Role discussion/review: The Trader

The trader role is the second one I unlocked, and the first one I finished. It's a challenging one in some ways because of the glitches and bugs that have been rampant in the game recently, but despite that, I was able to complete it easily enough before that became a major, major issue; I mostly haven't been as successful with it since.

Trying out my new MacBay coat up at the Millesani claim. This doesn't have anything to do with the trader, but what the heck. More images is always good, and I don't need too many of all of the outfits.

That said, the instance of bugs and glitches that would impact trader progression seems to have dramatically lessened after a series of updates and patches, and I don't hesitate to recommend getting into the role at all. The trader is one that has some fun elements, but it does get to be monotonous after a while. That said, it's still worth doing, because the payoff is pretty good. In fact, just this morning, I dumped a bunch of donations on Cripps' table and did a run from my camp up near Emerald Ranch to Saint Denis, where I killed about five or six NPC raiders and made $625 dollars. I had enough after that to go pick up the remainder of the trader outfits that I still hadn't bought yet, and even one of the moonshiner outfits, which are the last ones I need to buy. You can see my character sporting these new threads in this post.

A quick word about the outfits for the roles. Because they don't break down into constituent parts, which at first frustrated me a fair bit, they can add a lot of texture that would be difficult if they were all separate elements. They can, therefore, make outfits that look quite a bit better than they would otherwise. However, that's no guarantee that they actually, in fact, do look better. As I said for the bounty hunter outfits, they are a mix of both really cool and really silly design cues. The little capes or mini-ponchos on the bounty hunter being the most notable example here. In many ways, the trader outfits look a little better; they have a kind of buckskin and leather trapper look to them. See my pictures of my character in them, although due to bad weather in game, I ended up having to take them later in the evening than I would have liked, so the lighting isn't always great.

And that's really the gist of the trader role; it's not really well named. The main activity that traders do is hunt animals; shoot them and bring them to Cripps at your camp, who renders them into "goods"--whatever that is (tanned hides, I think is mostly what it is). Once you have some made, preferably a full wagon load, because taking only a handful isn't worth the time, you make a delivery to a buyer somewhere on the map. These delivery missions involve driving a wagon full of bags, crates or boxes, and are potentially open to attack by other players--although that's only happened to me once. It was frustrating, but when I went back to camp, I could start the delivery over again, at least. Also, when you arrive at your destination, your buyers are often under attack, so you need to dismount from your wagon and shoot some NPCs before pulling it in. The trader is a fairly lucrative business; like I said, if you grind enough animals to be able to do a full large wagon load to a distant buyer location, that's $625 bucks. However, as camp disappearing glitches and poor animal spawn rates in the past have dogged the game, I've gotten used to not bothering to grind this role much anymore, and now mostly casually bring in animals when I'm conveniently close to my camp and they're spawning. After doing a few, I usually go do something else, and if I make a delivery after many hours of play, that's fine. There are slightly faster, and more importantly, more reliable ways to make money. It really blows to have spent a bunch of time hunting, have your horse loaded up with some pelts and carcasses, and roll back to camp only to find that it's disappeared and you can't give Cripps your stuff.

The nice thing about the role is that unlike the trapper and Pearson's camp upgrades in single player, one-star animals are still worth turning in. Better quality animals, of course, are more efficient in terms of getting your count of "goods" up faster, but it's more efficient hunting to just blast everything you see with your bolt action rifle with express ammo, which will tend to mean more lower quality donations to Cripps' outfit.

Having the trader role enabled also means the addition of two things to your camp; Cripps' butcher table, and a pallet where he builds up the goods as he makes them. You can get a quick at a glance idea of how close he is to being ready for a delivery by looking at the pallet; if it looks like he's got nearly a wagon load on it, you're probably almost ready to go.

One of the trader role outfits and a decent view of the trader tent.

In addition to making wagon deliveries and hunting lots and lots and lots of animals, the trader role also has another type of mission. In order to tan and preserve animal hides, Cripps needs "supplies" which are vaguely defined, although some kind of tanning fluid is obviously one of them (although bags of... whatever is another.) In order to give some variety to this, there are a number of different types of missions you can undertake, and you'll need to do it every so often or his work will shut down. Going and stealing a wagon of supplies is the most straightforward; you show up where suppliers are and gun down the other guys who have it, and then drive it back to your camp. This can be difficult if it's the tank wagon full of fluid, because it's very difficult not to damage the wagon and end up bringing a less than optimal size load in.

Other times you go to one of Cripps' buddies who has a wagon he'll give you if you bring him a specific type of animal, which always seems to spawn near where he's waiting. Why this guy doesn't just shoot the buffalo, or a couple of wild turkeys, or whatever it is that he wants that are hanging around a hundred yards or so away from where he is on his own is beyond me, but the point, again, is to add variety to the missions. Sometimes, you go to where some buddies of Cripps' are who are under attack and help them defend their campsite. If you do, then you can take the wagon as a gift.

Other than the tank wagon, the most difficult, but sometimes the most fun is robbing a train. For whatever reason, I always seem to have to do this when the train is up in the northern regions where the tracks run through the mountains and are kind of inaccessible, but that's probably just my bad luck. In any case, for some time, I always did these missions, because it saved money and I'm a cheapskate, plus it gave me both role XP and of course regular XP (and Outlaw Pass XP, which I still needed at the time.) But there is another option where you just buy a batch of supplies for $20, and they'll show up in your camp in a few minutes and Cripps will get back to work. I've now gotten to the point where I automatically do this. Doing the missions for resupply would be great if I wasn't doing something else, which I usually now am, so to save time, I consider it part of the cost of doing business, and I'm OK with taking four or so $20 payments out of my net profit in order to save time for every 100 goods delivery. My engagement with the role is much more passive now that I've maxed it out. It's still worth doing because sometimes you just like hunting animals, sometimes you get attacked by bears or cougars or wolves and have animals anyway, and after all, the payout is pretty big. But it's not worth putting a lot of time and effort into it now that I'm done with it. It's not so fun and exciting that I'd do a lot of it for its own sake now that I'm finished.  But at a certain phase in my character progression, this was one that I spent a fair bit of time on, I enjoyed it still long after I maxed out the role, and it was one of my best sources of income back when I didn't have a lot of good sources of income yet. In spite of the fact that the role hasn't aged terribly well once you've been done with it for a while, it's still a success and a worthwhile endeavor. It's much less frustrating than the bounty hunter ended up being to do, and it pays much better. Of course, the caveat here is that the disappearing camp and lack of animals made it even more frustrating when those glitches blocked your progress, but that didn't really turn into a major issue for me until after I'd already maxed out the role. It probably contributed a fair bit to my loss of interest in the role too; if I hadn't had that happen, I'd probably still be a bit more aggressive about grinding out hunting, at least, if not doing resupply missions. If the bounty hunter desperately needed the legendary bounties to not be a tedious grind, this one not only doesn't have anything equivalent, but it also doesn't really need them as badly either. Keep in mind that the legendary bounties were added slowly over time as part of the drip feed of weekly new content. The trader role, on the other hand, is successful enough to stand alone without needing drip feed updates.

The level one trader outfit looks surprisingly good, at least in this color, with the Pittman tricorner hat, brown Tappscott gloves and my brass spectacles. I call that outfit my Colonial and I might use it for a while as a default hot weather outfit. 

The role, as all of them do, also provides a convenient source of gold bars as part of the daily challenges; I always have three daily challenges associated with this role. Some of them aren't really reasonable for being done easily, but some of them are really easy (like eat three camp stews) and some of them, if they line up with being on on a day when you've got a delivery to make, can be convenient too.

As with the other three original frontier pursuits roles, there is a camp theme associated with the role that you can buy, as well as a specific Cripps outfit. The moonshiner offered neither of those, but the moonshiner isn't really associated with your camp, so that's probably why. I'm really curious to see what the new batch of roles that'll get rolled out over the next year or two end up being like. Other than that, what else does the trader role give you? As with the bounty hunter (and all of them really) the twenty role levels are divided up into four tiers of five levels each. There are rewards for every level that are automatic, and then there are rewards for each tier that you have to first unlock with your role unlock tokens, then buy with either money or gold. And, the final top tier horses and another cosmetic item are part of the tier system, but you can't just be in the top tier, you actually have to have maxed out your levels all the way to 20 to unlock them. Anyway, let's go through the list. As you'll see, compared to the bounty hunter, there are more unlockable items and less "free" items in general. Although given that much of the free items for the bounty hunter were cosmetic gun tricks that you really only do when you're standing around not doing anything, in practical terms, they're probably not all that different, except this just has more unlockable items.

Another of the pretty good looking outfits in front of my trader tent.

Tier 1: Novice
Level 1: Two role unlock tokens
Level 2: Two role unlock tokens
Level 3: Two role unlock tokens (this is a bit sparse of a start on this role)
Level 4:  Invitation to participate in trader events. There was one of these for bounty hunter, and when I made that post, I didn't know what it is. It turns out, though, although I hadn't paid attention, that when you sometimes get those free roam invites to events, that some of them are related to your role, and if you don't have the role, you don't get the invite and don't know about those. So, this allows you to participate in the Trade Route event when it comes up on the event schedule. I did some of these when I was fairly early in the game, and they're kinda fun sometimes. I don't normally do them now, but if I get to the point where I don't have much else to do, I might start it up again. I don't normally like much Pvp, but these structured events aren't so bad. I've never actually done the trade route event, so I don't know how it works, though. Also, two role unlock tokens. I can see myself forgetting to note that, so I'll say up front; every level of every role automatically gives you two role unlock tokens. Many levels give you only that, but even the ones that give you something else also give you two role unlock tokens.
Level 5: Two role unlock tokens.
Tier 1 unlocks:

• The Fletcher Saddle ($525) I already discussed my saddle strategy at length, but this is the second saddle I got, I think, and as soon as I had it, I put it on my Kladrubar and used it a lot. It's a good looking saddle, but none of the role saddles really give you the stamina drain improvement and speed and acceleration improvement that the Nacogdoches does, so I probably won't really use it much anymore.
• The Monterrey ($250) The tier 1 trader outfit. It's pretty plain, so I doubt I'd wear it ever, and the hat is actually really bizarre and ugly, so I don't think I'll use that either. Other than because I'm naturally kind of compulsive about collecting things and because I wanted to have all of the outfits for character selfies for this post, I'd probably not have bothered picking this up at all, and even if I did, it'd be a very low priority.
• Stew pot ($650) This is a camp upgrade that allows Cripps to have stew always ready to eat at your camp. Even without this, you can get stew at the Blackwater and Valentine camps, and I think a few other places here and there on the map. But it's nice to have your own personal pot in your camp. I eat at least a bowl of it every time I spawn, and every time I'm in camp, which has cut down tremendously on my hunting or fishing for game meat to eat (which I still have for when I'm injured or are away from my camp for several days of in-game time and my cores start to fall.) You can use different recipes to to get improved stew that gives you gold cores. Mostly it takes big game meat, but if you're like me, you get attacked by enough packs of wolves just riding around that if you stop to skin them and put the best quality one on your horse to take back to camp, you not only have materials to donate to Cripps without having to take time hunting, but you've also got plenty of game meat to make improved stew with. I actually stopped doing it when I was having too many camp glitches, because I didn't think it was worth it if I wasn't going to be able to come back and still eat another helping of improved stew later because it would reset, but now that I'm not having camp glitches anymore, maybe I'll start up again. Starting your play session with gold cores, and being able to refill them every time you come back to camp is a pretty nifty thing, and certainly worth it. Plus, it creates another fire, which makes your camp easier to spot at night, and I actually kind of like a camp with lots going on. Makes it look more like a home of sorts. Although it's kinda pricey, I recommend this item, and I've heard other players consider it one of the more under-rated game items in general.
• Goodman gunbelt ($100) Not my favorite of the gunbelts; it has a lot of cut leather fringe on it. I can't remember off hand which of the single player challenges had a gunbelt that looked very similar, but it was the hunter, or whatever it was called, I think. That said, I do have one of these. 
• Kladrubar black and white coats ($150) These basic tier 1 horses are very large. While not fast, they have incredibly good health and stamina and their demeanor in the face of danger is really good. You should be warned that the breed, which comes originally from the Czechs, is considered a bit funny looking by some; there's a ridge or hump of sorts along the face that gives it an unusual profile. I actually quite like this horse, and I use it a lot. A bit less now that I'm spending most of my time on my horse traveling, because of its slower speed, but it's still a really good horse, and I think it may well be the best horse to take into combat if you're doing a mission where you can plan ahead for that. Of course, the tier 1 aren't as good as the later ones, which is a bit of a shame, because pure black and white are good looking horse colors. That's why the Arabians come in those colors, for instance. I'm not saying that they're my favorite colors, but again, I'm always frustrated that there isn't some way to level up your different coat colors to all have tier 3 stats. Every horse of the breed should have the same potential, otherwise all you'll really see most of the time are the top two colors. I dislike the semi-enforced conformity of appearance.
• Filigree Buckle (4 gold) A pretty sweet looking belt buckle for your gun belt. Not as cool as the Viper buckle from the bounty hunter, but still pretty good. I really should use a bit more variety in my buckles for my outfits. I usually don't even think about changing it.
• Hammer ($75) A basic tool like this is ridiculously overpriced at this cost, but let's be honest; it's not about being a basic tool, it's a melee weapon and money siphon to keep players having something to spend on. I don't use melee weapons all that often, but this is a cool one. I have seen videos of guys who do legendary bounty missions trying to just use the hammer, for instance, and I think that's actually pretty cool.

The top tier trader outfit as the sun goes down. And my trader horse Little John behind me. 

Tier 2: Promising

Level 6: An upgrade to the amount of ingredients your satchel can hold, plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 7: Awareness skill page which allows you to identify rival trader missions you can interrupt at a greater range. Be honest, though--this is Rockstar specifically encouraging griefing, and it sucks. Luckily, I think most players ignore this facet of the trader role most of the time, but every once in a while you'll run across some douchebag that wants to steal your wagon from you, and his posse of layabouts. When that happens, the game blows. Plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 8: Canine warning skill page, in which you can train your camp dog to warn of incoming raiders. My camp has literally never been attacked, which I think is another griefing activity, so I don't actually know much about how this works or why it's a good thing. Plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 9: Two role unlock tokens.

Level 10: Two role unlock tokens.

Tier 2 unlocks:

• The Sunderland (348.25) A pretty nice improvement over the Monterrey. This is actually a decent outfit in its own right, and has a decent hat. A bit plain, but not too bad.
• Medium Delivery Wagon ($500) This allows you to make deliveries of up to 50 goods at a time (as opposed to 25, which the small delivery wagon you start with allows you.) While this seems fine, it actually sucks. I think I only used it once or twice before I unlocked the large delivery wagon, and then this became pointless. Unfortunately, it's a prereq for buying the large one. Nice, one Rockstar. Way to stick it to us.
• Weapons Locker ($575) Another camp upgrade you can buy that puts a little case next to your camp. When you start to get a lot of weapons, it's nice to keep some in your locker so that your weapon selections on your weapon wheel don't take a long time to scroll through, but you can also not have that problem by just not buying tons of weapons. I admit that I do use this, and mostly I've just put my older, cheaper weapons in here that I don't bother using anymore because now I have better ones, but it's a bit pricey for what is a very minimal luxury.
• Tapscott Gloves ($100) These are the only role gloves that you can buy with cash instead of gold, so they were the only ones I had for a while when I thought my gold was too precious to spend on gloves. They look pretty cool, but because I had them way before I had most of the other gloves that I have now, I'm kinda over them honestly, and don't use them much. But that's not really fair to them; they are a good looking pair of cavalry type gloves with a pattern on them.
• Lance Knife (5 gold) A "bespoke" reskin for your hunting knife. I actually haven't bought it yet, although I keep meaning to. One of these days I'll remember. It's a bit pricey, and I wish it was cash instead of gold or I would have done it long ago.
• Trader Camp Theme ($700) Not my favorite of the camp themes, but all of the role camp themes are better than all of the other non-role camp themes, let's be honest. I'll also admit that part of the reason I don't like this quite as much is because there's piles or buckets or whatnot of bloody animal offal right outside your tent. I know, I know--it's not a real tent, and even if it was, it's not like I'd actually be sleeping in it, but the fact that there's no way any normal person would be OK with that is a turnoff on the theme for me, I admit. Anyway, look at the images to see what the tent looks like, at least, with this theme in place.

Tier 3: Established

Level 11: Efficiency Skill Page increases the amount of material that Cripps is able to get from perfect carcasses. Nice, I suppose, for those who hunt carefully with bows and stuff, but I don't turn in enough perfect carcasses for it to really make much difference. That said, you don't have to buy it, you just have to hit level 11, and you get it anyway. Plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 12: Two role unlock tokens

Level 13: Materials satchel upgrade, which increases the amount of materials you can carry. Plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 14: Two role unlock tokens.

Level 15: Two role unlock tokens.

Tier 3 Unlocks:

• The Worthington ($446.75) Another step up from the past outfit, both for the outfit itself, and the hat which I think will get a decent amount of usage from me. It's a good looking hat.
• Kladrubar Cremello and Gray coats ($550) The Cremello makes this horse look an awful lot like Buell from single player, but of course, hardly anyone gets him because he's a mid tier horse. I'll try to stop... ahem... beating a dead horse on this issue. Personally, I wouldn't have bought either of these colors either, but I know my daughter really likes the Cremello. She'd buy it anyway, but her progression in the role is so slow that she still hasn't unlocked it.
• Shoulder Waves and the Beaded (2 gold) The trader haircut and beard/mustache set. The mustache in particular is really big and poofy and has beads tied into each end. The haircut is a slicked back long hair look.
• Large delivery wagon ($750) Allows you to make deliveries of up to 100 goods. Plus, it looks notably larger and is covered, which is nice. Its super important to buy this as soon as you can, because it only takes a couple of deliveries to pay for itself, after which you're making much more profit from this whole operation.
• Goodman holster ($75) The off hand holster to match the gunbelt unlocked earlier on. While I tend to think that it's a given that I'll carry two guns, there are aesthetic reasons not to, and honestly, I usually use my bolt action or my Lancaster much more than my revolvers or pistols anyway. If you don't have an off hand holster, your longer coats will actually hang down like they're supposed to in front rather than being swept back to make room for you to draw your gun.
• Hunting wagon ($875) A wagon that you can take around with you and load more animals into it than you can on your horse. It's actually a pretty good deal if you plan on using the trader quite a bit to grind for money, because otherwise you're too limited in terms of what you can actually bring back to camp. Unless the animal spawns are so incredible that you're literally hunting just a few hundred yards away from camp, of course.
• Rawback Ring (4 gold) I kinda like these little cosmetic things like this, although of course, the rings are almost impossible to see except maybe on the closeup of your hand as you're opening the catalog or skinning an animal. Plus, I almost always wear gloves. That said, I still get these anyway.
• Pump action shotgun variant ($450) I have a pump action shotgun, but I almost never use it, and I don't keep it equipped; it's in my weapons locker. That said, if I used this more, I'd certainly go for this variant. It actually looks really good.

I should probably take this. It's too dark. A trader outfit for me and for Cripps.

Tier 4: Distinguished

Level 16: Protection skill page teaches you to reduce the chance of raids on your camp. It must work; I've never had my camp raided ever, either with or without this skill. Plus two unlock tokens.

Level 17: Two role unlock tokens.

Level 18: Two role unlock tokens.

Level 19: Two role unlock tokens.

Level 20: Two role unlock tokens.

Tier 4 Unlocks:

• The Tyringham ($545) An interesting role outfit. The hat is kind of ugly, but the outfit itself is a kind of weird rustic luxury. I actually kind of like it. As an aside, as with the Carthage (bounty hunter outfit) you actually get a "secret" ring as part of this, which like the hat is usable without wearing the entire outfit.
• Hat Tipping ($200) An emote. A friendly one, so more generally useful than the one that the bounty hunter gave us, although I still prefer my go-to of thumbs up to this.
• Kladrubar Dapple Rose Gray and Silver coats ($950) My first really good horse, I think (although I ended up maxing out trader and collector right about the same time.) It's still one of my favorites, although as I've said, it's a bit on the slow side. That said, it has max health and stamina, and is great in a fight. If you're not racing, then this is the best horse in the game. But because traveling across the map is an important part of what you're doing, getting max in health and stamina is sometimes not worth the compromise in speed and acceleration. These two coats are a kind of not quite black and not quite white, which is interesting since black and white are the tier 1 colors for this horse breed. For quite a while, I thought maybe I'd get a second one of the other color here, but I'm not interesting anymore in having two of the same breed, plus the Breton steel gray is almost the same as the dapple rose gray. Although the default mane and tail color on the Breton is white, while here it's black.
• Brass Spectacles (5 gold) Must be level 20 to unlock. I love these. I only have one pair, in brass color, but I use them on most of my outfits. If I'd started the game early enough to have gotten the first outlaw pass two, which had the steel spectacles, I'd probably use them and not have cared quite as much about these, but I didn't so these are my basic glasses.

Another shot of the weird graveyard up by the Riggs Fort ruins.

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.

High Republic changes

YouTuber Mike Zeroh is reporting in at least two videos that Bob Chapek has stepped in and canceled the Kathleen Kennedy version of High Republic. Wars are to be reintroduced to Star Wars, and dinosaurs are out. George Lucas was brought back as a creative consultant, and he's reimagining and rewriting most of her concepts. Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau are also rumored to be on board.

No idea what the source of this is, but if true, the High Republic looks like it might well be much better than I feared it would be. Not necessarily good... You can peruse the archives to see my mixed reactions to the work of Lucas, Favreau and Filoni.

Anyway, I'd classify this as a rumor at this point, rather than news, but if it does turn out to be news, it'll be good news, I think.

Role discussion/review: The Bounty Hunter

As I said last time, probably the only RDR posts I'll still make in the near term (all bets somewhat off when the new update comes out) are a discussion and review of the various roles to undergo in Frontier Pursuits and beyond for Online.  Today, let's talk about the Bounty Hunter. This was the one I was the most excited about, the first one I unlocked, but the last one that I finished. In part, this is because this is just a slower playing role than most of the others, but in part, it's also because it's kind of grindy, and I got tired of messing with it for a while.

The strange and creepily marked grave in the hills just west of Fort Riggs. 

The gist of the role is simple, of course. You get (for 15 gold normally, although there have been plenty of discounts over the short time I've been playing Online) a bounty hunter license, which allows you to hunt bounties by taking a poster off the bounty board at any sheriff's office and many of the train stations throughout the map. I couldn't find a handy list online, and I didn't want to take the effort to make my own, but every town and city has one, as well as various rural depots like Wallace Station, Riggs Station, Benedict Point, etc. No matter where you are, you probably can find a bounty board that's not too far away. The Rhodes bounty board is considered the iconic one; it used to be that you had to go there to start the role, although I'm not sure if that's still true or not.

Each bounty board will have three posters on it, usually ranked in terms of difficulty as $, $$ or $$$, and you can also click a button to get the legendary bounties, which you can pick up at any board. The other posters will vary from board to board, but there aren't really as many bounties as you think; most of them end up repeating after a while. Not counting the legendary bounties, bounty missions tend to follow a few patterns:

• Go find the bounty; you'll have a flashing on and off red skull that represents the target, and he'll be moving across the map and need to be chased down. He'll usually be on a wagon or stagecoach or something, and be surrounded by a gang of bad guys that need to be killed along with him. Be careful not to kill the target himself while in a firefight with all of these bad guys. While you can bring them in dead, the payout is less.
• Go to the camp. Here, the bounty will be in a hideout or camp with other gang members. They're usually easier to find in this scenario, but your ability to nab the target and run away with him without killing all of the rest of the gang is more limited. Sometimes the target isn't in the camp yet and you'll have to hide and wait for him to arrive within a minute or two, but sometimes he's there in the middle of the camp.
• Go to the area where the bounty is and follow a series of clues to find exactly within the area where he is. This one has the time consuming but interesting clue following, which is kind of like a more complicated version of hunting legendary animals in single player, and the trade-off is that the bounty is almost always alone rather than with a gang.
• Occasionally I've seen some other scenarios; like one where you had to go to Braithwaite Manor or somewhere nearby and cause enough of a ruckus that the target comes out to deal with you.
• Some bounties have multiple targets, but I usually avoid these, as bringing in multiple targets while playing solo is fairly difficult. I've done it once or twice, but found the prospect mostly just frustrating and irritating.

Bounty targets have different personalities. Some will fight with their gang, but most seem to be runners, so be careful getting too involved in fighting the gang. It does need to be done, but if in doing so you let the bounty get a major head start on running away from you, you will be tasked with a frustrating job of running him down, and he may well escape and you'll fail the mission.

One of the bounty hunter outfits, while standing near my tent. Which is using the bounty hunter camp theme. Aw, isn't my dog cute! While I could of course buy one of the sombrero options for hats, I don't love most of them, and this one has a sombrero look to it that I prefer for a more Southwestern flair to my outfit. I'm also using the bounty hunter gun belt, if you zoom in to see it. I have it in three color varieties, but there are more.

Then there's legendary bounties, which have cut scenes and instant travel to the location (or nearby anyway) and which play out more like a story mission in many ways. You still have to deal with a really big gang, usually, and often runners, which is frustrating, but there are a lot of different types of legendary bounty missions. One of them has you being poisoned or drugged and having hallucinations, one of them has the target come out after his gang has been slaughtered with a hostage and you have to use the quick draw mechanics from single player, one of them has a gang that is nothing but a large pack of wolves, etc. Once you defeat a legendary bounty, you can do it again, but the difficulty is increased; it goes all the way up from one star to five star. I haven't tried to repeat a five star mission; in fact, I haven't actually even played all of the legendary bounties at all (although I've taken some up to five star) so I still have bounty hunter play left that I can do even though I've maxed out the role and usually don't do much with it any more.

Much of the reason for this is that the payouts for bounty hunting are not very good compared to other things you can spend your time on, so you really only do it to max out the role or because you really enjoy doing it. Most bounties pay considerably less than $50, and the XP for doing them is such that you'll usually need to do between three and five of them to hit the next rank in your bounty hunter role. On the other hand, it's the only role that also pays in gold. If you wait out your timer to max out your payout (a dumb mechanic, but it is what it is. I spent lots of time just standing around right next to the sheriff's office or the bounty wagon holding a cursing target waiting for the timer to drop to 30 seconds) you can get almost a third of a gold bar. While that's pretty cool, especially if for some reason you really want to up your gold count, because once you have a streak of doing daily challenges give you a half gold bar for each challenge issued, honestly, the bounty hunter payout is not the best way to get gold either. Nobody is getting rich doing bounties, which means that if you're deliberately trying to earn money, XP or gold, you've got much better options for all three. The best reason to play bounties is just because you feel in the mood to go shoot up some bad guys, lasso a struggling miscreant, and run him to the nearest sheriff where you can throw him down and have that satisfying vigilante feeling going on.

Another bounty hunter role outfit, in an alternate color. While this is the simplest and lowest level unlock, it may actually be the best looking of the four.

What role specific stuff does the bounty hunter give you? Like all roles, the twenty levels are divided up into four tiers of five levels each. Along the top, you have your level specific unlocks, while along the bottom are unlocks that are mostly associated with the entire tier. You have to spend tokens, which you get while leveling up, to unlock these, and you can do so at any time after you move into that tier or beyond. I'm going to list out all of the rewards by level and by tier in annotated format, discussing their merits or lack thereof as I go through them.

While I didn't count specifically, I do note that after maxing out all four roles, I unlocked everything that needed to be unlocked with tokens and spent every token that I have. I presume that each role individually can do that as well, so you get exactly as many tokens as you need over the course of the role progression to unlock everything that needs to be unlocked with tokens.

Tier 1: Novice

Level 1: Two role unlock tokens

Level 2: Two role unlock tokens

Level 3: The "focus" skill which causes bounty targets to glow red in Eagle Eye.  Plus, two role unlock tokens.

Level 4: Bounty hunter events invite (I don't actually recall and didn't notice what this actually does, but whatever it is, it's automatic) plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 5: The Reverse Spin pistol trick, a kind of emote if you will, but activated differently, plus two role unlock tokens

Tier 1 Unlocks: These require you to spend your role unlock tokens to unlock, and then usually quite a bit of money or gold to actually buy after that. Some of them are totally worth it. Others... not so much. 

• Viper buckle (4 gold) This is actually the only of the role buckles that I've bought, and I use it for all of my outfits, pretty much.
• Schofield revolver variant skin ($600) This is just a cosmetic reskin of the revolver. I think I bought and installed this, but now I use exclusively Navy revolvers anyway. Oh, well. The Schofield is certainly the other top tier revolver if you don't use Navies.
• Breton horse - sorrel and roan coats. ($150) Given that these two colors are the lowest of three tiers of horse quality, this is kind of a waste. I doubt anyone ever bought these unless they just really loved the color, and actually these two colors are extremely plain anyway.
• Delgado saddle ($525) This is the first expensive saddle I bought. As I've discussed, I actually have "retired" all of my role saddles from use and only use Nacogdoches saddles now, which is kind of a shame given how much I spent on them. This one is quite attractive, though.
• Wakeenay outfit ($250 each color variant) The lowest tier bounty hunter outfit, but in my opinion, probably the best looking one if you're actually going to wear the role outfits. And if you don't, the hat is a really good looking one two. I have this in (so far, at least) three of the half dozen or so color variants. My daughter also uses this as one of her basic outfits for her character when she plays.
• Guerrero gun belt ($125 each color variant) One of my favorite gun belts too, although honestly, the brass snake icon is a little garish sometimes. It also comes in different colors of leather and metal, though--I have not only the brass on black, but a red on black and a slightly less garish brass on brown. I use role gun belts almost exclusively for all of my outfits, though.
• Reinforced lasso ($350) A must have if you're doing bounty hunts. It is considerably harder and takes longer for targets to escape from being hogtied with this lasso to the point that unless you're waiting many minutes, it's effectively impossible.

The third tier bounty hunter outfit, plus a better view of the tent with the bounty hunter camp theme activated.

Tier 2: Promising

Level 6: Tonics satchel upgrade that bumps up how many of each tonic you can hold. This is handy, because I tend to use a lot of tonics while bounty hunting. Plus, two role unlock tokens.

Level 7: Eagle Eye improvement; you can now use it while running or galloping on your horse. Handy even outside of the bounty hunting role, obviously. Plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 8: Spin Up; another pistol trick, plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 9: Kit satchel upgrade; same as tonics upgrade, but for the kit category. Plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 10: Two role unlock tokens.

Tier 2 unlocks:

• Tracking arrow pamphlet ($600) Allows you to craft tracking arrows. I dunno; I haven't really gotten involved in many of the pamphlets in online yet. I've never made or used one of these. Whether they're actually useful or not, it's worth noting that using them is a very frequent role specific daily challenge, though, so extra gold is available for those who want to go to the trouble to do so.
• Bolt action rifle variant ($350) A reskin of the bolt action rifle. I should mention, since I didn't above, that you still have to buy the weapon first. The cost is for the reskin, not for the variant weapon. You have to pay both the cost of the weapon and the cost of the reskin. I also don't like this one at all. Even though I use my bolt action rifle all the time, I haven't bought this, because I think it looks kind of ridiculous.
• Bounty Hunter camp theme ($700) My favorite of the camp themes. I almost always have this active, so I think it's worth it, even if it is pricey.
• Blackbone Ring (5 gold) This is also pricey, although I bought it during a week-long bounty hunter item discount for only 1 or 2 gold. The rings are kind of silly, given that I almost always wear gloves, so even if I have them equipped, they're literally impossible to see. Even if I didn't, they're still practically impossible to see.
• The Bullard outfit. ($348.25--an oddly specific price. Why didn't it just round up to $350?) As with the other outfit, I don't really love this, but I have one. I use the hat associated with it a fair bit.

The top tier bounty hunter outfit, and the tent again. And my doggie!

Tier 3: Established

Level 11: Two role unlock tokens.

Level 12: Player bounty invite, in which you can hunt not just NPCs, but also players who have bounties on them. I've never actually done this, although again, you can occasionally do so for daily challenges. Because it borders on griefing, I never would anyway, and I also keep my own bounty from ever becoming high. I hope, although I'm not sure, that to get a player bounty on your head, you have to be a griefer yourself. Plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 13: Reverse spin, another pistol trick, plus two unlock tokens.

Level 14: Ducking; an evasion technique while on horseback that makes you much harder to target. Very useful across any activity in game. I really like this one, although I admit that because I play much more offensively rather than defensively, I often forget to use it. Plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 15: Two role unlock tokens

Tier 3 unlocks: 

• Bolas ($30) Although I have some of these (that I didn't buy; I actually got them as club rewards before I'd even unlocked them) I've rarely used them. There's only a few situations, namely where there are multiple bounties to deal with or you want to tangle the bounty from far away while in a big fire-fight, where this is a better option that just using the reinforced lasso anyway. Given that they can untangle themselves fairly easily, their utility is still very limited. My plan for bounties in a group of enemies is usually to just drink a potent health tonic and run up and hogtie the target with the reinforced lasso, then quickly getting into cover to kill the rest of the gang while he sits there helpless and tied up. I can then loot the bodies and load the target up on my horse in relative leisure. I should note that you throw these, like a tomahawk or throwing knife. If you don't recover them, you just threw away $30.
• Guerrero holster ($93.75) If you have the gun belt and plan to carry two pistols, you need this off-hand holster too.
• Bounty wagon ($875) While this would apparently be useful on those pesky multi target bounties, in actuality, the fact that you have to dismiss your horse, summon this wagon, and then use the wagon instead of a horse, means that this isn't a particularly useful purchase. And for the price, a not very useful nearly $1,000 purchase is one that I never got around to getting. 
• Breton seal brown and grullo dun coats. ($550) Sadly, these are two very good looking varieties of this horse. But because they're mid tier rather than top tier, I doubt many people use them. I really wish that there were a way to upgrade the tier of your horses. I'd replace my current Breton with either of these if I could get the stats of the top tier on it. The grullo dun in particular is one of my favorite colors.
• Slicked back fade and the Count (2 gold) The role specific haircut and beard (in this case a sweet mustache.) I got this haircut as soon as I could unlock it and haven't (nor will I) change it for the foreseeable future. I don't use the mustache, but it's a really cool one. For whatever it's worth, my Arthur playthrough used the center fade and had a similar mustache, so this look is pretty much my default RDR look for everybody if I can get it. I even gave John the same haircut, although I didn't think he worked with the same mustache quite as well.
• The Garwood outfit ($446.75) Another outfit, useful only as a very expensive hat, as seems to always be the case with the role outfits.
• Bullseye gloves (6 gold) I have two of these, again, bought while on discount. They're pretty sweet; padded leather with an exposed trigger finger. However, I use gloves all of the time. I know a lot of people don't.

The bounty hunter horse (the Breton) in steel gray

Tier 4: Distinguished

Level 16: Perception is a skill page that increases the distance at which you can see bounties on your map. Plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 17: Alternating flips; another gun trick maneuver. Plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 18: Two role unlock tokens.

Level 19: Two role unlock tokens.

Level 20: Dual gun spinning, the final and most impressive pistol/revolver trick, plus two role unlock tokens.

Tier 4 unlocks:

• The Carthage outfit ($545) Most of the bounty hunter outfits are a strange combination of cool cues and silly ones. This one is no exception, so I only bought one color variant, and as with most of the others, it really is just a super expensive hat, because I never use the outfit itself for anything.
• I'm Watching You ($200) an emote. One of the cooler ones, although if I use emotes at all, which I normally don't, the friendlier ones tend to be much more useful with other players, and NPCs tend to not make a big deal out of your emotes either way. I think spending money on emotes is kind of frivolous and I don't care about them, but some people like them, especially if they hang out more with other players and want to mess with them, in which case this is one of the better options.
• Breton mealy dapple bay and steel gray coats ($950) I have the steel gray. It's actually quite a nice horse. It's got phenomenal stamina and pretty good health, as well as a disposition that allows it to wade into combat with impunity. It's also surprisingly kind of fast for a draft horse, although its acceleration is pretty slow. It's one of my favorite, go-to horses. I do wish that the tier 2 coats could have tier 3 stats, as I said, and I think the mealy dapple is kind of boring looking, but the steel gray is black dappled with silver and looks great. Not only that, it looks very different than any of my other horses, which is a nice touch. It naturally comes with a mane that hangs over its eyes, but as I've said before, I always convert all my manes to mohawk style because otherwise the animation looks stiff and unnatural. Although it's in the unlocks section, you can't actually unlock it as soon as you enter the tier, you can only do so at 20th level.
• Redhart Eyepatch (10 gold) Although this is an unlock, you need to be level 20 to get it, not just within the tier. Although to me this seems grossly overpriced for a cosmetic item, it seems to be popular enough. I see a lot of players use it.

RDR a few more pictures

A few more self portrait style pictures. Mostly to show outfits that I'd tinkered with, but also for a few other reasons; I like the weird pagan ritual thing that I found recently; I don't know how I missed it for as long as I had (it's not that pagan ritual that Arthur draws in his journal, nor is it anywhere close to it geographically. Nor is it as graphic or obvious.)

I've also picked up two Nacogdoches saddles, and have really noticed a difference. I was adamant for quite some time that I wanted to use the role saddles with the role horses, but the difference in stamina drain and speed and acceleration is so noticeable that I can't not use it anymore, I think. A real shame, because I had five very expensive saddles, which I now will probably rarely if ever use. And they mostly all looked great too.  Like I said, so far I have two Nacogdoches saddles, fully kitted out, including with lanterns. The saddle itself is over $500, the lantern is $350, and the saddle bag and stirrup upgrades are somewhere between $100-150 each. A fully kitted out Nacogdoches saddle is over $1,000; more than the horse, even, even if you get one of the most expensive ones.

I also, after not using my Kladrubar much, have really felt like he was super slow using him recently. I just put the second Nacogdoches saddle on him, and I'll run him around for a while, but I'm not sure that I love that horse as much as I thought. He's great when you want to get into gunfights or if you run into a cougar or wolves, but given that I spend most of my time on horseback just crossing space on the map, I've come to really appreciate the Criollo, which had been my least favorite of my horses. I now think that if I were to rank my horses as most likely to use to least, I'd put the Criollo and Norfolk near the top, the Breton next, and the Turkoman and Kladrubar near the bottom. Sigh.  So now I'll probably want a Missouri Foxtrotter even more than I did before, because it's much more likely to be a top tier horse even in my own personal stable, having almost identical stats to the Criollo, but a significantly different look.

My dog is named Robin Hood, and my horses, in order that I got them, are Little John, Will Scarlet, Alan-a-Dale, Friar Tuck and Guy of Gisborne. I'm running out of Robin Hood related names that are meaningful enough to use. King Richard and Prince John are about all that's left; and I'm almost at the point that I'd rather get a mare and name her Maid Marian anyway than use those. But given that I can see myself getting at least two more horses in the relatively short term; the Missouri Foxtrotter and whatever the new role horse will be (I presume that there will be one, and I hope it's significantly different than what we have. A noticeably shaggy little horse of some sort would be cool) and maybe still a white Arabian, that'll use up my stock of names. Not to mention most of my available stable stall spots, even if I buy up all of them that are available.

The only downside with the Nacogdoches saddle is that the single colored Collector's saddle bag doesn't match them very well, and they do have improved saddle bags that specifically are designed to match the various colors of this saddle. While mostly this isn't a big deal, it means that the max number of outfits I can carry on my horse is now five instead of seven. Because I leave one space blank on my horse, to make room for the inevitable "custom outfits" that it creates when my hat falls off or my bandanna glitches away, that means that I can have one cold outfit, one hot outfit, my basic outfit, and only one other. So, I'm spending a bit more time making outfits that I actually want to wear, because I can't quite as easily swap between them if after a while I think I look silly.

Anyway, on to the pictures. A few feature horses, mostly my Criollo, Will Scarlet. In keeping with his name, I tried to give him a reddish mane and tale. I also exclusively use the "mohawk" style mane, because in cinematic mode, it doesn't wave behind the horse's head like a weird, stiff flag. Same thing as the longer tails on my coats; the animation for them just doesn't look right, so I prefer not to use them and look silly. After all, when running across the map for long distances, I have to look at it quite a bit.

The weird pagan ritual site. It was also the location of one of the treasure maps, as you can see by the chest at its foot.

I prefer camp in the Heartlands, although Great Plains would probably be more convenient, being significantly closer to my moonshine shack in Tall Trees. We'll see what the new role brings and where the best place to set up ends up being, but I like the Heartlands prairie for aesthetic reasons as well. Here I am with an outfit I tried out using the weathered blue Hartman jacket. Which, I believe, is the same "design" as the scout jacket from single player, which I also really liked, although most of the colors are completely different.

In the Great Plains with my basic outfit. I'm actually showing off my new reddish beard, which I "grew" as part of a daily challenge, which asked me to change my appearance at the barbers. I'll probably keep it for some time; maybe even until that challenge comes up again in the rotation. And my Criollo and my first Nacogdoches saddle are in the background. I don't like all of the colors, but I'll probably end up with at least three or four of these saddles before I'm done. I have two now.

Another outfit that's not too different; it uses a different hat, vest and shirt (and probably a few other minor things like gloves, bandana and gunbelt, etc.) but which especially uses the tan cordury version of the Hartman jacket. I really need to find another jacket that I like as much as this one, but I'm unlikely to, I admit. With a similar jacket and the same chaps and boots, it looks very similar to my basic outfit. 

A different take on the blue weathered jacket outfit. And my horse, again, up near the foot of Window Rock where I like to fish. I think Madame Nazar was there when I took this picture, which explains what I was doing there too.

Another Hartman jacket outfit using a different variety. It's surprisingly not very warm, even though it really looks like it should be, so not having a vest means I need to try extra hard to make it warm enough to qualify as appropriate for average temps. In this case, part of what I did was put these big furry warm chaps on.

The same outfit, out in Tall Trees where I'd just spawned after starting the game in West Elizabeth free roam after having to switch servers because of a glitch with my moonshine shack (luckily, I was very close to it, at Bear Claw camp.) Without crossing my arms, I was trying to show off my sweet green patterned shirt, but the shadow makes it difficult to make out anyway. Oh, well.

Another outfit and another spot in the Heartlands, this time near Emerald Ranch. Bad weather looming ahead. It rains quite a lot in this game, one of many clues that points to a spring time setting. 

A hot weather outfit made entirely of black leather. Black leather hat, vest, shirt, pants, boots, gloves, sunbelt, and half chaps. In real life I doubt I'd ever wear so much black leather. 

The black leather on a rainy day at Braithwaite Manor. Shortly after this I deleted the outfit and tried out a different look. 

Another average temperature outfit with a new jacket.  I do need some hats that match my tan and brown leather since I wear that so much. 

It wasn't cold, obviously, but this is a cold water outfit with a new color of the sheepskin coat, one of my favorites. I've probably got one more variant color of that that I'd like. Let's see if we get any new limited time clothing options tomorrow first, though. 

My replacement hot weather outfit. The black version of this jacket was rhe first cosmetic piece of clothing I picked up, but I haven't used it or this brown one much since. Unfortunately, it has a short "butt tail" of sorts, and looks a bit stupid from behind, which is how I, as the player, see it most of the time. If the back were the same length as the front, it would look a lot better.

Signs

Just a few more pictures from my Rockstar social club feed. When I was still dabbling in the post-game stuff with John, and taking pictures, I decided at one point to run around taking pictures of signs that showed state borders or city limits. I didn't capture all of them, but I did do quite a few. Some of them are just pictures of the signs, but some of them are "selfies" with my version of John standing next to the sign.

Since they're self explanatory, I don't think I'll offer any commentary.

RDR sales

As an aside, I deleted many of those outfits already. There's a HUGE sale on clothing this week (and Red Dead's week always starts on Tuesday). I've been picking up stuff like crazy, and running my money out. And then I spent many more hours than I'd honestly have liked chasing around all of the three most valuable lost jewelry collections and the coins collection this evening after it reset at 8 PM. I wasn't completely uninterrupted, and I did get a few extra things too like the creek plums and some vanilla flowers, etc. so I can keep making wild creek moonshine. I went from having no money; like 77¢ and my camp disappeared because I couldn't afford the maintenance of it to suddenly having over $1,600 once I got to Madame Nazar. (Where does she come up with the cash to fund me, I wonder? Not to mention all of the other players that I always run into when at Madame Nazar's.)

Of course, I've now spent most of that too. The most expensive thing I got was a pair of semi-automatic pistols, because they were 40 or 50% off. I got several gun belts at a major discount, but the matching off-hand holsters were not on sale, so I spent a fair bit there too. And I think I've bought all of the clothing that I could possibly want until some new stuff gets released, or goes on discount. I even broke my own rule and went below 100 gold bars to fund some of the discounted stuff that I wanted. I probably should have just been patient; I have until next week to buy all this stuff before the discount goes away. But I had time today, and I may not later in the week, so I bought it now, and I'm down at 95 and some change gold bars. Not to worry; I usually get between 3-4 gold bars a day doing daily challenges. If I just do a few fast and easy ones, I could get as low as about 2, but other days I easily get 4-5. It all depends on what the challenges are, and how much time I'm willing to dedicate to them. In general, I'm certainly going to slow down significantly after peaking today in terms of how many hours I spend on the game.

Because it was after midnight, my son was begging me to get off the PS4 and make room for him, and it was dark in game anyway, I didn't really have a good chance to redo outfits. Because I have so many new clothes, I was really looking forward to coming up with something new, but I only made a quick new cold and new hot (blue) outfit, so I have the bare minimum on my horse, and then I logged off after giving it a moment to "save." I'm not even sure that I like these new outfits; like I said, I couldn't even see them really. Sometime in the near future, I'll redo them if I don't, and create some more alternates so I can go back and forth while out and about. Not only did I not have time to do that, but I certainly didn't have time to sell the moonshine that had been sitting there waiting for me, which is good because I'm back down to $30 or so after the huge splurge I just had.

But I hadn't had a any pistols the entire time I've been playing; only revolvers, so it was nice to get some really quite pricey pistols that I enjoyed a lot in single player, get two of them even, at about half price, and load up on clothes for my cowboy fashionista. Clothes horse, maybe, is the better expression to use for him.

I also haven't used my Turkoman horse much since maxing him out. For whatever reason, I switched fairly early back to my Kladrubar, but he seemed really slow to me after running with some other horses. I also used the Norfolk roadster a bit, but I ended up doing the four hour collector marathon with the Criollo, which seems appropriate, given that that's the collector horse. In the past, I haven't loved that horse, but today it was my favorite. I'm kinda starting to think that rather than getting two more top tier horses--a white Arabian and the champagne dapple Missouri Foxtrotter, that I'd do better getting rid of the idea that I've locked certain saddles with certain horses, get a couple of different Nacogdoches saddle color schemes, and use them more often, assuming that they really are as good as everyone says and that they do really increase the speed and acceleration like everyone says. That's certainly a cheaper option than doing that plus getting two more stable stalls and two more really expensive horses, and then having to go through the painfully long horse bonding procedure with them before they're really "usable" the way that I'm used to. There can be time to eventually get them later. If I decide that I even still want to.

I'm determined to spend a minimal amount of time, relatively speaking, on the game tomorrow. I'll do a few daily challenges, and a moonshine run for the cash, and go back to the shack and start another batch of moonshine so I can do it later. (Actually probably in the reverse order. There's a chance that when I finish with the daily challenges, I'll be able to sell a second batch right away.) If the challenges aren't very good, I might even do a bounty hunt or two, because they pay in gold as well as cash (although a relatively small amount of the latter, it's the only role that actually gives you gold. But even then, the daily challenges are usually more lucrative.)

And then I'll get on the PC and maybe write a bit. I did start up a DH5 story, but I wasn't liking the way my intro was turning out, so I'll probably scrap it and start again. I'm mostly just noodling; I don't have a plan. But I've learned that with this enforced shut-in and even mandatory paid vacation that I'm on this week, if I don't do something other than play the game, I'll just end up playing the game. And I'd rather add something at least a bit more productive to the rotation of things that I'm doing rather than play 6-8 hours or so. Not non-stop, at least, but today I might have even logged more hours than that, and I kinda feel like while I accomplished some things in game, those obviously aren't real things that I've accomplished. I'm going to peak with the game and dramatically and quickly lose interest if I spend too much time on it, and the only mitigating factor is the upcoming update, new role, and new outlaw pass that we're all expecting.

Anyway, that's what I've done today. Ugh. That and running a few errands with my wife earlier.