disabling minimaps in games like these, but I hadn't looked into the options for that yet. Will definitely turn it off.
If, after a fight, you want to check where the bodies are that you haven't searched yet, you can even briefly show the regular minimap by pressing d-pad down (and by holding it, you can switch between minimap options on the fly). It's pretty neat and user-friendly.
It makes me wonder how many people worked themselves into the ground under pressure on various games I've been enjoying recently, but I realise it has been going on for years. The anime industry in Japan is similarly broken where animators can barely scrape by on piecework rates.
The game actually tells you about the minimap options, or at least it did for me. I'm gradually getting the hang of the area around the camp, getting in and out of town, checking signposts to see if I can manage to get around without using the anachronistic seeming satnav that the game gives you. The environment is so detailed it is possible to navigate by details like where the telegraph poles are by the railroad, or even the location of a particular bush, or an area of burnt forest...
Found an interesting thing near Hani's Bethel - have a look around there if you get the chance.
I'm really liking it. The attention to detail is astonishing and way beyond anything I've seen in triple-a before.
I am finding that to also be a pain in the ass though with needless levels of complication, and the interface design is as bad as Rockstar's interface design has ever been.
I also had to load an earlier save last night due to my bounty becoming ridiculously high after botching a backroom robbery in Valentine. I played on for about an hour after raising my bounty to $225, which meant that bounty hunters would start finding me even in the wild whilst hunting. And every time they killed me, my funds would go down even more, so I was never going to be able to make enough money to pay off the bounty.
But even so, it's got its hooks into me, and I'm looking forward to playing it again when I get home.
The random encounters are sublime:
Whilst riding across country back to camp, I came across a Mexican feller shooting bottles on a ridge who challenged me to shoot more bottles than him and win $5. I did that handily, so he upped the ante to $10 to see who would be the first to shoot down four birds. It quickly became apparent that my skills aren't quite up to that yet, so upon getting frustrated while he was still shooting birds, I levelled my rifle at the back of his head and shot him. Man, I felt like such an asshole while I was looting his corpse.
I came across a gentleman who was having problems with his horse by the side of the road. He was crouched behind it trying to get something out of one of its back feet. I called out to him to ask if he needed help, and he turned around with a startled yelp only for his horse to kick him in the head, killing him instantly.
Arthur said "Damn!"
I said, "Woohoo! New Horse!"
My $15 dollar nag called Pillock, barely bigger than a deer, was a wheezy old thing. This horse was a large, well formed racing horse.
Of course, then some stranger rode past the scene and apparently pegged me as a murderer.
I also somehow managed to kill a legendary bear after Josea lead me to it. He wussed out and returned to camp, and I thought I could take it on easily. After all, we'd already shot it a coupla times before it ran off.
I tracked it into the nearby hills and took a potshot at it with my rifle. That just pissed it off, whereupon it charged me down and started to go all Revenant on my cowpoke ass. While it was mauling me, I was desperately pulling the trigger, and to my surprise, I actually managed to kill it, between frantic close range pistol shots and stabs with my knife.
A bit the worse for wear with my coat and face savaged by bear claws, I skinned it and put my prize on my horse.
While heading to the trapper the game then informed me about, I came across a lady trapped under the corpse of her horse. I hopped down and helped her out. Most grateful, she asked if I could take her in to town. Town was in the opposite direction, and I couldn't fit her and my bearskin on the horse at the same time, so I declined to take her home. She gamely limped off on her way back to Valentine, obviously pissed off that Arthur wasn't going to take her back to town.
But I got to the trapper who made me a neat hat out of my bearskin.
Now people in camp keep asking me "What are you wearing?!"
I'm sure the missions are superb, but I kinda want to see if I can stay away from those as much as possible and just make my way through the world hunting and helping folks out.
I will also say that their deliberate decision to use unknown actors in all roles is also very welcome. I completely agree that celebrity voices can end up pulling you out of the moment. Just hope they all get royalties.
I've also not knowingly come across a duplicated voice from an NPC yet, and I'm also beginning to realise that in town at least, the NPCs seem to be persistent.
Heh, I had a lot of those same encounters. I also played it for most of yesterday but only did one story mission. When you're having too much fun with the open world to bother with the story, you know it's a good one.
I was glad to hear John Marston's voiceactor return. I read this article a few years back about how he quit the industry after RDR, so I figured they might've gotten someone else for the part. I always go over to John and bug him when I'm at the camp, just to hear what he has to say.
I also came by the guy who was kicked to death by his own horse. I’ve also sucked poison out of a guy’s leg, walked past him in Valentine by the gunsmith and he offered to buy me a gun. A story mission gives you and off hand holster so you can dual wield pistols. You get some useful items of missions so there is that benefit. I’ve found the missions too well written to ignore them, but maybe I should give hunting a try eventually. I’ve not felt like going full on outlaw and trying to hold up stores because of the bounty problem Malf came across as well. You can end up with something that’s impossible to clear so making a save before trying stuff is a good idea.
Some parts of the story do leave you with a high bounty in some states that you can’t pay off. I’ve yet to see when you can clear those.
The game is clearly excellent whatever you fancy doing.
After reading both Eurogamer and Kotaku articles, I'm not buying this out of principle. Management decided it's okay to ruin people's lives and relationships, because they decided e.g. it will be fancy to have black bars at the top and bottom for more cinematic effect (and so all cinematics had to be redone late in production). Attention to detail in this game is insane, but it's not something to boast about, since it literally drove people insane and affected their physical and mental health. I'm not going to support that.
I respect that - yet I think the problem is widespread and one might legitimately stop buying most AAA games for the same reasons.
PC version all but officially confirmed.
https://www.polygon.com/2018/10/28/1...pc-version-app
https://www.pcgamer.com/red-dead-red...kedin-profile/
The amount of sales affects the developers' bonuses.
Some fans have asked if they should avoid buying or playing Red Dead Redemption 2 to show support for those who had tough experiences making it, but many of Rockstar’s current and former employees — even those who had the worst things to say about the company — say they’re against the idea.
For one, those who put long weeks into the game want people to see what they’ve done. Also, given that this year’s bonuses will be based on royalties, any sort of large-scale boycott may hurt Rockstar employees more than it helps, some current employees have said.
What fans can instead do, those people say, is speak out about crunch and workplace issues such as this, helping put public pressure on the company.
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/10/ro...ure-of-crunch/
Last edited by EvaUnit02; 30th Oct 2018 at 06:27.
I buy like 1 or 2 AAA titles a year now, and typically a year after launch, so I kind of did. I prefer shorter (4-12 hour) and more original experiences these days.
The idea is not to support current broken model, it's to let it collapse and give way to something new and better. "One more time for the cool devs" ensures this will happen again. It needs to be repeated again and again: crunch is a giant failure of the management, and no amount of great games will make it look otherwise. In a long term, this way of life makes the most talented people leave the industry forever.
Question to those who are playing it: yesterday I did that mission where you encounter the legendary bear. I killed it and went to see the trapper but didn't have enough money to have him do anything with the bear skin, so I sold it, because otherwise it would have taken up space on the back of my horse. Here's what I'm wondering: Will I have more chances to get legendary bear skins in order to have the trapper make me a complete outfit? If not, can I buy the bear skin back once I've got some money? And finally: would there have been a way to hang on to the bear skin without it 'blocking' my horse for the next few hours?
Okay, I'm still working this out myself, but as far as I can tell, you only have to kill the legendary animal once. Indeed, I don't think you can kill it again.
Once you've sold its skin to the trapper, that unlocks the ability for him to craft stuff that requires that pelt.
I think the number of skins he requires in the ingredients list is the total number you've handed in throughout your dealings with him. So if an item says it requires 1 legendary bear skin, and you've already bought another item that required a legendary bear skin, you don't need another legendary bear skin.
LEGENDARY BEAR SKIN.
Of course, this supposition may be complete hogwash and poppycock.
I lost the legendary ghost bison skin last night. The game flashed up some message that stayed on screen for far too short a time to read saying something about going to the trapper, so I'm hoping that's a way to respawn the animal.
I lost it, because after I killed it I noticed a beautiful white horse prancing about in the snow behind the corpse. It turned out to be an Arabian and the best, most well-rounded horse I've seen so far. But it was incredibly skittish, and in my attempts to sooth and break it, I ran afoul of a wolf pack
Thanks, Malf. It'd definitely make sense for it to work that way.
It’s consistent with you donating stuff to Pearson to unlock satchel upgrades etc.
Cheers, that's definitely good to know. I should soon come into a nice sum of money thanks to that gold bar that's burning a hole into my satchel, so I foresee a couple of upgrades in the not-too-distant future.
Those of you playing on PS4 have probably already heard about this, but apparently the HDR implementation in the game is borked. I didn't notice anything myself, but once I'd switched off HDR it was clear that the colours had been a bit muted beforehand. If you've got an HDR display, it may still make sense to deactivate HDR to see how it looks and decide which you prefer.
Also, I've checked out the smartphone/tablet companion app and really like it. IMO it's easier to read the journal at leisure on the app than on a TV screen, and it's also easier to check out the map, set waypoints and the like. The app isn't essential, but it is well worth installing and checking out. (There's some more info here: https://www.polygon.com/2018/10/30/1...n-app-features)
Last edited by Thirith; 1st Nov 2018 at 07:01.
Thanks for the app tip Thirith. I don't have any HDR options apparently, but that might be because the TV doesn't support it.
Has anyone encountered the crazy men north of Annesburg? They took me by surprise and I didn't realise they could stab you to death instantly.
I've noticed the app may be a bit power hungry as my phone has become very warm very fast...
Don't think I've encountered those particular ones scumble, but I have encountered plenty of crazies. Mostly in the swamp. Instakill stabs are really bloody annoying, especially in a game with no quicksave.
I've just realised I'm probably playing this at a ridiculously slow pace as far as the story's concerned. I've only just got around to unlocking the fishing rod. Just having too much fun exploring and playing with the systems.
A couple of side-quests have really hit me hard too, especially one of the home robberies, Crawfish Jackson. Just... damn.
Wish I could go back and try to use non-lethal methods
I think we're playing at the same exact pace Malf, I also just got the fishing rod, and by an amazing coincidence a while later killed Crawfish Jackson and felt terrible about it. I am a bad man. Btw the mission with John just after the fishing one has a really nice The Assassination of Jesse James homage. The main cutscene is almost a shot-for-shot recreation of a scene from the movie. I figure Thirith will appreciate that.
After a week of playing I'm at around 31% total completion, and 21% story completion. This sure is a big game.
Here's a hot tip for y'all: if you spot some bloodstains next to the road, follow the trail of blood if you wanna see some fucked up shit.
RE: HDR option, I don't have it either. I guess it's just in the PS4 Pro version.
Let me whine about the story missions and how I wish this was more of an immersive sim
I'm not crazy about the story missions. I'm kinda split on them. Early on in the game when I noticed how deep a lot of the systems were and how viable it was to play in first person I started thinking "oh my god is this a proper COWBOY IMM SIM now?", but that illusion vanishes when you start a story mission. If it were an immersive sim I feel like the game would just give you an objective and then leave it up to you to use the systems of the game to complete it any way you wish, but nope, rather missions play out in a rigidly scripted fashion. It's all "go here, do this thing. go to this second place, do another thing. go to a third place, do a third thing. ok, mission done." I'm not saying these set-piece heavy affairs are bad. They're not, in fact they're varied and often very entertaining, but I still mourn for the cowboy imm sim this could've been.
Even worse, the game often strips out systems during story missions. I've found myself unable to whistle for my horse, lead my horse, or even holster my gun at certain points because that's not what the game wanted me to do at that specific moment. In the video on the last page Jim Sterling laments that it's a good game that occasionally gets interrupted by an overly cumbersome cowboy sim, but I'd say it's the other way around. It's a great cowboy sim that frequently gets interrupted by a game.
That seems par for the course, really. All the GTAs work like that too, and Rockstar's not been one to really mess around with its gameplay design, stiff and unyielding as it's always been. Frankly, GTA 5 was the first time in a GTA game I felt like the on-foot moving and shooting was about adequate in that it wasn't a fucking hot mess (though that UI and all of GTA online still is), so change on any fundamental gameplay front is slower than glacial. Maybe RDR 5 (eta: 2039) will have that fully emergent open-ended mission system, eh?
Major RDR2 DOH!! Moment part #41
As I was galloping around the wilderness (minus my hat) I came across a woman in distress, so I got in closer and she was under a dead horse, so being the gentleman I am, I lifted the horse so she could get up, we chatted and she asked for a lift to Emerald Ranch where tragedy struck, I accidentally pulled the right trigger and blew her brains out with my shotgun ��
Of course I looted her body and escaped before the law cought up with me.
True Story!
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