Red Dead Redemption 2 is a long game. Here’s a short version of its narrative in 7 short chapters for a quick read – spoiler alert.
The epic tale of Red Dead Redemption 2 revolves around the Van der Linde gang, led by Dutch Van der Linde, in the year 1899. Spanning various chapters, the narrative follows protagonist Arthur Morgan, a loyal enforcer for the gang, as they navigate a treacherous world. Here’s a breakdown of each chapter and how the story progresses.
Chapter 1: Colter
As the game begins, the gang seeks refuge in the snow-covered mountains of Ambarino following a botched robbery in Blackwater. Their temporary sanctuary in the abandoned mining town of Colter sets the stage for survival and planning their next moves.
Chapter 2: Horseshoe Overlook
Relocating to the Heartlands of New Hanover, near Valentine, the gang establishes a new camp. They embark on missions, engage in activities, and encounter rival gangs, law enforcement, and intriguing characters. Internal tensions start to rise, questioning Dutch’s sanity and leadership.
Chapter 3: Clemens Point
The gang moves to a camp near Rhodes in Lemoyne, entangling themselves in a local feud between the Gray and Braithwaite families. Arthur aids the Braithwaites in a mission that ends in bloodshed. The gang also plans a bank robbery in Saint Denis, aiming to expand their influence.
Chapter 4: Shady Belle
After their camp is attacked, the gang relocates to Shady Belle, an old plantation near Saint Denis. Dutch becomes increasingly desperate, obsessed with rescuing a captured gang member and retrieving their Blackwater funds. Heists turn deadly, leading to the loss of key ally Hosea Matthews. Some members of the gang escape on a random boat setting off to an unknown destination.
Chapter 5: Guarma
After the failed ferry robbery, gang members find themselves stranded on Guarma, a tropical island. Arthur aligns with local rebels to fight against an oppressive plantation owner. Their ultimate goal is to escape the island and reunite with the gang. Arthur discovers Micah’s betrayal.
Chapter 6: Beaver Hollow
Returning to the mainland, the gang seeks refuge in Beaver Hollow, an abandoned mining town. As the Pinkertons close in, internal divisions deepen. Arthur’s battle with tuberculosis intensifies, leading to revelations about Micah’s treachery. He aids John Marston’s escape. In a violent conclusion to the story, Arthur confronts Micah while Dutch stands by watching. His disease takes the best of him during the fight. He dies sick, wounded, and betrayed but peacefully watching the sunset.
Epilogue: Parts 1 & 2
Years later, the story shifts to John Marston’s perspective as he builds a new life on a ranch in Beecher’s Hope. Undertaking tasks to establish his homestead, John confronts his past and seeks redemption. A climactic final showdown ensues, pitting him against the remaining Van der Linde gang members.
Red Dead Redemption 2’s story delves into themes of loyalty, betrayal, and personal redemption. Through the complex character of Arthur Morgan, players witness the decline of the Wild West, the arrival of civilization, and how it robs us of authenticity and shifts our perception of reality – and the consequences of choices made in a morally ambiguous world.
Moonshine recipes in Red Dead Redemption 2 Online give you the ability to make your special booze, own your very own speakeasy and earn a lot of money. It’s a fun addition to the world of RDR2 and in this article I’ll be covering all there is to know about RDR2’s Moonshine Recipes.
In this post, however, I will simply go over the recipes and ingredients that are required to make the best moonshine.
Add power to your booze!
First things first: upgrade your distillery as soon as you can. That will increase profit drastically and the distillation takes longer, which allows you to do other stuff in the meantime. Sure, the upgrade costs are steep, but the value you get in return is well worth the investment.
Here’s a rundown of the upgrade costs:
CondenserUpgrade: 2 Role Tokens + 825$ + Moonshiner Rank 5
To make a batch of a more valuable moonshine you need to upgrade your distillery and then gather all the ingredients. Some recipes only become available by progressing in the Moonshiner role.
Also, keep in mind that buyers change every two hours or so – so you’ll be wise to account for ingredients for different recipes.
Here’s the full list of recipes available
★ Tropical Punch Moonshine
Canned Pineapples
Vanilla Flower
Pear
★ Wild Cider Moonshine
Apple
Currant
Ginseng
★ Berry Mint Moonshine
Canned Berries
Blackberry
Mint
★★ Evergreen Moonshine
Evergreen Huckleberry
Wintergreen Berry
Ginseng
★★ Apple Berry Crumb Moonshine (Bootlegger Story Progress)
Apple
Blackberry
Vanilla Flower
★★ Berry Cobbler Moonshine (Requires Rank 2)
Red Raspberry
Peach
Canned Peaches
★★★ Wild Creek Moonshine (Requires Rank 6)
Wild Mint
Vanilla Flower
Creek Plum
★★★ Spiced Island Moonshine (Requires Rank 12)
Caribbean Rum
Golden Currant
Canned Apricots
★★★ Agarita Sunrise (Complete Bootlegger story)
Agarita
Canned Strawberries
Evergreen Huckleberries
Time is money
Some of these ingredients are available by picking herbs in the game world. However, others are canned fruits or liqueurs and may be harder to find.
Pro tip: many recipe ingredients are buyable via the Wheeler Rawson Catalogue. Rather than the cost, consider them as an investment of …time – as you won’t have to go find them in the game world.
These will allow you to make higher quality moonshine that sells for a LOT more money, which justifies their initial cost.
Always keep a healthy supply of fruits, herbs, and liqueurs with you at all times. You should guarantee enough fruits and herbs to fulfill two or three 2-star or 3-star recipes.
Simply buy batches of up to 30 cans of fruit and fetch them from the Post Office and try to gather the few remaining ingredients from the game world.
Rise and ‘Shine
You should aim for the more valuable drinks. Namely, the Wild Creek Moonshine, Spiced Island Moonshine, and the Agarita Sunrise whenever possible. Keep this list at hand:
Wild Creek Moonshine: Wild Mint, Vanilla Flower, Creek Plum
Spiced Island Moonshine: Caribbean Rum, Golden Currant, Canned Apricots
Again, keep in mind that some items are buyable via the Wheeler Rawson Catalogue. I highly recommend that you use the Catalogue’s Online version, as it allows you to quickly find your ingredients by using the search functionality.
In the Wheeler Rawson Catalogue you’ll be able to find:
Canned Apricots (0.75$)
Canned Strawberries (1.20$)
Canned Peaches (1.00$)
Orchard Apples (0.40$)
Canned Berries (1.20$)
Canned Pineapples (1.50$)
Bartlett Pears (0.65$).
From Madam Nazar’s shop you’ll also be able to buy:
Currant
Ginseng
Caribbean Rum (via collector map)
Other ingredients are rather easy to find:
Golden Currant – West of Van Horn, near Kamassa River
Red Raspberry – South East of Stillwater Creek
Vanilla Flower – South East of Lake Lagras
Wild Mint – South West of Valentine, near the river
Wintergreen Berry – North of Brandywine Drop
In order to find these items more easily, consider using JeanRopke’s RDOMap.
The elusive Poison Poppy recipe
There’s one other recipe that I purposely avoided talking about in this article. The reason is simple: it is difficult to understand how to make it and find its ingredients. I will attempt to clarify this topic:
In one of the Moonshine Story missions, you are required to brew a vial of Poison Poppy. However, you don’t get to keep the recipe for this drink. In order to unlock the Poison Poppy recipe, you must first find a recipe pamphlet. There are multiple locations where this spawns.
Try to find a small moonshine operation camp in one of these locations. Go there at night to easily spot the campfire.
Credit: Fun2, Tez
Look for the recipe inside the camp’s chest. Once you have read the pamphlet (in your satchel), gather the following ingredients:
Oleander Sage
Prairie Poppy
Absinthe
Go back to your Moonshine Shack and it should now be available. This recipe is harder to find, but it is worth 247$, like the most valuable ones. If you’re having trouble, check out GTAO W’s video.
Moonshining in Red Dead Redemption 2 can be a surprisingly profitable business. There are ways to increase revenue and reduce costs (to lower mash prices and even save on supplies). Some up-start investment may be required.
But before I give you a couple of tips, if you’re on the fence on whether to start moonshining in Red Dead Redemption 2, let me start by saying that it is a rather fun profession to explore. There are plenty of missions to do and they feel quite varied. Playing with friends also seems to increase the number of available bootlegger missions.
Becoming a moonshiner in RDR2 will also allow you to purchase some fancy clothes and items. However, it is the money aspect that most players are after.
Okay, so how do I lower mash prices in RDR2?
Straight to the point: in order to lower mash prices, all you have to do is to accept Bootlegger missions from Maggie. Talk to her and hold the R key.
Maggie will guide you through the Moonshiner life
Be aware that there’s a 15-minute timer between missions, during which you’re unable to do another one. Sometimes Maggie isn’t there, or she’s stuck in an animation sequence – in which case you should go out of the moonshine shack, give it some time and then go back in again. If this becomes a repeating issue, try using my new tool that helps you optimize CPU performance. Its called RDR2 Launch Argument Composer Tool
Bootlegger Missions
By doing Bootlegger missions, you will eventually be able to lower the cost of producing alcohol significantly. As an example, you will be able to lower the 30$ mash cost down to 10$. This is most noticeable when you upgrade your distillery to be able to produce stronger moonshine. Stronger moonshine requires more time and mash to produce. Instead of paying 30$ per mash dosage, you’ll be paying 50$. The upside is that stronger moonshine sells for a LOT more money. Depending on the quality of the ingredients you’re using, you could sell a batch of booze for up to 247$ per trip. Doing Bootlegger missions also earns you plenty of collectibles, since you’ll be fighting Revenue agents and rival moonshiners that have plenty of expensive items and ammo to loot.
One may argue that the time it takes to do the Bootlegger mission isn’t worth the 20$ discount on mash prices. However, the loot you get from all those revenue agent bodies is worth it in the long run. It earns you special bullets, antique liqueurs, and gold watches, which makes it all much more profitable.
Making the most of your Moonshiner role means optimizing your business in the long run. I highly recommend you check out my additional suggestions on how to make the most of the Moonshiner role:
–Oh, and if you would like a detailed overview of the Moonshiner role, Bootlegger mission tips, as well as some other ideas on how to make the best use of this new content, make sure you check out my other post – A Guide to Moonshining in RDR2 (my most popular post EVER!).
The best Moonshine Shack Location
Moonshine Shack in Lemoyne
Location, location, location
Start by considering where you’ll be placing your Moonshiner shack. Keep in mind that if you’ve already bought the Moonshine shack, you can talk to Maggie to move it somewhere else for 250$.
It may, at first glance, seem irrelevant or hard to figure out the pros and cons of each location. Here are your options:
Bayou Nwa (Lemoyne)
Grizzlies (Ambarino)
Hennigan’s Stead (New Austin)
The Heartlands (New Hanover)
Tall Trees (West Elizabeth)
So let me give you some perspective: Some locations are easier to access. Some are safer or quicker to traverse. It all pays (literally) in the long run.
I’ve seen a lot of players debating this topic, but none seem to ever have mentioned what I consider to be crucial when picking a location. RDR2 will have other businesses coming out in the near future. Making sure that all your businesses are close together is key to maximizing profits over time by reducing trip lengths. We may not know exactly what other businesses are coming, but we may have an idea of where Rockstar is going with their updates and try to guess their new business locations.
Grand Theft Auto V Online has always surprised players with their extensive expansions. There are lots of new varied businesses, each with their own missions, upgrades, and perks. But all of them required a physical location to use them. Rockstar did that again with the Trader and Moonshiner roles in Red Dead Redemption 2. Bounty Hunter and Collector roles don’t require a player-controlled HQ or shack, but they do rely on the Sheriff’s office’s Bounty Board and Madam Nazar’s traveling wagon to operate.
Marcel the Cook
Rockstar seems to be extremely creative when coming up with stuff to do. Let’s see what the community comes up with – here are some community-suggested roles and activities:
Rancher
Farmer
Horse Tamer/Breeder
Miner / Hauler
Herbalist
Bank robbing
Monster hunting
Chariot robbing
Train robbing
Photographer
Sheriff
Pleasure giver
Here are my 6 additions:
Cook
Gold miner (panning on a river)
Miner (in the mines)
Funerary services
River trader (transporting goods on a ship)
Army Mercenary
These ideas are not that wild. Most use gameplay mechanics already in place or easy to add to the game. If Rockstar decides to add any of these roles, they will likely either require a large plot of land, being close to a town, or a brand new map expansion.
Where will the new roles appear?
They will try to pepper the map with new interactive locations, but the far reaches of the map or the most rugged terrain areas tend to become less populated (like the snowy Ambarino regions up north and the Grizzlies to the East). Most of the coastal regions have towns that tend to be crowded and hard to navigate in. The far West towns (Armadillo, Tumbleweed), even though they do feature some mines, are way too barren to be expected that they grow with many new industries.
This leaves us the center core of the map as a prime region for placing role buildings. from the Tall Trees region to the west, most of the New Hannover area, and the non-swampy parts of Scarlett Meadows.
Being at the center also provides you with more options for expansion as every new location option should be close enough.
Van Horn, Annesburg, Tumbleweed, Armadillo, Strawberry, Valentine, and Rodes, all lack either a butcher or a tailor. Both very important requirements for a very practical town.
This is the reason why Blackwater is my favorite town.
Blackwater has most of the stores that you may ever require. It’s small enough that it’s easy to navigate in. It is also very easy to reach via the Great Plains (an amazing hunting ground). Blackwater is also a coastal town with two rivers nearby and it features a Fast Travel post and a bounty board at a convenient location. It doesn’t have a railway line, but it is close to a military fort. No tricky swamps or cliffs to fall and lose your cargo.
All things considered, when choosing a Moonshine shack location, these two would be my ordered best picks:
Tall Trees (West Elizabeth)
The Heartlands (New Hanover)
The Tall Trees region is beautiful and brimming with wildlife. It is easy to transport goods across the Great Plains and to avoid enemies, players and roads entirely. It is also near other areas of potential future interest such as MacFarlane’s ranch, or Thieve’s Landing. To make the most of it, set your trader camp in the Tall Trees or Great Plains region and supply Cripps while waiting for the booze to be ready for delivery.
There are two ways to increase profit. Improve your distillery to make stronger moonshine and improve the quality of your recipe.
Add power to your booze!
I highly recommend upgrading your distillery as soon as you may, as it increases profit and the distillation takes longer which allows you to do other stuff meanwhile.
Condenser: 2 Role Tokens + 825$ + Moonshiner Rank 5
To make stronger moonshine, all you have to do is to have the right ingredients when you’re picking your flavor. Keep in mind that some recipes are unlocked by progressing in the Moonshiner role. Buyers change every two hours or so – so you’re best going for different recipes each time.
Here’s the full list of recipes available
★ Tropical Punch Moonshine
Canned Pineapples
Vanilla Flower
Pear
★ Wild Cider Moonshine
Apple
Currant
Ginseng
★ Berry Mint Moonshine
Canned Berries
Blackberry
Mint
★★ Evergreen Moonshine
Evergreen Huckleberry
Wintergreen Berry
Ginseng
★★ Apple Berry Crumb Moonshine (Bootlegger Story Progress)
Apple
Blackberry
Vanilla Flower
★★ Berry Cobbler Moonshine (Requires Rank 2)
Red Raspberry
Peach
Canned Peaches
★★★ Wild Creek Moonshine (Requires Rank 6)
Wild Mint
Vanilla Flower
Creek Plum
★★★ Spiced Island Moonshine (Requires Rank 12)
Caribbean Rum
Golden Currant
Canned Apricots
★★★ Agarita Sunrise (Complete Bootlegger story)
Agarita
Canned Strawberries
Evergreen Huckleberries
There’s also the secretive but very profitable Poison Poppy recipe, for which you will find in-depth info on how to get it here.
Some of these ingredients are available by picking herbs in the game world. However, others are canned or liqueurs and harder to get.
So here’s my tip: many recipe ingredients are actually buyable via the Wheeler Rawson Catalogue. They’re not that expensive and they will allow you to make higher quality moonshine that sells for a LOT more money.
Always keep a healthy supply of fruits, herbs and liqueurs with you at all times.
Always keep a healthy supply of fruits, herbs, and liqueurs with you at all times. You should guarantee enough fruits and herbs to fulfill two or three 2-star or 3-star recipes. I usually buy batches of up to 30 cans and fetch them from the post office whenever I need them.
That being said, you should aim for the most valuable drinks. Namely the Wild Creek Moonshine, Spiced Island Moonshine, and the Agarita Sunrise whenever possible.
Wild Creek Moonshine: Wild Mint, Vanilla Flower, Creek Plum
Spiced Island Moonshine: Caribbean Rum, Golden Currant, Canned Apricots
Again, keep in mind that some items are buyable via the Wheeler Rawson Catalogue. I highly recommend you use the Catalogue’s Online version, as it allows you to quickly find your ingredients by using the search functionality.
In the Wheeler Rawson Catalogue you’ll be able to find:
Canned Apricots (0.75$)
Canned Strawberries (1.20$)
Canned Peaches (1.00$)
Orchard Apples (0.40$)
Canned Berries (1.20$)
Canned Pineapples (1.50$)
Bartlett Pears (0.65$).
From Madam Nazar’s shop you’ll also be able to buy:
Currant
Ginseng
Caribbean Rum (via collector map)
Other ingredients are rather easy to find:
Golden Currant – West of Van Horn, near Kamassa River
Red Raspberry – South East of Stillwater Creek
Vanilla Flower – South East of Lake Lagras
Wild Mint – South West of Valentine, near the river
Wintergreen Berry – North of Brandywine Drop
How to minimize losses
Once your booze is ready you will have to deliver your batch to a local buyer. When delivering your moonshine, make sure you stick to the road at a medium-fast pace.
Going off-road will guaranteedly break your bottles and your profit will take a toll. I highly recommend using the cinematic camera (V) and then control the vehicle’s speed using Shift or Ctrl.
I don’t usually stop at the Revenue Agent’s roadblocks. There are a couple of reasons why I don’t do that:
Sometimes they won’t stop you at all. If you stop, there’s a very low chance that they let you pass unharmed. Their shots damage your cargo but only slightly. It is much more dangerous to the integrity of your cargo to go off-road.
If you’re being chased, you’re best served by slowing down your vehicle, kill them and then proceed with your trip. Going too fast will likely send you off-track. Stopping will consume time and their bullets will start to hit you.
I’ve seen players kill the revenue agents before they reach the roadblock. But the truth is that you’ll be fighting a lot more agents than you really need to – and in this business, time is money. Just go past them as fast as you can without going off-road or breaking your bottles. You may also want to experiment with the Toxic Moonshine bottles thrown at the roadblock Revenue agents, although I think it might be too expensive to do so every time they show up.
Closing thoughts
Moonshining is a fun specialist role to experience. It certainly earns you quite a bit of money – and you’re able to go hunt or do other stuff while you wait for your next batch of booze to be ready. However, some argue that the bootlegger missions are pointless, as the 20$ savings don’t justify the time cost of doing them. On the other hand, revenue agents tend to carry pretty good loot and collectibles. Thus, in order to justify your time, make sure to always go for their loot!
6 months ago Rockstar surprised a lot of players by launching an update to Grand Theft Auto 5. It featured the eagerly awaited Diamond Casino Spa & Resort in Los Santos. Unfortunately, the seats at this casino’s tables were not available to everyone.
Many players were facing issues when attempting to use the casino’s chips, tables or slots. Rockstar did not release any information regarding this issue which made players think it was a bug of sorts. It appeared like there was a connection issue – but nothing mentioned that gambling was disabled for certain players.
Rockstar was blocking players from certain countries
The restrictions were unclear and apparently unreasonable. Some countries have strict legislation against gambling and were able to access Rockstar’s casino games. Now, I live in Portugal. We have a ton of casinos and gambling halls in our country. Plenty of online sports betting websites. Pokerstars and mobile gambling. There’s even state-endorsed gambling available and yet we’re unable to access the Diamond Casino games in Grand Theft Auto 5. Meanwhile, our friends over in Spain who have pretty much the same regulations as we do, have no issues playing at GTA V’s online casino.
It is kind of sad that some players get free items, free content to play with and all sorts of activities that many others are prevented from accessing altogether.
This is even more ridiculous if you consider the fact that you can’t even cash-out the money you earn. It’s all virtual. It isn’t really a gambling addiction problem, just a regulatory one. In GTA V you do have the option to buy GTA$, but you can’t convert it into real money. However, in RDR 2 Online, you can’t even buy $ – only gold, which is a very different currency.
Here’s a list of countries unable to gamble in GTA 5’s online casino, according to Reddit user SlapshotTommy:
Afghanistan Algeria American Samoa Argentina Azerbaijan Bahamas Bhutan Bosnia Herzg. Belarus Brunei Cambodia Cayman Islands China Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Ecuador Greece
Iceland Indonesia Iran Iraq Israel Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Libya Liechtenstein Luxembourg Maldives Mali Mauritania Malta Malaysia North Korea Oman
Paraguay Peru Poland Portugal Qatar Saudi Arabia Somalia South Africa South Korea Sri Lanka Sudan Syria Taiwan Thailand Tuvalu UAE Vietnam Venezuela
Red Dead Redemption 2 Poker? Same thing, different game
RDR 2 Online Poker Table
I like playing Poker. It’s fun and relaxing and a great way to socialize and meet new people.
One of the reasons why I bought RDR 2 was because Poker was a thing. It seemed like it would be a lot of fun to play against other players online. There aren’t that many 3D Poker games out there since PKR was terminated a few years ago, so I thought this would be great fun.
Apparently I was wrong. I was not going to be allowed to play Poker in Red Dead Redemption 2 Online. I’m guessing Blackjack won’t work either, even if you’re just playing against an NPC like in singleplayer…
Rockstar does not inform RDR 2 players properly
I’m a PC player. I missed the news that this was an issue back in May 2019, when it first came up to the PS4 and XBOX players.
In fact, I thought that this was not yet implemented. Until yesterday, when a random player approached me in role-playing style. He asked me if I would like to play poker with him. I laughed and said that I would love to – but that the only way to play Poker right now is the singleplayer game mode. Then he replied that he had been playing with his mates.
I was confused.
Rockstar did not release any info regarding this topic. There’s no contextual info or error message. Nothing. You can see the NPCs playing by themselves, but there’s no interaction button or error message.
The reality is that they’re hiding content to avoid complaints. In a way it kind of angers me more that they hide this content instead of informing players in-game that the content isn’t available for players in their specific region.
How to play Poker in RDR 2 if you’re excluded?
RDR 2 Online Poker Table
The answer is simple. Go live somewhere where your IP isn’t blocked by Rockstar… or get an IP from a different country instead.
VPN networks seem to have been working as a great workaround for players in GTA V wanting to play at the casino. This isn’t a cheat, this isn’t a mod. Now, the question is:
Will Rockstar ban you for using a VPN? Unlikely.
Is it possible they will? Sure.
Is it reasonable to do it? Nope.
Is Rockstar known for being reasonable at anything… ever? Nope.
Alternatively, play in singleplayer mode. Boring. I know.
Cashing out.
I can’t understand Rockstar’s criteria for picking certain countries, but not others. The lack of info regarding this topic as if it wasn’t an issue at all is ridiculous. I won’t accept that they would advertise something that really isn’t available at all.
Rockstar is weird when it comes to gambling. I sure will remember that the next time I avoid buying a game with that feature.
Coming up with the new update, you will be able to own your very own moonshine production facility. You will require a place to do it. Soon after, patrons will start pouring in asking for your very spicy miracle tonics served in a glass.
Let the Moonshiner Operation begin!
Eventually, you will be able to upgrade your moonshine “facility” into a very dandy and customizable speakeasy. Afterward, you’ll surely want to add some entertainment – like a local band and a dance floor.
Moonshining in Red Dead Redemption 2 wouldn’t be complete without new gear to make you look like a proper booze king. You will also meet a new character, Maggie who will provide some missions to help you set up shop.
Strangely enough, this will require the player to be Trader rank 5. This might be kind of cumbersome to obtain. Alternatively, you are able to acquire it by completing a sale. Selling is ridiculously easy once you’ve obtained the Butcher’s table. I will eventually post a guide on how to progress your trade rank quickly! Subscribe to my blog via the sidebar on the left to be the first to know!
Now that I’ve given you the latest news, let’s delve deeper into what this effectively means but also how economy systems can add immersiveness to a game, or break it entirely – and why I feel like Rockstar’s fears are a missed opportunity (if at least they allowed us to mod it…).
The gaming dreams of a trader
Meet Maggie. She will pack your speakeasy and move it somewhere else when you’re not looking.
Trading and owning a store is one of the coolest things I love seeing in a videogame. Unfortunately, this ability doesn’t come along often. Most games do not support this feature. The ones that do are usually limited in their nature to have it run at a very basic level.
In particular, I love the concept of buying and selling stuff online, to other players and NPCs.
I’m pretty sure I am not alone.
Star Citizen‘s most profitable month in 2019 just passed. It featured a concept sale of a ship (the Kraken Privateer – more like a mobile station) that allows other ships and players to dock and shop inside it. It also marks the detailing of the game’s economy system. This system is definitely of the juiciest and most complex ones I’ve seen in ages. I’ll detail this subject later on in another post.
A balancing act
The problem with most PTPE (player-to-player-economy) game mechanics will always be balancing supply and demand.
There’s only a limited variety of stocks – which everyone is getting all the time from actively farming the game. There’s also a need to have a surplus stock of every item to avoid absurd prices or unavailability of stock. This means that supply needs to exceed demand, which in turn lowers prices over time to a nil-value.
Most games that feature an economic system, have centralized market prices or, instead, player-driven shops. The first reduces your liberty to set the prices for your items but makes it easier (and boring) to buy/sell goods. The second one creates an anarchic price system where each player charges whatever he wants to charge for exotic seashells.
–How much are exotic seashells worth right now? Oh well. I’ll just spend all of my money on this one right here sir, thank you.
Other games tackle this challenge more creatively.
I remember playing Pirates of the Burning Sea – almost 10 years ago now – and spending most of my gameplay time at the game’s player auction house. Until I realized… it was rigged! Well, supposedly it wasn’t, at the start, but having a fully realized player-driven economy is no easy feat. Commodity prices were skyrocketing and plummeting at such a quick rate that it became impossible to figure out the value of your items. Large trade guilds were able to sell silly amounts of supplies in an instant – thus selling their wares at a very steep price and forcing the price to plummet for everyone else in one server tick – just before they were affected by price updates. This made the auction house obsolete and the game’s economy was ruined.
As mentioned before, Star Citizen attempts to fix this imbalance caused by the players by introducing a majority of NPC-generated trades. However, these NPCs aren’t just averages and hidden calculations. They are actually real NPCs present within instances of the game world, hauling cargo, consuming and producing goods. Moreover, the developers devised a system in which the whole universe breathes economics. NPCs will become unemployed and wander aimlessly on the streets or, instead, the city booms with trade and becomes fancier and more crowded. The minerals for every missile that players use need to extracted, transformed and sold as missiles. This will be a very interesting economics system to study.
One other big concern for online games with an economic system is cheating – and Rockstar haaaaaates cheating. They avoid the problems of failing economies by tackling this in a very smart, albeit slightly frustrating way.
Rockstar’s economy system isn’t frustrating because of what it is, but because of what it could be and isn’t.
In reality, they only give you the illusion of an economy system. All the money you own only exists in the bubble that is you.
In Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2, you may be incredibly rich and feel like a boss (no, I mean, literally) by owning several companies and employing NPCs that generate revenue on their own – but you will never ever exchange money with another player. One example is buying drinks at your friend’s bar in Grand Theft Auto V which earns him 0$, yet your wallet shrinks a little.
In Red Dead Redemption 2 Your hunting sales aren’t affected by the price of fur in a particular area and all the money you make can only be used to buy cosmetics or other means of making money. You can’t buy a horse for your girlfriend. You can’t even gift her a hat or buy her a drink.
No sugar daddies allowed in RDR2.
Ah… Taxes. Can’t live with them. Can’t live without.
One other issue with Grand Theft Auto V – that I predict will be coming to Red Dead Redemption 2 soon enough – is the time and money cost of maintaining these establishments. Grand Theft Auto businesses follow the same logic as the Trader role in RDR2. They only generate revenue when you constantly supply them with tools or stock. The butcher table in RDR2does give you revenue semi-passively, but it consumes time. A lot of it.
What happens with GTA V is that, when you own many different businesses, you will have to pay regular fees to keep them running. To a point where it will eventually become too expensive to keep them running without supplies. This is only an issue if you’re running around trolling other players or role-playing with your friends or if you just want to have fun without having to worry about sustaining your businesses.
With the incoming moonshiner trader role update, which adds a speakeasy with a band, I’m prrrreety sure these recurring fees will be applied.
These fees act as an economy-balancing mechanism or money-sink. Even if the economic system is just an illusion and individually-set, they keep adding new content to the game and they charge prices according to the global value of money. You will notice that the average price for new cars in GTAhas been increasing proportionally to the global amount of money available to purchase them.
In Red Dead Redemption 2 you will likely see this price climb more significantly in most items.
To slightly counter the effects of having too much money in-game, they charge the wealthiest players, who actually own several money-making establishments, with these unavoidable regular fees.
Riding into the sunset…
Don’t get me wrong. Their system works really well. It makes players focus on the fun aspects of the game instead of turning this into a spreadsheet simulator like EVE Online. However, there’s a layer of economic strategy that is missing as well.
As I said before, I feel like It’s a shame for what it isn’t – an immersive, real player-driven economy, where your money is made and lost by the effects of other players around you and where your actions affect others. However, it is really good for what it is – a simple game that entices players to keep playing it for arcadey fun.
There’s room for modding – if only Rockstar would allow us to do so…
I’ll be honest, I was a bit disappointed when I realized that I had gotten the wrong impression before buying the game. I thought that being able to open up shops was already a feature present in the game. It wasn’t. My bad.
Moonshining in Red Dead Redemption 2 makes things more interesting and I’m really looking forward to it. I can’t wait for December 13th and all the missions and assets that the new update brings. These updates are free content that we all get to enjoy piece by piece.
Do you think the economy could be improved in RDR 2? Variety of content to spend your money on seems to be a common request. What are your thoughts on this?
As you might remember from my previous post I’ve been playing Red Dead Redemption 2 recently. Unfortunately, sometimes, as with Grand Theft Auto 5 and The Division 2, I would experience CPU and graphics card usage peaks that caused the game to pause for a few seconds or even disconnect from the online game when the peak was too long. Sometimes I would get stuck in a loading screen for ages until finally, the game’s online status timed out.
The game “loses” connection to the server, not because of an Internet connection problem, but instead due to an extended delay in a response to the server. This is caused by the local CPU/GPU.
Because of this issue, many players get this message when playing Red Dead Redemption 2 online:
ALERT: You have been disconnected from Red Dead Online due to a fault on Rockstar game services (Error: 0x20010006)
This is the error many players are getting because of poor CPU/GPU performance
This was particularly common when Red Dead Redemption 2got released, but I thought I had fixed it until yesterday (14th November 2019) when the new patch was delivered. Apparently, this affects some CPUs and NVidia graphics cards.
I’ll go over the official and the non-official fixes. I’m currently using both.
How to fix stuttering, disconnects, and performance with Launch Arguments
Before following through this post for more in-depth fixes, check out a tool I developed to help you set up Red Dead Redemption 2 launch arguments. One of the sections on that tool is specific to performance. It also helps with graphics, bugs, stuttering, etc.
Before changing anything, make sure you update your graphics card drivers! I’m pretty sure this is a CPU+graphics card issue and it definitely might help to make sure you’ve got the latest graphics driver – especially for NVidia graphics cards.
The Official Patch
This new official patch actually introduces a CPU load balancing feature – but it has to be enabled manually in the Rockstar Games Launcher. To do this, you should go to your Rockstar Games Launcher and click Settings on the top right corner. Then at the lower-left corner select Red Dead Redemption 2, which will display your options for the game. Scrolling down to the bottom you’ll find a Launch Arguments section, where you should input the newly added argument (on the 14th November 2019 patch):
-cpuLoadRebalancing
Don’t forget the “-“!
Another Official Update – 14 Nov 2019
On the same day, Rockstar dropped an article on how to fix an issue related to certain NVidia graphics cards. Check it out:
Players with NVIDIA graphics cards and 4-core or 6-core CPUs should install the GeForce Hotfix Driver Version 441.34 from NVIDIA and remove any launch arguments to resolve this issue. – ROCKSTAR
This alternative hotfix is available right here by installing the latest GeForce Hotfix Driver Version 441.34. Apparently, if CPU isn’t your problem, then the graphics card might be the culprit! Let me know if this solution fixes it for you!
The non-official way to improve system stability
Let’s start by reducing your current CPU load.
By doing so, we’ll be giving more room for the game to function properly without resorting to RAM buildup or disk caching which both may cause bottlenecks and thus stutters, disconnects, and crashes.
CPU, RAM, DISK, how does that even work… and why is that a problem?!
As you know, a processor makes mathematical calculations, but it takes some time to deliver them. Let’s say you arethe CPU and I’m giving you a paper which says 3+5=?. Easy. Right?
Now I’m giving you a sheet of fifty pieces of paper, each one with a different calculation to perform. Aaaand now I’m giving you one hundred more calculations.
You can’t really hold them all in your hands and you need more time to deliver those results before I give you more calculations to perform!
…This sounds a lot like my old boss.
So you put those sheets of paper on your desk while you make your calculations. That’s yourRAM. Once your desk is filled up and there’s nowhere else to put more paper on it you start using your desk’s drawers, which takes a bit longer because now you need to open them up before placing the paper in there. That’s yourDISK.
Slowing down to a halt
Okay, so my CPU isn’t the best. I’ve been using it for a few years now and it is starting to feel the weight of age with heavier processes and games. GTA V was also very CPU intensive. I also love flight simulators which also consume a TON of CPU capacity. I’m really looking forward to the new Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. You have got to check it out. It is absgorgeously beautiful.
This has led me to try and find ways to circumvent this issue and get the best performance out of my rig. So let’s get right to it.
Steps to reduce CPU usage
Let’s start by freeing up your CPU from unnecessary calculations and clearing up your RAM usage by turning off stuff that isn’t required to run the game.
Start by closing EVERY browser window, WhatsApp, Spotify, opened Windows folders, etc. also check your tray icons next to your system clock for useless software that might be running in the background. Disable any on-going anti-virus full system scans (no need to turn real-time protection off).
Google Chrome is a heavy CPU load hog – make sure you save this page to your bookmarks and close it now! I mean, later, when you’ve read through this post!
Check your system load by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+ESC to bring up your Windows Task Manager and click on the CPU tab to check which processes are consuming the most out of your processor and make try to turn them off if you can.
The tabs are in Portuguese, but notice how RDR2 chews up so much CPU! I’ve opened up a folder on Windows Explorer and it consumes 7% CPU just for laying there!
Note: to the right you’ll also see a tab for GPU usage. If you notice that your GPU usage is above 70% then you definitely should consider upgrading your graphics card. Check your graphics card at GPUCheck and see how it performs compared to more recent card models. If instead you wish to see how your CPU compares, check out PassMark.
An alternative to improve CPU usage and reduce stalling
It helps to maintain system stability by adjusting CPU process priorities. This means that it will do its best to make sure that your system keeps running smoothly by prioritizing processes that are critical to System stability. RDR2 likes to peak CPU usage from time to time – to a point where it will make the whole system unresponsive, which leads to a crash to desktop or a BSOD (it did happen to me before using Process Lasso!).
You may also use it to safely free up RAM automagically.
I have to say that I noticed a significant improvement in system stability since I started using Process Lasso.
They have very nice documentation that explains how to use it in detail. Make sure to check them out beforehand!
In conclusion…
Sure, maybe your old machine needs an upgrade – but the truth is that even with new PC builds, you’re prone to encounter issues like these again, as the CPU usage spikes are abnormal and caused by bad programming and rushed software development.
GTA Online – Your account does not have permission to complete this purchase.
This is the message that a bunch of players are seeing when they try buying chips from the cashier at the newly established GTA Online Diamond Casino Spa & Resort in bloody Los Santos.
The very anticipated Casino has just opened today – but gambling is not for everyone. Killing, stealing, trafficking is all well and good in GTA Online but DON’T YOU DARE GAMBLE!
Apparently, people from at least 50 countries, including Portugal, Hungary, Israel and Argentina have been prevented from trading in any chips.
These left-out players aren’t able to access the free daily bonuses at the cashier, or the wheel spin at all. It may also affect bonuses from the Penthouse, missions, world collectibles, and unique clothing and items.
Apparently, there’s a region lock to access the Casino’s features. This includes buying chips and playing with them – effectively limiting all gambling activity for some players.
We’re talking funny money here. In-game cash translates to the same amount of in-game casino chips which can only be refunded to in-game cash.
If there’s one thing Rockstar is used to deal with …is lawsuits.
Apparently, the reason for this region lock is that Rockstar does not want to register as a gambling entity (such as with other online gambling websites). Even if you now have to accept a new EULA, this effectively means that they’re not able to deliver this type of content to a large number of countries.
As far as I understand the law (and other games that do this), the real problem here is the fact that players are able to buy in-game currency with real money and then spend it all gambling (instead of buying new in-game cars). Well, if that’s the problem, then the already present chip currency could be used to *legally* buy stuff without having to convert it to the real-cash-connected GTA bucks – that wouldn’t be gambling and that would solve the legal conundrum. Think about it Rockstar!
Make sure you follow me on Twitch if you wish to stay up to date about when these things change or a legal alternative has been found!
Most countries have grey-area laws on online gambling. Most regulate physical gambling effectively but lack online regulation.
Here in the EU, only a few players in Germany seem to be able to access the Casino features. This has sparked a rush to VPN services. Players are trying to connect via VPN to get a German or American IP address in order to play at the Diamond Casino. Note: Some people argue that this practice may get your account banned for trying to bypass common online identity checks.
Rockstar support is inefficient
Rockstar support is completely inefficient at informing players why they’re unable to use the Casino. There’s not a single official reply to queries regarding this situation and the players were left to figure it out for themselves.
I’m hoping that they eventually revise their region-lock limitations or that, at the very least, they inform players that they won’t be able to access this content beforehand. Some people are complaining that they bought Twitch Prime to access the “free” content and Penthouse at the now pointless Casino.
Players will eventually find a way around this issue. They’ve done that before with private servers, hacks and the RP server boom in the past couple of years.
They will find a way to make it work – legally, or otherwise.
Nope. She ain’t givin’ you no moneys.
In any case, it feels lame that the largest GTA Online update in years is locked to so many players around the world.
And there I was. Looking at the shiny new slot machine. Press E to interact. ALERT: Your account does not have permission to complete this purchase. For further help, go to: www.rockstargames.com/support
So frustrating!
This update should never have been developed in the first place. Their energy should have been spent on new content that everyone would be able to enjoy. Besides the Casino and the Penthouse, the remaining content is just a couple of missions, a few new unremarkable vehicles, and a pair of easily-outdated cosmetics.
Heists is where GTA Online truly shines – co-op missions with cinematics and a story to play with your friends. Yet, no new heists have been released in a VERY long time. Instead, we’ve been stuck with mostly cosmetic updates that don’t effectively expand the story or the replayability of the game.
The truth is that the game is still fun.
Rockstar-outlawed private servers and RP have given it a boost recently. But the updates have mostly been delivering content that is both very expensive and insubstantial.
I live in Portugal. I’ve got a casino across the street from my home and I’m not able to play on GTA Online with funny money. *shrug*