Tempest Rim

I said I wasn't going to keep posting RDR stuff, but hear me out on this one...

If you look at Basement Gamer Bros Exploring Beyond videos, which he made some months ago after getting "outside" of the normal map, and discovering some other things, it's clear that Rockstar made a significant change in the beginning of the story, and hence the map, but after they had already developed all kinds of stuff. I've always felt like the snowy part of the Grizzlies is criminally under-utilized, especially considering how big it is, but there's a huge chunk of it that's actually in the map itself, but which you can't access, called Tempest Rim.

But watch these videos.

The first shows how the Tempest Rim area actually has paths and roads clearly modeled in terrain, but which don't show or activate on the map.



The next one shows an flat, relatively empty spot that was originally going to be the location of Colter, according to a leaked early map.



This next one shows that the Adler Ranch was originally going to be more or less where Barrow Lagoon is now, which would have made it part of the "Tempest Rim orbit" rather than a place way out in the middle of nowhere and super isolated.



And the fourth one speculates, although it's very educated and convincing speculation, that there was originally more material that we were meant to play as a kind of prologue that was the gang's flight from Blackwater up to Colter, utilizing terrain that's just barely to the west of what you can access on the map of Grizzlies West today.



So... if this stuff was developed, and is mostly just sitting there unused in the game files and there on the map even, why not finish it as part of the next RDR Online update? Open up the western area and Tempest Rim, but a town back in the Colter location, but make it a real town with actual businesses that are open, and stuff. Make one of the next roles really focus on the area. Give us a reason to go up there. Looking for animals? Bigfoot? Injuns? I dunno. But it would be relatively easy to give us that, because it's already right there except for the models for a small little town, and maybe another homestead or two.

For that matter, there are places that look like they should have been paths or roads but which aren't between Cattail Pond and the Millesani Claim mine area. Good! Give us multiple points of entry into the Tempest Rim area and the fringe frontier beyond so we don't have bottlenecks of dozens of players all on the same road running into each other and stuff.

Of course, the biggest problems with RDR Online are still the glitches and bugs, although they do seem to be significantly better than they were. But to really keep it fresh? The moonshiner was pretty cool, but how about a role that has a whole new map area to explore along with it?

Future similar updates could be a gunrunner or smuggler, which gives us back the Nuevo Paraiso section from the first game. It's all there on the map already, although it's also lacking towns and structures and probably a bit of the plant life texturing. If you watch videos of people exploring beyond the map, you'll see that there's actually tons and tons of half-finished map area already in the game. A bit more texturing, some structures and people and missions, and you've got stuff ready to go. Perfect updates for new roles; explore new areas while we're at it!

And honestly, I'd like to have more of an excuse to go up to the Grizzlies and wear my coat, etc. It's always been one of the places that you just don't go to much, because there's not much reason to. The East Grizzlies and Cumberland Forest, and frankly, even much of New Austin is kind of like that too; it really needs to give us more reasons to spend more time there other than a few towns and collectibles to chase. But roles that focused specifically on those areas and gave us a ton of stuff to do specifically right there would be very welcome.

While they're at it, they can add more of what's already in the game to those areas. Why not a couple of new moonshine shacks while they're at it? More fences, and other unique shops? For that matter, actually new unique shops that can only be found in the new areas?

Anyway, that's how I'd do it if I were suddenly put in charge of the Online game. Obviously bug/glitch fixes would be the first priority, but then a few minor surprise and delight features would be nice. Private lobbies would be nice, and if you have a private lobby, why not be able to actually pick not just the region of your camp but the specific camp site within the region?  But mostly, I'd focus on adding to the map. Most of the stuff is actually already there, so relatively speaking (which sounds like I'm being tone deaf; I do recognize that it's a lot of work, it's just not as much work as if so much more of the map wasn't already built) it would be easy to add.

Bonus: They did more work on building the Mexico section than we realized, including a full ambient score for it! I hope they do something with this stuff.