RDO Next Updates Speculation & General Chat (Part I)

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, AltiMetro said:

Habibi, I'm sorry. 
I can't get in a back-and-forth with you anymore. 

You keep missing the point myelf (and others) make - all the time. 
You don't respond to questions.
Sometimes it seems as if you respond to questions that weren't even asked. 
And it's really, really hard to figure out what you mean a lot of the time. 

okay

[Tez2]

They are obviously gonna come up with large updates in the future to retain the players. When it comes up to content like Heists, it's just a matter of time of when it would likely arrive. GTA Online broke records in terms of player numbers 6-7 years after release. It doesn't have to take the same amount of time, but it does show that they can take their time and bring back players years after.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Tez2 said:

They are obviously gonna come up with large updates in the future to retain the players. When it comes up to content like Heists, it's just a matter of time of when it would likely arrive. GTA Online broke records in terms of player numbers 6-7 years after release. It doesn't have to take the same amount of time, but it does show that they can take their time and bring back players years after.

I am wondering, do they plan to release new roles in the future or they will continue to expand the existing ones?

Edited May 18, 2021 by Guest

[Caffeination]

It’s been 235 days since I last played this game... I think. I can’t remember exactly, what I’m sure is that it’s been ages, at least, I’m going by my last save file on story mode for reference

 

Anyway, I’ve been surprised by the huge amount of coupons I’ve received upon logging in. I mean, hundreds of RDO$? Fine, guess I’ll add that to my bloated $71K figure, as if that’ll make difference, perhaps I might as well make use of the free clothing coupons since I’m here... but holy hell, after killing my free time by playing the Hitman series instead of this crap, I’m astounded by how clunky it is. I wasn’t sure why people compared controlling online characters like a boat, but it does feel like it. I kept running into things on-foot and hitting walls, things you’d expect of a low level fool who recently installed the game and went straight to online.

 

I reinstalled the game since I stumbled across the currently active trader role event, which made me reminisce about the chill times in which I was holding the aim trigger with one hand and browsing my phone with the other during distant empty lobby sales. I’m disappointed that full lobbies are a thing again, because I remember that means fishing becomes difficult since fish will have a hard time spawning, and while I had the pleasure of hunting a cougar on the way to Blackwater, it seemed cheap since it wasn’t acknowledging my existence. Is there a bug with the animal’s AI nowadays? Unsure.

 

with that said, thanks for reading my blogpost. If you want the gist of it, I missed my virtual horse more than I missed this game. God, this site has become so awful to use on phones, I want the old format back.

[AltiMetro]

9 minutes ago, Tez2 said:

They are obviously gonna come up with large updates in the future to retain the players. When it comes up to content like Heists, it's just a matter of time of when it would likely arrive. GTA Online broke records in terms of player numbers 6-7 years after release. It doesn't have to take the same amount of time, but it does show that they can take their time and bring back players years after.

txs for the input, good point about peak player records 6-7 yrs after release. 

If I were to put a trendline through those 6-7 years though, I'd see a line that points upwards. 
And there's no doubt R* fed GTA with a steady stream of content high enough in quality to make players come back and/or keep playing. They hit the jackpot with Heists within the first 2 yrs of release. 

I don't see the same when looking at RDO's updates, or steam numbers, or content they've released since Moonshiners. 
The trend/momentum/quality has been pointing downwards for a while
That's what has me worried for the game.

In any case, I'm keeping fingers crossed we'll get something nice in June. 

7 minutes ago, Caffeination said:

It’s been 235 days since I last played this game... I think. I can’t remember exactly, what I’m sure is that it’s been ages, at least, I’m going by my last save file on story mode for reference

 

Anyway, I’ve been surprised by the huge amount of coupons I’ve received upon logging in. I mean, hundreds of RDO$? Fine, guess I’ll add that to my bloated $71K figure, as if that’ll make difference, perhaps I might as well make use of the free clothing coupons since I’m here... but holy hell, after killing my free time by playing the Hitman series instead of this crap, I’m astounded by how clunky it is. I wasn’t sure why people compared controlling online characters like a boat, but it does feel like it. I kept running into things on-foot and hitting walls, things you’d expect of a low level fool who recently installed the game and went straight to online.

 

I reinstalled the game since I stumbled across the currently active trader role event, which made me reminisce about the chill times in which I was holding the aim trigger with one hand and browsing my phone with the other during distant empty lobby sales. I’m disappointed that full lobbies are a thing again, because I remember that means fishing becomes difficult since fish will have a hard time spawning, and while I had the pleasure of hunting a cougar on the way to Blackwater, it seemed cheap since it wasn’t acknowledging my existence. Is there a bug with the animal’s AI nowadays? Unsure.

 

with that said, thanks for reading my blogpost. If you want the gist of it, I missed my virtual horse more than I missed this game. God, this site has become so awful to use on phones, I want the old format back.

welcome back. 
Don't worry about fishing, spawns are fine. 
Animals sometimes glitch out and kinda freeze, it almost never happens though

[Caffeination]

Like I said, I missed this girl more than I miss this game. If I could, I’d transport her to real-life and become a hobbyist equestrian, but that sadly does not bode well with reality. The memories will do just fine.

 

[ninkanooob]

2 hours ago, AltiMetro said:

Their model seems to be based on trying to get new waves of players every now and then (so far specifically by offering the game at a discount and XBox game pass), and expecting those newbies to buy gold because the gold grind takes too long for some. I don't think that model is sustainable over the span of multiple years, and I believe it has diminishing returns. 
How effective is getting a lot of customers, if they only buy once and most never come back for a follow-up purchase, and your method of getting new customers gets weaker every time you use it?

Someone please explain to me how what R* has been doing is better than releasing quality updates on a regular basis. It would retain more players, grow the core base, create momentum and buzz in the community and social media. 
It worked for GTA Online, didn't it? 

That's what I don't understand either. I don't mind waiting for months just to get an update BUT only if its a very good one and very well thought of that not only would make players "play more" and be inclined to spend money on the game but also be excited for the future, instead we get a role that is not even viable till 1960 and even if there's a bigger option for a role ( the trapper part of naturalist ) we didn't get any of those except some missions when trappers are common in our world and has a lot of rich history on that time period than shooting animals to sedate them, with an annoying NPC and another one that is fairly useless on account of the Story mode trapper who is more interesting. In the end, naturalist is not even that profitable.
 
The BIG problem about RDO imho :
They created a living and breathing world, tons of details, very immersive, rich lore and culture, and animations that would take literal seconds to finish, which makes it a niche game no matter how many people buy it and I can only imagine how much time, work and research they put through making them. And then they add clothing; that are not appropriate for the time period and has a lot of fantasy theme to it, skulls and animal parts on most hats, animal prints, full leather clothing with 69 buckles on it, two exact same clothing and renamed but with a different texture.  I mean look at the bounty hunter Woman-with-no-name, she wears a simple duster coat, a wool hat and a shoulder holster. She's a character you see ONCE and yet her design is much more applicable and fits the western Red Dead than the Thorogood outfit.

They sped up some animations such as running, strafing, and especially RELOADING. And now we have an inconsistent pace of animations because you would pick a flower for 2-3 seconds then sprint 360km/h just to get to the next flower, while walk speed remains the same. You have all pistols/revolvers reload speed ramped up twice which doesn't make sense at all, you don't need that much reload speed for your sidearm because you get a repeater at the start of the game, also even if there are tons of enemies the reload speed work just fine in Story mode.

Their approach to the online is unfaithful and doesn't go in line to the game design and world. They already have us enjoy and love the world from Story mode and now we get a chance to create our own character and be what we want in the world of Red Dead, they kept changing and adding content that steers away from world they created.

But onto business and money side, one good example is they could've reused assets and charge gold for clothing or cosmetic items that are already in the game, that would take less time to work with and give players more clothing options :
20-25 gold bars for Dutch or Micah's holster, Story mode hats and Van der Linde gang knives for 10 gold bars, NPC hats and clothing for 10 gold bars and more. That Gold-for-GREAT cosmetics approach alone would've racked them up with players buying gold but instead we have tons of clothing that looks awful and some even expensive for no reason ( that lvl 25 naturalist outfit costs 10 gold bars ). 

Now there are more content they can add or reuse and cosmetics are just a simple example on how easy and profitable it would be. They can even make a small update every month giving us new clothing or accessories and that would set a pace for more players not only to buy them but to look forward on what clothing will come next, hell just look at how many clothing there are in GTAO, your fingers will break just scrolling through menus so adding clothing every month would be neat and keep the game fresh.


 

[TinyRakan]

No single word from R* about the next major content… sigh 

[JumpingKentFlash]

1 hour ago, TinyRakan said:

No single word from R* about the next major content… sigh 

If it comes, it’s later today. They haven’t updated the game yet I think.

[YNNEL]

 We’re all just assuming it’s gonna drop on the 1st but you watch them drop OP6 and stay silent for another 2 months. Would not surprise me in the slightest. Nearly a year since the last proper dlc.

[SGT-WD]

I'm starting to see rdo and R* in my dreams lmao, today i had this dream, i woke up and checked my phone to see R* twitter and what's the new bonus, the article was instead an announcement for a new update that is coming shortly. 

Pls send help

 

Edited May 18, 2021 by SGT-WD

[Calvaine]

1 hour ago, YNNEL said:

 We’re all just assuming it’s gonna drop on the 1st but you watch them drop OP6 and stay silent for another 2 months. Would not surprise me in the slightest. Nearly a year since the last proper dlc.

This is unfortunately what I'm expecting to happen. I'll take it one step further by saying the update will contain Outlaw Passes 6 and 7 and virtually nothing else. Not much point in getting hyped anymore.

 

Hopefully I'm wrong, because I'd really like to get back into playing the game instead of keeping tabs.

[RyuNova]

44 minutes ago, Calvaine said:

I'll take it one step further by saying the update will contain Outlaw Passes 6 and 7 and virtually nothing else. Not much point in getting hyped anymore.

 

This.

Why put out significant content when you can just lock the few scraps scraped up off the floor behind an ever increasingly priced Outlaw Pass and call it content? It would not surprise me if we don't eventually get a two hundred level Outlaw Pass for like a hundred or a hundred and fifty Gold with all the stuff in the update locked behind it. All reaching the level does is unlock the stuff for purchase in shops.

[eejyool]

2020: Rockstar could at least have given us something to do instead of letting us wait 7 months with no content

2021: They'll just release what is clearly filler content forever and ever, you guys just wait!!!!

Listen, I'm quite disappointed with the state of the game too, but come on now, this is getting a tad ridiculous.

[TinyRakan]

2 hours ago, YNNEL said:

 We’re all just assuming it’s gonna drop on the 1st but you watch them drop OP6 and stay silent for another 2 months. Would not surprise me in the slightest. Nearly a year since the last proper dlc.

Tbh.. I’m not bothering to buy OP5 due of the lack of content but i hope OP6 will be with new content otherwise I’ll skipped it 

Just noticed that 

in early 2020 they were teasing for a new content but in 2021 they still silent 

[Hayes MP]

Sad thing is, I'd be completely content with just outlaw passes for now if they would simply add at least ONE decent thing worth unlocking. How hard would it be to come up with a new horse or new weapon to put in each outlaw pass? Or at least something like the outlaw pass that had the wilderness camp fast travel. That alone made that pass worth it.

[eejyool]

8 minutes ago, TinyRakan said:

in early 2020 they were teasing for a new content but in 2021 they still silent 

They weren't? They actually announced Naturalist like 4 days prior. And if you're referring to the celebratory post at the start of the year, we got pretty much the same generic sentence

[StyxTx]

17 minutes ago, LodwigRedemption said:

2021: They'll just release what is clearly filler content forever and ever, you guys just wait!!!!

 

That's because players keep playing, some out of boredom, and R* thinks that players are happy with fillers. They have no incentive to do anything different.

5 minutes ago, Hayes MP said:

Sad thing is, I'd be completely content with just outlaw passes for now if they would simply add at least ONE decent thing worth unlocking. How hard would it be to come up with a new horse or new weapon to put in each outlaw pass? Or at least something like the outlaw pass that had the wilderness camp fast travel. That alone made that pass worth it.

You didn't like their main thing in the last pass, the fake beard? Jeez, I thought everyone would hop on that.

[AStiffBreeze]

So bonuses for races this week?

[StyxTx]

11 hours ago, Tez2 said:

They are obviously gonna come up with large updates in the future to retain the players. When it comes up to content like Heists, it's just a matter of time of when it would likely arrive. GTA Online broke records in terms of player numbers 6-7 years after release. It doesn't have to take the same amount of time, but it does show that they can take their time and bring back players years after.

It isn't obvious to me. If retention was their goal they would have already been making an effort to keep players. Instead we get the middle finger, what appears to be an exerted effort to drive long time players away. When was the last time they gave long time players anything in their weekly updates, twitch rewards, etc?

 

This is not GTA either in revenue or player base, never has been and never will be.

Edited May 18, 2021 by StyxTx

[StyxTx]

11 hours ago, Caffeination said:

with that said, thanks for reading my blogpost. If you want the gist of it, I missed my virtual horse more than I missed this game. God, this site has become so awful to use on phones, I want the old format back.

Yeah, I can't get the site to open fully on my phone, the load bar stops at about 75%, so I stopped trying.

[StyxTx]

12 hours ago, AltiMetro said:

Habibi, I'm sorry. 
I can't get in a back-and-forth with you anymore. 

You keep missing the point myelf (and others) make - all the time. 
You don't respond to questions.
Sometimes it seems as if you respond to questions that weren't even asked. 
And it's really, really hard to figure out what you mean a lot of the time. 

Yeah. I give up with  him. Either he doesn't read what we say, doesn't comprehend what we say, or just ignores what we say and continues to post the same thing over and over trying to impress us with his business savvy. Oddly, he has done the opposite of impress me. Since all he does is look at the general numbers and doesn't look at context of those numbers it kinda shows he is not a business person or he doesn't have a clue how to read data that is given to him. You can bet R* knows exactly what the numbers mean since they break them all down and analyse them. R* knows exactly how many players are playing at a given time, exactly how long each player is playing, how long those peaks last, how long the low point lasts, what those players are involved in when they are playing, how many players are spending real money for gold, etc. Hell, they may even know when someone takes a bathroom break . The best this guy can do is...look, 300 more people played this week than last. Whoopie! He doesn't understand that it doesn't matter how many customers walk into a store but how many of those customers spend money while they're there.

 

 

Edited May 18, 2021 by StyxTx

[Nerfgoth]

12 hours ago, AltiMetro said:

I'm interested in hearing expert opinion on how R* can maximize profits. This is a genuine question, I'm not trolling or bullsh*tting. 

Their current model does not seem to be based on retaining players by releasing high quality updates in short enough intervals. 
EXHIBIT A: the trend in Red Dead Online Steam player numbers. About 80% don't play the game anymore. I have to assume that number is the same across all platforms. 
Who cares if peak numbers went from 3,100 to 3,700 this week? It means R* got back 4% of players they've lost since launch. That's nothing. I'll be impressed if there's a new peak in numbers, higher than ever. 

Their model seems to be based on trying to get new waves of players every now and then (so far specifically by offering the game at a discount and XBox game pass), and expecting those newbies to buy gold because the gold grind takes too long for some. I don't think that model is sustainable over the span of multiple years, and I believe it has diminishing returns. 
How effective is getting a lot of customers, if they only buy once and most never come back for a follow-up purchase, and your method of getting new customers gets weaker every time you use it?

Someone please explain to me how what R* has been doing is better than releasing quality updates on a regular basis. It would retain more players, grow the core base, create momentum and buzz in the community and social media. 
It worked for GTA Online, didn't it? 

 

Without the buzz that GTAO had in the beginning about heists and IF R* just had said: "we are not releasing it"! The game had been dead in the water! The first big update we got was a good start! The follow up with Moonshine was not as good but it gave a place we can hang out with friends and have fun!

Sad part with all updates we got is that there is no natural co-op gameplay!

It is like their impressions from the GTAO player base dictates how we are playing with each other. Just look at the latest heist they got. It is solo friendly! So when we get heist I really hope but I won´t hold my breath is that we can do it with seven people!

And there is a lot of stuff in the game already that I want to do with a real big posse!

 

But you are right @AltiMetro

 

And for your question: Someone please explain to me how what R* has been doing is better than releasing quality updates on a regular basis?

 

Short answer is that is a profit here and now not over a longer period of time! Right now with the bigger player base not counting people on forums Rockstars name is still good and a brand that generates money. But going down this road with short term profit will undenying lead to bankruptcy in the long term!

[TinyRakan]

https://bit.ly/33UuECe

Rockstar announces summer updates for GTA Online and Red Dead Online, which arrive next week 
 

[GTAJip]

Red Dead Online’s summer update will add a diverse array of new missions across the world for those looking to step into the criminal underworld. Down in Saint Denis, Angelo Bronte’s trusted lieutenant, Guido Martelli is working to create his own criminal network, so whether it’s intimidation, unsavory crimes, or larger, high-stakes robberies — riders best be willing to do whatever it takes to earn their blood money.

 

Sounds cool!

[TinyRakan]

Lol letdown update.. skkkkiiiiiip until December 2021 

[happygrowls]

 

Good to see them making use of Guido, who was only mentioned briefly in the epilogue, and had a full model, guess they were saving it for this!

[yeezy203]

11 minutes ago, TinyRakan said:

https://bit.ly/33UuECe

Rockstar announces summer updates for GTA Online and Red Dead Online, which arrive next week 
 

Smh still seems like a GTAO update with a little something thrown in for RDO but content is content I guess.

[SNAIL]

https://www.rockstargames.com/newswire/article/3981k373a7a9ok/details-on-new-updates-to-g-t-a-online-and-red-dead-online

[Rev. Gnash]

On 3/13/2021 at 2:58 PM, Rev. Gnash said:

 

Thanks - it will never happen. But one can dream.

 

The Bronte "B" contact icon; gives me some hope for future content.

San Denis, could be become a gaslight Gotham, it is packed with potential.

 

Bronte freeroam event: Players are invited to "rumble" on behalf of the Bronte crime family. Fighting rival gang members, using only melee weapons and teamwork. The objective, protect Bronte's right hand and capture or kill, the rival gang leader.