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How the West Was Digitized: The Making of Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2

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Re: How the West Was Digitized: The Making of Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2

#41

Post by ajmurmann »

nullstyle wrote: post #30
ajmurmann wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a shocking statement. You are there to hear the tree falling in the forest. Are you saying that your reason of playing video games is to get acknowledgement from others? I find this shocking because it's incredibly in line with discussions and articles that claim that a large portion of younger men had been deprived by society from getting a sense of belonging and accomplishment and is now using video games a…

This is a unfortunate statement, as there are many reasons to game. I'm guessing you havent really spent much time gaming. For me, the most important part of gaming for me is sharing time with my far-flung-friends. We're not watching a tree fall, we're building a campfire together. Sharing GTA5's space with 7 friends is much better than a group video call with the same crowd, for example. Acknowledgment from others d…

Unfortunately I've spent a lot of time gaming. Not much online with friends though. At least not in recent years.

You make a very valid point that sounds entirely different than OP's "tree falling in the forest" argument.

Re: How the West Was Digitized: The Making of Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2

#42

Post by fzzzy »

onlyfortoday2 wrote: post #26
parabx wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've finished the game this week and found it thoroughly amazing. It's definitely one of the best games I've played, and lives up to the first one. The first hours were pretty hard since the controls are weird, and the pace of the game is different than the current games, but after that... My god, what an experience! Even the chores, which are designed on purpose to be annoying, are fun to do because it makes you soa…

"which are designed on purpose to be annoying" why?

You get a reward for doing the chores, so they have to slow down how fast you can do them so you don’t buff forever super quickly. The chores are repetitive: chop wood, carry hay, carry water. So they could be perceived as annoying or as peaceful and relaxing, depending on who is playing.

Re: How the West Was Digitized: The Making of Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2

#43

Post by fzzzy »

mercer wrote: post #36
hoorayimhelping wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is enormous and a huge simulation and really fun to explore. After you do that, you realize missions are repetitive (ride a horse here, we promise there won't be trouble, oops there's trouble, shoot everyone Orthur), the main story is frustratingly dumb (how many times will these morons I'm supposed to empathize with ride into a town, act smarter than everyone, and then get taken advantage of?). I absolutel…

The last open-world game that I played before RDR2 was Breath of the Wild, and I found the difference in philosophy very interesting. Where RDR2 is filled to the brim with content, encounters, story and mechanics, it does become apparent after a while that it's all more or less hard-coded. And I felt that a lot of the actual gameplay stuff (UI, controls) suffered from too many of the problems that the previous games…

I totally agree. Creative mechanics that mix together to create emergent gameplay is the future. Rdr2 has a bit of it with the fire simulation, but in the end it’s the same old engine with the same old scripted events. Rdr2 is still amazing and very fun though.

Re: How the West Was Digitized: The Making of Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2

#44

Post by Sylos »

dweekly wrote: post #28
empath75 wrote: post #27

I’m sort of ambivalent about the game and it’s largely because I have two young kids at home and have maybe an hour at a time to play and the amount of what I would call ‘empty’ time in the game really stands out. There have been times where I’ve done all the work I need to do to get some unbroken alone time, spent 40 minutes playing and gotten absolute nothing accomplished which really sucks given that it might be t…

Request for service: Dad Game Reviews. Games that are fun to play and more engaging than the mindless idlers and puzzles that are out there today but support meaningful episodes of 30-40 minutes.

The entire genre of roguelikes might fit that.

Because they generally have this permadeath mechanic, every step in the game is meaningful to not losing, and the game developers are also kind of forced to make every part of the game fun and not too tedious or superfluous, as you'll generally replay them many times.

I currently quite enjoy Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, which you will need a free afternoon to get into, but after that, you can even have meaningful episodes of 5 minutes. You're not gonna complete a run in 5 minutes, that's rather gonna take 8 hours (though the world record is at less than 30 minutes), but you can load up the game, play a few hundred turns and then save and quit easily in that time.

http://crawl.develz.org/

Re: How the West Was Digitized: The Making of Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2

#45

Post by earenndil »

mercer wrote: post #38
kingbirdy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main problem with the game was how willing it was to fail you on whatever your current objective was. For example, I passed a woman on the side of the road with a broken leg who needed help. Easy enough, I stopped and offered her a ride. She couldn't get on though because I had pelts on my horse. In the time it took me to walk back to my horse and drop the pelts, she'd yelled at me "Fine, I'll get home myself" and…

Why is it called 'Rockstar Claw'?

You have to hold down 'x' to run, and if you don't you go maddeningly slowly.

Re: How the West Was Digitized: The Making of Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2

#46

Post by pier25 »

TimesOldRoman wrote: post #21
tkiley wrote: post #11

I haven't played a big-budget game in years, but I decided to give RDR2 a try, specifically because reviewers described it as slow and boring. I think it's great, for the exact reason that other people think it's slow and boring. It's specifically designed to quash your tendency to speedrun or minmax: It requires you to simply come along for the ride. On the one hand, this is a bit annoying sometimes. On the other ha…

I'm still on Witcher 3. Hopefully it will last until Cyberpunk 2077..

The other day I saw that hour long gameplay video 2077 and it was mesmerizing. I can't wait to play it, will probably even upgrade my PC just for that game, but OTOH the world looks so immersive and deep I fear that I'd need a couple of weeks off.

Re: How the West Was Digitized: The Making of Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2

#47

Post by pier25 »

Just today I started playing it, and it's really impressive. It's like being in a Cormac McCarty novel.

I imagine the pacing, realism, and atmosphere is not for everyone, but if it is your cup of tea this is (so far) a masterpiece in single player gaming.

Re: How the West Was Digitized: The Making of Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2

#48

Post by cjf4 »

cletus wrote: post #2

Lots of respect for Rockstar but... Add FL I alone on that I thought GTAV was at best soulless and at worst terrible. I almost stopped playing when Trevor became available. Whereas GTA4 was genuine satire (Republican space rangers anyone?) the sequel had poor characters and I honestly have never gone back to it since finishing the main storyline, the first time this was true in the series. Anyway RDR2 Looks amazing.…

The story in that game was an awful pastiche of 90s era action movies. No nuance or depth to any of the characters.

Re: How the West Was Digitized: The Making of Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2

#49

Post by giobox »

culot wrote: post #33
cletus wrote: post #2

Lots of respect for Rockstar but... Add FL I alone on that I thought GTAV was at best soulless and at worst terrible. I almost stopped playing when Trevor became available. Whereas GTA4 was genuine satire (Republican space rangers anyone?) the sequel had poor characters and I honestly have never gone back to it since finishing the main storyline, the first time this was true in the series. Anyway RDR2 Looks amazing.…

I don't think the last one ever made it to PC, I assumed this one also would never get there.

While it’s true RDR 1 never made it to PC, with GTA V rockstar invested a lot optimising their tech stack for PC - it’s a huge leap in quality over the pretty poor port of GTA IV.

GTA V’s PC port was also financially an enormous success, it cemented a place in Steams top seller list for years thanks to the success of GTA Online.

Couple this with the leaked RDR 2 PC developer job titles that have been discovered via oversharing Rockstar employees on LinkedIn, I think there is a good chance RDR2 follows the GTA V release model and a PC version hits 12-18 months after console release.

I bet a significant number of gamers ended up buying GTA V twice at full price thanks to the staggered release schedule last time (I and many friends certainly did), I’d not be surprised at all if this factors in their decisions.

Re: How the West Was Digitized: The Making of Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2

#50

Post by giobox »

empath75 wrote: post #27

I’m sort of ambivalent about the game and it’s largely because I have two young kids at home and have maybe an hour at a time to play and the amount of what I would call ‘empty’ time in the game really stands out. There have been times where I’ve done all the work I need to do to get some unbroken alone time, spent 40 minutes playing and gotten absolute nothing accomplished which really sucks given that it might be t…

This is definitely an issue I encountered as a new dad playing RDR 2. That said, this game is such a landmark achievement, the scale and ambition is largely without precedent, it was still worthwhile persevering for me in small chunks.
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