Red Dead Online Beta: Disaster or Masterpiece

RED DEAD ONLINE REVIEW

It has been a few days since Red Dead Online has become available to Players and there is a ton of things to go over for the Game. The main thing to consider is that this is still an Online Beta, however, at the moment things are looking so-so at the moment. There are a wide variety of successes that RockStar did well on as well as flaws. Starting us off will be the good parts for online and what I believe make Online fairly fun for everyone. 

The Greatest Parts of Red Dead Online

When starting Online, there is a great start right away with the Introduction scene (similar to GTA Online) that will introduce players to the ropes of how everything works. You have your camps, your horses (which is safe from Griefers, more on this later), and the story. Now, it is hard to believe that the Online portion of Red Dead has a story but it is actually good and allows you to meet some familiar faces from the first Red Dead as well like Bonnie. Once you have finished the Introductions, you will be welcomed to what is Red Dead Online and the Multiplayer is very large at that. There are areas that are in Red Dead 2 as well as Red Dead such as Blackwater and Armadillo. What stands out the most to me is that you can pretty much do everything from the base game such as hunting, fishing, and even treasure hunting which yields the most money you can earn. There is one benefit that everyone admires which is setting up your posse and enjoying everything together. Posse can have a huge benefit for you and your friends as you are able to share perks that you all have. 

From setting up your Posse, you can all share abilities such as Focus Fire, which allows you and your group to deal more damage when you (the user) activates Dead Eye. This ability can be very helpful in Stranger missions where you have to eliminate a gang hideout quickly and leave swiftly. Other abilities allow you to paint your targets and fire when ready and one that seems great for your posse is "Quite an Inspiration" which allows the user and group members to regen their lost health. What I enjoy most with my posse is what I will go over next is causing mischief. 

The Bad Outlaws You will Encounter

Like most players, you will encounter the (what we call them here) Bad Outlaws in the Wild West. These are the players that will always kill other players in the game as there are no repercussions besides losing honor which is easily obtainable. The interesting thing about Red Dead Online is that the game is more beneficial towards Dishonorable players as it is the easiest way to gain Experience to rank up. At the cost of a very low amount of honor, you can easily hunt other players in free roam and gain up to 25 experience, which may seem small, however, it would be the same as playing any of the matchmakings in the game. If you have a posse and you are willing to shack up in Blackwater (Fairly popular spawning area) you can go on mass killings sprees and easily get 100 experience every 5 to 10 minutes if not more. There are no Bad Sports lobbies at the moment so you can continuously do this until you get bored or get tired of the easy exp. There are other ways to cause mischief to others such as stealing or killing their horses, hogtying players, and even disrupting their Stranger missions and taking the loot itself. The worst part about killing a players horse is that they are forced to use a Horse revive or Wait up to thirty minutes to have their horse respawned and then you just do it again. This is what Red Dead Online has become at the moment and I am certain they will fix this soon. In some case, you could say it pays to be an Outlaw.

The Struggle for Money and Gold

There is one thing that Red Dead lacks severely which is making Money and the Microtransaction portion that will follow with release Gold. The game has no way to pay to get Gold so sorry to the players that want to skip ranking up and getting the headstart from others. Money is one thing that you will need when playing and it is very difficult to obtain. With payouts from stranger missions and story giving a mere $5.00, it is sad because the prices for guns and horses are outrageous. 

Horses themselves cost almost $400 just to obtain them and for Horse Insurance, which allows your horse to be protected from griefers, sadly costs 50 gold bars. I would definitely hold back from buying horses as it would be a shame to work hard for a faster horse just to lose it and not have the means to get it back because without that insurance once it is dead....that is it, you will have to pay for a brand new one. Guns are great investments if you can obtain the currency and long hours of play to obtain them. IGN has reported that it would take at least 50+ hours just to obtain the money to buy a gun through the stranger missions and the story itself. There are other ways to make money that pay fairly decent but they will take some time. On Average, I can manage to make at least $50 just by hunting and that usually takes roughly 15-20 minutes. It can get very tiresome to do the same routine so many times, however, that is what makes it last for content until we have more to do with Online. Now, the overall question is if it is worth it to get Red Dead Redemption 2. 

Red Dead: Is it a Buy or a Pass?

When it comes to Red Dead Online, there are a bunch of things that can make or break the game as it is. Where Red Dead Online Stands right now, I would say if you got a group of friends to play then it is worth it as the entirety of the group will enjoy what it has to offer. My Group of friends managed to enjoy the game itself just by messing each other up and doing brawls on the train tracks until either we got killed by the train or hogtied by each other and thrown off the railroad cliff. Now, if you are a Solo Player looking for something similar to GTA then I would say to pass the game until after Christmas. It does not look like it will be updated anytime soon as it has just released and it seems very unlikely that a game studio would be crunching more hours into releasing the next patch when they can work on the Online aspect as a whole to make it Full release. There are, of course, other things to enjoy for Red Dead Redemption 2 itself like Story. The Story is written Fantastic and makes you feel everything that the characters in the game feel, it is rare that I have ever experienced this even for a Story-based game. There were times when I was plainly shocked at the actions that Arthur ( The Main Character) had taken and it really did make the game rather enjoyable. To sum everything all up, It is worth purchasing this title if you have friends to enjoy it with and goof around or cause mischief in Blackwater, Gun Pricing and Horses are Outrageous as Mission Payouts are too low, and lastly, you will be gunned down by yours truly if you play on Xbox as that is what Red Dead Online has come to for me.