Everything Red Dead Online could have been if Rockstar hadn’t preferred GTA Online’s flying bikes and micropayments

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Everything Red Dead Online could have been if Rockstar hadn’t preferred GTA Online’s flying bikes and micropayments

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Do you know that song by Nena Daconte that says: “I had so much to give you, so many things to tell you, I had so much love in store for you.“Well that’s what I think every time I see anything about Red Dead Redemption 2 and Red Dead Online.

It’s been a long time since Rockstar Games finally had the decency to admit a reality that we all knew for a long time: Red Dead Online was not going to receive any more content and was left abandoned. The game has exorbitant sales, more than good reviews and a number of concurrent players who already want other current games.

You don’t have to be a genius to know the reasons, they have names and surnames: GTA Online and GTA VI. The flying motorcycles, the Shark Cards and the development of the next game in the franchise are responsible for Red Dead Online being left in the gutter.

What is Red Dead Online?

Red Dead Online it was released shortly after Red Dead Redemption II wowed us with its story. The multiplayer game mode promised the same experience, but with other players. Although at first there was little to do and many believed that it was “a GTA in the west“, it didn’t take long for the game to receive content and the community kicked out most of the toxic players.

The Red Dead Online experience is built on three pillars:

  • world events: activities that appear randomly on the map or in the list of popup events. Story missions are included.
  • Roles– Jobs and professions that each have their own quests, objectives, cosmetic collectibles, and tools.
  • open world exploration: fishing, hunting, secrets, taverns and poker…
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Red Dead Redemption's John Marston Voice Actor Talks His Wishes For The Franchise's Future

The main attraction of Red Dead Online is the roles. You can start them for a small amount of money and gold, both currencies can be easily obtained with daily missions and other activities. They were arriving periodically and currently there are:

  • bounty hunter: You accept contracts to kill or capture criminals and turn them over to the law. Features his own prison wagon, clothes, weapons and more.
  • Merchant: you must accumulate materials (animal skins, mostly) to finally make a delivery. You must pay the costs to prepare the work and carry it out. You can be mugged by other players, but it is extremely rare due to unwritten rules of conduct. It has its own prison, clothes, weapons and more.
  • Lycorist: very similar to merchant. You must make liquor with different ingredients and then sell it to the customer who offers you the most money. Other players can mug you, but again it’s extremely rare. It has its own wagon, your own tavern, clothes, weapons and more.
  • Collector– Buy treasure maps and search for valuable/ancient items to sell separately or in collection packs. This role is the most coveted due to the fact that it grants higher amounts of Gold. It is very simple to perform and extremely relaxing.
  • Naturalist: focuses on the study of animals. You must sedate them with special ammunition to take samples and deliver them to a lady who is raving crazy. If you access this role, killing animals will give you a few hard times.

All this gives many hours of play. I have accumulated up to 500 hours only in online mode… and I am one of the members of my group that has played the least. The thing is, Red Dead Online could have offered Much more if Rockstar had wanted to invest the time and listen to the community.

Red Dead Online, the land of lost opportunities…

The Red Dead Online community brought to the table unbelievably good ideas for Red Dead Online. In addition, rumors and leaks indicated that very promising content would arrive. If there were, they ended up in the Rockstar trash along with morality and respect for players.

I’m talking about fully achievable ideas. Not crazy ideas that other players usually have like: “Can you imagine points to control on the roofs of buildings with elevators as the only way to go up?”. Ahem, Battlefield 2042. No. I mean good ideas. Some are complex, but good.

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Red Dead Online is dead and Rockstar Games has killed it: I return to the Wild West to attend the funeral of an old friend

Properties in Red Dead Online

To this day, every character in Red Dead Online still lives in the same seedy camp they started out with, more or less outfitted and decked out. That there is not properties It is the best proof that Rockstar did not care exactly the same about this multiplayer.

The community tried very hard to make concepts and show which locations might be good to acquire and upgrade with different decorations, furniture and much more. were made up mods in campaign mode to illustrate the idea. In addition, clues were found in the game’s code.

The video that I share with you is one of the many that showed what could be the properties that you could acquire. The point is that the houses were only the beginning of ideas, because the thing went to more. Many players dreamed of power buy local (shops, taverns, sheriff’s offices, plantations…) to access extra income and unique missions just like in GTA Online. In fact, the Lycorist It has its own local and story missions.

As if this were not enough, it was also suggested that they could include fight clubs (Boxing without gloves) as a PVPE activity to gamble and socialize with other players in the role of a bartender.

More roles for Red Dead Online

There are very good ideas for new roles in Red Dead Online. The most famous was the Undertaker Role. Many players were convinced that this role would come with the highly anticipated expansion or event Undead Nightmare, which was already available in Red Dead Redemption. Neither one nor the other.

The role of undertaker was revealed after some dataminers find clues in the game code. The community put it this way: we can constantly see NPCs killing each other and other players killing NPCs in quests or for free.

The undertaker role had to be activated and a mark would appear on the map with the nearest body. The player had to take his car, load the dead and bury them in the area’s cemetery or burn them on the property that was included when starting said role. The rewards would range from your normal salary to what you could steal from the corpses, which could affect your karma bar.

This was just ONE of the many ideas that were put on the table for roles, as properties offered so many possibilities. Some ideas are:

  • horse breeder/rustler: Hunt and breed horses and then sell them in a similar way to the merchant. There was the legal variant and the illegal one, which was a rustler.
  • Fisherman, farmer, herder and more: they can be classified as “field work”. It is not crazy, since in the countryside we graze with sheep. The fisherman could have a boat. The most interesting was cultivator, who proposed a system of crops with irrigation, harvests and trade similar to the Licorista. Of course, you need to acquire a plantation or a property with plantations.
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Remembering one of my best adventures in Red Dead Online a la Toretto from Fast & Furious:

  • Minero the Gold Hunter: Red Dead Online has many caves, mines and rivers where we could find gold with the right equipment. In fact, we can find an NPC looking for gold at various points on the map.
  • Tavern, cabaret and brothel owner: This role would allow you to have your own tavern, cabaret and brothel. It was planned as a place that you could expand into the branch you wanted the most, each with costs and benefits. It’s not crazy, there are Night Clubs in GTA Online.

Heists and robberies in Red Dead Online

Los muggings and robberies in Red Dead Online they were almost a given for a while, but little by little hope was lost. Nothing had to be invented: the campaign features bank and train robberies, and GTA Online has the Hits. It seemed impossible that they did not reach Red Dead multiplayer… but Rockstar achieved the impossible.

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They were posed as independent missions and with preparatory side missions, exactly the same as in GTA Online. Other players suggested a type of steals to minor banks, stores y trains similar to the shop heists in GTA Online. You arrive, draw your weapon and destroy what you can quickly.

This last system of robberies raised the possibility of expand the bounty hunter role. By activating an option so that notifications of nearby places where a robbery occurred in the event that someone raised the alarm appear. The system of Vips and contracting of other GTA Online players would have been ideal for these purposes.

travel companions

The arrival of the dogs for the camp it was a ray of hope for many players. The dogs are currently an adornment of the camp. The community proposed that they become a travel companion and that they serve to improve the hunting system: tracking animals and hunting small prey such as rabbits.

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Additionally, different roles could have benefited from canine companions: bounty hunter to track criminals collectors to teach them to track valuable objects and naturalists to locate specific animals. And once again, not a crazy idea. The game Hunter: Call of The Wild He has this doggy system.

To this list of ideas, proposals for more aesthetic content, weapons, clothing, locations, animals and a next-gen version for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S (GTA Online does have it, what things!). This version would not only improve performance and graphics, but would implement many skinning animations (for example) from the campaign that are not in multiplayer. Once again Rockstar disappointed.

Here’s some of the content the community had in mind for Red Dead Online. We could bet that some of them were even raised by Rockstar Games… but the flying motorcycles and the Shark Cards from GTA V won the game. Once again, the amount of poor content trumps the quality of content. And there’s no hope, because Red Dead Online is officially abandoned. He already had his funeral and everything.

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