Article Index
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Concept Update 9: “Final Pursuits: The Art of the Trade”
Seasonal Changes:
- Main Freemode lobbies are set at the start of the year 1900.
- Pronghorn Ranch has been built in Big Valley. Players can complete a variety of tasks here in order to unlock 10 Gold off the Rancher role.
- The County Fair has come to Valentine to celebrate the turning of the century.
- This is a new safe space at the campsite in town.
- At the County Fair, players can partake in communal games with one another, such as:
- Juggling
- Horseshoe
- Darts Throwing
- The Caber Toss
- Mud Fighting
- Players can see special animals in cages, such as:
- The Big Elephant
- The Noble Lion
- The Mischievous Monkeys
- Players can study the caged animals and take photographs of them for Harriet, who will award the player with RDO$750 each.
- This will only be awarded once per animal.
- NPC townsfolk can be heard making remarks about the new century.
- Live events:
- Season-wide cutscene: Upon first opening Red Dead Online this season, players will see their characters enter Valentine and react to the weird and wonderful County Fair.
- Weekly special mission: Event Planner ‘Jacob Heyward’ can be seen sitting panicked in the Valentine Cinema. Upon entering, he says the funding box has been robbed. Players must search for clues, and hunt down the gang who aimed to hurt the fair.
- Weekly event: Two weeks later, players will be able to participate in a ‘Prize Horse’ challenge, in which every player in the lobby can take their favourite horse to the fair to be judged and voted on by other players. The winner will receive a voucher for a free saddle.
- Weekly event: Two weeks later, ranchers can work on breeding ‘Prize Livestock’ in order to show at the County Fair.
- Semi-Seasonal event: One week later, players can begin taking any of their “Prize Livestock” to the County Fair in order to be judged. Winning animals will award the player a prize of RDO$1000.
- Weekly cutscene: On the final week of the event, players will see the County Fair being packed up. Jacob thanks the player for the help and says he hopes they enjoyed the festivities. He wishes to bring them back soon. Players shake his hand and are then taken into a time-lapse of the world moving forward to 1907.
The Art of the Trade:
- The 100-level Rolepath spanning from ‘Trader’ and ‘Rancher’ has been completed, with two more roles.
- Players must complete the ‘Rancher’ role to span into the new twenty-level ‘Logger’ role and must complete this to move on to the ten-level ‘Trades Master’ role.
New Role – Loggers:
- Upon completing the ‘Rancher’ role, players can purchase a ‘Logging Facility’ for 30 Gold at any one of five locations:
- Cumberland Forest
- Tall Trees
- Diablo Ridge
- Three Sisters
- Ringneck Creek
- Upon purchasing the ‘Logging Facility’ the player will begin their journey through a twenty-level ‘Logger’ role.
- Players can hire up to fifteen lumberjacks to cut down trees.
- Players can manage the lumberjack speed and carefulness in their Logging Facility office room.
- Higher speed = Lower carefulness.
- Lumberjacks can be injured, and missing employees will slow down production and require a RDO$50 insurance package whilst they heal.
- Healing takes 30 minutes.
- Each Lumberjack will cost RDO$0.50 per ingame hour.
- Players can purchase food supplies to increase carefulness and reduce the chance of an accident.
- Food supplies have a RDO$10 refill and will take three days to drain.
- Players can purchase ‘Sharpened tools’ to increase speed without reducing carefulness.
- Sharpened tools will have a RDO$50 refill and take five days to drain.
- Each of the lumberjacks will only be seen by the player and their posse, with them being invisible to other players.
- Players can manage the lumberjack speed and carefulness in their Logging Facility office room.
- Players can choose to either process their wood, increasing production time and thus pay-out, or sell the logs as they are for a quicker, but lower pay.
- Max logs: RDO$700 pay-out.
- Max planks: RDO$1125 pay-out.
- Max logs: RDO$700 pay-out.
- A short new storyline has been added for ‘Loggers’ – “Rise of the Tree Huggers”
- Mission 1: ‘Protesting. How American’ – The player’s adviser warns them of people who have tied themselves to the trees in the area and refuse to leave. The player has the option to:
- Bribe them – Lose money and honour.
- Kill them – Lose honour.
- Promise to replant any trees they cut down – Gain honour but lose money. If the Logger is also a Naturalist, they will lose less money depending on their Naturalist level.
- Mission 2: ‘Treehuggers, Men Killers’ – More of the treehuggers and Naturalists have returned, and this time they’re armed. The player must defend their logging site and wood stockpiles.
- Mission 3: ‘Redwood Rumble’ – The player must retaliate by attacking treehugger and Naturalist camps in the local wilderness and leave warnings to any potential future attackers.
- Completing this storyline will add a permanent 1.5x production speed boost to the player’s Logging Facility.
- Mission 1: ‘Protesting. How American’ – The player’s adviser warns them of people who have tied themselves to the trees in the area and refuse to leave. The player has the option to:
- Unlocks (In order):
- ‘Wooden carving’ interior decorations.
- ‘Wood Chopping Block’ camp upgrade – Players can cut wood once per day at their camp, which will give their Logging Facility a 10% production speed boost.
- Lumber Axe Melee Weapon.
- Improved Tomahawk – Has better range and accuracy. Can be set on fire.
- 50% off all further wood grain and tint prices at any Gunsmith.
- ‘Luxury Campfire’ camp upgrade – Players can hang hammocks and place even nicer sofa chairs around their campfire.
- ‘The Warehouse’ – Allows players to progress to “The Trades Master”
New Role – Trades Masters:
- Players who have completed the ‘Logger’ role can purchase a ‘Warehouse’ for 35 Gold at any one of four locations:
- Saint Denis
- Annesburg
- Thieves Landing
- Blackwater
- Upon purchasing the ‘Warehouse’ the player will begin their journey through a ten-level ‘Trades Master’ role.
- The Warehouse is a structure which allows players to keep all of their Trader goods. This includes:
- Foody Dave’s Meats
- Cripps’ Pelts
- Ranch Produce
- Moonshine
- Logs and Planks
- Can be upgraded to hold Vault Treasures and Pirated Goods.
- Up to eight staff members can be hired to transfer contents from each of the player’s supply caches, with more staff increasing efficiency.
- There is a chance that staff members may be attacked by bandits via a random event. Players can hire wagon guards to reduce the chance of this happening.
- A full Warehouse will have a total delivery export value of RDO$5000
- Posse member cuts will reflect percentages set by the leader.
- A full Warehouse delivery will require four wagons. Player-hired guards and AI-controlled secondary characters will drive wagons if no additional posse members are available.
- Players will only start off with one ‘Ultimate Delivery Wagon’ and will have to purchase the other three separately in order to make a full delivery.
- Each wagon is worth RDO$1250.
- Trades Masters can send out a five-minute ping, allowing fellow in-session traders at any point in the rolepath to assist them in their sales. Traders who assist the player will earn 50% of the total goods sale.
- Unlocks:
- Ultimate Delivery Wagon Customisation – Players can stylise their delivery wagon and add a rooftop Maxim Gun. Each of these will have to be customised separately.
- Train Export – All player goods are loaded onto a train and will be defended from there. The train is driven by an NPC, much like ‘Trade Route’.
- Boat Export – Much like train export, but player goods are loaded onto a boat which will carry goods down a river or across Flat Iron Lake.
- Duffle Saddle Bags – Allows the player to carry twenty stored outfits on their horse and doubles all other supply capacity.
- Legendary Animal Taxidermy – Players can take a legendary animal carcass to a taxidermy office in order to gain it as an interior decoration.
- Taxidermy offices are located in Blackwater, Strawberry, Emerald Ranch and Saint Denis.
- ‘Trade Route X’ Freemode Event – Functions like the original Trade Route events, but with five stops.
- This rewards player with ten of each goods type added to their warehouse.
- Players who have completed the ‘Trades Master’ role will hear special acknowledgement voice lines around the Frontier. Examples:
- NPC townsfolk: “I’m pretty sure my cousin bought from you last week.”
- NPC townsfolk: “I hear you treat your employees good. Might come work for you myself.”
- Cripps: “I’ve gotta say, we’ve really made it now. Feels good to be more than just the two of us.”
- Madam Nazar: “The birds tell me your exploits in pursuit of capital. Let me ask you this, is it worth the time?”
- Harriet: “I know what you do for money, and for the most part – I don’t approve. Destroying lives and habitats, and all for what?”
- Maggie Fike: “Had a batch sent off recently, business is booming. Good work, friend.”
- Players who have completed the ‘Trades Master’ role will also earn a special overhead title, which can be selected in the Player Menu: “Trades Master”
- Upon completing the ‘Trades Master’ role, players will earn the achievement / trophy “The Art of the Trade”
Miscellaneous Changes and Additions:
- Players can now opt-in to long-distance map blips. Players who choose to have long distance map blips will be seen on the world map by any other players who have also opted in, regardless of location.
- A dressing rack has been added to clothes stores and tailors, allowing players to seamlessly access previews of all categories of clothing without having to return to the catalogue.
- One new random event has been added: Outlaw Raid.
- A gang of outlaws will sometimes ride into a town on horseback and threaten to rob everyone there. The player can either:
- Give up RDO$150 and survive
- Flee for an honour penalty
- Fight and kill the Outlaws for an honour boost.
- When killed, the outlaws will have more RDO$ on them to loot, and a high chance of collectible family heirlooms.
- A gang of outlaws will sometimes ride into a town on horseback and threaten to rob everyone there. The player can either:
- The Saint Denis Fight Club has a new bar expansion, bolstering a band, gambling tables, and a table for a new game: Shots.
- Players must consume a shot of strong alcohol and hold themselves together to avoid passing out. The last player left awake will earn the pot.
- Both players in the game of shots can place bets, as well as spectators.
- Functionally, this game is similar to ‘Yoga’ from Grand Theft Auto V.
- Outlaw Pass will be themed around the County Fair, with classic circus-like outfits and dazzling clothes. There is also a collection of flannels for Lumberjacks.
- Added a variety of new voice lines to ‘Blind Man Cassidy’, including:
- “We shan’t be seeing eachother for a long, long time.”
- “My, my, my… That is a large sheep.”
- “You use your animals for joy, for games. How do they see this?”
- “In the cold, or the rain, or the ice-cold wind, whenever. No matter what the weather, you’ll be together.”
- “For those who wronged you, their Bell will toll.”
Justification:
Seasonally, this is the last update before a time jump. I wanted to give players a little time post RDR2’s main chapters to live a little before the time jump into the epilogues.
Having the County Fair as the next step of the Life of Trade rolepath is introduced really encourages players to return to their Ranch to progress through it if they haven’t already – Helping unlock the Logger role.
The County Fair also marks a much more smooth transition of the century from 1899 to 1900 with a great seasonal celebration, which is completely different to the rest of RDO.
Each of the next three updates focus on finishing each rolepath, with two roles, one update at a time.
I wanted to make the Logger the first part of the rolepath extension as it ties into the deforestation topics somewhat explored in RDR2, with the short storyline really making players question their role in the world. The story beats tying into the Naturalist will reward players for working through other roles and progressing in the world before this role too.
The work loggers do outside is instanced, with each of the lumberjacks working under the player only being visible to the posse in charge of them which makes the world feel a bit more controlled by the player. Replanted saplings would also only be seen by players who chose that outcome of Mission 1 to ensure personal continuity.
The Trades Master would be the final stock role for the player, bringing everything together akin to GTA Online’s nightclub warehouses. Putting all stock in one place allows players to maximise efficiency of selling all their produce in the one place. We’re 9 updates down the line of the concept bundle, so really allowing players to hit endgame content by now makes sense.
